General plan bill advances in County Council – West Hawaii Today

The Hawaii County Council voted 6-3 on Wednesday in favor of passing a long-term public planning document that has garnered significant public outcry, at times described by council members as “personal attacks,” “vilifying comments,” “conspiracy theories” and “AI psychosis.”

Council members Dennis “Fresh” Onishi, Ashley Kierkiewicz and Holeka Inaba all cast “no” votes.

These accusations have eclipsed discussions about Bill 66, which adopts the Hawaii County General Plan 2045. The plan is a 20-year comprehensive policy document guiding land use, growth, public services and transportation on the island. The current edition on the books was adopted in 2005 and has come to the end of its functional lifespan, prompting Planning Department officials to submit a 310-page revision to the County Council in March of last year.

This exhaustive update — referred to informally as the “2045 Plan” — is the byproduct of years of public hearings and comment periods, formed with the input from dozens of meetings and thousands of comments submitted by the public.

The 2045 Plan calls for climate change adaptation, sets goals for net-zero carbon emissions, and restricts growth to urban areas in order to protect rural, agricultural land. It calls for stricter land use rules, provisions for mass transit expansion, and mandates for adopting renewable energy technology.

Available for public review for over a year, the plan was making steady progress until it was sidelined in early March when Kierkiewicz sent her fellow council members a 71-page proposal amending the significantly longer and more detailed plan penned by the Planning Department.

Kierkiewicz submitted a letter to the council two weeks later on March 19 trying to justify the changes, where she claimed the objectives of her “2026 Plan” were the same as the document it essentially replaces.

County officials, including past and present planning directors, pushed back on the alteration. Former Planning Director Chris Yuen criticized the 2026 Plan’s removal of language relating to climate change — among other issues — and testified at Wednesday’s meeting via Zoom in defense of the 2045 Plan in an attempt to set the record straight.

“I’d like to talk about some of the positive features of this plan, and in particular, two aspects that have unfortunately been a little bit controversial, and that is sustainability and climate change,” Yuen said. “Neither one should be controversial. Sustainability is just a word to describe practices that enable us to live in harmony with the environment that sustains us. It’s another word for the Hawaiian term, (which) would be malama aina.”

Arguing that climate change provisions would be indispensable to a planning document governing growth on the island for the next two decades, he reiterated that policymakers should be listening to scientists who’ve been sounding the climate alarm for decades.

“(There) has already been a scientific consensus that man-made climate change is happening,” Yuen said. “These predictions about increasing global temperatures, sea level rise, and extreme weather events have proven very accurate.”

Even so, some testifiers at Wednesday’s meeting voiced stern opposition to the 2045 Plan’s climate provisions. One of whom was Kailua-Kona resident Eugene Elmer, who echoed a common misconception among the plan’s opponents that the document sought to abolish fossil fuels and reduce private property rights.

Elmer directed his animosity toward the five council members who voted May 4 to approve Bill 66 during the Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use and Economic Development meeting.

“To the five council members who voted aye: Do you really think there won’t be repercussions when you start turning people’s land into conservation and telling them what they can and can’t do with their property?” he asked. “Wait till the local braddahs find out you guys like take their diesel work trucks. We will make sure they all find out, and your names will definitely be put on blast.”

Elmer then appeared to make thinly veiled threats against council members considering voting in favor of the 2045 Plan.

“Forcing this bill through will create a level of resentment and hostility in this community that we haven’t seen in a long time,” he said. “I am a peaceful person. But I know this island, and this will push some people past their breaking point. For the sake of peace and unity, please do not create that kind of division.”

South Kona resident Juhl Rayne had similarly hostile words for the five council members who helped pass the bill out of committee earlier this month.

“I don’t know how you’re going to sleep at night knowing that you’re selling out to the elite 2021 UN agenda,” Rayne said. “The only thing that I can figure … (about) how this could be is either you’re being paid off by some corporation or entity, or you’ve been completely brainwashed … or you’re just completely innocent to the idea that that people can be bad.”

Ka‘u Councilwoman Michelle Galimba attempted to address Elmer’s claim that the 2045 Plan would ban diesel trucks.

“There is a strong desire expressed and goals established towards getting away from fossil fuels,” Galimba said about the plan. “I drive a diesel truck, and I’m happy to drive a diesel truck because I need it for certain jobs on the ranch, but I also understand that electrifying our public fleet would be a good thing.”

She said that as a rancher, she’s not concerned that any of the plan’s provisions would threaten her livelihood.

“I’m not afraid that this general plan is going to affect my ability to do what I need to do with my big … fossil-fuel-burning diesel truck,” she said. “I think a lot of people have gotten sort of hung up on particular words, particular policies, and see them as threatening.”

At its core, she said, the general plan would not endanger civil rights or restrict personal choice.

“It is not a coercive document,” she said. “It is a plan for all of us to go in a direction that I think the majority of people on this island want to go in, and I respect those who don’t want to go in that direction, and I don’t think that there is anything in here that will change or not allow you to burn all the fossil fuel that you want in your personal life.”

Kona Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas expressed sympathy for some of public comments, but reiterated that there was nothing sinister about what the council was attempting to do.

“Honestly my heart breaks for some of the testifiers because I see and hear the concern and the fear and the belief systems that this is some kind of a conspiracy document related to a global world order and whatnot,” Villegas said. “Our intention sitting here as imperfect, humble public servants is not a grand scheme for global takeover, smart cities, weather change patterns, all those things.”

Bill 66 will now head back to the full council for a second and final vote.

Email Stefan Verbano at stefan.verbano@hawaiitribune-herald.com.