MIN CHARTER 2018-08-10 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 the crew there, just two people, but right now we've extremely outgrown that station, we have six personnel trying to operate in that very small building. As far as the County Charter, you know really we don't have any current major conflicts between the Charter and the Fire Department operations. Just a couple of things that I'd like the Commission to take a look at, and I'm sure you'll get more feedback from the input from the Fire Commission, but one of the items is, you know, I really would like to recommend consideration of reviewing the Fire Chief's minimum qualifications. Currently it's written as five years as a Firefighter, with three years of supervisory experience. If you were to ask the Fire Commission if they would give someone with just five years consideration, the answer you would probably get would be no. So I'm a person that doesn't like to waste anyone's time. So if you know you're not going to hire someone with only five years of experience, you know, let's make sure the minimum qualifications meet the standard that the Commission is looking for. So that's one area that I'm looking for consideration for you folks to take a look at. The second is, with this one here, we currently here in Hawaii County have no problems with this at all, but just looking at what happened at some other jurisdictions. But basically, if the Charter can clearly identify the authority for disciplinary action against the Fire Chief or any type that they're -1 fall under the Fire Commission, so their charter basically says they can hire and fire the Fire Chief, but it's everything in the middle there. So if you watch what happened on O`ahu between the Police Commission and the Mayor and the Police Chief, and really who has the authority to instill discipline or do package deals on moving --- and also on Kaua`i too. At one point, the Mayor of Kauai had disciplined the Chief and then that went all the way to court because they were trying to figure out who actually has the authority to discipline the Chief. So I just wanted to say that I currently have no issues going on here, but I think it's just something for the future since we're opening up the Charter to look at, just clearly defining who the Fire Chief reports to and who has the authority to investigate and discipline. So I thank you for the time to listen to me here today and I welcome any of your questions. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much, Chief Rosario. Do we have any questions or comments? Commissioner Saquing? MS. SAQUING: Quick question. Thank you, Chief, and I appreciate your recommendations for us moving forward. I just wanted to reflect on the slide where you were referring to staffing career employees. You get a $17 million grant. Is that an annual grant, is that a multiple year grant? For your EMS funded positions? Page 25