STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2020

                                   Honolulu, Hawaii
                                                     , 2000

                                   RE:  S.B. No. 2117
                                        




Honorable Norman Mizuguchi
President of the Senate
Twentieth State Legislature
Regular Session of 2000
State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Water, Land, and Hawaiian Affairs, to
which was referred S.B. No. 2117 entitled: 

     "A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PROJECT FAITH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill is to appropriate funds for Project
Faith, a Hawaiian commercial cultural center project located in
Anahola, Kauai.

     Testimony in favor of the measure was received from three
private citizens.

     The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands had no objections to
the passage of the bill.

     Your Committee finds that the Hawaiian community of Anahola,
Kauai, is seeking a creative, innovative way to revitalize itself
through the creation of a Hawaiian commercial cultural center
project called Project Faith.  Project Faith, as envisioned by
the Anahola Homesteaders Council, will develop an economic
development and infrastructure master plan to form a community
based commercial-cultural center to benefit native Hawaiians who
reside on homestead lands in Anahola.  The project will help
develop solutions to combat high unemployment, social depression,
the rising elderly population in need of care, and community
deterioration.


 
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     The expected outcome of Project Faith will be to provide
long-term jobs, native business entrepreneurial opportunities,
job training for youths, and enhance cultural relevance and
preservation for native Hawaiians.  Project goals include the
building of a one hundred-bed capacity elderly nursing care
facility, a twenty-unit studio apartment facility for independent
living for the elderly, an early education and child care
facility, a fire station, commercial office space, a cultural
pavilion, a post office, and a convenience store.

     Your Committee believes that Project Faith is a worthwhile
endeavor and that legislative support in necessary in order for
the project to succeed.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your
Committee on Water, Land, and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached
to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and
purpose of S.B. No. 2117 and recommends that it pass Second
Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

                                   Respectfully submitted on
                                   behalf of the members of the
                                   Committee on Water, Land, and
                                   Hawaiian Affairs,



                                   ______________________________
                                   COLLEEN HANABUSA, Chair

 
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