It will be at least two months until the Windward Planning Commission decides whether to grant Connections New Century Public Charter School a special permit to build a campus on about 70 acres of state-owned agricultural-zoned land in Kaumana.
The matter was remanded back to the county land use panel by the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals in February 2020 after the school and its board, Community Based Education Support Services, appealed the commission’s 2014 denial of the Hilo school’s permit application.
In a hearing held via Zoom Thursday, the commission limited its agenda relating to the school’s permit to deciding the question of whether the panel will make its decision based on what Ted Hong, CBESS’s attorney, described as “tens of thousands of pages” of information and testimony already on the record, or if the panel will open the record to new information before making its decision.
A number of neighbors spoke out against issuing the permit when the school first requested it, citing increased traffic, questions about the adequacy of water availability in the area, and potential encroachment by the school on the neighborhood’s quiet lifestyle.
Henry Lee Loy, a retired physician and neighbor to the proposed school project, testified Thursday that nobody objects to “the existence of Connections Public Charter School,” but he opposed the project on the corner of Edita Street and Kaumana Drive “for multiple safety reasons that have been or will be iterated via oral or written testimony.”
When Lee Loy said “a school of this magnitude” is “inappropriate for the proposed location,” and added the Department of Water Supply couldn’t provide an adequate supply of potable water, he was cut off by Chairman John Replogle.
Replogle said Lee Loy’s testimony was “supposed to be in regards to documentation, not problems or issues concerned with the school being there or not being there.”
“We’re here today to decide whether to allow new public testimony in, or continue and use testimony already provided,” Replogle said.
Hong told commissioners CBESS and the school favor the panel deciding whether to grant a permit based on what’s already on the record.
Michael Matsukawa, an attorney representing Jeffrey Gomes, a neighbor opposed to the project, noted a brief he filed with the commission. That document opined the panel could consider new information on water usage based on the appellate court’s remand order.
Deputy Planning Director Jeff Darrow said the Planning Department takes no position on whether the commission reopens the record or makes its decision based on prior information.
Ultimately, the commission voted 4-2 to limit its decision-making input to what’s currently on the record, with Replogle and commissioners Dean Au, Dennis Lin and Gilbert Aguinaldo voting to consider only what’s already on the record, and commissioners Joseph Clarkson and Michelle Galimba voting to open the record up to new information. Commissioner Thomas Raffipiy recused himself and was excused.
The panel also deferred decision making about the permit request to its Oct. 7 meeting to allow commissioners time to examine the voluminous record material.
Discussion was spirited prior to the vote.
“It’s clear that … the court, in fact, did find no evidence in the record to support a particular (amount) of water use per student requirement,” Clarkson said. “So therefore, there clearly isn’t enough information in the record for us to reconsider that.”
Clarkson said he might recuse himself from the Oct. 7 vote if he doesn’t think he has adequate information to make an informed decision.
Au said he doesn’t know “what the consequences are going to be if we just limit it to one or two or three things.”
“Either we open it or we don’t,” Au said.
Replogle noted it’s been “quite a few years, and we’re dealing with that time and space” since the commission’s original denial of Connections’ permit request, adding he thinks “we should go with what we have and make our decision.”
Deputy Corporation Counsel Malia Hall, the commission’s attorney, told commissioners that Hong, Matsukawa and Deputy Attorney General Carter Siu, who represents Connections, will be allowed on Oct. 7 to present testimony to the commission about the school’s application.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.