Good afternoon.

Well, the committee on energy environment and sustainability please come to order.

It's 102 p.m.

on March 3rd.

I'd like to welcome Committee Vice Chair Dos Santos Tem, along with committee members Dupola and Toba to the chamber today.

Pursuant to section 92-3.7 revised statutes, this meeting will be conducted as a remote meeting by interactive conference technology with the following procedures in effect for the meeting.

Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in two ways remotely and in person in the council chamber.

Remote and in-person oral testimony will be allowed when the agenda item is taken up.

As both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii, pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the state constitution and section one-13 of the Hawaii revised statutes.

Members of the public may testify in either language.

For oral testimonies offered in Olulu Hawaii, additional time is maybe necessary will be allowed for the testifier to provide an English translation of their testimony if they so wish.

Before testifying, each person shall state their name.

Each speaker may not have anyone else read their statement and is limited to a one-minute presentation on each item.

All members who have registered to testify remotely by video conference or phone will be called upon first.

When your name is called, please monitor your screen and activate your audio feed when prompted.

Please utilize the raise hand feature in Zoom to be called upon.

For those joining by telephone only, press star nine to indicate your desire to speak.

Members, we have a proposed posted CD1 submitted by Council Chair Waters for your information.

The amendments are listed on the agenda.

Mr.

Soon, I'll go ahead and invite you up to the podium if you want to turn on the speaker and introduce yourself and maybe share with us a little bit about uh why you want to be on the commission.

My name is Ray Soon, and that's probably the question asked most in my talking to people.

And so I'll briefly talk about that.

I um I love public service.

My first job after undergraduate school was as a planning intern at what used to be called the Department of General Planning.

My last job was as chief of staff to Mayor Caldwell.

And in between, I did some county work, lots of state work, and even the private companies.

We we really specialize in public policy.

Uh, if you if you know my family, uh Cheryl Planning Director and Transportation Director, Becky, deputy director in the county.

Uh my daughter Rennie, who does a lot of work for Planned Parenthood, and she's a doctor, she's an OBGYN.

And our son works on satellite equipment at PMRF.

I mean, it public service is in our DNA.

And as I looked around at what I can do in my spare time, um clean water just popped up.

I mean, of the 12, 13 sites that you have, I worked on six of those.

Um, the one that I spent the most time on was the one that you have the least amount of money on clean water money, that was Kahuku Golf Course.

Um, but you know, everything in Kahuku, the the egg conservation, the egg um uh divisions on the Malka side, the two um park uh sites at the edges of um Turtle Bay, worked on all of those.

Um so I I understand the committee, and obviously the committee has evolved.

Your your um rules have changed, uh there have been amendments, and I'm anxious to learn about those.

I I have not kept up with them.

Um I know many of the people on the committee, the commission.

I I just look forward to it.

I'm happy to answer any questions about what I've done with my life or what I hope to do with on the commission.

I appreciate that.

I'll ask one question and then I'll turn it over to any of the community members.

But maybe could you elaborate a little bit on the um KUCO golf coursework?

Because I know it came up in our conversation as well, and just the importance of the dunes and just what that means to the community.

Um you have to understand how important that became.

Ernie was the council chairman uh early on in um Mayor Caldwell's administration, and they really didn't get along with each other, but that was Ernie's number one project.

And the mayor really loved the dunes.

He wasn't so into the golf course as much as the dunes.

The dunes stretch for a mile.

It's the it's the most spectacular set of dunes on the island of Oahu.

And so we were out to save those dunes.

If we could get the golf course, great.

Um Ernie and Kirk came together to put together the financial package, and we did need a little bit of um clean water money, but we also purchased more land, Malca going towards the James Campbell.

I think if you could stretch from the James Campbell conservation area all the way to Malai Kahana, you would have about four miles of spectacular shoreline property.

Um, there's a lot of private property in between, but over time, who knows what happens.

Um anyway, the the it was a very, very important purchase for the community.

Not so much for the golfing opportunity, but for the open space and for the recreation value.

Appreciate that that insight.