 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Hello, and welcome to Eyes on Hawaii. On the Think Tech Hawaii, I'm your host, Carol Cox. Today, my guest is Mr. Donald Philippi. We will be talking about the Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Boating and Recreation and Existing Proposed Rules and State Boat Harbors. So there's a number of things going on here, and thank you for joining us here. The recent proposal, as you heard me say, supposedly is boat rules, but it includes a couple of items there that is allowing—if the governor signs it, it will be allowing the Department of Boating and Recreation or its agents or its representatives to kill or to eradicate or to destroy any cat that—by their choosing. And so what I have today is Mr. Donald Philippi to come in and talk to me about this and share with us some interesting developments. How did we get to this point? And Mr. Philippi was, as he described, was actually in this process being harassed, and so much said for that. But, Donald, thank you. Thank you for your involvement. Appreciate it. And on air, I'd like to apologize for the people of the state of Hawaii. Nobody should be receiving such treatments at the hand of the government, and that clearly there was some retaliation. And we're going to show a letter on screen that was sent to you by then. Now, I'll let you explain what went on with that and how did you get this letter, why did you get it, and share with the viewers. What is it that they did to harass you, as you described? Well, it all started when they had to move their office from downtown to the harbor. And Mr. Ed Underwood moved into his office, and the cats happened to climb on his car. And he got irate about it, and he hunted me down and told me to stop feeding the animals. But I had a pact with the Humane Society where we trapped and neutered these cats, and we was maintaining them for years until this moment. Now I have on screen this letter that you received, February 12th of 2016. Can you explain some of the details of that letter? Mr. Edward Underwood told me to stop feeding the cats, and I couldn't do that. So I just kept feeding them. So he pulled my contract that I had for my boat and gave me a temporary for 90 days and told me that I had to leave the harbor. And there's no other harbors you can go to. So I just stayed where I was at and kept doing what I was doing. And when that 90 days terminated, he renewed it and gave me instructions not to feed anymore. And he was trying to charge me with littering and unhealthy habits of the cats and stuff and tried to blame that on me and try to shut me down. And that wasn't working, so he went and tried to get the rules changed where he had more authority where he could destroy the cats himself. So now this supposedly proposed new change in rules really have a birthplace with an incident involving you. And so we can synopsize this, get better details of it, is that you live aboard this vessel. Yes. You've been on your boat for some, what, 28 years? 28 years. 28 years. Been in the same spot. And you have to annually, like all other boaters, make sure that your motor runs so you can take it out to a buoy about a mile out and let's say the return and show that it's usable. And so instead of renewing your permit annually, you're saying that Mr. Underwood decided to harass you, as you described, to make it every 90 days, and then in turn make you take your boat out whereas the average person has to take it out once a year. You have to take your boat out every 90 days, take it out to the buoy and back. Yes. Some of the 90 days I didn't have to take my boat out, they just did an inspection. But I had a contract for one year in February and in May, when this all started, he pulled my contract and gave me 90 days. And there are other people feeding this area as well, correct? Yes. And even some of the state workers, as you shared with us? There was a state workers that was feeding the cats by the office. I always fed them behind the fences. I never fed them by the office. But the state workers got to where they would put out a can of food for them and the cats started hanging around the office. That's not my fault. And they're not my cats. And none of these are your cats anyway? No, I was just taking care of them. Of abandoned cats that people dump and leave and they may breed there because they're not neutered or spayed. And so you're doing a good deed, so to speak, and then you're being hammered on the back end because of that. We had a program where we trapped and neutered them and returned them. And this is a trap new to return? Yes. Which was sanctioned by the Humane Society of Honolulu, right? And also the revised statute of a sitting count of Honolulu recognizes that program too. It allows you, if an animal is tagged or microchipped, you become the owner. And that process was openly done. Yes. Many of people actually participate. But you were the recipient of what you described as harassment. While all along you were being harassed, as you say, because you were making litter, small kind litter and the food waste. But there are some pictures here that during that same time, I actually filed a complaint against the Boating and Recreation Office for that same harbor area where there's hundreds of tons of waste and oil and diesel and gasoline and chemicals, and you named the list just laying around. And these pictures will show that. But we filed a complaint. The State Health Department gave a courtesy, didn't find the Boating and Recreation, I'm Mr. Underwood, but they did just give them a letter. But on the other hand, you were being tasked with re-registering your boat, getting it inspected. And you were 81, 81 years old. Okay. I finally got out of you. You're not 19 still. No. Okay. No, I'm way past that. But how does that leave you? I mean, for two years now, this has been a thing on. So in a mental state, how does that make you feel and are you, you've complained to government agencies? It's been a hardship for me, a big hardship. And you're on your own. You just left out there. You know, I pay for everything, it's all out of my pocket. Ed Underwood also came out there with the TV crew one time and he's put out food on these concrete blocks for the filming and claiming that it was mine, that I left there. But he's done everything he could to harass me. And I'm just thinking people would come up and say, hey, no, you can't do this. You know, you don't have the right to eradicate these animals. And they're talking about possible shooting them, well, the way they're worried, any means that they desire or they find necessary or allowable. He wants full control. And what do you say to that? What do you say to the viewers out there? You have a plea for them to ask the governor to not sign this bill? What would you say? I remember last time they put out poison to kill the ducks. We used to have ducks in the harbor. What do you mean kill the, they, they mean the dobar and the Department of Bowling and Recreation? DLNR, yes. DLNR, put out. Steve Thompson was a man's name. He had added a word's job at that time. And he took it that he didn't like the ducks. And everybody loved the ducks. And these are just, wow, mallet ducks are the assortment of ducks. And so you're saying they wanted to get rid of them, so instead of trapping them humanely and removing them, you're saying that they took poison and just spread it out and let the ducks eat them. Poison and antifreeze. They put out poison. And antifreeze. And I, I seen the discomfort of the animals. Some of them are still alive, dying, took two or three days for some of them to die. And I went and went to fishing game and all them and they was not interested in it. So I went to Channel 9 News and Channel 9 News came out and filmed it all and confronted Steve Thompson with it. And he reversed himself and went in the office, went and answered questions. And nobody was sited for doing this dirty deed. He got off scot-free. So that makes you a little nervous, I guess, because here they're saying now any, they were able to kill cats any way they choose. We're ad-libbing, but it's still the same. Any way desired to destroy or kill them. And that's too much power for these people with their mindset. Because you already have the experience, basically, and know what they will do, spreading, liberally spreading poison out over the ground and in the properties and allowing the ducks to eat them and suffering and dying. That's exactly what they did. And you say it was Steve Thompson at the time? Steve Thompson, yeah. Now, how do we know that this was a poison? You mentioned earlier about that it was a poison that was imported from Mexico or originated in Mexico. The health department sent me a letter because they knew I fed cats. And they sent me a letter warning me that Steve was wanting to put out poison. And he was doing it under the guise of killing the rats. But when you put the poison out openly, it's not only rats get it, everything gets it. And there's a lot of people with animals, and they let them run around in the grass and stuff, and they can be subject to being poisoned. And nobody was interested in it, but Channel 9 News, they run it for two or three days on TV. Nothing ever come of it. They complained or said anything about the deal. Well, they didn't really get the other than that news flash. The agency really didn't care. They wanted to do that. Yes. And the agency was completely blind to it. Now, there are generally people that live aboard boats, and this is in the harbor, the Cahee Lagoon or Cahee Boat Harbor, stayed on and operated. There are many people that live there, right? Yes. And they have cats and dogs. And dogs. Many of them do. And so how was it that they could walk their dogs and people would—and they have cats. They would bring the cats in and let them run around in—so what would happen when the cats defecated or the dogs defecated went to the bath room or relieved themselves? Why didn't he punish them? I have no idea. He wasn't interested in them. He was only interested in me because he told me not to feed them, and I didn't stop. And there was no law against feeding. There's no law. He tried to use a littering law on it, but putting out food is not a litter. And so he wants to change the law now to where he has the police department will enforce it for him. And it's in process right now of being signed and put in effect. And he thinks it's guaranteed. He acts as though it's already a foregone conclusion that this law will be changed or the rules will be changed allowing him to kill or hire someone to kill or hire an exterminator or put a bounty on the cat's head. And this is the kinds of things that we hear now being said overtly by various people. But I think he's already depending on this because he's given me back my contract to February 28th, but it was originally had. And I think he thinks the HPD Hawaiian Police Department will do the enforcement for him if I don't stop feeding the cats. So we're going to take a break in about 10 seconds or so. But hold that thought. We'll be back and then we'll talk more. We will take a break. This is Eyes on Hawaii and Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Carol Cox. We will be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. My friend, mother, what big eyes you have. She's sad. All the better to see you with my dear. What are you doing? Okay. Research says reading from birth accelerates the baby's brain development. And you're doing that now? Oh, yeah. This is the starting line. Push. And this is over. You're dead. Read aloud 15 minutes, every child, every parent, every day. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Despang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back to Eyes on Hawaii on the Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Carol Cox. Today my guest is Mr. Donald Philippi. We will be talking about the Department of Land and Natural Resources, voting and recreations, existing and proposed rules in the state, and changes in the state of harvest here in Honolulu. So thank you again, Donald. Thank you, Carol. So I'm not going to sit here and cry. I want to be a big boy. But hearing when government behavior such as this, if there's a law, then enforce the law. If there's not a law, don't go behind the scenes and become creative. And invent means of—and use not law, but your administrative powers to harass someone like yourself or harass other people in the public, the general public. It's just not good government. It's bad. And so if you would, I want people to understand that you're not just throwing feed out there. There was an active program where you were actually trapping the cats that you didn't place there, the animals, trapping them and being assisted by people that were experts at trapping. And they were doing it for free. And they would spay and neuter the animal and return it back to the area. You had an experience with Mr. Underwood and as well as the trappers. Can you explain what went on? Yes. I had this cat friends that's an organization for cats. And Jennifer has been doing my trapping for 20 years in that same place. And Underwood started trapping the cats himself and took them to the pound. And when the pound checked them and they had registrations, they would call Jennifer. And Jennifer would go get the cats and bring them back to the harbor. That's our legal procedure. But Ed found out that she was bringing the cats back. He refused her to do any trapping or come into the harbor anymore. And during that conversation, he said, if I file a lawsuit, you don't file a lawsuit that he can stall it for years. So there's no going to be no lawsuit. And so therefore, she does not go back to the harbor to trap and spay. She hadn't been back since. And so that means the population increased. It has increased maybe 30% since he started this. This suggests that there was something sinister on the part of the state and the way they were handling this. Deny you, threaten you, and then harass you with the procedure of registering your boat and hold you at bay, basically punishment, harassment, and then, in turn, denying others who was assisting you and trapping them to spay and neuter, let the population increase, and then go and take the cameras and then write a law and ask for requests to modify that law to amend it to allow them to kill these very cats. Because he has created, to some degree, this problem. He exacerbated by sitting there denying you the right to feed, denying them the right to trap and neuter, but no one spoke to the actual behavior of the cats, which they continue to breed. Nobody cares about the cats in their administration. They think they should just be eliminated. They don't know how beautiful these animals are. I have some beautiful Persians and Siamese cats. They're just beautiful cats, and they want to just destroy them. They have no feelings for them at all. And what do you say to the people that are actually dumping them there, driving by and releasing little fluffy and... You know, I've never seen anybody dumping them, but I've had carriers. They bring their pet carriers down there and just open the door. Well, that would constitute dumping. I've got several carriers on my boat. But we know you've got cats, right? Not to be facetious, but you have cats, and they're not a hike in the highway. We don't see them strolling down the highway, going and asking for directions to Ke Lagoon. So somebody is actually driving them there and dumping them off. Well, they change. Some of them go to the mainland and they have a pet. They just dump it. Some of them have to move into another apartment where they can't take their animal. They just dump it. They don't think they're doing anything wrong. Most of the people have the mindset that these animals can survive on their own. But there's so many on the Sand Island. Now, here's an interesting thing that I found. This is a little tidbit, and I'm still following the biggest story, is that some of the exterminators are hired to trap cats in certain areas. And the way the rules are set up, there's no real way of tracking what they trap. And then I'm informed by a source that say or report that some of the trappers, hired trappers will take them and release them in another area because that makes good for business. That's right. You're right. Now, I've not witnessed that, but I do know there are terminators and exterminators at school, and state property, and private property. People like Mattson and them, they hire their own eliminators and they get rid of their cats. Where they dump them or do with them, I don't know. Nobody knows that I know of. Because if you are an exterminator, you have to trap them, and that's cost time. And then you got to euthanize them because you're not in the program of trapping and returning them. So are many of those cats. Another source of human behavior that is responsible for this is that you and I are neighbors, let's say, and we have a spat. We don't, I don't want your cat in my garden. Yes. And I've told you about five or six times. And so now that's it. I go down and go to the Humane Society or go buy me a trap, trap the animal, pick it up, haul it to Sand Island or Cahy Lagoon, dump it. You are missing your pet now. And I now don't have a cat walking through my gardens anymore. That's a pretty natural thing that happens all the time. And this behavior. So this law seems to not, it misses the point. It does not speak to all of those issues and the penalty should be severe. How about where are they going to evict you? If they had to shut you out in your boat, that meant you were homeless. Yes. You would be an 81-year-old man or at that time you were 80. You'd be an 80-year-old man adding to the population of homeless people. That's for sure. All because you were feeding fluffy. And I'd have to do something with my boat because there's no place to put it here. Right. So the damage, and without even breaking the law, this is how they can inflict injury on you. And this is why I suggest that the governor do not sign this bill because he is basically giving it on the wood a nuclear weapon, so to speak, to use against the people and to use against the cats and anything else that walks on four legs. That's the way I see it. And God forbid, if the ducks fly in there now, we don't see it. We don't have any ducks anymore, not one. But you know, giving a backdrop of this, the pictures that we show, the trash, the hundreds of tons of trash and having to clean it up after I've filed a complaint, they take derelict boats and they bring them in and they smash them right there in the harbor. So there's asbestos. There's potential for, well, not potential, fiberglass. The keel of a sailboat is tons of lead and they break that up. And so, you understand. So the picture that we see right now is just stockpiled trash that we're looking at on the screen. And yet, you were being tagged for and threatened with the loss of your boat, which is your home and your imprisonment and all of that if you didn't stop feeding. And just look at the conditions here. If you take a look at that picture there, that big tank in the backdrop leaked some 48,000 gallons of jet fuel. Yes, it did. And it was smelly and leaking and leaching into the state property. It's all state property. But it underwood didn't follow the citation with those people. It contaminated the water. And I'm not making excuses, but we're drawing parallels here to say, why are we so harsh? We being the state against you. I've been deader. Because they can. Yes. They don't have to answer to anyone. And he's a powerful man. He wants me to know that. Yeah, exactly. He's sending you that message, but he has a boss, and that boss is Governor David E. Gay, and we appeal to David E. Gay today. Susan Case is there for us. Well, Susan Case is the chairperson, and she giving the nod, actually. She agrees with that. But E. Gay sits now waiting to sign in the ink to dry if he hadn't already signed it. Or we don't want him to sign it, so it should approach it a little different. I hope somebody approaches it differently. Yeah, so you are now, you're still feeding, but not on the property as much. I feed exactly where I've been feeding till I'm stopped. Okay, and then how are they gonna stop it real quick? We got about one minute. Well, he said he's gonna find me a thousand dollars and put me in jail. And do away with the cats themselves. Well, we'll see about that, and I'm sure the eyes are out there watching, and I see there's complaints filed, and people are now actually moving to file legal actions against us, whatever the outcome of Governor E. Gay's actions. Anything real quick? You got 25 seconds. I don't know where I can make a complaint. And I've went to several state agencies. They don't want to hear anything about it. Okay. I don't know what you can do. Well, thank you, Don, for joining me, and I appreciate it. I'm sure others will thank you too for coming out and revealing this. Thank you. Okay, thank you for joining me today on Eyes on Hawaii, Think Tech Hawaii. If you are interested in getting on our mailing list, go to thinktechhawaii.com. Thank you for joining me today on Eyes on Hawaii on Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks to Jay Fidel, our executive director, our technical support team, Robert McLean, Ray Sangolon, and Nick Sexton. I'll see you again in two weeks. I'm Carol Cox Aloha.