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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN GOREDC 2021/11/17 2020-2022 Committee on Governmental Operations, Relations, and Economic Development 18th Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawai i November 17, 2021 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Governmental Operations, Relations, ORDER: and Economic Development was called to order at 9:01 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Chair Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) (came in later) Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member (came in later) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member (came in later) 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: The following individuals registered to speak and came forward when called by the Chair: Paul Kuykendall: Comm. 109.2, comment. Melissa Niemeyer: Comm. 109.2, comment. Robert Golden: Comm. 109.2, comment. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you to all of our testifiers. With that, I'll close Public Testimony and we'll go to the agenda. We're going to begin by taking Communication 454 out of order. Mr. Clerk. GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 Change Order As directed by the Chair and with no objection from the Council Members, the of Business: following item was taken out of order: Comm. 454: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY REPRESENTATIVES OF OPENGOV REGARDING ITS PLATFORM TO SUPPORT AND FACILITATE BUDGET AND FINANCIAL PROCEDURES From Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated October 12, 2021. ; and Comm. 454.1: From Council Members Ashley L. Kierkiewicz and Susan L. K. Lee Loy, dated October 28, 2021,transmitting supplemental materials from OpenGov. Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to close file on Comm. 454. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Last Council term, this body received a presentation from representatives from OpenGov. That was coordinated by my office and Council Member Valerie Poindexter. It was a platform that she learned about through her connection through HSAC (Hawai`i State Association of Counties) and NACo (National Association of Counties). And it is a way in which we are able to take a look at our County budgets in real-time and really opens up where our dollars are flowing. Any member of the community would be able to access this dashboard. Some time has passed since that initial presentation. And through that their platform of offerings has grown. I was in a position to be able to have a conversation with OpenGov representatives where they talked to us about how the offerings have grown to serve community during the pandemic and thought it was a great opportunity to invite them to the Council to give a quick presentation. And really want to focus it on three areas. The first is helping us with budget review. I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of tired of making my own spreadsheets based on the big binders that we're getting very generously from the Finance Department. Maui County Council last budget session utilized the OpenGov platform in order to be able to see how different budgetary allocations would work out. So this could be a tool that we would use come next fiscal year budget discussion. Page 2 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 A couple of other things. We are getting so much money from the Federal Government. CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) money ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) money. There's all this money that's been dedicated for Puna lava recovery that we don't see because it's not included in our budget per se. We want to know how this money is being programmed to support community. And this platform from OpenGov would help to support and facilitate that. Finally, one of the other things that we as Council Members do is push out contingency relief funds as well as our $2.5 million non-profit grant aid process. This would allow us to digitize those programs and be able to show community members where all of these, you know, hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to support those various initiatives. So with that, I wanted to turn it over to the team from OpenGov. I believe we have Jason Carian, Paul Felton, and Scott Coble available today to walk us through a quick presentation and answer any questions our colleagues might have. Recess: At 9:17 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 9:19 a.m. CHR. KIMBALL: Yes. Thank you; and thank you Relley, we'll go ahead and come out of recess if we're okay, tech-wise? Yes? Alright, you want to reintroduce our guests? Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. We have Jason Carian from the OpenGov team that is here to make the presentation on the platform, and is available to answer to questions Council Member might have. Jason, going to turn it over to you. MR. CARIAN: Excellent. Thank you for the introduction. I apologize, I was having some technical issues on my side. So I'm glad I was able to make the conversation today. And thank you for having us. My colleague, Scott Coble will be jumping on in just one moment as well. Would it be alright if I went ahead and shared my screen here for just a brief part of this presentation? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes, please. MR. CARIAN: Fantastic. So wanted to just maybe start here and I know some materials were sent over in advance of this presentation. Page 3 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 (Note: At this time, OpenGov Strategic Account Executive Jason Carian; Regional Manager Paul Felton, and Product Director Scott Coble came forward to provide a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or online by navigating to the Council's video archives from the County's homepage at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 454.1.) MR. COBLE: So Jason, I know today's goal was just high-level overview. I'll stop there, stop the share, and just see if there's any questions, or you had anything else you wanted me to cover, let me know. MR. CARIAN: No,that was great Scott. I know that was a very quick overview of OpenGov. You know, we can get very deep if you'd like us to, but our goals today was to quickly show how our tool can be used to support budgeting processes for Council, as well as how our tools can be used to support grant making processes or to issue grants within the community and track all that information and report out on it however you'd like to. So, I thought that was a great overview. And yeah, would love to open up the floor to any questions or comments. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Scott, Jason, for taking the time to connect with our colleagues at Hawaii County. Really appreciate the broad-brush overview of, you know, a few products that I think would be really helpful to Council Members based on some of the things that we are working on: the budget, contingency grants, grant-made funds. And then also helping us to keep a better more watchful eye on how Federal dollars that are coming to counties at a really rapid pace, are going to be used to support community and government functions. I also want to just turn it over to Council Member Lee Loy, because we've been working together to just stay in communication with you folks and identify what might be useful to this body. I want to also just put out there, I'd like to E-introduce all of my colleagues to Jason and Scott. If you are interested in having a more robust, deeper discussion outside of this meeting to kind of test out the tools, ask intimate questions, I want to make sure all of that information is available to you. Because at some point, we need to have a conversation about, is this something that we want to explore purchasing, because I think it could be really helpful. You know, I came into Council wanting to move our budget forward to a more outcomes-based model. And I think this is one of those tools that will help us to Page 4 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 get us there. But again, we have to make this decision together. And I think at the end of the day, it's going to be a good one to help us ensure that we're able to carry out our Council mission, but also be really fiscally responsible and communicative to the community about it. So, I don't have any questions. Just mahalo you guys for your time. Going to turn it over to Sue. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. And before we move on to Council Member Lee Loy, I just want to reflect that Council Member Richards has joined us. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. And Jason and Scott, thank you so much for being here. As Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned, and for the rest of my colleagues, we had posed to them just a bunch of different scenarios on how these programs could actually help us. And of course, grant-in-aid was incredibly special for me. And they were able to provide, as you saw, these infographs. Some of these mappings where we would be able to identify the needs in community. We saw that as a very valuable tool. We also know about the CARES funds, right? That was something that Finance Department needed to track. And so we also saw some snapshots from other counties that they did that for. We all know we still have paper timesheets. And this would be an incredible tool to go digital with our timesheets. And so, as Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned,just the suite of opportunities here, but as we move into our budget cycle in the next few months here, we all know we sit here with five different binders. And the most valuable tool I found from Scott and Jason was the real-time data that could be generated. I think there's times when we're looking at budget and making financial decisions, and we haven't even seen where we stood financially because we haven't gotten that monthly budget summary two or three months later. So it's very challenging for us. And this is that ability for us to make that real-time decision with real-time information. My favorite, favorite part of this was the public engagement where people could actually click on different things that they wanted to see monies go to, how they could be used and really get that instant feedback. And as Ms. Kierkiewicz said, I would really ask my colleagues to lean in, talk story with Scott and Jason, put those things out to them. They have just a textbook of different solutions for so many counties that this program is being utilized in. That's really my pitch for this, but I really do hope that our colleagues can see the value of this, and we can start small. But I think this is a really good way of moving forward. Page 5 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 We're looking at $2.3 billion in ARPA monies coming into the State, with that TAT (Transient Accommodation Tax) coming up in our own County. We still got GE(General Excise), Council of Revenues. We can talk about the fundings that are coming in. And the best way to help our constituency is making sure that those dollars reach the communities that they're intended to serve. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. And this OpenGov thing, we actually look at this and I'm not sure if one of these gentlemen is who I spoke to previously on Maui. I see nodding heads. I think we spoke on this. Is that accurate? MR. CARIAN: I might have been me. It might have been actually our Senior Vice President. I think he was actually out there in Maui and potentially visiting with some folks, but I am aware that I think this might have been seen in the past. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, and this is now probably three-plus years. Looking to it at that point and as it was pointed out, Val Poindexter also was interested in this. And we did do a pretty good dive into it at that point. I like it. And a couple of things that Ms. Lee Loy touched on, the transparency, the open government aspect of it I found very intriguing. Maui, I guess is using it now. So is Kaua`i, and I know Kaua`i likes it. And the real-time effectiveness of it I also find very useful for us as we go forward. Couple questions on this, and I think I asked this question several years ago now. Putting our data into the system, that is a huge effort. Is that something that is part of the setup with you? MR. CARIAN: Yeah, I can take the first half. Scott and I will kind of tag-team. But absolutely, that is part of the implementation. The level of effort there can really be as big as folks want it to be in terms of the type and breadth of data that they want to bring into OpenGov. But we are very skilled that bringing in a lot of financial data, we do it all day for all of our customers. So it is something we have a lot of expertise in. Scott, anything you want to add there? MR. COBLE: Yeah, good points Jason. The other thing is, you can bring in as much data as you want, Council Member Richards. So a lot of governments will bring in historical data. It might be ten-years plus of historical financial data. And they'll also bring in data from a non-financial perspective. Page 6 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 And there's two mechanisms that we can bring data in. One's called an integration where we can bring it in automatically. The other one is by just dropping a spreadsheet into the platform. So we have something called a Data Manager, where if you data in Excel, you can just bring the data in, in that mechanism. MR. RICHARDS: And that is part of the setup if we jump for this, that you will help us walk through this and hold our hand as we get into all of that, correct? MR. CARIAN: Absolutely. So what we do is when we kick off the engagement, we'll ask you what data you want to bring in. We'll actually do the integration if you want to do that. That's on OpenGov. And then we'll do multiple rounds of training. So we'll do what's called an Administrator Training where we'll train the Administrators on how to use everything inside and out. And then we'll do an end-user training for those users who don't have the administrative capabilities on the functions that they can do. But it is an active engagement with OpenGov. Coming from government myself, I think that's one of the things that I'm most impressed with, is our customer support. So we have real human beings you can always talk to. There's a chat that has a real human being. I think it's 7:00 a.m. eastern to 10:00 p.m. eastern. And you have a customer success representative that you can call on the phone at any given time. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and that was another follow-up question about customer support. And then as far as data housing, is that something that is stored somewhere through this system, or is stored in our systems, or both? What's the redundancy there? MR. CARIAN: Yeah, that's a great question. So the way—we're hosted on what's called Amazon Web Services. And so basically we store all the data on OpenGov. The data is always yours, but you don't have to stand-up servers to be able to manage data. That's on OpenGov. The nice thing too, is for redundancy. You know we have basically, Amazon servers on east coast and west coast. So if something went down, you would still have all your data at any given time. But that again, the data pool can also tap into your internal systems and pull it directly into OpenGov if you want. But great questions. MR. RICHARDS: And then with that, you know, we're out here in the middle of the Pacific and we don't always have access to internet. Are we able to function if we are isolated for a period of time? How does that work? Page 7 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MR. CARIAN: Yeah, and what's nice is everything I showed you today is mobile-friendly, so even if, you know, Wi-Fi is out, you can use cellular. And that can be through your phone, but probably more likely your i-Pad or, you know, a laptop. Everything I showed you is browser-based and we're also browser-independent. I was using Google Chrome, but if you're using Internet Explorer or Safari or some other browser, that's the only mechanism you need to access OpenGov. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, then I always ask this question, cost. And I realize that this is a presentation and you haven't analyzed, and we haven't gotten all together with Finance and all that, as of yet. So I'm not going to press you on a cost, but we're very cost-conscious, as we all should be. And so I assume you have a proposal of a software set-up cost. And then a period of time where we will be educated through the process; and then there's an annual fee or something like that. MR. CARIAN: Yeah, exactly. And we haven't ironed out the cost yet because I think we're still figuring out what would be most valuable to the County. Essentially, our pricing is actually very simple. I'll explain it, starting at a high-level—our pricing is based on the budget of a government that we're working with. So typically, the bigger the organization, there's more complexity, there's more users, there's more data. So we essentially have budgetary tiers. And what a government pays for OpenGov, in the first year, there's like a one-time implementation fee. That is essentially everything that is required for us to go data integrations to bring in the data into the system to train your users. Basically, so you hit the ground running. You log in and the system is set-up. And we have an annual software licensing fee. That is essentially for unlimited use of the system. So you can have as many users in here, whether internal users obviously, anything you make public can be available to the public. One important thing to know about OpenGov is well, we actually update our software on a bi-weekly basis. So every two weeks we roll out an improvement to the system. You don't have to do anything from a technical perspective to take advantage of those improvements, they just come to you. So you're essentially always on the latest and greatest that we have to offer out there. So hopefully that answers your question. MR. RICHARDS: It does and just, you know, for the public, this is a public meeting, give me a scale. What are we looking at as a set-up fee? And this isn't contractual, but just so the public is understanding. Page 8 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MR. CARIAN: Yeah, I mean, it can really range, and I have to iron this out and I have not ironed it out. But, I mean, we have contracts that range from, you know, $50,000 to $75,000 annually to multi-hundred thousand dollar contracts. And these are just scales between various cities and counties that we work with depending on the complexity of what they're doing. Our one-time implementation fee, that's also variable based on the scope of the project, but it can range between $50,000 to probably $150,000. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, alright, and like I said, this isn't contractual. There's a lot of details that need to get worked out. Final question, cybersecurity in this day and age. That's a really big deal, and this is all the financials. How do you handle that? MR. CARIAN: Absolutely, and Scott, I don't know if you're pulling up something. MR. COBLE: Yeah, I will. I'm going to share this in the chat. And if you can't get it, Jason can send it to you in a follow-up. But we have everything about our security online here in OpenGov.com/trust. So Council Member, it talks about encryption, and reliability, and redundancy. And then if anyone from your tech team needs to a deeper dive, we'd be more than happy to put them in communication with our IT people. So I put that in the chat, but it's OpenGov.com/trust, and it goes into very details on our certifications, data protection, and those types of things. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you. We can go and read the stuff on that, but yeah, go ahead. MR. CARIAN: Yeah, I was going to say,just on the cybersecurity point, so we've been doing this for 10 years working with well over 1,000 cities and counties. We've never had a cybersecurity incident or been at fault in that regard. We do take that very seriously. And the other point I did want to make regarding just pricing and contracts, is OpenGov is available on State contract in Hawaii. So from a cooperative purchasing agreement, our pricing is actually published on, you know,public websites. And once we scope this out, I can share that with you. But just be aware, we are on a precomputed contract in the State of Hawaii. Just so you know. MR. RICHARDS: I appreciate that. Thanks for all the information. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Richards. Anyone else? Council Member Villegas. Page 9 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MS. VILLEGAS: Sure. Thank you, gentlemen for being here. And thank you Council Member Kierkiewicz for bringing this opportunity. And thank you, Val, wherever you are on the east coast for starting this conversation as well. I get emails from you guys all the time. And so, it's really nice to have a more personal interaction and get to hear more specifics about the software and technology and what's available. Yesterday, as we sat with DPW and Planning and went over many of the challenges in transitioning to a digital permitting system, the EPIC (Electronic Processing and Information Center) system, and talked about this high-priced permitting, $300,000 a year, something like that. It makes me really hopeful for a transition like this. It makes me feel like we're moving our County into the 21" Century in so many ways. I just have a quick question as far as responsibility on this. So this is kind of an informational communication, but when it comes to the actual engaging and creation of a contract, does this fall then to the Mayor's Office as an Administrative kind of thing? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, if I may respond? CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead, Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Villegas, that's an excellent question. This is informational. We wanted to also hone in on the scope, so we identified a few deliverables based on our real-world experience as Council Members. From here, I'm going to be working with the OpenGov team to develop a proposal and hoping to have a subsequent conversation where we talk about where we can pull funds within our County budget to purchase this kind of software. It's a song-and-dance that we're going to have to have with the Administration. Definitely want to make sure our Finance Director, our Budget Administrator, and our IT Department are in on the conversation because we're going to need their support, and help, and information in order for this platform to be truly successful. I don't know who the contact would be with per se. It might be with the Council-Clerk's Office, if this is something that we want to move forward on. I think that is a detail that we're going to have to source out with the Finance Director at some point in the near future if we want to proceed with this. I hope that's helpful. MS. VILLEGAS: Very helpful. Thank you so much. I also, you know, as we talk about we've had CARES funding this year, and now we have infrastructure funding. I wondered about the opportunity within the discussion for this to be considered a part of infrastructure in some capacity. I'm not sure how Page 10 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 infrastructure is defined in some of the financial funding that's going to become available, but maybe there's some potential there. Thank you, Council Member Richards for asking about security, because that is one of the challenges. I find myself all too reliant on a piece of paper, I'm sure, but I'm still that pen-and-paper kind of person. But as we navigate and transition to a digital world, I think of how much paper we utilize just when we are going to be late or need to leave for a doctor's appointment. Every one of us gets a piece of paper with a note sitting up here. And that becomes cumbersome and wasteful. So how do we transition those habits and practices which are necessary for communication as we continue to move in this digital realm? I have just this one comment. The time zones. You know, 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., eastern is 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Hawaii time, which you just might want to take into consideration for, I don't know if you have any contracts? Well, they did mention Maui and Kaua`i, but those timeframes are more challenging for us. So hopefully, there's some flexibility in service on that. And then my other question is, who owns this company? MR. CARIAN: When you say who owns the companysorry, Council Member, noted on the time zones we do have current engagements with, you know, Maui and Kaua`i. And we're always cognizant of insuring that we're syncing on the right time zone. But in terms of who owns the company, OpenGov is privately held. If you go to our website, in OpenGov there's a page about the company. You can read a little bit about the individuals involved in the company, but it's a very exciting company. Essentially the company was borne out of Silicon Valley. Some of our, you know, individuals and board members are folks like there's a gentleman named Marc Andreessen who is one of the early investors and like on Facebook. And a gentleman named John Chambers who built the company called Cisco Systems, which I would presume some of that IT equipment is probably used in the County there. But he ran Cisco Systems for about 20 years and he's highly involved in the company. So we are privately held, and I can leave it at that for now. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, thank you. That's helpful, and thank you again for bringing up this conversation and this opportunity to explore ways to improve the overall efficiency in the way our County government operates. I guess my last question would be, you know, we sit here, we're elected officials, but so many members of County Government are civil servants and are actually union employees. So I wondered, and you must have navigated this avenue of working within, providing training, have there been any issues with that? Page 11 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 Sometimes, some of the challenges, when people have done something a certain way for so long, there can be resistance to that change. And you know, change is constant. So how do we introduce these new means and new technologies within the paradigm of civil servants who've had, you know, been in these jobs and done things a certain way for a very long time? Have you guys needed to navigate that kind of circumstance? MR. COBLE: Absolutely, probably with every customer. So change management is the biggest component right? We can have the greatest software in the world, and if you don't have buy-in from the top, and push it down through an organization it makes it challenging. But that's again, one of the things, you know, we have I think 400 years of government experience on staff. Jason might have showed you that slide. We have former government people that have been through it. And we actually assist governments in the change management process on building up champions and helping spread that change throughout an organization. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. And something I would,just as a little side note, is, in Hawaii there are high sensitivities, and government is a little different based on the history of this State and this place. So, some places it works for high-level buy-in and pushing it down. And I think here sometimes success is more often accomplished through the buy-in from the roots and the grounded and those who are in those places of service and then moving up from there. So that would just be my one comment. And I'm sure you know that and had to manage that in other places. But just for myself out of respect for those that work in our County Government, I think that they are the foundation of this space, and they have held this space through thick and thin through floods, and like, gosh, can you imagine trying to be responsible for documents and pieces of historic government information when your building is under water. So we have really amazing people who have been here for a very long time holding down the fort, for lack of a better way to say it. So, thank you for your sensitivity and your graciousness in navigating all of those socioeconomic and culturally diverse opportunities, sometimes challenges, but perspectives when doing business and working in government here in Hawaii. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Villegas. Anyone else here in Kona? Okay, Matt, do you have any questions? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I don't have questions, but I would like to say, I mean historically, I don't know that any Council Member would be considered a budget analyst. And yet in our community we have so many people Page 12 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 who raise good questions and dig into our budget, but have a hard time getting the information. I would support, you know, an operation like this for our County so that we as legislators can keep track of what's going on, but more so that there is a transparent component to how our budget worked, is working, and where it stands for our community. And I think that that is probably the most utmost concern that we're talking about today is how to provide transparency from where we stand financially for our County when it comes to public tax dollars to our residents. And, you know, I really appreciate today's conversation. I would support this going forward, both for us as legislators and for our residents. I think there's some tremendously capable people in our community who would help dig into our budget if given a tool like this. So I don't have any questions for today. I appreciate the presentation that was given and your folks' time with us, given the time difference. But that's where it stands for me. This is ultimately a transparency tool in government. So mahalo for your time today, appreciate it. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Anyone else? Alright, I'm going to ask a few questions myself and then I'll pass it back to Council Member Kierkiewicz just for maybe some description for possible next steps. Thank you both for being here, Jason and Scott. I am the Council Member that replaced Council Member Poindexter. And I'm a year into my job so I unfortunately didn't see the previous presentation, but I have had conversations with council members from the other counties about their experience with OpenGov. So I do have familiarity with it. I first wanted to ask, Council Member Richards did ask a little bit about the data inputs, and curious. Beyond budget, what other sort of data sets do you bring into the system for these different types of tools that you've referred to? MR. COBLE: Yeah, Jason, I can answer that, or you can go ahead. MR. CARIAN: Yeah. MR. COBLE: It really depends on each government that we work with. But just to name like a few systems that we commonly will tap into. We'll tap into like a 311 system that has a lot of rich data around service level agreements across multiple departments. Page 13 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 We'll tap into permitting systems or transportation-related systems. And this can be all non-financial data. Like if you think about key performance indicators; a simple thing like how many potholes did you fix? How many roads are under water? Or whatever you have. That data can come from anywhere. So we actually do a lot of integrations with financial systems, but we're agnostic to the data source. And we can also be that intake form, if you will, of the data itself, too. So I run into a number of governments. I worked in performance quite a bit where they actually don't actually have a system to collect the performance measures. And at that end, we can create that form and work flow to collect performance. So really, I guess in a long-winded answer, we can take in as much data from as many sources across all of your departments and service areas. MR. CARIAN: Yeah,just to expand on Scott's comment, I think a primary point of success that we always start with is with budgetary and actuals. So your actual expenditure is your actual revenues, because that type of information is usually applicable to just about anybody understanding where we are versus the budget. Whether that is internally or externally. So that's a very good place to start and to Scott's point, expanding to other areas of performance, like 311, or 911, or roads, or other things. Those would be some good examples. MR. COBLE: And then one last thing on that to Council Member Kierkiewicz's point, helping government get to those outcomes is a big thing. And I think every government has done traditional budgeting for a long time, but it's showing how your performance is related and tied to your budget, and getting you to outcomes is a huge need that governments have had for a long time. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. And I do have some questions about that in a moment, but I do want to ask again about, you know, continuous on this line. What is your ability to incorporate special data in particular? I know you did show the one representation about how the grants were distributed through the County, but just more broadly? MR. CARIAN: Yeah, in the forms and workflow, what we do for a lot of governments is integrate with the GIS system that a government has. Most governments will have something called ESRI, if you've heard of that? Or ArcGIS. It manages all their master addresses. And not only can we pull on the addresses, but we can pull in all those layers. So when we use this—sometimes I use it for capital project prescreening. So before you issue a capital project, looking at where that project is on a map. Is it in a flood zone? Is it in a historic district? So we have full capability to pull in geographic information and then display it on a map like I showed you in a couple of examples. Page 14 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 CHR. KIMBALL: Great. Thank you. I know Council Member Richards also asked a little bit about costs, and you gave us some preliminary numbers. And I appreciate that it's difficult until we fully scope this out, to give us anything very concrete. However, you know, you presented that one slide with the cloud with the four different the Budget and Planning, Procurement, Financial, and Citizen Services. Are these available independently, kind of like a menu where we can pick and choose? MR. CARIAN: Absolutely. CHR. KIMBALL: And are there any benefits to going for the whole package? I mean is there like a bulk discount for incorporating everything in? MR. CARIAN: Great question, Council Member. So to answer your question, these are—we call them suites, each of those boxes is a suite of software. They are available individually. The more suites of software you have, we do apply, I forget the exact discount percentage rate, but I think it's about five percent for each additional suite you buy. The two suites of software we didn't talk about today; one is called Financials, and I don't think it's applicable to this project per se. It's kind of like—it would be looking at replacing the County's financial system, where your general ledger is, and you know, how you do accounts payable and accounts receivable. And you know,payroll. And there's a lot in there. That's a very, very big project. The other suite of software is OpenGov Procurement. This is a fantastic piece of software. To be honest, it's usually utilized by departments in a county that do a lot of purchasing; a lot of public bidding. It helps them streamline their solicitation processes, engaging with suppliers, ranking suppliers, receiving bids; doing contract management. So, you know, from Councils' perspective, I don't know if Council does a lot of that work today for some reason; a lot of kind of bid solicitations to various suppliers, that might be worth something discussing. But typically I see it utilized by like a Public Works Department or Department of Transportation because they buy, you know, salt, and asphalt, and all sorts of goods, if you will. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you for that. And I don't want to, it's easy to say, but maybe we don't want to go for the whole thing here. You know, our Finance Director will tell you that our current financial system is as old as her son, who I believe is graduating high school this year. And there are certainly opportunities for improvement there. And if it's ultimately a cost-savings and it improves efficiency to just strategically plan for the whole thing, you know, begin with that. I'm inclined to look at that and consider it. Page 15 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 And I wonder, to what extent does not incorporating, like the procurement and the financials impact our ability to reflect to the public, the level of detail that's maybe necessary to communicate? I mean, do you feel like without those, you still get sufficient information presented? MR. CARIAN: Great question. I personally don't feel that way. So one thing to know with any of our suites of software, is they do build upon each other. A lot of our clients, as an example, they start with our budgeting and planning system. Six months later, a year later, maybe two years later, they decide to add on another system and that's my design. The systems do work really nice together. With that being said, I believe the level of information that I think Scott and I are hearing today, that you'd want to share with the public around financial information, budget information, and assuming we tackle the grants component, I think the current systems that we're discussing between the Budgeting and Planning system and the Citizen Services application, as we call it, I think those would go a very long way, personally. But Scott, I don't know if you have anything to add to that? MR. COBLE: Yeah,just that reporting and transparency is included with any of the suites that you get. And then so, if you don't get procurement, you can still be transparent around things like contracts. And you can have, if I shared you stories,just dedicated a contract. If you want to, you can have surveys around how you're doing business, you know, in the County. So I think you would be definitely covered with what we showed you today in terms of transparency and public communication. CHR. KIMBALL: Alright. Thank you. My next question has to do with return on investment metrics. Do you guys have anything to share about that? Do you find that counties, municipalities are able to improve their efficiency by implementing these sorts of tools in any measurable way? MR. COBLE: Absolutely. And Jason I'll let you chime in. One of the things I think we did is we'll see when we do a workforce plan—so that's your Personnel planning component, we save we found on average one percent of a government's budget. And there's some really good examples of finding savings in terms of you guys deal with union negotiations and healthcare and COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustments) and grades and steps. That's one of the biggest return on investments we have. In terms of time of saving of putting the budget together, Jason, I know you have some numbers around that, but it's like, governments spend their time. Is that the figure? Page 16 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MR. CARIAN: Yeah, a couple points that pop into my head, typically see on the budgeting side, a lot of our customers report about 30 or 40 percent reduction in the amount of time they spend budgeting. And that's mostly due to not having to stitch together spreadsheets. You know, we take care of that fun part of budgeting. The other point I'll make, when it comes to transparency, a lot of our clients have seen about a 30 to 35 percent reduction in FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. So public records requests around, you know, budget or financial information, or reports a certain way. Just having that information out there, we've seen a big reduction in those inbound requests. And then I'd say the last area, similarly when it comes to, you know,the grants process. That piece of software is so efficient at not only allowing people to apply for the right information online, but being transparent within the organization or within Council as to, who needs to do what, you know, where is this in the review process that we see. And we can send you some examples of this if you'd like, but about a 40 to 50 percent reduction in the time it takes the government to process one of those applications. Because everyone's working in one system, all the data is right there at your fingertips. There's no paper floating around or waiting on anything to make it to your inbox. So hopefully that helps. CHR. KIMBALL: Yes, thank you, that's helpful. Again, recognizing that we don't have a clear picture of what we're scoping out yet, what does implementation time look like? Let's say if we just were to do the Budget and Planning and the Citizen Services at this point, what are we looking at? MR. CARIAN: I mean I can give you kind of my rough scopes here and Scott, if you want to chime in. But typically we like to allot for the Budgeting and Planning system and for the grants component here. I would estimate about four to five months from end-to-end in terms of like, day one the project starts to sometime in month four or five. Your staff are trained, they're using the system both for budgeting, for reporting purposes. And the other component of that is, if grants are a part of this, I would expect definitely by month four or five, any grants you wanted to have available online for people to apply for, that would be done. MR. COBLE: Yeah, and we've done it faster,too. So the Fighting Chance Fund example that I showed you from St. Petersburg, we had to stand up in about two weeks, right? So they had very tight deadlines, but Jason's estimates are accurate. Page 17 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 CHR. KIMBALL: Great. Thank you, that's helpful. Do you find when you bring these systems in, that in most cases, the counties, municipalities are able to use their own staff to then manage the system going forward or are additional staff required to support the integration of the system? MR. COBLE: Jason, I can speak to that too. MR. CARIAN: Please, go head Scott, yeah. MR. COBLE: Your own staff. So you know, I was Product Director for the first year and we really built everything for ease of use. So after we do the training, we'll show you how to do everything in the system. You absolutely don't have to hire additional staff. You can always contact OpenGov if you need any help. But as far as, you know, support goes, you'll be able to manage this all internally along with OpenGov. You won't have to hire staff or go to IT for any of this. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. My last question for you two is, you know, functionally you talked about how we could prioritize certain things budgeting for outcomes, which we've talked about a lot. And I'm really excited about that somewhat novel approach. How does that functionally work in the system at sort of a high level? I'm not going into too much nitty-gritty, but I just want to get a sense of how that works in a practical way. MR. CARIAN: Yeah, so what we'll do is we'll look at your current priorities or our outcomes, if you already have them established. And then we set up that structure so that when you're doing your budget, you actually pick the outcome or priority that you want to associate all those accounts or planning to. We can also then obviously take this and we have, I can show you, dedicated story templates to producing those outcomes and strategic plans. So we have governments that put their whole strategic plan online; how they're budgeting against it; how they're performing against it. So really, it's end-to-end, outcome focused budgeting, from the actual planning component then to the communication. And it's something, obviously I showed you really quickly today, but something we would train you or show you best practices from other governments. And then you could even pick existing templates that we've used in the past to accomplish that. CHR. KIMBALL: Great,thank you and that's helpful. I just had a question for Council Member Kierkiewicz or Council Member Lee Loy. So to what extent have you had conversations with the Administration, with Finance, IT, others about pursuing this at this point? Are those ongoing? Page 18 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: They are aware of these discussions, but I don't think we wanted to have a comprehensive discussion about it if there wasn't unity among the legislative body to want to pursue this. And we also wanted to make sure that we were in agreement on what our priorities for the platform, implementation could look like before bringing them on board. But you know, Deanna is certainly aware. I know Mayor Roth is big on government transparency. So really feel like this could be an easy sell to them. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, and if I might, Chair. I think this was the first step. And what I heard today was a lot of unity and curiosity on how this could become a valuable tool for us as we sit here, but to communicate to our constituency. And I did want to highlight two things actually, that Council Member Villegas mentioned which is, we are going to be getting a lot of money. And if there's just a small fraction of, you know, millions of dollars that help purchase this, I think it's a wise investment, especially for tracking the funding. And as Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder mentioned, the mining of this information to develop budgets, as you know, Council Member Kimball, budgeting for outcomes, right? Really getting it down. So I'm really actually excited to hear, you know, the unity of this body and want to encourage each of you to reach out to Scott and Jason, and as Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned, maybe suss out some of the things that you guys like to see, and then we could continue to have a conversation where Jason and Scott can help identify what we all liked and how they might be able to develop the suite of options for us. And I'll put it on the table. It really is the budget. We're going to be going into that in March. I think it'll be a great tool. And then, you know, that dashboard for our community stakeholders to engage in the budget process. Oh, and the grants, the tracking of our grants. I'd also like to hope and we see this all the time, contract change orders. We approve them all the time without really having a real strong foundation on where these monies are coming from. And I think that would be an incredible tool for us to manage that a whole lot better. Not only us, but the Administration. So thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. And thank you both for bringing this forward so we could have this conversation. I just want to ask you as well, where have you kind of settled on? You kind of just spoke to this, but have you had any thoughts about whether or not it makes sense to just do small pilot projects on this or maybe go for a broader overhaul. I just want to have that conversation real quickly. Page 19 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, if I may,just kind of kick things off. I think it's important to test this out and prove that it works. I think everybody is a little bit apprehensive about new systems, big change. And to Council Member Villegas' point about making sure that we get the buy-in and support of folks that are going to use this platform, so key. Which is why we said, let's focus on three things that are useful for us that are really helpful to the community and gives the County Administration employees a chance to put their palate on this before they take a deeper dive and see the value in all of the products that OpenGov has to offer. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, Chair, I might add, you heard today, some of the integration with ESRI which we know is in our Planning Department, but we also have Tyler Technologies with our EPIC. And so I really want other Council Members to lean in with Scott and Jason and understand real clearly, how does that integrate? What kind of patches or gaps are we looking at? We don't want to run into real costly patches because we didn't ask those questions up front. CHR. KIMBALL: Alright. Thank you. Well, thank you again for bringing this forward. Thank you, Scott and Jason from being here. I'll just say in conclusion, for me I'm fully supportive of exploring this. It's probably the question I get most often from constituents is, "I pay my taxes, how come they can't get that pothole fixed?" And you know, understanding where the money is spent, where the tax dollars go, is a pretty critical conversation for us to have with our constituents. I will also say that from where we sit as the legislative body, the best way to reflect our priorities is how we influence the budget process. I mean what you pay for is what you care about. And having gone through my first budget cycle, you know, earlier this year, it is super difficult to keep tabs of all of it, especially when it's all in a non-digital format. So I for one am highly supportive. Look forward to having some conversations myself with Scott and Jason as we move forward. And I'm going to pass it back to you, Ms. Kierkiewicz, to discuss how you want to proceed with the proposal. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I really appreciate that. I'm going to ask that we close file on this particular communication, because it talks about a presentation from our OpenGov team. I'm going to request that Chair of the Council and Chair of the Committee entertain an internal breach for deadlines, so that we can have a conversation about this early December at our one and only Committee meeting. Page 20 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 I'm going to work with the OpenGov team over the next couple weeks to reflect on what's been heard and presented today. And generate a proposal for our discussion at the December meeting, keeping in mind that Jason shared it's about four to five-month period for going live, essentially and implementing this particular platform here at the County. So, we can have a broader discussion once we get a proposal from the OpenGov team. And in the meantime, I will do an E-introduction to Scott and Jason, so that everyone here on the dais has an opportunity to have a deeper conversation with these folks and maybe explore some of the tools themselves. So with that Chair, I'm good with the vote,thank you. MR. CARIAN: May we add one comment? CHR. KIMBALL: Of course. MR. CARIAN: Thank you very much. Actually,just two comments I had. The first one was actually, it was about a year ago we were actually in very similar conversations with the Council Members over in Maui County. And with a very similar budget calendar, actually when they started doing their budget. And were able to get them up and running. And so I know I mentioned three, four, five months. But to Scott's point which he made, we'll move as quickly as needed, so if there is a timeline or a deadline should the County move forward with this system, we will make sure to get up and running in advance of your time of need to use it. That was point one. The other point was, there's been a couple comments made around the possible use of ARP (American Rescue Plan) funding for this type of system, and I wanted to just let it be known that there have been many governments that have used both ARP funding, and previously funding from the CARES Act to purchase and implement this system. So that can be a conversation for offline that we have many examples from other, councils even, in their purchase justification and how it tied to the requirements from treasury, and we're happy to share those with you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, that's helpful. Alright with that, we'll go ahead and take the vote on closing file on Communication 454. All of those in favor? Page 21 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 Vote on Comm. 454: The motion to close file on Comm. 454 was carried by Filed the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Inaba, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Villegas, and Chair Kimball—7. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and Richards —2. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Since we have Director Kern here, I'd also like to take Communication 109.2 out of order. Comm. 109.2: REQUESTS AN UPDATE FROM THE KILAUEA DISASTER RECOVERY TEAM TO INCLUDE DISCUSSION ON PHASE 1 OF THE VOLUNTARY HOUSING BUY-OUT PROGRAM, USE OF FEDERAL FUNDS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AND COUNTY INTERACTIONS WITH REVITALIZE PUNA AND RESILIENCE ACTION TEAMS From Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated October 11, 2021. ; and Comm. 109.3: From Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated November 2, 2021, transmitting supplemental material. Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to close file on Comm. 109.2. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation at this level. Thank you to my colleagues for indulging me and my community in these conversations. But this is one way in which we are able to get good information out from the Administration; out to community members and get, you know, things that may be promised on the record. So, thank you. Real high-level overview of the discussion I'm hoping to have today is related to progress made with the Voluntary Housing Buy-Out Program. Just as a reminder, this is the largest Federal grants that our County has received. And this is a program that Douglas Le and his team are building from scratch. So really critical to see where we are and how we might be helpful in helping to continue to push this program forward, which is really critical to a lot of folks. Page 22 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 The other thing is at the Revitalize Puna Activation in October, we finally were able to get information on the Administration in terms of how they propose to spend Federal dollars that were received for damage inundation to Parks and Recreation facilities, roads, as well as water systems. So, information is out there. Community is weighing in. We continue to request that they provide mana`o so that we can finalize this as a County and community. And we'll kind of go over how that collaborative process is going to take shape. And then finally,just want to recognize the incredible work of the County. Specifically, recovery team and my office in partnership with a number of community members to lift up the resilience capacity areas. And that work is going to be supported by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) RPIC (Rural-Placement-Innovation) grant that we received. But there's a lot of ways in which we can prove working in partnership, County and community can work. This launched in June. It is very hard to say how things are playing out right now. I think more and more people; new faces are coming to the table because they're hearing this is a way that we're going to take action on things together. And so I just want community's patience a little bit on this to see how things play out, because there's a lot of trust that we need to rebuild. But this is a platform that allows us to do that. And I just take heart in what we are doing here which is creating something from scratch. We have a lot of flexibility, but what we do here has the potential to influence the ways in which boards and commissions operate and how even the CDP (Community Development Plan) Action Committees operate. You know, making sure that residents have a bit more tools and power to take actions on their visions for community. So with that, I want to turn it over to Director Kern and our Recovery Officer Douglas Le for a quick presentation. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Planning Director Zendo Kern and Disaster Recovery Officer Douglas Le came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. KERN: Thank you very much. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Zendo Kern, Planning Director. Yeah, lot going on; lot of action. It certainly has been a wonderful collaboration with Council Woman Kierkiewicz, the community, the Administration, and the departments coming together. Looking at making this a model for other areas. Page 23 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 I will be presenting on the backend of the presentation. And Douglas will be starting off with the Buy-Out Program. He is in Hilo. He's our Disaster Recovery Officer, which you all know. So I'm going to turn the floor over to Douglas for now and then I'll take it back up towards the end. Douglas. MR. LE: Good morning, Chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be with you and folks tuning in as well from our communities across the island. Douglas Lee, Disaster Recovery Officer. Really proud to be able to speak to the work we've done on the Voluntary Housing Buy-Out Program as one part of our recovery from the 2018 Kilauea eruption. And then also happy to speak to the item related to our Resilience Capacity Areas. So as folks are aware, you know, we had a chance to brief the Finance Committee two weeks ago, specifically on the progress made on expending the Federal and State assistance we've received as part of this recovery effort. But to really zoom in on the Voluntary Housing Buy-Out Program, we launched the program in April of 2021,just over six months ago. And we phased the program in such a way that those property owners who lost their primary home were served in Phase 1. We received applications from April 30th until July 31", and then kicked off, work with those applicants to really work through the intake process, the documentation and application packaging that we need to be able to move folks forward. And on November 1st, we kicked off Phase 2. Once again, it'll be a three-month application window. And Phase 2 is inclusive of second homes and long-term rentals. And so, those property owners who are eligible for Phase 1 are able to apply in Phase 2 as well. So to date, I can share some numbers in terms of where we are. For Phase 1 applications, relative to primary homes, we received a total of 299 applications during that three-month window. That ended on July 31". To date, we have been able to make, you know, intake and packaging with the vast majority of those applications. Of the 299, we have had seven applicants officially withdraw from the program. We have 15 applicants who were deemed ineligible for a number of reasons based on the requirements of the program and the regulations that the funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development do require. And we have about 20 who were started to move to inactive. Basically, for those folks, for any number of reasons are still eligible for the program; are still interested in the program, but because of, you know, the situation of their lives and several months of intake and communication, they're not ready to move forward right now. But they are able to move forward whenever they're ready to do so. Page 24 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 So really the main takeaway from Phase 1 is that the majority of those primary homes, we had estimated about 293 or 294, based on homeowners' exemptions that were on record prior to the eruption. You know, a lot of folks showed up to access assistance. Since the program application Phase 1 period ended on July 31st, we've received an additional 21 applications for primary homes. And we're now looking at and reviewing those applications themselves. So where do we stand on Phase 2? So Phase 2 for second homes and long-term rentals. Prior to November 1st, we had received over 90 pre-registrations. Very simple information,just who they are and the property, so we can make sure that we could contact folks when Phase 2 launched with all the application materials. In the first week, we received 52 Phase 2 applications. And at the end of this past week, we were at 90 applications under Phase 2. We're anticipating at least another 40 to 50 applications for Phase 2, only because that's kind of the net between those registrants who had made themselves known and the folks who've actually stepped up to apply at this point. So that's what we understand and really the design of the phasing of this program was to serve several purposes. One, to prioritize, kind of among needs to really align with the requirements of this funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But also to be able to look at these data,to communicate these data and look ahead in terms of really what commitment of funds and the scaling of the various phases would look like. So our staff are starting to work with those applicants who submitted applications under Phase 2 and we are looking ahead to Phase 3, which is when undeveloped parcels that were impacted by the eruption can also apply, as can folks who would be eligible under Phases 2 and 3. And that third and final phase will kick off in May of 2022. So you know, overall the program has been very successful. I really credit the work of our team who've come together, many who have very deep ties to these communities in the Puna makai area. And making things work on behalf of the folks that they are serving. And you know, we are dealing with 400 peoples' lives; 400 households, very unique situations folks are in. But you know, I think they can be really proud of the work that they are doing. We are proud of them. And one piece that also informs some of the conversations around infrastructure too, is, you know, we look at the survey we did back in February of all the impacted property owners. And in the communication, we did submit a map of one set of responses in the survey. I believe that the Council record map maybe a little bit hard to interpret, but folks should know that if they go to our website, w.w.w.r .c_.o.ve.ry.liawaiicounty..gQy under the tab for survey results, a very, very quality image of the map is available as well. Page 25 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 But what I think is really important about the map and the responses that we got were a couple of key takeaways. You know, of the 815 responses that we received from the survey, 55 percent of respondents are still living on island. We know that a number of property owners were not living on the island and did not call Hawai`i Island home prior to the eruption. But just to have a clear sense of scale in terms of who was here on Hawaii Island and folks that may own property here, but are not here, was very clarifying. Additionally, we know and I've met with folks who had to move to the continent or elsewhere following the eruption and are looking for an opportunity to move home, to move back to Hawaii Island. So when we look at folks who are still here, we see in the data that 238 respondents out of the total 448 that responded still live in the Puna district in the different subdivisions. So while it's many dots on the map, it's desegregation of the majority of the folks who were impacted, who remain in Puna and were able to find housing in subdivisions across the district. We see kind of more of a smaller number of folks who moved to other parts of the island. And then a significant number who also moved to Hilo. You know, having spoken to folks who are represented here on this map, it's really a mixture of reasons, right? It was very challenging to find housing immediately after the eruption. And today, it's even more challenging to find housing on our island. And so, you know,these data are helpful in terms of taking a large zoomed out look at where people are now. But the key takeaway is that, and it's not a surprising takeaway at all, that the folks who were impacted by the 2018 eruption have very deep ties to the Puna district. Puna mauka, Puna makai, and folks chose to continue to live in this area that matters to them. And so that's really kind of top of mind in terms of these broader questions around policy and infrastructure reinvestment. So that covers us on the Housing program and the Housing recovery front. I also wanted to provide some updates on where we are with the Resilience Capacity areas. You know, this is a process that was initially laid out in our Kilauea Recovery Resilience Plan, which was released in December of 2020. The implementation aspect of it really looked at establishing these resilience capacity areas across youth, cultural resilience, economic resilience, the resilience of the natural and built environments. And to really create a space where, you know, it is clear that there are responsibilities and functions of government to enable this recovery process. Page 26 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 But there are also opportunities where folks across our communities who are driving recovery, have the insight, the knowledge, the hands, and the different types of capital to move work forward while the County is also doing its work around reinvesting in public infrastructure;the grant-making through Kilauea Recovery grants and the Puna Strong program. This really is the resilience capacity areas, in addition to creating spaces for collaboration and members of our communities, to join in the effort with representatives from government. It's also about moving things forward in a multi-faceted way. And so we often operate on community engagement on the spectrum right, there are areas where it's about informing and educating. And then there are areas where it's also about deeply engaging and empowering. And I think it's a helpful way of thinking about the spectrum, because the application of where you are in the spectrum really depends on the context of the situation, you know, and what's before us whether it be a decision on investment in public infrastructure relative to kind of hui'ing up folks who want to reestablish farms or restore private road networks to help people get back on their lands, or you know, to reestablish where they live. And so, I think as Council Member Kierkiewicz spoke to, it is an experiment in governments in many respects, an informed and intentionally designed experiment. But I think what we're really trying to accomplish in these Resilience Capacity Areas touches upon a lot of ways that our County and communities can think differently and work differently in terms of the things that matter to us. And you know, I'm happy to be able to bring these conversations together; be in part with folks in our communities in this recovery space, from the 2018 eruption. I think there's a lot that Puna can demonstrate that communities across our island can also learn from and take on for themselves as we're working through this work of the Resilience Capacity Areas. So happy to, you know,take questions, but also want to hand it off to Director Kern to speak to some of the infrastructure aspects of the communication as well. MR. KERN: Do you have any questions for him now or may I present? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: We'd like information from you first. MR. KERN: Very good. Cool. Yeah, we're talking a bit about the infrastructure component. We have three major areas of roadways, water, and the Parks and Rec component. First I'd like to, you know, give kudos to the Disaster Recovery team. Amazing. Page 27 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 The RCA's (Resilience Capacity Area teams), the co-chairs. Everybody coming together. Council Woman Kierkiewicz's collaboration with that. And also, a lot of drive with that. It's been awesome. I've been focused a bit more on the infrastructures side. And Douglas and Ashley folks have been working more on the RCA's. And also want to really thank the community for the process that we've been going through. It's been critical. And I also want to say that we're open to always receiving more feedback. And one of the things we're working on is increasing the communication. It's always challenging, so we're working on different ways, whether it be social media, videos, press releases. And the other day, I was listening to a book, and the gentleman was talking about the point you get to where you felt like you've said it too many times, is around the time people might start hearing it. And so, that really resonated with me to continue to communicate, communicate, communicate, and find different ways to communicate. And I think that's something that's always challenging for government and people in general. And it's something that we're really working on uplifting. So with that, on the roadside of it, we talked about all of this at last Revitalize Puna meeting. Roads, we have a couple major areas. So one would be the restoration of Pohoiki Road. The upper portion that was inundated and the realignment of the lower road. This will be critical for one, bringing access back down to Pohoiki; but as well as bringing a water line down there. And that's a really big deal. As most of you already know, Pohoiki is a veryI think the second or third most used boat ramp. It brings in a lot of fish, lot of subsistence to folks. So with the anticipation of opening up the ramp down there, it was really critical to bring water in there. And one of the challenges around bringing water down in there, was the heat factor. And so there's concerns about the gaskets. And so, we've done a lot of communication with DPW (Department of Public Works) and DWS (Department of Water Supply), Ikaika and Keith, coming up with construction methodology that will work to allow the dissipation of heat. So for example, really doing the rough grading, hitting the deeper areas first, leaving the trenches open. And even maybe back filling with drain rock versus all the sand to allow that to occur. So there's a lot of determination to make sure that we can get that waterline down in there. To me it's just critical for Pohoiki come back to life, especially for the fishing community. Page 28 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 So we're working on that one. We got 137, which should be from what used to be Four Corners down at Kapoho back down to Pohoiki. So that will allow for circulation. There will be two areas coming back down to Pohoiki, but thought it was critical for circulation. We also talked to Police and Fire about that. And there was buy-in around that. So I think that's critical. It'll also, you know, we're challenged with the balance of, as Douglas said, folks have moved out of the area. There's no longer homes down there. But there are still people in the area. There's still a Puna community. So finding that balance between the reinvestment in that direct area and other investments within the Puna area. So felt that it was a good decision to reopen up 137. Because it'll also do something else. As folks come in to visit the area, there's a way they can drive down and hit Red Road. Then it'll bring visitors to Pahoa, which needs that, you know, economic revitalization. So it's multiple, multi-pronged and also give access to folks back down there. There is a small area along 137 by McKenzie that we'll also be restoring as well. And that was the first area that the lava came down and took out. We also have Lighthouse Road down to Cape Kumukahi. And we are working on design and approval for that, but we're in no rush to open that. That is a much more complicated situation down there that we're diligently working on. There's a lot of cultural sensitivity down there. There's a lot of strain, for lack of a better word. So what we've done, we've come together and we have DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources). We have the UH (University of Hawai`i). We have all the SHPD (State Historical Preservation Division) folks. We have OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs). We have the lineal decendents, the cultural decendents. And me, the haole boy in the middle trying to just bring it together. And as far as a clean clear communication, I'm trying to resolve some really long-standing issues. And while it's challenging, the dialogue has been really positive. And I feel that there's a lot of buy-in to the process, which is critical to move it forward. I'm not going to get too much more into that. I want to knock on wood. I'm optimistic about working on something. So that road won't be open up until that matter's really resolved and everyone's comfortable with that. I really want to honor that process. So we'll have approval from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). And then we'll just go through working on this process. And again, all the parties that I mentioned are, you know, doing our best to collaboratively work together. I'm sure it'll have some bumpy moments there, but it'll also keep coming back. And that's kind of my goal,just bring back to center. So that's the Page 29 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 road situation. Most of the funds, we feel will be that were allocating for roads will be expended in those areas. We are looking at some alternate projects in the Puna area. They will primarily be related to emergency evacuation connectivity and other areas in case of additional disasters. So the water infrastructure is a bit different. The money was allocated, around $40 million allocated for water. The decision was made not to restore all the water infrastructure back down to Kapoho. And a lot of that was driven based off the survey results and then what we're seeing with the buyout program. People are taking advantage of it. We're not going to see that repopulation. So the decision was made not to restore that, but to bring water back down to Pohoiki and then looking at multiple alternate areas for water. And that ranges from Pahoa Village to Nanawale to HPP (Hawaiian Paradise Park), to Kea`au. And right now, the number of projects is basically overprescribed. We've gone out to community. We're looking at getting feedback on that. We had a meeting a few weeks ago trying to gather more feedback on that to see where we're going to have the highest impact with that additional water. So that part's coming together well. All that information is on the website as well with all the lists of projects. Kind of an estimation of prices, etcetera. And soon we'll be trying to drill down what projects will actually move forward. And that's been good reaching out to the communities. And more communication, more collaboration, but we have those out there now and we can move forward. Related to the other component, Parks and Rec. I've been working with Mo and his team around that. And that one's a little bit different. I'll let Ashley talk a bit more about that one. But essentially, part of the money is going to equipment that'll be used for park maintenance. And that'll be used around the island. A small portion will be going to the Kurtistown dugouts; a small portion will be going to resurfacing the tennis courts in, Kea`au. And then there's a chunk of money that will be going into Pohoiki, not restoring exactly what it was, but it's basically an alternate project of redoing Pohoiki. And through the RCA's we're going to be going through an envisioning process. We don't have it set. They're going to go through that process. What makes sense? How do we do this? How do we plan this out? How do we masterplan that area? And that's really exciting. So we don't have the info on it, but it's coming and we have the resources together as far as person/people capacity to work forward on that. You know, there's obviously potentially contentious area around some of the equipment. There are a couple mowers that they're looking at going into Hilo Muni within this list. Some people support it, some people don't. We're always looking to get feedback within that. And you know, for me anything that's challenged, I'd rather lean into it and talk about it and go through the dialogue. Page 30 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 With any of this there's, you know, decisions that are made that don't make it everybody happy. But again, getting that feedback, being open, and that's really where things are right now. There's nothing set in stone. We're still open to getting that feedback going through this process, and allowing this process to unfold and ultimately come into decisions after the RCA's have met, more collaboration with the community. So I'm looking at probably, you know, February-ish where we're actually saying, okay, this is what we're doing. So these are more just proposals on the table; and again, trying to fill it out with community. But overall, the collaboration has been good. And really, it's a, you know, uplifting our communication to the best of our abilities. That's my general update for infrastructure. I'm sure I missed a few things. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Director. And thank you, Douglas for the very high-level overview of what's happening for Puna Recovery. There is literally so much going on. We could spend the entire day and then some talking about all of the intricacies that this division, the department, our office are working on. So there's a lot of room and always an invitation for anybody in the community and government to get involved in all of this work. There's a lot to do, and we can have our cake and eat it too. Director, since we're on the infrastructure piece, I just also want to emphasize that when this information was shared with community in October, we provided an infrastructure feedback form. And I want to emphasize to folks watching, community members, these projects are not locked in, per se. This provides something for you to chew on. Chew on it, spit it back out. Whatever you want. There's opportunity to continue to influence the process. And I'll highlight this because one of our testifiers said, "We should mandate that Resilience Capacity Area Co-Chairs have the ability to direct the dollars." They already are empowered. We've introduced something called the Community Engagement Spectrum. It's an internationally recognized model, but it provides clarity in where we are in terms of community engagement and how much power everybody's bringing to the table. And so when the department directors met with our co-chairs, and Director Messina was able to provide a sketch of where the $4.9 million for Parks is going to go, other than a $750,000 water system for Pohoiki, nothing was going to Pohoiki. And it was in that space of us being able to dialogue that we could move that to nearly $3 million, that was community influencing the process. They weren't disenfranchised. Mo didn't have to also. I think we need to highlight that. Page 31 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 And Douglas weigh in, correct me if I'm wrong. The departments do not have to spend any of the money in Puna that we got for lava recovery. This is a conscious proactive policy decision by the Administration to keep as many dollars in the community because they've recognized the opportunity we have to empower and reimagine the district. And to support all of these community priorities. So there's power in us being able to share information and talking about it. And I just want to highlight, our ideas may conflict but we don't have to conflict. We can compromise, and I think we did that. And there's still time to influence the process. So there's a feedback form. Folks have until November 30'h to contribute. We're going to share all that information with community. We want you to know what everybody is saying. It's important. It's an important part of the process to reflect on the information and use that to make final decisions. And Director, correct me if I'm wrong, but over the month of December and into January, reflecting on the community feedback and presenting at the next activation, January 1 11h, more or less final plans for community. Is that correct? MR. KERN: Yeah, that's correct, and I think you made a really good point of just continuing to gather that feedback. And we don't always have to agree and there is compromise. It was really neat to see it come together, as you talked about working with Mo and the community. And I think at the end of the day, it came out to a lot better than it was through that process. So yes, more feedback at the beginning of the year is when we'll be getting into final decisions. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Another thing about the reporting of the dollars that are coming in to support recovery. Lot of different Federal buckets, State buckets of money. We just had a really wonderfulChair, latitude on this one and I'll shift it to others, I have a few more things I wanted to share. I'll finish up this question, though. We just had a phenomenal presentation by the OpenGov team. And I know that a consistent from community members is, "Where is all the money going? How much do we have at any given moment? What are the restrictions of spending? How can we spend the money?" And so I think maybe if there is willingness and consideration by the Administration, by the division, by the department, to using the recovery process as a pilot on how we visually represent and showcase the community in real-time where those dollars are falling. I think that would help to assuage any fears of this money being programed for elsewhere and for using things outside of Puna Recovery. So I just hope there is a willingness to take a look at that system, and if it works, implementing it. Page 32 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MR. KERN: Yeah personally, I'm always willing to look at something new. I realize at the end of that presentation that I probably should have been here to watch it. It sounded like there was a lot of very interesting information. I don't know enough about it to speak to it directly, but I will say that, you know, transparency is key, and if we can have tools that work and help that,then I think we're very open to looking at that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, I yield for now. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Any other questions for Mr. Le or the director? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder in Hilo? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I just wanted to mahalo them for being here today. There's a lot of community concern about where funds are going. And that's been the same from the day we started recovery. And how we're looking at recovering. What's being recovered; what infrastructure will be replaced, what will not. Two weeks ago we had a brief discussion regarding the financials for recovery. What that looked like. We did receive a fairly detailed document from Mr. Le through the Finance Department, as far as what's been spent, what is lapsing, what projects have been done? And I appreciated that because it clearly outlines it. Ms. Kierkiewicz was kind enough to remind everyone in the community that there is a website where this is all tracked as well, so that is an option for people to check on our financial side as far as where funds are going. I have my own interests as far as, you know, ensuring that we do keep the funds in the eruption area. You know, in Kalapana, in Kapoho. It just makes sense. It's not a whether we should or shouldn't. That's where the funds should be centered. And the idea of recovery is to insure that the area that was lost, you know, it's part of my district, part of Ashley's district, it's the heart of our community in a way, is recovered in full. And that's been our goal from the beginning. So I really appreciate everyone's input from the community. Again I just want to reiterate, you know, the community coming together, we have to listen to those comments. And we've had different forms of committees or, you know, resilience committees. And we've branded them a few times, but the idea is the same thing. You have these really amazing people from our community who come in to offer their mana`o on where we should be building and what we should be doing. And we have to remember to listen to that and use that as our guiding light. And if we don't, then we're doing the same thing. We're being very repetitive in that. We hold the meetings, we have the Page 33 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 discussion, we hear the people and then we make a decision on the backend that doesn't even address what was brought up. I've seen that a few times. And it's a learning moment for County, and it just continues to be something that we should be avoiding and learning from. And I've heard it again and again from our community. So I appreciate the discussion today. You know, you have my full support for recovery. I want to see, you know,the residents' needs fulfilled. And that's ultimately what my desire is here. So thank you for the discussion today. I yield, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else back here in Kona. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I just have one final comment. And Douglas, I certainly want you to weigh in on this because we've been partners from the very beginning in launching the Resilience Capacity Areas. But the whole process is about managing expectations. And it's more than just all of us bringing new ideas forward. It's about implementation and sustainability of this collaborative power. We're implementing community ideas right now. There's the Kilauea Recovery and Resilience Plan, the KRRP. The work we're doing in capacity areas is prioritizing these strategies and implementing. Working in 90-day cycles where people don't just come and say, "Let's do this." It's like, "Great, you want to do this, how can you contribute?" Because again, it's about all of us doing something about recovery and resilience. This is not just County kuleana, this is all of our kuleana. And so, Douglas, I want to provide you an opportunity to just kind of talk through, because we've been moving at literally lightning speed to watch this, to work with community, and really embrace an iterative process. Very fluid, where we're building as we go and we're constantly making these small refinements and improvements to reflect on what we are doing together. So that at the end of this we have something really solid that works and can be hopefully implemented in other communities. MR. LE: That's a very important point. You know, I think I use the analogy of an unintentioned design experiment government. But really with every step we're taking with these Resilience Capacity Areas, we are looking back also in terms of our brief, but very deep path around recovery the past three years. You know, I think a really important case-in-point, when the Administration partnered with the Council to change the Code to provide for the Kilauea Recovery Grants Program. You know,that was really responding to a specific need about how physical investment needed to happen beyond public Page 34 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 infrastructure, right, truly support and community is recovery. We ended up awarding about$3.7 million through that process. And you know, I think one of the key takeaways was that while the intent was around the physical rebuilding, there was a lot of economic development opportunity impact from awarding those grants, because of the inducement through construction itself. But also a number of the grants went to reestablishing farms and other kinds of operations, not only to support the families that are farming, but also to contribute to the economy of Puna Makai. And so, I bring that up as an example because when we looked at the specific initiatives of projects that the Resilience Capacity Areas would be taking on, the opportunity to actually learn from some of the key takeaways and the successes of housing survey we launched last year, to really look at what we can do with this opportunity through grant making, and adapt the financing to support economic development, right. And so, one of the key initiatives of economic Resilience Capacity Area is doing is, you know, co-designing a survey that would really look at not only business as an industry but also consumers to help to inform and envision at a very kind of boots on the ground level, right, where do we focus in terms of recovering the economy for Puna, and particularly Puna Makai, and places like Pahoa kind of being the heart of the area. And how do we use information to not only, you know, think about a second round of a program like Kilauea Recovery Grants, but how do we use that information overall, right? I mean just like we have the Kilauea Recovery Resilience Plan, we did create an economic recovery plan that operates at a high level. You know,the 30,000-foot. But we've got to zoom it down now at, you know, the 10-foot level to start acting and doing. And so I think for us, that's part of the intentionality of, you know, taking these things that we've designed, developed, learn from, and reapplying them again. And I think what's different where we are now versus a year ago, say, is that infrastructure with community members stepping up to participate, which has been incredibly valuable. We have worked and moved forward with together that, you know, this example of the economic recovery-type survey and then collecting that information, it having direct impact on how the County may frame the next iteration of that kind of investment through Kilauea Recovery Grants. MS. KIRKIEWICZ: Thank you, Douglas for highlighting that project. There's so much going on. There's a youth capacity area where we're strengthening generational capacity and giving youth the opportunity to help implement projects in partnership with community stakeholders, County stakeholders. On Page 35 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 the cultural side, working on place-based educational modules. Malama-ing our Wahi kupuna. On the social resilience side, there is work to integrate composting efforts throughout the Puna communities; to strengthen our food systems; to work on resilience hubs for the built environment. They're working on Pahoa Village Master Plan sketch. And you know, how we can offer up more sustainability and green building in our Code. I happen to co-lead the economic area with Suzy Osborne and Brent Norris. That group is action. We're helping to lead the reimagined Isaac Hale Beach Park initiative that Director Kern mentioned using this year to kind of sketch out what we do and engage in community next year to really think about what do we want Pohoiki to look like? This true community gathering place that also offers up all kinds of resilience and community strengthening activities through Hale and Imu and medicinal gardens. All cool stuff. And then the item that Douglas highlighted with the economic survey, this was something we've done in collaboration with Mainstreet Pahoa. How can we help support local business? How can we help to further entrepreneurial mindsets? How do we help support and create an environment where green industries can thrive? That's the point of the survey. And we're doing it in collaboration with community so we can program the millions of dollars that are out there and available and ready to invest in Puna Strength and Resilience. There's lots happening. There's so much in my head right now that I want to share, but I appreciate and understand channel capacity here. Again, open invitation to the Puna community to be a part of this. A little bit? A lot? It's totally up to you. We can envision all day long what we'd want community to look like, but who's supposed to implement? We are. All of us. We've got to make the community that we want to see and we envision. So, mahalo nui, Director Kern, Douglas, for your continued collaboration; for all of your hard work. You, your teams, all the directors, Director Messina, Keith over at Water,the Mayor's Office. Lot of hands involved in helping to move Puna Recovery and Resilience forward. And I want to acknowledge that, because sometimes, you don't get a thank you. So I'm saying thank you. Thank you for everything you do. All of the sacrifices that you make, the punches you take and absorb. And you use that, refuel that frustration and passion into doing something good for community. So mahalo nui. Thank you, Chair, I yield. Appreciate the latitude. Page 36 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 CHR. KIMBALL: Director Kern? MR. KERN: Thank you. I just want to throw out there too,there's a lot of information on the website. I know I already said it. We've taken a different approach. I've done a few interviews with the directors on the approach that we're taking, the projects that are there, some of the rationale behind it. So I just want to encourage people to take a look at the website. We want the feedback. And we're continuing to work on improving our communication. I think one of the areas that I really want to focus on improving communication on is when things don't go right, or when things aren't going right. They didn't go the way that we wanted to. But to actually effectively communicate that. Because oftentimes that's the hard part, but that's also where folks feel like there isn't that transparency or something. What's going wrong, right? But if we can do it, we're working together. Everything doesn't always go the way we want it to, but we can communicate through all of it. That's the goal. So all you need to do is Google Kilauea Eruption and you'll get right to the site. Thank you all very much for your time. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Director and Mr. Le for being here today and providing all of the information. And I just want to say, congratulations and, you know, well done on really this concerted effort to communicate and try a new approach to community engagement with this opportunity you've been given. I can tell you have a passionate champion here in Council Member Kierkiewicz. And just really want to applaud you for taking that effort to try this approach. And hopefully, the success that comes out of it will be transferable as we build resilience and capacity on other parts of the island. So again, thank you both for being here. And I'll excuse you two, unlike I did with our previous guests. We'll move on to the vote. All of those in favor of the motion on the floor to close file on Communication 109.2 say "aye." Vote on Comm. 109.2: The motion to close file on Comm. 109.2 was carried by Filed the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kimball—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 37 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 CHR. KIMBALL: We'll move now to the top of the agenda. Return to Order The Chair directed the Committee to return to the order of business. of Business: Comm. 29.5: HAWAII STATE ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES' SEPTEMBER 23, 2021, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES AND SEPTEMBER 29, 2021, SPECIAL COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES From Council Member Heather Kimball, dated October 27, 2021. Motion to Approve: Ms. David moved to close file on Comm. 29.5. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. CHR. KIMBALL: Any discussion? No, okay, hearing none, all of those in favor of closing file on Communication 29.5. Vote on Comm. 29.5: The motion to close file on Comm. 29.5 was carried by Filed the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kimball—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Moving on to the last item of business for the day, Resolution 263-21. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Order RESOLUTIONS: of Resolutions. Res. 263-21: APPROVES THE LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS FOR INCLUSION IN THE 2022 HAWAII STATE ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE Includes a total of seven proposals, four submitted by the County of Maui, one by the City and County of Honolulu, and two from the Hawaii State Association of Counties Executive Committee. Reference: Comm. 497 Intr. by: Ms. Kimball Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to recommend adoption of Res. 263-21. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. Page 38 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 (Note: Comm. 497.1, from Council Member Heather Kimball dated November 10, 2021,transmitting proposed amendments to Res. 263-21, was circulated.) CHR. KIMBALL: Let me, before we begin discussion on this, this is the package of bills that have come from the various counties. So they were each approved by the full councils, and then they were approved further by the Executive Committee of HSAC. They've been assembled into a package, and they're here before you today. There was one oversight with the initial package that was sent over from HSAC, which was not including our bill, so we'll take care of that momentarily. Just procedurally, the way this works is we can amend this in such a way that if there are any bills that this body does not want to move forward with included in the package, then that would be how we amend the package. We can still push the package forward, but if there's anything that we don't want to pursue as a body, that would be the process. So with that, I'm going to actually ask Ms. Kierkiewicz to make the motion to amend before we begin discussion. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Res. 263-21 with the contents of Comm. 497.1. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Any discussion on the amendment? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, it seems very straight forward. It's just ensuring the inclusion of Hawaii County's proposal to be part of the overall package we are considering today. So absolutely supportive of this motion. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Anyone else? Great, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor of amending the resolution on the floor? Vote on Motion The motion to amend Res. 263-21 with the contents of to Amend: Comm. 497.1 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kimball—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Back to the main motion. Any discussion on the items on the package? Council Member Kierkiewicz. Page 39 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Oh, Chair, thank you. I wanted to speak to and mahalo nui you for all of your hard work in coordinating this working across the state with the various counties to hone in on a package that, you know, is really representative of the issues that the various counties are sharing. Unlawful chop shop, coastal zone management, climate change mitigation, support for lifeguards, traffic fines, Juneteenth Day, transient accommodations tax, and motor vehicle registration. These are all things we really care about. And I really feel good about this package having been part of HSAC and going through that really just difficult process to figure out what matters and where can we find agreement. I think that was really important. And I'm happy to support all of these measures here. And I'm definitely going to do what I can to be proactive and providing testimony, connecting with our legislators,to convey support for each of these measures. So thank you so much for bringing this forward and representing our County. Appreciate it. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Anyone else? Council Member David. MS. DAVID: Yes, I just wanted to say my own thank you, Heather, for all your hard work. And being a Freshman Council Member, you just took this by the horns and did an excellent job. So I really want to express the appreciation for all your work. That's all, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. Alright. Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: I would be remiss not to take the opportunity to also thank you for your hard work and diligence. Sometimes it's like herding cats, and you have done a great job in working with the HSAC team and refining the goals and kind of sifting through and filtering what was necessary there. And in bringing forward some things that weren't at first embraced but pushing forward and providing a broader understanding so that there could be continued support on some of these very important initiatives. So I'm really grateful that we are where we are as far as the HSAC package for this coming Legislature and for our County Council's support on participation. So thank you for that. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member, oh actually anyone else and I'll go back to Council Member Kierkiewicz? Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Yeah, real quick,just echoing the sentiments of everyone else. And how organized and clear and concise, I think. That's what the Legislature needs sometimes, right? And you folks have provided it in such an easy way to understand what the needs of our islands are across the State. So, mahalo to you and the team. Page 40 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 CHR. KIMBALL: And back to Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted a little bit of clarity. I think one of the constraints that we felt as HSAC Members and Council Members, was once this package was adopted, it supports particular bills which are numbered. And yes, we will be supporting these particular bills, but if there are similar bills in the Legislature, for instance, related to Climate Change Mitigation, what is HSAC's position in terms of providing support for those measures, if it turns out that those bills that we may have not necessarily been pushing for, but those alternative bills are then the vehicle to manifest that idea? So I just was curious about how you folks are resolving for that. If there was a bit more flexibility to advocate and provide support for an issue, or are we still kind of restricted to a particular bill once it's numbered and filed? Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you so much for raising that. And that, of course, has been a concern. And if you'll recall, we passed two resolutions having to do with supporting concepts or legislative priorities without bills attached. That was something that came from this Council to the HSAC Executive Committee. It's written in our bylaws that we have the ability to do that to identify priorities, but no one else thought to do it. So, since we brought them forward,the other councils are going back and doing the same thing. And so I'll be coming back to you at a later point with a similar resolution that just identifies priorities, but isn't specific to bills. And the two that we had were the Wastewater and the Sunshine. And I want to say that those negotiations are ongoing. I'm very optimistic about where we're going with Wastewater. I think there's going to be some good stuff coming out of that. And I would also say that our bylaws allow us to advocate through the process for other pieces of legislation on behalf of the councils that have anything to do with home rule or revenue. And so we have some flexibility as well to shift and pivot. If there's anything that isn't clearly within those two, we can always bring them back to Council and basically add those two to the package as well. But thank you for asking that clarification question about the procedure. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, thank you, Chair. I really appreciate knowing that we're digging into the bylaws and we're seeing that there is flexibility to advocate on things that matter to the counties. And I think that the fact that HSAC now has an Executive Director, huge, that is so incredibly helpful because prior to that, it was Council Member's staff that were having to pick up and lead a lot of this work. So to have somebody that is able to help implement the ideas and be our champion, that person at the Legislature. So big and helpful to the effort. So really excited about what's possible this legislative session. Thank you, I yield. Page 41 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 CHR. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Alright, I'll just wrap this up and say, you know, thank you all for your input on these items. And I'm really happy with this package from the standpoint that I think it was very well vetted. It was vetted by each of the council levels; it was vetted at the HSAC Executive Committee. Not everything that was supported by the councils made it through. We were selective. You know, you don't want to just take on too much and not be able to manage it. We were really selective about choosing things that we thought would be successful. And bringing on the Executive Director; bringing on the lobbyist, and maintaining a year contract with the lobbyist, puts us in I think a really excellent position to build capacity and to move items forward that impact us at the county levels. So very pleased with the outcome of this process. Appreciate everyone's support for the resolution. And we will take it up again in Council in two weeks. And I would be remiss in not mahalo-ing the Chair and Chair's staff for being flexible with us with the deadline to be able to make this all happen in the time that we needed it to. So, alright, we'll go ahead and take the vote. All of those in favor of the motion on the floor, which is to move Resolution 263-21 to Council with a favorable recommendation. Vote on Res. 263-21: The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 263-21, Draft 2 as amended to Draft 2, was carried by the following (Approved) voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kimball—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. (There were none.) Announcement: (Note: At this time, Ms. David and Mr. Henricks presented Mr. Chung with a lei and certificate in recognition of his more than 20 years of dedicated service to the public.) Page 42 GOREDC-18 November 17,2021 ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 11:25 a.m., Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to MENT: adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kimball—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: This meeting is adjourned. Approved: it C ,"11Z s. Heather L. Kimball, Chair (Date) Government Operations, Relations, and Economic Development Committee HK/dt Page 43