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Merit Appeals Board <br />Call to Order (Item 1) <br />October 29, 2021 <br />CHR. CABANAS: Good morning, everyone. The Merit Appeals Board meeting is called to <br />order at ten a.m. on October 29, 2021. I am Gabriella Cabanas, Chair of the Merit Appeals <br />Board. <br />I'm pleased to announce that we have quorum today. All five Board members are present and I <br />would like to introduce them to you. In Kona, we have Mr. Mel Ventura, our Vice -Chair. Good <br />morning, Mel. <br />MR. VENTURA: Good morning and aloha. <br />CHR. CABANAS: And in Hilo at the Council Chambers with me at the Hawaii County <br />Building are Ms. Gay Mathews, Mr. Charlie Kunz, and Ms. Kate De Soto—welcome to all of <br />you—good morning. <br />And a special welcome to Kate De Soto because this is—Kate, your first Board meeting with us <br />and I hope you find the experience of being a Merit Appeals Board member a very rewarding <br />one, and we appreciate your service to the community of our island. So, welcome. <br />Also here with us in the Council Chambers are J Yoshimoto, our Assistant Corporation Counsel; <br />our Secretary -Reporter, Glynis Yamada; Relley Araceley from the Clerk's office who is staffing <br />the computer equipment to make sure that we have Zoom capability ongoing. <br />We also have Mr. Ryan Thomas and Steve Idemoto from the Office of the Corporation Counsel. <br />Welcome. We also have Ms. Elyse Stevens sitting in on the first part of our meeting. And we <br />also have Ms. Amanda Furman from the Attorney General's office appearing via Zoom from <br />Oahu. She is the—is it Deputy Attorney General, Amanda, is that correct? <br />MS. FURMAN: Yes, that's correct. <br />CHR. CABANAS: Yes. So, I want to welcome all of you and I hope you all have a good <br />morning with the Merit Appeals Board. <br />Addendum to Agenda (Item 2) <br />CHR. CABANAS: Looking at the agenda, we have no "Addendum to the Agenda." <br />Statements from the Public (Item 3) <br />CHR. CABANAS: No "Statements from the Public" according to our Secretary -Reporter. <br />At this time, I'm going to recuse myself for the reasons that I cited at the September Board <br />meeting. There is a ten o'clock appeal hearing that's scheduled. And I'm going to turn the <br />Page 2 <br />