2015-01-15 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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these facilities. Create and fund three (3) permanent positions dedicated to protecting our County parks, beaches and recreational facilities from fire ants and spiders. Motion and Vote : Mr. Mitchell moved to approve the recommendation as amended. The motion was seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz and all Commissioners present voted aye. F. Examine "The Expanding Transportation Opportunities on Hawaii Island" comprehensive report authored by the University of Michigan sponsored by The Kohala Center, April 2014, and implement the report’s recommendations in the short, medium and long term as much as possible within budgetary constraints. Ms. Kierkiewicz asked if Tiffany Kai from Mass Transit is aware of this report. Mr. Mitchell does not know if Ms. Kai is aware of this report. He said it is the same thing with Warren Lee, when constituents are asking for these guiding reports that are issued and they are not aware of them, it scares him. When Ms. Kierkiewicz met with Ms. Kai, they did talk about this report and Mass Transit was going to look into it. Ms. Garson noted this Commission’s Report will be the recommendation for four (4) years, by that time, the Report will be four (4) years out of date. Ms. Garson asked if the Commission would like to make the recommendation more generic and maybe use as an example. She said it could be a recommendation but to insure that reports and studies done by outside entities are reviewed regularly. Ms. Kierkiewicz noted the report took a look at the island’s transportation system and made short- and long-term recommendations. Mr. Espejo suggested people examine it every two (2) years or so; get some urban studies; people from different universities come in and do the studies. Mr. Mitchell agreed. Discussion held and recommendation amended to read as follows: Regularly review all current research and studies related to transportation systems and implement relevant recommendations to improve Hawai‘i Island public transportation systems. For example, the April 2014 “The Expanding Transportation Opportunities on Hawaii Island” report published by students from the University of Michigan, sponsored by The Kohala Center, recommended establishment of a P3 rideshare-vanpool network. Motion and Vote : Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to approve the recommendation as amended. The motion was seconded by Mr. Espejo and all commissioners present voted aye. G. Mass Transit may be able to streamline the Hele On Bus system by identifying redundancies or unnecessary overlap in the current routing and scheduling system. Mountain View, Pahoa and Pahala, are served by one bus route and the very popular Mauna Kea State Park is without service. According to the report, the airports have limited bus service. 10