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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PRPSC 2021/08/17 2020-2022Committee on Parks and Recreation and Public Safety 13th Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawai i August 17, 2021 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Parks and Recreation and Public ORDER: Safety was called to order at 9:00 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Chair Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Vice Chair (via videoconference from Hilo) Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung. Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member (came in later) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. The following individuals registered to speak in support of Bill 60 (Comm. 346), and came forward when called by the Chair: Michael Doolittle Deborah Lewis The following individuals registered to speak in regards to Comm. 360, and came forward when called by the Chair: Shannon Matson Dr. Angela Longo Joseph Mallak Dr. Jade McGaff PRPSC-13 Clare Loprinizi Sofia Wilt Eugene Elmer Heidi McKeague Ali Eden Jaerick Medeiros-Garcia Gurudarshan Khalsa Jack Ebner Samantha Olson Michelle Melendez Rebecca Canevali Mary Colton Josephine Keliipio Barbara Hope Barbara Garcia August 17, 2021 Megan Issac Millicent Cummings CHR. INABA: Public testimony is now closed. Mr. Clerk, can we please move on to our first communication? COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 360: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY MAYOR MITCHELL D. ROTH REGARDING POTENTIAL CHANGES TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC POLICIES AND PROGRAMS From Council Member Aaron S. Y. Chung, dated August 5, 2021. Page 2 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 Motion to Close File: Ms. Lee Loy moved to close file on Comm. 360. Seconded by Mr. Richards. CHR. INABA: We have Mayor Roth here in the Chambers in Kona. Mr. Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, thank you very much. Let me lead off on this matter, and as much I did make the request. You know, this is our second wave sort of speak, and those of us who are here during the last term and of course that doesn't include Mr. Inaba and Ms. Kimball. But often times Council Members would be asked, you know, what are you guys doing about the COVID situation? And you know, I think the public has now come to understand what the various roles are, okay, you know, during times of stated emergencies, you know, the Chief Executive for both the State and the Counties take the lead on emergency management. So I haven't really been getting too many requests for what we on the Council are going to be doing recently, but I have been hearing, but I have to believe everyone else has been hearing the same thing too, what is the Administration's position on this matter? I've heard it quite often, particularly with this thing going on. Now you know, what we have on the agenda isn't really what I had sent to Mayor Roth, so I want to read it so that everybody knows I'm not trying to set the Mayor up, because I would never do that. And this is what was sent to him. It basically said, can't even read this thing it's so small now. It asked for a short presentation, okay, by the Mayor regarding any changes in policies or programs you may have planned, or are contemplating. Just so that you could—you know, this is an opportunity to address many of the questions that have been coming up by the public, and if any for the County. And then I also said that I'm fully aware that our spike is not unlike what other cities and states throughout the country are experiencing. Indeed throughout the world, you know, that's second wave right, coming about. So we're not unusual in that regard, but there are some concerning aspects though. But the fact that our County by most accounts has the highest positivity rate, and a disproportionally high number of cases relative to the other islands, it is a concerning situation to our residents. And that's the reason. And I wanted to also make another point. Because of our Council Rules and the way we run things, we have to get things agendized well in advance, right? So a lot of these things could be moot, because actually right after I had sent this memo out, or this request, maybe within a day or even less, the Governor held a press conference which has set the tone I think for the rest of the State. But it doesn't preclude of course the counties from doing their own thing. So Mayor Roth I'm really appreciative of you, you coming here and giving us your thoughts. It boils down to this, if there's going to be no change, then that's Page 3 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 the end of that. If there's going to be deference to the State, then that's the end of that too. But if there are some island specific changes that are going to be contemplated the public would like to know, you know, they want to know what to expect. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Mayor Mitch D. Roth came forward to address the members if the Committee.) MR. ROTH: Thank you, Council Member Chung and members of the Council. As you know this request came out last week, my schedule is kind of booked out about three to four weeks in advance right now. It's been pretty crazy, plus meetings with the Governor and other people. So I'm actually supposed to be in another meeting, but I thought it was important enough to be down here and rescheduling meetings all day. My 9:00 o'clock meeting we were able to take care of earlier, my 10:00 o'clock is actually waiting for me so I'm going to give you a little bit of what's going on. And I have Steve Bader from my office, Talmadge Magno from Civil Defense, Betsy Strance our Corporation Counsel also here to take any questions. But I did get a chance to hear a lot of the testimony this morning, I didn't get to hear all of it, I got to hear a lot of it. And it's interesting to see how much power people believe that we have, that we really don't have. We control what we control, and we don't control what we don't control. And so what's happening at the schools with the athletics, we've had conversations with the Governor the Governor makes those decisions. We've had conversations about what happens at our airports. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree as Mayors talking to the Governor. The Governor sometimes will go with us, sometimes we'll all be together and decisions being made, sometimes we're not. So the rules that people believe that a Mayor can make, or believe that the Council can make, sometimes we have no control. I heard a lot on the medications. Why aren't you mandating doctors to prescribe Ivermectin? As Council Members you know that you don't have that power, I don't have that power, the Governor doesn't have that power. But let me just share with you what I've been seeing. Yesterday and today I've visited both the Hilo Hospital, and the Kona Hospital. At the Hilo Hospital I got a chance to talk their emergency physicians, and one of the questions I asked one of the emergency physicians was are you using Ivermectin? I have a lot of these people telling me that, you know, they can't use it. They said we use everything we can. And so I went back on this whole thing on Ivermectin, how effective is it? You know, it's like everything else it can be, and a lot of times it's not. They use a bunch of different drugs that's available to them. But I know a lot of people think that you just treat them with Ivermectin and they're done. That's really not the case. What the hospital is seeing is that people who are most likely to be put in Page 4 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 the hospital are people who aren't vaccinated. I know a lot of these people we just heard from don't want to hear that, but it's somewhere around 97 percent. One hundred percent of the people in Kona Hospital right now, are unvaccinated. One hundred percent. And talking to Hilo Hospital yesterday, what they're saying is that people who are unvaccinated and come down with COVID are on the average spending about four weeks in the hospital. People who get COVID, and have been vaccinated maybe six to seven days and generally those people have other things going on with them. So you know, we're looking at what we're seeing, and what we're seeing is right now our numbers are skyrocketing. And it's a shame, because we as a County have been doing I think a great job. And I'm not talking about the government, I'm talking about the community on the Big Island. Our County had been doing a great job up until recently, but we started to let down our guards. I let down my guard, I think all of you probably have let down your guard. You know, it's not a time to be pointing fingers and accessing blame, it's time to say, "Wake up we know that we have an issue. We need to come together as a community and start, you know, doing the right things." Stop you know, maybe some of the gatherings. And I know some of these people who just testified, wear your mask we know this is something that spreads, especially in close contact. So when you're out in public wear your mask, when you're in places. Stop the gatherings, we had too many large gatherings where we've let down the guards. You know, again, I'm not pointing fingers because I've been to some of those things, and I think all of us have. We need to take responsibility as a community, and work on this. So what rules have we've been putting down? Most of the rules as of last year the Governor took the Mayors' ability to make their own rules, kind of a way. We suggest rules, we make our proclamations those proclamations go to the Governor, the Governor either approves them or recommends changes. So we are looking at making some rule changes, especially with what we're seeing. What we're seeing right now is we're on fire, our hospitals are in trouble. In both the Hilo and Kona Hospitals we have more people in ICU in our Intensive Care Unit, in beds there, with COVID, than not with COVID in the ICU. In Hilo Hospital the other day they told me they had someone waiting for two days in the emergency room, because they couldn't get them into an ICU room. That's scary. If we would of have a disaster, even a minor disaster, major car crash, a storm—you know, we have a hurricane bearing down hopefully this is going to miss us. But if we needed to use our hospitals, not just Hilo Hospital, not just Kona Community Hospital, the whole State is in trouble. Yesterday we had 38 FEMA nurses, start working at Kona Community Hospital. That is not a good situation. So what are we looking at, we're looking at how we can pull back some Page 5 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 of our rules so we don't have to shut our community down. I don't think anybody wants to shut our community down. So we are looking at possibly doing a little bit more enforcement, changing our way of enforcement. Enforcement we've been looking at arrests, we're probably going to go to citations. And start, you know, looking at issuing a lot more citations when people aren't following the current rules that we have. We went from "shall" to "should" with a lot of our restrictions. For example what happens in our stores with having people clean and spray, and stuff like that. Those are probably going to be a "shoulds." We're looking at the places where people congregate, and have been over -congregating, which could be our parks and beaches, and possibly putting a pause for a couple of weeks there. There's a couple of other small changes that we're looking at, but most of the changes that are being made are being made at the Governor's level, because that's where the authority lies. The schools, that's with the Governor. The hospitals, medicines, that's with the Federal Government. So just remember there's things we can do, and things we can't do. As far as mandates, we have not mandated testing. The Governor's rule says that County or State officials either be vaccinated or get tested. So if you want to say that something been mandated, testing been mandated. I don't think anybody has died from testing. I'll leave with this, and I started with this, we are in a crisis situation. But 90 percent of the counties in America are in a crisis situation. We know what needs to be done, we need to act responsibly all of us. All of us, including you and me. And that's how we get out of this. So I thank you for your time, I thank you for the people that testified. I know you may not agree with me. I heard some things about religion, and biblical sayings. One of the biblical sayings I live with is `Be bold and courageous." And you know, I'm a big believer in God, and God tells me be bold and courageous. And even make those decisions that a lot of people don't agree with, because you believe it's the right thing to do. I think all of us are trying to do the best we can. I heard that from the hospital today, the nurses who are tired, who are worn down. They're saying the message that they would like to get out is they are doing the best they can, and they just want the community to do the best they can. So thank you very much. I have Steve and Talmadge, I don't know if there's any big questions. My 10:00 o'clock been waiting for half an hour though. MR. CHUNG: But yeah, real fast Mayor. I just want to make sure because the whole purpose of this was to get information out this was your opportunity, right? Okay, so there's going to be stepped-up enforcement, no arrest but citations. Page 6 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. ROTH: We're looking at changing our rules, to allow for citations to make easier on the Police. Because part of the problem is you don't want to arrest people, and put the whole cellblock and everybody else in danger. MR. CHUNG: Okay. And then places where people congregate or gather, there's going to be some new rules regarding that? MR. ROTH: We're looking at that right now. MR. CHUNG: Okay. You wouldn't be able to give us an idea what you're thinking of. MR. ROTH: Well we're looking at closing some of those places, some of our parks and beaches where people congregate. MR. CHUNG: Okay. But in terms of the numbers, that's going to be with the Governor that's strictly what Governor is saying. MR. ROTH: That's correct, through the Governor. MR. CHUNG: Not being specific for this island then? MR. ROTH: No. The Governor has that. You know, and if we close the beach parks and stuff like that, we'll still allow people to surf and exercise in the water. We're just not going to have people congregating like they have been. MR. CHUNG: Okay. And you know I don't have any more questions, but if other members if this body has questions for Talmadge or Steve. MR. ROTH: They're still online. MR. CHUNG: Right. And they have authority to speak on your behalf on matters, right? MR. ROTH: That is correct. And Betsy Strance who is Corp. Counsel is here with us. She's actually heading up our COVID Rules Committee. MR. CHUNG: Okay, MR. ROTH: So she's probably even got a better idea of what we're talking about. MR. CHUNG: Well as I said it was intended to be short discussion, and I think you've answered most of it. I don't know how much more other people can answer. I wanted to really thank you though, Mitch, for being here. And I know you came under some criticism by some of the speakers who didn't know that you Page 7 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 were sitting in the audience. But thank you so much for coming. I want to apologize to my colleagues. I didn't anticipate this becoming a platform for theI'm just going to say it, the anti -vaccine community and that's what it became. And that's okay, because I believe that every bit of information or testimony has some educational or relevant value to it, so it's good. And you know, I got a call from one of those guys who testified today, you know, he's a friend of mine. He told me why and what the impetus were, where they got, you know, this information to come forward. It was an organized or concerted effort and that's alright too. But thank you so much, appreciate it. MR. ROTH: And I appreciate that. And I hope you realize that not everything that you hear over these things are true. Aaron has never invited me, nor have I ever been to his house. MR. CHUNG: Thank you very much, Mayor. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: I just have a quick question. Mayor, thank you for helping to clarify our sphere of authority and influence in the different roles that we all hold, whether that be on the Council or as the Mayor of the County. Being the representative of District 7, what's coming to my ears most often are questions about Ironman and it being a major event hosted in the center of town with thousands of people, and people's concerns about that. So my quick question to you, because I have been trying to gather information from different sources. Do you then—does the decision for whether or not Ironman happens reside with you and your office? MR. ROTH: It ultimately resides with me, and I have to tell you that we're struggling with Ironman. We're having a conversation with them today, and at this point because of what's happening unfortunately it does not look very positive for the Ironman this year. We had a Honu which is a half Ironman, which was very successfully done. They had a lot of great protocols to make sure that everybody was safe in that. The issue with the Ironman quite frankly is what do you do about all the people coming to spectate? And to this point, I have not heard a plan that would make me feel safe for this community. But you know, I would love to see the Ironman happen. And I also realize that, you know, it's something that helps our community, but it's also something that could be a major cause of the spread. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. I just wanted to clarify where that decision lies just have one more quick question. And that is does the decision to reinstate testing at our airports for visitors, does that decision reside with your office? Page 8 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. ROTH: No. Well, yes and no. Governor still has to approve. And so we actually have a request before the Governor. And assuming that we can find the funding, we're talking to some people that may be willing to help us do that. To allow for what they're doing now in San Francisco Airport, which is a self -test kit. You get the kit when you're off, we ask you to test and then get the results. There's pros and cons of doing that. Of course the State and County doesn't necessarily find out, or may not find out who those people are, which skews up numbers and may prevent things like, you know, tracing and stuff like that. On the other side of that, if you have it we ask you to, you know—so we haven't got the okay on that. But with the numbers of people coming through the airport, it's a bit difficult for the airports as well to do that. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. I hear a lot of people frustrated as residents feel they're being punished, and kind of to blame for the community spread. But that frustration is the introduction, and you know, it's just tragic the way a lot of these things have lined up. But I just wanted to clarify with you, where there was a potential for you to identify areas of responsibility and decisions being made. So thank you for helping me clarify that for those two things. Appreciate it. CHR. INABA: Mahalo, Ms. Villegas. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Mr. Mayor, mahalo for being here today as well as having some of your staff here for our questions. With the testimony we heard this morning, I think for you specificallyI mean I have a lot of questions in general but as your time is short. Shannon Matson said it very well, if we're going to require testing or vaccination mandate, or testing mandates however you want to look at it, and the case numbers that we're seeing across the State, with Big Island being second highest in our State as far as cases, are we going to be standing up more testing sites? As we require State and County workers, which is probably the largest workforce in the County or the State to be tested; as well as to handle our residents, who are increasingly becoming more concerned with the coupling of schools opening; are we standing UP more testing sites? Are we increasing our staffing for those testing sites? And how are we going to accomplish this? MR. ROTH: So great question, thank you for asking that one. We are working on setting up more testing sites, we're also asking Department of Health and Department of Education. Department of Education and Department of Health actually have a plan on doing that. Moving forward we're also trying to hire people as we sit here, and as we speak. The issue, and this goes back to Ms. Villegas' question as well, the issue with testing, is the issue for just about every other business. Not just our County and State, but now across the country is finding people to man or staff those testing sites. And so the Department of Education has some plans for the self -test kits for the kids, they're also looking at places like CVS Pharmacy and setting those up. Page 9 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 We're looking at setting up more testing sites, not just in Hilo, and Kona, but also Waimea and trying to get out to Ka`u. It is that the how is a little bit difficult, but we're trying to work with all of our resources together. Got to give a special shout out to KTA, who applied for and got a FEMA grant through the State. And so KTA was actually forward standing, and before they actually had the money they started going out and they started taking on a lot of the testing responsibilities. That is something we are working on very diligently now, and we have regular meetings with Civil Defense, Department of Health, and others, our schools, discussing these issues. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, mahalo. MR. ROTH: I'm going to let Steven, and Talmadge, answer the rest of questions. I apologize, I have some other people that have been waiting for me. I don't want to push my 11 back into 12, because my 12 is also waiting. Thank you guys. Aloha. CHR. INABA: Mahalo, Mayor Roth. Mr. Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder you want to continue with those representatives in the Hilo Chambers? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes, if I could, Chair. CHR. INABA: Yes, go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. Then if you could please introduce yourselves for the record. (Note: At this time Executive Assistant to the Mayor Steve Bader and Civil Defense Administrative Officer Bill Hanson came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. BADER: Good morning, Steve Bader, with the Mayor's Office. And the liaison out of the Mayor's Office on COVID issues, and also work very closely with Civil Defense. MR. HANSON: Aloha. I'm Bill Hanson, I'm an Administrative Officer at Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency. MR. BADER: Yeah, I'll start giving an overview. I think some of you kind of need more information that was presented. CHR. INABA: Excuse me. In Kona here, if you could please pull your mic a little bit closer so we can here you better. Thank you. MR. BADER: Sure. Yeah, I'm going to give kind of an overview where we're at and what we're seeing. And we have Bill who is standing in place of Talmadge Page 10 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 Magno Director, who got detail in some of these areas that I think will be important for everybody to know. And it's also questions that I'm sure you have been getting from your own constituents in your districts. So as the Mayor said, we're in a very urgent situation. And you know, we're looking at over 100 people daily average seven days, a year ago we were less than double digits. The positivity rate has not gone down over the last three or four weeks, it stayed at seven or above which is higher than State average. Although I think the State's average is catching up to us, right now. We are dealing with the hospitalization rates that are the census at the hospitals are near capacity. Some days over, some days a little under. But as the Mayor said, and he's put his eyes on it himself visiting the hospitals, it is a very critical situation. Now the view that we've been taking for a few weeks now is that, especially as the mandate for the vaccines, or mandate for testing, has come down from the State level is that people are free to make their own decisions. You know, however they feel about vaccine, whether it's for religious, medical, or other reasons that's their choice. We understand that. So if you're not going to accept the vaccine for whatever reason it is, then the way that it's set up at the State and then flowing down to the County is that you have to get tested. You know, just get tested. As Mayor said, to our knowledge nobody has passed from taking the test, and I think a lot of us are used to doing it. And so it's not about blaming anybody, it's just about taking the measures as safely as we can and everybody to take some responsibility for doing that. About six weeks ago, Bill and I actually happened to be talking about what Bill described as potential perfect storm of events. And we were looking at Delta Varian started to increase across the State, and we were looking at school opening. This is way, of course, before we understood that the Governor is going to be putting some requirements in place that would end up—and that the rate of infection was going to increase at that rate. But we were already looking forward to that about six weeks ago, and started working on setting up more testing opportunities. Because we had ramp down testing. To give you an idea of when we were doing the pivot to vaccinations out of testing as we ramped down and ended the airport testing program, it was the entire country, and the State had pivoted towards vaccinations. And we would have testing clinics set up, where we'd get 15, 20, 30, people coming in for test. And those same clinics today, they can be getting 300, 400, 500, I think we had 600 might have shown up recently. And so as soon as we can get them set up, and it takes a little coordination to do that, we're being over whelmed. And part of the reason for that of course is that school did start, infections did rise, and then we have to deal with the demand that's created form these new government requirements. You know, which is less than two weeks old. So the demand is overwhelming, and we went from having no community testing except testing available at different health clinics around the island to Page 11 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 where we had a rhythm, where we have between eight, nine, testing opportunities a week, and we are continuing to increase that to make sure the rural areas can get it. The way we have been approaching this perfect storm, that Bill and I had discussed and also with Talmadge, was that our taskforce has been reinstated. The focus has been on vaccinations, but we kind of had to move towards testing, so testing was increased. We had to look at restrictions, as the Mayor has been talking about. Looking at restrictions and enforcement issues, and continue to do the community education and talk about what we can do individually. Our community responsibility. And I agree with what Mayor Roth said, you know, we all let our guards down, I certainly did myself. Now I found myself wearing masks, even though I'm vaccinated a lot less when I went to family get-togethers. I found myself being less concerned, if those get-togethers are more than 10 or 20 people. If I had the understanding within that social setting, or that family setting that there was a high number of people that were vaccinated more so, you know, we all kind of want to get to normal. And that's not to say what's going on today, when a lot of the local residents are saying, "Why you blaming us for it, nothing we're doing is bad." Yeah, nothing you're doing is bad, everything you're doing is normal but we're not in normal times. And I think that's the situation we all have to come to grips with. And so vaccinations, we're at about 58 percent. Statewide we're 61 percent not bad. I don't know how much more vaccinations we can count on. We're going to get more people vaccinating as the approvals come in for use for younger populations. So we're going to see that, but there's going to be a group of people who are not going to vaccinate. And it's not we don't care about them, we care about them. They are our community too, they have different ways of dealing with illnesses or their health. We understand that. But what we can do, is make sure we have a good baseline of what's happening in the community. And you know, folks have said, can you do an analysis by zip code? Well we could do that, but actually—and many of you that I know do receive information from various sources so you can see what the spread is around the Big Island. Right now it doesn't matter because it's every corner of the island we have increase, so we just have to take it sort of an island -wide approach to that. County of Hawaii, the Mayor has as he said, we've asked that the State consider delaying opening of school. Maui County also made that request. We have, as Mayor has stated, asked the Governor to reconsider reinstating portion of safe travel on the testing side. We are working on the enforcement issues, which it can be a little bit thorny because you're adding an increase workload, not just to our law enforcement people but for the judicial system. You know, there was legislation that was Page 12 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 passed this past session that authorizes the counties to be able to use certain citations, and different levels of fines. And we're kind of working through that with our Prosecutors, Attorney General, and our Police force to see how that would work. And all of that would require extra patrols. We're going to have to kind of take a team approach on some of this, whether we have Fire Department do what they used to do before where they were doing outreach and checks. Engaging our Liquor Commission and making sure they can also double check on licenses, so it's going to have to be a team approach on that. I guess the bottom line is, that we really wanted our community to understand that we are beyond the finger pointing phase. And as Dr. Char said, Department of Health Director said, we're on bre. And when you're on bre, you use everything in front of you to make sure you put that fire out. Whether it's putting water on it, whether it's digging trenches, back burning, using fire retardant, everything you can do in your tool box to put that fire out. What you don't do is ask who's going to pay for the water before you put that fire out. So we're definitely kind of in that mode. There's some specific's about what we're doing in testing, and as we get into looking at isolation quarantine units where there's a demand that's starting to rise. Then we're going to have Bill speak too. Go ahead, Bill. MR. HANSON: Again, aloha everyone. Thank you, County Council, for all of your support over these years to Hawaii County Civil Defense. We appreciate all of your kokua. Also we appreciate the kokua of our residents, and our businesses out there. It's been a long haul, we've still got a ways to go, but together we'll face this and we'll take it on and move forward. So I thought maybe I can share first of all some numbers with everybody, okay? So when it comes to testing and vaccination clinics out there, we should understand they've always been out there, not necessarily community County sponsored, but we have multiple clinics, we have multiple pharmacies out there that already have been doing a fantastic job of providing vaccination and testing. So they're out there. We published that on the County website, we have calendar, we also have comprehensive lists out there. However, in supplementing that the County has, and continues to have scheduled clinics for testing and for vaccination. So Monday is set apart for Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium, and both that's KTA, mahalo to KTA for stepping up and for offering and taking that on. On Tuesday it's Kona Community Aquatic Center. And then on Wednesday we have testing by Premier Medical Group and that's as we need it. Usually it's over at Hilo Lanes is where they'll do it. And then on Thursday we have Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium again, so twice at least at Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium. And then Friday, King Kamehameha Park up in North Kohala. Then over on Saturday, Waimea District Park, and on Saturday Hawaiian Ocean View Estates. Yeah, so those are the ones that we have so far. So as you could see basically Page 13 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 Monday thru Saturday, basically everyday, there's either a clinic for vaccination, or a clinic for testing and/or vaccination and testing. So we did ramp that up. We also have other partners out there again, as I mentioned, Premier Medical Group, S&G Labs, that are also providing these satellite areas for support and for coverage. So that's for testing. And also for vaccination we have KTA Premier Medical Group, Hilo Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente, Queens North Hawaii, Ka`u Rural Health Community Association, and the Hamakua Kohala Health. So far for the testing that was sponsored by the County of Hawaii since March 23 of 2020. Not this year, but the year prior. We have conducted the total number of tests 43,647, the total number that tested positive is 1,746, which an approximately a positivity rate of four percent. At the County airport testing operations, which we conducted from October 15, of 2020 through June 14 of this year. This was under the Mayor Rule of number 12, which was signed on September 28, 2020, we conducted—it went out as much as easily 2,000 test a day, sometimes over 3,000 topping close to 4,000 tests a day. That's both at Kona airport as well as Hilo airport. Then the test that were positive out of there was approximately, I don't have the accurate number right now, but it's approximately 600 were tested positive that came through that system When it comes to ICU beds, the U. S. averages 68 percent, this is pre-COVID, 68 percent of the beds in the United States are occupied. In Hawaii for the period between June 19,° 2020 and now, our occupancy rate has been approximately 67 percent. So one percent lower than pre-COVID in the U. S. of which non-COVID occupancy rate is 59 percent, and COVID occupancy rate is eight percent. So the total occupancy bed days since June 10, that we count is 10,176 bed days. That's based on the number of beds times how many days there are. Out of that non-COVID was 5,982 bed days. Again, 59 percent and COVID ICU bed days were 813 again, which is eight percent. The total positive tests that were conducted in Hawaii County since May of 2020, is 5,656. Now the number might be about 10 off per what we see posted over at the State level. But were within 10 of their number. As for the Iso -Q (Isolation Quarantine) facilities, those were the facilities that were set aside by the Department of Health and the County of Hawaii for a location where the Department of Health could look at isolating personnel from their families, from their homes, as well those that are coming in traveling overseas etcetera. There were as we know the Kona Seaside, the Hilo Seaside, and there were other locations and properties that were identified. From the time that we started that operation, it was 507 persons had occupied those facilities. CHR. INABA: Excuse me, Mr. Hanson, this is Chair Inaba, in Kona. In light of us coming up on the end of the allotted agenda time for this meeting, I do want to circle back to Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder if you have any further questions? And Page 14 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 the intention of Mr. Chung communication, was to provide any updates regarding any policies and programs so I just want to keep us moving forward in light of our time kind of running out. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I do have some follow-up questions for you. Thank you for the information gentlemen, appreciate it. I know there's a lot of information and data, and we're all tracking it very strongly and paying attention because it's our responsibility. So thank you, thank you for having those numbers today and I know you have more to share but we're looking at effort of time. We'll just move on with questions. I hear that you're monitoring the data, and I think a big question that is rolling around the community right now, what are the cut offs in that data set where we say we're going to lock down, or we're going to shutdown. That's a huge question that's floating around. For the most part with the answers that I'm seeing we don't know, we haven't considered another general aura Governor Ige. Does the County have any kind of number, or a data set where we say that's our cut off point? MR. BADER: That's a good question. We have been operating throughout the pandemic looking at the hospitalization rates, and the State has too. And so as those numbers started to increase, you know, we have continued to monitor on a daily basis, sometimes a couple times a day, checking in to see where everybody else is at different facilities. So we as a County, are not in a position to just lock ourselves down as was the case say a year or year and half ago. The conditions are a little bit different now, right? If you think about where we might have been 12-16 months back, the entire country is shut down and every State is shutdown. You know, I don t want to say it was easier then, but that's the wrong way to look at it. But the conditions were different, and so we have so much more things to consider now that our economy is open. You know, we're having all these visitors in arriving every day, and every other State is wide open. And so how do we balance that off, because we have opened up our economy again it gets very difficult. As far as I think just as a health question, I think we're at the point where we should be considering action and that's where Administration is right now. Looking at do we pause activities, shutdown our County facilities for a period of time. Ask all of us collectively, individually, or as families, to take a pause, I mean we're kind of at that point right now. So if the metric was hospital capacity we certainly hit it, but it's a very different situation that we're dealing with as far as the decision making. And as Mayor said, at the State level there's a lot of—the major decision's got to be made at that level. Everything we do, gets sent up to the Governor for their approval, and they're balancing a lot of those big pictures. So we got to get our testing capacity up, which I heard the testifier and I understood that because I passed by the Civic at 7:45 in the morning on Saturday, Page 15 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 and I saw about 100 cars lined up already. And just what you need to know is that we had two testing clinics set up for Saturday, and one of the vendors pulled out. And that just created just one opportunity with a lot of demand created by not just people in the workforce, that were trying to make sure they get tested, there's a lot of folks that were doing their due diligence with sniffles in the household, or somebody was really sick and they wanted to get tested. And then we had to deal with—as I understand from people who were in that line that they received letters from the schools, saying there was a positive in the school or couple positives, and they wanted to make sure that their family was safe. So we had that convergence. And with sort of a last minute withdraw of another testing site, which could have handled another probably 400 or 500 tests at least. So I had people that were texting me on the half hour as they were in line, to let me know how things were going. We were having a communication with Civil Defense, to see what might be done. If this happened a few weeks ago—and we were fortunate that within less than 24 hours notice we were able to set up a Sunday test clinic. Because our Saturday clinics got over whelmed a few weeks back. We were lucky that we had a vendor that was able to do it, and with less than 24 hour notice. I was thinking that if we get 100 of those folks that were turned away, if we could get to them, that was worth the effort, and the coordination, and the expense. And it just end up being 250, showed up with very little notice. From that point on a couple weeks ago we've just been—every week we have more clinics being put in place. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Steve. I have a lot of questions, and I don't want to take up all the time I know everyone has questions. I'm going to hit up the important ones. MR. BADER: Sure. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Hey, I'm a parent, and I'm watching the school system right now. And I'm incredibly concerned about our teachers, about our kids, and we have a six-foot social distancing requirement for everybody. When it comes to kids, we'll put them three feet apart. And then we tell the kids to stay six feet away from the teacher, and put them in a class room that's enclosed with 30 kids in a room. Because we've always been overwhelmed as a school district, and tell everybody that's safe. May have 20,000 kids that go into the school system, and come back out again. And a good friend of mine explained this is almost like looking at a pair of lungs, the school system breathe in 20,000 students and sends 20,000 home every day. Those kids aren't vaccinated, and I really believe in everyone's rights to get vaccinated if they choose to. But our children, I will not push this on children. It has not been tested enough to put in our kids, period. So in that frame of mind, when we look at the way the school system is working right now. And you expressed a little bit of concern earlier, and I appreciate that. Page 16 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 How are we pushing DOE (Department of Education) to offer distance learning to our students for the sake of our families, and for the kupuna who are watching them because mom and dad are trying to go back to work. MR. CHUNG: Mr. Chairman? CHR. INABA: Mr. Kaneali`i MR. CHUNG: I just want to know if we want to go that far with the school things, I want to talk about schools too, if that's the case. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Sorry, Chair. CHR. INABA: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, if you could keep the questions specifically. Again, I know this is a big issue and that's why turned out so many testifiers today, but if we can just keep it to what Mayor Roth talked about or any policies or programs that the County has oversight over directly. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. So my question to that statement was, how hard are we pushing on the Governor to open up distance learning programs? MR. BADER: That issue has come up, on a very regular basis at those meetings. You know, weeks out or months out, before school was set to reopen, the Mayor was engaging Department of Ed and Department of Health, at meetings at that highest level asking for their reopening plans. And asking for their testing plans, and expressing directly that he was not satisfied with what we were hearing. And again, requesting that the Governor consider taking a pause, especially for the young ones that have no choice about that situation, the younger students. And so you know, I've sat in many of those meetings, and I think that the County of Hawaii was being as direct as they possibly could be in expressing those concerns. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, good. Thank you. My final question, and then I'll yield, Chair. Contact tracing and apps. What amount of contact tracers—and I called Civil Defense last week and just asked if Civil Defense was doing contact tracing and I believe the answer was no. Is that correct? MR. BADER: No, I'll defer it to Bill. MR. HANSON: So that's the Department of Health, yeah, Blaine. Operations, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's what I understand too. MR. HANSON: Yes. Page 17 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How many contact tracers from DOH are active right now? MR. HANSON: I understand. So they supplement with the National Guard, and the last number I got from the National Guard was 40. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Forty are actively working right now, or we have 40 MR. HANSON: Forty, it's a huge group now. They have to rotate. There's like two shifts. So you divide that number basically by half. They've even increased. So they're basically based out of Aunty Sally's. Just recently they asked if they could occupy more space within Aunty Sally's, because also Civil Defense uses that for emergency operations for our operations there. Yes, so this week we'll expand their footprint within Aunty Sally's to accommodate that surge in operations. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that's good to hear. Okay, thank you gentlemen. In the idea of being efficient with time. I'm going to yield for now. thank you very much for your information, and stepping with me a little bit outside of our County. But I mean regardless of whether it's a State or County issue, these are our kids and I hate that we do not have a voice in that it does not make any sense. So I appreciate you at least understanding that there's a lot of concern in the community and helping me with some of those answers. Mahalo for your time today gentlemen. Mahalo, for the latitude Chair, I appreciate it. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. And I realize that we are keeping this meeting curtailed, because again in the interest of time. But there's a lot of misinformation that was put forth through the public testimony, and at some point we're going to have to take that up. But I'm going to stick to the request of the Chair to minimize conversation right now, so I'm going to yield. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Aloha Bill, Steve, great to see you. Steve, I want a quick clarification. Can you just to expand upon what it means to be the COVID liaison for our County? MR. BADER: Well it means that the Mayor can't be everywhere, and he has designated me as the person on his behalf to work with Civil Defense and have contact with other governmental agencies and making sure that there is understanding, communication flow. I will often assist Civil Defense if we're Page 18 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 trying to figure out complex things, which is every day. And spend a lot of time in their office, as we kind of work through all their stuff. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you. That provides a lot more clarity. You mentioned in your comments about the COVID taskforce being reinstated. When was it ever disbanded and why? MR. BADER: I think that there was not a sort of end date to that. I think what it is that the rhythm of getting that group together just started changing, because there was different demands, different needs. And frankly it was because things were going so well, and because there was such high hope for the vaccinations. And so reinstated really means that the decision was made some weeks ago, that we need to be active. And less I think sort of subcommittee -like oriented, and make sure there was more constant a bigger picture kind of coordination. And out of that, we made sure that there was contact with the hospitals and health providers. We have a weekly meeting with the complex area superintendents, we have a law enforcement subgroup that is kind of working through what that would mean for the County. So there's—you know, from the outside it looks like we just disbanded, but actually what it is, is that things just kind of moved in a different direction. And we're very active now, and we need to be. Because as it has turned out all across the country, the Delta variant took off in a way that had everybody running after it instead of staying in front of it. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, we're certainly not out of the woods, yet. So this taskforce is made up of a combination of County, and I'm hearing State representatives, agencies? MR. BADER: Yeah. DOH is part of it, and we have all of our own County departments, you know, participating in that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you. I have four questions for you. When are we going to ramp up our messaging? When are we going to start communicating to folks that they need to have their own personal COVID plan? I mean, I think about how every year we launch campaigns around, `Be ready for natural disasters." We're seeing the strain on our healthcare system. The Department of Health is not going to be able to take care of everybody. Getting groceries, what not. So what are we doing as a County, to communicate that families need to have that plan in place? MR. HANSON: Council Woman, you know, maybe we're looking at two different things, and I apologize if that's the case. But we do on a daily basis ask everybody to do their part, and to do their part it's pretty simple to begin with, and that is all the social distancing, the limiting of gatherings, the physical distancing, the wearing of masks, the sanitizing of hands. All those little pieces really add up Page 19 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 to a big effort. If everybody would just do their part, and that's what we're after is just everyone doing their part. If I can say, there's a Dr. Wangari Maathai, was in 2004, she was a Nobel peace prize recipient. And she has it on you tube but very short only two minutes long, but it says, "I will be a humming bird." And it just basically talks about everybody doing their part. I would like to ask if everyone at their own time would take a look at that, her presentation regarding "I will be a humming bird." And it kind of explains basically everyone is in this together, we all have something to do. Again, if I missed the point, please, I apologize. MR. BADER: I think Council Woman our kuleana organized effort has been very active, and they've put out a lot of messaging in coordination with County, and State, looking at national issues. So that information has been going out. And I'll tell you that what I run into when I'm in the community talking to people about communication, and what needs to be done. What I hear back is that people have gotten fatigued by messages also, and I know you have a communications background so I know that there's some understanding of when you're bombarded, it's hard to get clarity on some of those messages. And so what I appreciate you pointing out is, there could be ways that we could package this messaging so that it's more directed and people understand. Even if it's understanding on a person to person, or heart to heart issue. That's the way we're going to have to approach this. But I hear it becomes—what one person told me is that all the stuff that's out there about COVID is white noise to them. And that's what they use to go to sleep at night, you know. And I know all of us who are in these types of position that track this information, and maybe more so for myself, Bill, and Talmadge, and that hard working crew at Civil Defense, is just living this stuff 24 hours. And it's hard for us to get through all of that information, and that data. But for the regular person, I mean when they told me that, I totally understood what they said. You know, you go on facebook, you go on Instagram, you see stuff it's in the news and how do you take that apart. So I think it is a challenge. And your question, is really a challenge that we got to try and see. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: You guys? So sorry don't mean to interrupt. MR. BADER: No, I'm so sorry. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: The point I'm trying to make is, the Department of Health is not going to be able to help every single person find isolation, someone to buy their groceries. It's beyond wearing a mask and social distancing, we're beyond that. You've caught COVID, typically the government has the responsibility to help respond, but there are so many people now catching COVID. I think it behooves all of us to have a COVID plan. Page 20 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. BADER: Yup. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: If you need more clarification on that, happy to send you an email. I have three more questions, and there's other lights here in Kona. So I want to make sure my colleagues have time to chat with all of you. Someone within my circle, child potentially in contact with a positive case. And I want to highlight the need to stay connected to groups in the community that are providing after-school childcare. So critical as many of us need to continue working. But I don't believe that there is strong connections between these groups and the County. So I just want to reiterate, making sure that we're in touch with these organizations that are doing a fantastic thing. Helping to ensure moms and dads are able to go to work. But again, here's a case where this person doesn't know if their child was in direct contact with a positive case or not. She's not able to get assurances from the program, if the kids up operating in pods or not. So again, as you reimagine and put together your taskforce, and figure out how you're engage community, if we want to keep Hawai` i open, and I believe we need to find ways in which we do so, cautiously; I don't want to be operating out of fear. The pandemic will end at some point and time, I don't know, but there are ways in which we can be living, safely. And so I don't want a response right now, but I'm just saying that I need you to stay in -touch with these really critical organizations. The other thing, and maybe this is a question for Judge Strance. The Mayor talked about closing beaches and parks, do you have data to support that the positive cases that we are seeing are stemming from events that are happening in these public spaces? Anyone? Judge Strance, do you want to weigh in on this one? Because I believe using data to make good responsible decisions. And I'm just looking for clarity around this one only because this pandemic has been so psychologically rocky for all of us, especially our kids. And taking them to the beach and letting them be exposed to the elements, fresh air, climbing that jungle gym, that's a saving grace for many families. So just want to make sure that we're not pulling the trigger too soon on stuff like that, especially if there isn't data to back up that. These are the places in which people are catching COVID. (Note: At this time Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Strance came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. STRANCE: Thank you, Council Woman. Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. The data is really evolving on outdoor transmission. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) recently has updated their mask requirements, about recommending close contact outdoors and recommending masks. Part of the problem with not just our parks, but other venues where there are people gathering is they don't exercise care in close contact. So whether it's waiting in line to get outdoors, to get into a restaurant; whether it is people lining up like Page 21 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 sardines on beaches; and whether its restaurants that have some level of open air saying, "Oh, we're outdoors, so we don't have to exercise the restaurant guidelines." It's across the boards. So if you're looking for okay, do we have, you know, in this park and beach is there a contraction? I think the data is evolving. Part of the problem I think, and the challenge for the County is as we try to keep our workforce safe, as we need to divert certain resources to enforcement of existing rules, our ability to keep other places open is challenged. And so you know, the County has only so many resources, most of our testing sites are at County resource places. So you know, the cause and effect piece that I think you're looking for is a little more complex than that, because the County is having to divert and use up these resources in a lot of different ways that we would hoped that it wouldn't have to. I think part of the problem is with some of the beaches and parks is that it's not possible to enforce the rules that we have. And so if we can't enforce the rules that we have, then we take the next step and say well if we can't enforce then we have to close down. You know, those are really the very difficult choices that are having to be made by government right now. And so it's not a direct answer to your question, but it's the context of the decision making. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Judge, for taking the time to kind of walk us through what the thinking is, and how you arrive at some of these rules and policy changes. I appreciate it. And I just hope that any time there are changes to rules and policy, that you're providing this context to us and community so folks have clarity to why things are happening the way they are. MS. STRANCE: Yeah, I think one of the discussions that comes up in any meeting where talking about this is, we are attempting to make data driven decisions. And so we're notI haven't been part of conversations where people are saying, "Oh, I just want to make a point." You know, there data and resource driven decision making, and they're contextual. And so it's not always easy to draw a straight line from point A, to point B. It's to get to point B, it sometimes involves utilization of other resources. So if we're having to use our Fire Department for example, to do public messaging, you know, are they available to do other things? If our parks are having to they don't have police powers, and so their ability to enforce distancing requirements where people aren't exercising personal responsibility. What do you do? And sometimes you have to take the extra step, because the resources to enforce what is necessary and required aren't there, and people aren't necessarily taking personal responsibility to make sure that we can all enjoy those activities that could otherwise be more safe. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. My final question is Page 22 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. HANSON: County Council Woman Kierkiewicz, may I say a comment please. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sure. MR. HANSON: Sorry. This is Bill Hanson, again. So the discussion that we had earlier regarding the closure of the parks and beaches, actually it's limiting of activity is the discussion point. Limiting activity so that you know, you can go to the beach, you can exercise, you can go surfing, you can exercise in the water. Do those kinds of things that are good for our health and safety. The area of concern that I understand, is the co -mingling, the potential for co -mingling, you know, in the grass areas. In the areas that you would set up your camp, or your tent. And then you know, how do you put that buffer between? So that's what I understand, is that the intent is to limit the activity. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, I understand that. So if I want to go to the beach, in and out of the water I shouldn't post up all day on my back. If I want to go to the zoo, I can still go, and how do my kids play on the jungle gym? I mean there's many families accessing that. Sorry, I'm just trying to clarity, there's a lot of families that rely on these public resources. MR. BADER: Yeah, we're in the middle of having some real thorough discussions about how we would limit activities. What County facilities are going to be open. I mean we're right in the middle, we're in a kind of a real-time day to day kind of decision-making process right now on that. Because we know that there will effects, of us, the County closing down the parks, or the beaches, will have an effect on the State of parks and beaches. And people are going to move to different areas, and so we're having to do some coordination on that end. And we're trying to be very thorough in how we think this thing out. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks, you guys. I appreciate it. I certainly don't envy the positions you are in. The last question I have is, with the Governor's mandate for—sorry Chair, if I could just ask this one last question, thank you. Vaccine or test. I've seen some communications come from the Mayor's Office some memos and what not. What other support are we providing to our employees? There's a lot of hurt, and confusion, and anger around all of this. I've taken the last week to reach out to employees across the County ohana to get a sense of how they're feeling, and they're just not feeling a ton of support from the Administration. And so I'm just wondering are there way's in which you're going to be serving the employees, connecting with them just understanding what they're going through. So that we can see how best we can be supporting them through these times. MR. BADER: Certainly, what you brought up is something that we feel every day, because we're all County employees ourselves. And just you know, a more Page 23 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 focused effort on awareness of that level I think would be appreciated by all of us. So thank you for bringing that up. And that's something we can, in the Administration, we can look at see what we can do, what better we can do on that. Because it's certainly something that we're all dealing with. MS. STRANCE: May I? So I think part of the discomfort in some of the responses that you're hearing, is that we're mid -process in some of the discussions about what to do. And some of you know this, but I'm just going to say contextually, why Revised Statute Chapter 127A is the chapter that deals with declaration of emergencies, okay. Under Statewide emergencies the provision of authority is divided between the Governor and the Mayor, so there needs to be a level of coordination and discussion. And so we don't want to do something here, or suggest something here that's going to drive an unintended consequence, for example, a State park. And so a lot has happened in the last week, or week and a half. The Delta variant trajectory has become abundantly clear, the responses are really trying to get ahead of it at a time where we're also catching up with it. And so I don't think we're trying to be vague, and we don't want to overstate what's happening, because we're really midway in a conversation. And so in some ways we're sharing thoughts, we're sharing concerns which we share with you. And we have a partner we need to collaborate with, and that's the Governor's Office. And they're looking at things from kind of a bigger forest than we are. County of Hawaii has different challenges than maybe other islands particularly, when it comes to hospital beds than other islands. And so those balances have to reached in terms of what are uniform steps that we can take that everybody knows about, verses what are things that are unique to our island in resources that we have on our island and we are literally mid -conversation with some of that right now. And so I appreciate, you know, my colleagues' jumping in and saying okay, we haven't decided on a piece yet, because we haven't. And we're in a discussion. And as urgent as this matter is we want to think through unintended consequences. And so I really appreciate the comments you make, or that you are talking to certain people. You know, maybe some people are and maybe people aren't, maybe we need to raise that up. So yeah, if we've overlooked something, we certainly appreciative of the comments. But I just want to reiterate that we are mid -conversation on some of it, we're still in the process of responding to the Governor's mandate about vaccination and testing of our employees. That's not something that can get rolled out in 24 hours. There are lots of different County employees, there's lots of different types of shifts, and there is a lot of different things that are responding to. And people are working very hard, and very long hours to do that across the County. Page 24 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Judge Strance. Thank you, Bill, and Steve for your time for your hard work. I appreciate you guys for being here, and available to answer questions. Chair, I appreciate the latitude. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bader, Mr. Hanson, and Judge Strance for being here today to answer our questions about the taskforce. And thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz, for excellent line of questioning. I just wanted to follow up particularly on the taskforce's ability, to access high quality information. Again, I understand the complexity, and challenges of making data driven decision in a rapidly evolving situation. But are you guys feeling well supported by the DOH and other entities to provide you with high quality information? And do you have trained actual medical professionals sitting on the taskforce to advise the County? MR. BADER: We're fortunate that we have multiple levels of consultation, and advice that are coming to us. So aside from what the State has through the Department of Health, and their advice and advice above, you know, coming from CDC, the Mayor has a regular meeting with different consultants national, and international that are providing us data analysis, and making recommendations on how we would move forward. And I know that some of the information that's been passed to me from the community as far as different reports and different experts in that area, a lot of those we've seen that's come through, but we're always looking for more information and, you know, more data. So we are in contact with folks outside of our sphere, that can help us to see things either more clearly or to project things out. I think with the Delta variant, there was many different scenarios from different experts about what might happen. And if you see what happened across the country, it's clear that it overran everybody. And you know, we're beyond as far as case counts. I mean fortunately as far as fatalities that remains low, and we have additional firewall of vaccinations that exist. But in terms of the sheer number of infections, this is something that was higher than projected even on some of the worse -case scenarios. So to answer your question yes, we have access. State has been good about giving us information. We also get independent information, and we also accept any other information that you can forward to us. So thank you for asking. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Let me explain a little bit the basis of my question, which is when we are looking at the budget for next year and considering where we might enhance the staffing. And it's too soon to debrief this event of course, but do any of you have a sense that perhaps we need additional medical expertise within the County to plan for these sorts of events, and additionally other Page 25 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 medical -emergency type situations that our County might be faced with? That is the reason for my questioning, is that way. MR. HENSON: I say yes, Ma'am. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Appreciate the succinct answer. I just wanted to conclude with a statement, Chair. I want to be unequivocal about recommending that people get the vaccine. We need to be very clear, that it is important that folks vaccinate. I know that there are medical reasons, why people may not choose to do it, valid medical reasons, but for the most part for the most people vaccinations are safe. The thing that I'm concerned about is that if we do not stop the Delta variant, and the vaccine at this time appears to be effective against the Delta variant, the more we have the virus circulating in the population, the greater the likely hood of additional mutations, additional variants, that may not respond as effectively to these highly effective vaccines. And so I would hate to see us backslide even further, and want to encourage everyone again, like I said unequivocally. Get vaccinated, wear your mask we are all in this together. And the only way humans have ever survived, is through community first. And that's the only way we'll do it now. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Before we go back for a second round, we are over time and so I want ask any of my colleagues, please keep our questions really direct and for responses to be directly answering the question that was asked of them. Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. I'm going to take this off, for ease of hearing. I'm vaccinated, and my colleagues are six feet away from me. If that makes you uncomfortable, I can put it back on just let me know. For starters, thank you everyone for being here, thank you for the latitude and this extended conversation which I feel is really important that we have the opportunity to ask questions and also make statements. My first statement is, when my daughter was born I didn't vaccinate her. I had two brothers that died as infants, because of health issues. And as a single mother doing some reading I had a lot of concerns, and I decided to wait, until her immune system was built. I consider this a different circumstance, I and my family are vaccinated. Listening to these testimonies of people with claims, I'd like to point out. Some of them aren't even here in the County, so unfortunately this became a platform for anti-vaxxers to voice their opinions. One of my best friends is currently laid out, she could barely get up and go to the bathroom. This woman does bikram yoga, seven days a week. She's a surfer, she builds homes, and she's one of the most athletic physically active capable humans I know. And she's been laid out for 10 days, she can barely get up to go to the Page 26 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 bathroom. And she is scared, she contracted COVID. Other members of her family have contracted. Another longtime friend like a brother to me, is currently on a ventilator. Remind you these are middle aged people, healthy, vibrant, athletic go getters. This is no longer about people just in their 60's and 70's, which heaven forgive us forever making any statements that those lives were somehow okay to be collateral damage in the time of a health crisis. I'm asking people to get vaccinated. I appreciate it if they don't want to and there are reasons, but we are in a crisis. And my peers are sick. And that is unfortunately the first time we're seeing it, but it is going to bring it a lot closer to home for most of us. I just have a couple of questions. And they do relate to kind of the equitable limitations to visitors and residents alike as the Administration takes a look at where and how to impose any limitations. I kind of want to point out the irony in the swarms of visitors, at our parks and our beach parks; and in our restaurants, and in our bars. It's kind of one of the ironies to the opening up to the visitors industry, as all of a sudden I've listen to number of local people who helped keep these open during the first wave of the pandemic. Now can't get a reservation, and there's no seats in the inn, in our restaurants. And we got a lot of visitors from places that don't have mask mandates, and aren't abiding by or paying attention to this crisis. And I see a need for equitable limitations. When they are put in place, which it sounds like you're currently navigating a path to. I would like to encourage that there be equitable limitations, for both visitors and residents. One example is limiting in gatherings, you know, we've all seen pictures of luaus with hundreds of people. We know there were corporate gatherings at our hotels. And our workforce who must go back to work, can't afford to not be there but are being exposed. There's even some irony to there being more than 10 of us in the room here today. But because this is business, and because schools are schools then more than 10 indoorsI recognize the challenge of creating anything completely equitable, in the disparity that is just going to be a part of this process. But I hear a lot of people begging for more things that make a little more sense, I guess. I've been asked to urge churches and cultural groups to please encourage your people for vaccinations, please encourage them. District 7 is rampant with COVID right now in young people, and it's really terrifying. I think one of the sad parts about all this, is that one of the main problems is trust, right? There's lack of trust in our government, which in a lot of ways it is warranted. There's a lack of trust in the media, which in a lot of ways is warranted. There's a lack of trust in health care providers, maybe warranted but at this point it's deeply misdirected. And there's a lack of trust in big pharma once again, potentially very warranted. But right now I just ask that each one of us as my colleagues have recommended, it's important like having a hurricane kit Page 27 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 or a tsunami kit. Have your COVID preparedness, so that you know what you're going to do as a family. And I know my time is up. Thank you, to the Administration, for sitting here and listening to our concerns and suggestions. And my best attempt at being the voice for the people in District 7 who are very concerned at this time. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you Council Member Villegas. Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. I just want to touch on a few things, I kept it very short the first lap. Didn't think you were going to get into this conversation, but since we did and I do agree with you Chair, we should finish the conversation. It's been pointed out and Council Woman Sue Lee Loy has said this repeatedly over the time I've been in Council with her. And Ms. Kierkiewicz has said this today, and as Ms. Kimball has, is what it comes down to is data. And making good decisions data driven. Mayor touched on that, Civil Defense has touched on that. So we have to first evaluate and look at the data, Judge Strance has also articulated that. First of all we have to decide if we are going to acknowledge the pandemic, and I think everybody sitting in this Council acknowledges that. We heard a lot of testimony and I've mentioned this in my first cycle a lot of misinformation, and unfortunately sometimes disinformation coming forward. Ms. Villegas, I completely agree with you on your statements that you have made. This is what we have to do to go forward. Let's look at the numbers, we've lost over 600,000 people in the U.S. to COVID since it started. Annually we lose maybe 50,000 people to flu, maybe 33,000 or 34,000 to car accidents, 600,000 in a year and a half is huge. You can amortize that to a year and make it 450,000. This is a true health crisis. I was speaking to the Lieutenant Governor Green this morning, and right now our health system is exhausted. They're bringing in about 550 relief workers to help us out going through this. They'll be here for the next couple of months. I've already started putting boots on the ground, my understanding Big Island is the first place they're coming. There is funding coming out of FEMA to help us with that $46 million -plus to pay for those two months to get that extra health care support coming in. Going back to the numbers, look at the statistics 99.5 percent off all deaths nationally are non -vaccinated. Sure, people that are vaccinated are getting sick, but we're not losing them and we're not impacting the health care system near as much as the non -vaccinates are. We've heard a lot of testimonies about treatment, I looked into it. Many people know I'm a veterinarian, and ivermectin and say, a cornerstone for some of our treatments were parasites. In vitro, meaning in the test tube it does have an effect on the virus; in vivo, meaning in the animal, the level of the medication are way too high and become toxic to the animal. So it's not a treatment. Now there's Page 28 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 some anecdotal statements about it, but their anecdotal, it's not published it's not a researched paper. So we have to come back to prevention. We have a hallmark here, and it's been four pillars of foundation of how we need to control: social distancing, hygiene, mask, and vaccination. And the testing plays into that as well. I have to appreciate Dr. Char, Department of Health Chair, when the question came up in the end last week. And they were asking about what limitations are we putting on, and that's the same question to the Mayor today. What limitations are going to be put on? Dr. Char, summed it up the best she said "You know, what we have to do." Why does the government have to tell you what to do, and you're going to fight back. We need to embrace this. That it is a true medical crisis for our community, right now. I firmly believe in vaccinations. My background is a veterinarian, the science is good here and you have to believe the sources. The sources I use CDC and John Hopkins (University), both exceedingly reputable organization. And they state the facts, sometimes we don't like the facts but they still state the facts. So going forward we have to vaccinate, we have to vaccinate for those who cannot vaccinate. Ms. Villegas, you articulated that, that is very true. There are some people that can't get vaccinated. And I fully support, figure out how we have the programs to go forward to support those people. The problem is we have a health crisis, many of us are old enough, Chair David, and Councilman Chung. We talked about small pox vaccination, we talked about polio vaccination, this is no different. We talked about infringements on our rights, everybody wears seatbelts right now. So Chair, I'll finish up real quick here. We must embrace this, as this a true pandemic. We must follow suit with what has been recommended. And I'm all for maintaining the openness, but we got to do our fair share to get this done. So with that, Chair, I yield. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Richards. Council Member Chung. Oh sorry, Council Member Lee Loy first. MS. LEE LOY: May I? I haven't said anything, so I do have just a couple of quick asks. Judge Strance, when you folks are laying out parameters for the use of our parks facilities or businesses, could you also please consider construction sites as far what our best management practices to stop the spread of COVID. We hear about it in churches, or at our beach parks, or at our parks in general in our small businesses, but I'm not hearing anything around our construction sites, and I think in the past the construction industry had a pledge. And if they would renew that pledge, or we could provide them some guidance. I think it would go a long way. Because our construction industry was an essential industry when we shut down during the first wave of COVID. Page 29 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 The other thing I would like for the Administration to consider is, who is any health care professional on this stakeholder group that's being reinvigorated. I know the County has on its roles a doctor, I think in our budget. And I want to know if that individual is being engaged to provide best practices and guidance as we make these decisions. And then finally if anyone could take this message up to the Governor, with the Department of Health, as we fill in with health care professionals. The challenge I'm hearing besides everything else that I'm hearing on the dais here today, is when people are trying to get their negative results or a clearance to get back to work, that is being delayed well beyond their quarantine periods. And so they anticipate maybe going back to work after two weeks, but now it's 20 and 21 days. And then everything has changed again, because other individuals have tested positive for COVID. So those were my three asks, or just ways we can all do better. And just provide good information, so we can make good decisions. That's all I had, thank you. I yield. CHR. INABA: Mahalo. Mr. Chung. MS. STRANCE: May I ask a clarifying question? Are you suggesting that guidelines be set for the construction sites, or that they be excepted from rules and regulations? MS. LEE LOY: Well I'm only leaning on what we did in the past. And in the past the construction industry really rallied, and came up with a pledge on how they would self -govern. How they will be sovereign through the pandemic, because they were considered essential. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, but if we're asking people to do their part, if they re -pledge those things along with guidances from the Administration and Government. I think we'd get a little further with acceptance, of what it is our kuleana to stop the spread of COVID. MS. STRANCE: Understood, thank you. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Mr. Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yup, thank you. And thanks for the latitude, because I'm going to go a little further than the scope of this discussion. I want to thank Ms. Villegas, and Mr. Richards, for kind of taking the lead on this matter. People have their views on this thing, okay. But I view this as being a threat on humanity, plain and simple. And Mr. Richards, you brought up, you know, our age. Most of the people here don't remember polio, we wiped it out basically, yeah. And it was through vaccinations, and everybody doing their part. Creating that herd immunity, which we're trying to achieve through the vaccinations. But you know, there's nothing that anyone here can say, that's going to change some Page 30 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 people's mind, cannot already. But for the people who are on the fence, and if you're not even looking out for society as a whole, I'm going to give you guys just one example that came to my attention last week, it's kind of emotional. I saw my friend he had just taken a test. His family was in the car, they had just taken tests. So I told him, and I'm not going to mention his name. But I said, a brah how's your mother, by the way? He said I got to tell you one story. He said two days ago his son, 23 years old, passed away from COVID. He couldn't tell the son what to do, you know, in terms of taking the vaccination, just couldn't. He's an adult, he does what he wants. Everybody else in his family got vaccinated, including his 80 -something year old mother. She got COVID as well, because they were caring for the boy. She only got diarrhea. So if that's not an example of how effective this vaccination is to the individuals, I don't know what is. And he was very, very, philosophical in this, and I guess that's what you have be in these types of situations. He just said, I guess that's what my boy was put on this earth for. To get the message out. So it was very emotional, but I just wanted to share that with people. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Chair, David. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. And I just have to—I'll be very short. Mr. Chung brings up a very valid point, and I agree with every single thing that my Council Members have said today. Regarding the polio vaccination first hand. My husband was born before the vaccination came out for polio. And so he went through a very painful situation, because he didn't get vaccination. And the rest of his siblings did, and they are in a better position today because they did. Vaccination I totally believe in, because I think we are responsible to do as much as we can to prevent anything from harming people or the human race. And till today because my husband wasn't vaccinated, he suffers daily from post -polio syndrome, which is a medical condition that appears at your midlife. Your muscles deteriorate, so that you have no muscle mass between the skin and your nerves. And so he's in serious pain every day. And so Mr. Chung, thank you for reminding us about that. We are responsible for how we take care of each other. So vaccinate is your right, but we're just pleading here on this body to think beyond your constitutional right to be forced to do something, and just count on your human right for everybody. So thank you, Council Members for your statements. And I think as a body we made a really profound statement to our constituents, whether they agree or not about vaccinations. I'm a 100 percent supporter, and my family is vaccinated. Mahalo everybody, and thank you Chair. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Chair David. Any other mana`o from my colleagues? Okay. Thank you to our Civil Defense, and COVID leadership in the Hilo chambers. Quick question. I know that you folks discussed the website where community testing is available, where can the public find that? Page 31 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. HANSON: Yes, so it's located in two locations. In particular if you go to the County of Hawaii website right at the very top is a banner, it's that red banner that's been there for months now. Within there is imbedded three hyperlinks, the first hyperlink will take you to another page and within that page it will show where vaccinations are provided and where testing is provided. CHR. INABA: Thank you. When I visited it we see that there are community testing dates through the first week of September, and there seems to be a lot of concern with the mandate. How far this free community testing would be made available to the community, so how far right now are we planning to provide this community testing? MR. BADER: We're evaluating that. Certainly with the new government requirements, it is driving the demand. And we've yet to see what happens, because we're only two weeks into the school year how that affects the demand. But we'll keep the testings up as long as we can afford to, and the demand is there. So I can't give you an end point, because like I said earlier we've been saying we're kind of in a real-time situation. And analyzing things daily, but we're going to keep those testing units in place as long as we can. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Judge Strance, in terms of this testing we know we have free community testing, right now. But will free options be made available to our County, and State employees for the duration of this mandate? MS. STRANCE: That's the plan. CHR. INABA: Okay, and for our you mentioned the staff who has the non -eight to five jobs. How will they be accommodated to make sure they can make this free testing, or if they're not able to make this free community testing what options do they have for the County or State to pay for their testing? Because these are the questions we keep hearing. MS. STRANCE: So currently with County employees, time will be made available to them during their work day to get tested. If there is no testing available to accommodate them during their work day, they will be paid overtime. Their being provided with the information about the free clinics, with the hope and expectation that they will take advantage of those free clinics. I'll have to get back to you on the protocols if they do not take advantage of the free clinics whether that is an expense that employees will have to bear or not. I'm just not sure. CHR. INABA: Sorry I can't hear you. MS. STRANCE: I'll have to get back to you, on whether or not employees who do not take advantage of the free clinics, get any type of reimbursement. I can't Page 32 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 remember off hand, and that's information I'll have to get back to you on. I can probably get that over the lunch hour, and let you folks know. CHR. INABA: Okay, thank you. Yeah, because as we know some of our employees who are on those different schedules, sometimes work on the days that the COVID test are being provided in their respective communities. So unless they're going to drive to, you know, the other side of the island, or somewhere not within their vicinity, they might not be able to make these free testings. And I want to be clear, and hopefully have some kind of messaging provided to those employees so they know how to proceed. And what rights, or resources are available to them. MS. STRANCE: I'll work with HR during our break. CHR. INABA: Thank you. MR. HANSON: I do have a comment regarding that question, please. And that is you know, currently the testing and vaccination clinics that are out there, that the County is sponsoring are really targeted and facing towards the community. Towards the residents, and the businesses out there. And in our current discussions right now, we're looking at, well how do we take care of State and County employees? So that would be a different conversation that may look like, it may end up resulting in a different form of how we actually provide that service to the State and County workers. CHR. INABA: Thank you. And do we have a timeline to give employees an idea of when those resources are going to be made available, noting that this mandate is right upon us and they need to be starting to submit their testing. MR. BADER: Yeah, we are working on that. Like I said, we're kind of in a real-time situation. And we are looking at setting up evening clinics, based on the people's work schedules. So we're looking at doing that, we're looking at where we locate clinics so we can serve our employees and also the community. All of that variables are being discussed right now. And we're trying to do it as soon as possible, that's really where we're heading. Out of the Mayor's Office, everything is let's try to get this up as soon as possible. CHR. INABA: Mahalo, thank you. That's promising for those who keep writing in, and letting them know, since this is upon us right now. I don't have any further questions. Mahalo you folks for the work that you're doing, and hope that we can continue to sort this out, and make the best decisions for our community. With that there is a motion on the floor MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair Inaba? CHR. INABA: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Page 33 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I had one follow-up question, just real quick if I could please. CHR. INABA: Really quickly, please. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. What are the testing types that are being allowed to County employees, as well as everybody else? Is it only the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), or are we opening that to be the rapid testing? MR. HANSON: Yeah, all of that is being looked at right now as well, because we could see where rapid testing can be effective. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Motion on the floor to close file on Communication 360. All those in favor please say "aye." Vote on Comm. 360: The motion to close file on Comm. 360 was carried Filed by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Inaba — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. INABA: Colleagues of mine, would you folks like a recess? Okay, we're going to recess until 12:15 p.m. Meeting is now in recess. Recess: At 12:07 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 12:15 p.m. CHR. INABA: Aloha it's now 12:15 p.m., we are taking this meeting out of recess. Again this is the committee on Parks and Recreation and Public Safety. Mr. Clerk, if you could please read in Bill 60. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. (There were none.) BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. Page 34 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 Bill 60: AMENDS CHAPTER 15, ARTICLE 7, SECTION 15-62, OF THE HAWAII COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO THE MEMBERSHIP AND TENURE OF THE VETERANS ADVISORY COMMITTEE Removes six existing veteran organizations that provide representatives to serve on the Veterans Advisory Committee and increases at -large membership from one member to seven members. Reference: Comm. 346 Intr. by: Mr. Inaba and Ms. Lee Loy Motion to Approve: Ms. Lee Loy moved to recommend passage of Bill 60 on first reading. Seconded by Mr. Richards. CHR. RICHARDS: Ms. Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. And for my colleagues, we had two testifiers today. Mr. Doolittle, who is currently the Chair of the Veterans Advisory Committee; along with Colonel Doug Lewis, who spoke in favor of this measure. I'll share a little background on how this got developed, and why it's being co-sponsored by myself and Mr. Inaba. Prior to Mr. Inaba coming on board and serving as our Parks Chair. I had already been working with the Veterans Advisory Committee, because they were having challenges meeting quorum. And so I had developed a draft bill for them to take on at their committee meetings, when they did have a quorum, to chew on and basically give feedback. So after I had done that, Mr. Inaba had come on board and now serves as our Parks Chair. They had a meeting in which he sat on, and they were discussing that draft bill. And basically the intention of this bill was to like Colonel Doug Lewis mentioned, is to allow more inclusive membership. Because these are veterans, we're seeing problems with them just maintaining quorum through attrition. They're aged, and I asked the question if we wanted to start including future wars and allowing veterans from those organizations. And what they shared with me it was just better to create the at -large position so that anyone with concerns around veterans, veteran's disabilities, or even their spouses would be able to sit on this body and provide them a voice for all concerns that organization or that community needs. So with that, as mentioned it really allows to take some of the military organizations currently identified in Chapter 15 off the books. Because they no longer have membership. And then expand it to allow for the seven at -large positions, while still maintaining the total number of veterans on that Advisory Committee. I do ask for my colleagues' support. This really was a collaborative between myself, the veteran's organization, and now Chair Inaba as the Park's Committee Chair. Who actually provides staffing for them to do the good work for our veterans. I yield. Page 35 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 CHR. INABA: Thank you. Mr. Richards. And I just want point out that we have Parks and Recreation Deputy Michelle Hiraishi, and Deputy Corp. Counsel, and J. Yoshimoto, in Hilo chambers. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Fully support this going forward, and I can certainly understand trying to make it so it's more inclusive rather than being very specific. And I'm not sure if I ask you, or if I ask Ms. Lee Loy on this. But some of the organizations that have been, how do I say it, specifically excluded, but being more inclusive by saying veterans are foreign wars. Is that what I'm understanding, so you can get cast a broader net. So you can thereby get people to participate, because I know that was a challenge. MS. LEE LOY: I'm going to try my best to answer it. And then maybe J, or Michelle, because they sit with these individuals. And veterans of foreign wars, actually I believe them to also be an indentified group. But the military order purple -heart Korean War, sometimes they actually belong to some of the other organizations. And so this was a way to not require more—like them, for example, they were with the disabled veterans and a member of the Korean War Veterans Organization, so it's hard for them to keep tapping into the same individuals. So when we took them out and then just spread it out as at -large, it just allowed them to be one of many of the organizations that were currently identified in the code. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman. Because as point there's a reference to Camp Tarawa Detachment 1255. People who were actually part of that were getting to an age limit here, where that was World War II and that's Waimea, my district. But I can definitely see where this needs to evolve, so it will still be inclusive because we're finding a member from Camp Tarawa anymore very, very difficult. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Any other of my colleagues, mana`o or questions? Okay, there be none, there's a motion on the floor all those in favor please say Ic aye. Vote on Bill. 60: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 60 on first reading (Approved) was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Inaba – 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. INABA: This brings us to the end of our agenda. Page 36 PRPSC-13 August 17, 2021 ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 12:22 p.m., Ms. Le Loy moved to MENT: adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Ms. David and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Inaba — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. INABA: This meeting is adjourned at 12:22 p.m. Mahalo. Approved: -C::� -65;��7� -r'a� Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Chair Parks and Recreation and Public Safety Committee HI/rk ?//f / --:'/ - (Date) Page 37