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Salary Commission <br />July 31, 2024 <br />really about making progress for sustainability, climate change, equity, and resilience—and <br />bringing in the grant dollars necessary to make that progress. <br />MS. NAMAHOE: Okay. So, I want to thank you, `cause that gives me the opportunity to <br />clarify. Ninety was a number I threw out there as placeholder, but the predominant need that you <br />folks have is, you need to be driving the income to not only justify the department and the staff, <br />but also to educate your fellow departments and agencies in the County on what they can expect <br />from you the particular expertise that they would turn to look to you as the supporting <br />auxiliary we don't have the binder in this shelf. They might have it over there. <br />So, in some ways you have to be pretty malleable because, again, you have a very large broad <br />swath. I'm just trying to understand as I'm not a County employee, I'm a County consumer so <br />how do—where would I look dot.govon dot.gov to find information. And then, that helps <br />me understand and informs me sitting here how important your department is. <br />MS. MORRISON: That's a loaded question/statement. So, we do have a website presence and <br />some of this information, including our Plan, is posted there so that people can be informed. <br />I think transparency and bringing that transparency is a huge kuleana for our office for several <br />reasons. One, I would just say because it could be sustainability, climate, equity, and resilience, <br />right? There's a lot of things that could fall under there. And so, we have to get out in front and <br />say, "This is what we're doing. This is our priorities"—and be able to communicate that with <br />our community, so that they can understand where we are and where we're making progress. <br />But, also, the County is a piece of this. There's a lot of organizations that are also working in <br />this space across our County and across our State. And so, how do we collaborate with those <br />that's again, our office is doing that collaboration to bring in—whether it's Mauna Kea <br />Watershed Alliance and the work that they're doing on reforestation efforts—is our opportunities <br />for us to partner on grant applications to continue that work and those sort of things—even if it's <br />just a letter of support, frankly, from our office which can go a long way towards some of these <br />application opportunities. <br />So, yes, the grants is really the how but the work is getting done across those other places as <br />well. And then I think, again, just thinking about how our community engages with our office <br />and what does that look like? We've done the Administration has done sustainability <br />summits—and the last one is one that I participated in `cause I was on board as the Interim <br />Administrator of this office—and that was in May. <br />And one of the efforts with that summit has been to really get out the information that's going <br />on, the projects that are going on, leverage that support—and have it be something that <br />community can understand and say, "Ah, this is where we're going and what we're doing." <br />So, I look forward to ways that we can continue to do that, so that we can bring community in, <br />but also engage with them and make sure that their voice is part of those decisions that are being <br />made. <br />Page 19 <br />