2006-12-07 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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various communities, had a charette, took it back to the people, got yet more input, brought it together again and then out to the people again. She felt things were covered in a way they never were before. To come next are the working groups, the people themselves. These people will determine how the issues that concern them get fleshed out and addressed. Ms. Testa said the CDPs are action - oriented plans which are not sitting on the shelf or waiting to be adopted by ordinance. The General Plan is going to remain the same General Plan. The CDPs get adopted to help flesh out some of the General Plan pieces. The CDPs are the action steps to be in line with the General Plan. Mr. Sakaguchi commented that with the government, nothing gets implemented quickly. He worked with the government ten years ago in developing a massive tourism plan. It was a great report, but it was not implemented at all. Mr. Sakaguchi said that with the lay -off of workers from the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, the Fairmont Hotel has stepped in to provide jobs for them. He said the County did not appear to have anything to do with resolving the issue. He said the County should have instructed the Fairmont Hotel to employ Mauna Kea Beach Hotel's laid -off workers. Ms. Testa said that she and George Applegate, the head of the Hawaii Island Visitors Bureau, consulted each other about the pending hotel closure and decided that Mr. Applegate would go to both hotels the following day to speak to them. It turned out that the Fairmont was aware of the situation and had already decided this would be a good opportunity for them. They did not need government involvement. She said that she feels that sometimes the best thing the government can do is get out of the way, as there are things the private sector can do better. She believes in facilitating people and helping them build more strength in their ability to act. Mr. Sakaguchi agreed that the less government the better, but said he thought the County should have made its involvement known, so as to give the public a sense that a thousand jobs for local people were being saved. He also questioned why there is a housing problem for hotel workers, as they should not have to travel two hours to get to work. He said the hotels charge $400 per day and should be able to afford better wages for the workers. Ms. Nicholson asked to what extent R &D responds to other departments' requests for information, for data, for grant research and help in preparing grants, and in general for requests to support the needs of other departments. Ms. Testa said that R &D regularly provides departments with information and data. They collect information and data on everything, not just the economy. They receive calls for information not only from other departments, but also from the public. They receive thousands of phone calls per year. For any and every person that calls for information /data, R &D's personal commitment is to give them something. If a call is about something R &D does not have the information on at that time, the caller will be given a link to somewhere else. They try to get answers to callers within 45 minutes. If they need more time, it is because they need to find the information from elsewhere first. Regarding grant writing, Ms. Testa said R &D is about helping departments build their capacity. R &D is currently talking about having each department identify one employee of that department who will become a grant writer. R &D will train those identified employees and give 0