MIN CHARTER 2018-09-14 (2018-2020)

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Hawaii County Charter Commission -3 September 14, 2018 a. Department of Research and Development- Director; Diane Ley (Note: At this time, Research and Development Director; Diane Ley and Deputy Director; Ron Whitmore came forward to address the members of the Commission. Ms. Ley and Mr. Whitmore presented a PowerPoint presentation to the Commission. See Charter Communication No. 4.4) CHR. ADAMS: As Director Ley comes forward I would remind you as we did last time, if you could please hold your questions until after her presentation, after all of the presentations of our presenters today, as you know they may actually answer your questions during their presentations. Okay?, alright. Okay, so Director Ley if you could introduce yourself and of course your guest as well. MS. LEY: Aloha. Good afternoon Chair and Commissioners. I am Diane Ley. 1 am the Director for the County of Hawai`i Department of Research and Development and with me is the Deputy Director, Ron. MR. WHITMORE: Good Afternoon. Good to see some familiar faces. Thank you all very much for your service to the County in this critical role. Ron Whitmore, Deputy Director, Department of Research and Development. MS. LEY: So, we are pleased to be able to present a short slide presentation and then we are available for questions and answers. Excuse me, so, I think many of you may be familiar with the department. We've worked with many of you from various organizations and initiatives throughout the island. We are a pretty diverse department with a diverse mission and that is to advance knowledge and innovation, really to make Hawai`i County a great place to live, work, and visit. We work hard to inform both planning and policy and programmatic decision making by providing data driven research and we collaborate in the development and funding of initiatives. Really seeking to balance the environment, community, and the economy throughout the island. Our goals- our goals are really focused on what is derived out of the community voices through the general plan and community development plans, and they really drive that vision of where we are going and so for us, much of that focus is on economic development. We want a diverse, strong, stable economy, and that includes households, a household's self-sufficiency is critical. Some of our major program areas obviously are the tourism sector, that's our largest sector. But, it is important for that to be in balance with both our communities, our history, and our natural resources. Page 4