Letter to the editor by Robert W. Riebling  (Views expressed are those of Mr. Riebling)

“Director aims to peel back isle plan’s layers” (The Maui News, Feb. 3) missed two key points of the Feb. 2 meeting of the County Council’s General Plan Committee.

First, 17, or 85 percent, of the 20 testifiers were critical of Will Spence’s last-minute modifications to Chapter 8 of the draft Maui Island Plan, and basically all of them advocated the same thing – undoing his changes and restoring the maps and text he’d arbitrarily removed. In fact, the only testifiers in favor of Spence’s ax job were three urbanizing developers – Jesse Spencer and his two sons who, in unison with Spence, complained about the layers and levels in the draft Maui Island Plan.

Second, Maui Tomorrow’s Irene Bowie, citing chapter and verse from Section 2.80B of the Maui County Code, along with the County Charter and Hawaii Revised Statutes, contended that the changes Spence had summarily made – not merely recommended – were highly inappropriate, if not downright illegal. And Deputy Corporation Counsel James Giroux’s opinion that they were not illegal was just that – his opinion, which this writer contends would never be upheld by the courts.