Today I spoke at the Country Council meeting at the West Hawaii Civic Center. The presentation is here. And super thanks to Anne Ku of the Maui EV Allaince for a letter of support and to Mike Kane of Plug In America for a letter of support. The presentation is about the lack of EV charging infrastructure here on the Big Island and a request for funds to establish the infrastructure. Margaret Willie kindly got me on the agenda and was very supportive.

On the whole though I got a pretty cold reception. Most of the comments centered around misconceptions, of the kind we all know. Most of my work is clearing up misconceptions that people have. So, I was able at least to perform an educational role. However the county council members did not know about the lack of infrastructure – they do now. And did not know that the federal money for infrastructure passed them by and went to Honolulu. Anything to do with EV infrastructure was stated to be of very low priority, by some council members.

Will Rolston spoke before me on hist departments efforts in energy. Will has done a lot of good work, but to date does not have plan for EV infrastructure. Most of the plans center around cost savings for the county by installing solar panels. If you read this report you will see that we need to let Will know that EVs are here but are hampered by lack of infrastructure.

So, please help me out here. Send emails to the County Council stating (nicely) that you support Electric Vehicles, and desire the county to take action with a plan for Level-III infrastructure on the Big Island.

Energy Coordinator at County of Hawaii

Will Rolston,   wrolston@co.hawaii.hi.us

Council Members

Valerie Poindexter      DISTRICT 1 Portion of South Hilo, North Hilo, Hāmākua, Portion of Waimea vpoindexter@co.hawaii.hi.us
J Yoshimoto                DISTRICT 2 Portion of South Hilo jyoshimoto@co.hawaii.hi.us
Dennis “Fresh” Onishi DISTRICT 3 Portion of South Hilo, Portion of Kea‘au donishi@co.hawaii.hi.us
Greggor Ilagan            DISTRICT 4 Portion of Puna (Eastern) gilagan@co.hawaii.hi.us
Zendo Kern                 DISTRICT 5 Portion of Puna (Western) zkern@co.hawaii.hi.us
Brenda Ford                DISTRICT 6 Portion of North Kona,  South Kona,  Ka‘u,  and Greater Volcano Area bford@co.hawaii.hi.us
Dru Mamo Kanuha     DISTRICT 7 Portion of South Kona, Portion of North Kona dkanuha@co.hawaii.hi.us
Karen Eoff                  DISTRICT 8 North Kona keoff@co.hawaii.hi.us
Margaret Wille            DISTRICT 9 North and South Kohala mwille@co.hawaii.hi.us

Doug