Boy: Land Use Commission keep your promises

The youngest testifier at Thursday’s Land Commission meeting on the proposed 53.4 acres Kealia Mauka subdivision in Kealia was 12-year-old Kamuela L. Pa.

“Right now I live in Anahola in a house with about 15 other people. I’m lucky because before I spent much of my time living in a car. I haven’t really read all of the EIS stuff because it is too big for me but I went to a meeting the other night and learned a lot. What I learned is that this is not too much different from Hawaiian Homes, the state system that is supposed to provide housing for me has failed me and this private land system is now going to fail. When I hear these numbers I’m pretty sure that I will never have a house on my own here on Kauai, but that’s OK. I’m a survivor and my king never promised me a free house anyways. What he did promise me is that I can survive from the land and you guys are a part of the system that is supposed to make sure that promise is kept. I need to be able to hunt fish and farm. So we need open land and farmland to do that. I understand that these people want to sell houses and make money. That’s OK because I like to make money too. But maybe before we sell houses to people we don’t know, we should make sure the promises are kept to the people we do know and I know those promises are not addressed in the EIS.”