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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN CHARTER 2018-08-10 (2018-2020)Hawaii County Charter Commission 2°d Session Council Chambers, Hawai`i County Building 25 Aupuni Street, Ste. 1401 Hilo, Hawaii August 10, 2018 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to ORDER: order at 1:32 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Mr. Douglass Shipman Adams, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Douglass Shipman Adams, Chair Ms. Jennifer Zelko-Schlueter, Vice Chair Mr. William Carthage Bergin, Commissioner Ms. Michelle Galimba, Commissioner Mr. Paul K. Hamann, Commissioner Ms. Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, Commissioner (came in later) Mr. Christopher John Imiloa Roehrig, Commissioner Ms. Marcia A. K. Saquing, Commissioner Ms. Donna Mae Springer, Commissioner Absent: Mr. Kevin D. Hopkins, Commissioner Ms. Sarah H. Rice, Commissioner Also Present: Mr. J Yoshimoto, Commission Attorney Mr. Jon Henricks, Commission Analyst Ms. Shannon Magnuson, Commission Secretary Mr. Scott Ruedy, Dep. Executive Assistant to Council Chair (Kona Courtesy Site) CHR. ADAMS: Charter Commission. My first mistake already. We are here today at the Hilo County Building and it is August 10, 2018 and the time is 1:32 p.m. Please everyone remember to turn off your conununication devices or put them on the silent mode. And, I am calling the meeting to order. Mr. Henricks if you could please call the roll. MR. HENRICKS: Chair Adams, you have nine members present. I'm sorry. Excuse me, eight. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you, Mr. Henricks. We have a quorum to begin business and I believe that Commissioner Todd does plan to be here and she will be here when she gets here. 1 note that Commissioner Hopkins and Commissioner Rice Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Motion to Approve: had already indicated that they were not going to be able to attend, so they are excused as well. I would ask our Commissioners just please to introduce yourselves for the record. I will start with Mr. Bergin. (Note: At this time, each Commissioner present stated their name for the record.) CHR. ADAMS: And I am Douglass Adams. Thank you all for that. I would move on to our Order of Business and that would be Statements from the Public. I will ask for any statements from the public on agenda items. The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. CHR. ADAMS: Secretary, do we have any statements? MS. MAGNUSON: No. CHR. ADAMS: Any from Kona? MR. RUEDY: Good afternoon Chair. We have no testifiers here for the Charter Commission. CHR. ADAMS: Great, thank you so much. The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, Approval of Minutes. CHR. ADAMS: Alright, next on our agenda is the approval of the minutes from July 13, the regular meeting minutes. I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from July 13th' Ms. Zelko-Schlueter moved to approve the minutes of July 13, 2018. Seconded by Ms. Saquing. CHR. ADAMS: It's been moved by Commissioner Zelko and seconded by Commissioner Saquing. Are there any corrections to the minutes? Any discussion? I do. I have a couple. If I could on page—let me make sure I get this right—on page 70 and also, let me make sure I get this right for my notes. Page oh, there it is. Page 70 and 71, and I think they are both on 71. You'll note that towards the bottom where it says "Reports: The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business." That should be the Commission, ... "Chair directed that the Commission"; and then I believe on Page 2 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Vote on Minutes: (Approved) COMMUNI- CATIONS: page 71—let's see. Yes, at the top of the page where the Chair directed the "Council" to proceed to the next order of business, that should be the Commission. And, there may have been one other place in there. So that's right, two on page 70, one on page 71. So both the Referrals for Executive Session and the Reports on page 70, and the Announcements on page 71. All of those should be "Commission" as opposed to "Council." Okay, great. Any other discussion or modifications to the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, please say "aye." The motion to approve the minutes of July 13, 2018, as amended, was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Commissioners Bergin, Galimba, Hamann, Roehrig, Saquing, Springer, Zelko-Schlueter, and Chair Adams – 8. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Hopkins, Todd, and Rice – 3. Excused: None. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. I said that all correct right? We are doing good? Alrighty. Next in our Order of Business is Communications. The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, Communications. CHR. ADAMS: We have none that is indicated here on the agenda. This might be the time however, just to make a comment about communications we do receive from, or for the Commission. We do have items that we receive as a Commission from—whether its departments or whether it's public, and those all Commissioners will see. We are replying as a Commission under my signature to all of those communications or correspondence that come to us, primarily by e- mail at the moment. I just want to make sure that the Commission is aware of how we are making that work, okay? Any questions on that? Okay. Next I would move to Unfinished Business. UNFINISHED The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, BUSINESS: Unfinished Business. CHR. ADAMS: We have none that's indicated here. So then I would move us into New Business. Page 3 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 NEW BUSINESS: The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, New Business. Comm. No. 1: Department and Agency Heads --- Overview of operations; Impact of County Charter on Operations; Any Proposals to Amend Charter; Discussion a. Civil Defense Agency — Civil Defense Administrator; Talmadge Magno b. Office of the Corporation Counsel — Assistant Corporation Counsel — Renee Schoen c. Department of Information Technology — Director; Jules Ung d. Department of Environmental Management — Director; William Kucharski e. Department of Finance — Director; Deanna Sako f. Hawaii Fire Department Fire Chief; Darren Rosario g. Department of Human Resources — Director; William Brilhante, Jr. h. Office of the County Clerk — County Clerk; Stewart Maeda CHR. ADAMS: In New Business we have our Communication No. 1 which has to do with our departments and agencies, agency heads. We did send a communication to them asking thein to come and provide information for us, an overview of operations, the impact of the County Charter on their operations, and any proposals to amend the Charter, and then discussion with the presenters. CHR. ADAMS: So, if it is okay, we will start with our first agency because I see the Civil Defense Administrator here. Mr. Magno, if you would please come to the table. a. Civil Defense Agency — Civil Defense Administrator; Talmadge Magno (Note: At this time, Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno carne forward to address the members of the Commission.) CHR. ADAMS: Thank you for being here with us today and we look forward to your presentation and if you would please introduce yourself for the record and then fire away. MR. MAGNO: Good afternoon. I am Talmadge Magno, Civil Defense Administrator. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. My mistake. I did ask Mr. Henricks to remind me and he failed to do it, so it's all his fault. But, for all of these presentations, we will hold our questions until the end. Even if the presenter says "Ask me at any time". Let's let them get through the presentation and then if we have questions or commentary with them, let's do it at that point. Thank you. Page 4 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MR. MAGNO: I don't come here often so I wasn't sure if it was still on. Well, my direction was to keep it short and so, I will. Basically, we are under the Mayor's office and so especially under this Administration you can pretty much assume that the Mayor is actively involved with Civil Defense operations at, I guess a daily rate. So, you know we get our marching orders from him as well as we operate under the State law 127 Alpha. We are seeing under this current condition, with the disasters that we have been facing, Civil Defense possibly you know we are operating at a 24 hour clock basically for the past three months. We do not have that capacity. And, I know Harry, the Mayor has during his, or when he was Civil Defense Administrator, he had wanted to make Civil Defense a 24-hour operation but the decision was made because Police and Fire were already 24 hours, that Civil Defense didn't need to be. Perhaps during this period, we might consider Civil Defense becoming a bigger organization. Nevertheless, with the 127 Alpha, we are supported by all kinds of County and State agencies. Under that law everybody becomes a resource, so that is a big help. And it crosses County lines, you know, we will go help off island as well. So, perhaps that is the underlying reason that we are not built as big as the Police or Fire Department, but we are making due and quite busy at this time. So, I'll take any questions if you guys have them. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioners any questions for the Civil Defense Administrator? MS. SAQUING: I have a quick question. Based on what we have been experiencing, what do you recommend as far as ah future planning, not too extensive, but for us to look at because we are here to plan for the next ten years and I just kind of want to get your thoughts on that. MR. MAGNO: It's remarkable how much time and effort that question is taking with the event we are going under right now. Recognizing that we have areas on this island that are developed that are at risk, this kind of risk. Not just Leilani. Not just the east rift. We have Kona, South Kona, all those areas, so I think serious consideration what we look at going forward. You know the County, the State, we are going to have to come up, you know, with a plan. You know that the Mayor just submitted a 550 million dollar request and so, it's going to cost now or later if we get more events like this. So the planning is critical as far as going forward. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you for that question Commissioner Saquing. I would ask a couple questions. Among the other—all the other counties have their emergency management agency included as a part of their Charter. We are the only, we are the only one that doesn't. You're created by an ordinance and of course the Hawai`i Revised Statutes, the State legislature 127A that you already referred to. Do you, in your dealings I guess—let me ask the question this way, Page 5 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 do you feel yourself constrained in any way that you are aware of, by not being identified or created by the Charter, having your agency created by the Charter as opposed to by ordinance? MR. MAGNO: One thing I look at it, it adds continuity. The position can go through different Administrations so it can continue on if things are working right. So I think it works under this current, I guess method that we are created under an ordinance. CHR. ADAMS: And then, just to, follow up I guess to the question that Commissioner Saquing had, when you— of course we are looking at your organizational infrastructure, so when we take a look, we're not going to be able to, because you are created by ordinance, this Commission doesn't really have anything that we can say unless we brought you in under the Charter. Meaning of course the proposal and then the voters would have to do that. The way that things are set up for you right now, it's really a capacity issue for you as opposed to an organizational infrastructure issue for you when you look at your ability to do or handle the issues that you have to handle? MR. MAGNO: Yeah, that's what I believe. It is capacity but you know 127 Alpha allows for other resources. We are pretty fortunate that this County, the atmosphere is that everybody works together so you know, we are aligned with Police, Fire, all the other emergency response folks, so as long as that's the case, 1 think it will work, but you can see we are at our limits at this point. CHR. ADAMS: Well, Mr. Magno, I would, we really appreciate your being here and if you have any additional information or thoughts that you would like to provide to us, we welcome you doing that over the course of the time that we are going to be in session, which will be the next year or so, as we consider these items. Our proposal times are probably going to be up and through the end of the year. We have yet to decide a specific date, but it will be something like that. So, by all means if you have something we would appreciate hearing from you. Thank you very much for making time today, in a very, very busy session for you. MR. MAGNO: You're welcome. 1 look forward to you know, getting more familiar with the Commission and seeing what you guys are all about so perhaps we can work together. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Great. Thank you. Alright. I would like to next move to the Office of the Corporation Counsel. Operation of Corporation Counsel Renee Schoen, right? b. Office of the Corporation Counsel — Assistant Corporation Counsel — Renee Schoen Page 6 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 (Note: At this time, Assistant Corporation Counsel Renee Schoen carne forward to address the members of the Commission. Ms. Schoen presented a document for the record. See Charter Communication No. 1.4.) MS. SCHOEN: Right. CHR. ADAMS: If you would just introduce yourself for the record and please proceed with your presentation. MS. SCHOEN: Good afternoon Mr. Chair and Commission members. My name is Renee Schoen. I am the Assistant Corporation Counsel, and Joe Kamelamela the Corporation Counsel, apologizes for not being here today. But I am here and basically the powers and duties, and functions of the Office of the Corporation Counsel are found in Chapter 5 of the Charter, particularly section 6-5.3 provides that the Corporation Counsel is the chief legal adviser and representative of all County agencies, including the Mayor and the County Council, all boards and commissions, all officers and employees in matters relating to their official powers and duties. Currently we have 13 attorneys in our office. We have two vacancies so we are looking to fill those. Of the 13 attorneys, eight of the attorneys serve in the counseling and drafting department and that division provides legal support and representation for the 18 departments, 37 boards and commissions, I think the number is closer to 39. We have five litigators and they represent the County in State District Court trial level and then also in Appellate Courts. We also represent the County in Federal Court matters and in administrative matters as well. Our office also provides administrative support to the Board of Ethics and that's a five member board. We provide a secretary and then we are also legal counsel to that board. In addition, we investigate all claims that are filed against the County and that is under section, I think it's 13 6.8 of the Charter. We do investigate all claims for property or personal injury type cases. We have about 12 support staff that helps us and basically that's what we do. You know the Charter is really important to everything that we do. It's basically the Constitution of the County so all of the legal advice that we provide is you know, starts with the Charter. At this time we don't have any recommendations as to changes but certainly we are available to help along the way and if anything comes up along the way, we will be happy to help this commission. Page 7 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Are there any questions or comments for Counsel Schoen? I do have a question. So in your— in the Corporation Counsel's role, it has responsibility to support the entire County government, both the legislative and executive branches. There are times, it has been known to happen, not just in this County, where the executive and the legislative branches might find themselves on the opposite side of things. How do, how does, Corporation Counsel manage that within the scope of its powers, duties, and functions presently? MS. SCHOEN: Well presently Section 6 5.5 is the Section that's related to special counsel, so if there is indeed a conflict of interest, whether it be between the executive and the legislative branch or just any other type of conflict that we find ourselves in, then we would ask the County Council for permission to retain special counsel. That's basically how we handle it. I know that other counties like Honolulu and Maui, they do have separate counsel for their Council. And that issue has come up but it hasn't come up this tern. CHR. ADAMS: I guess I would be interested, I understand yes, we can use the special counsel and I guess I'd be interested in seeing a little bit more commentary on the advantages and disadvantages of another system. Would that be possible for the Counsel to prepare something like that for the Commission? MS. SCHOEN: Sure. We can do that. CHR. ADAMS: I am not looking at a time, you know just something that gives us some, maybe me only some clarification on, you know this is how we do it, there are potential issues with that and there are of course advantages with doing that, and then compare and contrast that with, you know, another example that you provide where that is not the case. MS. SCHOEN: Let me say this, we do—our office does take the position that the County as a whole is the client and so whatever legal advice we provide the Administration is going to be the same legal advice that we provide the legislative branch, so you know that I think has prevented a lot of conflict of interest if you will. It's going to be the same no matter who asks...it should be the same. CHAIR ADAMS: Okay, are there any other questions or comments? Okay. Mr. Roehrig. MR. ROEHRIG: How do you decide when you're in conflict, what's the process to make the determination? When do you think there may be a conflict, is there a procedure, is there a person, is there. Page 8 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MS. SCHOEN: Not, I wouldn't say there are set procedures. I mean there are obvious conflicts, say if our office is sued, I mean naturally we cannot represent the County or somebody within our office. We usually have a discussion amongst ourselves in our office and discuss whether or not there is a conflict. There are occasions when we call the ODC (Office of Disciplinary Counsel), but generally no set procedure in place. It's really a discussion amongst all 15 attorneys in the office to make that determination. MR. ROEHRIG: Excuse my stupidity but I vaguely remember there's a, is it the Disciplinary Counsel—there's a State for attorneys where you pose questions to them and they give you an opinion. MS. SCHOEN: Correct. That's what I mentioned. MR. ROEHRIG: Do you ever use that? MS. SCHOEN: ODC is the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Yeah, so we do seek their advice and then they say yea or nay and it is usually consistent with what we have already thought. If there is indeed a conflict it is usually confirmed by the ODC. So, we do routinely seek their advice as well. MS. GALIMBA: So, yes, I wanted to ask if you've had more work, or if you see more work with this volcano problem that we have right now? MS. SCHOEN: Yes. A lot of work. You know as I was saying that we provide help to all of the departments and so, we have attorneys at Civil Defense helping on the finance side, we have DPW (Department of Public Works), all of the road issues, all of the emergency issues that Civil Defense handles and we've been— yeah, we do. A lot, and in addition we also had our staff assist at Civil Defense in terms of answering phone calls. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Saquing, did you have a question? Okay. Got it. Alright, if we have no other questions or commentary, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. MS. SCHOEN: So, do you have a timeline. CHR. ADAMS: We'll send you, we'll send you a note. MS. SCHOEN: Okay. Page 9 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: I think the proper thing to do is, I may, I mentioned that we would like to do that, but the proper way to get you the information that we are looking for, is to actually send you a memo or a letter, so we'll do that. MS. SCHOEN: Okay, thanks. CHR. ADAMS: At this time, would like us to move on to our Department of Information Technology. Is the Director here? Absolutely. That's great. I'll let you say your name because I have not had the opportunity and great opportunity necessarily to meet you. c. Department of Information Technology -- Director; Jules Ung (Note: At this time, Department of Information Technology Director Jules Ung came forward to address the members of the Cormnission. Ms. Ung presented a document for the record. See Charter Communication No. 1.5) MS. UNG: Good afternoon my name is Jules Ung. I am the Director of IT (Information Technology) for Hawai`i County. Nice to meet you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you for being here. Absolutely. MS. UNG: Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: And since we have— a Commissioner just arrived, I'll just repeat what I had said earlier on, what we are doing is allowing the presentation to be complete and then we will ask our questions at that time. Thank you so much. Please continue. MS. UNG: So thank you for this opportunity to update our little section of the Charter. I did have a handout with two pages. Underneath is the original Charter and the top page is some of our proposed verbiage. Overall, we think that it was very well written. We would just like to update some of the terminology and concepts to reflect some more modern terminology and concepts. But in general, it provides room for growth and expansion, and if you have any questions regarding some of those proposed terms, we are happy to start that conversation. CHR. ADAMS: May I ask, can you give us a brief synopsis of what your department looks like and exactly what you do? MS. UNG: Sure. So we have 21 staff in two divisions. Our networking division oversees networking and shared services. So it's called systems support and that's actually the County fiber as well as the servers, the switches, the hardware of the County network. Additionally, we have a user support division that Page 10 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 supports the users. So that's the front line, the face of IT, and realistically there's only four of them to cover 1,700 plus users in the County, so if anyone has any issue with using an application, with operating their PC (personal computer)— anything, they call Help Desk and Help Desk responds. There's three of them in Hilo and one of them on the West side. CHR. ADAMS: Do we have any questions or comments for Director Ung? Alright, thank you so much that definitely followed the request that we had to make it quick and to the point. Thank you so much. MS. UNG: Yeah, so we look forward to working with you. Thank you. d. Department of Environmental Management Director; William Kucharski CHR. ADAMS: Next I would move us on to the Department of Environmental Management. That's Director Bill Kucharski. Thank you for being here Sir. Please introduce yourself for the record and then— (Note: At this time, Environmental Management Director William Kucharski came forward to address the members of the Commission. Mr. Kucharski presented a PowerPoint presentation to the Commission. See Charter Communication No. 1.1.) MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes, my name is Bill Kucharski I am Director of the Department of Environmental Management and I am pleased to be here today, and did prepare a very short Power Point that will go over some of the points and questions that were asked. CHR. ADAMS: If I could ask before we begin, are we going to be able to see what's on the, are we going to be able to see this on the screen or are we going to be looking at the screen over here? There is a handout. I understand. Does everybody on this side have the handout? Do you have the handout there Donna? Here, take mine. Alrighty, we can see, okay it is up there anyway. O.K. Thank you so much. Please, thank you. MR. KUCHARSKI: Thank you. A little bit of a background on the, on DEM, our budget is about $54 million dollars. We have 218 approved positions, 187 of them are funded. We generally run between 10 to 15 percent vacancies in that as well. We have two major divisions, the Solid Waste Division and the Wastewater Division. The third group is our administrative group that deals with our contracting and purchasing. The Solid Waste Division, we have two landfills, soon to be one landfill. The Hilo Landfill is in the process of closing here pretty soon. So we have Hilo and Pu'uanahulu on the West side. The County generates approximately a little bit Page 11 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 more than 200,000 tons of solid waste per year and that is handled currently with the two landfills. Once Hilo closes all of the disposable solid waste will go to the Pu'uanahulu and we will be dealing with that. We have three baseyards, two closed landfills that we're finalizing closure on, and two scrapyards that we are in the process of cleaning up. So we are the gift that keeps on giving. We have 22 transfer stations. About 40 percent -48 percent of all of the waste generated in the County is paid for fully and 100 percent out of the General Fund. That's because all of the disposal into the transfer station for residential waste is free. And again, that amounts to about 48 percent of our total disposal. Solid Waste also manages the recycle program and abandoned vehicles. We have three impound lots. We currently do about 70 to 80 vehicles per month. We're currently getting a modification to the Code such that we can legally tow from private roadways, where before we really were limited to public and we are going to be facing a little bit of a backlog on that. Our wastewater facilities, we have seven wastewater facilities across the County. We treat approximately five million gallons per day, which is not very much. For an island with 4,000 square miles, we only have about 100 miles of sewering. So that's a little bit of background on the department. There are only five sections in the Charter for Environmental Management. The organization, there's nothing to be commented on. For the Director and Environmental Management Commission, since I am sitting in the Director's chair, it would be disingenuous for ine to come in and say everybody that sits in this chair should be just like me. So I will make no comment whatsoever on that section. Since the Environmental Management Commission is there to provide support, for the department, I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to talk about that activity. There are two sections that I would be asking for minor modifications to, that is the Statement of Policy, which is 10.2; and the Powers, Duties and Functions of the department. The reason for proposed modifications are pretty straight forward, and that is that the Department of Environmental Management has the name "Environment" in it. Because of that, the department is looked to as the envirornnental agency for the County, when in fact it is structured in the Charter as an operating company. We operate wastewater treatment, we operate solid waste facilities, we operate and institute a recycling program, but we are not a regulatory agency per se. All of the regulatory enforcement activities, the vast majority, are State run and State managed. So as we evolve, we're getting more and more requests to become more of a regulatory agency in addition. For example, the polystyrene foam ban for utensils and things that was passed by the Council requires DEM (Department of Environmental Management) to enforce that, plus go through administrative hearings and legal hearings and maintain evidence. These are more regulatory Page 12 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 functions than operating functions. We're seeing that in more of the bills and things that come out. So to address that, we have sort of general language, but I am proposing that we'd possibly, the commission consider going a little bit more explicit definitions. In here what I've suggested, where it says, "... to enhance our environment by promoting the wise management of our resources," that we add "by promoting and regulating the wise management." That is not much of a change. It's pretty subtle, but it gives us explicit authority to go through on more policy and regulatory issues. The second change is for 10.4, is corning in and talking about the duties and functions, where it says that, "the Department of Environment shall manage solid waste ... " We also have situations where we need to enforce some of these rules. One of the things for example is commercial operators that come in to a transfer station, do not pay for disposal at those facilities. We've sort of had the authority to enforce the "you can't do that," but it's not really clear whether the police are required to do that or whether the department can do that. That's one example. So what I would like to see in there if the Charter was a little bit more explicit, to say "to manage and enforce." Another area grease interceptors. Every restaurant, we have like 1,300 to 1,600 restaurants registered with the Department of Health. Many of those restaurants are required by Code to have a grease interceptor or grease traps. But the Department of Health has two people on the island. That's it, to manage this. The State doesn't pay a penalty if the grease trap ordinance is not followed through on, because they don't operate our wastewater treatment facilities. So the County has to pay the price if excess grease comes into the system. We'll be looking for going in and some ability to enforce some of those rules and get some enforcement authority within the department. So that's short and for me pretty much to the point. So I thank you for your attention, and happy to take any questions. CHR. ADAMS: Thanks, Director Kucharski. Does anyone have any comments? Yes, Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: Good afternoon, Director. MR. KUCHARSKI: Good afternoon. MS. TODD: You didn't make any comments about the Environmental Management Commission. I was wondering whether it might be easier for the department if the commission had similar powers as do something like the Board of Water Supply where they can set your fees for wastewater and for solid waste. Page 13 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 I recognize that you may not have considered that, but it's been an ongoing concern that the department is frequently not collecting as much as it should in order to cover the cost of operations. Particularly Wastewater has fallen behind because the fees have not been raised since 2002, I think is the last time they were amended. I know there has been an ongoing fee study. But I was just wondering whether the commission should have more than just the authority to hear appeals from decisions of the Director. MR. KUCHARSKI: That is a good question. My personal belief is that the authority to raise fees and to impose costs on the public should be from elected officials. I would think the Council is the appropriate venue for increasing the fees. A recommendation from the commission would be helpful, but I would—I personally don't think it's good policy to have an appointed, non -elected group setting fees for external users. MS. TODD: Okay, what do you think about trying to make the department semi- autonomous, similar to Board of Water Supply since it's really operational? MR. KUCHARSKI: Again, I think the system operates fairly well, and I'm not certain that there's an advantage to being semi -autonomous other than having a board that would review some of the senior people. In that regard, it might be good to have the appointed personnel there corning in outside of the political process. But other than that, I'm not certain that there is overwhelming benefit to changing the current system. MS. TODD: Okay, another question. I think I probably have more questions having previously been in the department. Another thought. Both Solid Waste and Wastewater were previously part of the Department of Public Works. Then the thought was to kind of carve them off so that they could have better funding. But that's had some downsides. The ability of some of the employees to transfer and apply for other positions. Previously if you worked at Solid Waste or Wastewater if there were openings within Public Works, you could within the department move. So it's really impacted the ability of employees to move to other positions. Also, as you're moving forward and going into recycled water, because the plans are for Kealakehe, then I've wondered whether we should be following more of a model like Oahu and taking a look at whether Wastewater should be combined with Water Supply. Because it's a very different operation to deliver and charge fees for the recycled. water. The operation is very different from what you currently do with Wastewater, which is basically gravity flow. If you're going to do and switch over to recycled water, you're going to have to have entirely different types of systems, which are more comparable to what Water Supply does. Page 14 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Then the other thought was to whether the department should be rolled back into the Department of Public Works. Whether that snakes more sense going forward. MR. KUCHARSKI: Two questions. The first question being whether Wastewater should be a part of the drinking Water Supply. I don't think that's good. They're totally different skills, totally different disciplines from the perspective of operations. What I would think would make sense is if the R-1 system, being a reusable water supply which is going to be a distribution much as what drinking Water Supply does, if any R-1 water is made available, would become a division of the drinking Water Supply. That for me would make more sense than to take the wastewater treatment and roll that into a drinking water. Again, which I think are—they're both Civil Engineers, but much different processing. So I would say in that, that would make more sense to me and I think that keeping the wastewater separate from drinking water is an appropriate step. As far as subsuming both Solid Waste and Water back into DPW (Department of Public Works), I don't think that's a good idea only because DPW has—there's only so much you can manage effectively, and they have a whole lot on their plate. Putting this back on their plate I don't think would provide better management or more focused management than it can get as one of two divisions. But again, these are my personal opinions on this as well. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you, Commissioner Todd. Commissioner Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I just wanted to ask about your proposed changes in the language. What would be the practical implications for your department? Would you be actually hiring enforcement people, or would you just be using the police to enforce? MR. KUCHARSKI: Given the fact that we don't have a lot of enforcernent—I think the only ordinance that requires our enforcement was the plastic bag ban. DEM was supposed to enforce that, but that was self -regulated because of big dealers and they sort of self -managed that. I think the department as it moves forward is going to be getting into more and more areas where enforcement is going to be important. For example, right now the litter program. We do have a litter ordinance, but the only people that can ticket littering are the police. The police have a standard that they have to see the offense occur. Circumstantial evidence is not something that would allow them to ticket. We could have a lower standard for our enforcement for a preponderance of evidence rather than beyond reasonable doubt, and that's not something that I would put on the police, because they have—we have difficulty with the challenges they for, for example, the abandoned vehicle program. They need to ticket and cite the vehicle before we can tow, and that becomes a really big—has a big impact on them and their service. To put other of these issues on which are Page 15 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 not—they could be criminal but not criminal with capital letters, to have them require that, I don't think is probably the best use of their time. So for that, yes, we might have people to come in, for instance, to go out and inspect the records on the restaurants to see how often their grease traps have been cleaned, where they've taken that material to. That would be enforcement, but it's really going to be one of, "Are you really doing the right thing." It's very hard to get compliance when there's no downside to violating the law, and these are things that I would like to see. These are very specific environmental rules, and people that understand them are, I think, better suited to identify when things are not done correctly. So the answer would be we'd love to have enforcement people, yes, but for very specific programs, and not as a general rule. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you, Commissioner Galimba. Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: In terms of enforcement, actually what happened with the plastic bag ban, because I helped introduce it at the Council, or there were a number of things that I ended up having to do as an attorney. And the Corporation Counsel's Office actually followed up on complaints and did investigations with the threat of litigation, and people would comply. But I agree that if you're going to do enforcement you would one, need some rules adopted by the Director, and it would be civil. The Planning Department does levy fines against people for violations of various permits and activities, and has been able to use those fines to force compliance in some cases, then has perhaps mitigated the initial fines if people have complied and then provided proof of their compliance. So I would see something like that. Then appeals of issuing citations would go obviously to the Environmental Management Commission. But the other reason I like civil is that if you do collect penalties and fines it goes to the County. If you do something through the Police Department, it typically ends up going to the State of Hawaii and doesn't come back to the County. So I would much prefer if we're going to go down that road. I think you do need it, and you're going to have to have some people whose duties involve enforcement, probably different for Wastewater versus Solid Waste issues. But I would definitely want to see it civil, because if we're going to have the salaries and wages of the employees, plus the expenses of the investigation, and the hearings, that I would rather see the revenue than go to the County, to the department, rather than going to the State coffers. MR. KUCHARSKI: There's no argument with that statement, or any of what you said. I agree, thank you. Page 16 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Any other comments or questions? I would ask, and we'll send you a note on this as well. As we consider these proposals, particularly dash two for regulatory and dash—or point four for enforcement, it would probably be helpful for us to know three things at least. One is the additional expense or cost to do that. Additional people that you look at, this meaning that you're adding to the department. Then who else potentially is doing this. In other words, whose ox are we goring so that you can do this as well. So we'll send you that. You don't have to answer those right now, but it will help us when we're taking a look at this as well for the purposes of being in the Charter. Clearly any of that stuff is ordinance work, but as we take a look at this, it would be helpful for us to be able to understand that. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add to—? I didn't see his ---I'm sorry. MR. BERGIN: It's more procedural and you nearly completely answered my question that today is an informal discussion where the term regulating and enforcement has come forth. But this would not be a formal recornrnendation at this level. It would just be for the sake of discussion and we would later receive a form of offering of this. Is that correct? CHR. ADAMS: The way that our rules currently have us considering proposals is that actually the Commissioners are the ones that make the proposals. So we are gathering the information. To the extent that any particular Commissioner is interested in taking these suggestions from the departments and turning them into proposals so that the Commission can consider them, that's how we would consider them. MR. BERGIN: Yeah, thank you. MR. KUCHARSKI: The only comment I would have on the list, the one thing that was missing is benefit of the enforcement program. That could be a— CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Please add that. That would be great. Alright, Director Kucharski, thank you so much. e. Department of Finance — Director; Deanna Sako CHR. ADAMS: At this time, I'd like to ask Director Sako, Department of Finance, if she could come forward. (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Commission.) CHR. ADAMS: Thanks for being here. If you could please introduce yourself and then make your presentation? Thank you. Page 17 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MS. SAKO: Sure. Deanna Sako, Director of Finance. So we decided not to do a PowerPoint, because when Finance starts talking about what we do, it can get very lengthy. So we're going to try and keep it short. We actually have eight different divisions. In alphabetical order, the first one is Accounts. They do all the record keeping, all the accounting, all the payroll, all the accounts payable or payments going out of the County basically. Definitely very important in terms of the audit and record keeping, and right now a lot of the reporting to FEMA as well. Our next division is Budget. So preparing the budget, which is part of the Charter clearly. They do all of the preparation. So staring next month we'll begin the budget process for fiscal year '20 already. Our third division is Property Management. So they look at all of the different properties and maintain what the County owns. Looking at inventory, making sure the departments are adequately tracking inventory, and maintaining our record keeping system for that. Then we have Purchasing to make sure all the procurement under State law and the Charter is provided for accurately. Then Real Property Tax, which sets the values, does the billing for all of our real property tax revenue, which is over 75 percent of our budget. So our most significant revenue source. Then Risk Management. A very small division, but one person looking at, you know, is there a risk, is there ways the County could be saving money, do we need different types of insurance, looking at things like that. Then we have our Treasury Division, which all the money goes into. So they collect all of it in addition to overseeing any kind of debt or bonds and investments of our funds as well. And our last division is Vehicle Registration and Licensing. So all of vehicle registration and drivers' licensing also falls under Finance. The main articles in the Charter that apply to Finance are obviously Article VI, Chapter 6, then Article X. And a few sections in Article XIII. Most of these all work for us. We've been, you know, applying them for many years now. This year, we got to look at the sections a little bit differently, but they really do work. I can see where the original creators, or if they've been amended, have really added in areas that are important to the County. What to do when the budget Page 18 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 doesn't pass such as this year. So all of that's already been put in there, and there's a lot of safety nets for us, and we really like those. The one section that causes us a little bit of grief is Section 10-15. That's the Public Open Space, or PONC (Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Preservation Fund) section. It's not that we don't think open space is a good thing, it's in times of emergency or during a recession, having over $6 million go directly to open space before anything else, that can be challenging. I know we have a large budget, but $6 million is a lot of money. So we want to look at ways that maybe that could be amended or looked at, and some of the options, you know, it could be eliminated from the Charter completely and put back in the County Code. That's how it was originally. The percentage itself could be reduced. I believe ours is two percent and every other County is one percent. So ours is by far higher than anybody else. We could cap the amount. So instead of just continually putting it in each year, we could actually set a cap for it. Or at least have the ability to suspend in tunes of emergency or recession, you know, if needed. Or even opening up the allowable uses. You know, it's very much to buy land, it's not to develop it. We can't even use it to put restrooins on the land. A lot of these have significant cultural areas, and we want to be able to use the restroom in the correct location. But we can't even use it for that. So I think it's just that it's so restrictive that if we could even open it up for, you know, at Ieast the basic minimum construction. Especially since it says that most of these are to be used for park facilities, at least being able to us it for that. In addition to that, you know, the PONC maintenance fund goes with it. I think that section is a little detailed. Nonnally some of this might be in the County Code. But you know, at least we have that opportunity, and a lot of nonprofits have come in to help maintain a lot of the open space we own now. So our main area is 10-15. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you, Director. Any comments or questions for the Director? Please, Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: In terms of expansive uses of the fund, right now there's a provision on page 40 of the Charter, Subsection (c)(1)(E) that talks about protection of watershed lands to preserve water quality and water supply. I've also thought about whether some of this money should be available for the purchase of Lava Zone 1 lands, just as public safety. Because it would preserve open space, but it would also serve to mitigate future disasters, which end up costing the County quite a bit of money in terms of taking care of the area, evacuating people. So I would look forward to, if you had any recommendations in the future in terms of additional expansion of uses of the fund. I've taken notes, so I'm hoping that you Page 19 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 could perhaps write up some recommendations on different options, because you did give us various options that we could use. The other issue I think that carne up recently was, you know, you were in the middle of buying for $2.75 million land that ended up under lava. It was unclear whether you guys could stop. MS. SAKO: Yeah. In the end we did, yes. MS. TODD: Because it had been an acquisition that was approved by the Council, and there was a question under the Charter and under the Code whether you had the ability to terminate that purchase once it had been initiated. Instead you were lucky, the State decided not to give the matching. But that would have been kind of an unfortunate result that, you know, the land was going to be purchased for a specific reason, then that reason no longer existed after the lava inundated it. So I agree with you that there probably needs to be some flexibility. If nothing else to allow you to, in the situation when an intervening disaster or act of nature occurs, that you can withdraw from contracts as a result of that. That ought to be at least in the DROA (Deposit, Receipt, Offer and Acceptance). CHR. ADAMS: Thanks, Commissioner Todd. I would ask Mr. Henricks, you captured what Commissioner Todd was talking about? Because that becomes part of whatever letter we're going to send to Director of Finance. We want to make sure we're gathering that. Because I was also going to ask Commissioner Todd, the items that you talked about, giving us a little bit on that in writing, would be great. But then also the things that she was talking about. Okay, great. Are there any other questions or comments for the Director? I do have one which I'm sure comes up occasionally. Would it be why do we have an annual budget versus a biennial budget? MS. SAKO: I think a lot of has to do with setting the real property tax values. We do that on an annual basis. While they're somewhat predictable, they're not exactly predictable. I think they vary. I know the State has a biennium budget. I think their revenue sources are a little easier. They then in exchange have the Council on Revenues, you know, to make sure they're on track. So for us, doing one year at a time works well. It matches up with our real property tax cycle. I'm not sure what the impacts would be if we continue to do it on an annual basis or not, but real property tax can be subject to the economy. So having them set at that January lst date, that part works well for us. I think doing budgets one year at a time also works okay. I'm not opposed to looking at two years, but we haven't checked to see what the HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes) says. That was the one area we were going to check into to see if that is restrictive as to annual or now. Page 20 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: If you wouldn't mind, I'd be interested in that. I just think that we do so much work. It seems like we're done and we're turning around and doing it again. Anyway, I would appreciate a little bit of a look at that from your perspective. Any other questions or comments? Okay, great. Director, thank you so much for being here. MS. SAKO: Thank you. f. Hawai`i Fire Department — Fire Chief; Darren Rosario CHR. ADAMS: Next, Chief Rosario from the Fire Department. (Note: At this time, Fire Chief Darren Rosario and Deputy Fire Chief Lance Uchida came forward to address the members of the Cormnission.) CHR. ADAMS: Please introduce yourselves and then provide your presentation. Thank you for being here. CHIEF ROSARIO: Good afternoon, Chairman, members of the Commission. Thank you for your service and your time being here today. I'm Darren Rosario, the Fire Chief for the Hawai`i Fire Department, and I'd like to introduce to you my Deputy Fire Chief. DEP. CHIEF UCHIDA: Good afternoon everyone. Lance Uchida with the Hawai`i Fire Department. I just got started about three weeks ago. So I'm learning. CHR. ADAMS: Congratulations. CHIEF ROSARIO: It's going to be a brief presentation on the overview of the Hawai`i Fire Department. A very complex department, but with our time constraints, I just really narrowed it down. I will be available at any time if anyone has any further questions of the department as we go forward. (Note: At this time, Chief Rosario provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Commission. A copy of the presentation is made a part of the record. See Commission Communication No. 1.3.) CHIEF ROSARIO: So basically, our Hawai`i Fire Department, we operate in a paramilitary organizational structure, which basically means that we follow the military pattern of discipline. There's a chain of command that maintains order under fire. Then in terms of our organization, very similar to the military where Page 21 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 we utilize the terminology of "company," "platoon," "battalions," and "divisions." We basically have five oversights for the whole department. Fire suppression, which actually is about four percent of our total call volume. Emergency medical services, which is the ambulance transport services, which is at about 85 percent of call volume. Search and rescue, which is at about four percent, and that's ocean, rivers and also a mountainous type of search and rescue. Hazardous materials mitigation, which is less than one percent. And then our Ocean Safety Division, which is our protected beaches. We handle all of the Water Safety Officers on the County beaches that have protection. Once again, the command structure of the department really follows a paramilitary chain of command starting from the Fire Chief all the way down to the Firefighter, or on the Ocean Safety Division, the Water Safety Officer. So we have two areas in our department that are career, and also a voluntary division. So in our career response areas, we do have 20 career stations spread out across the island, with 20 pumpers, which is the name for our fire truck. And I'll show you some pictures of those. We have two aerial apparatus, or apparatus that have ladders to reach the high areas of our commercial and hotel structures as well as residential structures; two light rescue vehicles, two hazmat response vehicles; and then we have 18 advanced life support ambulances, six tanker apparatus, eight brush trucks, two helicopters, four rescue boats, four power watercraft which is commonly referred to as a Jet Ski, but Jet Ski is a trademark; 16 four-by-four trucks, seven four-by-four sport utility vehicles, and two maintenance trucks. A lot of them, apparatus and personnel, to provide the services that we provide to the County. Staffing for our department, right now we have about 529 total Fire Department positions. Three hundred eighty-two are strictly County funded positions; 120 are State EMS (Emergency Medical Services) funded positions. So when we receive a grant that's currently at about $17 million to run the emergency medical services operation here on Hawai`i Island. Twenty-seven of our positions are split between State and County funded positions, and those are normally all of our staff positions: our secretaries, the clerks, payroll personnel that have to do both sides. We have 351 in our Operations Division, those are the boots on the ground out there at the stations actually doing the incident mitigation. We have 42 in Support Services Division. So those are the guys that are getting the boots on the ground the equipment, the training and the support that they need. Then we currently have 56 in Ocean Safety across our beaches on Hawai`i Island. Then 16 administrative staff here in our office, which is right upstairs here. Page 22 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 We also have 64 temporary positions. These are positions where we hire into the Firefighter recruit positions, and also our Water Safety seasonal hire positions. So we don't normally hire 64 all at once. Generally, the classes are 20 or less, but these are the temporary positions that we're able to hire to do the classes, and then move them into permanent positions once they complete their probationary period. The Water Safety seasonal hire during winter months and mostly summer. We have a few beaches that we're allowed to hire a few more Water Safety Officers on a short-term basis. We basically have more major training modalities. As a new hire, you come into Firefighter recruit training. All of our Firefighters then have to do emergency medical responder. This used to be called first responder. It's the entry level of the pre -hospital medical training for all members of the department. Then all of our Firefighters must complete Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) basic course, basically about 14 weeks, to maintain employment in the Fire Department. That's our minimum standard of licensure to be a Fire Fighter in our department here because we run the emergency medical services. Then a Firefighter EMT can present an application to the Fire Chief to enter into the Mobile Intensive Care Technician course, that's the paramedic course, and that's about a one-year course for licensure in the State. Those are the personnel that actually are the team leaders of our ambulances and conduct advance life support care to our patients that we respond to on our incidents. The staffing once again, because of the large rural nature of our island, there's a lot of unprotected areas that we do not have career stations at. So we augment that with 20 volunteer stations throughout the island. Currently, we have about 130 active volunteers. We have more, but active meaning that they come to the monthly trainings, respond to the incidents that they're return dialed on. Volunteer response resources, we have about 37 voluntary apparatus across the island, which are 18 pumpers, or fire trucks; four tankers; and 15 brush trucks. They provide a great amount of help and service to our department. Currently we have some volunteers at the Keauhou reserve fire up in national park. A lot of volunteers have assisted us with the recent Waikoloa fire as well. So I just wanted to quickly show you a couple of pictures of the apparatus that we have so you get a better understanding. We have our two helicopters, Chopper 1 on the left which is primarily our rescue helicopter. It has a basket that's hinged on the right side that drops down into the ocean so the rescue men can get our victims either in the water or rivers; as well as our primary brush fire mitigation for water drops. On the right is our aeromedical helicopter, designed for transport of medical patients across the island. Our two primary fire apparatus is the pumper on the left which is what you normally would call a fire truck; and also our aerial apparatus on the right. So it's Page 23 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 basically a fire truck with a very long ladder. We have two currently, a 100 -foot aerial and a 75 -foot aerial; one on each side of the island. Tankers we utilize because a lot of our subdivisions do not have water infrastructure. We utilize tankers to augment the water that's on the fire truck. Just a couple of pictures, a tanker of 2,000 gallon capacity and a 3,000 gallon capacity. We have several of these across the island. This is our newest tanker apparatus that was a design out of the personnel out of the Waimea fire station. It's an off-road 1,600 gallon tanker that was used extensively at the Waikoloa fire with great results. It's a foam application, water application, high pressure off-road vehicle, replacing a similar smaller -type vehicle that's about 25 years old at this time. So great piece of apparatus that just got its first work at the Waikoloa fire. Then these are some of our other brush trucks. The one that's on the right bottom corner is the one that we just replaced with the new tanker. But we still utilize that one with our volunteers and also down at the South Kohala area. So just some various looks at our smaller brush trucks to get into our wildland areas where our fire trucks cannot go. Then on the rescue side, an the left we have a heavy rescue, and what's called our light rescue on the right. So depending on the type of rescue call, the light rescue will get out to the scene a lot quicker, especially for surf here down in the Keaukaha area. Then our heavy rescue is one that's for prolonged incidents where we have all of the rescue equipment on the apparatus ready to go at the command post. Then just our rescue boat on the left, and then our newest assets over the last couple of years, our power watercraft for our Ocean Safety Divisions. We have one team in East Hawai`i and one team in West Hawai`i. On the EMS side, on the left is our standard ambulance; and on the right what we call our quick response. Most of the Administrative personnel, you know, are licensed paramedics. We're MICT's (Mobile Intensive Care Technician), both of us here, so we utilize our vehicles as quick responses also. When we're in the community and there's a call, we'll go, start treatment on them till the ambulance can reach the scene there. This is our newest fire station, the Haihai Fire Station that we opened up in 2017. Pretty much the flagship of the type of structure for the future. It's built as a 50 year -plus design station. If you go in there now, you'll notice there's a lot of space, but it's designed for growth. Because in comparison, if you ever visited the Honoka`a Fire Station, you can see that at that time it was built for the size of Page 24 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 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHIEF ROSARIO: Good question. So the terminology they use is "grant," because they give us their money for it. But it's a budget that we operate on, and the State operates on a biennial budget, so that comes to our fiscal staff and Deputy Chief Uchida prior to this position here was the leader of our EMS Bureau side and handled all that for many years. So with that, many years ago we used to receive the money and it would just go into our total budget. Then when the County started doing budget cuts where we had furloughs and so forth, what we did was former Chief Oliveira in the transition between, we actually separated the budget between County and State so that if we were given an order from the County to cut the budget 10 percent we would cut the County side; and if the State gave us an order, we just cut the State side. So it's roughly about $17 million per year and we've been working very closely with the State Department of Emergency Medical Services and Injury Prevention for our needs as well. MS. SAQUING: Okay, thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: A couple of questions. On Lifeguards you mentioned County beaches. Are we still providing Lifeguards at State beaches? CHIEF ROSARIO: Oh, excellent question. Yeah, sorry about that neglect there. But we actually operate at the Hapuna Beach Park which is a State beach park, and we get about approximately $400,000 grant funding from the State to do that as well. MS. TODD: Okay, and as a part of that do you get insurance for liability for lifeguards? CHIEF ROSARIO: No, that's been our—our last several years has been the legislative packet that we've put forward on that. MS. TODD: Then you mentioned your new fire station. What's happening with Kawailani? Because I drove down there and I saw that with the road widening, obviously the reason you needed a new one is there wasn't any room for you to move your vehicles in and out. CHIEF ROSARIO: Yeah, so the Haihai Fire Station was a replacement station for the Kawailani Station. Once we moved out of that, the Kawailani facility, we transferred all responsibility back to the County and another agency is currently utilizing that building. Page 26 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MS. TODD: Then in terms of the qualifications for Fire Chief, do you have specific suggestions? Like it's a minimum, which is why I guess—and it's consistent with the minimums for other departments, but are you looking at 10 year's minimum experience, or—? CHIEF ROSARIO: Actually, it's been something that the Fire Commission has been working on for the past I'd say about 18 months. I understand that their informative packet to your Commission will have what they've been working on as well. MS. TODD: Okay, so we'll be hearing from them on their recommendations? CHIEF ROSARIO: Yes. I do know that the request had gone to the Chair for—a similar request for them to provide input to the Charter and see what needs to— and our next Fire Commission meeting is on next Wednesday, and I'll most definitely bring up the topic as well. MS. TODD: And I guess the other question I had in terms of the minimum is whether there should be an educational requirement. CHIEF ROSARIO: This is an area, if I'm giving my honest input, is if you instilled the educational requirement, the pool within the Fire Department will be much smaller. There's a lot of us that have gotten our education on our own after getting into the Fire Department, because there really is no minimum requirement for a degree or anything. So I started my career and then I went to school while being a Firefighter and got my degrees through that process. There's several current personnel that are currently doing the same all the way up to a Master's Degree and so forth. But it's a blend on the experience side, the work side, as well as the educational side. I do know that the Fire Commission is addressing that as well. They look at it as having a minimum educational need as part of that minimum qualification as well. MS. TODD: Okay. Thank you very much. CHR. ADAMS: Thanks, Commissioner Todd. Any other comments or questions from anybody? Let me just ask a couple. In the statement of policy in the Charter, 7-4.2, it talks about the purpose of the charter to establish a system of fire protection and prevention and emergency services. You have quite a bit though of Ocean Safety and services. How do you feel about that not being included in your Statement of Policy? You're doing it. Particularly with the Coast Guard gone largely. CHIEF ROSARIO: I would fully support that the overall concept of our department is included in that statement as well. Page 27 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Also on the qualifications, I note there that there's no residency requirement. How do you feel about that? CHIEF ROSARIO: I know in the Fire Commission rules, there's a one-year residency requirement. CHR. ADAMS: Something they've added that's not in the Charter then? CHIEF ROSARIO: I believe so. My opinion is that I fully support that the Fire Chief should come from within the island itself. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: Just following up on that. Would you say that the combination of events that you have to respond to on this island and the fact that it is 4,000 square miles almost requires that you have some knowledge of the topography and the various risks that the island has, because we've got everything from lava, tsunami, and you guys respond to everything. CHIEF ROSARIO: Correct. I really feel that the experience gained by having someone who's been on the island, has a residency, I'd like to say more than a year, it's been invaluable to me. My experience, I mean I'm born and raised here. I've been all over the island. I've lived all over. Basically because my family's all over I've been able to do a lot of things throughout the island. In my career I've been pretty much stationed all over the island as well. So the experience really comes and helps it a lot. For example, in my personal life fighting a fire at Punalu'u, I can be at the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) and know exactly what they're going through. The wind is shifting, expect the wind's going to shift. I kind of remember the roadways they'll get the best access for as well as certain other areas of the district there. So I think experience and most important coming from within the department, I've been able to work with Chiefs that have come from outside of the departments in other departments, and there's benefits to it, there's also negatives to that. But overall 1 feel that if a Fire Chief is selected from within the department it's a definite benefit as far as experience and moving forward. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: Well, isn't that also part of your training? My recollection—and for disclosure purposes, my son is in the Fire Department and I have multiple extended family—but you rotate them during your training. Because I remember he got sent to Honoka`a, he got sent to South Kohala, he was out in Ocean View, he was out in Pahoa, back in Kona. But isn't that part of your training routine those first two years that you've got the recruits? Page 28 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHIEF ROSARIO: Correct. Now for us it's within the first year. So every three months we'll rotate the new Firefighter recruits to different stations. The reason is that you get a different view of incident -type calls. So if you're in the Ka`u District, you're going to get a lot of wildfire -type calls, EMS calls with long transports or different types of treatment modalities. if you're down in the South Kohala area, now you're dealing with high rise type firefighting; we've also got our aeromedical helicopter there, and you have a lot of wildland fires mixed in with native areas, burial sites. All have to take into account. You can't just—you have to know the area so you're not bulldozing an area that is protected. But we rotate them all around. Also, it gives them a chance to work under a different type of Captain and also a different type of station. There's rescue stations, hazmat stations, just fire stations, and then Fire/EMS stations as well. MS. TODD: So you would say that someone who's going to be the Chief really needs to know the different types of operations? CHIEF ROSARIO: I'm a firm believer that anyone with hard work and a good mindset can learn anything that they need to learn, but what that will give is the experience. You can have all the education and be able to work through that, but until you go out and do the actual calls, experience is really, really one of the hardest things to gain. You can't get that from the book or anything, so forth. But actually being out there and experiencing the changes that occurred during incidents, really helps you to be successful. It also helps you to come before on this table and plead for the things that we need to operate the department. MS. TODD: Thank you very much. And I know you're probably underfunded in terms of the types of equipment that you need. CHIEF ROSARIO: We work really hard for that. I know the Finance Director can share with you how hard we work towards that. But it's a team concept. If they're giving us money, they're grabbing us money from someone else. You know, we're here to work hard, so what we try to do is offset that by being very aggressive with grants, and I want to say that the personnel in our department that has worked on grants have been very, very successful. They've brought in millions and millions of dollars to the department which helps the County as a whole not having to fund some of the things that we normally would—a good example is our self-contained breathing apparatus which is what we're mandated to wear when we go into a IDLH, (hnmediate Danger to Life or Health) or an immediate death situation such as a fire or a hazmat. We had to change that all out. That was a $2 million change out, and we got a federal grant for that and I think our cost share from the County was only about $120,000 for about a $2 million purchase. So my hats off to the men and women that worked hard on that, and that's the kind of things that we're doing to try to offset some of the budgetary shortfalls that we have as a County -wide partnership. Page 29 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Thanks, I'd offer if it's okay with you, Deputy Chief, do you have anything you'd like to say? DEP. CHIEF UCHIDA: No thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Alright, well thank you so much for making your presentation. CHIEF ROSARIO: Thank you. And once again, thank you folks for your service. I appreciate it. g. Department of Human Resources — Director., William Brilhante, Jr. CHR. ADAMS: At this time, I'd like to ask our Department of Human Resources Director, Mr. Brilhante, to please come forward. (Note: At this time, Human Resources Director William Brilhante came forward to address the members of the Commission.) CHR. ADAMS: Director, if you could introduce yourself, and we thank you for being here, and then make your presentation. MR. BRILHANTE: Good afternoon, Chair and fellow Commission members. I'm William Brilhante, I'm the Director of the Department of Human Resources, or more affectionately known by County employees as HR. We're a very small department, about 30 employees in our department. We could probably fit our entire department in that new Haihai Fire Station with enough room to spare. But anyway, our department's primarily responsible for seven divisions. Of those divisions, we have a manager for each of them. We do equal employment opportunities and Americans with Disability compliance. We do professional and personnel development, where we train our County staff, our County employees. We do new hire orientation programs, and we're initiating a manager training type or supervisory training program for our County employees. We have a division which is Labor Relations where we handle grievances, internal complaints from the employees, and we also engage in labor negotiations with the various labor unions for our County employees, who represent the County employees. Another division is Recruitment and Examination. We do all the new hiring for the various departments. By that we engage in the screening process, ensuring that each of the applicants are qualified for the positions that they're applying to, making sure that the interview process is conducted equally and fairly for all and the like. Page 30 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Another division is our Administrative Support Branch, which you don't hear much about unless you're a County employee. That's the entity that supervises and manages our benefits, our retirement, you know, payroll, promotions, you know, transfers and the like. We maintain the documentation for those events. Classification and Pay is our sixth division. That's pretty much ensuring that the employees are performing equal work for equal pay. We come in and we audit their positions. We ensure that they're working within the class specs of that position, and if not, then maybe we have to do a reallocation or something to that effect. We also look at the various departments and upon request we assist with revising or amending organization's structures for each of the departments. And the final division which we have is our Health and Safety Division, and primarily we engage in safety training and safety programs for all the County employees. Most recently we've been engaged in doing the fit testing for all of the County employees who had to respond down to the eruption event down in Leilani and lower Puna, and we performed the fit testing certification for all the police officers and the various Highway and Traffic employees who had to respond to that area. The second component of that division is our Workers Coinp branch, which we oversee and supervise all of the worker comp claims from our employees who get injured while performing their job duties. Again, 30 people in our staff Our budget, the HR Section, approximately $1.9 million budget; and our Health and Safety, which is primarily our workers comp, because we're self-insured we have approximately a $2.2 million annual budget for workers. The HR Director is appointed by the Merit Appeals Board. They conduct an annual evaluation—not investigation, I misspoke. Let's hope they're not doing any investigation. We've had enough of that. But no, so they conduct an annual evaluation of the HR Director to ensure I'm performing satisfactorily. The Board is made up of five members, and they serve five-year terms. As to the Charter, we're specifically found under Article 7, Chapter 1 of the Hawaii County Charter. It's pretty clean and straight forward. There's not much there. I think it's just half a page and a little bit more on the second page. And like I said, a small department, large responsibility because we're dealing with all 2,800 County employees. But I think as to any recormnendations for amendments to the Charter, I don't think I have any at this time. I'm happy to engage in any dialog or questions either of you may have. Thank you very much. CHR. ADAMS: Thanks, Director. Do we have any questions or comments for the Director? Commissioner Todd. Page 31 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MS. TODD: Just a short one. I didn't realize you had become the Director of HR. For the information of the rest of the Commission, Director Brilhante has worn many hats in his career. He's been a Firefighter, a police officer—no? MR. BRILHANTE: Not a police officer. MS. TODD: Oh, I forgot. Oh, I'm sorry. MR. BRILHANTE: I may have been arrested on occasion, but— MS. TODD: Sony, a Firefighter and was in the Office of the Corporation Counsel. And weren't you recently on loan to Civil Defense for some things? MR. BRILHANTE: I was assigned to Civil Defense for some when I was with Corporation Counsel. But nothing formal. MS. TODD: Okay, well nice to see you and congratulations on your position. MR. BRILHANTE: Thanks, Commissioner Todd. Commissioner Galirnba. MS. GALIMBA: I just had a quick question about—you said you're self-insured for workers comp, and that you have $2.2 million fund for that, or do you get budgeted every year, $2.2 million? MR. BRILHANTE: Yeah, that's kind of like—it's an annual budget allocation, just because we keep ongoing claims and we have to make ongoing payments and ongoing settlements. So it's easier to have a general fund set up where we can draw out of And the assumption or the hope is that we never exceed that amount of money on an annual basis. MS. GALIMBA: Okay, so it's $2.2, sort of just running. You get it every year? Is it sort of built up? MR. BRILHANTE: No, there's no accumulation. MS. GALIMBA: Okay, thanks. CHR. ADAMS: Are there any other comments or questions from the Commissioners? I have a question, but let me ask Mr. Henricks a question as a part of this. I notice in our Charter in other departments that are associated with boards or commissions, they have information that has to do with their functions. But in this particular Charter section, the Merit Appeals Board, 7-1.2 really talks about the appointment, and then who they are and then really—it's in the Powers, Duties and Functions, it says, "The merit appeals board shall function according Page 32 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 to statute." And that's it. Is there somewhere else that the information about the Merit Appeals Board is included? I guess it's just an ordinance somewhere? MR. HENRICKS: I would say that Mr. Brilhante knows the answer to that. MR. BRILHANTE: My understanding is Section 7-1.2 is the predominant authorization for the Merit Appeals Board. I'm going to defer to Corp. Counsel. That's outside of the County. HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes) specifically has a section which identifies each jurisdiction's merit appeals board and the functions. CHR. ADAMS: And it lists the functions, powers, responsibilities that are there? Okay. The idea is that we don't cross paths with that. That's why we don't have anything in the Charter specifically necessarily? Okay. MR. BRILHANTE: Well generally, the HRS would supersede the language we have in the Charter anyway, if it contradicted. CHR. ADAMS: If it's a general law. Or a law of general applicability. Otherwise the Charter supersedes, interestingly enough. According at least to my review. I would again—but anyway, for these purposes the information that we're talking about having to do with powers, responsibilities and function, is going to be found in the HRS. So that's great. Okay, because other places there's more information and it lists more of the responsibilities. And this is a Charter department. So that's fine. Okay, are there any other—I see Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: Just for reference if people want to look it up, it's under Section 76- 47 of the Hawai`i Revised Statutes. It's under Section—under the Civil Service system for the State. So generally, my recollection is that those provisions, because they apply to all of the counties, are considered general law. CHR. ADAMS: Correct. Okay, seeing no other questions, Director we really appreciate you corning before us and making your presentation and answering our questions. If we have any additional questions—and I would also invite you if you have any additional thoughts that you'd like to relay to us during our deliberations, please, you're welcome to do that. MR. BRILHANTE: Again, I appreciate the opportunity to come and address each of you, and I will definitely take you up on that offer if something is to develop going forward. Thank you very much. You have a nice afternoon. And again, I second the Fire Chief's sentiment that thank you very much for each of your time. I know you're doing this voluntarily, and you know, the benefits far outweigh anything that we can ever imagine. Thank you very much. Page 33 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Thanks very much. At this time, I'd like to call up our County Clerk, Mr. Maeda, and ask him to make his presentation. h. Office of the County Clerk — County Clerk, Stewart Maeda (Note: At this time, County Clerk Stewart Maeda came forward to address the members of the Commission.) CHR. ADAMS: Clerk Maeda, if you would please introduce yourself and then please start with your presentation. MR. MAEDA: Good afternoon, Chair Adams, Vice Chair Zelko and members of the Cormnission. Thank you. Stewart Maeda, County Clerk. We did have a draft organizational chart to look at (see Charter Communication No. 1.2). It's a draft chart right now because we did make some changes and it hasn't been official yet. We have a reorganization in our Council Services. But kind of to go from left to right. On the left side is the Council Members and their staff. Primarily of course, the Council, they're main function is legislation and public policy formulation. So that's kind of what they do. If you look at the next section, it's our Legislative Research Branch. They support the Council in drafting and reviewing legislation. And then after that, of course our Elections Division. I hope you all voted. Tomorrow's a big day for us. It's the primary election. I have to go to bed soon so I won't make this too long. Of course our Elections Division conducts all of our elections in our County. Our Administrative Services primarily supports the whole department. It's our Accountant and our HR, as well as myself and Deputy Clerk Henricks and our Administrative Assistant. Council Services really supports the Council. They help draft agendas, prepare minutes, reports. They also maintain our records. Our Support Services Division, they do the copying for the entire department, producing brochures and pamphlets. They also do all of our postage, they do mail delivery throughout the County, on the East side at least. That's kind of an overview, pretty much, of our depart tient. We're not a very large department. We're kind of a medium size department. You know, right now the Charter really works well for us. We find ways to make everything work. Things function well. We don't have any major problems and I think we do a good job in getting our jobs done. So I wouldn't have any specific recommendations for changes to the Charter at this time. But if you have any questions in regards to our organization or how we operate, I'd be more than happy to address those things right now for you. Page 34 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Are there any questions or comments for Mr. Maeda? I guess I'd just ask, we had a recent ballot initiative that passed and changed some of the section having to do with the Charter in your office. How's that going? MR. MAEDA: In regards to—? CHR. ADAMS: Well, I think 2014 we made some changes? MR. MAEDA: Oh, in regards to the term of the County Clerk? CHR. ADAMS: I guess so, right? MR. MAEDA: Yeah. It changed from a two-year term to a four-year term. Actually, Mr. Yoshimoto's kind of the originator of that. I think that he had recognized that changing the Clerk every two years can be tumultuous for the staff and it could be considered kind of political a lot of times. I think Mr. Yoshimoto felt that stability was important in the Office of the County Clerk, and having a Clerk for more than just a Council term was really important to him. I believe it was a really good change. I got to stay, so that was a nice thing for me, and I think the stability has helped our staff move forward. Really, I think it set a good foundation. So I am happy with that change. I think it was a really good idea, CHR. ADAMS: Alright, seeing no other questions or comments, we really appreciate you making the presentation. Of course you're here anyway, I know. So thanks for doing that. Seeing that we have finished with the presentations from our department heads, if you'll forgive that, Mr. Maeda. At this time, I'd like to call a brief recess, allow for whatever things folks need to do, and we can start back up again, it being 3:16, we'll start back up again at 3:25. Recess: At 3:16 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 3:28 p.m. Page 35 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Comm. No. 2: Review of Hawai`i County Charter (2016 Edition) a. Article I — Incorporation and Geographical Limits b. Article II — Powers of the County c. Article III — Legislative Branch d. Article IV — Executive Branch, General Provisions e. Article V -- Executive Branch, Mayor and Staff Agencies CHR. ADAMS: We will continue with New Business. And it's our Communication Number 2, which is a review of the Hawai`i County Charter, 2016 Edition. The plan is to walk through the first five articles of the current Charter. I would say that my thought is to go article by article, and to give the Commissioners the opportunity to address anything that you have seen that you want to bring our attention to, bring the Commission's attention to in the article. Well, just that you may want to bring to the Commission's— My thought is that we collect that information and depending on individual Commissioners or the Commission at large, whether or not there's something we do with that, then we would do something with that at a later stage. The way we would manage this, with no objection, is that we will start, I'll identify the article, and I'll ask for Commissioners to identify if they have anything in particular with those articles to make those comments. We do have in our rules a five minute time limit for Commissioners' statements. So those statements would be for whatever you have to say about that particular article. Okay, with no objection, then that's what we'll start with. a. Article I — Incorporation and Geographical Limits CHR. ADAMS: Alright, so Article I. Is there—do any of the Commissioners have anything they'd like to say regarding Article I? So seeing none, the only question I would have I'm sorry? The only question I have has to do with the geographic limits. I just want to make sure. I noticed that when I looked at some of the other county's charters, they actually said they had their own island and other things and then they also said, "in any other island that nobody else has." I noticed that we don't necessarily do that, we just say our County and the island and that's it. We're not—there's nothing we're missing here? MS. SAQUING: I had a question. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. MS. SAQUING: So how do we account for our new land, how do we account for our new land that's being formed? Is it just part our island? I mean being that it's attached and on our island, but it's actually Page 36 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 (Bell rings) MS. SAQUING: Oh, is that the end of my time? CHR. ADAMS: No. No. Believe me... MS. SAQUING: I didn't know I was timed. CHR. ADAMS: That was the end of my speech. We're working on it. We are a work in progress. MS. SAQUING: Anyway, I just, I just thought of that when you were talking about the geographical limits we are having, our island is growing, and how do we capture that, I guess in here? MR. YOSHIMOTO: Commissioner, my understanding is that's provided for in HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes), so that automatically becomes the land of the state and obviously it's still attached to our island, so this would still apply. MS. SAQUING: Oh, okay. Thank you. b. Article II — Powers of the County CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Seeing no comments, let's move on to Article II -Powers of the County. Do we have any Commissioners that have comments on Article II? Seeing none, let's move on to Article III -Legislative Branch, County Council. c. Article III — Legislative Branch CHR. ADAMS: Any Commissioner have any comments on Article III? Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: I think every time the Charter Commission has met over the last 10 or 20 years, they have taken a look at the composition and terms, whether it should be two years or four years, single member districts and I had a phone call from someone who suggested something kind of interesting, which was that we look at four year terms, but follow something like Kauai which has everybody run at large. But instead of running at large over the whole island, take the island and do something like districts one, two, and three are one area, districts four, five, and six form second, and then the last three would form a third. Within each one of those, there would be alternating elections so that every two years someone would be running for office, but they would be running for a four year term, but they would run at large within that subset. The idea was that they felt that the Page 37 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 current single member district tended to make people just focus on their small section or large section if you happen to represent the South Kona Ka`u area, and that you became very centered on just delivery of services to that small section and they thought that having people run at large in a larger area like the island of Kauai does might serve them better. They also were concerned that the two year term just meant that everybody was like in an election cycle all the time. And, they thought that a four year tern but with staggered elections might be something—and the four year terms, staggered elections is something you could look at regardless of whether you did small, discreet at large areas. The other thought was that when people run at large, or at least it used to be in the past, that voters were more engaged because you had more people you could vote for. At one time all State Representatives, all State Senators, all County Council Members, had to run island wide, It meant that regardless of what part of the island seat that you were running for, if you were running for a seat in Ka`u, you still had to campaign all over the island. You still had to campaign all over the island. You still had to be answerable to people around the island. The concern is that between the non-partisan nature and the fact that for many cases the election is over at the primary and you never get to the general, that we should take a look at that. One possibility is that nobody wins outright in the primary, even if you have got 51 percent of the vote, you still have to run in the general. The top two have to run in the general, and I don't know if you remember but when we had an election for Prosecuting Attorney, in the primary Lincoln Ashida only needed 19 more votes and he would have won the primary outright, but the lack of the 19 votes, which made him just shy of 50 percent plus one meant that he had to go to a general. In the general, you had a totally different result then what you expected looking at the primary. I have had complaints from multiple people about the fact that they don't get to vote because some people don't show up until the general. They don't go and vote in the primary and then they get to the general and they don't realize that the election is over already. So that is just a couple of ideas that we might want to take a look at both the length of the terms- whether you want to have different terms and different types of elections, and whether you want to stay with the non-partisan or do you want to go back to where people ran under a party because then you guaranteed that there was a general election. The other thing is whether you can't win outright in the primary and that if there is two candidates or if there is three or four, that the top two have to go to the general because my concern is that, one, I think sometimes people want more Page 38 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 time to evaluate the candidates and I am also looking at what can you do to stir more voter interest and get more people to turn out to vote. Not that any one of these necessarily results in that, but I think it's worth taking a look at because I have seen some races that were really close in the primary and we have such a greater turnout at the general that it is kind of a shame sometimes that the election is over during the primary. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you Commissioner Todd. Any other..., yes, Commissioner Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Yes, this is I guess, I am not sure that this is the right time to bring this up, but I don't really see that there's another place. I sort of have a discontent with our general legislative representation and that is that we, you know, I live in the very big South Kona and Ka`u district and we only have one person to represent us, so I have been thinking about having a lower level of discussion representation within communities or within the district, and I don't know how it would possibly work, but I was thinking about it the other day when we had the Leilani Estates people in and there is a lot of communities that have a community association which has some kind of legislative function slightly but I don't know that there is really any connection to the County. I am not sure that we would even want a connection to the County but perhaps we would. That would allow people to have more representation within their community, so I don't know, something that I may bring up again. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, Commissioner Bergin. MR. BERGIN: If we, if my memory serves me correct, the system was every four years staggered. Is that oversimplifying? MS. TODD: I believe it was every four years and everybody ran at the same time. MR .BERLIN: Okay. MS. TODD: And it wasn't staggered. And, everybody ran island wide. MR. BERGIN: Yeah. MS. TODD: And then the Charter Commission proposed both single member districts and every two years and then that passed and then subsequent to that there were additional amendments to the Charter to do term limits so that there's only eight years that anyone can serve. Of course once there is a break they can come back and run again as we have seen with Council Member Yagong and with Council Member Chung. Same thing with the Mayor, you've got an eight year Page 39 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 you know, tenni limit, but if you've got a break you can come back and run for another eight years. CHR. ADAMS: I would, I would, if I may just break in just momentarily, I think that this is worthy of, it's kind of like directions, I lost you after the second turn. I'd like a, if we could just run a chronology of the way that we have elected our Council Members, I think that's what we're talking about in particular. From, probably from 1969 from the start, when we transitioned from a Board of Supervisors to now, that would be helpful. Thank you. Yes, please. MR. HENRICKS: That's restricted to Council Members? CHR. ADAMS: I don't think we are talking about the Mayor. MR. HENRICKS: Okay. Just making sure. CHR. ADAMS: Right. MR. HENRICKS: Okay, so again, just to be clear... CHR. ADAMS: However, since you brought it up, sure. MR. HENRICKS: Gave us more work. Okay, so to be clear, since the Charter was enacted... CHR. ADAMS: How do we, how do we hold our elections. MR. HENRICKS: Brief kind of like a table or chart about how it started and how it changed. Okay, evolution. CHR. ADAMS: That would be great. Thank you very much. Commissioner? MR. BERGIN: I would hope that in the discussion of direction of going back to four years, whether it's staggered, I hope part of that equation has a fiscal impact measurement of the frequency of elections and the cost of doing that as a related factor to the democratic representation of your district. And, I am just introducing the fact that the cost of doing it that frequently as opposed to every four years. CHR. ADAMS: So I understand what you mean, are you talking about the fiscal impact to the County, how much they have to pay for elections or are you talking about something that is greater potentially, which is how much folks have to raise because they are running for elections every two years? MR. BERGIN: Simply the County. Yeah. Page 40 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Can we gather that? MR. HENRICKS: We can try. This is, I am sony, this is Jon Henricks. We can try, but I think you know, the simple question is: how would maybe the Office of Elections budget change if they were only running elections every four years. Is that the simple question? I don't know that-- if just changing Council terms to four years would matter because you have other races too that would require them to conduct elections so that might be complicated. We can try to ask our Elections Administrator if she could, you know, come up with some numbers as to what effect would changing Council Member terms from two to four years have on costs to the County, we can ask. I can't promise that there's going to be any you know, figures that you know, Stewart is here now. Do you have any thoughts on if that's something that's feasible to try to do— an analysis of cost to County elections two years versus four years for Council Members? CHR. ADAMS: Thanks. Mr. Maeda if you could come to the microphone. MR. MAEDA: Stewart Maeda, County Clerk. I agree with what Mr. Henricks was saying. We would have to run elections every two years pretty much no matter what because I think there would always be an election that would affect our island either a statewide election, a federal election, that we would have to run elections, and so, the cost may be very similar no matter what because we would still have to do the same things that we would do. Maybe there would be less, the ballots might be less, shorter, or there ... you know, but you have to have one ballot regardless no? So I don't know, but we could look into that surely and try and figure out if there is a way to determine if there would be a fiscal impact if that change was made. MR. BERGIN: Yeah. It doesn't sound like there would be much of one but I just thought I would ask the question. MR. MAEDA: It's certainly possible. Yeah, but, yeah we can, we can kind of look at that. Maybe after November we should try and look at that if possible. Just because we are going to be busy for a while and so, I don't know if that would be a priority for our Election's Office to try to you know, crunch those numbers and really take a really good look at that, so if you don't mind, if we could maybe revisit that after our general election. CHR. ADAMS: When I look at the timing, so yeah, I understand what you are saying and the work impact. We would, that would then be brought forward if there was proposals made in this venue as a result of that in this area. Then we would see the answer to that potential question probably in the November — December time period, which would be fine because it would be around the time Page 41 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 we would be making decisions on proposals anyway. How do you feel about that Commissioner Bergin? MR. BERGIN: Very good. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Thank you Clerk Maeda, I appreciate it. Do I have any other comments or questions, I am sorry, comments regarding Article III? Well, of course I have some comments. Let's see. I kind of figured that the elections part was going to come up so that wasn't something that I was focused on. I just, I was noticing that in Section 3-7 which has to do with meetings of the County Council, in there the first sentence it talks about the Council shall meet regularly at least twice every month at such times and places as established by rule of Council, and then it says "and meet at least quarterly in the judicial district of North Kona or South Kona", now, we're meeting monthly as a Council. Right, I mean they're meeting there monthly right? I mean every month... MR. HENRICKS: Right. Yes, the Council Rules expand beyond what's required in the Charter, to alternate meeting sites in Hilo and Kona. CHR. ADAMS: Right. And, so at least I am noticing here at least on the annotations below this particular Section that the last time would have been in 2000, I am not sure when this was added. And so, it maybe something that maybe we just bring the Charter up into the reality that we have right there, rather than "at least quarterly", we say something about monthly, something like that. So, that'll be a question. And then in 3-11, Section 3-11 Emergency Ordinances, I guess my question here was whether or not this is good enough. So I would just, I would ask our Commissioners to take a look at 3-11 particularly given the situation that we have been in and whether or not this provides enough flexibility I guess for the kinds of things that we would expect our Council to do. Okay? I don't know yet. I don't have a recommendation on that. I just ask you to do that. Let's see. In the Section 3-12 which is Submission of Bills to the Mayor, in the last paragraph, my comment, this was relatively technically and so, I am not remembering why I wrote this comment but I am sure that you will have a comment on it. I was wondering whether or not there was a—if the timeline here was connected with the I think timeline of the first paragraph. I wasn't sure if there was a conflict in this particular one versus the other one. I will tell you what. I'll do a little bit more reading on this, but it seemed to me that there was a conflict that maybe needed to be deconflicted so I wasn't sure. And then also the, I just want to make sure the interim in 3-13 which is the next Section, the last section talk about interim amendments to the ordinance establishing the pay plan for the County may be by resolution of the Council, provided a revised salary ordinance is enacted at least once annually. I guess I was a little surprised that we could do that by resolution. Page 42 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MR. HENRICKS: Yeah, and we have done that before, so this is basically saying pay plan for people that aren't civil service. CHR. ADAMS: So that's not an ordinance level... MR. HENRICKS: It is. It's an ordinance. You are correct. So every year there is an ordinance that takes effect in July 1 to account for people whose pay is not otherwise provided through collective bargaining or whatnot and if there is adjustments... CHR. ADAMS: Can be made by resolution as well this says. MR. HENRICKS: Correct. CHR. ADAMS: And, that's how they do it, is by resolution? MR. HENRICKS: And, you know, we could research that. I hope we could maybe find something as to why that is the case if there is some concern about that. My presumption would be perhaps that it was intentional, so that the Mayor could not veto. That's the only thing I could think of when you are doing things by resolution that would seem like ordinance material. The Mayor has no say when the Council adopts a resolution, it's done. CHR. ADAMS: Well, that's interesting. MR. HENRICKS: I don't—again, I don't know if that is precisely why, you know this provides for a resolution to effectively, to amend an ordinance, and that is an anomaly. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. MR. HENRICKS: You usually cannot use a resolution to amend something that has been enacted by ordinance. CHR. ADAMS: Anyone have any comments on that? Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: I think we may have to basically kind of cross reference other provisions of the Charter and possibly because it's talking about position classification plan, it may be that it's a fast way to reflect changes that have occurred to those positions. And, that they need to go into effect faster perhaps. But this is separate and apart from some of the other salary issues that come up through Salary Commission so perhaps for the Commission's edification, if you could provide us information in terms of the position classification plan and exactly what positions that that covers. Page 43 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MR. HENRICKS: So this ordinance covers appointed employees mostly, quite a few in the legislative branch. I believe nearly all employees in the Office of Housing and Community Development, student helpers, things of that nature. Sets a minimum wage that of course should follow state and federal standards. And to your point, perhaps that is a better reason why it's done by resolution. It takes some time for an ordinance to pass and be enacted. Not sure. But that's what the pay plan is for. It's a small, it's a relatively small group of people. As Mr. Brilhante said, 2,800 employees. It doesn't account for that many employees. MS. TODD: I kind of disagree. MR. HENRICKS: Oh, I'm sorry. MS. TODD: Because the reference in Section 3-13 refers to Section 7-1.5 in reference to a position classification plan. And, Section 7-L5 Position Classification Plan refers to all positions in the service of the County shall be classified within a position classification plan. MR. HENRICKS: Right. MS. TODD: And all persons holding such positions shall be compensated as provided by the compensation law of the State. So my assumption and I may be erroneous, is that that's really referring to when you are doing somebody's— an SR21, SRI4, cause that to me would be a position classification plan. And, it seems like it's more expansive than just appointed department heads covered by the Salary Commission. That this is much more inclusive, so perhaps we need some clarity on that. MR. HENRICKS: Sure. No. Yeah, this doesn't cover department heads and deputies and whatnot. The Office of Housing and Community Development follows what you are talking about. They assign an SR (salary range) rating to their employees and follow that kind of a structure, but they are not covered by collective bargaining. They are covered by this ordinance. Our office does not assign that kind of a, it's a different payment classification rating. MS. TODD: Oh, you have different authority under the HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes). MR. HENRICKS: Right. Exactly. MS. TODD: To establish the salaries and wages of legislative branch employees. MR. HENRICKS: Right. Page 44 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: So at this time, I am sufficiently confused. And so, I would like for us to take this and let's, I agree. 1 think there is some cross referencing that would be helpful and so, if it is okay with the other Commissioners, when I sit down with the staff in our post meeting meeting, I would like to—we're going to figure out what is the best way to kind of take a look at this, make sure that this passes muster. 1 mean you know of course it's been here forever and everybody says it passes muster, but I was surprised to see that the Council could pass a resolution amending an ordinance. I just was surprised. So I understand that and then, taking into account some of the things that Commissioner Todd was talking about. So, if the Commission is okay with that, no objections? Okay great. MS. TODD: Mr. Chair? CHR. ADAMS: Yes, please. MS. TODD: I need to leave for another event. CHR. ADAMS: I understand Commissioner Todd. Thank you for being here and our next meeting although we are not in announcements yet, is going to be on the other side of the island in September, so obviously additional information regarding that will be made available to all the Commissioners at that time, but I just want to make that comment before you take off. Okay, and then finally in Section 3-18, Section 3-18 which has to do with the Office of the Legislative Auditor, Item f (4), let me see if I got that right, yes. F (4) here it says for the purpose of carrying out any audit, the legislative auditor shall have, and in 4 it says "Full, free, and unrestricted access to and authority to administer oaths and subpoena witnesses" etc. "If any person subpoenaed as a witness or compelled to produce records shall fail or refuse to respond thereto, the proper court, upon request of the auditor, shall have the power to compel obedience to any process of the auditor and to punish, as a contempt of the court, any refusal to comply therewith without good cause." This is actually a question for Counsel. Mr. Yoshimoto. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Yes, sir. CHR. ADAMS: In Section f, or subsection f, item 4, this is our Charter and maybe it's somewhere else and we haven't got there yet, but I was surprised to see the Charter having the authority to provide information to the judicial branch on how they should deal with folks that a County Auditor is trying to compel obedience to. Am I missing something here? I mean a proper court is judicial Page 45 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 branch right? Which we have nothing to do within our Charter, yet this is talking to what a court should do. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Okay, so what's... CHR. ADAMS: How does our Charter tell any court what to do? MR. YOSHIMOTO: Okay, so my understanding this provision provides a process in which the legislative auditor could basically enforce or compel, right the obedience of a subpoena, oaths things of that nature right? So that's just the nature of the process so I don't think that we are crossing any lines. I think we are just basically...go ahead. CHR. ADAMS: Right, so when I read this, I read it parsing the words the proper court shall have the power to compel obedience to any process of the auditor and to punish as a contempt of court any refusal to comply therewith without good cause. That's not a statement about what the legislative auditor can do, that's a statement about what the court should do. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Right, and that's already contained in the court rules in terms of the process. CHR. ADAMS: So this is taking information from the judicial branch and putting it in the Charter? MR. YOSHIMOTO: I don't know where it is coining from specifically. We can research that, but my understanding is that's how you would do that in a court of law. So what I am saying is this is basically stating what is already in place within the judicial branch. I see, I see what you're saying. CHR. ADAMS: My concern is that as a County Charter, we know that we talked to the legislative branch and we talked to the executive branch. We don't deal with the judicial branch whatsoever. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Correct. Well I don't know whatsoever, but yeah. CHR. ADAMS: I mean the judicial branch doesn't operate at a County level right? It operates at the State level. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Right. Go ahead. CHR. ADAMS: I don't know that it's in our jurisdiction to actually include this information in here. Page 46 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MR. YOSHIMOTO: So as I see this right, so this basically again explains what can be done within our court system. This doesn't authorize it because the court system has its own rules that's based on HRS and has its own rules. CHR. ADAMS: I get it. It's that shall that has... MR. YOSHIMOTO: So it's... right. I can research that. I don't see any problem with this. I mean this again basically says what we can do already within our judicial system within our County Code within our Charter right? So what I am saying is it is consistent. So we are not trying to overreach or go beyond what is already available but if you want me to... CHR. ADAMS: Please. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Research the language, I can do that. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Okay. Any other items on Article III? I apologize for the length of time on that. That was more than five minutes. I am glad you didn't ring me. d. Article IV — Executive Branch, General Provisions CHR. ADAMS: Article IV, do we have comments on Article IV Executive Branch, General Provisions? Well, I do. In the Executive Powers, so "the executive powers of the county shall be vested in and exercised by the executive branch" which then said it "it shall be headed by the mayor." So, two questions that I am struggling with when I look at this. One is the executive branch is an abstract and typically when you look at the phrasing of executive powers and legislative powers, typically you see them as referring to an entity. Either an individual or a body, as opposed to an abstract element. I am not saying it's not found in other places, it's just, it's kind of interesting. Typically you would say that this is vested in and exercised by the Mayor. For example if that was going to be the case, now, so that's just one thing. And then the shall be headed by the Mayor and administered by the Managing Director... the use of the word headed is an interesting term. You know that's probably that's— MS. SAQUING: How about lead? CHR. ADAMS: Well, there's a lot of things you could use right? And, so I just, it would be interesting to do that. I, if I may, I would be interested just in a brief commentary by Leslie, who is much more in tune with the drafting of these kinds of things than I am. Would you mind corning to the mic to talk about this briefly? Just give your comments on that. Am I completely out of bounds on thinking about any of these things or as you look at this, not looking for any legal advice, Page 47 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 but you draft and so, I am just surprised that we see this level of abstractness in this part. Thank you. Please introduce yourself and then, thank you. MS. CHOW: Hi. I am Leslie Chow. I am with LRB (Legislative Research Branch). Would you like us to take a look at this and see if we could revise some of the language to maybe remove terms like "headed" perhaps find a term that would be better? CHR. ADAMS: Yes. MS. CHOW: Yes. CHR. ADAMS: Please, Mr. Henricks. MR. HENRICKS: Small wet blanket. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. MR. HENRICKS: So whenever you look at things like this and wordsmithing yeah, I think it's great and I understand that. Just thinking ahead though, ballot question. CHR. ADAMS: Sure. MR. HENRICKS: Right. And that would be my concern about that. If we are not really changing anything materially, but we are styling, it is hard to ask a proper question to people like "shall the word in Section so and so, shall headed be changed to so and so." CHR. ADAMS: I get it. MR. HENRICKS: So just to keep that in mind as we move forward. CHR. ADAMS: I appreciate that Mr. Henricks. I actually do, which is one of the reasons why I was concerned about whether I was going to bring it up or not, but given that we've got all kinds of time. MR. HENRICKS: We do. CHR. ADAMS: So, I am just kidding Mr.—the Commissioners, I am kidding. But I am, I do think that as we take a look at this and we are looking at this for ten or twenty years down the road, words matter. And the fact that that was used, sure, I get it was used at a particular time, I am just kind of surprised that that was, yes, so I would be interested if—I'd be interested in your review of that. I'd appreciate that. Page 48 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MS. CHOW: If there are terms here that concern you besides "headed", if you could let us know and then we will focus on that. CHR. ADAMS: Sure. MS. CHOW: Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Thanks so much. Section 4.2 or 4-2, I was, it was interesting to me in the organizations piece. Not a problem "activities under the direction and supervision of the mayor shall be distributed" that makes sense. The fact that new functions may be assigned by the Mayor to existing agencies without actually having to go through anybody, that was interesting to me. Now you can't create new agencies. You've got to go through the Council, but the new functions piece, now it may be that in the new world, as we approach, we want to have the ability to have that flexibility to create things that need to be done. But to me that was an interesting—that's a lot of authority it seems to me. So anyway. I am so sorry that Commissioner Todd is not here to talk about Section 4-4 because she did during our first meeting, and this has to do with members. I'll just go to the middle of the paragraph, middle of the Section "members of advisory commission shall not receive compensation; however their authorized expenses shall be paid from funds of the agency affected by the commission", and then "Advisory commissions shall have no employees, but the mayor shall cause the employees of the agency concerned to furnish such services as may be needed by the commissions." So this is, this is where you say hey you guys are going to get a commission and you guys are going to have to pay for it out of people, with people and funds. So I just would point that there is nothing that prevents the Mayor from appointing advisory commissions as the Mayor decides the Mayor wants to, and of course you've got to pay for it and I understand all that. And, he is responsible for the budget or at least preparing the budget, so this to the extent that this is, if there is any way of managing that in a better way or establishing some type of limit, I am sure the departments would be happy about that. I am not, but I am not sure the Mayor's office would be, so I guess we will see. There are as was alluded to, 39 total commissions that we have by the way, in the County. At least according to counting them up on the website. Some are State required, some are Charter required and some are ordinance required, and then we have the advisory commissions in addition, so that's a lot. Are there any other items in Section or in Article 4 that folks have comment on? Page 49 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 e. Article V — Executive Branch, Mayor and Staff Agencies CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Let's move on to Article V. Executive Branch, the Mayor and Staff Agencies. Do I have any comments here? This is, when we have the opportunity to speak to the Office of the Mayor, one of the things that I will probably bring up is the way that we have a, as has been talked about, we have a strong Mayor, strong Council form of government right? That is actually not the most prevalent form in the United States. The most prevalent form is actually a Council Manager form of government right. Depending on the size, we are kind of odd in the sense that we have this 4,000 square mile County with no cities, no incorporated cities. And so you, and then, you know the population is kind of spread out all over the place. So we are both small town rural and large town geographic. So we have the issues associated with all of that. The, and so, part of, one of the things I'll be interested in just having a conversation about is, are we doing things the right way? Is this the best way that we can manage? I think we would be, I think it would be crazy to say no more Mayor, but I have been crazy before, so you know that may be something that we have a conversation about. Are we structured for the future right? It's not structured for today, it's not structured for last year, it's structured for the future. Making sure that we have the right kind of structure for managing what we think the future issues are going to be in the County. You've already heard me talk to the Director of Finance about the annual budget and prepping that. That is also in Section, or in Article X. And so, we will see if there's anything more having to do with that. Also, I would say that this is a, so there's a couple of other items. Section 5-2.1 Declaration of Policy having to do with the Cost of Government Commission. I notice that, I guess this is a fairly new, this was 2010, well 2000, 2010, I notice that the policy of the County, it is declared to be the policy of the County in this particular chapter, "to promote economy, efficiency, and improved service in the transaction of the public business in the legislative and executive branches of the county." And then it gives a list of the ways of doing that. And, I wonder if we are not leaving out something. And so, one of the things that I am going to be considering is whether or not equity needs to be part of this policy. So, I notice it actually in some of the County departments, they actually have this nice little cartoon and it talks about equality versus equity and stuff like that and you know that's an interesting road to walk down, but I know that equitable treatment, making sure that we are considering equity in addition to efficiency for example, is something that I am concerned about and may be something that other Commissioners are concerned about as well. Page 50 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 And then, in 5-2.2 Cost of Government Commission, the second sentence there where it says "One member shall be a resident of each council district." When it is talking about..., that writing even though that's a, I notice that also in another Section. I think it had to do with the Fire Commission maybe, I don't know how a member can be a resident of each council district. And so, the phrasing of that, I would like us to take a look at, that's a technical change and I get that, but I think that that phrasing can be better. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. And, may I? CHR. ADAMS: Please. Mr. Henricks. MR. HENRICKS: This is Jon Henricks. Couldn't agree more. I have always kind of had that thought in my head, like that's a lot of places to live. You know what's interesting is though, is that this is pervasive throughout the Charter. So if we made that change, it would be in a lot of areas. CHR. ADAMS: It would be in a lot of areas, right. MR. HENRICKS: It would be something to the effect of each Council district shall be represented by a member, you know, just off the top of my head. Something... CHR. ADAMS: We've got to figure out.. MR. HENRICKS: Yes, something better than that, but I just wanted to point out that it is, and perhaps the reason why is that when drafting Charter amendments, what we look to do a lot of times is to provide consistent language. Feeling like if it's worked somewhere else and it hasn't had any problems, that we want to make sure that, and maybe that's why you'll find this throughout the Charter. CHR. ADAMS: Right. MR. HENRICKS: But it is something that certainly could be looked at. CHR. ADAMS: Thanks. Are there any other, please, Commissioner Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Well, I am glad you brought out that admonition to thinking about are we prepared for the future and are we represented as well as we can. I definitely would like to think about that. I just wanted to ask about the vacancy in office and temporary absence or disability. CHR. ADAMS: If you could just, oh this is 5-1.4 MS. GALIMBA: 5-1.4 and 5-1.5. Page 51 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Okay. MS. GALIMBA: So the vacancy cannot, I am assuming that the vacancy could be something where the Mayor would also resign. That would qualify as a vacancy and then that would then trigger another election, is that how I am reading that? MR. YOSHIMOTO: It would. Depending upon when that would occur, because basically this provision provides for a timeline. It talks about the filing deadline for the next election. So depending on when, it could, or the Managing Director would serve out the rest of the term. That's happened before too as well. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. Thanks. MR. HENRICKS: Just for further discussion, or just thoughts I should say, if you look in Section 13-1 there's a definition for what constitutes a vacancy. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. MR. HENRICKS: There's actually 10. Ten things listed that could occur to create a vacancy in office. It's on page 52. MS. GALIMBA: Thanks. MR. HENRICKS: Mm-hmm. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Galimba, did you have something on the temporary absence or disability? MS. GALIMBA: No. I was just, yeah, so these go together. CHR. ADAMS: Great. Thank you. MS. GALIMBA: Thanks. CHR. ADAMS: Are there any other comments having to do with... yes, Commissioner Saquing. MS. SAQUING: I just had a, an overall question because you were able to refer us to a whole other section, is it prudent and I am a first time shot at this process, to cross-reference like when you are reading that Charter, to include to refer to the next section so it is clearer, or is it just assumed that you will read along and you'll find it like 13 sections away? Page 52 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MR. HENRICKS: This is Jon Henricks. That's an excellent question. That's something that you know we encounter. When I say we, people like Leslie Chow and myself, when we are drafting trying to, you know, sometimes it is important, critical, and almost necessary to link right within the provision itself "as provided for" or "pursuant to Section" so and so, but at other times because again, it is just so many different places, if you did that and made those direct connections, it would be, it would just be very difficult to read and the wording would become difficult. So, it does then require knowledge of the other sections and having a lot of familiarity with the Charter and what's there to actually work with it. And, I don't—there's no right or wrong. There's not a right or wrong way to do it. Sometimes we do it and we shouldn't, and sometimes we don't and we should. MS. SAQUING: Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you Commissioner. MS. SAQUING: Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Seeing no other comments having to do with Articles I through V from the Commissioners, I'd then like to move on, once I find my, here we are to Item 3 under New Business. Communication Number 3, Forination of Ad Hoc Committees. Comm. No. 3: Formation of Ad Hoc Committees The Commission may establish one or more ad hoc committees to investigate matters within its prescribed duties that have been disclosed on the agenda, made available for public testimony, and deliberated upon by the commission. Any such formation will require that the scope of the investigation and each member's authority be clearly defined, and membership be limited to no less than two and no more than five commissioners. CHR. ADAMS: At this particular point, this particular communication is in here for the purpose of allowing the Commission to form ad hoc committees if there was a desire to do so. Is there a desire to do so by any Commissioner? MR. HENRICKS: Chair Adams? CHR. ADAMS: Please. MR. HENRICKS: Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. It's an excellent question, but there were some commissioners that weren't here last time when we talked about what an ad hoc committee is. CHR. ADAMS: Mr. Henricks, would you be so kind to make that explanation? Page 53 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Motion to Create Ad Hoc Committee: MR. HENRICKS: So we had a really good, excellent discussion last time about ad hoc committees and what an ad hoc committee is it's a group between two and five of you that would form to investigate something specific, do the work of a whole commission but on your own accord not subject to the Sunshine Law. You can meet at anytime, anywhere, and then, it's a working group essentially. It's a three meeting process so it does take some time when you need to establish the group and what it is there for, another meeting to bring the work of the group back to the commission as a whole, but it sits, so that allows for some public inspection of what the ad hoc corn.tnittee did. Then the third meeting would be to address the recommendations or the findings of the ad hoc committee. So, that's what Chair Adams is talking about when he is saying you know, is there any interest in forming ad hoc committees, again, it is just to form a smaller group of the commission to work on a specific matter on its own accord, not subject to the Sunshine Law requirements. MR. YOSHIMOTO: With one important note. You cannot make any commitment to vote. So, when you—if you fonn a committee, and you meet together, you can express ideas but you can't say "hey, I support that. I am going to back you up" and stuff, cause that would violate the Sunshine Law. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Roehrig. MR. ROEHRIG: Thank you. 1—does it make sense to make an ad hoc committee to look into reducing the two percent to one percent in purchasing public lands? CHR. ADAMS: Is that a motion? MR. ROEHRIG: Well, up for discussion. CHR. ADAMS: Let's have a motion so we can have the discussion. MR. ROEHRIG: I'll make such a motion. Mr. Roehrig moved to create and ad hoc committee for the purpose of investigating Charter Section 10-15, to explore the possibility of reducing the annual percentage of real property tax revenues going to the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Fund from two percent to one percent. Seconded by Commissioner Zelko. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Mr. Chairman, real quick. Sony to interrupt. Did you also want to include the Maintenance Fund as well? Because that was discussed as well. Because there's both the— Page 54 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Is that 10-16? MR. YOSHIMOTO: Yeah. CHR. ADAMS: So 10-15 and 10-16. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Just for discussion purposes. CHR. ADAMS: That was the intent of your ? MR. ROEHRIG: Sure. CHR. ADAMS: Okay, great. MR. HENRICKS: And also just to be clear, what I heard from Cornrnissioner Roehrig was specifically about the amount of revenues that are required to be deposited. Is it, is that how you want to limit the scope of the investigation? MR. ROEHRIG: I plead ignorance exactly how the law is written and interpreted. But I heard her say that she wanted to reduce, or thinking about reducing the two percent— CHR. ADAMS: I'd like to leave it a little broader then... MR. HENRICKS: And that's why I asked him that, and I'm glad you said that, because this is the critical part about forming the ad hoc is when you say within your motion and discussion what the scope of investigation is. That's another important part of an ad hoc committee is you have to limit it to that. You cannot work on, report on things, other than what are described in the scope of investigation. CHR. ADAMS: So you're, as I understand the motion that you have made, Mr. Roehrig, it's to take a look at Sections 10-15 and 10-16 having to do with the PONC (Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Preservation Commission) Commission and Maintenance Fund? MR. ROEHRIG: Sounds good to me. CHR. ADAMS: And it's been seconded. Second's good with that? Okay. Any discussion? Mr. Roehrig, do you have any additional—? MR. ROEHRIG: No, nothing additional. CHR. ADAMS: Okay, you think this is important because—? Page 55 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 MR. ROEHRIG: It reduces it to one percent. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. MR. ROEHRIG: Put it this way. I've seen some of the purchases and I'm not all that knowledgeable, but I've seen some purchases of some property and I go, "That's a waste of money." You know, so—and that's a chunk of change, the two percent. CHR. ADAMS: Okay, any other comments? So for the purposes of the—I'm going to ask you a question, Mr. Henricks. So for the purposes of this motion and the discussion, in an "aye" vote for this would authorize an ad hoc, authorize the establishing of an ad hoc committee to look after those items that are listed in the motion. Then the formation of that particular committee would be up to the Chair? MR. HENRICKS: Yeah, you're ahead of me. That's where I was going. I think simply if this motion's approved, then you can go into forming it right now. CHR. ADAMS: Right, identifying the members and what we would expect to see when they... MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. Scope has been fairly well defined, so you'd go membership and then roles of the members. And the roles of the members doesn't have to be too explicit. I don't think that's too critical. CHR. ADAMS: Alright. Thank you. Alright seeing—please, Commissioner Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: So clarification. So for this committee, you'd be investigating the two statutes, the PONC sections. So investigating would be bringing up ideas and justifications? What would the investigation consist of generally speaking? MR. HENRICKS: This is good, because now we're helping further define the scope of the investigation. So I understand this to mean looking at both sections in their entirety, and then the ad hoc committee would bring forward recommendations for amendments, is the ultimate objective. CHR. ADAMS: That's what we're looking at. Yeah, please. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah, before Mr. Roehrig speaks, I just ask him to make sure he's close to the microphone because we want to get every word of what you have to say on the record. Page 56 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Vote on Modified Motion to Create Ad Hoc Committee: (Approved): MR. ROEHRIG: The two of you are going to be there to help us—excuse me, not us—may not be on the committee, but if there's an ad hoc committee, can we rely on you folks too, if we have questions or assistance, or—? Okay. MR. HENRICKS: Yes. CHR. ADAMS: Mr. Hamano. MR. HAMANO: Can the ad hoc committee consult, like for example with some of the agencies of the County government? MR. HENRICKS: It can consult with any one person, regardless of what their standing or stature is. MR. HAMANO: Okay. Thank you. MR. HENRICKS: Mm-hznim. CHR. ADAMS: This is he's using the phraseology from— MR. HENRICKS: Well what I meant to say was it doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to County officials or employees. I probably should have said that. MR. YOSHIMOTO: So maybe a better way, I am sorry, this is Mr. Yoshimoto. A better way to state it is the committee can basically carry out its duties in the best way it sees fit, and that includes talking to department people, people in the public, any resources that you can find useful and necessary. How's that? MR. HAMANO: Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Okay, so we've had a motion on the floor, we've had discussion regarding that motion. All in favor of the motion—does anybody need it restated? Okay all in favor say "aye." The motion to create and ad hoc committee for the purpose of investigating and bringing forth recommendations for amendments to Charter Sections 10-15 and 10-16, was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Commissioners Bergin, Galimba, Hamano, Roehrig, Saquing, Springer, Zelko-Schlueter, and Chair Adams – 8. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Hopkins, Todd, and Rice – 3. Excused: None. Page 57 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Membership CHR. ADAMS: The motion passes. Okay, so we have formation of an ad hoc and Roles committee to look at 10-15 and 10-16. Mr. Roehrig—well, let me rephrase that. of Ad Hoc Who is interested in serving on this committee? Okay so, is there anyone else Committee: interested in doing that? Okay, so I would ask Mr. Roehrig if you would serve as the Chair of that committee. MR. ROEHRIG: Sure. CHR. ADAMS: And then the committee would then consist of also Commissioner Hamano, Commissioner Springer, and Commissioner Zelko. Okay, so now we have the committee. The idea is then to at our next meeting, to come forward—we would then have a report from your committee having to do with that investigation. Mr. Henricks. MR. HENRICKS: That would be great if it's on the next meeting. if you can do that, that quickly. I would just say generally too, as an aside, and ask Mr. Yoshimoto to verify this or confirm it. The fact that there's an ad hoc committee wouldn't preclude anybody for coming up with proposals to those sections in the interim of its completing its work, anything of that nature. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. MR. ROEHRIG: Question? CHR. ADAMS: Mr. Roehrig. MR. ROEHRIG: Can we meet any time we want to, that everyone agrees on? CHR. ADAMS: That's entirely up to you. You're the Chair of the committee. MR. ROEHRIG: Okay. CHR. ADAMS: Mr. Yoshimoto. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Just to be clear. So if the committee is not able to complete its work by the next meeting, that's okay, too, right? They can there's no hard and fast deadline, is what I'm asking, CHR. ADAMS: No. But we're operating on a hard and fast deadline because we've got to get stuff done. But yes, I mean, if they're not able to complete the investigation and they need a few, you know, some more time, then they need Page 58 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 some more time. I mean, the end result is that if we don't get any information from the committee, we're going to continue to work anyway. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Okay, I just was going to make sure because it didn't sound like, you know. CHR. ADAMS: I was just being ultra -aggressive. MR. YOSHIMOTO: The other point I wanted to make sure because not everyone was here. So in terms of the ad hoc committee, assuming the report is ready for the next meeting, then that report is just presented to the Commission and to the public, no discussion is had at that time, and then there will be discussion at the subsequent meeting. Just so that's clear. So in case—you know, don't talk about it. Because once you think you're done, you're not really done, you're still in the process of working through the report. CHR. ADAMS: We all understood that. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Good. Okay, making sure. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Yoshimoto. Mr. Bergin, you wanted to make a comment? MR. BERGIN: No, actually I wanted to have, when I voted, I put the light on and I was just pushing this away. CHR. ADAMS: Okay, I'm just trying to pay attention. Okay, anything else having to do with Communication Number 3? Alright, thank you. We would now move into Reports, seeing no other New Business. REPORTS: The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, Reports. (There were none.) CHR. ADAMS: If we had a report from the ad hoc committee that's where we would see it. Isn't that correct Mr. Henricks? Great. REFERRALS The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, FOR EXECUTIVE Referrals for Executive Session. SESSION: (There were none.) Page 59 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 AGENDA ITEMS FOR NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, Agenda Items for Next Regularly Scheduled Meeting. CHR. ADAMS: The next item would be agenda items for the next regularly scheduled meeting. And so, at this point I would take any suggestions from Commissioners on future agenda items. If I may Commissioners, I would like to at this time, ask Mr. Henricks to hand out some, the forins, the templates if you will, for making proposals and ask him to give us a brief, have a brief conversation about the to dos on what he is handing out. MS. SAQUING: I have a question. Can we go back to the ad hoc? CHR. ADAMS: As soon as he does that, we'll do that. MS. SAQUING: Okay. (inaudible) MR. HENRICKS: This is Jon Henricks. So what was just passed out to you intentionally says 2009-10. It is what was used by the previous Commission and has not been adjusted in any way at this point in time. What I was hoping, is that you guys could look at it and see if it works for you folks and if you have any suggestions on changing it, and again, the objective of this form is basically how you are going to get your idea for an amendment to the rest of your Commissioners to go on the agenda. As I read the rules for your Commission, there actually is three readings as opposed to, you know we talked — there is a first reading and a second reading, as the rules read, before you can get to first reading, there has to be a conceptual reading where the Commission votes favorably on an idea. So my understanding of what that forms is, is to get your idea in front of the Commission and if that idea is agreeable, to the majority of the Commission, we would then go ahead and invest the time into drafting what would look like, you know, what would be a proposed amendment to the Charter and then that would come back for first reading. So when you look at that form there's basically questions about the purpose, what sections would be changed, and I think almost the most important part when you are filling it out, and you can call J, myself, whatever just for some advice if you were to do so, is being as specific as possible as what you want the change to be while also allowing some latitude for discussion on it at the meeting. But it is important to let the rest of the Commissioners know and the public as well, what you are going to be considering as a change. Page 60 Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 Item 6 which is on the second page of that form, I don't know how well it worked at the last Commission, but it is actually asking you guys to kind of draft an amendment, and I don't know if that's maybe premature at that point. I kind of like the concept of you guys coming up with again a conceptual idea for a change, but that's specific enough for public notice and for discussion, so please think about that and you know, I wager that Chair Adams will be meeting with us next week to debrief on this meeting and we will talk, hopefully we will get to talk about the form itself and the protocols for how we are going to go through this process of proposing amendments, but you know, the long and short of it is that's what was used last time. I want you guys to look at it and see if you have any suggestions for how you guys would be comfortable putting forward your ideas for the rest of your Commissioners to consider at a duly noticed meeting. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you Mr. Henricks. So the idea here, and I would just make one comment which is, as we proceed, whether or not we include Item six here on the template about attaching a text, don't get wrapped around the axel on the wording. The idea is to get the ideas out here so that we can have a conversation on that. We've got very well qualified folks to help us with the drafting. In drafting it, the reason number six can be helpful is that clarifies in your own mind when you actually have to kind of write down what you are looking to do, but the idea of having a ballot ready proposal is something that we are going to have help with down the road anyway. The idea here is let's get the stuff on the table so we can have a conversation about it. Okay? Again, thank you very much for giving us that and so, my guess is that we will include something specific about talking about our proposal forms at our, on our next agenda, but that was, I wanted to make sure that we had these and we had the opportunity to at least begin the process of thinking about that. Before we get to you, let me just make sure, are there any other suggestions from Commissioners on future agenda items? Does anybody have anything? You of course have the opportunity to provide suggestions on agenda items by you know emailing them or calling me. I think everybody has my phone number and you have my email address, and suggest, send me those things. You know the deadlines. It's in our, we have just received new calendars that we will put into our, so that identifies what the cutoff dates are, so give us a few days if there is something that you want to include so we can make sure that it is considered. I know that there was some questions about who has the authority to put things on the agenda. In the rules that we passed, which doesn't mean that they can't be amended, but in the rules that we passed, the Chair has the authority to put the things on the agenda. There isn't anything in there that I am aware of that says that the Commissioners can vote to include something on the agenda that outweighs what the Chair does. That's just the way the rules are written. Page 61 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 You know, I can't make any guarantees because we can't read the future, but it's my predilection to make sure that we put as much stuff out there as we can. So it would be hard for me to believe that I would not take items that Commissioners want to include in the agenda and not include them. There might be a timing issue, that might be one issue, but ultimately, I can't imagine not doing it. But, you know, never say never on anything. I understand that too, so, seeing no comments or suggestions at this time, what I would like to do before we move on to announcements, if it is okay, I would like to move back in the agenda to New Business Item 3. May I do that? Okay. Comm. No. 3: Formation of Ad Hoc Committees CHR. ADAMS: I understand that Commissioner Saquing, you have a question or a comment? MS. SAQUING: Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to check can we in the formation of ad hoc committees, can that be done at any point in time during our process? Or are we only allowed to do it right at this stage? MR. HENRICKS: Chair Adams, the intention is to keep this item coming on each future agenda. MS. SAQUING: Okay. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. So now is not, it's not now or never, is my understanding. MS. SAQUING: Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: That's my understanding as well. Okay. Thank you. MEETING: ANNOUNCE- The Chair directed the Commission to proceed to the next order of business, MENTS: Announcements. 1. Next regular meeting (subject to change) DATE: Friday, September 14, 2018 TIME: 1:30 p.m. PLACE: Building A (Council Chambers), West Hawai`i Civic Center, Kailua-Kona Page 62 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Kailua-Kona, Kailua-Kona, Kailua-Kona as opposed to these chambers for you know, I could, we are all adults, well all figure out how to get there. Everybody that comes from over there has to get here, but if there is an interest in carpooling how do we manage that without breaking rules? MR. YOSHIMOTO: Just don't talk about board business and you will be fine. CHR. ADAMS: So carpooling is not board business. MR. YOSHIMOTO: No. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Good. MR. HENRICKS: Not unto itself. CHR. ADAMS: Okay. Great. MR. HENRICKS: Chair Adams may I make a couple of comments that kind of„ CHR. ADAMS: Mr. Henricks. Yes. MR. HENRICKS: combine the last two agenda items and also offer to people if they are interested in traveling with us, we might have a few extra seats when we go over. We have a lovely new van that we're excited to get on the road. But, just combining the last two items, the next meeting and the agenda items, I just wanted to give a glimpse of what we are going to be doing next time is kind of going to be what we did today. We are going to bring some more department heads before you folks and then I presume look at Articles VI through X or XI. CHR. ADAMS: Right. We will take a look. I am a little, I am actually a little sorry I mean we, maybe we didn't figure that, I figured it would take longer and so, the fact that we are finishing at 4:30, I am sure nobody is really upset about but I know that there will be meetings that will be later and so, you know, we will be a little more aggressive perhaps in what we think we can get through given what we were able to do today. We will take a look at what the articles are. As we chatted in the past, the idea is to make sure that the folks we come to ask us, they get put on to the agenda first because we want to make sure that we don't screw around with their time. Not that our time is not important but then we will move into a review of the Articles as we did today. After we have had the opportunity to hear those presentations. And, I would anticipate that there will be on the agenda, that there may be some proposals or a proposal on the agenda as well, for us to consider. Give us the Page 63 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 opportunity to kind of walk through one of those. We'll see how that all works out. I am not laying out the agenda right now, but I am just saying that that's a chance. Yes? MR. YOSHIMOTO: On the agenda, just a note that if the report from the ad hoc committee is going to be submitted for the next agenda, you know there is a six day window that we need to post by, so we need to get it... Mr. Henricks how soon would you like the report so it can appear on the agenda? MR. HENRICKS: That also doesn't take into account the rules require actually 11 days before, but that's at your discretion as far as I am concerned. So next agenda will be posted on or about September 6th or 7th so ideally before the end of this month which is kind of short but that's, yeah, so... CHR. ADAMS: And so, if it is not done by then, then we would, then we would push to receive in the report the following meeting in October. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. And hard to say as of now, how long it is going to take. CHR. ADAMS: Absolutely. Yeah, that's particularly, you know I understand, I mean we are kind of having a little bit of a gab fest right now, but I understand that that's a particular item that is of interest to a lot of folks and so, the more detailed the ad hoc committee can be in its investigation and report the better it will be for the entire Commission ultimately. Okay. Any other comments on the announcements from any of the Commissioners? I just want to thank you all for being here and the hard work that you have already done, 73 pages of minutes notwithstanding. And, as in all things, we will take a look at whether or not that's something that needs to be done. That's a transcript. I understand that that was a lot of reading, particularly for the folks that weren't here. And so, you know, we will take a look at that and whether or not there is another way that we can manage that. There is going to be enough reading throughout this whole process as well, but I also understand that the minutes serve a purpose not just for the Commissioners but also for the public. And so, trying to balance that as well as the workload for our incredibly efficient and hardworking staff, Mr. Yoshimoto included. Thank you all and everybody if you haven't voted, make sure you vote tomorrow. And, I would just like to end with a thank you to our first responders. I had the opportunity to attend the public memorial service that was held last Saturday for officer Kaliloa that was supportive of his family. I was just awestruck by the level of support that was provided by law enforcement from this County, from across the State, and frankly from across the Nation, and by all the first Page 64 Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 responders that were there as well as many, many members of the public. Our first responders particularly are folks that are in law enforcement and of course our emergency medical and fire fighters do an incredible job and I just wanted to point that out. So, thanks to them. Thanks to you, and I would entertain a motion to adjourn. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, at 4:39 p.m. Mr. Roehrig moved that the meeting be adjourned. Seconded by Ms. Galimba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Commissioners Bergin, Galimba, Hamano, Roehrig, Saquing, Springer, Zelko-Schlueter, and Chair Adams — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Hopkins, Todd, and Rice 3. Excused: None. Commission Approval: 9/14/18 ass Shipman Adams, Chair 20! 8 020 Hawai`i County Charter Commission Page 65