Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN HSSSC 2021/09/07 2020-2022Committee on Human Services and Social Services stn Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii September 7, 2021 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Human Services and Social Services ORDER: was called to order at 1:02 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member (came in later) Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards III, Member (via videoconference from Waimea) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Absent & Excused: Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 361: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION FROM THE HAWAII COUNTY COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN REGARDING THE 2020 STATUS OF WOMEN IN HAWAII COUNTY REPORT From Council Member Heather Kimball, dated July 27, 2021. Postponed: August 18, 2021 (Note: There is a motion by Ms. Kimball, seconded by Mr. Inaba, to close file on Comm. 361.) (Note: Comm. 361.1, from Council Member Heather Kimball dated September 3, 2021, transmitting a copy of a PowerPoint presentation, was circulated.) HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 CHR. LEE LOY: Ms. Kimball, we have already an active motion, so if you could lead the discussion on this matter. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair, yes. Just for the record, we were scheduled to have this at the end of last month, and because we had so many items, this committee item was pushed to the Wednesday, and that actually was the day of the committee's meeting, so they were not able to attend. That's why the item was previously agendized but not discussed. So at this time, I would like to welcome the representatives for the Committee on the Status of Women to come up and present to us their reports. Come on up to the table. I think the Clerk is just getting your slide -show ready for you. (Note: At this time, Committee on the Status of Women Chair Mihaela Ryer, Ph.D., and Deputy Corporation Counsel Diana Mellon - Lacey came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. As we get ready, if you could please introduce yourselves. And we'll go ahead and get your slide -deck ready for you. MS. KIMBALL: You'll have to come up and speak into the microphone because we are—this is being broadcast, and folks can't hear you unless you're speaking directly into the microphone. So yes, if you could introduce yourselves, and go ahead with your presentation. Thank you. MS. RYER: Good afternoon, my name is Mihaela Ryer. I am the Chair of the Committee on the State of Women for the Hawaii Island, and I am very honored to be here and be presenting in front of you. So on behalf of my colleagues, I want to thank you very much for this opportunity. We are very grateful to be able to be here and present. MS. MELLON-LACEY: Good afternoon, Council Members. I'm Diana Mellon -Lacey, with the Corporation Counsel. I have been working with the committee, so I came in support to Mihaela. CHR. LEE LOY: Ms. Kimball, please lead our discussion. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. So you were all provided with a copy of the slide -deck, as a pinkie today (see Comm. 361. 1), and I'll just hand it over to Mihaela to present the material. Thank you, Mihaela. MS. RYER: Thank you, Heather. So I have three main goals for my presentation today. The first one is to present to you the results of a study, a report, that we, the Committee on the Status of Women, worked for most of the year, 2020. Page 2 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 My second goal is to basically get feedback from all of you regarding these results. One of the goals of this report was to work on it, prepare it, and then present it in different venues across the island and get feedback for what we could do to improve the report. This is just the first version of—hopefully of many versions. So what is it that we could do to keep this report evergreen? My third goal is to basically maybe start a conversation around this issue of how could we together help address some issues to raise the status of women on the Hawaii Island. With that, for the next 15 minutes or so, I will basically spend just a few minutes to introduce the Committee on the Status of Women, and then I will talk about the project scope, and then I will go into basically the main findings of the project. (Note: At this time, Dr. Ryer provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, please see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or by navigating to the Council's video archives online in the County's webpages at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A hard copy of the presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 361.1.) MS. RYER: With that, I'd like to thank you very much for your attention. I welcome any questions, or comments, or feedback. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, both, for being here, again, today, and thank you for that very informative presentation. Of course, as a fellow -scientist, I appreciate all of the data -driven analysis. One of the things that I think you've kind of touched on already is the need to pull this data even down further by particular occupation, right? And try to understand if that's driving the gap, that first choice. But one of the things that I've always found interesting about that idea that women, potentially intentionally choose lower paying jobs. It's chicken and the egg sort of thing. Do they choose the lower paying jobs, or are they low-paying jobs because they're primarily women - nominated? So your teachers, your nurses, things like that, where they should actually be paid at a higher level, but they're devalued because they're perceived as a women's job. I'm curious. This body, as you may or may not know, did pass the Feminist Recovery package that was put forward by the State Commission on the Status of Women. That was before my time. I think Ms. Kierkiewicz was involved in that. Do you have any data at this point on how well some of the recovery funds have been allocated towards particularly women's issues? Especially since we know Page 3 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 that women were more heavily impacted by COVID (Coronavirus Disease) than the male population. MS. RYER: No, we do not. The short answer is no we do not have the data. I think the barrier to that was we were—and we talked about this repeatedly within the Committee. We don't know exactly how to obtain that data. We don't know what is the source of the data. If you have a recommendation for us, where to go and what to do to gather the data, that would be most helpful. Kauai just came up with a report on their Feminist Recovery Plan, during COVID, and some of their results. From my knowledge, that's the only County in the State that actually has that. I'm in the process of communicating with the Chair of the committee on Kauai Island to see where did they get their information and what they had to do. So, long answer to— MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, no I think that's something that we should continue to have a dialogue around, where we can collect or help collect that information. I know we've had some conversations with the grant-in-aid (GIA) program, and modifying that application a little bit so that we can tease out at least those numbers as far as far as they apply to the GIA program. But certainly with ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds and the next federal package that's supposed to be around family services, we will want to work with you guys to do some better tracking of those metrics, so we can really say that these are being targeted to the right location. I'll yield, Chair, at this time. Thank you again for being here. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. I didn't recognize that there was such a disparity between wages in male and the female population, so thank you for putting this together. And I think you're—I mean, you're very much more knowledgeable on this than I am, but I think your explanations are fairly on point. I know my mom has told me for a long time that I think in France, when you give birth, you're given more time, like you stated, for the both the male and female partners to raise their baby, which is amazing. We don't do that. I think it's two or three months here, and then you're expected to be back at work. MS. RYER: That's only for women. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: And it's only for women? MS. RYER: Yes. Page 4 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: But I think she had also mentioned too that there was an expanded work program, government -based, that provides nannies and help at home. Which, actually creates a workforce around it? MS. RYER: Right. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: So I'd love to see some movement on this, as far as legislation. That would be amazing. Has there been any thought to increase—? I know there's a push right now to increase minimum wage, but it would be interesting to see if there was an increase to push minimum wage for women, alone or solely. Just trying to make up that gap. If you're seeing a certain portion of the population not being given as much of a wage as another, you know, your non -college graduates, or high school diploma only. If they're showing less income, and that's your minimum wage workers, and it's majority of women, that would be a great push to increase minimum wage for women, instead of the whole population. May not be popular, but it will be an interesting push. But I like that you put it all together. I was thinking about your comment regarding COVID. Given telework, kind of tele -abilities, are we seeing an increase? Have you seen an increase in women's ability to get higher paying jobs if they're on maternity leave, or if they're out and watching kids, but now they can work from home? Have you see anything along those lines? MS. RYER: No, because we don't have the data. You know, all the data is pretty much pre-COVID, that we looked at. I think that would be—that's a very interesting suggestion. I think we will be able to address that in our next version of the report. Also, maybe that would be a positive result of COVID. That would show that people could be very productive working from home and teleworking. Therefore if you are a caretaker, man or woman, you could do the same quality of work from home as being in the office. So, time will tell. But that's a very good suggestion, so we'll pencil that for the next version of the report. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: Okay. I mean, I think you're much more knowledgeable on this. As you were talking, I can see different possibilities, different things that have popped up. Even the ability for people to work—sorry not work—to learn from home. So if when a mom is stuck at home, if that happens, and if it were to persist, what you've shown us today, not that we want it to, but if she could learn from home and increase her skills while being out, so when she comes back to the workforce she hasn't lost that experience. MS. RYER: Right. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: But has gained experience. That would be amazing. But with that said, I don't think they should be on maternity leave for a Page 5 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 short period of time, and then being stuck trying to learn, while they're trying to raise a baby, in what's happening right now. I just want to make that clear. Because I've always agreed with my maternal figures that there should be a lot more time for babies and parents to kind of bond at birth versus two months back to work. MS. RYER: Right. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: It doesn't make sense. It's definitely child -driven law. MS. RYER: Thank you. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: So again, thank you for this. This is beautiful. I didn't know some of the information in here, so mahalo. MS. RYER: Thank you. I appreciate your comments. Very helpful. MR. KANEALI`I- KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone in Kona or Waimea? MS. VILLEGAS: Yes. Please. CHR. LEE LOY: Go ahead, Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. I just really wanted to express my gratitude for this succinct, really efficient, and effective presentation. It was really helpful to see the numbers mapped out in this capacity, in charts that made it crystal clear where some of the disparity lies. Just also your practical and humble reflections on the causes and the sources. So I just find this very helpful for myself. It's also validating for some of the things that I think are happening, or that intuitively seem to be where the challenges may lie. But it's really helpful to have this thorough investigation of the data that does confirm the disparity, but also provides some alignment for solutions. Yeah, I just—that was really helpful, so thank you for that Thank you for your continued hard work. It's not easy to take that much data and turn into the story that you've told through this presentation. So thank you for that and for your continued hard work, and diligence, and support of the betterment of the women and our community as a whole. So thank you for that. MS. RYER: Thank you very much, Council Woman. I will pass your thoughts to my fellow committee members. Thank you. Page 6 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. I have a light on here for Ms. Kierkiewicz. Please. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Aloha, Mihaela. That you so much for this really good presentation, and the committee's really excellent work on putting this together. I just have a couple of offerings to make for the group because I know you said you wanted to find ways in which you can continuously refine the report. You know, when I introduced Resolution 680-20, last term, that was pushing for the adoption of the Feminist Economy Recovery package, I had some really great data in there that talked about women in the workforce, and so I can share that with you. I think it would help provide additional texture to the story that you're trying to tell in terms of where and what professions women are holding here. We just got that from DBED (Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism). They do an industry analysis on an annual basis, and that provides the data for males and females and their various professions. A lot to comb through, but I do think a really valuable exercise, and can really work to kind strengthen the report. The other thing I wanted to share was our County did do weekly data reporting on how the $80 million of CARES (Coronavirus Aid Relief, and Economic Security) money was spent. I would certainly encourage you to connect with our Finance Director, even the Deputy Director, who is in charge of administering that package, and see if you can get your hands on that data. And then from there, you can really comb through and figure out the programs that were funded. How did they help and support women? There was a lot of money that was made to support childcare; that was made to support remote work and learning. So I really do encourage you to take look at that data, look at the recovery package that was developed by our Statewide Commission, and figure out where did the dollars go, how do we move the needle, and what more needs to be done? Because we do have that ARPA money that has come to the County that we are looking to position. And if you have a time between now and the next time we meet, which is September 21St, I have asked the administration to provide the Council with an update, as to how they plan to spend that first tranche. We've gotten about $19 million. But if you have thoughts, I encourage the Committee to assert some leadership on this, and testify and talk about ways in which that money can really be positioned to support women in our community. So I share that with you, as well. MS. RYER: Thank you. Page 7 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I'd like to see more information and support around on how we can help women that are struggling with mental health and depression. I don't know about you guys, but this pandemic has really taken a toll on me. It is hard. It is difficult. Some days I want to just give up. I can't even imagine what it's like for everybody else that may not have such a strong support network. So I encourage you to connect with Dr. Hannah Preston -Pita, with BISAC (Big Island Substance Abuse Council), and other groups who really have a strong board. Cyd Hoffeld, really connected in that field. See what our local groups are hearing and the clients they're serving. What are they experiencing? And figure out how we can strengthen the support in our community? It might mean legislation. It might mean supporting existing, or new, or innovative programs. I'm into art and `dina therapy. I think that is another way in which we can be growing, diversifying our economy, but also helping people to heal and process everything that we're experiencing in this pandemic. The other thing I wanted to elevate, childcare. Such an incredible issue. So many moms are not able to go back to work because they are juggling, watching keiki at home because they're afraid, and rightfully so, of having kids back in school with Delta variant, and Olanda and the Mu variant. It's a really scary situation. And so if there are ways in which we can be building up the childcare ecosystem and getting folks developed in that space, I think that would be incredibly helpful. The other thing, and this is more, you know, existential to kind of think about as a committee, but there's this great reassessment that's happening across the county and around the world. This pandemic has really caused people to pause and think, "Is this what I want to do with the rest of my life? What is my passion? What is my purpose? How can I make a positive contribution? And that is such a beautiful thing. But I think women need help sort of getting to that realization of what that passion is. And once they figure that out, how can we help support them, dabble in it a little. If it's for a Job Corps. comes in, internship opportunities, mentorship opportunities. I don't know. But this is another way in which I think the committee can help provide leadership around, and say this is how we support women, as they kind of think about what they want to explore in this next chapter, potentially, in their lives. think my time might be up. But I did want to offer that. I am passionate about this. I was on the Board of the Y (YWCA, Young Women's Christian Association). Past president of the Zonta Club of Hilo, been a member for over ten years. So really, really care about women's issues, and just creating a better life for girls, right? There's so much promise. If I just think about how lucky we are to be here. Really, it's phenomenal. Like my grandmother came from the Philippines not speaking a lick of English, and she made it here, and that is so beautiful. And Page 8 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 I get to sit here. Such kuleana. And I just hope that we are able to support girls and their dreams for themselves. Anyway, thank you for the latitude, Chair. Fully support your work. Happy to be of assistance and helping to pull together information or data. But thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it. MS. RYER: Thank you very much, Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. I see Mr. Richards. Okay, go ahead, Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Appreciate the data, and I'll echo something that Ms. Kimball said, about operating from data. I'm curious if you have looked at income by profession. It seems to me, and I don't want to sound patronizing or anything with this, but this seems to revolve around childcare, where traditionally and historically women have always done more of the childcare, which has posed an issue, and I recognize that. You know, especially through this pandemic, we have had a tremendous need for better childcare. Even today in Waimea, my district, we don't have school buses, and so how do we get the kids to school? That's challenging. I'm going to willing to bet that it's probably falling more on the women rather than the men on getting the kids to school. I'm not sure how we approach or attack this problem unless we spend more effort towards childcare and the support of childcare going forward, because I think that's one thing learned that a lot of women didn't get back into the workplace because of that lack of support of childcare. Going forward, I think if we can help facilitate whatever we need to do to get more of that childcare. Because this is something—goes back to our grant-in-aid that we discussed, it's the support structure around taking care of the kids after school. If we don't—if they can't get to an afterschool program and then go home, they can't benefit of that. So who's going to take care of the kids? It comes back to that childcare. One of the thing we identified was transportation issues. Keenly interested if you could look at income levels within a profession and see if it's a parity or if we have discrepancy within that. Because I'm thinking, as you made the comment somewhere in this presentation, the women may take a lesser income profession. I'm guessing it may revolve around childcare as being one of the obstructions; thereby, are trying to tailor their schedule. Page 9 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 So, I really like the access to the data. I'm just trying to figure out how we can help move the needle to improve the overall climate. Because economic recovery at all levels is important for our County, and growth. Anyway, I look forward to some sort of data like that, collecting to see if within a profession we are the same, and then we can maybe try figure out from there. I don't know if you have a comment on that, and then I'll yield. MS. RYER: Yes, we were—that data exists, but not at the level of the County. So that data exists at the State level. You could find it nationally but not at the level of our County. I think that data, the statistics, is captured in the State Commission's report at the State level, but not at the County level. Now, I don't know whether there is more granularity, and we need to dig deeper and talk to some other people who are in the possession of that granularity, but nowhere we could find that data for the County level. The lowest level granularity was State level for that type of data. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and I appreciate that. And I think with presentations like this, I think we'll end up with more questions at the end of them than we started at the beginning of them. So definitely a lot of stuff to work on. Thank you very much. Chair, I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Chung, go ahead, please. MR. CHUNG: Dr. Ryer, thank you very much for coming. You know, Ms. Villegas described your presentation as being practical and humble. Now, I'd add another word to that, "balanced." I really do appreciate that. It's not like you're trying to offer any kind of commentary, you know, about whether this perceived gap is good, bad, or whatever. I mean, you're taking a critical look at it; try to figure out the reasons for it. At the same time, I'm a man, right? So I'll look at things from a man's perspective. I can try as much as I can to be womanlike, but I am after all a man, right? So the first thing that stood out—and let me give you another background on this, too. I'm going to give you guys a story. I like to do this from time to time. Many years ago, when I was a young man, I listened to this presentation, and this has nothing to do with this kind of stuff, but it was a political thing. This guy Jack Siegel, I don't know if you guys ever heard of his name—they wrote the book—he wrote the book on politics in Hawaii, basically, because he was the guy who spearheaded the Jack Burns' campaign against Tom Gill, I believe. He was the God. He came to give a presentation on a particular race. I won't say what that race was. He presented all kinds of numbers. He cross-referenced it with race, gender, everything. He came to some conclusions, and those conclusions went totally counter to everyone's intuition. I won't say what those Page 10 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 conclusions were, but—and you know what, when all was said and done, he was wrong. So you know what happens here, statistics are one thing, right? But it all comes down to how you read those statistics. Because if you make a misstep, if you read it incorrectly, you can go way off base, and that's what happened in that case, and that's what could happen in other situation where you have statistics and data. Now, in this one—and first of all, don't get me wrong. You know, I have a wife, I gave a daughter, and I want them to get a fair shake in life, period. We—I don't know of any person here who doesn't subscribe to the idea of equal pay for equal work. But on this one, I just want to point things out. I'm not saying it's a flaw, but I just want to point it out, for food -for -thought, because you guys have really demonstrated a thoughtful approach to this. The first thing that stood out to me was employment. Women are employed in similar proportion to men. You have that, similar curve. But then of course, you know, there's that telling earnings graph, right, where the women are way behind. But what it doesn't show is job -for -job That is the all-important data that you need to present. Because men, I'm just thinking off the top of my head, a lot of them are engaged in construction. Construction guys, they make pretty good money, right, as opposed to others. And of course, if want to, as a social policy, get women into the construction industry, that's fine too, then you can make these position -for -position analysis. But if you just go across the board, earnings, that becomes problematic. And the other thing is, I don't know what you mean by earnings. Is it salary? That's one thing. Salary for salary, position for position, if there's a discrepancy within the position, something is wrong. There's a systemic problem. But if you talk about earnings, that's a broader category. Mr. Richards brought up something like that, relating to professions. Professions, sometimes you get—you earn money based on what the market will bear. You know, it's a supply and demand kind of situation, right, or maybe the harder you work, or the better you work, or whatever. Some women make more than men, in that context, some don't. I don't know. But that's a different animal all together. And you know, I even know some situations. This is different from what I'm talking about. A local couple over here, two doctors. The man working; women decides to raise her family; doctor, too. She's out of that earnings analysis all of a sudden, right? So you know, there are a lot of things to consider. But I just want to congratulate you guys for exploring this because we all want equality. That's the goal. And whatever we can do to try to assist you guys, even on a policy standpoint, we're there. If there are glaring weaknesses, or discrepancies, or discriminations, then we must correct it. But make sure that Page 11 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 you guys use all of the data that's available. And read it correctly, yeah? Instead of—this one's kind of dangerous, you know, this earnings, the gender wage gap. You know, I think it could be misleading. Yeah, it could lead to people coming to wrong conclusions. There are other things in here that I could point out. But I really think you've demonstrated, to me anyway, a very balanced perspective on this thing, and I appreciate that. I'm looking forward to good work from your committee. Thank you. MS. RYER: Thank you very much. As I said, I'm a scientist by background, and I know that there is good science and bad science. Bad science usually occurs when there is an agenda. You could take a set of data and massage it, and make it look exactly the way you want it. I've seen that many times. I've never done it, and I think we strive as a committee to actually not push an agenda forward. We try to use data to understand issues and find solutions. But I hear what you say, that the data could be manipulated and show a lot of weird things. All the data that we used, it's public, and we could make it available now. If you could help us with finding more data or getting more granularity, that would be amazing. We would welcome that opportunity. MR. CHLNG: I don't know if I can find more data, but I can at least provide different ideas as to how to connect the dots, whatever dots you guys have. MS. RYER: Right. MR. CHUNG: But again, I wanted to reiterate what you just said. You said it better than I could. It was obvious that you came without an agenda, and that's so important. You know, whenever people come, they try to help us make decisions, and it came out very clearly. I really appreciate that. MS. RYER: Thank you. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. I think that Mr. Chung, you'd appreciate this. There's a saying that goes, "There are lies, and then there are statistics." It's true, data can be analyzed in such a way that maybe misrepresents the baseline. But what I really wanted to say is important is that the discrepancy is real, it's measurable. What like about your presentation is you didn't diagnose it because you didn't have that level of information, and I think that's all—what we're all interested in, is that further job -by -job comparison. Page 12 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 In this County, I would say just as a suggestion, the County and the university are two of the main employers, and so, maybe speaking to them. And even though that would be a subset of the overall population, that might give you some more representative numbers on the job -by job basis, to kind of get to another level of detail on this. Thank you. MS. RYER: Yeah, and that's a very good point. We reached out to the County, but that's what we got. The answer is "yes," we do have that data. We have—they have more granularity. But it is only for the County, when we were interested more in a, you know, County -level, for County or non -County jobs. Now, I think it would be interesting to just take that data and analyze it, and then see what it says. I have a career of 25 years. I'm also a mother. I worked in a very male -dominated field. I'm a geologist, by background. Even my mom told me, "My God, you're a woman. You are going to raise your kind in a backpack," which is partly right. But I know that it doesn't really matter what obstacles are presented in front of women. If they're given an equal opportunity, they will take it and then they will make the most of it. When you prove that you could do a job better than anyone else, you're going to be given the reward for that. I had that reward. And also, when you're supported by your family or spouse, you're not—my husband, we basically shared equally. Everything. Raising—you know, the kids got sick, he took the same amount of time off as I did. We traveled the same amount of time, so it wasn't—given the opportunity a woman will always work as hard as anybody else. Now, when you have to make a choice, you know, who's going to do this, because I'm not going to do it, then that's a different issue, and I don't know how that could be changed. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. I'm going to go to Mr. Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder. And then, Mr. Chung, I just want to be mindful of the time, and the next committee that we have scheduled. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Without going to deep, I'm a small business owner. I've worked construction. I have been a delivery driver for Pizza Hut. I've experienced, probably not too different from everybody here—but I'd love to talk to you, if you wanted to kind of just pick my brain for more information rather than talking about it now. I was going to share a couple stories as far employment, things that I've seen in the construction field, but I think it's better to do it from maybe offline. But I'd love to talk to you, if you have—if it's helpful and if it helps you. MS. RYER: Very helpful. I will reach out. Thank you very much. Page 13 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you. Just real quick. All of my colleagues shared their sentiments, when it comes to the report you folks had provided to us today. I just want to also say mahalo. No matter how you interpret it, I think conversations around this topic are important to have. And as Councilmembers Villegas and Chung mentioned, this report is, in a simple way, completely just awesome. So thank you so much for all of the work. And to your colleagues who are not here today, the committee, mahalo to them, as well. MS. RYER: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Mr. Chung, please take us home. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, alright. Thank you. And then this kind of references what Ms. Kimball said about, you know, the lies, right? I've said it before actually, you know. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. But I used it so many times already, I didn't want to use it this time. And for you, Dr. Ryer, you talked about your profession as a scientist. Ms. Kimball is a scientist, as well. You know, I don't know if you guys know, but we really do admire that. You guys are actually—you know, you guys broke through that barrier. Just about a month ago, we met another scientist, Jennifer Doudna, who was told when she was a student, "Women don't become scientists," and look what she became. You know, so there are so much possibilities. There's so many possibilities in life, yeah? But keep up the good work, please. Thank you. MS. RYER: Thank you very much. CHR. LF,F, LOY: Thank you Mr. Chung. Thank you to the rest of my colleagues provided. And really, I do have to echo what a fantastic presentation you I do want to acknowledge, just as a mom, oftentimes we need permission to say, "This is tough. We need help." So if there's any way to reflect that data in all of this, I think it would go a long way to demonstrate that there are a lot of women who are taking on leadership positions, to acknowledge there are other women who are doing the exact same thing, and having to take a deep breath that it's tough. Page 14 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 I think the other thing that would be incredibly helpful—because women are just caregivers by instinct, I don't see the correlation between our kupuna—my mom, who has taken up the charge to watch my kids when I was busy doing what I needed to do. We pound poi, right? We just work hard. And if it wasn't for my mom kind of stepping into that caregiver role, when I needed her when we didn't have the support with afterschool programs, I think that would be incredibly helpful for us to recognize that it is a community that raises our kids. And then be kind of 180 degree of that, which is I am a caregiver now for my mom, and that's what we instinctually do. I think that would provide like this big lens on how important it is for women to give themselves permission, elevate our kupuna who helped raise our kids. But also on the backend, how our kids, the daughters, kind of fall into that caregiver role when our parents need it. I think that would provide just an enormous understanding on not only the disparages of women and what they are making, but the sacrifices that they are making. That would be incredibly helpful to address. As Mr. Chung said, if there is discrimination, we need to address it. If there are policy -shifts, we need to address it. But more importantly, value the gift, the sacrifice that everybody is making. Not only husbands and sons, but daughters and wives. If there is a way to present that information too, I would love to see it. Would you care to respond? MS. RYER: Thank you. I have to think about that very hard, because I'm not sure how you could capture that in numbers. But we will take that challenge, and we'll give some thought of how. Because it is a very important issue. CHR. LEE LOY: There's value. MS. RYER: Some things cannot be quantified. But yes, thank you. That's food for thought. MS. MELLON-LACEY: If I can just add? One thing that the committee has done. I don't think we did it the last year because of the COVID, but we sponsored an essay, a real women essay contest in the schools, where the children write about their role model to them, which is almost always a family member, a tutu, or a mom. And it's those stories, reading them, are so compelling, written by the child from their perspective. Maybe that's the kind of thing that could address this more, on a broader basis. Like an almost a storyboard, yeah, because those stories are so touching. Numbers can't tell you those things. MS. RYER: Yeah, that is very true. We do that. That's a yearly event. We've done it every year since—I don't even remember, before my time on the Page 15 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 committee. We haven't done it this year or last year because of the COVID. But that is—that's actually a good suggestion. CHR. LEE LOY: Yeah, thank you for that. I think there's incredible value, and not in the way of a paycheck. Just sacrifice alone should be valued. With that, I kind of want to wrap it up. We have a motion to close file on Communication 361. Ms. Kimball, I have to thank you enormously for this, bringing this forward and the reflectiveness that this has provided to this body. So with that, all those in favor of closing file on Communication 361, please say "aye." Vote on Comm. 361: The motion to close file on Comm. 361 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy – 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member David – 1. Excused: None. 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. (There were none.) CHR. LEE LOY: Alrighty, that brings us to the end of the agenda. Page 16 HSSSC-7 September 7, 2021 ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 2:11 p.m. Mr. Inaba moved to adjourn MENT: the meeting. Seconded by Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, Inaba, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member David — 1. Excused: None. CHR. LEE LOY: This meeting is adjourned at 2:11 p.m. Thank you, everyone. MS. RYER: Thank you very much. Mahalo nui. Ms. u K. Lee Loy, liuman Servic s and Soci SL/na ices Co1ami (Date) Page 17