Preservation Awareness Day

March 5, 2008

Historic Hawaii Foundation (HHF) sponsored a recent event to bring awareness to the legislature of the importance of Historic Preservation and preserving our heritage. Haleiwa Main Street had a table displaying some of the North Shore's historic buildings including four that are on the National and State Registers.

Kiersten Faulkner, Executive Director of Historic Hawaii Foundation, Antya Miller, Chamber Executive Director and Sen. Bob Bunda at Preservation Awareness Day at Capitol.
Tonia Moy, a director of HHF and a past employee of the State Historic Preservation Division, stands in front of HMS's table at Preservation Awareness Day Event at Capitol

USDA Rural Development Invites Applications for Renewable Energy Loans and Grants

* Only rural small businesses (http://www.sba.gov/size/index.html) or farmers/ranchers are eligible to apply.
* Non-profits, units of government, and institutions of higher education are not eligible.
* Everyplace, except the Honolulu CDP (Red Hill to Makapuu Point, S and W of the crest of the Koolau Mts.) is considered "rural" for this program.
* Residential use is not allowed.
* Funds can be used to purchase and install a renewable energy system (Biomass, Anaerobic Digester, Geothermal (electric generation and direct use), Hydrogen, Wind, Solar (photovoltaic and thermal) and/or make Energy Efficiency Improvements.

USDA will issue one grant solicitation for two separate competitions in FY 2008. For the first competitive window, grant-only applications must be submitted no later than April 15, 2008. (All submissions must be received at the applicable office by 4:30 p.m. local time on the deadline date.)

For the second competitive window, grant-only applications must be submitted no earlier than April 16, 2008, and no later than June 16, 2008. Applications for loan guarantees, as well as those for loan/grant combinations must be completed and submitted to the appropriate USDA Rural Development State Office no later than June 16, 2008.

Guaranteed loan applications will be received and processed, on a rolling basis, until June 16, 2008, or funds are exhausted, whichever occurs first.

Combination packages will also be received and processed on a rolling basis until June 16, 2008. However, due to the grant component, competitive scoring of combination packages will take place on a bi-weekly basis.

To ensure equitable competition, and high quality projects, the grant portion of any combination package must score at least 70 percent of the available points (minimum of 84 points), of which at least 24 points must be for technical merit.

FY08 Funding:

Grants: $15,888,000
Guaranteed Loans: $204,953,560.

http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=84357326689+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

Eligible applicants may seek loan guarantees to cover up to 50 percent of a project’s cost, not to exceed $10 million. Grants are available for up to 25 percent of a project’s cost, not to exceed $250,000 for energy efficiency improvements and $500,000 for renewable energy systems.

Fifty percent of the appropriated grant funding ($7.944M) will be reserved for the first grant-only competition. Any unused grant only funds from the first competition will be made available for the second grant-only competition.

Application Tips:

* Read the directions in the funding notice.
* Follow the directions.
* Ask for help, clarity.
* Don’t wait until the last minute.
* If you don’t at first succeed, try, try again.

Resources
http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/farmbill/index.html
USDA/Rural Development

http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/energy
DBEDT—Strategic Industries Division

http://www.eere.energy.gov/
DOE/Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

http://www.hawaiisenergyfuture.com/
Hawaii’ Energy Future

* Template for completing the Technical Reports (under $200K in total project costs).
* Application guides--grant only; guaranteed loan; combination loan/grant

Chamber's Position on Turtle Bay Resort's Proposed Expansion

Aloha Members,

I am writing to inform you of a motion that was passed at our February Board of Directors Meeting and share some of the general feelings of the board. The motion that I am referring to is as follows:

"The Board of Directors of the NSCOC previously decided to NOT take a position on the proposed Turtle Bay Resort expansion. However at the recent January membership meeting, a motion was presented and passed which does not reflect the position of the board nor its entire membership."

As stated in the motion, the board had previously discussed the proposed expansion of the Turtle Bay Resort and felt that as a Chamber of Commerce it would be inappropriate to take a position in this situation. The Chamber's key role is to support business and educate members regarding issues.

Here are the circumstances that led to the above action. At the general membership meeting on Jan 31st a motion was made, in accordance with our Bylaws, to amend our meeting agenda to include a discussion about Turtle Bay . The motion was seconded and we allotted 5 minutes on our agenda to discuss this item. When we reached this item on the agenda the following motion was made and passed:

"The North Shore Chamber supports the existing Turtle Bay Hotel and Operations and opposes the full expansion plan as proposed.”

As I have already stated above, the board does not feel it appropriate to take a position in this situation. Furthermore, I feel while the motions made at the membership meeting were within the guidelines of our bylaws, it was not a fair and open way to deal with this issue. If the Chamber is going to take positions of this nature, I would expect that we would provide a forum to hear from both sides and make our entire membership aware that we would be having this type of discussion. I am not suggesting we do this, rather pointing out that this motion was made and passed without due diligence.

Please feel free to contact me or any of our board members should you want to comment on this issue.

Mahalo,

Josh D. Heimowitz
Chairman
North Shore Chamber of Commerce
Phone: 637-4615 Ext. 32