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Salary Commission <br />December 22, 2023 <br />The person I will call is Kahale, please come up here. Good morning. You can push that button <br />on that panel, on the bottom yeah, to turn the mic. on. There you go. <br />MR. TERRY: Can I sit down? <br />CHR. PAVAO: Yes, please. <br />MR. TERRY: I'm a little nervous. My legs are shaking already. <br />MS. FRENZ: And, sir, before you testify—if you could state your name, for the record, and then <br />speak closely into the microphone, so everyone—and our friends on ZOOM can hear as well. <br />Thank you, sir. <br />MR. TERRY: Thank you. <br />CHR. PAVAO: Thank you. <br />MR. TERRY: Good morning, my name is Kahalekaiopuna Terry—most people just call me <br />"Kahale." <br />I'm here, today, to testify as a sincere citizen with some concerns regarding the mayor's salary <br />increase. I'm not denying that everyone that isdirectors and mayor deserves raises, but after <br />speaking, surveying my peers, my co-workers—people around that I meet dailyI think I could <br />roughly just say, roughly, about 100 people versus 2 people. Two people were for it. Majority <br />of them was against. <br />I just want to ask the panel or the Commission to take into consideration a little due diligence <br />when making this decision because these raises seem a little out of touch with what we deal with <br />on a daily basis with finances. <br />How can I say it—but I don't—maybe the next mayor deserves such a big raise. But I truly feel, <br />this mayor, I haven't seen anything prolific or profound that deserves such a significant raise. <br />There's—our roads is terrible—Downtown Hilo is like off-roading now. We have panhandlers <br />on almost every major intersection. I don't see the County outreaching to the homeless people <br />no more—like how we used to. <br />And the main reason that motivates me when I see we're trying to find qualified leaders or retain <br />qualified leadersI don't see the mayor as a qualified leader because he owes me and a lot of <br />public servants a lot of money, which I have no idea why he's holding up our money. <br />If he was—if he demanded us to come out to work during the pandemic, a good leader would <br />release that money to us. And there's a lot of things in the County of Hawaii that needs to be <br />repaired—and I may not be seeing everything. I don't know what goes on behind the curtains to <br />make this show go on. <br />Page 3 <br />