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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PCCRRA 2023/01/04 (2022-2024)Policy Committee on Climate Resilience and Regenerative Agriculture l't Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii January 4, 2023 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Policy Committee on Climate Resilience and ORDER: Regenerative Agriculture was called to order at 3:53 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Chair Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Vice Chair (came in later) Ms. Cindy Evans, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member (came in later) Absent & Excused: Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS BILLS FOR ORDINANCES: The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. The Chair called Jon Olson, who registered to comment on Bill 245 (Comm. 1104) (2020-2022), and came forward when called. CHR. GALIMBA: So, we will be taking up Bill 245. I believe a motion is on the floor. The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Bills for Ordinances. PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 Bill 245: INITIATES AN AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE VI, CHAPTER 10, (2020-2022) SECTION 6-10.3 OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CHARTER (2020 EDITION), RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT Replaces the requirement that the Director of Environmental Management have an engineering degree or a degree in a field related to engineering with the requirement that the Director have a bachelor's degree in engineering, public administration, environmental management, environmental policy, environmental economics or a related discipline, or a degree in law. Adds the requirement that at least two of the five years of required administrative or managerial experience must be in environmental management or public works, or a related field. Reference: Comm.1104 Intr. by: Mr. Chung Postponed: November 15, 2022 (Note: There is a motion by Mr. Chung, seconded by Ms. David, to recommend passage of Bill 245 on first reading.) CHR. GALIMBA: Discussion? Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Clerk, just a refresh, we had this and we postponed it, but we have no further amendments or any item to amend today, right? MR. BROWN: No, no amendments at this point. MR. INABA: Okay. Well, the introducer of the bill is no longer on the Council with us. I think —maybe I'd like to hear from Corporation Counsel regarding the first addition to the language, which adds the words "or managerial" after "administrative." Corporation Counsel, can you weigh in as to what that might mean, at least in the frame of hiring someone to be a director for DEM (Department of Environmental Management) (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Strance came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. STRANGE: Good afternoon. Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. Can you run that question by me one more time? MR. INABA: Sure. The bill says, "The Director shall have had a minimum of five years of administrative," and in it is inserting additional words, "or managerial experience ...... So in your reading of this, what is the difference between administrative or managerial? What is this essentially doing to the language of the Charter, by adding these two words in? Page 2 PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 MS. STRANCE: Well, as you know from most of you having gone through confirmation processes before, the devil is in the details. The terms are not defined in the proposed amendment, and if I was asked to research, I would do a lot of the same things you would do, which would be to go to various dictionaries and look up the definitions and see how they differ. I can give you my personal opinion, but it's not a legal opinion. If you're having the discussion, what does this mean now? Then, I would urge you to consider language that everybody has a collective understanding of so that you don't get into a position at some later date when you're going to confirm a nominee. There's a debate over what a basic qualification means. I know that's not exactly what you were looking for, but the fact that you're asking the question I think warrants for their consideration, the language. MR. INABA: Okay. I mean, administrative, or administrative or managerial, same/same to me at this point because they're both not very clear, and if we don't go any further then adding extra terms or —I'm not sure how to be more clear, especially in this Charter language. For one, I'm not opposed to what's before us right now. So looking to hear from colleagues on the Council, your thoughts. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Kimball. Chair Kimball, sorry. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. I have a couple of things. So just in response to your thoughts there, Council Member Inaba, for me, you know, these are organizational functions. You may or may not have any supervisory function of staff, whereas managerial, you have supervisory function of staff potentially, but not necessarily that administrative operational —that's how I distinguish the two. I don't know if that made it as clear as mud, but I do see a distinction between those things. Now, whether or not this role should have one or the other of those, perhaps they should have both since they do both. What I would say about this bill, is that I'm not happy with the language yet, and I didn't suggest any amendments at this time because I'm actually going to propose, after further discussion, that we postpone this until later because this would not go on the ballot until the 2024 election. We're a year out from having to kind of get this going through the Council. I'd like to give our new members an opportunity to see how DEM works, evaluate it a little bit themselves. But I don't want to vote this down today because it wouldn't give us the opportunity to bring it back. I think there's time for our new members to get familiar with this department, and maybe suggest additional language at a later point if we were to postpone it today. So, that's my recommendation. Thank you. I yield. Page 3 PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you. Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah, I'm comfortable with that, because I agree, I don't like the terminology in this. I also don't like the removing of the need of a degree in engineering or related field, and then transitioning to —two year —there's just too much going on in here. To me, one of the challenges is that the Department of Environmental Management, I believe, should be called the Department of Waste Management. Calling it Environmental Management, it's a play on words in its own irony, in my mind. So if you had somebody who was there with environmental policy, environmental economics, degree in law, I think you're just opening the spectrum. I think there are very specific — Anyway, I agree that I would —there are some other changes I'd love to see in the Charter, as it relates to when somebody that is appointed as the director actually starts the job, because it seems kind of intuitive to me that they get appointed, and they start the job before we confirm them, which makes it seem kind of counter -intuitive. So then, if we don't approve them, then they're fired, then they can't work. Anyway, there's a lot of things there. So, I agree that there's some work that I would like to see done on this part of the Charter. I don't think any of us would, after what we went through in the last term in the appointment of some directors —which we each really looked at the terminology here, and we're like, "This doesn't really say anything." There is opportunity for more specifics to ease the experience not only on the Council Members but on those that have been appointed, so they can know whether or not their qualifications align with what our Charter dictates. So for the sake of being able to revisit this, to me that makes sense to postpone it to the call of the Chair. I apologize, I wasn't here when this was first brought forth. I had a death in the family, and I missed that committee meeting. So I, myself, would support this being postponed today. I will not support it moving forward to Council with a positive recommendation. With that, I yield. CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. So my understanding, having actually watched the meeting before, is that some of the impetus for this was concern about getting enough applicants for this position, and so the thought was maybe this might expand the applicant pool. I am concerned that lessening qualifications to expand the applicant pool is not the way to go. Earlier today, we had two wonderful folks that we have passed along to the Council for the Salary Commission, and I am hopeful that the Salary Commission is going to be working on this position salary as well as other Page 4 PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 position salaries that have been neglected for several years. We also talked about other ways to try to attract more people to work for the County. So for me, those will be preferable ways to look at going about this at this time. I'm okay with postponing it, if that's what we want to do. I'm not sure that we will —maybe we'll have something from the Salary Commission by then, but we probably wouldn't know if any of that is working yet within this year. But I'm okay with that, if that's the way everybody else wants to go. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I think what strikes me is that our next bill that we have is talking about an amendment to the Charter to change qualifications, and we got a whole bunch of testifiers here to talk about it. On this particular one, there's nobody testifying. That, I think, really means we should pause. We need people to testify and weigh in on this one. That bothers me, that there's no testifiers. The other thing that really stood out for me is that when it says the qualifications, it says, "The director shall also have a bachelor's degree ... or a degree in law." There's a huge difference between bachelor's and a degree in law. We're talking about a lot of years of education; and then Council Member Inaba knows about Ph.D.'s, you know, there's a lot more work to it. The level of experience is pretty doggone wide as it got thrown into the way this is described, so I think it does need an awful lot of work. I'm fine with killing it today and have someone introduce something in the future, or if people postpone it, thinking they can get an amendment and get people here to testify — I think without testifiers and people really, like having this conversation with this —I just —it's probably premature, is my take on it. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you. Sorry, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. So at this time, I'd like to make a motion to postpone this to the call of the Chair. For my other colleagues, the new folks, postponing to the call of the Chair basically means that the Chair can bring it back to the table, and so at the time that it's brought back is indeterminate. The reason for postponing rather than voting down at this point is just to make clear —per our Rules, we cannot take up an item twice in the same Council term if it's substantially similar. So if we were to vote "no" on this today and not pass it, there wouldn't be any opportunity to bring it back if we did want to reconsider it in the 2022-2024 term, and so that's the reason for suggesting that as an option. Am I incorrect on that? Is it the year or the term? Page 5 PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 MR. BROWN: Technically, you guys couldn't. If you guys voted on it, you wouldn't kill it today, it would move forward to Council with either a positive or a negative recommendation. But in terms of the cross -over of the term, Jon, do you want to weigh in on this? No, that's what I wanted to say, that is an option, the motion you are considering, but either way, if you guys did not go that route and did make a vote on it, it would move forward to Council. But you wouldn't kill it, it would move forward either with a positive recommendation or a negative recommendation. MS. KIMBALL: That's correct. Thank you. Then we could postpone it there. MR. BROWN: That is correct. MS. KIMBALL: Actually, I should have a second made to the motion to postpone before I proceed. MR. BROWN: Before the motion is considered on, yeah, consider it. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, before we even proceed with discussion. MR. BROWN: Yeah. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. And again, I think this clearly needs a lot of work based on the comments from other folks. I think it's preferable to postpone it here in committee rather than to move it forward to Council even with the unfavorable recommendation, just because it does need a lot of massaging, I think, from what I've heard from my colleagues. MR. BROWN: So Chair, and if you want, you recognize Council Member Kimball's motion and then Council Member Inaba's second, and then that motion, yeah, you guys could postpone. Motion to Postpone: Ms. Kimball moved to postpone Bill 245 to the call of of the Chair. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. GALIMBA: Any discussion? (Note: At this time, County Clerk Jon Henricks came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. HENRICKS: Before you take the vote, and if I could just —if I could interject a little bit? Sounds like there's some interest in the contents of this bill, and postponing it to the call of the Chair doesn't harm anything. I would note, though, that there are some —could be some problematic areas, because the introducer is no longer here. I don't know what that might mean as we move Page 6 PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 forward, but maybe more consequential is that the bill itself in its title and inner workings references the 2020 addition of the County Charter. At the time it was drafted, that's what it was, it amended the 2020 edition. Good news, tomorrow we're coming out with the 2022 edition of the Charter, so I don't know if that's a problem that the bill references an outmoded version, the Charter. So perhaps, you know, you could postpone it to the call of the Chair. It can be either. It can be sitting there. But if anybody on the Council is interested in moving this idea forward, it might be cleaner and less questionable to introduce a new bill that references the current version of the Charter. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Maybe it's going to end up becoming a procedural defect, right, because the title of the bill. I do want to ask Judge Strance if I could —what we're kind of in limbo about is the substantive nature of legislation, whether it could be brought up. I think that's that grey area that we don't know, and so my question is, if this matter —and I'm of the position to cut it loose. It's stale. The years are stale. It's not going to work. If we bring something forward in this legislative cycle that is substantively close to what we're discussing now, if we can do that? MS. KIMBALL: May I make a comment while we're conferring, Chair? CHR. GALIMBA: Sure, Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: I think the second question here is if postponement is not an option, then pushing it through is maybe not ideal because there is substantial similarity. Is there any option to withdraw when the maker of the motion is not present? You know, there are other avenues. MR. BROWN: You know, Jon and I talked about that, and we don't really see a clean way for that to be possible because usually it's the maker of the motion that withdraws. The person who made the motion and the person who seconded are both gone, so I think one option, which Jon pointed out, would be you could postpone to the call of the Chair, where it's still there. It's alive, just not on the floor. If someone were interested, they could bring forward a new bill, again referencing the new edition of the Charter. Like Jon said, I think that would be the cleanest way to do it. You guys may not run into that aspect of if you were to kill this bill, could you not bring up something similar, substantially the same? So, just an option MS. LEE LOY: Judge Strance, any thoughts? Page 7 PCCRRA-1 January 4, 2023 (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Strance came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. STRANCE: Good afternoon. Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. I can concur with the advice and thoughts given by your Clerks. It is a no man's land. So should a different bill be brought forward referencing what will be the new version of the Charter that would not be inconsistent? So by postponing the current bill to the call of the Chair, a different bill that's introduced would not run a foul to having two pieces being considered at the same time. Or if at that time there's a desire to vote one down and replace it with another, you know, depending upon the preference of the Council at that time —so I would support Chair Kimball's thought about postponing to the call of the Chair, and understanding that at some point in the meantime something different will be introduced down the road, and that wouldn't run contrary to any of the Rules or the Charter. MS. LEE LOY: Judge Strance, follow-up question. Because the date is very different, would that be substantively different? MS. STRANCE: Well, it's different. Robert's Rules and your Charter are Rules of Procedure for clarity, and the rule against reintroducing bill is to avoid a situation where a bill is introduced and is voted down and somebody doesn't like it, so next meeting they introduce the same bill. The bill that is on the agenda hasn't —no action has been taken, so you're not running a foul to the purpose of the rule, of bringing it up time and time again. The intention, as I understand it, is that eventually some form of legislation will be presented to this body with the is dotted and the is crossed, and it would make what's coming before you moot or improper to bring up later because something different will have been brought up that is more accurate. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Judge Strance. On the motion to postpone to the call of the Chair, you know, I'm of the mindset to send it into purgatory. It's stale; it's not going to serve us. I'd actually like to see a language head in a very different direction. I think we haven't addressed the root of the problems that we're having in DEM and in the next bill with DPW (Department of Public Works). I think —and I'm looking at Mr. Ono who was our Chief Engineer for many, many years; that when you have a four-year runway to get work done in a political climate, it's hard to find candidates, period. I know if I was introducing a Charter amendment, it would be to completely up end that process, not make it so political, and maybe look at doing it similar to that of what we do with the Police Chief or Fire Chief, where they have longevity. They can have salaries that match their technical expertise and talents, and be at the helm for a long time to get the projects done. That's where I'm at. So, I will support the Page 8 PCCRRA-1 Vote on Motion to Postpone: (Approved) ADJOURN- MENT: Approved: January 4, 2023 postponement to the Chair. Just to send it into purgatory and leave it there. I yield. CHR. GALIMBA: Seeing no further discussion, I'd like to have us vote on the motion to postpone to the call of the Chair. All in favor, please say "aye." The motion to postpone Bill 245 (2020-2022) to the call of the Chair was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee, Loy, Villegas, and Chair Galimba — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kierkiewicz — 1. Excused: None. There being no further business, at 4:22 p.m., Ms. Lee Loy moved to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Mr. Inaba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kimball, Lee, Loy, Villegas, and Chair Galimba — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kierkiewicz — 1. Excused: None. 11A�- Ms. MicAehe M. Galimba, Chair Policy ConAmittee on Climate Resilience and Regenerative Agriculture MG/na 2l7�5> (Date) Page 9