Subject: To All that are Concerned with Honokohau Parking Fees - meeting of April 29,2010
April 29, 2010
To all that are concerned with Parking Fees at Honokohau:
Please note – This letter that I am writing to all of you is just 24hours after a meeting that we had with Ed Underwood at the Harbors office. In attendance was Underwood, Nancy and her immediate staff. Also was Rick Gaffney, Tina Prettyman, Neal Isaacs, myself (all 4 representing the Harbor users), Rob Pacheco (DNLR board member owner of Hawaii Forest and Trails, friend of the Harbor users). We had gotten this meeting together so that we can get the real truth of what the Government wants to do about the operation of the harbor. I will try to give you the facts as I heard them yesterday and then at the end give you my thoughts. This was a 2 ½ hour meeting and probably could have gone on further.
According to Ed:
Fact – the Harbor is running a deficit for this next year at about $400,000. It would be at about $200,000 if Ed used the Commercial rents (Gentry and Deli Dock monthly rents) for revenues. Those rents go to another program
Fact- Legislator has told Ed for his Department to find Revenue Streams to take care of this deficit
Fact – All cuts that are to be made from labor costs and operating costs are included in the deficit amount – partial P/L posted slip D-8
Fact – Ed believes, very strongly, that Parking Fees can be implemented quickly to help solve much of their deficit at our Harbor. The Ali Wai brings to the state $45,000 per month ($540,000 per year). Once they saw this amount of money coming in they decided to take the Parking Fee program to all other Harbors. Honokohau happened to be next on the list. Kailua Pier is due for the same, soon.
Fact – Ed is open to all suggestions on how to make up the $200,000 to $400,000 deficit
FACT – this is a big one. Even after all our disagreement about how the Parking Fee program would affect Business’s and Harbor users Ed does not see where it would be obstacle to Harbor Use as in less people coming to the Harbor. He repeatedly brought this up and he would not back down from his stance. If we cannot change his mind on this the Parking Fee program will go through
Fact- Harbors will not have the Parking Vendor have to lay asphalt in order to get the contract. Ed said that they (Harbors) is considering doing that themselves. Has nothing to do with this Parking program and has no time line to do this
Fact – Security for the Harbor is part of the contract but no one could define what that really meant
Now to the actual Parking Plan (I have the DRAFT the Ed gave us of how they will have vendor operate)
1. There will something like the “slot boxes” that you put money into and get a receipt out and put out on your car dash. So there will be no gate or Kiosk. Low manpower for Vendor
2. Harbors will have a designated area for Crew ($1.00 per day not to exceed $25 per month). Right now they have 3 proposed areas to park and all are at least 1 block to 4 blocks away from boats. We have the proposed locations on a picture of the harbor. I will post this at my dock (D-8) for all to see today.
3. We asked about the how they would treat the Ocean Access issue – no answer
4. Parking would cost
- .40 per hour for general public no time limit
- $1.00 a day not to exceed $25 per month for crew (in designated location) If crew wanted to park by boat then pay by hour or $90 a month
- 2, $25 per month stickers per boat so that you can park anywhere in harbor
- If you are an employee or business owner within Gentry’s fence and if you cannot park within Gentry’s fence you would be treated as anyone else and have to go to designated area ($1.00 per day) or an area that Gentry’s will locate for you. Gentry will be trying to get more land for parking very soon. Or you can pay hourly or $90 per month for that sticker and park anywhere in harbor. It would be up to Gentry’s to police their limited parking stalls within the fence
- A slip owner can get a 24 hour pass for $10.00 for a guest
So that is it in a nutshell. I am sure I might be off in some of what I said but not too much.
What can we do about this?
Since Ed is asking for ideas to solve his deficit – we mentioned that there are 50 acres with the boundaries of Honokohau that are not being use (i.e. commercial use) and why can’t Harbors use that for rent to help pay for Honokohau. He seemed open to this but would take so long and his $400,000 deficit is now. Any ideas that you all can come up with email me back.
We believe strongly that our first reaction got their attention (all the letter and phone calls they got). But we have more to do. If you do not agree with what they want we must call and write more letters to the address that I will give you. The one ugly fact that kept coming up is that there will be no benefit for Harbor Users if the Parking plan is put in effect. The monies are being collected to pay down the deficit. Ed could not even give us a percentage of how much of Parking Fee that is collected is to be left in the Harbor for running of Honokohau. We asked this repeatedly. It was all about covering the deficit.
We all tried numerous times to try to convince Ed that the Parking TAX would be a real financial hardship to all Harbor businesses and he could not be convinced of that.
Ed was planning on having one last meeting in a couple of weeks (at the Harbor and hopefully at the Club House) to TELL us that the Parking plan is a done deal and what to expect. We suggested him to give us some more time – will let you know that status of this ASAP. Will be extremely important to have double amount of people to this meeting as what we had at Nancy’s meeting. Would love to see 500 plus.
I apologize for such a long letter but it was a long meeting – a good meeting as we got the real facts from the horse’s mouth. I hope each of you sends this letter out to anyone interested and if you know anyone with any kind of pull now is the time to get them involved. If you do not agree with what Ed wants to do we better get every Harbor user to respond either by phone call or letter. These letters do not have to be long just a couple of sentences. I really believe that if we can organize, each of you can make a difference. Consider this our TEA PARTY revolt because as you all know once they take here they will go other areas and take more if we do not stand up and say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”.
One good thing that came out of all this is that we are forming a group that will represent all Harbor Users and Harbors said they will really listen to them – will keep you updated on that
THE BOTTOM LINE – Harbors does not believe that the Parking Fee will be a burden on us as Harbor Users, Business Owners, Tourists or anyone else that uses the Harbor. If we are to change their minds it has to be in this area.
Again, I will post the packet that Ed gave us at the meeting at my slip (splits Harbor House, look for my store flags on my riggers, boat name TOPSHAPE, D-8) – should be up by 12 noon today. Rick, Tina, Neal and myself apologize if you though that you needed to be at this meeting but we needed to keep it small. Even getting Ed Underwood to the Harbor for a meeting was big. We want to Thank Rob Pacheco for organizing this meeting – good job Rob
Please accept my apologize if I have stepped on anyone’s toes or misrepresented yesterday but what I wrote is what I believe happened and I felt I need to get this info out to all of you ASAP as the FINAL meeting could be 2 weeks way. Feel free to move this letter along to anyone that is interested in helping.
Now get up and get involved – the ball is in our court
Al
Submitted by Shirlee Shumway
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