• Mililani began as a planned community, which included land for schools. The cost of this land was figured in to the purchase price of homes.
• And yet, almost from the beginning, there was not enough school land to accommodate the ever-increasing student population, and portables became a reality; at Uka, house shells across the street handled the overflow.
• And yet, City Council continued to approve permits, the developer developed, the community grew, and the schools overflowed.
• The original plan called for an intermediate school by District Park on 20 acres of land, the space required to meet DOE educational specifications.
• The school never materialized.
• What materialized was a deal, and land was sold to a developer, who developed a low-income townhouse project.
• Did City Council approve this land swap? Did the people who bought their homes nearby because of the proximity of this promised school know about the swap? Were public hearings held? Was this Board informed?
• And now, at the second site for the school in Mauka, our children lost again to a commercial developer.
• Did City Council approve this swap? Were public hearings held?
• The final site for the school, 3 miles mauka, is in an in-filled gully, zoned Ag2, not suitable for building homes, on a parcel of inadequate size to meet State requirements.
• Due to an inadequate parcel of land, an inner-city crisis management solution called "multi-track" was implemented, so that only ¾ of the middle school children can attend at one time.
• Aileen Hokama, Central District Superintendent, stated that the developer intends to build 2,000 more homes in Mauka. The DOE and BOE have confirmed that they will not build any more schools for us. Where will these children go to school?
• And now, the developer wants to add more residential homes and families and children to the Uka neighborhood, where the school, even without 6^th grade, remains at over 1000 students.
• Will the permits be approved? Will public hearings be held? Do we detect a pattern?

With school beginning at Wheeler on July 27^th, and with Mililani Middle School construction behind schedule, where will our 500 students go, now that they have been unmercilessly kicked out of their elementary schools? The house shells will be gone.

Taxpayers have spent millions leasing the shells over a period of 24 years. The assessed value of the 13 house shells has remained constant at $50,000 each over this entire period, which would appear to be a very generous tax break to the owners.

How will this neighborhood recover the value their homes would have had if the intermediate school had been built nearby? Certainly, they will never have a "showcase, high tech" school, as Mauka is purportedly receiving.

The Complex PTSA believes the original bargain may be somewhat fulfilled by Castle & Cooke leasing the shells to the PTSA for $1 per year, so that the facility may be used as a learning center.

City & County appropriated $400,000 to Mililani 3 years ago for a childcare center. That $400,000 could kick-start a learning center that would showcase Mililani as a 21^st Century Learning Center. All of our property values would rise. Castle & Cooke would be seen as a developer who is not interested in just building homes, and taking windfall profits, but as a caring developer who is building communities for the future.

Let’s make the developer stick to the original plan. Let’s insist we get what we paid for in the purchase price of our homes. Let’s do it for our children’s sake.