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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN COUNCIL 2023-05-18 2022-2024 Special Hawaii County Council 131h Session Special Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii May 18, 2023 INVOCATION: Kahu Charlie Kama of Hale Pule Ke Ola Hou gave the morning's invocation. CALL TO The special meeting of the Hawaii County Council was called to order at ORDER: 9:04 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Chair Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Vice Chair(via videoconference from Kona) Ms. Cindy Evans, Member(via videoconference from Kona) Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Absent& Excused: Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member PLEDGE OF The Chair directed the Council to the next order of business, Pledge of ALLEGIANCE: Allegiance. (At this time, Deputy County Clerk Aaron Brown led the Council in the Pledge of Allegiance.) PETITIONS, The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Petitions, MEMORIALS, Memorials, Certificates of Merit, and Expressions of Condolence. CERTIFICATES OF MERIT, AND (There were none.) EXPRESSIONS OF CONDOLENCE: Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The following individual registered to speak and came forward when called by the Chair: Rebecca Melendez: Bill 30 (Comm. 135), comment. (representing bigislandsupport.com) (See Comm. 135.23) BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Bills for ORDINANCES Ordinances (First Reading). (FIRST READING): Bill 30: ESTABLISHES AN OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAII FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2023 TO JUNE 30, 2024 From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated March 1, 2023, transmitting for consideration the proposed Operating Budget for the County of Hawaii for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2024. This balanced budget includes estimated revenues and appropriations of$794,316,957, which represents a proposed 1.1 percent increase compared to the Fiscal Year 2022-23 Operating Budget. Reference: Comm. 135 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder(B/R) Approve: FC-40 Public Hearing: May 16, 2023 ; and Comm. 135.12: From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated May 5, 2023, transmitting Bill 30, Draft 2. Draft 2 reflects an increase in estimated revenues and appropriations of$37,346,802 over the first draft, reflects higher than expected real property tax collections, and proposes corresponding funding adjustments. ; and Bill 30: ESTABLISHES AN OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAII (Draft 2) FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2023 TO JUNE 30, 2024 Draft 2 includes estimated revenues and appropriations of$831,663,759. Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder(B/R) and Comm. 135.13: From Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated May 9, 2023, transmitting (Memo No. 1) proposed amendments to the General Fund by increasing the Fund Balance from Previous Year revenue account by $35,000, and increasing the Fire Auxiliary Services Other Current Expenses, Miscellaneous Contract Services expenditure account by the same amount to create a Dispatch Quality Assurance Program. Page 2 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 (Note: Comm. 135.14, from Council Member Heather L. Kimball dated May 17, 2023, transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 30, Draft 2, was circulated.) Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 30 on first reading and adopt Finance Committee Report No. 40. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Pursuant to Article 10, Section 10-2 of the Hawaii County Charter, the Mayor has submitted an amended operating budget to the Council on May 5h, 2023. We will have to amend Draft 1 with the Mayor's proposed Draft 2 before we can discuss any additional amendments. Is there any discussion of Draft 1 before we proceed with amending to Draft 2? Seeing none, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, may I have a motion to amend Bill 30 with the proposed Draft 2, as submitted by the Mayor via Communication 135.12? Motion to Amend: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 30 with the contents of Comm. 135.12. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Any discussion on proposed Draft 2 before we take the vote? Over in Kona? MR. INABA: No questions. MS. EVANS: We had to turn the sound up because we really couldn't hear what you were saying. Sorry about that. So are we ? CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Evans, at this time, we are discussing a motion to amend Bill 30 to Draft 2. MS. EVANS: Okay. Have we already voted so that we can start talking about Draft 2? CHR. KIMBALL: We are voting on amending Draft 1 to Draft 2. We'll discuss Draft 2 after we have disposed of this motion to amend. MS. EVANS: Okay. Well, out of respect to the Mayor—yes, I'm talking to the motion to amend itout of respect to the Mayor, I will vote "yes" so we can have the discussion. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Just to be clear, Council Member Evans, this is the appropriate time to have discussion around the Mayor's proposed amendment to Draft 2. MS. EVANS: Oh. Okay. Thank you. So I have a question for—is Lee Lord there? Who's there for the Mayor? Page 3 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: We have Director Sako and Deputy Nakagawa. (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. EVANS: Thank you. So, for the public who does not see this and hasn't seen this, this amendment is to stand up the Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity, and Resilience. And it amends the appropriation to establish many positions. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Evans, sorry to interrupt. We're actually not on that amendment at this time. We are just on the amendment that has been submitted by the Mayor to amend the first draft of the budget to the second draft. This is just the Mayor's amendments at this time. MS. SAKO: To the May 5h budget. CHR. KIMBALL: To the May 5h budget. MS. EVANS: Okay, all right. Okay. So I will keep my questions until after we pass this. Okay, thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: No problem. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair? CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Ms. Sako, since you are here and you are in the front, can you just highlight or summarize the amendment that the Mayor provided just to kind of give the public and us and anyone watching just a summarized view of what the changes were made. MS. SAKO: Sure. So we just submitted the May 5h budget, and it's available on our website, as the Council's. So the budget did increase to 831.6 million. That's all funds. The General Fund increased by roughly 2 percent, and the entire budget by 5.8 percent. Some of the larger changes are highlighted in the budget message. We did increase real property taxes, as we heard Tuesday. The appeals were much lower than last year, so we did have more real property tax revenue. We also increased Fund Balance from General Excise Tax so that we could actually transfer those funds to the Capital Projects Fund so that a lot of those transportation-related capital projects can be funded. We tried to fund one-time type of expenditures, meaning things like working on things at Dispatch, doing Public Works' repairs to facilities, critical equipment for Police and Fire. Prosecuting Attorney; we did have to pay for or cover part of the Page 4 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 expenditures for the career criminal and some of their other grants that the State chose not to fund even though they're required by State law. We did give them additional attorneys as was discussed during the budget reviews last month. Crime keeps increasing but we have not increased their staff in several years, actually. We did increase the homelessness amount by a little over a million dollars based on the actual projected calculations for the Tier 2 rate and the 75 percent of that. And then Workers' Compensation, Miscellaneous Claims and Judgements, and some of those accounts were also increased based on our current estimates. So a lot of the funding was really for equipment or other one-time costs. There are additional positions as well. So, for Fire, we did try to deal with their Dispatch needs that many of you have read in the newspaper. So we are adding additional positions as well as firefighters that will act—and the Chief can explain this much better—as kind of supervisors in the Dispatch Center to set it up more like Police. Yeah. So if there's any questions, we're happy to answer. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Deanna. I yield, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Deanna. Thanks for the highlights. Focusing on the highlights on the budget message, there's an area for highways and streets. I guess on page 5 of the budget message, highways and streets, roadside maintenance, an increase of$4.5 million attributed to the increase of number of miles to be paved. We've heard in the past over time. We were targeting—other budgets targeted 25 miles. What does $4.5 million get on top of the 25? MS. SAKO: So I believe Public Works' goal is to pave 36 miles a year. If that's not possible to do all in-house, then they would go hire or contract out to get that done. So, based on the number of miles of road, lane miles probably, on our island, they feel they need to be able to do 36 miles a year to kind of catch up and hopefully keep up. MS. LEE LOY: And these funds are coming right out of our fuel tax and MS. SAKO: Yes. Weight tax and franchise tax. MS. LEE LOY: Weight tax. Great. Thanks. Thanks for the clarification. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Anyone else? Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thanks. Deanna, I have a couple questions, and I might need somebody from Parks to come. I have Page 5 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. SAKO: I just sent her away but go ahead. MS. KAGIWADA: You did? Okay. I have my staff calling there. Okay, so it's about the summer fun program. Just wondering; when I talked earlier with the department, they were saying they were having some hard times recruiting for staffing those positions. And so I'm just wondering about staffing, and also are we meeting the need. Do we have enough staff to meet the need in our community for the summer fun programs? MS. SAKO: I know they are actively recruiting. I'm not sure we have enough. I've signed several summer fun contracts for hires to start shortly when school is out. There haven't been as many as usual. I may have seen an email briefly from you this morning, but I didn't get a chance to read it. I think some of the other places are trying to increase the salaries and wages. We can definitely work with HR (Human Resources) I think he might be sitting in the back to see if that's possible. I just keep thinking of equal pay for equal work. And so if other counties are increasing their price, then we should probably be able to do that too, especially since we hire those through contract. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, yeah. That's what I'm looking at, both increasing salaries for the summer fun staff but also the possibility of more positions if we have the space and the need. And if we do increase those, then we could get more people. So just like to look at that with you and with Parks to see if that's possible. MS. SAKO: Definitely. I think the challenge has been for all our positions difficulty hiring. And so when college kids who might be home for the summer can make more at Target than working for us, we need to try and match some of those rates so we do a little bit better. And so, in the first draft of the budget, we had already budgeted for hiring incentives and things like that. So we can definitely work with Parks to help them in that area, especially if it's a problem. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Thank you so much. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I think when I met with Director Sako after first iteration of the budget, I think I sent you a list of like over 30-something amendments potentially that we had to get through in 45 minutes, and I just want to mahalo nui you for including so much of that in the second iteration. This is, I think, my fifth budget cycle, and I think this budget represents a seismic shift in how County is doing business. These investments that I think we've been pining for for a very long time, we haven't been able to do because we had to be fiscally responsible. And now we finally have the cash flow to make the Page 6 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 investments in infrastructure, to be a bit more transparent in providing data and dashboards that we all advocated for, what the community want so they can see how their tax dollars are translating into County services and how it's improving quality of life. So I just want to extend my appreciation, and I will be supporting this second draft of the budget. I haven't always in the past. I think I voted "no" a couple of times. But in this particular situation, if we don't make these investments, I worry about the problems and the cost to environment, to our workforce, financially, to future generations, if we're not taking steps now to solve for these challenges before they get bigger. So I'll be supporting this. And, Director, on some of the things that Council Member Kagiwada was talking about related to summer fun, is it possible for, and maybe this is an HR question, but for the County to be talking story with the University of Hawaii to see if we need college folks to come and serve as summer fun coordinators? Potentially, the UH (University of Hawaii) could chip in a little bit to help subsidize their pay or also offer credit for some of the work that's performed so that way they can get through achieving their degree a bit faster. MS. SAKO: HR has been working a lot more with the university, whether it's through job fairs or other things. I think, historically, we have partnered with them trying to do internship or other types of programs. So, definitely, if their education or early childhood development programs want to partner, I'm sure HR and the County are open to that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Wonderful. Thank you. And since we're on the draft amendment, if I could call up Fire One to talk about the fire communication officer positions. Kazuo. Thanks, Chief Todd. Thank you, Director Sako. (Note: At this time, Fire Chief Kazuo Todd came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Good morning, Chief. Thank you for being here. MR. TODD: I'm sorry. I was doing email. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: No, it's okay. You're very efficient and like to make very good use of every minute of the day. If you could just introduce yourself for the record and share with my colleagues and I the fire communication officer positions. We see ten that are being created. And my understanding is these are for Dispatch, but perhaps that's not the case. If you could just elaborate. MR. TODD: I am Fire Chief Kazuo Todd, obviously the Fire Chief for our Hawaii Fire Department. So, right now, as you guys have maybe read in the Page 7 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 paper and seen maybe some television stuff about it, we're running a little bit low on our Dispatch, and we've been working with HGEA (Hawai`i Government Employees Association) in terms of our staffing issues. And so one of the things we've looked at was to raise our capacity by just having additional positions that we can use to buffer our system. And so one of those things in the conversations with HGEA, as well as Deanna and the Mayor's office and DHR (Department of Human Resources), was the creation of an additional number of positions for fire communication officer positions. This will grow the size of our Dispatch so we have just a little bit more capacity and making things work. In addition to that, there's also four fire-related positions, and these are to kind of mirror how Police Department runs their Dispatch Center where they have staffing available at all times to just be there for supervisory reasons or support or operational knowledge, and to keep an eye on what's going on. And so we're creating these positions in the long run to build a more robust Dispatch Center so we don't run into these kinds of staffing issues in the future. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So these officer positions would go beyond just working within Dispatch. MR. TODD: Yeah. It's not so much of the work in Dispatch as to provide some of that operational oversight to make decisions as to what's going on, if we need to allocate resources or to troubleshoot major issues and things like that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Thank you, Chief Todd, for being here. And then, Director, one more question related to Research and Development. And, Chair, please let me know if I'm deviating from what's in front of us. I notice that positions created within R&D (Research and Development) mirror one of the amendments that we have in the budget. MS. SAKO: Several Council Members have reached out to the Administration, and we tried really hard to work with each person to try and get some things in the budget. And as the Charter only allows the Administration to create positions and the Council to approve, we did try to add in some of those positions. So, in Draft 2, as presented, why we're creating those positions under R&D is just because that's where we could put them at the moment. Those positions are unfunded. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So this is to create the positions, Draft 2, and the amendment is to fund them. MS. SAKO: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. I just wanted to get that clarified. Page 8 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. SAKO: Yup. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I think that's everything. Again, thank you so much to you and your team for making the family very happy. MS. SAKO: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Inaba, checking in with you. MR. INABA: I have no questions. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Just one quick question,pretty high level. On the operating budget by fund, this is in our special meeting. It's on pages 2 and 3 of the Mayor's message. So we have the General Fundoh, this is the March doc? Oh, okay. Sorry. Let me see. Well, actually, I mean,yeah, it'sin this one, the General Fund balance went down. Is that because we were expecting lower ? MS. SAKO: Just a second. Let me get to that page. I assume you're talking about the revenue appropriation. So we increased Fund Balance from Previous Year from March to May by roughly $6.3 million to cover some of the additional amounts. So we are projecting an increase in Fund Balance from Prior Year some of the items we talked about earlier this week, and we are going to have a little bit of extra real property tax revenue. TAT (Transient Accommodations Tax) and some of those revenues have also done very well. So we are projecting an increase in Fund Balance. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. Thanks. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Council Member Kagiwada, I see we have Deputy Director from Parks and Rec. (Recreation). Would you like to have the floor again? MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Yes, thanks. Deputy Director, if you don't mind coming up, I have a couple questions for you about summer fun. (Note: At this time, Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Michelle Hiraishi came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. KAGIWADA: I sent an email out to Director this morning but I got a message that he is away. So thank you for coming down. Just wondering; when Page 9 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 we talked before, you were saying you were having a hard time recruiting for summer fun and just wondering where that's at right now. Are you fully staffed? Are you still having a little bit of a hard time? MS. HIRAISHI: Good morning. Thank you so much for the question. Michelle Hiraishi, Deputy Director for Parks and Recreation. Actually, we are having trouble filling positions in Kona and North/South Kohala. Right now, we have one summer fun hire in Kona. We have three in North/South Kohala. What happens is if we don't get applicants to work those programs, then we can't open it up for the kids. So, right now, it's too late for those applicants to pick up summer work, but we're hoping next year we can increase that pay or do something that gets those applicants in earlier so we can open up more positions. In other parts of the island in our summer fun programs, we're not having that same struggle. In fact like in Hilo, for example, we're full already, summer fun, yeah. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, good. And also, my question that goes along with that is if you had more staff available, would there be more need for more programs, and would you have space and ability to do that if you had staffing? MS. HIRAISHL If we had additional summer fun staffing, we would open up additional programs. Absolutely. How much programs we can offer and how many kids we can offer in that program is absolutely dependent on how many applicants we get for that site. There's been times in the past where if we don't get enough applicants, we have to combine sites,which works okay but it does mean then families are travelling farther for those programs. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. And right now, do you feel like there's a need from families for more spots? Or do you have a sense of the need? MS. HIRAISHL There's always more spots in certain places like Hilo. Those spots fill up very quickly. And it kind of depends again on what's the resources for that program, the area of that program. So places like Hilo fill up fast. Other sites, we tend to have more open slots for a while, and sometimes we don't even fill them all. But like I mentioned, it's all dependent on that staffing. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. So talking with the Director here, of Finance, about the possibility of increasing the pay and maybe increasing the number of staff, if we can recruit those people, too, in order to bolster and try to meet the need in our community. So we'll be working with you and your department and the Director to try to do that. Page 10 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. HIRAISHL Perfect. Thank you. And I know that certainly increasing those salaries, it might be that we don't need that additional staff. If we can meet our staffing roster, then we do have programs set up that had been assessed and provided for for that community based on that need. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. MS. HIRAISHL So it's really just filling those positions that we've identified. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. And as we were talking about earlier, some of the other counties have raised the pay rate. So, hopefully, we can follow suit and be comparable because I think that is critical for keeping our keiki safe and learning and having a good time over the summer. So thank you for coming down. I really appreciate it. MS. HIRAISHL Thank you. MS. KAGIWADA: I yield, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Director. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder MS. EVANS: Chair? CHR. KIMBALL: Just a moment, Council Member Evans. We'll go tooh, go ahead, Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. For Director Seiko? MS. SAKO: Good morning. MS. EVANS: Good morning. I'm looking at the page that talks about comparative statement of major sources of revenues, and it says that we've gone down 24.4 percent this last year in intergovernmental revenues. Could you highlight what is the intergovernmental revenues, and why would they be down so much? MS. SAKO: Sure. Happy to answer that. Intergovernmental revenue is our State and Federal grants, anything coming from another governmental entity. In last year's budget, or the current year that we're currently operating under, fiscal year '23, we have our ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds in there for State and local governments. And so we did appropriate all of that last year. That's not a grant we'll be getting again in the current year. Not all of that is expended, but through our accounting processes, those funds will be carried forward. So we just Page 11 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 didn't have a grant of that size in the current year, even though we still have 95.3 million budgeted in the current year for all grant sources that we know of at this point when we were preparing the budget. MS. EVANS: So when we had that—this year, when we had that money, the ARPA money, did we hire temporary hires so that we could get it out the door and spend it? Or did we pay overtime? How did we manage getting that money spent? MS. SAKO: Part of the funding went towards continuing our COVID (coronavirus disease) care, whether it's some PPE(personal protective equipment), wrapping up our testing programs, things like that. And then a lot of it has been designated for other programs, such as broadband, housing-type of programs, and then a lot on early childhood. And I believe Director Adams from R&D has been before the Council to kind of talk about the status of some of those programs. But basically doing it in-house or hiring outside participants or granting funding to carry out some of those programs. MS. EVANS: Well, we want to thank you and everybody for the heavy lift that it took to get that money spent. I really appreciate everybody. The next question, you have "Section 3. Position Changes." You're saying this isn't—so the position changes are between the Draft 1 and Draft 2. We've actually added new positions. No? MS. SAKO: No. So Section 3 is all new positions from the current year to the coming year. So the ones that just got added from March to May are actually in the Mayor's message on the last two pages. But Section 3 is a comprehensive list of all new positions for the upcoming year. MS. EVANS: Oh. Okay. So that's just highlighting. So we're still looking at I was just curious of Draft 1, and this Draft 2 Section 3 change. I think it may have because you added positions to Research and Development. MS. SAKO: Correct. MS. EVANS: Okay. So the MS. SAKO: So, yeah, on page MS. EVANS: Go ahead. MS. SAKO: On page 3 of the Mayor's message, these positions listed here are the ones that got added, since the March budget, to this Draft 2. MS. EVANS: Okay. So when you add positions, and I'm looking at some titles like the climate equity specialist, when you add positions, has the union weighed Page 12 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 in and are you because I know there was a discussion about animal control officers when we added them, and you had to talk to other counties about these positions and what pay scale they were at or whatever. And so has this climate equity specialist been vetted with the unions, and are we equal with the other counties for this position? MS. SAKO: So we are creating them, and we're creating them at a level that we believe to be approximately the correct level. But for every position here, the department will actually create the paperwork—it's called like an allocation packet or a new position packet—and give all the justification and do the position description, at which time the Department of Human Resources will evaluate it to ensure that that SR rating or whatever pay scale we've tied it to is correct. And that's the point in time that they'll consult the other counties as well. MS. EVANS: Okay. MS. SAKO: So, for the climate equity specialist, I believe we may have created it at a SR-24. And so, at the time when they go in to present the paperwork, Human Resources will look at the other counties and determine if the SR-24 classification is correct. We have consulted them when we prepared the budget, but they didn't have the detailed position description. MS. EVANS: Okay. And then my last question is there's a lot ofI'm looking at the position, again Section 3 with all the position changes. Based on your statement before about unfunded positions, but yet you created the position to eventually maybe fund them, how many of those positions are funded? Are these just placeholders, all of them, that are under Section 3? Are they all placeholders and eventually you might get funding for them? And then when you do get funding for them, do you have to come back to us, as the Council, to get them funded? MS. SAKO: So, first of all,pretty much all of the positions were funded. I believe there were maybe two under fire communications officers that were unfunded just to kind of create space and be able to recruit, should we have vacancies. And then there were five under Research and Development for what is anticipated to be part of the new Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity, and Resilience. So those five positions were unfunded. So, probably of all these positions, only seven were unfunded. The rest were all funded. MS. EVANS: Okay. So,just based on my experience on the animal control agency, it was said that we have to get that agency before we can get the positions. But this is getting the positions before the agency. MS. SAKO: That was because the Mayor can create positions, not the Council. So we were trying to be supportive to an upcoming amendment that was requested. So we've been working with the Council to do that. Page 13 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. EVANS: Okay. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Ms. Sako, ever so pleasant to have you on in the morning. A couple questions following up on other questions that arose from the Council. Office of Management's budget, Mayor's, abilities to spend funding, looking at what sustainability measures are. Sustainability activities under their OCE(other current expenses) account, Account 115. MS. SAKO: Is the question what are they going to do with that money? The expectations? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. What is a sustainability activity? Because that's $50,000. MS. SAKO: The Mayor's office,just like Council, is obviously interested, and sustainability is important to this Administration as well. So it's for whatever types of things may come up, whether it's supporting community activities related to sustainability, whether it's putting on sustainability conferences, whatever the needs might be. So they have several executive assistants, all of whom are working on various programs. And so as to have funding available should the need arise in the next year. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So,pretty broad. MS. SAKO: It is, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then as far as your memory serves you, our sister city account, I really enjoy our sister cities. I also know when we visit these sister citiesI had the pleasure of joining Ms. Lee Loy to go to Ikaho Shibukawa. Amazing city. The reception from those folks was absolutely amazing, and the way they treated us was five-star. So, when they come here, I've said this for years and I think Mr. Chung would agree, too, we want to treat them in the same manner. Is 40,000 a substantial step from where we've been in the past? And gauging from what I'm seeing here, yes, but you've been here longer than me. MS. SAKO: So it is a substantial increase, especially during the pandemic. During the pandemic, we were not able to travel or visit with our sister cities, nor were they able to come here. So that program is really getting reestablished again. But probably pre-pandemic, it was 25,000, 30,000. Now, we're going up to 40,000. We also try to partner with some community agencies to host them as well. So this isn't the entire amount. Page 14 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 And then in addition to the Mayor's budget being increased for sister cities, the Council's budget for sister cities was also increased because it came up during budget reviews to invite Council Members along as well. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So we actually have two pots of money, if not more, to pull from. MS. SAKO: Correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Can the funds in both the Council's budget or the Mayor's budget be used to host the incoming folks? MS. SAKO: Yes. Sorry, I didn't mean to (inaudible). MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Hotels, dinners, that kind of thing? MS. SAKO: We, yes,probably could. I mean, anything other than alcohol, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Good. And then one question for Parks and Rec. And maybe you might be able to answer this, then I'll save Michelle the trip. For the fireworks, is that something that's already been contracted? MS. SAKO: It's already been contracted out of the fy '23 (fiscal year '23) budget for this coming fourth of July, because that happens just a few days into the new fiscal year. So those fireworks have to be ordered ahead of time. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MS. SAKO: I believe we did have to scramble to find some additional funds in the current year's budget. And I believe we increased it in the coming year's budget because that's one of the items that, like many other things, the cost keeps going up. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I love our fireworks display, and I think it's probably one of the cool events that we get to have for our community. There's always been kind of a west and east differential in display. I'd like to make sure that's fair, but I also, given this step up in property taxes, I think it's very fair to put extra funds into that. I'm asking my staff to look at an amendment. I'm trying to figure out what year this would be helping. MS. SAKO: So you could put it in the fy '24 budget. It would be helping the July 2024 fireworks. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then any way for us to lift up this year's event? Page 15 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. SAKO: We can work with Parks and Rec. or the Mayor's office to see if we can come up with additional funding. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I'd love to see that, especially given what we've taken in in taxes this year. It's a very nice perk for the community, given what we've taken. And then, Michelle, if you could come up. Maybe you can help me. My staff is asking me: Ask the questions so we get the answers so that we can put in the correct amendments. What kind of funding would you like to see for the fireworks display to put on a nice lengthy, beautiful show for our community? MS. HIRAISHL Again, Michelle Hiraishi, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation. I don't have a figure in front of me right now that I can offer, but I certainly can get that to you in the next short while. I know that right now, our show is very short. It's very expensive. If we could double that amount, that would mean now we'd have about a 20-minute to half-hour show. So, the more money that comes into that line item, the longer the show can be. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so I'm just going to take that answer to sayI'm going to ask to double, and I'm going to have them work on the amendment. If it's something that you need more,please let me know. MS. HIRAISHL Perfect. Thank you. Absolutely. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. And then, sorry, does west— what estwhat does West Hawaii have? MS. HIRAISHL West Hawaii has the similar amount, but they do a lot through donations from the community. Barbara Kossow, out of Mayor's office, runs the parade and the fireworks show on that side, yeah. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. We haveI mean, looking in the budget here, you have the fireworks east and then we have Magic of the Seasons. But that's not the same thing, correct? MS. HIRAISHL No, that's the Christmas displays that are set up. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Where is the West Hawai`i's fireworks budget? MS. HIRAISHL This will be the first year that we do a big display for Magic of the Seasons in West Hawaii. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Oh, okay. MS. HIRAISHL So, typically, we have not done that in the past. Page 16 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Nice. Okay. MS. SAKO: And then I think P&R does fund part of it, Parks and Recreation, even on East Hawaii. But the departments fund a lot as well through donations from the staff and directors. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So, for East Hawaii, I'm going to put in an amendment to double what you have right now. And for West Hawai`i MS. HIRAISHL Supplemental. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What is the—is there a line item for it in here? MS. SAKO: Sorry. It's in two different places. So West Hawaii is under P&R Admin (Administration), and East Hawaii is under Culture and Arts. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. MS. SAKO: I was like I know we had theirs there somewhere, so thank you, Diane. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: She was saying there is, but I was like, well, it's not in this section I was looking at. I see East Hawaii but I don't see West Hawaii. Okay. MS. SAKO: So, on page 182, under Parks and Rec. Admin, the 115 account, they do have fireworks for West Hawaii of 20,000. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So we're going to double that, and then we'll double the East Hawaii. Are you okay with that, Deanna? MS. SAKO: Yeah, that's fine. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Lei, you heard me? Thank you. Okay, that's all my questions for now, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? One more check-in in Kona. Anybody over there? MR. INABA: No questions for the both of us. CHR. KIMBALL: All right, thank you. I just had a quick question, Director Sako, about the fuel expenses increase for Mass Transit. What's the rationale? Page 17 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. SAKO: We are going to be getting several new buses, and then we will need to fuel them, whether they are electric, hydrogen, or diesel. And there was some concern over the hydrogen buses, should we get them, that the granting agency or the donor is not going to be able to cover those expenses. So we did add it into the budget. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. Refresh my memory. These are buses to add to our current capacity or to replace existing buses that are aging out? MS. SAKO: We have all types of procurements going on. We have primarily, it's to replace existing buses. We don't have enough in our fleet. So we do utilize our driving vendor to provide additional buses. And so, as we get more buses, then we pay less to the vendor, which is what we would like. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay, thank you. All right, any further discussion? All right, with that, we will take a vote on the amendment of Bill 30 to Draft 2. All those in favor,please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30 with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.12 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: At this time, we can take up any amendments by the Council. Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 135.13. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I was reached out to by Director Sako and members of the Fire Department to put this particular amendment forward. It's related to QAQI, quality assurance and quality improvement. And so what this $35,000 would do would allow the Fire Department to engage a third parry to evaluate randomly the calls that are coming in to our Dispatch Center, to understand the customer service that's being provided to anybody that calls, in an effort to improve standard operating procedures within Dispatch. The second aspect of this is to also monitor any calls that come in related to structure fires, things of that nature. Currently, there are no protocols or a training Page 18 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 manual for how Dispatch handles calls that come in related to fires. And so by evaluating the calls that come in, we are going to be building up a suite of best practices that would certainly enhance our Dispatch program's ability to provide quality customer service to anybody that calls 911. So it's a worthwhile investment. And in my discussions with Captain Stacy Domingo, who is overseeing this program in conjunction with Chief Chadwick, it would be about 12-18 months of analyzing data and then being able to produce a product in terms of a training manual that they would be able to use to train up current staff and future hires. This is really important because, right now, of the 16 positions that we have within Fire Dispatch, I believe six are held by seasoned Dispatch members, seven are in training. And there's been an increase in our budget to beef up Dispatch. And so we want to make sure that anybody new coming in or is currently there has the best sort of training material so that they can effectively do their job. Chief Todd, if you have anything else that you would like to add or folks have questions, I invite you forward. But I think that pretty much covers it. Thank you, Chair. Happy to answer any questions, and I know Fire One is too. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Chief Todd. MR. TODD: I'm here in case there's questions. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. Great. MR. TODD: Yeah, that pretty much covers it. CHR. KIMBALL: Yes, well done, Council Member Kierkiewicz. All right, any additional questions for Chief Todd or the author? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: The author. I absolutely support this amendment, but just to really break it down: 35,000 creates the manual, and then we have funding for "train the trainer" in another account. MR. TODD: That is not exactly my understanding of it. So the 35,000 is a service that we're basically having them come in and do our QAQI for us. While we'd like to build our own QAQI program, with a lack of staffing right now it's not a possibility. And part of the thing we want to implement is we had gotten money from the State (inaudible)board to implement EFD (Emergency Fire Dispatch). Currently, we use EMD, which is the Emergency Medical Dispatch protocol from Priority Dispatch, which allows us to have a protocol system for the dispatching of emergency medical calls. We've procured the software solution to do the same for Fire. But part of the rollout for that requires a QAQI program, which normally you just have a booklet Page 19 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 and their staff going and doing that, but we lack the capacity at this time. And so one of the alternative solutions has been to basically procure a service that will do that for us. And basically, we send our calls to them. They screen. They process. They give us feedback. And in the process, we'll also work towards building that capacity within ourselves. MS. LEE LOY: Great. We're on our way. MR. TODD: We're getting there. Give us some time, but yeah, that's the goal. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. I yield. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair? If I just might add a little bit more to that, Council Member Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Yes, go ahead, Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So, in addition to what Chief Todd said, I just want to reiterate that the development of the training protocols, once the evaluation takes place by this serviceI think it's priority solutions or something like that, that it's called? MR. TODD: Priority Dispatch. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes. MR. TODD: I think it's a subset underneath them that does also the QAQI for us. I've been up to the Mainland for like NORCOM 911, and they have their own staff to do it. Amazing! They also have an average of one IT (Information Technology) person for every six regular paid people. So they have some advantages we don't have locally. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Some significant advantages. But I just wanted to point out that the folks that are best positioned to analyze that information that comes in are our own people. And so Stacy Domingo, Ian Chadwick are going to be authoring this manual that we're talking about. Thank you. Chair, I appreciate the latitude. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you for the clarification on that. Any further discussion on the amendment? Checking in on Kona. MR. INABA: No questions. CHR. KIMBALL: All right, great. We will proceed with the vote on the amendment provided in Communication 135.13. All those in favor,please say Ic aye. Page 20 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 2, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.13 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —7. Noes: None. Absent: Council Members Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and Villegas —2. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Chair Kimball relinquished the chair to Acting Chair Lee Loy. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: I think we have another budget amendment. Ms. Kimball. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kimball moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 135.14. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Ms. Kimball, please lead the discussion. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. This amendment matches the fiscal impact statement that you guys were presented with the other day through the discussion of Bill 48. While this may seem a little bit premature since we haven't actually created that office yet, the intention is to introduce this now so that if Bill 48 is successful and we do create the office, the office is funded, July 1st we get going. And, hopefully, I communicated to you effectively the other day about the sense of urgency around this. I'm not sure if you guys heard all the news reports yesterday that we are projected to exceed the 1.5 Celsius increase in temperature over the next five years, given El Nino impacts. Again, there's all this Federal money on the table that is already starting to drop. I don't want anybody to feel strong-armed that this is coming through now at this time. Just be aware that if we do not pass Bill 48, this money would just go back into Fund Balance, and this funding would evaporate. This does not commit us to creating the office. It just ensures that should we create the office, it will be funded as of July 1st. I'd certainly like to get this going as soon as possible. The one other thing I just wanted to mention so that there's no confusion is that this amendment proposes funding five of the positions that were created in R&D. Again, the purpose of that was that the Mayor can create the positions. We cannot as the Council. There are seven positions in Research and Development. The food system specialist and the climate equity specialist are not part of the office now. They Page 21 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 might move too; I don't know. But with the initial proposal, it's the administrator, the outreach specialist, the data analysis and visualization specialist, policy analyst, and grants manager. And again, these are proposed positions based on the structure that we've suggested for the office. The administrator ultimately will be responsible for the position descriptions and the hiring. So, with respect to some of the questions that came up before about the appropriate classification for those positions, that will be solidified at a later point. But we're trying to get all the ducks lined up before we proceed. Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. I yield to any questions. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Any questions? I'll start over in Kona. Ms. Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. Yeah. Director Sako, I apologize for mispronouncing your name earlier. I learned it's "Sako." So I have a question for Director Sako. MS. SAKO: Hello. MS. EVANS: Hello. Now that we passed Draft 2 and the new positions have been created which includes the new positions in R&D, since I've been here, the short time I've been here, I've seen resolutions that have amended the budgets that's funded positions. So my question is a technical one. At any point in time over the next year, could we, by resolution, fund the positions? MS. SAKO: The positions are created either via resolution or, in this case, the budget ordinance, and then the funding is usually created or done through the budget. So, if there are unfunded positions in the budget, either those can be funded through vacant positions or other funding a department might have available. Or they can do a budget amendment, such as maybe they get grant funding or some other type of funding, and so they can appropriate revenue to fund those positions as well. Normally, when the resolutions come in, it's just to create the position. It usually doesn't have funding with it, yeah. MS. EVANS: Right. So, technically, we have unfunded positions that have been stood up, and now at some point in time, if and when we get funding, we could fund them and we would do this through a resolution. MS. SAKO: A budget ordinance probably, yes. MS. EVANS: Okay. Well, that's good. The other thing is this proposed amendment already has the salaries designated. How did you come up with the exact dollar amount? For the administrator, you have $105,590 for that position. MS. SAKO: What we did was work with Human Resources to determine what the salary classification would be, whether it was an EM or a Bargaining Unit 13, and what level they might be at. And then I believe we went mid-level for all Page 22 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 because these are kind of specialized positions. And we thought hiring in at the first step probably wasn't going to get us the quality applicants that we would probably desire. MS. EVANS: Okay. Just my last question about just kind of technical here. So, now that we've created unfunded positions by title, we could go in and actually give Doug Adams, Office of Research and Development—we could fund, right now if we did it, we could fund his grants manager and his policy analyst. We could pick and choose which ones we want to fund? MS. SAKO: You can. Ultimately, it's up to the director of the department to fill the positions. So, you would want to coordinate with them. Because even if you fund a position that they have no intention of filling, they may still not fill it. MS. EVANS: Okay. It's good to know. Thank you. Thank you very much. And then I just want people to know that I'll be voting "no" on this amendment. I believe we'll have plenty of opportunities to fund it. I believe in Doug Adams and the people that he has. I believe that they can apply the money at the Federal Government level now. I don't know why we're waiting until these positions would or would not get funded. I think we can go to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)right now and see what we can get. And so I do feel strong- armed by the timing of this, and so I am just going to slow it down a little bit. I think the public should definitely weigh in on this. I'm concerned about transparency and trust and accountability with the public at this point in time. So thank you, Chair, I yield. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Evans. Mr. Inaba, any questions there? MR. INABA: Just a quick question. I think it's already been explained, but so I am very clear on this, the 5167 are new accounts. Is that right, Director Sako? MS. SAKO: That's correct. We worked with the Accounts Division to come up with a numbering system that would be assigned to OSCER (Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity, and Resilience) should this amendment pass and should Bill 48 pass. MR. INABA: Okay. Thank you so much. Mahalo. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Here in Hilo, Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I'm going to be strongly supporting this particular budget amendment. I've been here for a number of years now, and we've talked at length about climate change, passed numerous resolutions. We hear the news every day about disruptions to climate just getting to a point where Page 23 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 we may not be able to address them. And so I'm confident that by making this investment in personnel and within our County now, we're finally going to be in a position to implement these plans and take action on our Integrated Climate Action Plan. We don't have a moment to waste or lose. This is a very dire and serious situation. So I will be supporting these positions. I think it allows us to finally dedicate the time and energy that's needed to resolve for climate change, sustainability, equity, resilience issues. The issue has always been there isn't an entity personnel to be the glue that brings all of the different departments together. And so I think this helps to solve for that. Council Member Evans did ask why isn't R&D already going after grants. Last budget cycle, this Council approved ten grant specialist positions. I don't think any of them were filled because it is so difficult to find people to permanently function in those positions. And so I know that there have been workarounds where we're contracting individuals on a case-by-case basis, but in this situation, we need folks that are dedicated to this issue 24/7. I'll be supporting it today. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Council Member Kimball, for putting this forward. I yield. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Let the record reflect Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder has joined us. Any more discussion on Communication 135.14? Ms. Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. I also will be strongly supporting this amendment. I feel like we had adequate discussion with the Director of R&D, and that he supports it. It seems like he feels like there are other things that his department should be focusing on in addition to this; so in addition to working in a coordinated way with this new agency. But, to me, it sounds like this has been thoroughly looked at and gone over. We've gotten a lot of good support from the public so far, and I will be supporting it. Thank you. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kagiwada. Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. I'm not going to support this, and I'm going to give you a reason why. We haven't finalized it yet and it's still being discussed by Council. I also have some trepidation about creating a new department in the County which will cost approximately $850,000 to stand up, which is then an ongoing expense to our taxpayers. The end result could be amazing, but the bill's language is still under creation and we're not there yet. It will be done and possibly passed before the end of this fiscal year, so this is timed well. I like the amount of deliberation that's been had outside of Council to stand this department up and the cross-collaboration. I think Page 24 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 that is a very positive thing, and everyone is very supportive of it. But I'm hesitant to put money into something that has not fully been cemented and foundationed, in my eyes. That's it. But I love the idea. Everyone supports the idea of sustainability. Like I mentioned previously, we have the Office of Management. They have $50,000 for sustainability activities. Sustainability is a catch-all phrase, and so a little bit too vague, a little bit too broad. And I did have some trepidation about the bill as well. So that's it. Thank you, Chair. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Just to again clarify since you were out of the room, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder: If we do pass this amendment today to fund these positions and to fund the office, and then at a later point as we deliberate Bill 48 and we decide that we don't want to proceed, the money that would be put out today would be reverted back to Fund Balance. So this does not preempt our ability to continue to deliberate the office through Bill 48. The rationale behind introducing this now is that should Bill 48 pass, we will be ready to hit the ground running July 1st and just be ready to go. So I don't want anybody to feel, like I said before, strong-armed into supporting this, but I ask you to reconsider in this instance. This just sets us up so that we will be able to just go if Bill 48 should be approved. And thank you, Council Member Kagiwada, for highlighting the conversation and the participation of Director Adams the other day. I will just state again that the whole idea of the office was co-created with the Administration. It was a conversation with Planning, R&D, Director Sako, Corporation Counsel. We've spoken to the other departments. We've spoken to Civil Defense, DEM (Department of Environmental Management), DPW (Department of Public Works). Everybody is behind this idea and the need for an essential coordinating agency. And again, I'll reflect upon the climate action plan. The draft that was released on May 1st indicated that this coordinating authority is the first step in the implementation for the climate action plan. So this is something that—yes, R&D is doing a wonderful job. They've really led the way on sustainability and climate change, but we need something that's going to last beyond this Administration, that can be dedicated full time to this area. So, again, encourage my colleagues to support this today. It doesn't create the office in and of itself, but it does allow us to have the funding to start right from Day 1 on July 1st. Thank you, Chair. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. I see Ms. Strance wanting to offer comment on this discussion, if it's okay. Judge Strance. Page 25 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Strance came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. STRANCE: Thank you. Good morning. Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. May we take a short break? I'd like to discuss with the Clerk and with Deanna about what the impact of later funding would be should the amendment fail. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Judge Strance, for that guidance. I'll put this meeting in recess. We're in recess till 10:20. Recess: At 10:10 a.m., the Acting Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 10:32 a.m. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: I think, Judge Strance, you had asked for a little bit of a recess. Maybe you could fill us in on the discussion, or we can continue to move on. MS. KIMBALL: Chair, if I may, I'll ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: I'll just briefly say Judge Strance's concern was with regard to our rules which don't allow us to reconsider something substantially similar to something we've voted down. And the concern was that if we voted down this budget amendment now as part of this discussion, we may be prohibited or there would be issues with trying to vote for funding these positions or funding this office later. And so, what I'd like to do at this time, understanding that consideration from Judge Strance, is the next hearing of this budget is June 1st We will not have had the opportunity to visit Bill 48 again prior to that hearing. What I'd like to hear from you folks is if you would prefer to have this postponed to the June 1st hearing so that you can take some more time to think about it, I'm willing to do that today. If folks are comfortable—Council Member Kagiwada, Council Member Kierkiewicz, you have said you're comfortable with passing it today—we can just proceed today. But I'd like to hear from we haven't heard from Council Member Lee Loy or Council Member Galimba on your position on the amendment at this time. So I'll wait to make any motions until you guys have had a chance to weigh in. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Ms. Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I will be strongly supporting this. I would have liked it to happen in 2019. We're way behind, so let's do it. Page 26 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Galimba. Judge Strance, if I could call you forward. I know Ms. Kimball has explained postponing. Is there another option for her to just withdraw and then it would still be a communication that she could use at our June meeting? It's postpone or withdraw, which she could reintroduce at our June meeting. Oh, go ahead. Thanks, Mr. Clerk. (Note: At this time, County Clerk Jon Henricks came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. HENRICKS: It's just a matter of(inaudible), but you can't postpone a subsidiary motion. So you would just withdraw it and then reintroduce it. I think that is where you're coming from, correct? MS. KIMBALL: Thank you for the clarification. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thanks. Thanks, guys. MS. STRANCE: Yeah, what he said. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Judge Strance. I know the maker of this amendment is looking for guidance. Yeah, I'm absolutely fine with moving this forward because, as articulated by our Finance Director, if Bill 48 really goes nowhere, there's no place for the funding to go and it just falls back into Fund Balance. And so really no harm, no foul. That's where I am ifoh, I was going to say—Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ms. Strance,there was some confusion yesterday about something else, so I just want to clarify with you your position on this. This has always been an interesting discussion regarding something that would fail not being brought back, and that's always been the funny part is "when." Is it the fiscal year? Is it the Council term? So what timeline are you going by as far as not being brought back? This could come back July 1st, being the new fiscal year. This could come back the next Council term. What is your timeline that you're going by when it comes to not being able to come back until a certain time? MR. BROWN: Judge Strance, I might be able to help with this one. The Council Rules say that you cannot reintroduce something in the same Council term. MR. HENRICKS: (Inaudible.) MR. BROWN: Thank you. So the Clerk has helped me. So the rule that I was referring to is based on bills and resolutions. Being that this is a subsidiary motion and an amendment to the budget, it's a little more nuanced than that. Robert's (Rules of Order). In the spirit of parliamentary procedure, Robert's kind Page 27 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 of mentions the same kind of spirit as your Council Rules in that you cannot reintroduce something of the same substantive, you know, whatever that may be, legislative topic. You cannot bring it back again. So there would be some question. Should the amendment fail, the bill passes to create this new division, are you then able to come back in and fund it? Because, it's already failed in basically the same thing, in a slightly different package. So that is where the question remains, and I think it's up to the body to kind of decide how they want to proceed with that in mind. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. If I could, Mr. Clerk? Ms. Strance, can you fill in any of the gaps that there may be? MS. STRANCE: I agree with the Clerk. The way that the rules are set up is that to avoid somebody who is persistent about something, keep introducing and keep introducing and keep introducing, and there has to be some finality, okay. And so that's the context in which the rule rests. So, here, you have a specific amendment to fund specific positions in anticipation of future legislation, and so the dots are already connected. And so that's the concern. I mean, there's an argument to be made that, oh, you're looking to fund positions in R&D, and then if you pass Bill 48, you're going to look to fund positions in another department. Those arguments and those positions could be made, and it would be up to this body to kind of make those fine distinctions. But the concern that is being raised is that the dots have been connected, and so, you know, it would you would have to make those other arguments, and the body would have to conclude that they're different enough. The concern is that the entire discussion, both around Bill 48 and around this amendment, is what is anticipated. And so I think beyond that, there is some latitude that this body has in kind of going forward on how they want to describe things and how they want to nuance issues. And so it would be up to the Council at a later time if you wanted to go in that direction. I just raise it. I raised it as an issue and a concern. It's an issue and a concern that is shared by both the Clerk and by Finance at some level. I don't want to speak for Deanna. And so it's raised. And then you folks can either proceed or not proceed. And if it were to fail and be brought up at another time, then the discussion would have to be held about why it's different. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Could the body decide to bring it in regardless of it being not different, or fairly the same, if we chose to proceed? MS. STRANCE: It would be against your rules. Page 28 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We can motion to suspend our rules. Would that allow us to continue the conversation? I'm asking this more in a mode of understanding the process, but this would then apply towards other bills as well. And could that be (inaudible) here? MR. HENRICKS: Madam Chair, may I provide some information? ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Yes, please, Mr. Clerk. MR. HENRICKS: On the prospect of suspending that rule about motions, it's arguable if that's a suspendable rule because that concept of not revisiting things, it's in Robert's itself. And the Council cannot suspend rules that are based on the Charter, the Code, or general parliamentary procedure. Only rules that are outside of those things, that it is created at its own discretion for its own processes, similar to the holdover rule that is suspended at times. That's a Council rule that is outside of the Charter, the Code, or Robert's. So, therefore, it becomes available to your discretion as to whether or not you want to apply it. I don't think that rule about revisiting items is something the Council could suspend in order to proceed with business. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So really, then, if it were to die, it couldn't be brought back. MR. HENRICKS: Again, I think what we had talked about is it's uncertain. It's arguable whether or not it falls under that category. So what I understand Corporation Counsel doing is just advising that because it's arguable, you should consider that in these proceedings. We're not sure. We don't know. Somebody could make an argument that it was violate of parliamentary procedure. And then, you know, it's not black and white, that it's just something to consider as you proceed with this particular motion that's on the floor. There is no clean answer for you, in other words, to say MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I hate non-clean answers. MR. HENRICKS: Well, these things are going to happen. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: This is law. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. When it comes to procedure, things aren't always that clear cut(inaudible). MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so it's up to the maker of the bill if she wants to bring this forward. If we vote it forward, it moves forward. If it fails, it fails. The recommendation has been given that if it does fail, it may not be brought back. But that is not a definitive answer. That was helpful. Thank you. Page 29 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. I have a question in Kona. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you. So, for these positions that are now, or have been created in R&D in this budget, what if they were just to be funded where they currently reside? Could they be moved over after Bill 48 was to pass? ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Inaba, Ms. Sako is heading to the table. MS. SAKO: Yes, they could be funded in R&D. It would require Council action to move it between departments. So, like, from R&D to OSCER should that be created at a later date. Administration can only transfer within a department. So, yeah. It would just take Council action, but that could be done. MR. INABA: If we pass this amendment, then the—the positions are living right now in R&D. They could be moved over without Council approval since there is no funding in the R&D positions. Is that right? MS. SAKO: Yes. That just takes HR action to transfer a position between departments. MR. INABA: Okay, I think we can count to five. I'll be supporting. Thank you. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Call for the question. Mr. Clerk MS. EVANS: Chair, I have a question. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Oh, go ahead, Ms. Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. This is for Director Sako. Maybe Judge Strance too. The way the amendment was written, it's for the purpose of establishing the Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity, and Resilience. So, even if we pass this, the office has not yet been established. So how is that technically possible to do that? How can we amend something and do this when it doesn't exist? And the only reason I bring that up is when I was involved in the animal control and protection agency, we were told that we had to get it stood up before we could establish positions and fund it. And this would just be the reverse. We would fund it before the office was even established. So, to me, there might be a technicality here. MS. STRANCE: That's a good question and concern, whether you have a budget amendment that's backed or creating an agency MS. EVANS: It's for the purpose of establishing the office. That's what's in the language. So I'm thinking, technically, this is flawed. Page 30 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. STRANCE: I think that's a valid concern. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Any more questions, Ms. Evans? MS. EVANS: No. Thank you. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Great. Ms. Kimball,you've heard a lot of discussion. Shall I move forward with the vote? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. I feel comfortable, based on the feedback I've heard from you folks. I certainly think that, again, we support this move through. If Bill 48 doesn't make it, it just goes back to the Fund Balance. So I'd proceed with calling for the question. Thank you. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Great. Mr. Clerk, we have a motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 2, with the contents of Communication 135.14. Roll call,please. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 2, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.14 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, and Acting Chair Lee Loy —6. Noes: Council Members Evans and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—2. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: If it's okay with you, Chair, I'll go ahead and wrap it all up, and then we can move on to the next one. I don't see any other amendments. MR. BROWN: No. We can go back to the main motion if there are no other amendments. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Seeing no more amendments, back to the main motion. Bill 30, Draft 2, as MR. BROWN: Yeah. The motion is Bill 30, Draft 2, as amended. And this would be to pass first reading. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: All right. On the main motion, Ms. Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I believe Managing Director Lee Lord is on Zoom. Is that correct? Page 31 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 (Note: At this time, Managing Director Lee Lord came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. LORD: Yes. Can you hear me? I'm here. Sorry, I couldn't be there in person. MS. KAGIWADA: I'm sorry to bother you. Yeah. So I had a question about you mentioned something about a continuous improvement half-time position when we were talking. Is this the same organizational development specialist, half-time, that's a newly requested position? MR. LORD: Yes, it is. I'm sorry, I misquoted the title. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I was just trying to figure that out. Is there any funding associated with this position for the work? MR. LORD: No outside funding. That's why we're going with County funding. MS. KAGIWADA: No, my question is, is there any additional funding for the work this person will be doing with the County, specific funding that may be necessary to accomplish their goals and objectives? MR. LORD: There'll be some office supplies and some meeting supplies, but we would take those out of the Mayor's office at this point in time since they'll be quite incidental. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so nothing like contract services or anything? MR. LORD: No. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. All right. And the secretary to the boards and commissions, that's somebody who's just going to basically kind of be the fullI guess it's a full-time position, to organize all our boards and commissions. Is that correct? MR. LORD: Yes. And help coordinate Zoom meetings and those types of things, yes. MS. KAGIWADA: One person will be doing all of them? Or you'll still have supplemental staff helping out with that? MR. LORD: We'll still have supplemental staff. We are still going to ask that those commissions that stand up themselves continue to provide their own secretarial help by nominating somebody on their commission as they do now. Page 32 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 But we realize that there's other commissions coming on board that won't be able to provide the clerical support that they need. So that's why this position is being created. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Sorry. Back to the organizational development specialist. What are their main kind of goals and objectives for that position? MR. LORD: They're working with all of our departments, mainly the directors and the deputy directors, as well as the supervisors in the different departments. And that's heading the work that we've been doing for breaking down the silos, bringing the teams together, making sure everyone has their mission/vision goals and all those statements; following up with those and then continuing on with leadership training, and helping the departments to help collaborate with each other to better unify the County so that they're working together, communicating together in that manner. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, great. So I'm just I can discuss this with you later, but I'm thinking that maybe you want some funds in there for some contract services for some of that leadership training and stuff. So I'll talk to you about it, and we can see if that's something that you might want to include, okay. MR. LORD: Okay, sounds good. MS. KAGIWADA: All right. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kagiwada. Anyone else? All right, we have Bill 30, Draft 2, as amended. MR. BROWN: Would you like a roll call? ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Yeah, let's do a roll call vote, please. Vote on Bill 30: The motion to pass Bill 30, Draft 2, as amended to Draft 3, Draft 3 on first reading and adopt Finance Committee Report (Approved) No. 40 was carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, and Acting Chair Lee Loy —8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Acting Chair Lee Loy relinquished the chair to Chair Kimball. Page 33 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 Bill 31: RELATES TO PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2023, TO JUNE 30, 2024 From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated March 1, 2023, transmitting the proposed Capital Budget for FY 2023-2024 and the Capital Improvements Program for the next six years from Fiscal Year 2023-2024 to 2028-2029, which includes 44 projects requiring a total appropriation of$345,478,000, of which $291,041,000 are intended to be funded in whole or part by bonds, $18,867,000 to be funded by Federal Grants, $34,650,000 to be funded by the State Revolving Loan Fund or State Capital Improvement Projects, and $920,000 to be funded by General Excise Tax. Reference: Comm. 136 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder(B/R) Approve: FC-41 Public Hearing: May 16, 2023 and Comm. 136.27: From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated May 5, 2023, transmitting Bill 31, Draft 2, which adds 3 projects for a total of 47 projects and an increase of$13,050,000 in appropriations over the first draft. ; and Bill 31: RELATES TO PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR (Draft 2) THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2023, TO JUNE 30, 2024 Draft 2 requires a total appropriation of$358,528,000, of which $295,541,000 are intended to be funded in whole or part by bonds, $26,867,000 to be funded by Federal Grants, $33,750,000 to be funded by the State Revolving Loan Fund, $900,000 to be funded by the State Capital Improvements Program, and $1,470,000 to be funded by Community Benefit Assessments and General Excise Tax. Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder(B/R) (Note: Comm. 136.28, from Council Member Holeka Goro Inaba dated May 12, 2018, transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 31, Draft 2, was circulated.) Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 31 on first reading and adopt Finance Committee Report No. 41. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Similar to the previous bill,pursuant to Article 10, Section 10-2 of the Hawaii County Charter, the Mayor has submitted the amended capital budget to the Council as of May 5h. We will have to amend again from Draft 1 to Draft 2. Is there any discussion on Draft 1 before we proceed to amend to Draft 2? Hearing none, Council Member Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, may I have a motion to amend? Page 34 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 31 with the contents of Comm. 136.27. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Any discussion on the amendment of Bill 31? Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Chair, I've asked a couple department heads to be available on Zoom. So waiting for DEM and Housing,just to let you know. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. Do we have either Director—how about we ask Director Sako if she can answer your questions while we are waiting for them to join us on Zoom. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Thank you, Director Sako. I've had a few constituent calls about some of these items in the CIP (Capital Improvement Project) budget. So I just want to, for the record, get out there a couple of pieces of information. So around the, I guess it's the inceptor and the collector, the two DEM projects. One is Ainako Aina Nani Collector Sewer and the other is Ainako Inceptor Sewer. What is the difference between an inceptor and a collector? Do you know that? MS. SAKO: It does have all to do with the piping and how we gather all of our sewage. And these, given the dollar amounts, must be in the planning stage. So some of that will probably be determined as we begin to plan out those projects. I am trying to get to the detailed pages but—here we go. So, on the MS. KAGIWADA: 39 and 40. MS. SAKO: Yeah. So, on page 39, which is the collector, Ainako Aina Nani Collector Sewer, it's to install sewer to service approximately 150 residents. And the request is for design and survey with construction expected in fiscal year '25 and '26. And then the Ainako Inceptor Sewer Phase 2 is to install service to approximately 100 residents. And again, that is also for design and survey with the construction expected in fiscal year '26-'27. So they both sound similar in that it's a way to get the sewer to connect to our main lines that will take it down to the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant, I believe. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Great. I understand DEM is coming, but my other questions have to do with just how residents will be involved, noticed, and aware of these projects in the specific vicinities. Will there be public hearings, or will there be mail that's directed to everybody that's affected? Do you know how that—? Page 35 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. SAKO: So, at some point, yes, they're going to have to contact the community. Especially as they begin to work on the project, there will be construction in the area and whatnot, and then eventually, these residents will have to connect to the sewer as well. So, typically, there will be a number of mailings probably coming from the department. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, great. And then the last one that people have been asking is what will individual residents, what will their cost be associated with this? Do we have any sense? MS. SAKO: I did hear that DEM has a lot of meetings on their schedule today, which is why I'm doing the best to answer these questions. But I do believe that they will be responsible to connect from the main pipe in the street, and we will put the main collector pipes in. But then they will have to do the lateral to their home, whatever is on their private property. And then once they start paying sewer, they'll have to pay the bi-monthly sewer fee. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Do we have a range of how much it costs to connect a home to the main line? MS. SAKO: First of all, it depends where your—let's say they're all on cesspool or septic tank right now. If that's in the back of your home and you need to connect it out to the street, that's going to cost more than if it's in your front yard and there's only a few feet that needs to connect, and then where the pipe itself is coming from. So it depends how much digging, but, I mean, it could probably be anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000, depending on what they're digging through as well. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I think I heard before that there may be programs to help with some of these costs for some people, depending on their income levels. MS. SAKO: There are. And Housing is continuing to work on additional programs as well, especially for lower-income families, especially with State Revolving Loan Fund and other programs. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, thank you so much. That's mainly—like I said, I just wanted, since I was getting the questions, to get this out into the public. Sorry. I have a question about the Ainako Affordable Housing Project as well. Can I ask you since we don't have Housing here? MS. SAKO: Yeah, you could ask. I probably don't know as much about the specific housing projects but go ahead. Page 36 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. My understanding is this is looking at providing the infrastructure for that potential development. So the questions I'm getting are around target populations because it says, "affordable housing." Do you have any idea what populations and what AMI(Area Median Income)this will ? MS. SAKO: I have not heard specifically like if it'sI think what you're asking is, is it like 120 percent AMI, 60 percent AMI? And I haven't heard specifically what AMI target range we're in. But we can find out and bring that for the next reading. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, great. And then, once again, asking about public hearings or notification for people that will be affected by potentially traffic and other infrastructure needs, schools, parks, all that. MS. SAKO: Yeah. Definitely, I think we're in the planning stage at design/survey. So, if an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) is required, then that is usually when all those types of comments come along. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Thank you so much. Like I said, I just wanted to get that out to people because I was getting calls, and now, we can have that as public record. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Anybody else here in Hilo? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Ms. Deanna, is there any movement on the Kea`au Police and Fire Station Zendo talked about at our last meeting? We do have Chief Todd here as well. MS. SAKO: Definitely, we're working closely with Shipman and working on the land. We have not signed anything yet, but we are definitely moving forward. There have been meetings and we continue to progress. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Are we looking at, I don't know if you can share, but is it going to be a lease or a purchase of land? MS. SAKO: I believe they are donating the land to us, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Wow. Okay. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. On that note, if I could respond to Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. I reached out to Fire and Police to start talking about a CIP amendment for a Fire, Police, and potentially Civil Defense Page 37 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 sort of training complex. Our offices can work together to co-introduce that at the next budget hearing if you're interested. I know we talked about collaborating on some of the CIP amendments, and I think this would be a really good one. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Going over to Kona, Council Member Evans or Council Member Inaba. MS. EVANS: Yeah, thank you, Chair. I have one question on the Civil Defense land mobile radio upgrade. In this bill, it shows $2 million under General Obligation Bonds Capital Projects. I'm curious why wouldn't we qualify for E911 (Enhanced 911) funding, which would be a State fund? I just was questioning why we have to pay for it when maybe there's another potential source of funding. MS. SAKO: So this is the remnant of an existing project where we had to convert our mobile radio system. We can look into it. If there are E911 funds available, we do try to utilize those whenever possible. I am not sure we have historically received anything for our mobile radio use. We definitely have on the E911 system. But we can look into it. I'll work with Civil Defense and Police. MS. EVANS: Yeah, I noticed that. I was looking at the State budget, and they have a huge fund balance there, and it's supposed to support our emergency response. So I am hopeful that we could use their money instead of this $2 million from a GO (General Obligation) bond float. But thank you very much. I yield. MS. SAKO: You're welcome. Understood. CHR. KIMBALL: Any further discussion? Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Are we at the point where we're doing amendments right now? CHR. KIMBALL: We're still on the discussion of Draft 2 amendment. So yours would be after we dispose of this. Any further discussion here in Hilo? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Ms. Sako, in our CIP list, we have one particular project for Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium, but I know that to be located in a larger Ho`olulu Complex—and we can have this conversation offline. Does that mean that that will specifically be guided into that facility, or could it—so just looking if it's more appropriate to have like a larger CIP for the entire complex. Page 38 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MS. SAKO: They've been doing work on the entire complex over the years. This particular project on the Civic, I think there is some very specific items that need to happen at the Civic. Should they need another CIP for the entire complex, they could come in for that as well. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. And I know we put in a lot of money for repair and maintenance just as a whole, but that particular complex not only has the gym and then the fields, but also a pool. So that would also be in the aquatics funding? MS. SAKO: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. If it's okay, I'll have an offline conversation about maybe more of a global approach to all the facilities in that area. MS. SAKO: Yeah. (Inaudible.) MS. LEE LOY: Great. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Ms. Sako, on what Ashley just spoke to, do you need anything further from us for moving forward with these Police/Fire Stations kind of floating right now? MS. SAKO: I believe we have some projects on the books, because the capital projects are good for the fiscal year in which they're appropriated plus two more to at least get started on those projects. This is the first I'm kind of hearing more Civil Defense training center type of thing. So, yes, we may need additional appropriations, but we can work together to see if there's, you know, like the FIS (Fiscal Impact Statement) statement or something else that we want to attach. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Ms. Kierkiewicz, yes to working together to make good collaboration for Puna because it hits both of us, yeah. Beautiful. Thank you. Sorry, it's three of us: Ms. Lee Loy, Ms. Kierkiewicz, and myself. Got it. Okay, mahalo. Thank you, Ms. Sako. CHR. KIMBALL: Right on. Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. One more check in Kona? MR. INABA: No further questions. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Great. Council Member—Director Sako. I almost demoted you to Council Member. Just teasing. Director Sako, I just had a question about Laupahoehoe Boat Ramp, which is in DPW's or Parks and Rec. MS. SAKO: Parks and Rec. Page 39 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: Yeah. Last year, it was one of the top priorities of the Administration to do that repair. Does that remain the case, particularly with the potential delays with Pohoiki and that the ramping opened up? Are we still prioritizing that? MS. SAKO: Yes, it's still a high priority, and Parks and Rec. is working on it. I'm not sure if it's still there's so many phases with design and planning and all of that. Off the top of my head, I don't know which phase they're in at the moment, but yes, it remains a high priority. CHR. KIMBALL: Given that, and I see that the funding for it is only coming out of County-related funds, should we be looking at potentially getting support from other State or Federal partners? Or if you think we've got the ability (inaudible). MS. SAKO: Definitely, we can look for other grant funding. I think this boat ramp is one of the few that is assigned to the County. Most of them are State. So they haven't necessarily participated in all the funding. But we can always look for State and Federal grants, definitely. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay, great. I know that—I'd be happy to help with that effort. The other question I had was OHCD (Office of Housing and Community Development)-related. I know that there was the hearing earlier this the public meeting on the hospital, which is not in this budget. Are we paying for that site assessment and that contract? And if so, which fund program is that coming out of? MS. SAKO: More than likely, Housing is paying for it with some Federal funding or homelessness pots of money that they have received. Off the top of my head, I don't remember which one, but yes. They definitelyI mean, we definitely pay for some of their projects and programs with County funding. We know, obviously, they don't bring in Federal funding for everything, but in this particular case, I believe it is federally funded. CHR. KIMBALL: So it's not coming from our dedicated homeless funding account specifically. MS. SAKO: Oh, no. Not that I recall. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. Great. If it turns out to be something different, you can MS. SAKO: If it is, yes, I'll let you know because I'm like "I didn't think so," but I haven't looked closely lately. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay, thank you, Director. All right, any further discussion from folks? Oh, yes, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Page 40 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Sorry, Chair. Thank you. Ms. Sako, when did the—if you know, when did the Laupahoehoe Boat Ramp become County? MS. SAKO: Before I started with the County. It has always been County. So decades ago. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And then was it through a certain process, your recollection? MS. SAKO: I'm sure the State no longer wanted it and somehow delegated that to us, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Because there comes these timesI was looking at Ms. Kierkiewicz when you were talking, Ms. Kimball, and I don't know if you had the same idea I had, but you watch someone struggle along with something for so long not someone but an entity—and you just kind of think maybe we should just do it ourselves. MS. SAKO: Sometimes. But also sometimes it's very expensive, and we can't afford to do everything because MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes, it is. If they were to be able to give us some funding to match. Yes. MS. SAKO: Right, yes. If they were to fund it, we could probably do it faster. I agree. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That might be a beautiful solution. Thank you, Chair. MS. SAKO: But you might want to talk to Public Works first. CHR. KIMBALL: Any further discussion? All right, seeing none, Mr. Clerk, I'm going to just ask you, for consistency's sake, to do the roll call on this, please. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31 with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.27 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball –8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas – 1. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. Page 41 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 Motion to Amend: Council Member Inaba moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 2, with the contents of Comm. 136.28. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. First and foremost, I'd like to thank Mayor Roth, Director Sako, and Chief Todd for including in this year's operating budget the positions at Kohanaiki Beach Park for ocean safety officers. These positions have not and do not exist there, and as we know, it's a very popular beach here in West Hawaii. Within the last two years, we lost one of our youngsters here who was a couple months short of turning 16 in a surfing accident there. And this effort right now to have lifeguards at Kohanaiki was one that was kind of spearheaded by her mother, and we're happy that we're moving along in Lily's honor. This $120,000 addition to the capital budget will be funded by our North Kona fair share contributions, which we don't often tap. So I want to mahalo our—and Ms. Lonokapu in Fire as well for helping us to create this Financial Impact Statement—Chief Todd for supporting us tapping this fair share account for the addition of this lifeguard tower. So this is specific to the construction of the tower. And then contained in the operating budget are those positions which ensure safety for our community, keiki to kupuna. I ask for my colleagues' support. And hoping we get this going, we'll have these positions funded and this lifeguard stand erected this fiscal year. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. Any further discussion? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. I'll be supporting this measure today. I did look for the funding source and saw that it was the fair share. Thank you for explaining that. My only question for the maker is, is there any funding available from the, I'm not sure what it's called, but there's the accompanying development around Kohanaiki that puts funding towards the maintenance of the beach area and the walking trails. Is this something that can be matched or covered by that funding source as well or no? MR. INABA: Are you speaking to the construction of the tower? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. MR. INABA: This isn't something that we sought out, being that we had enough funding here and we don't tap the fair share too often. Kohanaiki Shores is very generous and is a good community partner. And being that the Administration Page 42 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 was also supportive with the positions, we didn't want to wait or hinge the construction of this tower on anything else when we could move forward with what we have in our fair share account right now. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you. MR. INABA: Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any further discussion on the amendment? Council Member Evans, checking in. MS. EVANS: I'm fine. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. Great. We'll go ahead and ask for the vote. Mr. Clerk. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 2, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.28 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: We now have Draft 2 additionally amended. We're back to the main motion. Any further discussion on the capital improvement budget? Checking in on Kona. MR. INABA: No. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. Mr. Clerk, can we please take the vote on the main motion, approval of Bill No. 31, as amended to Draft 3? Vote on Bill 31: The motion to pass Bill 31, Draft 2, as amended to Draft 3, Draft 3 on first reading and adopt Finance Committee Report (Approved) No. 41 was carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. Page 43 Hawaii County Council-13 May 18,2023 OTHER The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Other BUSINESS: Business. (There were none.) ANNOUNCE- The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, MENTS: Announcements. ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 11:20 a.m., Ms. Lee Loy moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Ms. Galimba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball— 8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas— 1. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: We are adjourned as of 11:20. The next reading on the budget will be on June 1St. Thank you, everyone. Council Approval: JUL 0 6 2023 CO "iirdrM■y.J' JH/dg Page 44