2010-04-23 Police Commission Minutes

Home

Hawaii Police Commission April 23, 2010 Page 3 Finance: Assistant Chief Kanehailua stated that they are at 71 % of their budget. If this trend continues, they will be okay for the rest of the fiscal year. Although they made cuts in their budget, they did submit an increase of $1.4 million. The County Council was concerned about the Humane Society's budget which has increased substantially since 2005. The Humane Society was placed under the Police Department a few years ago. They are the only county that has the Humane Society under the Police Department. Deputy Chief Ferreira stated that objectives of the Humane Society are sent to them, but they do not have the facility or equipment to do any monitoring. They have many issues to deal with such as dog licenses, carcass on the roadways, nuisances, etc. • Commendations: Chief Kubojiri reported receiving ten commendations since the last meeting. He spoke of an incident where a mother reported her daughter's bicycle being stolen. The dispatcher went to Wal -Mart after she got off work and purchased a bike for the girl. Other Departmental Activities: Chief Kubojiri reported that he met with officers at the Kona station last night. It was an open forum for anything they wanted to discuss. They do it to mitigate concerns. It is pretty much local style where some don't want to bring up, in public, what bothers them but will bring it up one -to -one. Only about a third of the employees respond to their internal survey. Some were concerned about "Big Brother." A common denominator was concern about the communications gap. The bicycle patrol is for CPOs and SROs. The community has been very supportive of it. Officers have been able to really get out in the community and talk with people. It has been more one to one rather than just riding around in a car. He would like to have it in all districts, although Ka'u would be a little difficult. They had a community meeting in Volcano this past Tuesday. The majority of the speakers were from the Peaceful Sky Alliance voicing their views that the police department has been non - compliant with the ordinance. The intent of these community meetings is for the community to voice their concerns and for them to help make improvements. Chief Kubojiri spoke of a newspaper article about his annual evaluation. The article was misleading, and the reporter did not have his evaluation, nor did he speak to him about it. He does not have a problem with releasing his evaluation, but wanted to speak to the commissioners about it first. Chair Whittemore stated that the commission put a lot of work into the evaluation, and it was not a "check the box" type of evaluation. UNFINISHED BUSINESS • Revised Rules and Regulations — Any follow -up to Public Hearing which preceded this meeting at 9:00 a.m. Decision - making may continue. Chair