The East Kauai Soil and Water Conservation District Board yesterday cleared a Kaua‘i rancher and landscaping company owner of public accusations of violating the county’s grading, grubbing and stockpiling ordinance. The four-member board voted unanimously to include a three-acre hillside
The East Kauai Soil and Water Conservation District Board yesterday cleared a Kaua‘i rancher and landscaping company owner of public accusations of violating the county’s grading, grubbing and stockpiling ordinance.
The four-member board voted unanimously to include a three-acre hillside parcel mauka of Kealia Beach in a conservation plan it had approved for 2011 acres in Kealia in May 2002.
The approval by the board exempted Bruce Laymon, owner of Paradise Ranch, from having to obtain a grading permit from the county.
The board voted that way after Michael Laureta, an official with the Kaua‘i office of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, and Nancy McMahon, a DLNR archeologist on Kaua‘i, explained tracking tax map keys — ways of identifying the three-acre parcel, for instance — can be complicated and confusing.
Laureta said tax map keys are “fluid and never static,” and that the tracking of the three-acre parcel may have been difficult because the latest information may not have been readily available.
In the past four years, the City and County of Honolulu has handed over property taxing responsibilities to the neighbor islands, and upgrade information may not always be available, he said.
The board decision apparently would halt county efforts to cite Laymon for any violations.
The county began its inquires last month after Kealia resident Rayne Regush and others alleged Laymon was responsible for unpermitted grubbing of the small parcel. She and other residents voiced concerns the cleared hillside could create huge mudslides during heavy storms and threaten Kealia Beach.
Regush was applauded by some Kaua‘i County Council members and some residents for reporting the clearing to the county.
The work on the parcel began July 8, , but it was halted Aug. 8 by the county after queries by Regush.
Work resumed Aug. 15 and continued until Aug. 17, based on verbal approval by a top county Public Works official, Laymon said. Public Works staffers, however, were not informed of that decision, and were astonished to find the work had resumed, Regush said.
On Aug. 18, Laymon stopped work after being told by county inspectors a second time. In the meantime, Laymon said yesterday that his workers have revegetated the hillside and set up siltation fences to prevent dirt from leaving the property, drawing praise from officials and friends at the meeting.
The allegation against Laymon comes at a time when the council is attempting to strengthen the county grading, grubbing and stockpiling ordinance to prevent abuses.
At one point, it seemed the board might have voted not to include the small parcel with the 2002 plan.
Board member Lincoln Ching commended Laymon for making the efforts to develop a plan to clear away noxious weeds that prevented more agricultural and ranching use of the 2011 acres.
However, he said he saw the matter in “black and white” terms, noting that the parcel was never officially included in the conservation plan.
He introduced a motion not to include the parcel in the plan, but rescinded it after comments from Laureta and McMahon on the difficulty they have found in tracking of tax map keys for properties.
Laureta said his work involves tracking thousands of tax map keys for state properties, and it is possible mistakes can occur.
The City and County of Honolulu handed over tax responsibilities, including tracking tax map keys for properties, to the neighbor islands.
The lag time and full implementation of new computer software may have accounted for a delay, he said.
The Natural Resources Conservation Services is responsible for drafting the conservation plan, but it didn’t work on the plan due to an overload of other work, Laureta said. The NRCS also doesn’t rely on tax map keys, but uses maps in drafting conservation plans, he added.
Laureta said his testimony was not intended to sway the opinion of the East Kauai board, only to provide background information.
McMahon said she has worked on many case involving lands on which cultural finds are found, and that situations have arisen where identifying a parcel have been difficult.
Regush said she didn’t have any problems. She said she went to the county assessor’s office to get the property tax map key numbers for the project.
She also said that there are two distinct and separate tax map keys for the three-acre parcel and the 1,000-acre Kumukumu parcel in Kealia.
In addressing the East Kauai board, Kaua‘i attorney Lorna Nishimitsu spoke on behalf of Kealia Plantation, the owner of the 2011 acres leased to ranchers and Laymon for ranching activities.
She said the small parcel had the same tax map key as a larger parcel when Laymon went before the East Kauai Board for approval of his conservation plan.
When Lihue Plantation sold the large parcels in Kealia to Kealia Plantation in 1998, the small parcel was identified as part of the larger parcel that was approved for grubbing and clearing by the East Kauai Board, Nishimitsu added.
Nishimitsu acknowledged, however, that a government agency assigned a separate tax map key for the small parcel at some time, but that she didn’t know when.
Armed with that information, Laymon started the work, she said, adding that his actions constituted an “innocent error and not a deliberate omission (of the tax map key for the small parcel within the 2002 conservation plan),” Nishimitsu said.
She said the owners of Kealia Plantation were concerned about the negative light Laymon has been cast in, but that they have full confidence in him. They have worked with him for more than 10 years, she said.
“The owners have full confidence in Bruce Laymon and have unqualified understanding that he was acting in good faith,” Nishimitsu said.
Laymon said that he never had plans to hide anything from the government or the public, since the work was done so close to Kealia Road and Kuhio Highway.
Monitoring agencies, including the East Kauai board, at his request, have visited the small parcel and know that he had intentions to clear all of the 2011 acres, from mauka to makai direction, Laymon said.
Ranchers and other friends voiced support for Laymon’s efforts, saying they liked what Laymon has done and stand by him.
“I have never, ever, in my life tried to do anything illegal,” Laymon said. “I have lived here my whole life.”
Regush said she didn’t know Laymon and was not attacking him personally, but was very concerned, from her point of view, that he didn’t get approval first before the work started.
She noted in a letter to the East Kaua‘i board:
- She has found no documentation from the Bureau of Conveyance stating Laymon is leasing the property.
- Kumukumu, lands located north of Kealia Road, was used for sugar, not for ranching purposes, as Laymon and other cattle ranchers intend to do.
- The three-acre site was the site for a plantation home up until the 1950s.
- In documents, Nishimitsu has not offered dates to substantiate that Laymon worked with the NRCS.
Lex Riggle , a specialist with NRCS, said the organization didn’t work with Laymon in the drafting of the conservation plan.
It seemed to him, though, that Laymon used good land management strategies, including grassing the hillside since the clearing, in protecting the area from erosion.
Regush also said she didn’t believe Laymon was using the “best management practices” in clearing the land. She said his workers didn’t put siltation fences up until after the clearing was done.
Laymon said he had to clear the land first before siltation fences could have been put up on the cleared site.
Regush also said that any aerial map will show a residential subdivision served as a dividing point between the small parcel and the larger Kumukumu parcels.
She contended the small parcel was never referred to as a Kumukumu parcel, although board member Ed Kawamura disagreed, saying the site referred to in that manner when he was a child visiting the area.
Regush also said that the smaller parcel and another Kumukumu site were assigned different tax map keys when Lihue Plantation sold the property to Kealia Plantation.
One man attending the East Kauai meeting, said the board should not single out Laymon, because it seemed he made an honest mistake.
However, the process that allowed for the confusion to develop needs to be corrected so that future cases like Laymon’s issue will not go back to the board for action, he said.
The board could find its decisions challenged if they make decisions without all the information, he said.
TGI staff writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 Ext. 225 or e-mail mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
