We Asked AI 15 Questions About a 6-Hour Zoning Hearing. Here's Every Answer, Checked Against the Transcript.

The pitch for AI meeting summaries is easy to make and hard to trust: feed it a six-hour hearing, ask it anything, get an instant answer. The problem is that you can't act on "instant" if you can't act on "accurate." A confidently wrong answer about whether a permit passed is worse than no answer at all.

So we did the boring, honest thing. We took one real, long, contentious land-use hearing, wrote 15 questions a developer, neighbor, or reporter would actually ask, ran them through ZoneWire Meeting Q&A, and then had an independent reviewer check every single answer against the official transcript — word for word.

The headline: 14 of 15 answers were fully accurate, with zero fabricated facts. The 15th got the facts right but pinned a quote on the wrong person. We're publishing that miss too, because an audit that only reports its wins isn't an audit.

The meeting

The hearing was the Windward Planning Commission Special Meeting, Hawaii County, on May 14, 2026. It ran roughly six hours and produced a 33,580-word transcript.

The subject: a special permit for Teppy Mountain LLC (owner Andrew Tepper) to hold the "Falls on Fire" festival — an annual, four-day event with overnight camping for up to 500 attendees — plus storage of up to six commercial vehicles. The permit covered 14.7 acres of a much larger 1,419-acre agricultural parcel at 27-476 Indian Tree Rd., Papaikou, in South Hilo. The file is case PL-SPP-2024-000075, on TMK 3-2-7-007, Parcel 1.

It was the kind of hearing that splits a community. The festival had already run for three years on the land without a permit. Neighbors testified about bass thumping through their walls at night and brought a petition with 549 signatures in opposition. Supporters described a leave-no-trace, non-commercial gathering. Cultural practitioners questioned what it means to host 500 people on agricultural land. The commission approved it 4-1, attaching a stack of conditions.

That tension is exactly what makes it a good stress test. There's a clear factual record, but it's buried in six hours of crosstalk, public testimony, legal argument, and a roll-call vote.

The 15 questions, graded

For each question below: the answer ZoneWire produced (quoted or tightly trimmed — facts and transcript quotes are unaltered), and the grade. The standard for ✅ is simple: every stated fact is supported by the transcript, and nothing is invented.

Q1. What permit was approved at this meeting, and what was the vote?

The Windward Planning Commission approved a special permit for Teppy Mountain LLC to allow an annual four-day festival (Falls on Fire) with overnight camping for up to 500 attendees, plus storage of up to six commercial vehicles, on 14.7 acres of the 1,419-acre agricultural parcel. The vote was 4-1:

"Vice Chair Perrin? Aye. Commissioner Frattinardo? Aye. Commissioner Bailog? Aye. Commissioner Fukushima? No. And Chair Danielli? Aye." — Staff, roll call

✅ Accurate. Permit, parties, parcel, and the verbatim roll call all check out.

Q2. What conditions were attached to the approval?

The motion adopted the hearing officer's 20 conditions with amendments and additions, including: an easement consent requirement for road improvements, sound monitoring at property boundaries not exceeding 70 dBA (replacing a 9 p.m. amplified-sound cutoff), sound barriers, consultation with a cultural practitioner before each event, $1 million in special event liability insurance, and a 25-foot height limit on the burning structure. The answer correctly noted that the original 20 conditions were adopted by reference and not read aloud individually, and flagged that the full list should be confirmed against the minutes.

✅ Accurate, and appropriately careful about what was and wasn't read into the record.

Q3. Who spoke against the application, and what were their concerns?

The answer named four in-person opponents — Sunny Arashiro, Linda Day, Eliza Folkman, and Justin Kainoa-Bronco — and summarized each one's specific concerns: late-night noise, sanitation for 500 people near a river that runs to the ocean, soil compaction, the 549-signature petition, and the precedent of allowing events on ag land. It quoted Folkman directly:

"agricultural land is meant to feed people to grow food to support our families and our future not to host events for hundreds of people coming camping burning art covering themselves in glitter and jumping in the waterfalls polluting the land" — Eliza Folkman, public testimony

✅ Accurate. Speakers, counts, and quote all match.

Q4. What is the property — its size, location, and current use or zoning?

A 1,419.17-acre parcel at 27-476 Indian Tree Road, about 0.7 miles west of the Hawaii Belt Road intersection, in Papaikou, South Hilo; TMK 3-2-7-007, Parcel 1. Zoned agricultural (20-acre, with some 10-acre to the south); state land use designation also agricultural. Current uses include cattle ranching (about 1,000 acres leased for pasture) and the festival. The permit covers only 14.7 acres — 14.24 for the festival, 0.46 for vehicle storage.

✅ Accurate. Acreage, zoning, and the 14.7-acre breakdown are all supported.

Q5. How many overnight campers does the permit allow, and over how many days?

Up to 500 overnight campers over four days, once per year.

"to allow an annual four day long festival event with overnight camping for up to 500 attendees and to allow the storage of up to six commercial vehicles on 14.7 acres" — Planning Department staff presentation

✅ Accurate.

Q6. Who voted against the application, and did they give a reason?

Commissioner Fukushima cast the sole no vote. The answer was careful here: the transcript does not record her stating a reason at the roll call, but earlier she raised first-responder capacity (citing a November 7, 2024 letter from an assistant police chief objecting to the request), questioned the 500-person cap and whether a sunset clause existed, and raised cultural and waterway concerns. The answer explicitly said none of these were stated on the record as her reason for voting no.

✅ Accurate — and notable for not inventing a rationale the transcript doesn't contain.

Q7. What insurance or liability requirements were imposed?

$1 million in special event liability insurance, added as a condition. The answer traced its origin: Commissioner Perrin proposed it during deliberations, noting "many places do it" as a common venue standard, and the applicant's representative confirmed "no objection to that, Commissioner."

✅ Accurate, including the origin story of the condition.

Q8. Were any cultural or Native Hawaiian considerations raised, and how were they handled?

Yes. The answer walked through testimony from Justin Kainoa-Bronco (stewardship and sovereignty) and Eliza Folkman ("pono use, the right kind of use for the right kind of land"), then showed how Vice Chair Perrin asked the applicant about cultural consultation, and how it became a formal condition: "Consultation with established cultural practitioner prior to hosting the event." It even flagged a likely transcription error — "Malcolm Mackay" almost certainly being an ASR mangling of "mauka" and "makai," the Hawaiian terms for upland and seaward.

✅ Accurate, with an unusually sharp catch on the speech-to-text artifact.

Q9. What concerns were raised about noise, and how were they addressed?

Neighbors testified about bass carrying into their homes ("still could feel the base in the walls of their house"); a sound camp operator, Casey Jednik, acknowledged the first-year sound was "definitely too loud at times." The original Condition 11 proposed a 9 p.m. cutoff on amplified sound; the applicant instead proposed continuous monitoring at boundaries not exceeding 70 dBA, and the motion added sound barriers — with the applicant offering to revert to the curfew if monitoring failed.

✅ Accurate.

Q10. What is the height limit on the ceremonial burn structure, and why was it set?

25 feet — set based on prior experience with the event, not a formal engineering or fire-safety analysis. Commissioner Perrin proposed sticking with "the height that has worked before, the 25 feet." So far, exactly right.

But the answer attributed the "we'll generously estimate it at 25 feet" remark to the wrong person:

"We're going to generously estimate it at 25. By my eyeball, it looks more like three man height, so 20 maybe. But that's the scale we're talking about."

The answer credited this to Cal Chip Chase. The transcript shows it was actually Jake Honigman — another member of the applicant's team. Same side of the table, wrong name.

⚠️ One miss. The fact (25 feet, set by precedent, no fire-department input on the number) is correct. The attribution of one quote is not. More on this below — it's the most important answer in the audit.

Q11. Did the Planning Department staff recommend approval?

Yes. "the planning director issued a recommendation of approval for the proposed special permit with conditions." The answer noted the recommendation survived the contested case process and that Director Darrow confirmed the department's view on the base-yard component specifically.

✅ Accurate.

Q12. Were any continuances, deferrals, or future review dates set?

Yes — one deferral. After the approval vote, the commission moved to defer adoption of the formal findings document to the July meeting (seconded by Commissioner Fukushima, passed 5-0). Importantly, the answer flagged that the specific July 1, 2026 date appears only in ZoneWire's structured insights, not the transcript itself, and told the reader to treat that date as unverified until confirmed against official county notice.

✅ Accurate, and explicit about which detail came from the transcript versus the computed metadata.

Q13. What did the applicant say in support of the festival?

The answer collected the applicant's counsel's arguments: it's about sharing and bringing people to the land; leave-no-trace ("there's no soap allowed in the streams"); minimal footprint ("less than 1% of the total acreage"); agency support; community responsiveness; and that it's non-commercial ("he does not profit from the event… he loses money").

✅ Accurate.

Q14. What is the exact TMK or case file number for this parcel?

TMK 3-2-7-007, Parcel 1; case file PL-SPP-2024-000075 for the special permit, with the contested case hearing separately referenced as PL-SPP-2025-000025. The answer quoted both the chair's agenda introduction and the motion.

✅ Accurate, including the distinction between the two case numbers.

Q15. Did the commission discuss projected economic impact or revenue for the community?

No — and the answer said so plainly. There were no revenue projections or economic-impact figures. The closest the record came was testimony about the event's non-commercial nature ("Nobody's making money. This is not a commercial event."). The answer was clear that the economic discussion that did occur was about the rancher's livelihood and land preservation, not community-wide economic impact.

✅ Accurate — and this is the one most prone to hallucination. A weaker system would have manufactured a plausible-sounding tourism or jobs estimate. This one said the record doesn't address it.

What the AI caught that skimming a 6-hour meeting would miss

Anyone can read a one-line summary that says "permit approved 4-1." The value is in the things that take real attention to surface:

• The origin of the $1M insurance condition. It wasn't in the hearing officer's original 20 conditions. Commissioner Perrin introduced it live during deliberations, citing $1 million as a common venue standard, and the applicant agreed on the spot. That's a detail you only get by following the deliberation, not the agenda.
• The lone dissenter's concerns — without overclaiming. Commissioner Fukushima never stated why she voted no at the roll call. The answer surfaced the concerns she did raise earlier (the assistant police chief's November 2024 objection letter, the 500-person cap, cultural and waterway issues) while explicitly refusing to connect them to her vote. That restraint is the hard part.
• The cultural-consultation condition's path. It started as testimony, became a question from the bench, was volunteered by the applicant's attorney, and ended up as a formal condition. Tracing that arc across six hours is exactly what a human reader struggles to do.
• The 70 dBA noise amendment. The original Condition 11 was a 9 p.m. amplified-sound cutoff. It got replaced with continuous 70 dBA boundary monitoring, with a fallback to the curfew if monitoring failed. That's a substantive change to what the applicant is actually bound to.

The one it got wrong

On Q10, ZoneWire put the right words in the wrong mouth.

The burn-structure facts were all correct: a 25-foot limit, adopted because that height had worked at prior events, with no fire-department input on the specific number. But the "we'll generously estimate it at 25 feet" quote was attributed to Cal Chip Chase when it was actually Jake Honigman. Both are on the applicant's side, and the slip happened in a stretch of crosstalk where speaker labels are hard to pin down.

This is a speaker-attribution error, not a fabrication. The model didn't invent a quote, a number, or a position — it misrouted a real quote between two real people who were arguing the same side. That distinction matters: a system that invents facts is dangerous; a system that occasionally mislabels who-said-what in a noisy transcript is a system whose limits you can manage.

We publish this for the same reason we publish the wins. An accuracy claim you can't see the misses behind isn't an accuracy claim. If we ever hide the 15th answer, you should stop trusting the other 14.

How it works

Every answer is grounded in two things: the full transcript of the meeting and ZoneWire's computed insights for that session (the vote tally, the parties, the case metadata). The model isn't recalling Hawaii County from training data — it's reading the record in front of it.

That grounding shows up in the behavior:

• It cites. Answers quote the transcript and name the speaker and the moment, so you can verify rather than trust.
• It separates transcript from metadata. On Q12, it called out that the July 1 date lived in the structured insights, not the transcript, and told you to confirm it.
• It says "the record doesn't say." Q15 is the proof. Asked about economic impact the meeting never discussed, it declined to invent one. That single behavior is the difference between a research tool and a liability.

Try it on your market

This is ZoneWire Meeting Q&A, included with ZoneWire Pro — see the current offer on the feature page. Point it at any meeting in a market you track and ask it the questions you'd otherwise spend an afternoon scrubbing video for — what passed, who dissented, what conditions got attached, what the record doesn't say.

Start a free trial from the Meeting Q&A feature page, or view pricing.