2022-06-30 Fire Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes June 30, 2022 Page 3 that concerns him. He asked if there is anything that the fire department can do to discourage this. Chief Todd stated that it's sort of a gray area, they are involved as far as the fire department is concerned. Chief Moller recently attended a meeting to deal with firework issues. A lot of it comes down to law enforcement because they are banned and illegal, they aren't coming in through your normal channels of firework sellers. There have been sales over social media sites. Usually, when their fireworks auditor comes across these types of things, they send links or other leads to the police department for follow-up because it comes back down to a legal issue and the fire department doesn't have any enforcement rights. Chair Kosaki stated that this is a challenge and it's a statewide issue. Highlights: ✓ Hawaii Fire Chief's Association 2022 Conference in December. The website is up and ticket sales are available. One of the big speakers will be Bobby Halton, who's a retired fire chief and is now the editor for Fire Engineering Magazine and is prevalent in the American Fire Service. ✓ They have been continuing with their tsunami preparedness training, following up with Civil Defense. Budget: Total spending through May 31, 2022, is at 94.01% with 92% of the fiscal year completed. • Alternative Funding and Grants: ✓ They are continuing to manage the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant. ✓ USDA, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, State & Private Forestry grant got extended through February 2023, they were not able to expend all the funds for this grant. ✓ They have been expending most of their money on their Hapuna Beach and Kua Bay funds. The state did not approve the ability to expend down on operating capital expenditures. Even though they don't have enough funding on the ocean safety side to fund their equipment needs and other expenditures, it's basically coming out of the fire budget. ✓ They're continuing to work on their CDGB-MIT grant, which is for about 1.8 million. They're in the process of getting an incident command vehicle specked out, a brush truck, and a trailer. ✓ They've been working on another grant, HIEMA HMGP funding, for hardening generators and a portable station. The portable station was denied, and the generators and station hardening (roof repairs) are still preceding.