Second Quarterly KCA Meeting with Kelly King keeps everyone “in the loop”

7/2/17 #kihei
Last week several KCA directors again welcomed our County Legislative representative Kelly King to the KCA office for our second quarterly meeting. Shortly after she took office in January, we asked if she would consider meeting with us on a regular basis so we could share community concerns. We are most pleased that she not only readily agreed, but said why not meet at our office, rather than all of us traveling into Wailuku to the County building.

So once again we experienced an open and positive attitude of a “public servant” asking what we felt was important, rather than telling us how things should be done.

Among the topics we brought up:

• Signage for our streams where they enter the ocean to educate about their significance and care
• The need for a more realistic Kihei Drainage Plan than the draft provided to us earlier this year
• Our desire to have the Special Management Area (SMA) boundaries include more land than just a narrow strip along the shoreline, and the Planning Commission’s suggestion to do the opposite and reduce the areas
• Preserving the South end of Waipuilani Park which has been managed by the Maui Sunset at no cost to the County for 40 years
• Filling the four vacant (out of five total) DLNR positions on Maui
• District voting
• Is it really necessary to amend the description of the Kalama Skatepark renovation project to get it moving?

Kelly had additional topics:

• The community associations should start now holding meetings around the next Kihei-Makena Community Plan, not wait until the process formally starts
• There is a draft out for the state Climate Change Adaptation Report (due in December) which is important when considering SMA boundaries
• She is pushing for more site visits by Council and Administration representatives before approving new developments
• Transportation (where the State has said there is no money other than for maintenance): there are additional sources that can be tapped. There should be a working group in South Maui to help the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) prioritize projects. Kelly is pushing for adding a House and a Senate representative to the MPO.
• Curb-side recycling (the 3-can plan): it would be good if the Maui Meadows Association took the lead on investigating and expanding the program, since it is very popular in Maui Meadows.

We look forward to continuing this successful process in September.