The Hawai‘i Island Economic Development Board, of which I am Vice Chair, has been asked to work with the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) people and help in their efforts to do community outreach as they develop their project.

In this role, we will try to work with all the different stakeholders in a collaborative manner.

Several months ago, I met Dr. Henry Yang, who  is Chancellor of the University of Santa Barbara. He is the incoming President of the TMT and was in town trying to see for himself what was going on.

I liked him immediately. One could tell that he is a people person. I knew that if Hawai‘i was chosen as a site for the TMT, and if Dr. Yang was in charge, the people would be heard.

I was very, very encouraged by this.

Since then, he has been in town on numerous occasions in order to familiarize himself with the situation. That Dr. Yang is not just going to sit in his office on the mainland impresses me very much.

This afternoon I called Kale Gumapac of the Kanaka Council. I told him that I wanted to give them an early “heads up” that we may be working with the TMT people. He was appreciative of being put in the loop. I told him: “You know me. I’m more interested that this project be done in the right way than I am in just trying to sell more tomatoes.”

Bob Saunders, Roberta Chu and I, who make up the Thirty Meter Telescope subcommittee of the Hawai‘i Island Economic Development Board, also met with Sandra Dawson and Mike Bolte of the TMT team. We listened to them explain to us how committed they are to doing the right thing.

They come in a respectful way. Now we can talk about the rest of it.