2020-12-16 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board December 16, 2020 RECESS: The Chair called a recess at 10:34 a.m. to convene executive session. RECONVENE: The meeting reconvened in open session at 10:46 a.m. CHR. NAMAHOE: Thank you very much. We are now resuming the hearing. Coming back to the issue at -hand. There are strict rule of evidence that will not apply in this hearing, however, the Board requests that all parties confine themselves to the matters connected to today's hearing and the issue before the Board. If there are—if witnesses are to be used, the opposite parties will be allowed to cross-examine the witness. Members of the Board may also question the witness after the witnesses testimony. So, if there are no questions, then we're going to begin. First and foremost—wait one second—sir, if you have an opening statement, we'd like to hear it from you now. APPELLANT SHOOK: Appellant Shook, not at this time, ma'am, but thank you. REP. SHOOK: (Inaudible. His microphone was not on.) CHR. NAMAHOE: Well, it's his hearing. REP. SHOOK: I would like to give an opening statement. We're going to prove that throughout the process there has been some mistakes. His whole concern on this whole thing was where he could better himself, where did he go wrong, and how he could better himself in the process of asking that simple question, we're here today because the answer never came. The answers was "not acceptable" to anybody who was going through his situation. And the more we looked, the worst the questions became. That is our opening. We just called to ask how he could better himself to get a better test score, was it his test, was it his physical, was it this—to be told things that was just out of his reach. CHR. NAMAHOE: Thank you. County's turn to make an opening statement. MR. MUKAL Thank you, Chair. Appellant Reed Shook applied to the Hawaii County Police Department to become Police Officer Recruit L During the process of gathering information about Mr. Shook, the Hawaii County Police Department found that there were issues regarding his suitability for becoming a police officer recruit. There were background checks that were done and certain red flags were found. We believe the evidence will show that the Hawaii County Police Department acted properly, did not single him out in any way. But Mr. Shook will claim that a prior DUI was the cause of his not being found suitable. He'll also claimed that an incident with Officer Van Reyes and another—and other multitude of reasons that he was not found to be qualified. Page 10