State Land Use Commission (LUC) Travels to Kihei for a Site Visit of the Location of the Proposed New High School Mauka of Highway this Afternoon

This afternoon’s meeting was preceded by a gathering at the Kihei Community Center for preparation

6/14/18 #kihei
This afternoon the LUC assembled at the Community Center to organize and then proceed to the bare land dedicated for the very long awaited High School. The Commissioners and staff were escorted by two guys from DOE, but no one we observed from the DOT. In addition to two KCA Directors and State Senator Roz Baker, we saw concerned community members Lucienne de Naie, Tina Wildberger and Vernon Kalanikau, and a few others.

There was no public testimony accepted, but the Commission thanked the community members for attending and explained the visit was due to the imposed condition back in 2013 requiring an under- or overpass for walkers and bicyclists at the site. As the volunteer commissioners serve five year terms, none of the current eight (one slot for Kauai is vacant) were part of the deciding commission. Thus with the expectation of a challenge to that condition, a condition which our community wholeheartedly supports, the commission took the prudent proactive site visit while they were on Maui for another matter this morning. We commend them for this action.

What is that condition? We lifted this passage directly from the LUC website:

“Petitioner shall cause to be constructed, or ensure that there is an available above or below ground pedestrian crossing and A11-794 State of Hawaii, Department of Education Findings of Fact,Conclusions of law, Decision and order implements such mitigation or improvements as may be required or recommended by the study and analysis to the satisfaction of DOT prior to opening Phase I of the Project.”

Five years later this still sounds right to us.

Our expectation is the Commission will have a public hearing to address such a challenge. Stay tuned for an announcement, but we expect it may be months away.

So since we could not testify we just listened and observed to hear what was stated and also what was not. So what did we intuit? Well, when the imposed condition for safe passage to the school was mentioned, we observed the wahine from DOE shake her head no. As far as the Commissioners, we have the impression they would uphold the actions of their predecessors as they observed the volume and speed of the vehicles on the undivided 4 lane highway.