The good news is, the County council has the ability to override the mayor's veto.
Neighbor islanders and those not in the islands, your support is also welcome!

Council Chair Hoffmann is holding a special hearing for this sometime November 10th-14th.  We need to get 1,000+ testimonies to council members and 100+ people in the room to testify in person.

Basic facts:

Bill# 361 protects taro and coffee from genetic engineering on the Big Island.  It was unanimously passed by the Hawai'i County Council on October 8th in response to overwhelming public support and testimony.

Call your council member and tell them to stand firm and override the Mayor's veto of their unanimous approval of Bill # 361!

961-8225 is the number for council member offices - call and ask for your council member.

Also send your testimony to the entire council at this address:

counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us

Individual council member e-mails are:
Brenda Ford: bford@co.hawaii.hi.us
Stacy Higa: shiga@co.hawaii.hi.us
Pete Hoffmann: phoffmann@co.hawaii.hi.us
Donald: Ikeda: dikeda@co.hawaii.hi.us
Bob Jacobson: jjaco@co.hawaii.hi.us
Emily Naeole: enaeole@co.hawaii.hi.us
Angel Pilago: kapilago@co.hawaii.hi.us
Dominic Yagong: dyagong@co.hawaii.hi.us
J. Yoshimoto: jyoshimoto@co.hawaii.hi.us

From SEED's Paul Normann comes the following:

Bill# 361 protects Taro and Coffee from Genetic Engineering on the Big Island.  It was unanimously passed by the HI County Council on October 8th in response to overwhelming public support.

While disappointing, Mayor Kim's veto is no surprise.

Here a few thoughts that I hope will inspire you to keep up the fight:

1st - Bill# 361 is important!  If it wasn't important, they wouldn't be fighting us so hard.

2nd - The struggle to pass bill# 361 is not over!  While the bill sat on Harry Kim's desk there has been a lot of back door politicking.  The opponents to this bill have regrouped and will make a strong push to kill the bill.

3rd - We can win!   We will once again have the opportunity to go before the County Council and overcome corporate greed and influence with people power.

Call your council member and tell them to stand firm!
Together we can overturn Mayor Kim's veto and say no to GMOs.