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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN COUNCIL 2023-06-01 2022-2024 Hawaii County Council 141h Session Special Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii June 1, 2023 INVOCATION: Pastor Dion K. Maeda of Connect Point Church 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 Ms. Cindy Evans, Member 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-14 June 1,2023 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: Sylvia Dolena: Bill 30, Draft 3 (Comm. 135.15), comment. (See Comm. 135.39) ORDER OF The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Order of THE DAY the Day (Second or Final Reading). (SECOND OR FINAL READING): Bill 30: ESTABLISHES AN OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAII (Draft 3) FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2023 TO JUNE 30, 2024 Draft 3 includes estimated revenues and appropriations of$832,569,515. Reference: Comm. 135.15 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder(B/R) Public Hearing: May 16, 2023 First Reading: May 18, 2023 ; and Comm. 135.16: From Council Member Jenn Kagiwada, dated May 24, 2023, transmitting proposed (Memo No. 1) amendments to the General Fund by increasing the Fund Balance from Previous Year revenue account by $22,820, and increasing the Parks and Recreation, Summer/Intersession Salaries and Wages, Regular Salaries and Wages expenditure account by the same amount to increase hourly wages for temporary hires to assist with summer and winter programs. ; and Comm. 135.17: From Council Member Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, dated May 24, 2023, (Memo No. 2) transmitting proposed amendments to the General Fund by increasing the Fund Balance from Previous Year revenue account by $80,000, and increasing the following expenditure accounts: Parks and Recreation Administration Other Current Expenses, Miscellaneous Contract Services ($20,000) and Culture and Education Other Current Expenses, Miscellaneous Contract Services ($60,000). Funds would be used for fireworks displays in East and West Hawaii. ; and Comm. 135.18: From Council Member Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, dated May 25, 2023, (Memo No. 3) transmitting proposed amendments to the General Fund by increasing the Fund Balance from Previous Year revenue account by $87,000, and increasing the Police Administration Division-Equipment, Motor Vehicle expenditure account by the same amount to add a new line item for vehicular expenses. Page 2 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 (Note: The following communications transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 30, Draft 3, were circulated: Communication Nos. 135.19-135.21 and 135.24-135.35.) Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 30, Draft 3, on second and final reading. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Is there any discussion on the bill before we proceed to amendments? Okay, hearing none, we are actually going to start out of order with the amendments due to some time constraints. Mr. Inaba, do you want to start with Communication 135.24? Motion to Amend: Mr. Inaba moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.24. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. This is something that I brought up at Special Finance regarding the travel budget for the combination liquor department, commission, and adjudication board. We have representatives from the department in our Kona chambers via Zoom. But what I did was look back at actual spending a couple years ago, after COVID (coronavirus disease) and before COVID, to bring down this number to $80,000. It's currently at$160,000, total, for travel both in and out of state for those three entities, departments. For all of us, in our green folders, it's on the left side, No. 7. So, with that, this is something that I'm bringing forward because in comparison as well to other travel department budgets, which I questioned throughout the Special Finance Committee hearing this year, there's nothing that really comes close to this travel budget, including our own. So I ask for your support in just so that we know, we are planning to collect these funds, or funds that are unbudgeted would go into the Liquor Department's fund balance. And by HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes), the commission would likely need to revisit our liquor fees that we are charging in our County based on excess revenue compared to expenditures. Happy to take any questions, and actually would open it up first to our folks at the Liquor Department in Kona chambers if they would like to share anything. (Note: At this time, Liquor Control Administrative Officer Brandon Gonzalez and Deputy Corporation Counsel Dakota Frenz came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. GONZALEZ: Good morning, members of the Council. This is Brandon Gonzalez, Liquor Administrative Officer for the Department of Liquor Control. With me is Cody Frenz, Deputy Corporation Counsel, who provides us legal assistance with the department. The Director is prepping for a Liquor Page 3 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Commission hearing that we are going to be having in about 45 minutes. But I'm here to kind of address any questions regarding the budget amendment. I guess what I wanted to do was actually ask Council Member Inaba the rationale for the reduction, but thankfully he kind of prefaced his whole intro on the amendment with that. So I just want to make sure I got it, like you were looking at our actual travel before and after COVID. You were comparing our travel budget to other departments, including the County Council. Right? MR. INABA: That is correct. MR. GONZALEZ: Okay, thanks. So what I appreciate is your attention to the detail in looking at the actuals. Our department as well, in preparing our budget for this upcoming year, feel our line items are justified. It's thought out. And like you and your team,probably taking into account multiple factors in assessing costs, benefits, resources, and all of that. The thing with our travel budget in particular is it is based on actuals. We actually went back to 2017-2018 fiscal year. And while it varies between 110,000 to 85,000 or so, you take out the years of fiscal year '19-'20 and 2021 because of the COVID effects, and even '21-'22 because that was coming out of COVID, right, it's all about 80,000 there. Our actual travel budget for this current fiscal is on target to be at 124,000. So what our travel budget includes is also our training for our staff. And what you folks may not be directly aware of is that, for each fiscal year, we send at least 20 to 30 people to trainings. And the trainings is our investment in our human resources: our employees and our volunteers. So we're fortunate on our end to be able to put that investment into our workers and our volunteers, because the workers actually get to put their work processes, their workflows, their jobs, the importance of their function into context for the entire industry, not only for Hawaii but across the nation. Because, our department is a member in several national organizations that draft alcohol policy for public safety, health services, medical services, effects on the community, effects on the business. And we're also lucky because we have two volunteer commissions—one is a commission, one is a board. And as you guys are well aware, the County, as far back as I can remember when I joined the County, is always struggling to find people to volunteer on boards and commissions, right, to give up their time. Take time out of their day. So we're always constantly recruiting for boards and commissions. We are fortunate that we have two boards and commissions. After we invest the training on the nuances, the trends, the changes in liquor law that's regulated from the Federal level, at the State level, and at the County level, we have people that are willing to come back and redo it, whether it's on the commission side—if you guys don't know, the commission is like the beginning. They help businesses get Page 4 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 liquor licenses. They help them through the process and public hearings. The business gets the liquor license. And then the adjudication board is like the back end, where if they are unable to follow the rules and compliance or conditions that the commission puts forward and there are violations, then they can see the back end of it if enforcement or citation is necessary, right. So, when we invest in our volunteers, we get a good payout and return on that because they stay involved with the industry. And our volunteers come from all spectrums, right. We're not just talking businessmen, bankers, engineers. We have retirees. We have teachers. We have business owners, farmers, the whole spectrum of people willing to give their time to work with us, yeah. So, when we invest in our human resources for that aspect, we realize the payback because they can better appreciate their impact on the community here for Hawaii, how the liquor industry impacts it positively or negatively, and their role in it. So part of the other thing that the staff, if we're looking at the staff for the travel, right, we are talking not only departmental staff, like our clerks that help businesses with the application process or renew their liquor license, we are also talking about sometimes the attorneys assigned to the department. They go to trainings to Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia), where we actually get to get—we get trained by the department of treasury, alcohol/tobacco tax bureau. We get to meet with other jurisdictions that are control states where the state actually controls all the liquor stores and sells the liquor, or regulatory states where, like Hawaii, where we just have a structure in place for businesses to follow to make sure that liquor is sold and consumed responsibly. The other types of staff that utilize the training in state and out of state are also our liquor investigators or, under our leadership, our liquor kind of ambassadors, right. They go out to the establishments. They would make sure that things are operating according to the liquor laws. But they give a lot of educational talks on what the laws are and whether or not certain aspects of business operations are within the law or questionable, right. So some of the trainings that they've got to go to are things for, like, sound meter recertification with the Department of Health, right. It's not publicly known or well-known, but a lot of our work before COVID was dealing with noise complaints from the public. And a lot of our work has been in resolving these types of issues before they get to be bigger issues. So our investigators are certified by the Department of Health Public Safety Branch on taking sound readings, preparing reports. And then we can take that information to the businesses or to the complainants and help resolve issues regarding noise. They also are sent to trainings on the Mainland with our National Liquor Law Enforcement Association or National Conference of State Liquor Administrators to get caught up on the latest trends in the industry. COVID forced a lot of aspects of business to become pushed into the mainstream. Alcohol delivery Page 5 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 became more prominent. Alcohol delivery by mail spiked, right. So there's been a lot of information sharing and best practices being developed for those types of trainings. We also send our staff for training on verbal judo. It's hard in a situation involving alcohol. Normal mental faculties are not always in play by some of the people we are interacting with, so there are some communication issues. And tools that we try and equip our investigators with and train them so that they're prepared when they go in the field. And that's what it's kind of about. We want to make sure our volunteers and our staff are prepared to handle the actual issues that occur in the industry. And when I take a look at the budget for our item, yeah we may have increased it 36,000 this year to 160,000, but that's based on the trends and the actuals that we are facing this year, right. We're at 124,000 budgeted this year. Our actuals right now are right on target to hit that, and that takes into account a lot of factors. We all realize the costs associated with travel have increased, and it's not just travel to the Mainland; it's the travel just on our island. Before, we could have our investigators or our staff do operations in West Hawaii where they'd have to stay overnight. We could get rooms for $150. Nowadays, the rooms overnight are like $300, right. In August and September of this upcoming year, Kauai is hosting a whole bunch of trainings for liquor law enforcement across the State. It's a one-day training. But even when we priced it out to just fly in, fly out, we're already looking at airfare to be between $100 and $200 per person, if we can fit the training window, just to fly there. What really hurt us for travel to the Mainland, too, was the loss of direct flights out of Hilo to the West Coast. That has increased our costs. So lodging, airfare, all of those costs have increased since COVID. Everybody's aware of that. And this kind of factors that in too. Without compromising or giving up too much, we want to give the opportunity to all, as many people as possible, in our department and on our commissions to get this training. Because, like I said, we're investing in them and the return on that investment has been really good historically. It's unfortunate other departments don't have the resources to do that. I would wish that other departments could find ways to do that but it's tough. Every department faces the tough choices, right, on deferring equipment cost or how many people can be sent to training. But in this case, our travel line budget for this year that we submitted I think has been fully justified based on our actuals, what we're experiencing today in this current fiscal year going forward, and how the travel industry is going, and then all of the changes coming forward with the liquor industry itself coming out of COVID. That's what I basically came to say. Page 6 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. INABA: Thank you. So, for the Council, Liquor Department was able to share kind of what these expenses or these funds are used for. I think we just need to ask ourselves when we look at any other department,just because Liquor is self-funded by liquor fees, at what point do we give? We have the ability to reduce real property taxes. When it comes to liquor fees, that's adjusted by the commission. If we leave our fees as we are and revenue keeps growing, we'll probably see this travel budget keep growing as well. So, I think putting this amendment forward gives us the opportunity to be more responsible. And if that means that we go back and revisit—the Liquor Commission revisits our fees. And I might add as well, in the Special Finance meeting, I did share how there was only 10,000 for our Project Grad projects, 30,000 I believe for community projects. And we didn't see any attempt to move travel money into programs that directly impact our youth or our community. The full 160,000 was left here. So, happy to take any questions, but you can see the intention of this amendment. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Good morning. Have you thought of maybe training the trainer so that when you send people to these conferences and they get training and they learn a lot about the new laws? I realize that things change all the time so you have to keep up on it, but is it possible to take what you know and come back and then train other people, so you don't have so many people going to the conferences? Do you agree with the idea of a"train the trainer"? They'd come back and train others. MR. GONZALEZ: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Yes. I'll answer the question and then I just want to let you guys know that the Director, Gerald Takase, is here. To answer your question,we do train the trainer when appropriate and when we can. We have done that in the past. In fact,just this past year when we hosted the State liquor's investigators conference, a lot of our investigators were putting on the sessions to the other island liquor investigators based on what they were trained on on the national level when they went to the national conferences in the preceding year. This year on Kauai, Kauai is doing the same thing. One of their chief investigators got trained on certain aspects of communication, and that's the training that they're going to be hosting for the State, right. So every department has been doing that, and we are open to that. I just wanted to add, too, though, that our liquor percentage fee for this fiscal year for our licensees went down, okay. So it was 0.0058751. And in previous years, it was 0.007788. So we are not fitting them with the higher percentage fee for the liquor sales, yeah. The number actually went down for this fiscal year. I just wanted to put that out there as well. Thank you. Page 7 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. EVANS: Thank you. My other question is about the use of social media, like the use of Zoom, YouTube, podcasts, training modules, virtual training. Is it possible that instead of—you're right; airfares have gone up, hotel rooms have gone up. I've noticed that. But in lieu of that, can we not do training other than really having to travel? MR. GONZALEZ: Thanks. That's a good question, and actually for the last two or three years, we have been taking advantage of training modules that have been provided online and in Zoom for certain subjects. There's other subjects, though, that the liquor law enforcement agencies put in person because it is kind of like an intense in-person training, or they have drones that they are flying. Or there's other aspects and equipment that are involved. But we have been utilizing Zoom and web-based training sessions for the last two or three years in lieu of travel, in addition to travel. So we've already explored those options and we're using it. MS. EVANS: Oh, good. And my last question is you made a comment that you raised your travel budget by 36,000, and you based it on your kind of analysis of what the market is. Was that done—who put that analysis together? How did you come up with the 36,000? MR. GONZALEZ: I was looking at the budget we submitted this year for the travel item 160,000, and compared it to our budget that we submitted last year for 124,000. So that's where I get the 36,000. So, whenever we submit our budget, we always try and forecast, okay, what are the meetings that we are members of where we need to attend and vote. What are the trainings for legal issues? What are the trainings for investigator issues? What are the in-state trainings and meetings that will be occurring that can't occur via Zoom or whatever? And then that's what we use to craft our projection. And then we can take a look at what the current rates are for travel, and then we get a ballpark there, yeah. MS. EVANS: Okay. To Council Member Inaba, I really believe in training. I think that's so important. But I understand your comments and where you're coming from. I lean more towards status quo, the 124,000, and see if they can live with it and embrace Zoom and virtual training, and really try to think out of the box a little bit. And maybe not be wanting to jump back and get on the airplane, but more leaning towards the virtual. So I lean more towards status quo, the 124. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Director, thank you for joining us. Just wondering if you can address Council Member Inaba's comment about have you looked at increasing things like the Project Grad amount as you looked at your total budget. Was that a discussion you guys had? Page 8 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. GONZALEZ: We actually had reduced it and that's because we're finding less and less people actually asking us for money. So we were carrying a big surplus. And when we went through the budget review with the Finance Director, that's one of the areas they said, "Do you guys really need that much money?" And they were flexible that if the need comes, they will help us fund it. But for the last couple years, we haven't really shown a lot of use in Project Grad, and I think one of the reasons is actually the Council Members themselves have started funding these projects themselves. So they weren't coming to us. They were going to the Council Members instead. MS. KAGIWADA: Yeah, and I didn't know about the fund earlier, but I definitely will be directing people that come to me to go to you guys as well if they need funds. So I think, I'm not sure about everybody else, but I think that's a good use of a safe and alcohol-free event that can go on around the island for our youth. So I would love to see you also consider increasing that as the Council Members are more aware of the fund and can help direct the public to access that. MR. GONZALEZ: Yeah, and we can—even if the fund is not that big, we can increase the amount if necessary. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I'm still thinking about this. Thank you for bringing this forward, Council Member. I think it's a really good discussion. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Following up on something you said earlier, deputy. The amount of people traveling, you said 20 to 30. How many staff do you guys have, or how many folks are attending these meetings off-island, on-island? MR. GONZALEZ: Between any year, we send about 14 to all 18 that we would have on the books, or 19. We try and take as many people as possible. Of course, sometimes there are people that have conflicts in travel. Coming out of COVID, there were still people wary of traveling. So there were those factors. But we try and include as many as possible. Especially if we are hosting the training, then we're going to try and incorporate everybody to be a part of that experience, whether they're training themselves or participating in sessions or helping to moderate discussions. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. GONZALEZ: I hope I answered your question, sir. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That was helpful. And then do you, as a department I mean, what I've noticed with other departments where you have, Page 9 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 say, the Police Department, for example, they have 400-and-something employees. They have to then, obviously, they can't send all of their officers off-island because we wouldn't have anybody here to police our island. So they do more of a train-the-trainer program. They send one person; that person comes back and trains the rest. Does your department implement a system like that? MR. GONZALEZ: Yes. We have utilized that. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Inaba, for bringing this forward. I think what you are highlighting is this balance that we need to strike for community programs, while still providing the training and expertise that this specialized department needs. I had a question. For me, it is sticker shock but I'm also seeing our own personal conferences go up as far as cost just to attend the conference. So maybe, Gerald or Brandon, what is the average cost of just the conference fee alone? Because I know that this account captures travel, but there's also the fee of the conference. And I just wanted to understand how much it was per person just to attend the conference. (Note: At this time, Liquor Control Director Gerald Takase came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. TAKASE: I think registration fees have gone up. I would say they're all closer to $400-$500, whereas just even prior to COVID they were probably in the $200-$300 range. And that's not even accounting—we used to be able to get fairly good hotel rates, but we've seen those all creeping up as well. I guess the beauty of having it at a conference is they are still able to negotiate better rates than we could on our own, and that's what's happening. I wanted to touch on another thing. We've been very low-key in what we've done over the years, and frankly because we didn't feel the need to promote it, but you have to understand that liquor is a highly regulated industry. I mean, we're the only industry that's got two constitutional amendments to deal with it. Any other governmental agency, they've never had such an amount of regulation. And it's still very regulated on the Mainland. I would say we've been fortunate here on our island to have avoided most of those problems, and I give a lot of the credit to our commissioners and our staff being able to keep up with what's going on outside. You have a whole industry that's spending millions and millions of dollars to find every way they can to Page 10 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 promote liquor, to find ways to deliver it. And they don't wait for an annual conference to try and make amends to it. So I like to try and send all of our people there so that they understand what the problems are and what's coming up. I think we've done very well. If you remember, most of the other islands have been in trouble over the last couple of years with things going on. And I think a lot of it is because they're not aware of what's going on in the industry. They're not aware of new trends or even how to deal with the public. I'm very proud of our department. Through COVID, we were the only island to stay open, and I think it helped a lot of our licensees. I look at the millions of dollars we spend on trying to attract people to come to this State, but on the back end, I think we need to provide them with the opportunities to get out for recreation, to have places to go to eat, or even bars and clubs to go to. No sense we try to bring them all here if we don't take care of that side of the industry. I think we've done a good job in providing for that. Through COVID, we were able to get PPE(personal protective equipment) equipment and distribute it to all of our licensees to keep them open. We bought sprayers and provided them to our licensees so that they could kind of mass spray their premises. Our latest one, and I think Chairman Kimball and Councilwoman Kagiwada brought it up with us, was providing Narcan sprays. So you see Honolulu is starting to go through that now but we've already—we were able to work with the State Department of Health and the Attorney General's office, and we have secured Narcan sprays for our licensees that need it. And we have started to distribute those. So we are trying to stay on the forefront of these things and there is some cost. Travel is one of those costs. But I think that having not only well-trained but also very aware staff and commission and board helps with that. Part of their going to places is also seeing how other jurisdictions deal with things, not just in the meetings but they go out after-hours and things and are able to see how other jurisdictions deal with problems, whether they're good or bad. I think that's part of a lesson that's not really talked about but is very present. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. Thanks, Gerald. I really do appreciate that proactive approach that the Liquor Department utilizes and helps see around the corner. The other thing, and I know Matt can appreciate this, is the training that the department does for blue card holders. I've actually experienced the department not only have training, but if there are more than enough people, you guys will stand up individual training classes for those business owners if there are enough. I just also want to highlight I've used Liquor as a pass-through for contingency funds, in addition to all the other work that the department does related to liquor and liquor license. They also do the back-end accounting for some of the contingency funds that we pass through. But, with that, I'm not going to be supporting this amendment, but I do want to highlight the intention of Mr. Inaba Page 11 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 about maybe providing just a little bit more assistance with us as Council Members and the pass-through for contingency funds for Project Grad Night. I think if we can strike a balance and braid the funds together, we'll end up stretching our dollars a little bit more, especially as it relates to our youth. That's where I am with this amendment, Mr. Inaba. But thank you. And again, to Brandon and Gerald, if there's ways that we could look at helping one another, I think that would go a long way. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Any additional discussion on the amendment? Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. And thank you for putting this forward, Council Member Inaba. It's certainly very productive discussion, and I appreciate leadership from Liquor to explain the reason why such a significant travel budget is necessary. If it is possible to work with Council Member Inaba to keep a status quo budget, I would be in support of that. But I think you folks are justified in your travel. I think back to the pandemic when Administrator Takase provided great creative and innovative leadership during the pandemic to make sure that our restaurants could remain open by having those to-go alcoholic beverages. And so that was a policy that was then adopted by various counties across the State. And so I do see the conferences as a platform for our liquor agency to provide thought leadership and policy development on the national level, which is why I'm very supportive of you folks continuing to have a presence. If there is a way to kind of rein it in, though, let's definitely do that. Because, I think back to the budget that we as Council Members have, and we can't go to all the conferences. We would love to be able to send our staff. Why? Because they're the ones helping us to craft the policy. So just asking for a little bit of shared sacrifice this time around. And so, again, if you guys can rework your budget so that it is decreased to status quo of 124,000, I think that would make us very happy. Thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Any other discussion on the dais? Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I just wanted to say that, at this point, my position would be to support what Council Member Kierkiewicz just mentioned. And if it would be possible to put it at status quo and possibly put some of the funding into Project Grad or the community benefits part of the budget, I think that would make me happy. So, hopefully, that could be worked out sometime today. Thanks. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Seeing no further discussion—Council Member Kierkiewicz, go ahead. Page 12 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sorry, Chair. Just one more thing. We're not talking about Project Grad, so I didn't want to go down that road. But I will share just in case any offices are planning to work on it, that our office is working with LRB (Legislative Research Branch) to transmit something related to Project Grad. So that'll be up for discussion later. Thank you for the latitude. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. MS. EVANS: Chair? CHR. KIMBALL: Yes, Council Member. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I would like to propose an amendment, the reduction of 80,000 to the reduction to 36,000. CHR. KIMBALL: I think that our introducer here is going to withdraw this amendment and put something else forward. I will let him make that motion. MS. EVANS: Thank you. MR. INABA: Thank you. In light of the conversation, I thank you, Liquor Department, for being here. I'll be withdrawing this current amendment and introducing something that keeps travel at status quo and moving any extra funds to Project Grad. So we'll take that up whenever it gets here, per the Chair's discretion. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Inaba. Withdraw Motion Mr. Inaba withdrew his motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, to Amend: with the contents of Comm. 135.24. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Inaba. And thank you to the members of our Liquor Control Department for being here. I also want to mahalo you for the Narcan effort. I really appreciate your efforts to distribute that to the facilities carrying alcohol just because we know the interaction with fentanyl and alcohol is such a dire situation in our County. So I really appreciate you for that. With that, we will move on to further amendments in order. So I believe that takes us to Council Member Kagiwada first. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kagiwada moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.16. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much. We had a bit of this conversation with Parks and Rec. (Recreation) in an earlier discussion. They're having problems Page 13 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 recruiting summer fun staff for their great programs for the summer for our keiki. And so I just worked with Parks and Rec. to add an amount so that they could do those increases. I originally wanted to do greater increases, but we didn't want to go over the amount that their regular staff are paid. So we needed to keep it under that so that the regular staff would not feel like they were getting less than the summer fun folks. So we came to an agreement and arrived at this 22,820 and looking for your support. I'm not sure if we've got Maurice, our Director, around for this? He says, "Sure, I can come over." I don't know if you'll have any questions for him, but if you have any comments, I'm happy to discuss. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. In support of this amendment. I think it really is a very modest amount to help our working families. P&R(Parks and Recreation)provides a very excellent childcare program through the summer and through the breaks at a very minimal amount; some places that provide breakfast and lunch for our keiki. And to me, $22,000 really the return on investment will be enormous for our working families. So, in support of this amendment. And thank you for bringing it forward, Ms. Kagiwada. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Just a quick question to Council Member. Is this summer fun program for the whole island? MS. KAGIWADA: That's correct. They're at park sites around the island. MS. EVANS: Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I'm going to be supporting this amendment. I know that during budget we often talked about college kids coming home for the summer and weighing their choices for a summer job, and Target's looking very attractive with the AC (air conditioning) and the higher pay. And so I think this is going to be one way in which we can attract additional candidates. I'm curious if the funding here will impact the hourly wage of folks that are currently running the summer intercession camps through P&R. CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead, Council Member Kagiwada. Page 14 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Do you mean the staff? Yeah, at this point, no, but their staff will be up for negotiating their salaries coming I think in 2025, they said. And I said I'd be very supportive of making sure that those become a living wage as well. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Again, I just want to make sure I know what I'm voting on in case constituents ask questions. This hourly wage increase would be for winter programs that are happening this year, so for fall/winter break; and then also support next year's summer fun programs. Because we have summer intercession happening right now. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: If we provide this wage increase, will folks see an increase in their hourly wage right now? MS. KAGIWADA: Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood your question. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: All good. MS. KAGIWADA: I believe that it is for this year because they're still trying to recruit some people. And I believe Director is coming over, so maybe we canI don't know if we can MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Or perhaps Director Sako has got something you can weigh in on? MS. KAGIWADA: He's right there. There he is. All right. Just in time, Director. We have a question for you. (Note: At this time, Parks and Recreation Director Maurice Messina came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Hi, Director Messina. MR. MESSINA: Good morning. Maurice Messina, Director of Parks and Recreation. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely in support of the amendment that Council Member Kagiwada has brought forward to increase hourly wage funding for summer intercession programs. The question I had was, if we were to approve this amendment today—we know that there are summer camps that are currently happening—will folks that are working there now see a wage increase if we adopt this amendment? Page 15 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. MESSINA: No. Their contracts have already been sighed. This will be for next year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, it will be for next year. But will this support fall and winter programs that are happening, say, in October and December of this year? MR. MESSINA: I don't believe so. I believe it specifically says summer fun. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It says winter programs too. MR. MESSINA: Oh. Well, then, yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Just want to make sure we know what we're voting on. Okay, I will be supporting this amendment. MR. MESSINA: So,just real quick, the amounts that we're talking about, was that amended after the discussion we had? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes. It's based on, I talked about already, wanting to do a little bit higher but needing to keep it so that we're not exceeding the hourly rate does not exceed what your full-time staff make. MR. MESSINA: Okay. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Any further discussion? Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Do we have an idea—maybe to the introducer if you had discussion already—do we have an idea how this 22,000 is going to be adjusting actual wages for different positions in the summer or winter programs? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes. I believe it's in here, but it's basically—it's going from I think a 15I don't have it right in front of me, but I think it's 15 to 17 and CHR. KIMBALL: It's on the communication. MS. KAGIWADA: Yeah. MR. INABA: Apologies. I see it. Okay. MS. KAGIWADA: You see it? MR. INABA: Yeah. Thank you. MS. KAGIWADA: Thanks. Page 16 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. INABA: I'll be in support. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Any further discussion? Seeing none, all of those in favor of amending Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Communication 135.16, please say Ic aye. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.16 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: Thank you, Director, for popping over. We'll move on to the next amendment. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.17. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm going to look for everyone's support. I did discuss this at our last meeting regarding the budget. I reached out to the Director of Parks and Rec., Mr. Messina, who graciously accepted my phone call during his vacation. And I said, "Hey, I want to increase our fireworks show by about double." I feel like this year and in the last couple of years our revenues have been incredibly high, and mostly at the cost of our taxpayers who pay property taxes for those things. And I'd like to put that back into the public's eye. And so that is the purpose of this amendment. This is doubling both the East Hawaii and West Hawaii fireworks show in two different accounts. Director, do you want to add anything to the conversation? I know you did say there might be some timing issues because you have it incredibly timed out where the band does their thing and then you have the fireworks show. Maybe we could figure out how to coincide a little bit more fireworks with the band. MR. MESSINA: So that would be my question. Are we talking about like the Fourth of July Hilo Bay Blast itself? Or are we talking about just the fireworks display? Page 17 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Well, personally, I'm more of a fireworks guy, but I know the whole community shows up for the event itself. So I would if all those activities fall under these different accounts, then that would be more your discretion. I would push for more fireworks. MR. MESSINA: Okay. Because, we could use help with the whole Hilo Bay Blast the whole day, which would increase the portable toilets we have available, the feeding and the watering of volunteers,putting up some more shade canopies that we need. Our ten-minute fireworks display that we currently have has basically been a work in progress for about 15 years. And we finally have an exact ten-minute fireworks display with our Hawaii County Band and the other entities the hotels and everyone to where, when it ends with a big crescendo, that's when our County Band hits their big ending that they do. So we would rather keep it at ten minutes. It also gives us time with that ending that we currently have to get everybody out of the parks, get home safely as well. But it's a big full-day event, from car shows to food vendors to everything else. So we could use some help in the funding of the whole-day operation. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. On that note, again I'd rather see it be a 30-minute firework production and blow everybody's minds. But if you think these funds could be spent in other areas, the whole idea of this is just to kind of give back to the community in this aspect. This is a very well-attended event I think by both sides of the island by almost everyone. And if you're not there in person, then you're up on the hill watching the show. MR. MESSINA: And that is what happens a lot of the times, is that people come out for the other festivities throughout the day, and then all the people who do line up especially in Hilo for the fireworks display in the bay. So my preference would be to have it just basically be a general allocation for the Hilo Bay Blast. That way, we can hit some of our shortcomings that we're seeing that we're experiencing. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I'm going to encourage the introducer to maybe withdraw this and place it in the line item as directed by Director Messina. For me,personally, it's challenging to see it really go into the display piece, which is basically burning up in the air, where clearly there's other needs that would invite and address those who are there, like the porta potties. I would really rather see the money go in that direction than getting burnt up in the air. Page 18 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 But I also would love to see just striking a little bit more balance. The way it's authored is we get more in East Hawaii than West Hawaii. And if we're trying to create equity and balance island-wide, I would love to see it split up more evenly between both sides, unless Director Messina MR. MESSINA: Yup. So we do have the nonprofits in Kona town that—so, basically, we're supplementing them. So I think that it's not going to be a true 50-50 balance because we're actually supplementing all of their fundraising efforts that they're taking care of in West Hawaii. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks for that, Director. But that's where I am on this amendment. As written, I'm going to be voting against it. But if you can find the line item related to providing porta potties or just some of the other things that go on during our Fourth of July festivities, that would be helpful. MR. MESSINA: Yes. So, basically, for the West Hawaii, if we would include that into our Parks Admin. (Administration) budget. And then for East Hawaii, just our Culture and Education. Because, we will more than likely see an increase just like we did this year. Just for the ten-minute fireworks display, it was about a 19 percent increase. So we are going to need some money for next year just for the ten-minute fireworks display that we have, and then we can use the rest of the funding for the incidentals that come throughout the day. MS. LEE LOY: In that particular account, though, you, as an administrator, can direct it to pay for the various things, correct? MR. MESSINA: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Thank you. Those are my thoughts, Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. Wow. Where do I begin? I've been involved with a group of many people in Kona talking about how do we get illegal fireworks out of our neighborhoods. And one of our initiatives is to increase the fireworks display in Kona and encourage people to go watch and enjoy the big fireworks, and stop these illegal aerials that are blowing up in our neighborhoods. And we've put out fliers. We've put out posters saying, "Celebrate. Go to the community celebration. Don't celebrate on the street because it's so dangerous." That initiative is still going to go on this year. We're still going to go be out pushing that message. But when you made the comment about the nonprofits' funding, we got a phone call from Barbara Kossow that they're struggling with nonprofits being able to Page 19 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 give them money for fireworks this year. So, I lean towards making sure Kona gets more money for fireworks to make sure they can pay for the display and not be dependent on the nonprofits, because the nonprofits, they're all struggling with inflation and cost of stuff. And so I'd like to see it more evenly for the fireworks display. And the other thing that we talked about is, can we do something like Hilo to where we do a block parry? Because, you have to pay for police, and you have to pay for the bandstand and the bands and whatever. Can we do something like that on Alii in Downtown Kona and have the same thing to where we put together a really great show, again telling the community "Don't do illegals at home. Go down and enjoy. Enjoy your neighbors. Do that there." I know Fourth of July is around the corner. And so I don't know if putting this in the budget, would that help you for this Fourth of July, because we're in the next fiscal year, to maybe offset your cost? Because obviously, at this point, you're probably having to already contract for your fireworks display. MR. MESSINA: Yes, that would give us four days to settle all of our bills and everything. I don't think we can do that. MS. EVANS: So have you contracted with both sides of the island for ten minutes? MR. MESSINA: We are currently in our fireworks Hilo Bay Blast in Kona fireworks display and parade. We're currently in those meetings right now. We've already put all of our request to Public Works and other entities about what we need with message boards and roadblocks and everything else. We've been working with DOT (Department of Transportation) already. We've already got our plan with DOT. So I think that what we're talking about today with this amendment, this would be helping us in the next fiscal year. Sorry, next July. Next fiscal year because we're going to be starting to pay the bills months in advance. MS. EVANS: So you commit before June 30th. So this would definitely be for next year. Or would this help you because it doesn't say what year—would this help you offset any overhead costs or costs that you're incurring for this Fourth of July? MR. MESSINA: No, we're operating within our budget for this Fourth of July. MS. EVANS: Okay. So we are going to have ten minutes on both sides. MR. MESSINA: I'm not sure exactly of the display on the other side, but I do believe it's ten minutes as well. Page 20 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. EVANS: Ten minutes on both sides. To the introducer of the bill, I am so wanting this, to do these fireworks displays. I'm so wanting the community to start thinking "enjoy the community event and the displays"because they're out over the ocean. They're not in the neighborhoods where we have post-traumatic stress syndrome. We have dogs getting lost. We have COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We have really bad smoke that's full of chemicals. We just have to get these aerials out of these neighborhoods. So, if you withdraw and reconsider it, I hope that you'd give both sides an equal amount for fireworks display. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member, for putting this forward. I don't think I'll be supporting this particular amendment. I do hear what the Director is saying about needing other funds for kind of the event itself. I don't want to see the fireworks increased actually for some of the same reasons that Council Member Evans just talked about. I did do a precursor kind of look, and my staff looked for any research that showed that large community fireworks displays can get people to stop doing some of their own street fireworks, and we couldn't find anything about that. So I don't know. I think that's an interesting idea. I don't know that it necessarily plays out. So I won't be supporting any additional money for fireworks. But if there's additional money for helping with the event itself and making it a good community event, I'm happy to support a change like that. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Director, how much funding do you need to support additional event coordination for the Hilo Bay Blast? Do you need the full 60? MR. MESSINA: That would help us. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Oh, okay. MR. MESSINA: It would help us. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: You could use it all. MR. MESSINA: Like I already discussed with Council Member Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, we saw a big increase from last year, and we expect to see another increase from the pyrotechnic companies. So, supporting part of this bill for the fireworks will actually help us next year, even just for the ten minutes. And the Page 21 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 increased portable toilets, the increased lighting, the increased what we've got to pay for special duty officers, all that, we support that part of the bill. We do. And even if we were looking at doing like a 20 percent increase of the time for next year, we could actually see a 20 percent increase of just the ten minutes that we have for next year. So, we could use this funding, yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So what I'm hearing is 60,000 to support a ten- minute show and MR. MESSINA: Sixty thousand to support a full day MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sixty thousand? Okay. Additional 60,000 to support all of the infrastructure that's needed: police, road closures, things of that nature, to support the event. MR. MESSINA: I think it would benefit the community. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. No, no, I'm not arguing with you. I just want to make sure that we know what we're supporting. I cannot support a longer show. I would appreciate it. I would love it. But when my community in Kalapana still has one day of trash pickup service or trash service at the transfer station, I don't think it's fiscally responsible for me to support something like this. So I would appreciate an adjustment to this particular budget amendment that would allow Parks to really coordinate a safea full-day event for community. I love the show and I would love 30 minutes, but I just think the times that we are in, when folks are struggling with cost of living, gas prices, food prices, everything is skyrocketing, I know they would appreciate the show, and I think they would be stoked with ten minutes. MR. MESSINA: Right. But you're asking me could my department use more money MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Everyone's going to say yes. MR. MESSINA: Right. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And I'm trying to throw money at you but not for fireworks to support the event and make sure that it's safe for community members. MR. MESSINA: That's what we're asking for. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, great. Thank you, Chair, I yield. Page 22 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Just in response, Mr. Messina, this account, if I remember correctly from previous budget hearings, you can actually move these funds later on. MR. MESSINA: Correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So, if you didn't need the full 124,000, which is doubling what you have right now, you could move it within this specific account number over the year to make up for what you need in different areas, correct? MR. MESSINA: Right. We would follow whatever the process is for adjusting our budget, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then, if I remember correctly, too, you don't even need to come in front of the Council because you're within the same line item. So there's no resolution needed for you to transfer funds, nothing. So this could be completely departmentally driven as far as using these funds where you need them. MR. MESSINA: Well, not just our department, but— MR. utMR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Within your Culture and Education OCE (Other Current Expenses) account. MR. MESSINA: In coordination with—and the Finance Department, correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. As far as the equity piece—it was brought upI did want to balance it. But what I heard from your Deputy last time you weren't available—was that there's another funding source besides the County funding in that Fireworks Public Display West Hawaii account. Is that correct? MR. MESSINA: Right. That's the public-private partnership that Council Member Evans was discussing. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, which is why we don't see that even balanced, east and west. Because I like the equity piece. I was concerned about that when I put this forward. But I did understand that there was actually multiple funding sources for West Hawaii and more of a single source—us—for East Hawaii. Am I right? Okay. That's why I left it the way it was, but I did double each side exactly from what was given in our previously budgeted years. So, that equity piece, that's how it ties in. Page 23 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 And then I'm thinking about some of the other comments that were made. I mean, we've got things across the board in this budget from vehicles to leases to photocopying machines. I mean, this really, to me—and if the Council decides to shut this down, I'm not going to change it. I think this works the way it does, and I think you have the ability to move funds, as needed, to hit the areas you want with this funding source. But if the Council decides to shut this down, albeit. But I really do feel like this is an event the whole County participates in, and I'd love to see it get bigger and better every year. So this is my attempt to do so. If the Council feels otherwise, albeit. I'm not married to it. I just want to see better for our public. I appreciate your support today. Thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you for this discussion. I wanted to comment on Council Member Kaneali`i-KI einfelder's last—he wants it better for the public. I truly believe that these signature fireworks events that occur really twice a year, I would say New Year's Eve and Fourth of July, really give people who have very little money, who really struggle financially, it really gives them an opportunity to have a signature event and to celebrate and really have something extremely special with their children and with their families. I mean, I know there will be a lot of people saying this probably of my age group, but the thing is, growing up, fireworks, they just happened in high school stadiums. They were in ball fields. So they were in safe places that people could come together and maybe 10, 15I just happened to live in a community that had a university campus. My stadium was 60,000 people because it was a big (inaudible) stadium. But the thing was, that's where the fireworks happened very safe places. It wasn't in people's neighborhoods. People enjoyed them. But people who didn't have money, families—it was just people could go out in the night sky. They could see something and it was very special. It's a memory that you hold with your family. You have to have these little special events. Maybe for Hilo it's great that you have your festival, that people come for that day. An entire-day festival. I'm sure everybody in Hilo talks about it. People probably have stories about it, and it becomes that tradition for Hilo. I think that tradition is really important and I really support this. Obviously, I'm still going to comment. I think a lot of the public-private partnerships struggle in West Hawaii because financially, coming out of COVID, a lot of our costs for our small—yes, the merchants have been trying to contribute to the fireworks, but they've been struggling too. So I'm not sure the strength of the public-private partnership is as strong as it used to be. And like I said, I've gotten calls saying, "Is there anything I can do to go and beat the streets to try to raise some more money for the fireworks?" Page 24 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 But, anyway, having said that, I really ask people to support the tradition that really impacts everybody, and I think there is that value. I like that it's on the ocean. I'm glad it's out off the shore so it's not impacting people. So, anyway, thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Any further discussion? All right, seeing none, I just would like to make a quick comment myself. I'm going to be voting against this amendment as well. Would like to suggest that if the need is for funding for the event, given the previous discussion we had about the ability of Liquor Control to support alcohol- and drug-free events, perhaps there's an opportunity for intersection here where they're actually supporting the activities on the ground or expanding the potential for activities for Kona town, which I think is a great idea. I want to throw that out there to you, Director. All right, with that, Mr. Clerk, can we take a roll call on this one,please? Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.17 failed by the following roll call vote: Failed Ayes: Council Members Evans and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—2. Noes: Council Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —6. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.18. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Chair. As we go through the different budget years, I usually reach out to department folks that always seem to have asks. We see the supplementals from the departments, but we don't always get to see it directly from the staff themselves. And so, as we've all made connections through the years, we know who to go and talk to. So I reached out to some of the folks in Police, and this is something they've been asking for for a long time. This is actually very specific to the criminal investigation section for Area I, and the request is for this vehicle. And I'm usually against vehicle purchases in general because we have a lot of trucks. But this one was real specific, and I'll just give you some basics from the department: "This would allow us to have better access to remote locations, transport needed equipment to crime scenes, as well as efficiently recover larger evidence items." I reached out to the Chief. Chief was in favor of the amendment, understanding the need. The department was requesting. And so this is really just me being the Page 25 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 conduit to try and help them get the funding they needed. So, looking for everyone's support. I did ask for the Captain who brought this forward to me to be here today, but he is not available due to some ongoing things that need to be addressed. So I apologize for that because I told him, "Hey, if you guys are here, you can really fight for the funding. If not, hey, you know." But I did try. So I'm looking for everyone's support just given that. So I look forward to everyone's conversation. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any other discussion? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Absolutely in support. But Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder will appreciate this: The world is run by those who show up. It would have been great for the Captain to have shown up. Deanna, I'm just curious. Usually, we get a supplemental from the various departments. Absolutely want to help. I mean, the Big Island's big, and we have a lot of remote areas. And Area I is basically half the island. Where are we on this, and then budgeting for fuel and everything else that goes with it? (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. SAKO: I don't remember this being on their supplemental list. It may have been. I remember giving them transport vans. We funded several blue and whites, I think, like, $2.8 million worth of blue and whites. So is this not a blue and white, like a separate? I mean, we have several SUV (sport utility vehicle) blue and whites, I guess, is what I'm saying. So, yes, but I was not the one who talked to the department. MS. LEE LOY: And then maybe to the maker: Is this, like, special response? It's really hard to make a good business decision with very little information. I hate saying no to Police, but that's where I am without any real information. It's really hard. Thank you, Matt, unless you want to table it and try and ask someone to hustle here. Really want to help them out but it's hard with very little information. Thanks, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Any other discussion? MR. INABA: Real quick. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: I understand the need for this. It's just if there's a need in East Hawaii, I'm wondering if there was a need in West Hawaii and if—yeah, Page 26 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 how this is working. So, would be supportive if we can get a better understanding. And if West Hawaii needs one too, then we'd probably like to see that be put in. So thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. I won't be supporting this for the same reasons that Council Member Lee Loy mentioned. There's just not enough information. The department isn't here to say why they need this, and it doesn't sound like it was necessarily anything they talked to Finance about specifically. And so, without that, this could be added later in the year, if necessary. But, at this point, without I did try to call HPD (Hawai`i Police Department), and they didn't call me back about this very issue. And so I feel like I just would like to hear from the department and understand it a little more before putting this money forward. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I really want to support this, and I'm wondering if it is a vehicle request that one of my community police officers had asked for. We were going to try to write a grant to secure a vehicle, but I don't know. Like, I don't know what division this is going to be supporting, if it's going to go to a specific officer. Because, we know that they all get vehicle allowance. So I think with a little bit more information, we'll be able to make a good decision. And then also to Mr. Inaba's point, if there is a need in East Hawaii, maybe West Hawaii needs one too. So my suggestion is let's table this until we can get someone from Police here to provide us with a little bit more specificity and justification for why we need to allocate $87,000 for a vehicle. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. We'll go to Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: We have a new Chief Ben on board, and I'd really like to make sure that we're all on the same page. So I agree, too, if there's a way to like postpone it or table it till a little later so that we can get the feedback, I'd feel a little more comfortable. But I like the idea, and I want to support it. But that's my thoughts too. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Page 27 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Appreciate the feedback and totally understand. I like to have all the information in front of me as well. I am going to, Chair, make a motion to table Communication 135.18, and I am in movement in getting someone from the department. MR. BROWN: Sorry. If I may jump in. CHR. KIMBALL: Yes. MR. BROWN: There's pretty much two ways forward right now. You can either the maker of the motion can withdraw it, or you guys can push it through and vote on it. You can't table an amendment because that would take the main motion with it, and we can't table the budget. If you withdraw it, you can always bring it back in the same form, the same communication number. But we have to deal with it. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. Would you like to withdraw the amendment at this time, and we'll take it up again later? Then we can bring somebody from HPD in. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. Withdraw Motion Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder withdrew his motion to amend to Amend: Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.18. Motion to Amend: Ms. Lee Loy moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.19. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Really looking for my colleagues' support. This conversation was actually sparked by the Mayor and myself, and tracking a lot of what happened at this past year's legislative session, and specifically Hawaii Tourism Authority and the funding and the positioning of what's going on over there. Oftentimes, Hawaii Tourism Authority provides grants-in-aid to signature events here on the island, specifically Merrie Monarch and the KWXX downtown Ho`olaule`a. Huge signature events for East Hawaii. Enormous economic revenue generation. And it's just really uncertain at this time how much grants will be available for those signature events. And so with the support of the Mayor, and we also have Director Messina here, the request is really just a modest $15,000 to help our signature events here on East Hawaii. It is specifically going into their contract services so that these programs can write specific grants to that line item, but it also provides us an opportunity to track it. Page 28 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 And then maybe my colleague in Hilo will also help with contingency funds because we just don't know where we're going to land. But looking for my colleagues' support on this amendment. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. To the author of this proposed amendment, how did you arrive at the 15,000? MS. LEE LOY: Basically, we took what the Merrie Monarch Festival needed to support the improvements to the stage, and that was direct inflation cost of material and other things. And so this was really just kind of that percentage of inflation that the festival saw this past year. And so that's how we arrived at that $15,000. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so not necessarily anything specific that you know about that they need or anything for Ho`olaule`a. Just wondering, once again, why this amount. Why not more or why not, you know, I don't know. MS. LEE LOY: If I might, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Really. Absolutely. More. But I couldn't, right. I couldn't justify the number, and I had to lean on an event we just had and information that we just had. And again, trying to be a little proactive, acknowledging that Hawaii Tourism Authority is going through their own adjustments at the State level, and I just didn't want to see our signature events here on the east side kind of fall short or have to scramble for dollars. Because, we already know both Merrie Monarch Festival and downtown Ho`olaule`a is already planning for their events, and knowing that this funding is available for them helps; helps them go get other funding too. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, thank you. Director, can I ask you a question? Thank you. Just wondering, once again just to verify for the public and everything, that if, for instance, the Hawaii Tourism Authority does come through with the usual amount of grants and things like that, you can use this money in some other appropriate way? It's in Miscellaneous Contract Services for Hawaii Island signature events. "Signature events" is not capitalized, so I assume that's just kind of a general-any signature events for the island. MR. MESSINA: That is what it sounds like to me. But, yeah, if it's in a line item budget or a budget line item for us and it's not specifically tied to a specific event, like the couple that Ms. Lee Loy talked about, yes, we could utilize it in other areas. Page 29 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. And do we—since it's not actually tied to Merrie Monarch or something, you could just use it for any signature event. Is that correct? MR. MESSINA: Well, we would more than likely try to use it for what the Council Member—her intent of the amendment was. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so you're going to go with the intent, then. MR. MESSINA: Yes. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. All right, I'll be supporting. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Any further discussion from my colleagues? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Director, sorry, what is this account for? MR. MESSINA: Miscellaneous Contract Services. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So anything, everything. MR. MESSINA: Contracts. Correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Anything, everything, contracts. MR. MESSINA: Correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Island-wide? MR. MESSINA: Culture and Arts or Culture and Education, yes, it could be island-wide. But again, we would go with Ms. Lee Loy's intent of what she was looking to pinhole this money for—signature events. She specifically mentioned Ho`olaule`a and Merrie Monarch, so that's what we would try to stick with. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Do you have a line item for Merrie Monarch? MR. MESSINA: No. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think we should. MR. MESSINA: Well, I mean, for us, if you look at the amount of overtime and resources that are spent for our Ho`olulu Complex in our Recreation Division, and the coordination with our Culture and Education Division, if it was going to be grant-in-aid, maybe R&D (Research and Development). But if you're going to Page 30 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 put it in one of our line items, we could definitely use it for those events. But the Ho`olulu Complex, our staff sometimes work till 3:30 a.m. during Merrie Monarch. We're renting scissor lifts and everything else. So, we could utilize it for these events, but we would try to do the best that Ms. Lee Loy—for her intent. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so more Hilo-specific, but for our Merrie Monarch. Okay. Thank you, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lee Loy, I'm going to be supporting this, but I just don't know if it's enough. You mentioned two really large-scale events for our island: Ho`olaule`a, which draws thousands and thousands of people, and Merrie Monarch, even more, from all around the world. And it's gone from a weekend event to like a weeklong event. And so I just question this amount. It just seems very nominal. And I know that this last year, several members of the Council—Sue, Matt, and I and I think Heather—provided some funding to KWXX for their Ho`olaule`a because the costs to coordinate that event just were skyrocketing. And so I just wonder if you may want to pull this back and add a little bit more because I think we all recognize the value that these events provide in bringing community together. But also providing the economic stimulation, which is so incredibly important. So I support this in concept but would like for you to perhaps put in a little bit more. And rather than drawdown only from our General Fund fund balance, let's take a look at Liquor's fund balance as well because these are supposed to be drug- and alcohol-free events. But under that premise, we may be able to justify pulling from there. Thank you, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Let me go to Council Member Galimba, and I'd like to make a comment before you withdraw. Go ahead, Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Just sort of like the generalI'm supportive of the general concept to this funding, given what's going on evidently with HTA (Hawai`i Tourism Authority). And I'm just thinking about sort of signature events in my district would probably need a little help as well, and I'm sure in other districts. So perhaps kind of coming up with a little more funding. And it doesn't have to be a crazy amount, but something to help sort of the big events, similar events, in other parts of the island might be a good idea. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Council Member Inaba. Page 31 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. INABA: Thank you. When it comes to Liquor's budget, I want us to all be mindful that nobody submit amendments to take money from Liquor's fund balance or anything to try and move it to another department because it's not allowed by HRS. If Liquor wants to budget something within their own department, they can do that to support, but we cannot take it and give it to Parks or any other department. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. All right, seeing no further discussion, I just want to make a quick comment. I think that this is important and is at the appropriate amount, and here's why I think that: We want to be careful about signaling to the State that we're taking on the responsibility for these events and for tourism activities in our County. So I don't want that number to be too high. Additionally, the sample events that you provided are provided by private organizations. They have other opportunities to get funding, and I want us to be careful about earmarking for a specific private entity. That's why I like the way it's described in the budget as just for generally speaking signature events. Because, we want to be careful about not directly tying outside of like our grant- in-aid program or CRF (Contingency Relief Fund)programs to specific funding to specific individual entities. So just want to say that I support this at this amount because I think it is appropriate to say, "Okay, we want to come in and we want to make sure that these important events, these economic drivers, in our communities happen." But we don't want to take on so much responsibility from HTA. They've got to those folks over there in Honolulu in the square building have got to figure this out and keep supporting these important activities in our County. So thank you. With that, what would you like to do? MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, Chair, based on the pulse check that I took from the department and, honestly,just watching some of the other amendments that have failed, I'm going to withdraw and have a conversation with Deanna, acknowledging the feedback that these would be for signature events as a whole, and come up with a nice modest number that helps without breaking our fund balance bank. So I will withdraw Communication 135.19. Withdraw Motion Ms. Lee Loy withdrew her motion to amend Bill 30, to Amend: Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.19. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you very much. All right, moving on now to Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.20. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. Page 32 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I had met with the Prosecutor's office and their team to talk about all the supplemental needs that they had for this fiscal year. A lot of that was taken care of in Draft 2 of our budget. One of the things that wasn't funded, which is incredibly important, is storage shelving. Right now, a lot of their case files, evidentiary documents, are in a storage unit that boxes are just stacked one on top of the other. Unfortunately, there have been situations where boxes have collapsed; there's been some flooding. And so to preserve the integrity of these documents, looking to purchase 45 shelving units so that the case files can be stored in an efficient and organized manner. Any questions, I'm happy to take them. I don't know if anybody from Prosecutor's is available, but it is a nominal and justified request. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Thank you for putting this forward, Council Member Kierkiewicz. So this is shelving that is going to be used in the rental space that they currently have. Can it be moved when they hopefully build their warehouse to support their document storage in the new warehouse? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes, the shelving units can be moved. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. That's all I wanted to know. I'll be supporting. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. Council Member Kierkiewicz, do you know if they plan on digitizing their archive material? Or is there any project that will be before us as a Council in the near future? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: That is the current practice that they absolutely are adopting right now, is the digitization of documents that's been happening for years. Unfortunately, it's hard to keep staff on, and there's so many things that have to be done within the Prosecutor's office. So when there is time, they're able to digitize. It is something that they're also hoping to get interns to do. But they are tackling that. But they still need to be preserving these case files in the event that a case needs to be reopened down the road. MS. EVANS: It's kind of shocking, given that you do need case files. It didn't make it in the supplemental budget or ? Page 33 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: The shelving units? MS. EVANS: Yeah. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It was in the supplemental. It just didn't make it into Draft 2, which is why I'm putting forth the amendment today. MS. EVANS: Was that a mistake? A drop? Did it get dropped? I just don't know why it wouldn't make it. CHR. KIMBALL: Let me actually ask Director Sako to come forward at this point and describe the process for a little bit. I want to get us a little bit away from the dialogue on the dais among Council Members. So, Director Sako, could you please just briefly go over the budget and the supplementals and how that happens. Thank you. MS. SAKO: Sure. So we do meet with the departments. They submit their budget. We meet with them in December and January, and we do go over all the supplemental budget requests. There are lots and lots of supplemental budget requests, so we do ask departments to prioritize. And the Prosecuting Attorney's office did get a lot of their supplementals pretty much almost everything. So I believe thisI mean, we had to draw the line somewhere. We do have other departments, other costs. And so trying to balance the budget, we had to kind of draw the line. And so this one didn't make it. But also, we went off of their ranking. So we funded their higher priority items. MS. EVANS: Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Any further discussion? Council Member Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. I appreciate this being brought forward; a pretty small request. Ms. Sako, if you could, I have a question. Just looking through the different accounts that they have, they have a lot of grant— MS. rantMS. SAKO: They do, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Funding available. But in those grant accounts, I'm also seeing some fairly large office equipment, furniture. MS. SAKO: They do use a lot of the grant funding to replace things like their servers, their PCs (personal computers). They've also used it to get the basic part of their case management system. So they really are able to leverage their grants to do a lot of things in-house. And so I can imagine, with all they've spent on the case management system and the computers, they probably don't have anything left for things like shelving. Page 34 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Does the grant funding and the amendment that we have in front of us, I mean is it basically the same—different funding sources but it can be applied towards the same equipment? MS. SAKO: Most of the grants are specific as to what they can be utilized for. Normally, you have to kind of ask in the grant request. If you're trying to replace your PCs or your servers or you want to do a records management or a case management program, you usually have to ask for that in the grant document. And so, lots of times, the grants are done several years ahead as well. So it's hard to predict everything you're going to need. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. For example, there's a justice assistance grant, miscellaneous equipment, which tells me pretty much anything, everything. MS. SAKO: It's in the miscellaneous equipment, yes, category, but they probably—in the application to the Federal Government, it was probably more detailed. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And that's for 50,000. Okay. So that may or may not be able to MS. SAKO: Right. I think that's some of the funding they might have used for their case management system. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then the Prosecuting Attorney Forfeits State Office Equipment, 2,500? MS. SAKO: They can only spend that if they actually get the forfeitures. I think you guys have accepted some of the donations—we treat them as donations from the forfeiture. They've actually been getting the equipment, like vehicles, rather than cash. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Very helpful. I yield, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any further discussion? All right, we'll move forward with the vote, then, on the amendment contained in Communication 135.20. I think we can do this by voice. All those in favor please say "aye." Page 35 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.20 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: The amendment contained in Communication 135.20 passes. That takes us now to your next one, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.21. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. This has to do with increasing our individual District Allowance Expense account, our DAE, by a very nominal amount. We currently have $10,000 to run our office and to do travel to conferences. And if we want to provide stipends to internships, we have $10,000 to stretch over a 12-month period. This particular amendment would increase that very nominally by 5,000, so a total of$15,000. And I did an inquiry to the various counties, and just want everybody to know that the 15,000 that we have to work with pales in comparison with the other counties. For instance, Honolulu City and County has 400,000 to have their staff and to do travel and other incidentals. Kauai Council, very new this year, each Council Member has $100,000 to run their offices; that's not counting staff. But then a $300,000 General Fund account that they can use similar to our contingency. And Maui hasI think Council Member Lee Loy had reached out to a Council Member there but Maui has $140,000 in CRF for each Council Member and 264,000 to run their office. So not asking for a lot. I do actually want to take a temperature to see if folks would be interested in increasing it beyond the additional five that I had pegged for every district. But needed to put forward an amendment so that we could have a conversation about it today. Thank you. Look forward to the discussion. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. I was going to clarify that it's not a $5,000 increase. It's a $5,000-per-district increase, for a total of$45,000 we're looking at. Page 36 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes, that is correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Increasing it for each district by 5,000. So a total of 15,000. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So a $45,000 increase. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Yes. In support of. As Council Member Kierkiewicz, I'm actually seeing our conference fees grow astronomically, besides the travel cost. It really is if we want to attend HSAC (Hawai`i State Association of Counties), HCPO (Hawai`i Congress of Planning Officials),just so many other things, I'm seeing the average cost of just conference fees hovering around $400 or $500. And actually, in addition to this, maybe I can encourage Council Member Inaba to think about it, some of our DAE goes to pay for our Sister City travel. There's the Sister City travel, but then there's also other stuff that comes out of our DAE fund. And so, if we want to continue some of those relationships with our Sister City programs, that's very expensive travel too. Would love to see it go up to maybe 6,500 per district, but absolutely in support of the additional funds with Council Member Kierkiewicz' amendment. But looking for a temperature check with my other colleagues too. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I'm thinking it's Chief Clerk Jon. Since I can't talk at the dais. (Note: At this time, County Clerk Jon Henricks came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. EVANS: Thank you. I think for me and the public, it would really be good. Because, obviously when you increase things for yourselves, the public is always, "Oh, my gosh. They're paying themselves more money." So the question is, what really is this District Allowance Expense used for? MR. HENRICKS: Good morning, Council. Jon Henricks, Office of the County Clerk. And I might defer a little bit to Mr. Brown. He's a little bit more familiar with how the budget breaks down. But, essentially, the DAE is a singular pool of money that then is distributed equally to the Council Members that then the Council Member decides how to utilize those funds, whether it be for mileage Page 37 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 reimbursement for themselves, cellular phone reimbursements, travel,potentially office equipment. Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned that it could be utilized for hourly wages if you wanted to contract an intern, somebody outside of the staff that you're allotted. Those are the general uses. And then our administrative manual, then, breaks down to what are more common, acceptable uses of DAE, and it also includes a few things that are not appropriate. So those are the general uses that it could be applied towards. And then Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned about how other counties operate. They provide a larger pool of money, but then the Council Member then has the flexibility to hire people with that money, whereas we're a little different here how we operate when it comes to district staff. So that's why you'll see the number here is the figure is lower because of what it can be used for. So again, travel, mileage, equipment. It can be used to host community events and provide light refreshments. Mailers at certain times of the year, printing costs, things of that nature. MS. EVANS: I think that's important, that the public that's going to hear this understands. That's a lot of things to run your office, and I know it is a real challenge with the money that we have. When is the last time that you've seen us increase the district allowance? Do you remember? I know you've been here a while. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah, it increased recently, but not by much. I think it increased either last fiscal year or the year before. Can you help me out, Deputy? Yeah, it increased a little bit last year, yeah. Well,that's not for me to say whether it's a lot or a little. That's for you guys to say and the public, too, as taxpayers. MS. EVANS: Right. And the public. You're correct. MR. HENRICKS: And what I'd like to note, too, that since we're on that topic, and I'm glad you brought it up, that every district is required to submit a monthly report that then is posted to our website that details the expenditure of each Council Member with those funds. So it's a completely transparent process. And anything that comes through, then, is also approved by the Chair and myself, generally. There are certain things that don't require that, but certain things do require pre-approval before the expenditure is made. Or if the expenditure is made and we don't approve it, reimbursement to the County. So there are checks and balances. And there is a clear—it's transparent in that there's a reporting process to that so the public can check in fairly real time not exactly, but at least on a monthly basis—how those funds are expended by each Council district. Page 38 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. EVANS: Right. I think one more piece to this is our Chair has a budget, right, for the Council. So is there like another little tiny pot that the Chair has to help the Council? MR. HENRICKS: Not really. The Chair has the same DAE allotment as any other Council Member. There are other funds available, like Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned or Ms. Lee Loy. As far as like for travel for Sister City, we have something specifically for that. Not just travel but other items, too, that the Chair maintains essentially supervision over those funds and allocation of those funds. There's Chair's Travel Fund, too, which is outside the Sister City. But the Chair doesn't have like a greater amount of money to use for the same expenses that you might utilize in your work. MS. EVANS: Right. Good. Okay, thank you. MR. HENRICKS: You're welcome. MS. EVANS: I appreciate. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member—did you have something to add, Mr. Clerk? MR. BROWN: No, I just wanted to say I think our Clerk did great in explaining that. It's kind of a harder concept that's why. Because, when you guys look at the budget, there's no line item that says, "DAE," right. It's made up of different things, and you have some discretion within these topics or these categories to spend. We'll try to provide maybe a more line item exact breakdown. But again, you guys have some discretion. It could be computers. If you want an extra laptop in your office, that's something that would qualify. You guys do have some flexibility within those allowed categories. It's not just clear. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Deputy Clerk. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. I'll be supporting this. I do think it's in an amount that just kind of allows us to keep doing what we're already doing, which is just paying for us to go to our required meetings on the other side of the island, go to some of the conferences that are kind of, more or less, expected of us. If we want to do something more that would allow for things likeseriously, like we're paying interns or allowing our staff to get some training off-site, I think it would need to be more. But happy to support this for keeping us afloat and able to do our jobs well as it is. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. MR. BROWN: If you don't mind, Chair, I'd like to just make one more comment that the travel cost for attending meetings on each side of the island is not part of Page 39 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 each Council Members DAE. That's a separate account that—because that is a normal line of work for you guys. So that would not be applied to each Council Members DAE. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Clerk. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. I just want some clarification. Under the Travel Conference section of our budget, we have Other, and it says, "DAE." And then we have the DAE that we're currently discussing and the amendment under Miscellaneous Charges. Are both of those line items sectioned out into nine districts? How is this working? MR. BROWN: So, our excellent accountant iswe only have one accountant for our whole branch, and he tracks for each district these separate line items: telephone, travel, mileage, staff, office supplies. And there is some miscellaneous stuff like we talked about for some of those categories. He manages a spreadsheet based on the expenses that come through from each district. It means a lot of work, but, yes, we do have an internal, very precise tracking in spreadsheet basis for each district. MR. INABA: Okay. And then if we approve this amendment, these funds could be used on travel or not? Because, there is a special travel section with DAE in it. MR. BROWN: Based on what type of travel that that requires extra approval by the Chair. I think the Chair helps make that discretion: Is the travel that a Council Member's requesting, does that fall in line with the duties of their job? But assuming that is approved, yes, DAE could be used for some types of travel, pending the Chair's approval. MR. INABA: Okay. I think I just need a better understanding of travel: 49,500 for DAE under Travel and Conference versus if we can use these funds under Miscellaneous Charges DAE for travel. I'm sorry, I'm just not clear. And I've made an issue of everyone's travel, so I need to make an issue of our own as well. CHR. KIMBALL: Fair, Council Member. MR. HENRICKS: If I could muddy the waters even further, I'd be happy to do so on this special day. CHR. KIMBALL: Please do. Page 40 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. HENRICKS: When you look at the DAE, it's 10,000 now. A Council Member could elect to use that entire amount on travel, assuming it was approved, that all travel is approved. The DAE is broken down into certain allotted uses, but it doesn't have to—it's completely at the discretion of the Council Member as they deem fit to benefit their district, again with certain approvals that might be required. So, that's why it's a little bit—as Deputy Clerk mentioned, it's a little complicated with how it's budgeted. It used to be broken down in a different way. But I think about ten years ago, it was decided that it was easier for the accountant to manage these accounts the way it's presented in the budget now. May be harder to understand as far as how it works and what's available and what appropriate uses are. So there's pros and cons to those changes. It was easier from an internal structural standpoint to be able to manage those funds and make sure that we were on top of that, and knowing where they were going. But I think it did present maybe a less clear picture in the budget about how they would be utilized. So, directly to your question, Council Member Inaba, there are travel funds for a variety of things that the Chair has mostly discretion over, whether it's Sister City or other types of travel. There's a travel fund in there that is specifically these types of meetings so people from the west side can come here and utilize lodging and per diem and things of that nature. And then there's General Travel. There's Chair's Travel that the Chair can allocate as the Chair deems appropriate. And then again, there is your DAE that you can request the Chair use for whatever purpose that you deem to be a benefit to the public, the County, and your constituents, upon approval from the Cahir. So there's a variety of funding opportunities for travel, some with restrictions. Like for Sister City, it could only be utilized for that. But, for instance, if there was a Sister City trip and there wasn't sufficient funding to cover everybody, the Chair could decide to say, "I will cover airfare for everybody." And then the rest would come out of your DAE if you so decide to go. And those are the kinds of arrangements that can be made to try to present an equitable environment for travel, and give people options and discretion of how to use their DAE. MR. INABA: Okay. So, if we're saying, right now, currently we have $10,000 per fiscal year, that 10,000 is broken up—or where is that 10,000? MR. BROWN: So the 10,000 is because these DAE funds are discretionary, a Council Member, like the Clerk said, could use all of it for one thing and burn their 10,000 on equipment or furniture or whatever. And then they won't have any money for the other things that are allowed under DAE. So, when we budget it, we take the 10,000 for each Council Member, and it's kind of evenly disbursed in the allowable categories or line items you see, based on nine. Page 41 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. INABA: Okay, right. MR. BROWN: But that doesn't mean each Council Member is going to spend that way. But that is how we budget to help us track internally our accounting. So, again, like the Clerk said, you could use all of your money on one single item or two single things if that's what the Council Member decided was best for their district. MR. INABA: Okay, got it. I can support this being that it's not I mean, yeah, it could be used for travel but it's not specific to travel. If we need to support any certain expenditures in the district that are allowed by our rules, we can do that. So I'll be in support of this. Thank you for repeating yourselves three times so I could understand. CHR. KIMBALL: I think that was helpful for all of us. Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'm not going to be supporting this today. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any other discussion? I'll just chime in and say that I think that this represents and appropriate level of increase. I wouldn't want to go any higher. We have seen some of our basic expenses increase with inflation,just like everybody else has. I would also say that we've had some novel expenditures that didn't exist before. For example, we all now have Zoom accounts and we all have Canva accounts and these other things that weren't part of our DAE expenses in the past. And just to make a final note out there to the members of the public, this is a very transparent process. The approvals do have to happen for various items. Our Administrative Rules guide how the DAE expenses can be utilized,probably the most important of which is that they can't be used at all for the personal benefit of the Council Member. So, like, we can't even by ourselves lunch out of DAE. So I want to make sure it's very clear that this is only for activities that allow our offices to function. As mentioned before by the Clerk, this is equipment. This is registration for travel. This is travel for business and nothing that is intended to benefit the Council Member as individuals. Okay, so with that, I think we'll take a roll call on this one. Mr. Clerk. Page 42 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.21 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —6. Noes: Council Members Galimba and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—2. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Let's take a ten-minute break. Let's make it 12 minutes to start back at 11:15. All right. Recess: At 11:03 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 11:15 a.m. CHR. KIMBALL: Checking in with Council Member Inaba or any of the others that were withdrawn. MS. LEE LOY: I'm waiting on mine. CHR. KIMBALL: Still waiting. Okay. Let's move on, then, Council Member Kagiwada, to Communication 135.25. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kagiwada moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.25. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much. Just looking to invest a little more forward thinking, doing a little more for spay and neuter. Currently in the budget is 75,000. I want to double that amount going out. That's still less than we used to put out for services for spay and neuter. I realize that. But it brings us up to an amount that I think is reasonable and gets us to looking forward to making sure that we're doing everything we can on the preventative front end to help animal control and our community with unwanted animals that are not able to be cared for properly. So, looking for your support. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Any additional discussion? Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I just wanted to thank Council Member Kagiwada for bringing this forward. I mean, I feel like perhaps this probablyI mean, it is really important, so totally support it. And just hopefully that when animal control Page 43 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 really gets up to speed, which should be soon, that they will, within their budget, even allocate more. But I think this is a good way to highlight how important this part of the equation is. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Any additional discussion? Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I just want to lend my support. I think we all got a number of emails from various constituents asking for an increase I think of up to like 250,000 for a community spay-and-neuter program. But I think this is a very good amount to get started with as the animal control agency is being stood up. And we certainly want to make sure that that team has the discretion to grow program areas. And so I think this is a way to just acknowledge the concerns and importance of this particular program with community partners. So I'll be supporting it today. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Yeah, in support. Having sat on our nonprofit grant-in-aid, we used to see a lot of our spay-and-neuter programs come through that. We could never really give them enough. And so, having this as a hard line item for access, this is absolutely in alignment with the larger growing community need for this area. In support of. Thank you so much for putting this forward. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you for bringing this forward. I like the idea. I did have some questions for the department if they were available. CHR. KIMBALL: There's actually no department at this point, not until July 1st But perhaps Director Sako can answer your questions. The other option would be to bring down Managing Director Lee Lord, who has been taking the lead on the formulation of the agency. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Sorry, are you saying there is nobody running this department? I thought it was Police. CHR. KIMBALL: Well, it's in HPD right now. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's what I understood as well. MS. SAKO: It is in HPD right now. It will be the separate office on July 1st when this budget takes effect. Page 44 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So HPD—is HPD aware of this? MS. SAKO: They may or may not be aware of it. The community continues to show their support for this. I think I have told some of you the animal control portion is the highest priority of their job at the moment, but obviously, we're still concerned about the other aspects of it as well. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. So the reason I'm asking, and I think HPD could have answered this question because, currently, what I'm hearing is we're having some challenges with some of the animals that either can or cannot be brought in, and not even getting to spay-and-neuter services. MS. SAKO: Right. Correct. So they'll have a new administrator come July I hopefully before that—and then they will evaluate all the different pieces. But, yes, resolving the animal control issues are the higher priorities right now. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. On the back end of that, I did call them the other day, and they were actually really responsive and in a very fast manner, which I appreciated from them. MS. SAKO: They're good, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So, to the maker, then, spay-and-neuter services for anything, everything? Cats? MS. KAGIWADA: That's me. Yeah. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was Ms. Kierkiewicz'. I'm sorry, I'm reading the wrong one. Ms. Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Yes. So, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Michelle was looking at me like, "What are you staring at me for?" MS. KAGIWADA: So, yeah. So this is for contracted services; not expecting the agency to do it themselves because they are prioritizing dealing with some of the animals that are in our community. This is for contract services so that they can contract out for spay or neuter. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So you're going to have separate entities around spay-and-neuter program services, kind of what HIHS (Hawai`i Island Humane Society) used to do. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. Page 45 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any further discussion? All right, seeing none, I just wanted to add thank you, Council Member Kagiwada, for bringing this forward. I know it's been an ask from the community for sure. And I know that there was a desire to do even more. But I would highlight that, and Council Member Lee Loy brought this up, we did fund some other spay-and-neuter programs through the grant-in-aid, and I don't remember what that particular amount was but-165. So there is a substantial amount between this program and the GIA (grant-in-aid)program. So we are making this a priority. With that, I think we can do a voice vote on this one. All those in favor please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.25 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: The amendment proposed in Communication 135.25 passes. We'll move to the next item now, which is Council Member Kierkiewicz' communication. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.26. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and I were invited to participate in a coin of life ceremony at the Kea`au Fire Station. It was to recognize one of our Puna police officers for his quick response and lifesaving measure. It spurred conversations around these devices, LUCAS compression devices, that 11 of our 16 medics are equipped with. And this is basically a device that does CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) on someone. Without it, we have our firefighters doing two minutes of CPR rotation and, on top of that, trying to administer lifesaving procedures and medications to folks that are in need during this emergency situation. And so this funding would ensure that all 16 of our medic units are equipped with a LUCAS compression device. Chief Moszkowicz Page 46 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 from the Fire Department was also there, and he asked that we also include purchase of one of these units for their special response team. He felt one would be sufficient for now. I do want to point out that, typically, we do get funding from the State to support our ambulatory services, so I will be working closely with Chief Todd to get some kind of reimbursement. But I want to make sure that the public knows that we are making a critical investment to ensuring that all of our medics are equipped with these devices. All of the ones that we've received to date have been donations from Hilo Medical Center. Not quite sure what their shelf life is at this moment, but want to just make sure that we have the best possible equipment out there and ready for our medics to use in the event of this kind of emergency. So, looking for everyone's support on this measure. Thank you, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Chair. I'll be supporting this today. In that visit to our Kea`au Fire Department, they actually — I didn't know what it was. But they actually got one out and showed us exactly what it does, and then described why that's so important. So, to have these available for them would be lifesaving, yeah no pun intended. Okay, yeah, I'll be supporting. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? All right, seeing none, I think we can take a voice vote on this one. All those in favor of adopting the amendment in Communication 135.26, please say Ic aye. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.26 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: The amendment in Communication 135.26 passes. Next item, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.27. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. Page 47 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. As we all know, a strong training program is the foundation for any profession. There has been a lot of emphasis this fiscal year in investing in our employees in terms of training and workforce development. What this allocation would provide is $123,000 to the Fire Department to essentially create a train-the-trainer program so that we have folks within the department that are able to administer consistent quality training across all companies. There isn't anything that's standardized at this moment, but we have an excellent Battalion Chief, Patrick Springer, who is unfortunately not with us today. But we do have one of our training bureau captains on Zoom if there are folks that have questionsKeone Roback. But what this investment would do is it would create 40 Fire One instructor positions, and these would be folks that are out in the field teaching firefighters knowledge and delivering instructions from lesson planning and organizing a learning environment. And then we would also have 20 Fire Instructor IIs who would be in charge of managing the instructional resources, preparing the lesson plans. But this is an investment in our personnel and our department. If Keone's on, I do invite him to provide additional context and details, and to be available in case my colleagues have questions or concerns. But this is so we're not sending 60 firefighters to the Mainland for a conference. This is where we can build the curriculum internally and just standardize the learning across the board. Thank you, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Do we have anyone from the Fire Department online? Just checking. (Note: At this time, Fire Captain Keone Roback came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. ROBACK: Aloha, Council. CHR. KIMBALL: Aloha. MR. ROBACK: My name is Captain Roback. I'm the training captain for the Hawaii Fire Department. CHR. KIMBALL: Great. Did you have anything to add, or did you just want to wait and see if there were questions from the body? MR. ROBACK: Well, I'd like to add a little bit onto that. So, we have—it's a training book, which is where we get our curriculum for the Fire Instructor I curriculum. And what the Fire Instructor I does is it gives the members—it tells them the desired characteristics of an instructor. It explains how different Page 48 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 students learn, whether it's by seeing, whether it's by hearing, whether it's by seeing and hearing, actually seeing and doing, and then going through the field itself. So the Fire Instructor I basically outlines a teaching methodology for instructors. It gives them a way to get the information across to the personnel in the department and it standardizes it. So the fire instructor for the 40 fire instructors, it gives them an outline of how to teach and how people learn and how to set up a prepared lesson plan; how to prepare the environment for learning; how to prepare the, if fields are being done, outdoor. It tells you how to get everything ready and to have alternate plans if the weather doesn't cooperate. So it's kind of the basic outline for teaching. It's super important for them to understand that because it's kind of the baseline of how we want instruction to go. And the Fire Instructor I basically teaches from prepared lesson plans. So the Fire Instructor II is actually the managers, like Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned. They create the lesson plans. They maintain the testing banks. They maintain the documentation for all these programs. And the Instructor I and Instructor II actually is a Pro Board Certification, which we're trying to take the department in that direction. What the Pro Board Certification is, is it's a program that actually we got it from ARRF (Airport Rescue Fire Fighting). The State of Hawaii "Crash" is actually using that Pro Board Certification method. I know that Maui had it at one time. I'm not sure about Oahu. But what that allowed is that we can now have our firefighters certified in a nationally recognized certification program, which would be Firefighter I, meaning that they meet all the skill and knowledge requirements of a Firefighter I. They meet all the skill and knowledge requirements of a HAZMAT (hazardous materials) awareness certification. And then they meet the field and knowledge of a Firefighter 11 skills and knowledge. So, in order for us to establish this Pro Board Certification, we have to have the Fire Instructor I's be able to deliver the content, and then we have to have the Fire Instructor IIs to sign off on the field, saying that, "Yes, I certify that all the skills and knowledge have been met. And it's a way to sign up. So it's kind of a check and balance. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you very much for all the insight. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz, for putting this forward. I have a couple questions. Deannasorry, going through the budget. And I know we had done like a huge set aside for training, like kind of as a whole. And I do want to mention, for the rest of my colleagues, for the time that I've been on the Council, there's always been budget cuts, 10/20 percent, and oftentimes, the area that always go first is education and training. And over time, Page 49 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 slowly they'll get back in, which is why I've appreciated the acknowledgement of training up that million dollars that we put in for training. Explain to me how departments would access that because this is very specific to a department. I completely support them, but we're going to need it for Police,just other departments, who need specialized training I'm always thinking about our Building Division and our electricians and plumbers who have technical training that they need. MS. SAKO: So each department does budget training on a regular basis. Some have larger budgets than others. Police has their CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) certification, so they're mandated to have certain trainings each year. Fire has a fire training section of their budget, and has salaries and wages and everything, but they really budgeted maybe like 15,000 for their travel and conferences. So I'm not sure why they didn't increase it. But for the provision itself, we are going to ask departments to email the Finance Department. We don't want, like, tons of people going to the Mainland, right. It's not for 2,700 employees to go to the Mainland. It's really to bring the trainers here to Hawaii and train as many people as possible. And that's a method that we've used throughout the years and continues to work well. It's cheaper to bring one or two trainers here than to fly a whole bunch of our employees to the Mainland. So we'll kind of be evaluating it in that scope as well. This ask is kind of large. This would be like over a tenth of that training provision. So, if this is necessary, yeah, we would support the amendment. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you for that. I think that's where I was at, or could we braid it, right, not so large out of fund balance and using a portion of the million. MS. SAKO: Something like that would work too, yeah. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, you tell us, Deanna. I'm always very leery about pulling it out of fund balance. MS. SAKO: I think, like you said, training is the thing that gets cut. And so I think the more we can focus on training this year the better. MS. LEE LOY: Great. Thanks, Deanna. Thanks, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Thanks for bringing this forward. I really support the training aspect of it. My questions are more around the funding as well. I remember we had a discussion with the department at some point, and I thought maybe you'd be looking at one of these positions that they are holding Page 50 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 open. Remember we had that discussion? I think they had five positions that they didn't necessarily think they could fill, but they were holding them open and that one of those positions could be used for funding something like this. Was that something that you discussed, I don't know, with the Director of Finance or with Fire? I guess I'm asking the maker, if that's okay, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead, Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Council Member, I'm so sorry. I don't recall those open positions, and I'm not sure if we can take funding that's allocated for a position to divert into overtime to train folks for a specific program. I'm not sure. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. So let's yeah, let's go to the Director. When we had a discussion about these, I think it was five, now there's four. I remember the Fire Chief saying they weren't sure that they were going to get to actually fill all of those. And I thought we might look at maybe keeping the position but unfunding it, and using the funds for something else that's needed. MS. SAKO: I probably would be hesitant to unfund the positions if the work's still being done because most of that funding does go to overtime. Or someone may be TA'ing (temporary assignment)to that position or things like that. Probably at the beginningI mean, if you're going to unfund it and tell them they're not going to do those services, then that's fine. But if we are going to continue to have to do the work, we should leave the funding in the Salaries and Wages accounts. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I thought just the discussion we had before was they didn't think they'd be able to fill those positions, and so there were five of them, I believe, at the time. So the discussion was maybe one of them could be used for something else since they have five and they don't think they can fill them all. MS. SAKO: Yeah, I forget specifically which positions those were. But just because they might not be able to fill the position doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to get done. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so they're going to use those funds for overtime or other people doing the job, okay. MS. SAKO: Frequently, that's usually what happens. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, yeah. All right. Once again, I think it would be great to consider possibly using some of the training funds for this, as Council Member Lee Loy suggested, but supportive of the need for training. Thank you. Page 51 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Any other discussion? All right, seeing none, I think we can do a voice vote on this one. All those in favor of adopting the amendment proposed in Communication 135.27, please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.27 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —7. Noes: None. Absent: Council Members Galimba and Villegas —2. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: That takes us to the next amendment by Council Member Evans. Motion to Amend: Ms. Evans moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.28. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I'm asking my colleagues to support this amendment. My community—if you've been to Waikoloa, Waikoloa isI think it's probably seven or eight miles from the ocean, but it's pretty steep when you come down the hill to the ocean. What's happened is we continue to build subdivisions and put in roads and harden the surfaces. And what's happened over the last probably two or three years is we're starting to get rainfall events. We could call it climate change. But our rainfall events are very intense. We,just a couple weeks ago, had three inches in one hour. And we have these gulches that are right below the Waikoloa Village that goes straight down underneath the freeway and then down into Puako. And Puako, the community has cesspools all down the shoreline, and what we're finding is when we have these severe flood events, they're actually running over the road and running through people's garages and houses, going into the ocean. And we're getting also these huge brown-out events. So we're getting, like, faster velocity, more intense. And we're getting brown-outs that covers the coral reef that's in front of Puako. And so, when I met with Steve Pause, who's here today to answer questions, we were talking about what can we do to make maybe better decisions working with Zendo Kern, the Planning Director. And then we know that Susan Kunz has Page 52 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 260 acres. She's going to master plan. She's going to build out the entire community with housing and multifamily housing. It's all in motion to build it all out. But we're not looking at the stormwater runoff, the drainage, what's happening. Of course, I asked the question that I think some of you might ask is, "Well, what about the Corps of Engineers and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), and kind of the money?" And the reality is, to get to the point that we could do floodplain management, work with the Corps and FEMA, we're going to have to figure out what the problems are. And so what this is, is it's a pre- assessment kind of study prior to you going to FEMA and the Corps to ask for help. And I would like to have Director Pause come up. He's been down there. He's seen it. The other thing that's happened with these flooding events is it actually covers the gulches. One of the gulches overflows, and it's actually blocking our secondary emergency exit road that comes out of the village. It actually gets washed out, and they have to go in and fix it the next day. But it actually blocks our emergency road. So, with that, I'll turn it over to you. (Note: At this time, Public Works Director Stephen Pause came forward to address the members of the Council.) CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead, Director. Thank you. MR. PAUSE: Aloha, everyone. Steve Pause, Director of Public Works. I've not seen the correspondence to which you're referring presently, but we have been engaged in a number of conversations. So we have had a total of six responses since December of 2022 where Public Works had to deploy resources and people down to Puako to deal with flooding issues. Council Member Evans brings up the most recent one, two weeks ago. It was May 12''. It was a Friday and I happened to be driving on Queen K (Queen Ka`ahumanu Highway) to the airport that day. The situation is fairly extreme just in terms of the rainfall event, the intensity, and obviously the frequencies that are occurring now. But the conversations we've had, and I've had with my engineering department as well, is there's something that's going on and, yes, it could be climate change, but it's likely development has occurred to the point where we're creating more stormwater because of more impervious surface area. And we have not, as a community, as a county, really looked at the cumulative effects of the increase of the stormwater volume. And I know that I've spoken here before. At the end of the day, the intensity and the peak flow, when everything kind of comes together, is really what needs to be managed. I literally saw waterfalls coming over the outcrops on Queen K on this most- recent event. But again, we've had enough events here just recently with Page 53 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 deploying Highways folks that it's clear that the best path forward is to take a holistic view and say, "What's going on!" And that involves looking at what is contributing to this drainage area, and Council Member Evans mentions two gulches. There's actually three gulches, one of which I could not pronounce. Kamakoa is one of them. But there's three gulches that essentially terminates just mauka of Puako, into big State-owned land. And there doesn't appear to be any drainage structures, any stormwater management facilities. Council Member vans mentions floodplains. There's no marked floodplains up in Waikoloa, so I don't know that development has necessarily been sensitive to the natural flow of water and the pathways. So the discussion we've had to this point is to take a holistic view of the drainage area, the hydraulics, the hydrology, and assess it: determine volumes, determine times of concentration, where the water's coming from, where it's all going. And then look, at least as part of the preliminary assessment, at potential options to begin the process of looking at stormwater management for that entire area. Happy to take questions. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Director. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. Thanks, Ms. Evans, for putting this forward. Completely support. I just don't support where the funding is coming from. Something that Director Pause mentioned about floodplain management and this cumulative total is something that I've been trying to push for many years with the department about what development looks like, especially as it relates to stormwater runoff when we know that these properties will have impervious surfaces, including rooflines, and actually do want to help. And maybe this question is for Deanna. In light of this project, maybe touching a road; is this something we can take out of fuel tax or someplace else, rather than the easy pickings of fund balance? MS. SAKO: I think there could be like a nexus, but I think until we do the study, because I was hearing that it was more than just about the road. Is that not correct? MR. PAUSE: Yeah. Again, I think we've—Council Member Lee Loy brought it up as well—you have roof. You have pavement associated with roads. You also have parking lots. There's a number of contributing factors that have increased the amount of impervious surface area, which would then increase the runoff. So it's not just roads. MS. SAKO: Right. I mean, it's not just impacting the road. The study may realize that we need to fix things far above the road. When I first heard about it, although I may not have heard all the details, I wasn't really thinking it was road Page 54 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 at this point. I think if we do the study and find out, okay, the way the road is draining is causing part of this and maybe we need to fix that, then that would, for sure, be allowable for a road-type or transportation-type cost. MR. PAUSE: One other comment, too, is that the current condition has impacts on our roads as well. So, there is a nexus. The question is how you want to split hairs. MS. SAKO: Yes. So I guess it's are we doing the study to keep the water off the roads? Are we saying we're doing the study because of the cesspools down in Puako, which is what I kind of had heard more. So I don't want to get in trouble with State or others and misspend our other special funds that we are allowed by the State Legislature to spend, until we have a better idea. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, and that's why—I mean, it is a big chunk of money right out of fund balance, and usually see these types of projects come out as a CIP (Capital Improvement Project). And then we can actually look at different sources of funding. And just hoping that more thought was given to this, rather than "There's a large fund balance, and I want to do a project in my district." Because if we all did that, then fund balance is just going to take a huge hit. MS. SAKO: No, you're absolutely correct. We can't do that for every district. I get the importance. I get the runoff and all of that. It doesn't mean that the department couldn't still be looking for grant funds to try and see if we can help offset in some way. I do feel more strongly that once this study is done, if we're doing construction or whatever related to roads, then, definitely, that would for sure be allowable. CHR. KIMBALL: For those watching online, we're getting a public service announcement. We'll be rejoining shortly. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. Like I said, I wish there were ways to look at multiple sources of funding rather than our fund balance just being such easy pickings. And maybe some of us on the dais can put our heads together. I really don't want to vote against it just because oftentimes you've got to start with the study so that you can start doing all the rest of the planning. It's just the funding source that's really giving me pause right now. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Let me go to Council Member Kagiwada first and then yeah. MS. KAGIWADA: Just echoing my colleague Council Member Lee Loy's sentiments. I have a kind of similar study/plan thing in my district that I'm working on, but we are looking at alternate funding sources through grants and working with the Army Corps of Engineers, things like that. Page 55 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 It seems like if there's a big State property involved in this, that I don't know if it's DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources) or who controls that property, but they should be involved at looking at helping to fund, dealing with this issue. So, yeah, I would really like us to lookI mean, I don't know if you've had the time to spend looking at what alternatives are for getting funding here. So I guess I'd love to hear that. But, yeah, I would love for us to think about is this setting a precedent for doing projects like this by using fund balance. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I've been spending quite a few days on this, having this conversation. And one of the things that came out is, to approach the Corps and FEMA, you have to have information. And what we were hoping is that—we are not guaranteed that the Corps and FEMA will give us matching. They might but they might not. But if we go into doing the study, we want to make sure we get the study done because that then will help us go get money for floodplain management and possibly some other possibilities. So, when the discussion came, should it be 250, should it be 500, should we take the risk, should we make it less, should we take it more, the question was, yes, they're going to try to get money, but if they don't get it, we still need to get the study done. So it was really like what is the best number. That was kind of kicked around for several days. And the other thing that got kicked around is where does the money come from. And since I'm new to the budget, I was asking all the questions too. I'm not saying I looked at it as an easy pick. It's more like I don't know where to get money, and it kept going back: Should it be capital? Should it be operating? Where should it be? And after several discussions, it ended up where it's at. So I did think about it and I tried, but this is kind of the best I came with after many discussions. But I did ask. So, with that, I see you have a comment? MR. PAUSE: Yeah, I could ask two more things. The way we scoped out the study was do the assessment, find out what's going on. The second was to come up with at least a minimal list of options and sort of high-level costs for what you could do to mitigate what we're seeing. And the third thing that we have as part of the work scope for the preliminary assessment is to also identify and pursue funding sources because $500,000 is a drop in the bucket if you're talking about having to put in large managed stormwater management systems. The other thing I would add is we did take a swing and a miss with NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service)post the Kona Low of December of '22. We did get NRCS out to the site in March of'23 to look at it. They have funding available for emergency impacts that have occurred as a result of these sorts of storms involving runoff in the lands. Page 56 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 They told us we were not eligible for that particular funding source post-event, but they did encourage us to apply for another funding source. And we pressed them a little bit and we said, "So, how many of these have you given out?" And they go, "Oh, we've never given one out in 20 years on this island." So we sort of said, well, that was a swing and a miss. But the opportunity to find some money to do the study, to at least let us know what we're dealing with I think is an important task. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Director. Any further conversation? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: I just have a quick question, Deanna. Fair share contributions. Could some of that funds be braided into something like this? MS. SAKO: Fair share contributions is typically when we're trying to expand capacity or add new things. So I'm not sure how we would get there. Yeah. Good thoughts, though. I'm just trying to yeah. MS. LEE LOY: That's why we're here, right? (Inaudible) very siloed. I'm trying to think of creative funding, but also creative couching of a project, right. If we can grab some nexus next to a road, we can access certain funds. If this does create capacity, maybe it's fair share. I don't want to see my colleague champion something that ideally would start now, that that community would have a long runway to put in all the CII'projects over the course of time to improve it. And that's all I'm trying to MS. SAKO: Yeah. So there have been other studies done out of General Fund, like the Hilo Bay and some of those things as well. Typically, it is like the half or a certain portion because we do try to get Army Corps of Engineers to pay for it. I think until they have further discussions with Army Corps or someone else, they're not going to know the exact amount. But we would hope that, yes, the County's not on the hook for the whole half a million, that it would be Army Corps or other funding. I do hear—like every event we have, we do get additional mitigation funds usually from FEMA. So, hopefully, this would be something they might be able to apply for in the future as well. MS. LEE LOY: And, Deanna, based on that, because we're actually collecting data and then we're actually collecting the amount of resources that go into it, we would actually have some level of baseline as to the resources that we are expending if we don't address an overall study for the area. Thanks. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Anyone else? Council Member Inaba. Page 57 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. INABA: I think I have to just echo the concern of putting this in the operating budget with the potential for it to be a longer-term thing. I wasn't able to pull up the CIP quick enough. I know it's a need for sure. I see it. You see it. We all can see it when it happens. I'm not comfortable committing this amount for a project that's this large, and where we could seek other funding. Thank you, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Inaba. Before Ibecause I feel like this is a question that's coming from a lot of folks, Director, could you maybe speak to—apparently there were conversations about this—why this is in operating and not proposed as a capital? Because, I think that's a question for a lot of us. MS. SAKO: So we can do studies in the capital project fund; however, normally, when we're doing those studies, it's leading to a project. It's leading to an asset that we're going to capitalize. So it's part of a project we know about. It might be an environmental assessment for a building or something like that. And I think the problem or the challenge—and I didn't get to talk to Steve too much about it—was what exactly is the study going to lead to. And we don't know yet if it's we're going to have to redo roads, or we're going to have to do drainage improvements or what that study might be, and even where those might happen. Is it even on our land? And so I think it's sometimes we have to do studies in the operating budget to figure out what the capital project is going to be, or if there is even a capital project. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Director. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: I'm just trying to think out of the box here. I've never seen this, but could you tie money being put aside for the study conditioned upon getting some matching dollars, and put the condition on it so it doesn't get spent if you don't get some matching funds? MS. SAKO: Yeah, I think there's two ways. One is that if we really think the study is going to be half a million, and normally Army Corps, sometimes we split the cost, so it would be 50-50. So one option is to just budget what we think our share would be of 250; kind of results in the same thing. MS. EVANS: So that might be a compromise to say we really need to get some matching dollars. But I do knowI wouldn't even fight for this if I didn't know all the subdivisions and I've seen Susan Kunz, and I'm seeing all the development that is coming our way in the next ten years. And we have to get on top of this because it's happening. The gulches are getting deeper. The velocity's getting stronger. It's coming down—it's flooding this community—into the bay; Page 58 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 brownouts. I mean, it's only going to get worse if we don't figure it out. I understand everybody's concern because 500 sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. I admit that. But I don't know. Steve? MR. PAUSE: I also want to just reiterate one point that you said earlier, too, is we have one evacuation route out of Waikoloa Village—Hutu Street. And after every one of these events, we're back out there fixing it to make it passable. So it isstudying what's going on is also connected to being able to continue to maintain and keep that road passable. CHR. KIMBALL: Any further discussion? All right, I'll just take a moment to weigh in. Fully support the need to address mitigation efforts with respect to floodplains, particularly with climate-weirding, is what we're calling it now because it's not just change; it's making things weird. Yes, it's true. There's a couple things. First of all, I really do think this belongs in CII'. And I think you could potentially write it—you're the Director of Finance and so you know more than I do but it seems like it could be drafted as a CIP for flood mitigation and how we stage it out in the B-52, having this be staged out in the B-52. I know that it would be probably challenging to get that together by the time we get to Bill 31, but that's my thinking, is that it belongs in there. The other thing I would like to add is—and I don't know if you've had a conversation with Greg Asner about this, but there's a study coming out in nature in the near future that has to do with a lot of the situation on the west side with respect to the near-shore waters and the land use and cesspool issue in terms of the impacts on the reefs. And so this point that Army Corps might need information to proceed, I can't guarantee that thisI haven't actually seen the final paper, but I know that some of what they were doing included mapping of infrastructure inventory through LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). So there may actually be some initial data. And I was going to bring these folks in to talk to us in July about what they have available, but did want to make sure that you were aware that that was also potentially in the works, and then potentially a source of the data that is needed by the County to proceed. I really hate to vote against this because I absolutely believe it's necessary. I may be amenable to a"middle of the road,"which is to cut the amount in half for right now, with the anticipation that we could maybe get to the match. But I still think it should live in CIP. That's kind of where I am on it. I'll pass it to you, Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Well, I would like to ask, after you've heard this discussion, what are your thoughts, Deanna? Page 59 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. SAKO: Well, historically, our floodplain mapping and a lot of those things have come out of General Fund because it doesn't always lead to a capital project. And I think that's where I am at with this one. If somebody can tell me what the capital project is, we're happy to put it in the capital project fund, and I think the study's going to tell us that. If you guys want to stick it in there, I'll talk to bond counsel and see if it's something we can fund, otherwise we would need another source of funds. I know we're working on climate change. They applied for grants. I don't know if there's a grant they can find if Army Corps can't do it. But it's still going to need a home somewhere, and so yeah. MS. EVANS: Well, what I'd like to do, if my colleagues would support it, is withdraw it and then resubmit it at 250,000 with the expectation of matching funds. Because, they can't move forward with the study at 250. They're going to have to get matching funds. If my colleagues would be supportive of that, I'll withdraw it and bring it back. Thank you. Withdraw Motion Ms. Evans withdrew her motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, to Amend: with the contents of Comm. 135.28. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. All right, next item. I believe we're on Communication 135.29, which is coming from Vice Chair Inaba. Motion to Amend: Mr. Inaba moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.29. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. This is something I thought of after sitting through these last budget hearings in Kona. We have chairs that can't maintain height. We have some people sitting on binders during Council meetings. Some folks have brought their own pillows for behind their backs. So this is to purchase new chairs for the daises in both chambers. I asked the Clerk's office to just provide us with a general amount per chair. So we just went, not on the expensive side, just on the middle-ground chairs that will be able to serve our Council and the councils moving forward for years to come. So I ask for your support. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Inaba. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Mr. Inaba. I'm going to support it. But if I recall, we bought chairs about four or five years ago. You guys weren't here; it's okay. I think what I would love to see is—other departments and agencies use our chambers. If they could k6kua a little bit, that would be really great. But that Page 60 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 being said, maybe next year we can start a kitty for them to k6kua to our chambers. I'm going to support this. It's equipment and we all need equipment to do our jobs. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to vote "no." Sorry, Mr. Inaba. I think we should make do with what we've got. They're pretty decent, better than some other chairs that I've sat in. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: I'm going to support this. I think maybe some of the younger people don't feel it as much, but some of us but I do notice some of my colleagues having to bring other supports in and having a lot of problems. I have problems adjusting and keeping chairs adjusted because they tend to go all over the place, yeah. And just want to be able to focus on our jobs for the people and not be spending our time dealing with these issues. So I think that that's reasonable. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Anyone else? All right, I'm going to actually vote against this as well. As much as I doI am one of those that suffers from sitting in this chair all day. I do have my special little pillow upstairs. We are in here in the chambers relatively infrequently and would prefer to see this—and we've had this addition to our DAE, which allows us to potentially purchase better chairs for our office if we need better support. So,just in the sense of being fiscally responsible, I think we're okay with what we've got, and we all find ways to make do. Council Member Evans, we are just about to take the vote on this amendment. I don't know. I'll give you a chance to weigh in. Just this is an additional 10,000 in the Clerk's budget to support ergonomic seating for Hilo and Kona chambers; Communication 135.29. I'll give you an opportunity to weigh in. I know you just walked in. MS. EVANS: I support it. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. With that, we'll take a roll call vote on this one, please. Page 61 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.29 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, and Lee Loy —5. Noes: Council Members Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and Chair Kimball —2. Absent: Council Members Galimba and Villegas —2. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Communication 135.29 is added to the budget as an amendment. Let's go now to 135.30, which is brought to us by Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.30. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Civil Defense actually approached me at the very last minute, saying if there is additional funding availablehi, Bill. Nice to see you to support the growing desire to have more CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) teams and neighborhood watch groups around our Hawaii Island community, that they would appreciate additional funding. So requesting $25,000 to support neighborhood watch groups, CERT teams. I know that I've given some of my contingency to support new groups that want to stand up. I've checked with Director Sako. She's good with this amount coming out of our fund balance. But, Bill, maybe you could speak to the nature of this request, and share with my colleagues how exactly the $25,000 can support Civil Defense in building up our community partners who are so important in times of need, and to ensure health and safety of our communities. (Note: At this time, Civil Defense Administrative Officer William Hanson came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. HANSON: Thank you, Councilwoman Kierkiewicz and all the Council. Appreciate the opportunity that we could possibly take a look at another 25,000 that could be used for the Community Emergency Response Team program for Hawaii County. Of course with COVID, things have changed a lot: the topography of how we train. Half of the training now is done online; it's a hybrid. Then we also do coaching directly with all those individuals that go through the program. We also offer amateur radio training. We also offer hands-on CPR training. This Page 62 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Saturday, over at Kahele Park, we will be holding a leadership conference for the entire day with 20-plus individuals who show leadership, desire to help us with the different 20-plus CERT teams around the island. In order to put that all together, we actually need CERT coordinators. We have two individuals in particular that share that position and share the workload. With this money, we hope that it will provide us the opportunity to have these two CERT coordinators to work part-time with Civil Defense in order to move the CERT program forward to the next fiscal year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Bill, who are the two CERT program coordinators right now? And are you saying that they are currently working in a volunteer capacity? MR. HANSON: Yeah. The contract ends today. And so, after that, we have no contract with them. So it would be nice if we could continue that on. So, both Pat Stephen and Sharon McCarton, who have been with us in the CERT program leadership, administration roles, at least since the 2018 lava eruption, Lower Puna lava eruption. So they're very much (inaudible) in this field, and they also come with a wealth of knowledge and expertise and experience prior to actually coming onboard and working with the CERT program (inaudible). MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for those details, Bill. I just also want to emphasize, while I know that you spoke at length about CERT, some of this money I would like to have positioned to support neighborhood watch groups. I know that there are a tremendous amount in Puna, given it's the size of Oahu. We have a lot. That's great. But I do want to make sure that there is funding available to support purchasing of signs and supplies to support neighborhood watch groups. MR. HANSON: Yes, so, Councilwoman Kierkiewicz, we also have, as you know with the Homeland Security Grant program, we have the opportunity to also go back for grant funding support back to FEMA. And so, with that, we did put in and earmark some funds to go towards the neighborhood watch program, community policing program. And we've already coordinated that with our liaison Major Shopay of HPD and also with the Office of Homeland Security. That's at the Hawaii State level on Oahu. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Great. But again, if that money runs out, there is a little bit positioned here to support our neighborhood watch groups. MR. HANSON: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Excellent. Just asking for my colleagues' support on this. We've seen volcanic eruption after volcanic eruption and hurricanes. And this Council Chair said our climate's getting a bit weird. We don't know what we are going to be facing in the future. We just know that there are going to be more Page 63 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 natural disaster events. So the more community partners we can have trained up to mobilize and be a partner in times of emergency, the better we will be as a community. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. And thank you for being here. I just have a question about the CERT coordinators. Do you do anything—mapping kind of where we do have the CERT and the neighborhood watches around the island, and where you think they may be needed and we don't currently have one? I know a lot of the CERT stuff is volunteer-driven. But there may be places on the island that have no CERT groups, and you could let us know where those places are. I think that would be super helpful, instead of just allowing them to bubble up wherever and maybe having a whole lot in one area and nothing in some other areas. Is that something that these coordinators could do, or that you could do as Civil Defense? MR. HANSON: Yes, this would be a very good partnership with the County Council, working with your constituents in your districts. If we could maybe try to bubble up some of those that are interested in these programs: the neighborhood watch program; of course, the community emergency response program. We also have other programs, like Vibrant Hawaii, that are setting up resilience hubs. And these are all great programs that lead to one thing, and that's building community resiliency. In fact, in 2012 is when FEMA changed their posture where they wanted to see more whole-community approach towards looking at how do we prepare for, how do we prevent, how do we mitigate, and how do we respond and recover from incidences that can come our way. So, yeah, with your help, with your assistance, we would gladly want to work and beat the bushes, so to speak, and get those that are interested out there and support it in all of these facets of community resiliency. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, great. So it would be great if your office could provide us with some kind of mapping of where the current programs exist, and where you think there should be some that don't currently have programs. That would be super helpful. And if these CERT coordinators can help with that, I'm very supportive. Thank you so much. And thank you for bringing this forward, Council Member. I think it's a good one. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I just want to ask. One of my CERT teams in Waikoloa was saying there were some classes and training, but they had to either Page 64 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 go to Kona or Hilo. So I'm just going to put a plug in here: With this extra money, I hope you get up in Waimea, Waikoloa areas so they don't have to travel so far to go to classes. And hopefully, you'll get more turnout and more volunteers. So I just had to throw that in there. Thank you. I'm in support. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Anyone else? All right. Thank you for being here, and thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz, for proposing this. I'm fortunate to have a number of active CERT teams in my district, and I really appreciate them and their efforts. And I appreciate what Civil Defense has done. I will say, unfortunately, one of them has recently decided to stop, and that's because they haven't been able to get the support from the County and from Civil Defense for the training. And so I'm hopeful that this will close that. I always try to stay on the positive side, but I'm really disappointed that this had to happen with this group in Pepe`ekeo. So hope that this can be used to support some very existing teams and make sure that they maintain their training and continue operations. With that, I think we can move to a voice vote on this one. All those in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.30 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. CHR. KIMBALL: The amendment proposed in 135.30 is passed. We are now on 135.3 1, which is brought to us by Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.31. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. My colleagues, I've heard you loud and clear. There has been detailed discussion around the need to support our Project Grad program. Last fiscal year, there was $25,000 in the budget for that. This year, the amount has gone down to 10,000. I think we can do better. There is a significant fund balance reserved for Liquor. So, looking to increase the amount by 40,000 so that there is $50,000 available for all high schools around Hawaii Island. I know that I put Liquor in touch with a couple of high schools in the Puna District this year, to get some funding support for their Project Grad night because Page 65 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 I ran out of contingency money. But this is exactly what the money is designed to do, is to support our kids in creating spaces and venues that are free of alcohol and drugs. So, looking for everyone's support on this. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Any additional discussion? All right, seeing none, all of those in favor please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.31 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. CHR. KIMBALL: The amendment proposed in Communication 135.31 has passed. Moving now to Communication 135.32 brought to us by Vice Chair Inaba. Motion to Amend: Mr. Inaba moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.32. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Based on our discussion with the Liquor Department this morning, this amendment brings the expenditures back to current year expenses, line by line. So they'll have the same amount as the current fiscal year. And then we took the extra 36,000 and moved it to Project Grad. So, in combination with Council Member Kierkiewicz' amendment that just passed and the 10,000 that was originally there, there will be 96,000 available for Project Grad that we can choose to supplement. And just for all of our knowledge, there's ten public high schools on our island and additional public charter schools, as well, that could use support. So, I'm happy that we're able to be hopefully moving along with this program, and putting more of that focus with Liquor and allowing us to supplement if we choose. So I ask for your support. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Inaba. Council Member Kierkiewicz. Page 66 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I'm going to be supporting this, and I'm also just going to suggest that perhaps one of us, or we could just direct Liquor, to work with our Corporation Counsel to come up with a one sheet about what are allowable expenses for the Project Grad program. I know that in the past there has been some question and confusion around what exactly the money can be used for. But if, in advance, we can identify this is the application process, this is what you can spend the money on, you know,provide us your budget, I think that would just provide folks with clarity on how to access the funding. And then each of us can advertise this opportunity to our various high schools on an ongoing basis. So just a helpful suggestion. Cody Frenz, I'm here for you if you need me. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. I like the kind of revised thought process, and I'll be supporting this. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Any additional discussion? All right, yeah. Thank you, Vice Chair, for making the revisions based on our previous discussion. And great suggestion, Council Member Kierkiewicz; let's make this really easy for folks to understand how it can be used. I think we can go ahead with a voice vote on that. All those in favor please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.32 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: The amendment in Communication 135.32 passes. Go on to Communication 135.33 brought to us by Council Member Lee Loy. Motion to Amend: Ms. Lee Loy moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.33. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Listening to my colleagues here on the dais, this is for signature events. And working with Finance Department while balancing Hawaii tourism and other things that I've heard on the dais, this is just a modest Page 67 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 increase from 15,000 to 25,000, along with a commitment from R&D with some of the programs that they have there for grant funding for these signature events. So kind of braiding all of those funds, I think we can assure our community that we'll continue to have some of the cornerstone events that we're used to having here into this next fiscal year. Asking for my colleagues' support. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Any further discussion on this amendment? MS. LEE LOY: Chair, I do have a quick question for Deanna, and I'm just trying to figure out where we're landing. I know she has a brain that can add all these things together. Assuming that we'll move this additional 25, where are we on tapping fund balance with all the amendments that have gone through? MS. SAKO: Well, you were, at one point, 1 million, but several got withdrawn and changed. So I think we're below that at the moment. So I was hoping we could kind of stay below a million or so, but I think we're still within. We're still okay. MS. LEE LOY: I tried adding it. I think we're at, like, 350 or 450. MS. SAKO: Yeah. It was just that one larger one that was MS. LEE LOY: That one larger one. MS. SAKO: Yeah. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Great. Thanks. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Anyone else? All right, all those in favor of amending with Communication 135.33,please say Ic aye. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.33 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: The Communication 135.33 has passed. I believe we're still waiting for a couple additional amendments. Have I missed any that have been brought to us? I think that's Page 68 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. BROWN: No, I don't think so. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. MR. BROWN: We could take a recess for lunch. You could put this on the table and hit up the CIP budget if you wanted to work right through. I'm not recommending that. Whatever you guys want to do. CHR. KIMBALL: Let me take a pulse of the body, if folks are wanting to do a brief lunch recess while we're waiting for these amendments, or are folks wanting to push through to the capital while we wait for these— How about this, folks? We just have a few capital improvement budgets. Let's try to push through those, see where we are at that time; if we need another break for lunch or if we can quickly come back to Bill 30. So, at this time, can I get a motion to table Bill 30? Vote on Motion to Mr. Inaba moved to table Bill 30, Draft 3. Seconded by Table: Ms. Kierkiewicz and 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: We will table Bill 30 at this time. Let's take a seven-minute break till 12:35. Recess: At 12:28 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 12:35 p.m. Bill 31: RELATES TO PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR (Draft 3) THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2023, TO JUNE 30, 2024 Draft 3 of the proposed Capital Budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, includes 48 projects requiring a total appropriation of$358,648,000. Reference: Comm. 136.29 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder(B/R) Public Hearing: May 16, 2023 First Reading: May 18, 2023 Page 69 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 ; and Comm. 136.30: From Council Member Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, dated May 24, 2023, (Memo No. 1) transmitting a proposed amendment to reappropriate the Public Works Department's Puna Inner-Connectivity and Emergency Access Routes project in the amount of$20 million. ; and Comm. 136.31: From Council Member Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, dated May 24, 2023, (Memo No. 2) transmitting a proposed amendment to reappropriate the Public Works Department's Puna Roads Repair and Maintenance project in the amount of $12,120,000. ; and Comm. 136.32: From Council Member Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, dated May 25, 2023, (Memo No. 3) transmitting a proposed amendment to reappropriate the Public Works Department's Modification and Relocation of Puna Water Spigot Stations project in the amount of$600,000. (Note: Communications 136.52 through 136.54, transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 31, Draft 3, were circulated.) Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 31, Draft 3, on second and final reading. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. KIMBALL: Is there any discussion on the capital budget before we begin with amendments? Seeing none, move toI believe your first amendment is Communication 136.30. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 136.30. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. This is fairly district- wide as far as being 3, 4, 5, and 6. So I look for everyone's support on this. It there's any questions, we did have Mr. Pause here earlier, but if he is available. Or I will try to answer questions myself. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. No question. Just want to lend my support. I know that, I think it was March 2020, the Council at the time had approved a bond ordinance that identified some funding to support Puna interconnectivity and emergency access. And so my last discussion with Page 70 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Director Pause was interesting because he said, "Well, we're looking for direction from the Council as to what that means exactly." So here we are. So, hopefully, we can connect with DPW (Department of Public Works). Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, you and I can do that. And then, also, let's be active participants in the discussion that Representative Greggor Ilagan has convened regarding PMAR (Puna Makai Alternate Route) and just alternative routes. And so a lot of attention; potential to leverage resources. I think we just have to do the hard work of convening and bringing our partners together and land on a solution. That's going to be a fun one. Again, really supportive of this coming forward. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Absolutely. Thank you, Chair. In support. Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, for advancing this. As you know, District 3 stretches out now to HPP (Hawaiian Paradise Park). So, really do appreciate. And I know it's challenging for all three of us to get together, but do offer my support. And if need be, in those conversations, you can confirm in those conversations that I support the direction of my two fellow Puna Council members. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. I'm just going to follow up. Mr. Chung actually brought that bond measure forward, and I reached out to Deanna last year and I said, "How do we get the ball rolling? What does the Council have to do?" And she said, "You guys have done everything you're supposed to do." And that was good because it clarifies that our role as legislators, we have put the funding in place. We have the appropriate background information. We have the Puna Community Development Plan. We have all these plans in place, everything pointing to the same thing. The money's there. Now, it's time to pull the trigger, and that's why this is sitting here in our CIP list ready to go. This is a reappropriation. I cannot stress that enough because that comes at the end of three years. So, really hoping to see some movement on this. And, yeah, connectivity seems to be an interesting word that's kicked around, but seems to although it's been talked about for decades, where is the movement? So, look forward to seeing some movement on this item, and I do appreciate my other Council Members' support on this. Thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any other discussion? All right, seeing none, I just wanted to draw my colleagues' attention to a DOT program called PROTECT (Promoting Resilient Operations Page 71 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation). It has got funds specifically designated towards emergency routes and alternative routes. It's one of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) funding sources. So there's quite a bit of money in there, and we, as the County, are eligible. I did make the Director aware of this program,particularly with respect to emergency evacuation routes for the Puna area. So I encourage you to help maybe provide some technical assistance to the Director to apply for that. The deadline is August 31"for the PROTECT program. So there's a little time. Nota lot of time, but a little time. All right, I think we can go ahead with a voice vote on this one. All those in favor of the amendment proposed in Communication 136.30,please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.30 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: Amendment contained in 136.30 passes. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, you're up for the next one as well. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 136.31. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair, similar to the last reappropriation, and I would note on the back that this is Puna-specific, but it does say "Council Benefit District: 5," and I don't think that that is entirely true. This would be more 3, 4, 5 again. And so I just wanted to make that note. I don't think that makes a huge difference in keeping this on the list or for the reasons why. This really details in the background data this is for repair, maintenance, and improvements to existing major and minor collector roads of which we have many landing in our big private subdivisions. So I look for everyone's support on tis. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Any other discussion on this item? Seeing none, all those in favor of the amendment proposed in 136.31, please say "aye." Page 72 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.31 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: The amendment in Communication 136.31 passes. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, next item, please. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 136.32. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. I believe this is the second time I have reappropriated this. And I couldn't say more of how important this is as we see increased density, but also as we see the results of climate change and drought in our area, that we need to be offering more water spigots, which is a combination of both DPW and DWS (Department of Water Supply) to put those facilities together. This is for all of our folks who live in Puna. And I would really say this: This could be more of an island-wide thing, too, where you have large unimproved subdivisions with no actual running water. And theseI mean, I can see Michelle Galimba nodding her head. She knows what I'm saying. Ashley, she has the same thing in her district. This really does affect us all. But this last drought that we had, I mean the water tankers could not get to customers fast enough to fill the catchment tanks. And so these water spigots are a lifeline for those communities. So, looking for everyone's support. Probably could use more funding than this, but I want to keep it on the books. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I will be supporting this. And I know it just talks about the benefit being in Council District 5, but with redistricting, Council District 4 has doubled in size. And portions of Districts 3 and 6 also include portions of the Puna region. I've also reached out to Water Supply and Public Works to just get a map of the existing spigots, and to understand Page 73 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 essentially like their shelf life, if there's additional need for maintenance or if there are ways in which we can be improving capacity, but also exploring where we might want to install additional spigots. And so hoping that, at some point, they can come to Council and make a presentation. That way, the community is aware of these planned infrastructure improvements in the area. And hopefully it inspires work in other communities that need this going forward. So, I do support this. Thank you for bringing it forward. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I was reading through a plan the County put forward a while back-2005. And what caught my attention was the reference to Federal laws that are environmental justice or environmental equity laws Title IV, I believe. And they really point to making sure that our low income and our folks aren't disparately affected by choices we make in government. And as I thought about that,just that brief reference I read, I really thought this and projects like this really start to touch on the inequities we see in our subdivisions across the island where we have our low-income families trying to make it, but they don't have access to hardly any services beyond HELCO (Hawai`i Electric Light Company, Inc.) and Telcom (Hawaiian Telcom) broadband. So things like water and sewer, they just don't have access to that. And the hardship that creates down the line, I don't know if that can be measured. You're going out to get water. You're filling your water. You have to deal with the septic systems and the increased cost of living, due to the things that we can't provide in government because we haven't gotten there yet. So I wanted to highlight that. That really stood out to me, that reference to Tile IV. Thank you over everyone's support on this, and I look forward to seeing what we can do in the future. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Anyone else? All right, all those in favor of adopting the amendment proposed in Communication 136.32, please say "aye." Page 74 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.32 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: The amendment in Communication 136.32 has passed. Moving on to 136.52, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 136.52. Seconded by Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I just want to point out that last budget cycle, there are two CIP projects for a new fire station and a new police station. This particular CIP project data sheet attempts to combine both of those stations and co-locate these public safety facilities, and build it out with a future in mind. We know that there is a growing population within the Puna community. We also face numerous emergency events and natural disasters. And so, trying to build a facility with a future in mind with population growth and changes in climate. And so this particular facility would be the Puna Public Safety Complex, housing both fire station and police station that are currently in Kea`au. I know that our Planning Director is very close to finalizing land acquisition negotiations within that area where this facility could be located. And wanting to build it out so that if there is a need for any of our Civil Defense partners, like CERT, neighborhood watch, resilience hub groups, to be able to come and do training or exercises, they have the space and they have the facilities to be able to do that. This is something that's very important and touches the districts of 3, 4, 5, and 6so, almost half of the Council. But really hoping for everyone's support here, and looking to leverage different funding opportunities at the Federal level to support, especially disenfranchised communities, ensuring that they have the infrastructure that they need to solve for challenges. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you for bringing this forward. I completely support this. I just want to make sure it doesn't collide with the other Page 75 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CIPS we have and the movement we have. So I just wanted to check in with Ms. Sako. And maybe Zendo is a better person but he's not here, so you're going to get the questions, Ms. Sako, today. So I know we have the existing CIPS. I know we are in movement towards getting land for our facility. I just want to make sure that I love this idea and we've been talking about kind of a co-located facility already. Does this impact the existing movement? If not, then I fully support it. MS. SAKO: No, it shouldn't. It will actually provide additional appropriations we can draw upon for this project. So I think it should be fine. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Beautiful. That's it. Thank you. I yield, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Here to lend my support. I just appreciate kind of thinking around the corner a little bit for funding. I know this has been on the books and talked about, not only co-location of our public emergency facilities, but also with mass transit and a library. So, to Ms. Sako's point, even if there are two CIP projects and at some point they get blended, at least we know we have monies marked in two different areas, and we can just smash it all together and have an amazing public facility in that area. Thank you for bringing this forward. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I just want to note that I'm not going rogue and just drafting my own project data sheets. I did work in partnership with Planning Department, who wanted to make sure that both Fire, Police, and Civil Defense were onboard. I had initially wanted Civil Defense to have an EOC (Emergency Operations Center) and satellite office here. But in speaking with Talmadge, he said, typically, we just have one EOC. And so I totally get that. But he did like the idea of just being able to do trainings there, or having a space for his partners to convene meetings. So I did do this in partnership with departments, and I think they all feel very appreciative of the support that the Council is lending for the collective efforts. Thank you, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the amendment proposed in Communication 136.52,please say "aye." Page 76 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.52 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: The amendment in Communication 136.52 has passed. We'll move on to the next one, which is also yours, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 136.53. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Looking for my colleagues' support on this. Last Council term, we approved leveraging fair share money from the Puna region to support advancing an environmental assessment for this park. There's 20 acres that have been gifted to the County from the HPP Owners Association. It's located off of 26 and Kaloli. So progress is happening there. And just want to make sure that we have something in our CIP budget to take the next step. I do want to thank James Komata over at Parks and Rec. for helping me identify the appropriate allocation for the various phases. The park, because it's 20 acres, we envision building it out in two phases, which is why the allocations are noted as such. One thing that I do want to just mention is that I've stressed to the department that, as we design this park, let's be sure that we are taking climate change in mind, and doing any facilities or landscapes to take that into consideration so that we are contributing to the resilience of our natural environment. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: A question to Deanna—Director Sako. Thank you. I notice under the funding, it says a CIP of 560,000. Could you explain? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, if I could? CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead, Council Member. Page 77 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sorry. I know that question was directed to the Director, but I completed the FIS (Fiscal Impact Statement)myself. This 560,000 in State CIP was actually granted by the Hawaii State Legislature this session by Representative and Vice Speaker Greggor Ilagan to support build-out of this park. MS. EVANS: Usually when you appropriate, it might be held there for maybe two or three years, so does it—it doesn't show beyond the '23-'24 fiscal year. So, if it doesn't get allotted and spent, is she going to have a—are you going to have a problem? MS. SAKO: First of all, this particular appropriation is just for the 2 million. And then the 560, we're working with them to get the funds released so that we can spend it. So we may need an additional State appropriation, and so we'll come back in for that at a later date. MS. EVANS: Right. But if you don't get it appropriated by June 30'', 2024, I think it might sit there for another year or two to try to get it allotted. But it doesn't show up here. I'm just kind of curious. MS. SAKO: It's because I think we only show it in the year that it's appropriated. Because,just like the State, we have multiple years to spend it. Just our appropriations are good for the current year plus two more. MS. EVANS: Okay. All right. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Since Parks isn't here, I'll direct this to you. Just looking forwardI mean, fully support. Obviously, very much needed. We've got a growing population; a lot of families, keiki, down there. As we look at expanding more parks for our County, does that mean we need larger Parks and Rec. staffing? Larger budgets for all the maintenance? MS. SAKO: Definitely, in the future we will. Yeah. As we bring on new facilities, especially if they're largeI mean, Parks does a good job analyzing. They know what they can take care of with their current capacity. But, definitely, if we add on large facilities, we will need to add staff at a later date. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. And maintenance costs? MS. SAKO: All of that, yes. MS. KAGIWADA: Yeah, because I know we have a lot I know I have some in my district, older parks that are—and other parks facilities that are needing a lot Page 78 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 of TLC (tender loving care). So just want to balance and keep the bigger picture in mind. But, yeah, like I said, I know it's a growing population and really needed there. But, yeah. MS. SAKO: But, yeah, it will bring additional costs in the future, for sure. MS. KAGIWADA: All right. Thank you for keeping your eye on all that. I appreciate it. And thanks for bringing this forward. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I just want to note, I can't recall which section of Code particularly, but there is a mandate that, based on the number of folks in a community, we should have a park. And I think we all recognize—and none of this was our doing,just the grave injustice in the creation of the Puna and Ka`u subdivisions, the lack of infrastructure. And so we're paying for that today. And so there are, obviously, going to be costs associated with building out a park, but I do think it's important for us to think about various public-private partnerships. We have great Friends of the Park agreements, but we also have a really awesome and great maintenance crew that serves every region of our island. And so we can morph these into green jobs, potentially, even, our park caretakers. But I just want to point that out, that, yes, it is an investment, but it is owed to our community. Thank you for the latitude. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Sorry. CHR. KIMBALL: Anyone else? I'm just going to ask a quick thumbs-up from Corporation Counsel back there. I don't think this is an ethics issue, but I feel like I should disclose: I believe my husband may have been involved in some early design work with this park. So I don't think there's any issue with me voting on the capital improvement because there'd be a procurement stuff that happened if there any further design activities. But just wanted to make sure that we're all good there. I could be wrong. I'm not entirely sure he was on this project, but I think he was. He might have been subbed under yeah. (Note: At this time, Assistant Corporation Counsel J Yoshimoto came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. YOSHIMOTO: Good afternoon, Council Members. So you're not sure. Page 79 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: I think he was a sub under the SSFM (International Inc.) on some of the early design work, yeah, and the master plan. MR. YOSHIMOTO: So, out of the abundance of caution, I would recommend that you recuse yourself to make the record clear. You already made your disclosure. It's your call but that would be recommendation. CHR. KIMBALL: I prefer to operate with caution, so I will recuse myself from this decision-making. All those in favor of the amendment proposed in Communication 136.53,please say "aye." Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.53 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, and Lee Loy —7. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: Chair Kimball — 1. CHR. KIMBALL: All right. On to the next item, 136.54 from Council Member Evans. Motion to Amend: Ms. Evans moved to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 136.54. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. Well, in my huge learning curve, I got the CIP lapse report and saw that there'sI could have brought forward possibly the reappropriation, but it was for a hurricane shelter\gymnasium\community center. And it has been on the books for several years now. And I realized that to really get to where we need to go, we need to understand where we're going to site it, what size, and then eventually we'll have to do an environmental assessment. And then, eventually, we'll be coming in and asking for maybe a bond, and that might take six or ten years from now. But to get where we're going to go, we need to do that site analysis. The good news is the County has their 250-plus acres. Susan Kunz is working. I spoke with her. If we can do the site analysis, she can go in to the County land there, and they can figure out the size and the proper location to site a gymnasium. And that would be the beginning of something that would come into the future. Page 80 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Now, I have to build on this idea of our Councilman Kierkiewicz talked about a grave injustice. It really bugs me that you have a community of over 7,000 people, and they do not have a covered play court. They don't have a gymnasium. I drive up to Waimea; they have six indoor gymnasiums. I go to Hawi, Kapa`au; they have two. There's this perception that somehow the middle school in Waimea is going to get a gymnasium, but the Department of Education does not build gymnasiums for middle schools normally. They build them for high schools. We're a long ways away from a high school. It may not even be placed in Waikoloa. It might be up in Waimea. That future is way out so far from being determined. But, in the meantime, I'd really like to see us at least put aside the location because we have the County land there. But we need to do our siting. And so instead of reappropriating the 500,000, I'm asking for your support for 200,000 to do the siting and analysis and the siting, and actually the correct size to put aside the County land for a gymnasium. So this is just the beginning of many years, I think, to get us where we need to go. So I ask for your support. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Evans, for advancing this. I'm going to support this with the tale: How do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. And I think what you touched upon was before it was a community center, a gym, an emergency shelter. And sometimes when it's just too big and too broad, it's hard to nail something down. I do understand the wisdom in that because you can actually access a whole lot of different types of funding, especially if it's an emergency shelter. But following your lead, absolutely. Just in support. Look forward to helping you champion other funding to help realize this project for the district. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I can hear Tim Richards right now. Fully in support. I'll be supporting this today. Good job. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the amendment in Communication 136.54,please say "aye." Page 81 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 31, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 136.54 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: The amendment in 136.54 has passed. Any more capital improvement amendments? We got them all? All right. We have a motion on the floor to approve Bill No. 31, Draft 3, as further amended. Any discussion on the main motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of adopting Bill 31, Draft 3, as subsequently amended, please say "aye." Vote on Bill 31: The motion to pass Bill 31, Draft 3, as amended to Draft 4, Draft 4 on second and final reading was carried by the following (Adopted) 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: The capital budget has been approved. Yay. All right, can I get a motion to remove Bill 31 from the table? Vote on Motion to Mr. Inaba moved to remove Bill 30, Draft 3, from the table. Remove from Table: Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy and carried by the following (Approved) 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: Let's see. Let me just collect—are we on your, I think 34, yes, your amendment, Council Member Evans? Okay, go ahead. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I'm brining back after that great discussion I thought we had earlier. I reduced it to 250,000 from 500,000, and ask for your support. Page 82 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: Can I have the motion, please? MS. EVANS: Sorry about that. Motion to Amend: Ms. Evans moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.34. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. KIMBALL: You've already made your statement on that. Any additional comments on the proposed amendment? Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. And I'm sorry, Ms. Evans; I'm not going to be supporting this. And again, it's just the easy way to get things done. And we've just walked through a number of CIP projects, and I just feel like, with some creative descriptors, this could turn into a CIP project. I heard Mr. Pause mention that your emergency evacuation route gets flooded. Maybe there's ways to use, like, emergency access routes,just like we did in Mr. Kaneali`i-KI einfelder's Communication 136.30, to put it on the CIP list. I just think there's got to be other ways, and not chip away at fund balance for these big ticket amounts. But absolutely here to help, here to support, here to help you find funding. And I do know that, in the past, I actually got matching funds from my State Representatives, like Mr. Onishi and others, to help match that money so that when we're moving it in the CIP,just like Ms. Kierkiewicz did with the park, there's already kind of funding programs for different things. Here to help. Here to support. I just can't do it this way. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Let me see if there's anyone else? Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I wasn't here for the conversation, so I'm a little bit behind on this. But it sounds like something that we're actually doing in Ka`u. We're actually using NRCS and Army Corps of Engineer money for this. I guess, for me, I would like to see this sort of like more an island-wide sort of perspective because there's drainage issues everywhere. So, a lot of places, anyway. So I guess, following on with what Ms. Lee Loy was saying, can't really support it like this, but would like to see it sort of more in an island-wide perspective. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Anyone else? Back to you, Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. I think I'm going to build on Director Sako's statement and also Pause's statement that, until we do a study and understand what is causing these horrific floods that is happening below Waikoloa into the ocean, this study, I hope, will lead us to, do we need a capital improvement Page 83 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 project? Are we going to be changing roads? Are we going to be going in and causing some major capital improvements? At this point it time, we just don't really understand what all is causing the problems. And the other thing is researching floodplain management. And I went to NRCS myself and talked to them about it, and they told me, "No, you're not going to get any money in NRCS to do a study like that." I went, "Okay." But, hopefully, with us having information so that we have what we need to pursue what we hope is grants from the Corps and from FEMA and maybe some other places, that this will help us get there. And I would like to think that this is going to help all of the districts on the island because we are an island. Our mountains are pretty steep. We're having problems with runoff. But I truly believe that the problems I'm having is being caused by the development that's going on Waikoloa. They're allowing all this new subdivision, and like, again, the County is going to be putting in a 250-acre housing project. And all this continuous putting in of impervious surfaces is just going to be adding to this problem. So, you knowI mean, you've got to vote your conscience, but I just really hope that I think we need to help this community, and I think this is the way to go and I hope you support it. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Deanna, you can help me with this one. You said before today that you think this belongs as a General Fund pull, not a CIP. MS. SAKO: We've had other studies like this. Not maybe like this, but whether it's the study to work on Hilo Bay or other things. I think the problem is studies in the past have always been, like, $50,000, $25,000; much smaller areas. So, we can go back and look if it's something that we can try and do in capital project fund. There's not currently, you know, upon authorization that includes this project, but, yeah, we can see what we can do. But I think part of it is the dollar amount of the study. I mean, if this is where all of them are going to be in the future, this is huge. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is there any other funding source we can draw from within our accounting other than fund balance, or anything that exists already that kind of catches, say, if it was every district, that would catch all of them? MS. SAKO: I mean, I think the concern isI mean, whether it's any of the general fund revenues would support it. Page 84 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I can see this tying in to, like, climate change. I mean, do we have any ? MS. SAKO: Right. I'm kind of thinking that when OSCER (Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity, and Resilience) is created, or if and when, that this would be the type of project. I know some of it is probably the development, as Council Member Evans said, but there's also much more rain and heavier. The three inches an hour I think we talked about, that's contributing to this as well. So I think I did, likeI can't say it exactly how it was, but it's not just climate change but climate weird or whatever it was. CHR. KIMBALL: Climate weirding. MS. SAKO: Weirding, yes. I really like that because we have been seeing, you know, these hundred year rains are coming much more often. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, I kept hearing that: Hundred year rains. It's not hundred years. It's every MS. SAKO: No. It's like every other year or every ten MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ten or every five. MS. SAKO: Yeah. But I think this is the type of project that the team at OSCER could look for and could try to help them find grants or facilitate that to see what we need to do. And then Director Pause and I also talked about working with FEMA yet again on mitigation dollars because we can't keep letting the communities get flooded. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, I mean, if we have—Ashley and I both have similar issues in Puna. There has been a Puna flood study in the past. Actually, she just reminded me that I did, via resolution, the request for Army Corps of Engineers to do a flood study, LIDAR study, in Puna. Ultimately, they decided not to do the project. And it's hard because when you don't have an actual river or a stream that's not seasonal, it's hard for them to look at what flooding is (inaudible). MS. SAKO: Oh, I see what you're saying. So Army Corps of Engineers can't do it. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, they wouldn't touch it. MS. SAKO: So we would have to get somebody else to do it. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. I can see the importance of it, but I'm also trying to figure out how, where we fund, and kind of(inaudible)but Page 85 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Ms. Lee Loy is saying. But I also knowI saw videos of the flooding and it was impressive. You have like a five-foot river coming out of nowhere on the side of that hotel. I forget the name of it. (Inaudible.) MS. SAKO: I think we all agree we need to do it. It's just what the right funding source is. And reality is, it's probably maybe something we need to look for grant funding for, or a new stream or something. But this is probably not the only district that's going to need some of that. But unless we're going to say it's all going to lead to drainage improvements or something like that, I don't think we know yet what the answer is because it might be we just have to fortify or create diversions, or I don't know. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, these are not small projects too. MS. SAKO: Right. Ultimately, we don't know what we're going to do yet, but yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? Great. I'll just add I'm going to support this. Thank you for listening to the conversation earlier, Council Member Evans, and making adjustments. To the point about there's certainly going to be a need for island-wide evaluation about our various floodplains. I think what makes this area different and exceptional is the amount of development that has happened in a short period of time without sort of a holistic review about what that impact would be on the ultimate movement of water in that area. I'm going to support this at this level as kind of an indication that this is a priority to the County. I might have some other ideas for funding besides Army Corps that I can tie you with, but I think it's okay for us to put this in there as a representation of our commitment to this. With that, we'll go ahead. I'll ask for a roll call on this one, please, Clerk. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.34 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Chair Kimball —5. Noes: Council Members Galimba, Kierkiewicz, and Lee Loy —3. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. Page 86 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: All right. So the operating budget Bill 30, Draft 3, is amended with the contents of Communication 135.35. That brings us to 135 I'm sorry. Passed is 135.34. Now, we go to amendment 135.35 with Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.35. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Give me one second, Chair. So this amendment is in response to over a year's request from some of our staff in our Highways Division, in the Maintenance section. And, really, this request is a few things. There is one position that has not been filled, and that has got some differing opinions on whether it should be filled or not. And, ultimately, what was expressed to me, again year over year, is that Highway department could make more progress if they had their own engineer and own surveyor, which will allow them to get projects done quicker because they can actually survey them themselves, engineer, and not have to collaborate with other departments in the same division. This is a simple request, but it does a few things. It creates the funding that would allow for these positions to be funded. And it also, if done, would need to be collaborated with the Administration as well to create positions, because we, as a Council, can't create positions but we can fund. So, without me being able to actually create the positions, because I do think there is great need for this, I am hoping to put the funding in place so that the Administration and the Maintenance Division can actually put these positions in place and begin to do projects faster on our roadways. That, really, is the crux of this one. So I look for everyone's support. I don't think this is in the supplementals. Again, this is part of this. I've been here for four years, and I hear different things in the community. When I hear three, four years in a row, then I bring it forward regardless of whether it came to us as a supplemental or not. So, I look forward to any questions. Hopefully, I can answer them. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, for your school of thought on this one. I actually see it a little different. This year, correct me if I'm wrong, Ms. Sako, we put$4.5 million into he Highway Fund to help pave roads. And I have some larger concerns about having enough resources to spend down $4.5 million because there are so many road projects going on in the State. Page 87 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 When I first started this job, there was a desire to pave roads in-house, and it was brought to my attention that when we do that, every mile of road we pave, we continue to pay for that employee's time over the lifespan within the County, and then within the retirement system. And so, ideally, you want to strike a balance between in-house paving and contract work. Because when we contract the work out, we pay one time. Their salary and wages is paid for the project, but their retirement is done by the company that they work for. And so I think we have more than enough resources and funding within that Highway Fund, along with the work that is planned to go from 25 miles to 36 miles and how we do that. I think I would love to see where they get in six months, because it wouldn't hurt for us to do a budget amendment at a future time. And I'm just taking a pulse on everything that's going on construction-wise across the State. And I heard one comment from a contractor that there is going to be a great desire for blacktop because a lot of that is being redirected to Honolulu Airport to pave their airport. And so we don't even have a needs assessment on our resources. I do like the idea of the department being trigger-ready: having the engineer, having the equipment. "We've got money. You guys go." I think it's about striking a balance between the two, and I don't think it hurts us to just slow it down a little bit because we can do it a little later in the year. Just my thoughts. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Anyone else? Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. I see Director Pause here. I wanted to just get your thoughts on this amendment. MR. PAUSE: Hello. Steve Pause, Director of Public Works. I caught the beginning of the conversation about creating positions. Maybe, Council Member, if you could just summarize the amendment,please. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, could you summarize the amendment for the Director? Do you have a copy of the amendment? MR. PAUSE: I do not. This is actually quite new to me. CHR. KIMBALL: All right, if you don't mind, Council Member Inaba, I'll just pitch it back to Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder to describe what's going on. Page 88 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Pause. So the thought process behind this amendment would be to use the Highway Fund balance to createsorry, we cannot create new positions. That is ultimately up to the Administration to create $200,000 in a funding source in the Highway Maintenance Admin. Salary and Wages account, which would allow them to utilize those funds towards possible creation, with the Administration's assistance, for an engineer and a surveyor, which has been expressed to me over the years, even before your time here, to help get projects ready and to the table faster. Because, we have limited staffing in other departments, and there's a lot of collaboration that has to go into these different projects from the different departments under Public Works. And with that, I'm going to hand it back over to Mr. Inaba. MR. PAUSE: Okay, thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Director Pause, thoughts on that. MR. PAUSE: Yeah, so, as I just expressed, this is sort of news to me. I have had conversations in the past with the Highways Division Chief. I don't personally think this is a good idea for a number of reasons. First of all, we have a very competent engineering staff/division that includes land surveying and the consistency that they provide for completing work, whether it's roads, whether it's culverts, whether it's bridges. We have a bridge engineer that works within the Engineering Division. So the level of consistency that rolls up by having one chief engineer managing the Engineering Division I think is critical in order to competently exercise all of our duties across the island for infrastructure. The same goes for land surveyor. We have land surveyors, a group, available that does that work as well, and provides that level of consistency. I caught the beginning or the tail end of Council Member Lee Loy's comments as well, that, when in fact we run light, whether if it's the staffing or whether it's a large amount of project work, we do reach out to contract professional services. And we have that available to us, using Highway Funds as well. So I don't support this at all. MR. INABA: Thank you, Director Pause. I think the intention is good, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, but based on Director Pause's—how he's running the department in terms of structure and what happens in which divisions, I cannot support this amendment. And again, even though it doesn't guarantee the positions be created, I think it's already demonstrated that they probably wouldn't. So, funds might be better spent if we need more engineers or surveyors in those divisions where they already exist, not in Highway Maintenance. Thank you, I yield. Page 89 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Anyone else? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pause. I appreciate that. Deanna, what is the—maybe you know this, Mr. Pause. What is the fund balance right now in the Highways Fund? MR. PAUSE: You may have a better number, but at the last I knew, it was about 20 million. MS. SAKO: Yeah, they are utilizing part of that to get up from the 25 to the 36 million. So it will come down in the upcoming fiscal year. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Sorry, what is it, though, right now? MS. SAKO: It's roughly in that neighborhood. They've appropriated some of it during the year. I didn't bring it up here with me, but yeah. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: About 20? MS. SAKO: Yeah, 18 million to 20 million range,probably. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Eighteen to twenty million. So not quite the point. I'm just, you know, getting at it. We do have the funding. How's the staffing levels in Engineering and in Surveying? Because, you're saying we have appropriate staff and we're ready to go, but you're also saying when we do have shortages, we may have to look for outside contractors. MR. PAUSE: It's fairly normal for us to contract out professional engineering services for larger projects, or for things that go beyond our capabilities. I don't have an engineering staff that could, say, design a new bridge. So things like that. And then, also, to help us with the environmental impact work that has to be done as part of getting a project ready. So, the front end, I call it front-end loading. It's all of the work that goes into developing the project, picking the right alternative, identifying the environmental requirements. A lot of that study that then leads to the detailed design work, we contract out. Our engineering staff has the ability to do smaller types of tasks, and there's a large amount of project management work that has to be done by our engineering staff. So, when we're, say, contracting construction work on a large project, there's paperwork. Federal funding requires us to do a lot of paperwork in terms of tracking. The nuts and bolts engineering, we have engineering staff that is capable of doing the thingsa simple job might be to design a drywell or to replace a culvert pipe. The work that we just did on Alii Drive, the undermining of the road. A task like Page 90 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 that, we have the capacity to do that work and we self-perform. But again, my biggest concern is distributing the work across multiple divisions. It doesn't— from oesn'tfrom a consistency standpoint, it's not something that I would recommend. I would like to have all my engineers working in one structure. Our divisions all work really well together. We keep talking about paving, right. So the paving guys are out there doing a great job. We will make 36 miles in another month. But they're trailed by the traffic guys who come in. And we work with the community to look at various ways to restripe in consideration of Complete Streets and things like that. So the divisions do work well together. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Has there been a delay where Highways is waiting on something, and they can't get to their project because and I don't know this. I'm asking—where engineering is behind the ball or surveyors can't get there because we can't find somebody to (inaudible). MR. PAUSE: In my short tenure here, you said the word "ever." There hasn't been a delay that I'm aware of. When you look at"ever,"that's a very long time. And I'm sure it's happened. Again, from an engineering and a project standpoint, we also have to set priorities, right. Highways could be outdoing their job tomorrow, and then the forecast comes in, and we all have to get ready for a hurricane. So we kind of have to reposition ourselves and look at priorities. And that's done kind of in the project world, where we maybe had the best intent to go out and do some work that's just replacing an old culvert pipe. And then, next thing you know, we get a heavy rainstorm, and we're out there and something else is screaming louder. Again, I'm pretty comfortable with the way that our divisions work together. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Well, I'm not going to dive for this one, but I did want to bring it forward to make the possibility an option if you and others see fit. So, if the Council doesn't say "yes,"then we go on from there. Thank you, Mr. Pause. I yield. MR. PAUSE: Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? All right, Mr. Clerk, roll call for this one,please. Page 91 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.35 failed by the following roll call vote: Failed Ayes: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Noes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —6. Absent: Council Members Inaba and Villegas —2. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: All right, the amendment in Communication 135.35 fails. Are there any other operating budget amendments that we're waiting for or that I am not seeing in front of me? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair, I did have the one that we withdrew earlier, but I was able to get the Police Department online to answer questions. And I wanted to potentially bring that back to the table. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay. Please refresh my memory what the number was on that communication. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That is Communication 135.18. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay, why don't you you can make a motion, then, to amend the budget with that communication, and we can bring it back. Yes, Mr. Clerk? MR. BROWN: Yes, we can. Are we doing that right now at this time? I would like to just make sure I have the proper communication in front of me. Are we doing that right now? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: If there's no communications that came after this one, then yes. CHR. KIMBALL: I think we have exhausted all of the other communications. Oh, looks like we have somebody from HPD online, so we're good there. So go ahead and make the motion, please. Motion to Amend: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Comm. 135.18. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. KIMBALL: Go ahead, Council Member. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Chair. We had a discussion earlier, and thank you for joining us today, Captain Amon-Wilkins. So Page 92 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 we had a brief discussion on this. There were questions that I really couldn't answer, and I thought it'd be best for someone from the department to answer. So thank you for being here. (Note: At this time, Police Captain Rio Amon-Wilkins came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. AMON-WILKINS: Sorry, I couldn't be (inaudible). MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Say again? MR. AMON-WILKINS: Sorry, I wasn't available earlier. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No, understood. You guys are busy. What we have in front of us is the amendment to move 87,000 from the fund balance to the CID (Criminal Investigation Division) four-wheel drive vehicle request. And then the questions range from across the board, but I think I'd like to have the Council Members ask of you their questions rather than me. Chair, I yield for the time being. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here, available to us. Could you please describe for us this vehicle and the need for it? MR. AMON-WILKINS: Looking for a—good afternoon. Looking for a four- wheel drive pickup truck, preferably four-door. I am responsible for the Area I Criminal Investigation Division. We handle most complex felony investigations. Area I is Hamakua, Hilo, and Puna. As you know, there are many remote areas in those districts. We cover Waipi`o Valley. From time to time, we have to go down there for criminal cases, as well as sometimes up to the summit of Mauna Kea. And mostly, actually, the district of Puna, both upper and lower. So there's many areas that are fairly remote and require a four-wheel drive. Oftentimes, we have to recover large pieces of evidence, which simply won't fit in normal police vehicles and subsidized vehicles. Our evidence specialists do have a van; however, there's a lot of supplies in that van, and it could be difficult to put large evidence items in there as well. We also need to sometimes take large pieces of equipment to crime scenes depending on the location and the type of crime that it is. Sometimes we have to hold the scene overnight, and we'll need to set up tents to preserve evidence or potentially have Page 93 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 to take a generator and lighting system to a crime scene as well. So having this vehicle would just allow us to provide better police service and also in a faster manner. MS. KAGIWADA: And you say that this type of vehicle that could perform these things is not available currently anywhere for you to use? MR. AMON-WILKINS: I do not have one readily available, no. MS. KAGIWADA: Because I know that there was just an approval to allow you to subsidize people's personal pickup trucks for use on the force. Does that open the possibilities now that you've done that? MR. AMON-WILKINS: Chief Moszkowicz did change our policy, as you mentioned, to allow officers to use certain pickup trucks as their subsidized vehicle. As of this point, nobody in this division has put in a request for one of those vehicles. So it's something that is optional for each officer. This vehicle that we're requesting would be something that belongs to the division where it could be used by any division personnel who needed it, as well as the evidence specialist who does not have a subsidized vehicle. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. And $87,000 for one truck. That's aI'm sorry, I drive a car that's under $30,000. That's normal for a truck? MR. AMON-WILKINS: Depends on the type of truck that you want. I think the average cost for a truck now, a full-size truck, ranges anywhere from into the sixties, into the eighties. That was a rough figure. We'd probably also like to purchase a camper shell to put on the pickup truck as well because that could help us protect evidence when we're transporting it, you know, from the elements. And that would also leave us a little bit of room to potentially get off-road tires. Many trucks don't come with off-road tires. They come with street tires. So that would be an added cost. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Thank you for being here and answering my questions. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Vice Chair Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Like I said earlier, I was wondering if somebody from Police would be here to share if there's a need in Area II as well. MR. AMON-WILKINS: There is a need in Area II. I think there is a little based on—like I said, Waipi`o Valley, the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, those are areas that are covered by Area I, this side of the island. There's a new captain in, my counterpart, in Area IICaptain Prudencio. We Page 94 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 have a great working relationship. Should he reach out to me and say that he needs assistance, in a heartbeat we'd be out there to help him or he could utilize the same vehicle. MR. INABA: So is the answer to the question "Yes, we do need a vehicle out on the west side," or you don't feel it's necessary? Because, right now, I mean you're here representing your district, as is Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, based on the need that's been shared, but I was hoping that by this afternoon we'd have an understanding if there was a need island-wide, also understanding that we have the ability to subsidize trucks now. So is it"yes" or "no" for Area II? MR. AMON-WILKINS: I believe that Kona(inaudible) really have a need. I believe that Area II, Kona, may have a need. I think,just based on the layout of the districts, where our department is set up, Area I, like I said, it encompasses all of Puna. Some of the most remote areas on the island that Police frequently have to access are in that district. As well as, like I said, Waipi`o Valley, we don't have to access down there very often but the need does arise, as well as the mountains. MR. INABA: Thank you, Captain. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, were you able to talk to anybody else in the Police Department regarding potential need across the County for items like this? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No. MR. INABA: Okay. This doesn't specifyor, Director Sako, can you confirm that this—is this specific to Area I in either the budget section or line item? MS. SAKO: Let me see where we're adding it to. No, it's just under Police Admin. So it could be for any equipment. MR. INABA: Okay. With that, then, if there's a need on the west side then I hope the Police Administration would consider either splitting or also sharing these funds with Area IL So I will support this. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. I'm actually trying to manage expectations. Deanna, when we do equipment purchases like this, what's the time line as far as it going out for bid and procurement process, and actually delivery of a vehicle? MS. SAKO: So we kind of do larger equipment about three times a year. So they could get it in right in the beginning of the fiscal year in July. But when we bid it out, the delivery times have been extremely long since COVID. The supply chain issues have impacted our vehicles and large equipment probably the most; unless they were going to go for used equipment, they may be able to get it sooner. Page 95 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. LEE LOY: Was this in our Police Department's supplemental budget? MS. SAKO: Not that we could find, no. MS. LEE LOY: How does it work when we pull money out of fund balance to purchase, when the vehicle delivery is years down the road? And I guess I'm there's a better management plan, because in addition to this vehicle, we have to think about cost as far as repair and maintenance and tires and the like. MS. SAKO: Yeah, definitely. I'm not sure if this is replacing an existing vehicle. If it's replacing an existing vehicle, then we've already kind of incorporated that into the budget. If it's an additional one, we will need to start budgeting for those additional costs. Depending on how long it takes to come in, it could be that those additional costs aren't really seen till later fiscal years. MS. LEE LOY: Captain Amon-Wilkins, thanks for being here. Is this to replace a vehicle or brand new vehicle? You've heard the Finance Director. MR. AMON-WILKINS: It's not actually to replace a vehicle. We used to have an old blue-and-white Expedition that we actually gave to Kona, Area II. We transferred it over there, I don't know, maybe about three years ago when Kona got evidence specialist positions. Initially, we had two evidence specialist positions in our department; they were both in Hilo. And then, several years ago, the department added two more evidence specialist positions in Kona. They did not have any vehicle to use. We have the lab van here. I think Robert Wagner was the Assistant Chief at the time, and we actually transferred that Expedition to them. We haven't recently had a vehicle which this would be replacing the short answer. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Captain Amon-Wilkins. And so, if I heard you correctly, we have two evidence specialists, but we've added two more. So we have a total of four, correct? MR. AMON-WILKINS: We have a total of four evidence specialist positions: Two in Kona, or Area II, and two in Hilo, Area L However, both of them we have two vacancies, one on each side of the island. We only have one evidence specialist currently on each side of the island. It's another one of those positions that, due to the minimum qualifications, we've had a very difficult time filling those positions. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks for your responses. Deanna, thanks for being here. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Evans. Page 96 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. EVANS: Deanna? Sorry. It's about money. MS. SAKO: I'll just stay here. Sorry. MS. EVANS: I guess my bigger question is, I don't see the Chief here and I was just curious. Is the Chief in the loop on knowing another motor vehicle is being asked for? Because, it will have an impact on his maintenance and operation budget. MR. AMON-WILKINS: Yes, ma'am, he does. I mean, through my chain of command, he has been notified of this request, and he is in support of it. MS. EVANS: Okay. And then following along with Member Inaba's comments, there's a lot of need for four-wheel drives to get out on those roads. Up where I'm at in North Kohala, there's some really nasty roads I've been on that you couldn't pass them without a four-wheel drive. So do you have any idea how many four-wheel drive vehicles do we have? Is it just regular sedans that have four-wheel drive? Do we have other, I guess, to get out into those areas? MR. AMON-WILKINS: I don't know exactly what types of vehicles Area II CID has, Criminal Investigation Section and Vice Section. I do know that, like I mentioned previously, the Expedition, which was an old blue-and-white, which the light rack was taken off, that vehicle we did send to Kona several years ago. I believe the Criminal Investigation Section and the evidence specialist there is still utilizing that vehicle. As far as what other vehicles they have at their disposal, I really can't speak to. MS. EVANS: Okay. For Director Sako, the question is this is criminal investigations. So I take it there's no money from the Prosecuting Attorney? MS. SAKO: We can check with them, but usually not. Usually, it's up to Police to safeguard and gather the evidence. And probably the Expedition he's referring to is probably one of the 2008s or older. So, it's probably not a very new vehicle. The Police Department, overall, has a lot of SUVs, trucks, and different vehicles, vans, for transport. But you know how they're broken up within the department, I'm not positive on. So, I mean, if it comes to safeguarding evidence and Prosecuting Attorney's ability to prosecute the case, obviously we understand the importance of them having the vehicle. MS. EVANS: Is there money from the Prosecuting Attorney? MS. SAKO: Not a specific grant. Even Police, we've gotten some forfeiture funds, not a lot. I don't know that there's any specific grants. Usually, we have to be more specific when we're requesting equipment in the grants. Page 97 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. EVANS: I agree with Member Kagiwada: 87,000 is a lot. Obviously, it doesn't mean it'll be spent to the max, but— MS. utMS. SAKO: I'm not sure how we came up with the estimate. Does this include lights or any additions to the vehicle? Or is that just the going rate right now? Did somebodyI don't know if it was Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder or the Police Department that came up with the estimate. But equipment is definitely going up, and vehicles is one of the areas we're really getting hit hard with, unfortunately. MS. EVANS: Okay. All right, I yield. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Okay. I'm going quickly to Council Member Lee Loy, and then you can wrap us up, Council Member. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you for the second opportunity. Deanna, what's the decision matrix when they're looking for vehicles? Because what I would hate for—because we all want to support the Police,just like we want to support Fire. What we would hate is this process is getting short-circuited right at the eleventh hour because we've been having conversations with our buddies, our friends, or just people we know. And then, all of a sudden, a decision matrix that's put out to the department when they're asking for equipment, and there's a cadence or a rhyme or a reason to it, that we're not short-circuiting the process with this here at the eleventh hour. MS. SAKO: Well, I'm glad he said the Chief is aware because, ultimately, it's going to come down to the Police Department. The money will be put in the budget. It will say "four-wheel drive vehicle, CID." Hopefully, they'll carry that through, but ultimately, the Police has to determine what the total cost is. We also budgeted for our new blue-and-whites. We don't know the true cost of those. I mean, until it's actually bid out, we don't have the final cost. So things could come over. Things could come under. But, ultimately, it'd be for the Police to monitor their budget. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. But are we aware of, like, a decision matrix based on age, based on need, based on number of users? MS. SAKO: Oh, sorry, yeah. For the general vehicles in the County, Automotive is usually the one to say, "The cost of the repair is going to exceed the value of the vehicle, and so it's time to call it quits already." So they'll kind of condemn them, so to speak. But we definitely look at age. We look at mileage. In this case, it's more of a need factor. But we do kind of try to pay attention to the older vehicles or the ones with 200,000 miles or more, things like that, so that we are trying to pay attention to those. Page 98 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 I think one of the things is that, on our island, we end up having to buy a lot more four-wheel drive type vehicles just to access the locations that the Captain was talking about. Definitely, those are not easy-to-get-to areas. So, anytime you add four-wheel drive or anything like that, and because it's evidence, you kind of want it in an enclosed area. I mean, I totally get why they're asking for what they're asking for. It's unfortunate the cost of everything is going up so much. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. And maybe, Captain Amon-Wilkins,just maybe as a pet project for you, if you could kind of do some collection around the use of this vehicle so that we, as Council Members, can make better decisions for future budgets and how we plan for our vehicle repair and maintenance, along with the lifespan of some of these vehicles. Because I completely understand. Patrol, they're going to run it into the ground, whereas CID would be called out on special incidences. And maybe you can help, on top of all the other great stuff you're doing for us,just collect some information around that. Thanks. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. I want to highlight here that this is something that the Police Department came to myself and asked, "Hey, this is something that we need to better serve community, but also to do our investigations,"which leads to the prosecuting attorneys being able to do their jobs better and just really, as a whole, helps our whole community be safer. The cost is expensive but, I mean, I looked at new trucks. They're expensive. Everything's expensive. There's two really nice, older used trucks in the parking lot where the Council Members park. One is mine and one is Michelle's. Those were 50 grand, 60 grand, back when we bought them in 2006. So, right now, what the cost for everything is, it's out of control. That's not really something that we can do to control. But with what's needed by the department, this is a rough estimate of what cost is going to be. I'm hoping they can stretch the money. But I just want to say, Mr. Amon-Wilkins, thank you for being here today to kind of give us some background. There were a lot of questions. You've helped make this easier for me. I'm going to support this today, and I'm hoping everyone else does as well. Thank you, Chair. MR. AMON-WILKINS: Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much, Chair. I'm not going to be supporting this just because I think it should have gone through the department, and it should Page 99 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 have been listed as a supplemental if it was something that is needed. It seems like maybe it wasn't a priority for the department overall, and hopefully, maybe next year come back with it on the list for what the department wants, and I would be happy to support it then. But I'm going to be not supporting it today. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kagiwada. Anyone else? I just had a quick question for Director Sako. You're getting your steps in today. You mentioned that we had funded a number of blue-and-whites for the Police Department. Is there an opportunity to retool what we're looking for in any of those vehicles to match the specifications, or have they already kind of been figured out what is asked for and where they're going? MS. SAKO: I think we're kind of trying to replace the blue and the whites, one for one, like what we had purchased before. So I assume they're assigned to various districts around the island. I'm not sure exactly what that distribution is, so I don't know if there would be any extras as they get retired, some of the older vehicles. I'm really not sure how well any of them are running anymore. I mean, these are pretty old vehicles. Many of them are from 2008 or earlier, I believe. CHR. KIMBALL: Okay, all right. That was it, the only question I had. Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: I'm quite on the fence on this mostly because of sort of the procedural part of it sort of coming from left field a bit. On the other hand, I can see the need for it. MS. SAKO: So just in the defense of the Police Department, the budget was prepared under the old chief. And then the new chief came into office. So I can see where things might have been a little bit cloudier this year. But yeah, we didn't know about it, which is kind of why we didn't include it. But, at the same time, they were kind of between chiefs. So I don't know if that maybe led to part of this as well. MS. GALIMBA: I see. Thanks. Well, it's kind of interesting. I was talking to my brother, and he had heard about the new policy allowing trucks. He lives in California, and he was like, "Hmm, that doesn't seem like the right way to go because of liability," and I was like, "Liability? What do you mean?" And he said, "Well, it's a liability if you basically, people can sort of impersonate officers more easily in an unmarked vehicle." I was like "Wow, that's kind of a good point." So I think I'm kind of tipping towards supporting this on that very tiny basis of wanting to have more vehicles that are marked and really belonging to the Police Department to sort of move away from our current practice. And obviously, it's going to be a long-term kind of a thing. But I think that is a really good point about liability of our current practice. So, yeah, I will be supporting this. Page 100 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 CHR. KIMBALL: All right. Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Anyone else? All right, let's do a roll call on this, please, Mr. Clerk. Vote on Motion to The motion to amend Bill 30, Draft 3, with the contents of Amend: Comm. 135.18 was carried by the following roll call vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, and Chair Kimball —7. Noes: Council Member Kagiwada— 1. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. CHR. KIMBALL: Bill No. 30, Draft 3, is amended with the contents of Communication 135.18. Are there any other amendments that we have that we are waiting for? Okay, that brings us back to the main motion: Bill 30, Draft 3, as subsequently amended. Any further discussion? Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: I think just before we wrap up and in light of this vote to approve the budget, I want to thank everybody in Finance Department for all of your work months back, and for being here to answer all of our questions. We really appreciate you folks. Thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair, Council Member Inaba(inaudible). MS. LEE LOY: Just following that lead, I do want to thank Finance, but I also want to thank Donna. I think the person who got the most steps for us today was Donna, who, on the fly, was making so many of these budget amendments. So thank you so much for all that hard work. I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: To Donna and Susan in LRB, and then, Ms. Chloe, probably going to be you next year too. And then, Deanna, thank you to you and your team for getting everything to this point, and then helping us through today, and every single text I know you must get from us. And then, also, I'm just going to mahalo my staff because they hate me right now. But thank you for the opportunity, Chair. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone else? MS. EVANS: Yes, please. CHR. KIMBALL: Council Member Evans. Page 101 Hawaii County Council-14 June 1,2023 MS. EVANS: Thank you. I have to say, Director Sako, I just appreciate you were available when I needed to ask these questions over the last week. And being a new kid on the block, which I can soon this is my first budget. Now, I'm not a new kid on the block anymore. I went through it. There was a lot to digest, and I look at the amount of work here that you and your staff do, and just please tell your staff and everybody, "work well done and thank you." CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Evans. Anyone else? Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, are we on the main motion? CHR. KIMBALL: We are on the main motion, yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Oh, okay. I echo everyone's sentiments around thanking Finance and LRB and our teams for all the really well-done work to put together this particular budget. I will be supporting this year's operating budget. I have voted "no" in the past, and so I do want to tell folks that I'm a hundred percent in support of it because we're finally solving for challenges that we had been facing for many years. Increased funding for public safety and recreation and placemaking. We're investing in our personnel. And climate weirding. Right? There's a lot of things that I think were left unaddressed in the past because we were experiencing such a shortage of resources. But now we're being so incredibly strategic in how we're positioning our funds to set future generations up for success. So I'm proudly going to be voting"yes" on this year's budget. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. Anyone else? I want to also send my thanks out to Director Sako and Deputy Director Nakagawa. Thank you so much for all your help in putting the budget together, being here for our questions. I want to thank the folks at LRB that had to help, and the staff members that had to help certain ones of us working on amendments. And then just also to all of the directors and the Administration in general, we thank you for preparing well in advance to describe to us what your intentions were, how your budget matched, budgeting for those outcomes which you're looking forward to in the next couple of years. I feel like this particular budget process was representative of a real strong partnership between the legislative and the administrative branches. I appreciate that from our side, and I think you folks appreciate it as well. With that, we will move forward on the vote for the operating budget. I'm going to request a roll call just so we have it officially. Page 102 Hawai`i County Council-14 June 1,2023 Vote on Bill 30: The motion to pass Bill 30, Draft 3, as amended to Draft 4, (Draft 4) on second and final reading was carried by the following (Adopted) 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. CHR. KIMBALL: We'll just send our best wishes out to Council Member Villegas and her family. 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. (There were none.) ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 2:04 p.m., Ms. Lee Loy moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Mr. Inaba 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 and the time is 2:04. Thank you. Council Approval: AUG ® 2 2023 COU1 CLERK JH/dg Page 103