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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN CRCOC 2024/09/16 (2022-2024)Committee on Communications, Reports, and Council Oversight 3411 Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokdlole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii September 16, 2024 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Communications, Reports, and ORDER: Council Oversight was called to order at 9:02 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Chair Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Vice Chair (via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member (via videoconference from Hilo; came in later) Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Cindy Evans, Member Absent & Excused: Mr. Matt Kdneall'i-Kleinfelder, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 10 13: 2023-2024 ANNUAL REPORT FROM THE KAILUA VILLAGE BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT From Executive Director Ross Wilson, dated August 8, 2024. Motion to Close File: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 1013. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR. VILLEGAS: With that, we'll move on to Mr. Ross Wilson. Thank you for being here today for our annual update. CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 (Note: At this time, Ross Wilson, Executive Director of the Kailua Village Business Improvement District came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. WILSON: Happy to be here. Good morning, everybody. I'm the Executive Director for the Kailua Village Business Improvement District (KVBID). The KVBID transformed historic Kailua Village with its clean and safe initiatives, marketing branding, and special events into the vibrant place that it is today. Some of you may not remember but over 15 years ago, travel agents were directing visitors to turn left at the airport and not turn right because the Village was not up to par, not where it should be. What happened was members of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, specifically Eric Von Platen Luder, Debbie Baker, Marie Aguilar, and others, got together and started to talk about how they could change things. They worked with the businesses and the landowners and the lessees in historic Kailua Village and put together the Kailua Village Business Improvement District. KVBID developed interpretive signs in the Village highlighting the area's cultural heritage; designed year around branding that branded the Village; created event banners; promoted iconic events in the Village, including Kamehameha Day, Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament, Queen Lili`uokalani long distance canoe race, Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, and of course Iron Man. The BID (Business hmprovement District) promotes and funds Kokua Kailua, a monthly outdoor pedestrian -friendly marketplace on Ali`i Drive that attracts a crowd of about 5,000 once a month. The event was yesterday, and the event was created to attract kama`aina and visitors into historic Kailua Village to buy local. We put together a local byway committee, researched and funded Royal Footsteps Along the Kona Coast, the state's second Hawaii scenic byway, in addition to printed materials, and I left a bunch of printed materials on the dais. So, for the folks that are tuning in from Hilo, it's sitting here when you come in. But in addition to the printed materials, we created a free smart phone app so that everyone would have easy access into the culture and history of historic Kailua Village and Ah'i Drive. We've sponsored parking, lighting, and landscape studies, and we even did a Hale Halawai Visioning Project. All of this work resulted in accolades from U.S. News and World Report, best winter vacation spots, best American foodie towns in the Pacific Northwest, named to the top 20 small towns to visit in America by Smithsonian, and ranked by Trip Advisor as the number 10 U.S. destination on the rise. The Kailua Village Business Improvement District would not be in existence without the strong support of the County of Hawaii. The can -do spirit of the County's Finance Department at the time headed up by Bill Takaba, helped the Page 2 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 Kona volunteers move toward to set up only the second business improvement district in the state. Today, there are three. Waikiki has a business improvement district, so do we, and so does the Fort Street Mall in Honolulu. We're governed by clean and safe initiatives, that's what we do. We have a 17-member board, two folks are ex-officio, Steve Pause from the Public Works department, and Hamana Ventura from the Finance Department were represented with the County, with a representative from the Mayor, and a representative from the County, Council Member Rebecca Villegas. We have two zones, Zone 1 and Zone 2. Zone I is basically Ali`i Drive and the gateways corning into the Village. Zone 2 is basically the old industrial area and those areas, and they're assessed at different rates. Zone I is assessed at $1.75 per thousand and Zone 2 at .58 per thousand. The majority of the services are in Zone 1, Ali`i Drive where a lot of the visitors are. We do Block by Block. We hired Block by Block a few years ago. They're a national firm that manages business improvement districts, and we did it because of their national expertise. They manage about a hundred different, or service about a hundred different business improvement districts in the nation. So, we put together the landscaping, janitorial, and security into one contract. It's important for everybody to remember that the services that the BID provides is not to replace county services but to enhance county services. We've done some innovative things in the past year. We started three business watch groups in the BID. We have a business watch group that's centered around the Kona Commons area. We have a business watch group that's centered around the Lanihau area and another one that's centered around Ali`i Drive. So, we meet once a month with the community police officers and members of their security folks and their management, and we talk through the issues in their specific areas. We share information, we share photographs, we're trying to stop the crime in the areas including lots of shoplifting. The Business Improvement District's business watches are successful and it's limiting the amount of nonsense that happens in the Village. We're lighting the Village. We lit up the banyan tree at the pier; we lit up the monkeypod tree in the middle of town at Emma's Square; and we're working with Hulihe`e Palace to light up the big banyan tree in the middle of town. And bringing light into the middle of town really stops some of the criminal nonsense that happens after dark. We started this year on crew ship days, a free historic Kailua Village walking tour. So, at 9:00 in the morning, they gather at the pier and Palena Keeling, one of the kumu hulas, will guide them through the town and talk about Ahu`ena Kamakahonu, Mokuaikaua, Hulihe`e, and some of the other historic sites in the Village. It's free. Some days there's a few people and some there's a lot of people. Page 3 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 We have a new website. We're focusing on the history and culture of the area. Historic Kailua Village is different from a lot of places because we don't have to manufacture the history. The history is there. For the folks that don't live in Kona, three historic things happened here. King Kamehameha ruled the capital of Hawaii from Kailua-Kona from 1812 to 1819. He died here in 1819. The kapu system was broken here in 1819, and in 1820, the missionaries got permission to come ashore. So, the Hawaii you know today, everything changed from what has happened right around Kailua-Kona. Mokuaikaua is the first Christian church in all of Hawaii and Saint Michaels is the first Catholic church in all of Hawaii. After COVID (Coronavirus disease), a lot of the visitor publications went away. There's only a couple of visitor publications today. So, what we did towe have publication racks that are branded throughout the town so that we don't have individual brochure racks everywhere. So, earlier this year, we started a magazine, Historic Kailua Village. It's on the dais for you to look at; a lot of stuff about history and culture. We'll publish that twice a year, and on January 1, we'll put out a second edition of it. We do all the street banners, all the pole banners everywhere, and we've also worked with groups to do the murals in town. The other thing that we've done recently, as it relates to the homeless, we've done a concerted effort working with all of the retailers and all of the grocery stores to take back the shopping carts. So, we're returning them on a daily, on a weekly basis, back to the stores and the stores are picking them up. In 2023, I think the report is in front of you, I think we returned over 500 shopping carts back to the various merchants. What we're trying to do is —well, the shopping carts are expensive. They run from $200 to $1,000 apiece. But the other thing that happens with these shopping carts, they become permanent homes for a lot of the homeless population. And if we don't manage the homeless population, and we're not going to cure it or fix it, but if we don't manage it, it'll hit a tipping point, and it can't be fixed. We've been collaborating —and a thank you to all of the council members. The funding that you all gave to the housing department for social services is helpful. One of the challenges that we have in Kona in West Hawaii is we don't have a lot of the non-profit infrastructure to help, and that's what we need to work on, on this side, but it's helpful. We have Street Medicine, we have Hope Services doing work in Kailua Village, and the homeless population, they're human beings. I met with one yesterday, Jason, and I told Jason straight I said, "Jason, if you don't get off the streets, you're going to die." I said, `We've got to help you." He's in his 60s or 70s and he lives on alcohol. So, we're trying to help him. We've had, unfortunately in the last month or so, at least five or six deaths where they're passing away. We need to do more to combat poverty, but the homeless that we're dealing with is not because of economic issues or poverty issues, the homeless that we're Page 4 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 dealing with are the chronic homeless. We have about 100 that congregate in and around the Village in the bushes, in the doorways and such, and these are the folks that have mental health issues, drug issues, alcohol issues, all of the above. We're doing our part. We've increased our security patrols; we've redesigned our security uniforms to make them more visible. We've put together an ad hoc small committee, Street People Solutions, to come up with some of the short-tenn solutions to fix some of the problems that we were facing. We looked at two distinct areas, Ali`i Drive and Pawai Place. Ali`i Drive, especially in Emma's Square and the small little beach area, Niumalu next to Hulihe`e, tend to be areas where homeless congregate. We clean those areas constantly; we power wash; and we do it especially on ship days to discourage ten or 20 homeless from sitting there panhandling. We've worked on relandscaping areas to make it less hospitable so that people aren't camping there full time, and we also met with the State Department of Health trying to get them to agree to do a drug and alcohol treatment facility with stabilization bids at the old Kona hospital, which was the old Kona courthouse in Kealakekua. We haven't been successful in that regard but we're trying. We changed the built environment in many areas, trimmed up the trees, added rocks and boulders to the areas where people congregate. The real heroes in all of this is the Hawaii County Police Department. I've got to tell you that they're absolutely awesome. They deal with the homeless population, especially the community police, on a daily basis and it's tough work. It's tough dealing with somebody that's mentally impaired or somebody that's on drugs or drunk all the time and especially if they don't want help at all. But the community police are responsive, they're present, and they're the reason why the village's issue with homelessness is manageable. I applaud Council Member Villegas for trying to help with enacting new ordinances to deal with panhandling and loitering. I think we all need to work together to make sure that we can keep our streets clean and safe, but we also need to make sure that we can get people help. I know, I see them; I talk to them; and it's difficult when they don't want help and then we get stuck. We have one young lady, Mahina, that's handicapped that's in the Village, and she doesn't want any help. She's not mobile and she's using the bathroom in the ocean, and it's not clean, and we're snick on what to do with people like that. I implore you to continue to add funding to the Hawaii County Police Department, island -wide. They need our help. They're awesome, and I thank you for all the resources that you guys provide so that we can manage some of these situations. Page 5 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 The annual report was circulated to everybody. I'm happy to answer any questions on anything in it. I just came back from, yesterday, from the Downtown International Association. There were 1,300 people from around the nation to talk about these issues that we all face with downtown areas. Some of it was promotions and marketing, some of it was dealing with the homeless population but very interesting conversations with people nationwide. Nancy Sakamoto and I were there. We both talked about, after the conference was over on Friday afternoon, that we're doing a lot of things right on the Big Island, we really are. I applaud you guys for being innovative and I think if we all work together, we can really solve some of these problems. But they're tough issues and they're not going to go away. Our homeless issue grows every day because they're flying in. They're coming in with suitcases and overcoats, so you know they're not from here. So, that's the issue that we deal with, and I'm happy to answer any questions or any comments anybody has. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Ross. At this time, I'll open it up to any questions or comments from anyone else on the Committee. Why don't we start in Hilo? I can't see your lights, if you'd like to raise your hand or give an indication if you have any questions. Quickly, let the record show that Council Member Kierkiewicz has joined us. Council Member Galimba, go ahead. MS. GALIMBA: Thanks, and thanks very much for this presentation, Mr. Wilson. This is, I think the first one that I've seen. I was just looking at your funding and the assessments. I was just wondering if you could —I see that it was at $800,000 to $700,000 level for a very long time and then dipped in the last few years into the $600,000, and I was just wondering if you could tell me why that is. MR. WILSON: Council Member, it's deceptive. It hasn't gone down. We present an annual report in March of every year to the members in the district and our two funding cycles, our assessments are due in February and in August. And usually what happens, as soon as the meeting is over or a few weeks after the meeting is over, we get a large influx of the assessment. So, the assessment totals are pretty much all the same and `21-`22, `22-`23, `23-`24, what I'll do for the next meeting, next time we present, I'll adjust it but they're all about the same. We haven't had —in fact, they've gone up. Our budget runs about a $1 million, but at the time we present this in mid -March, this is what it is. MS. GALIMBA: Okay, thanks. Yeah, I saw that in the budget, that there was — MR. WILSON: Yeah, we're on the fiscal year, so, the fiscal year ends June 30th. MS. GALIMBA: Okay. I was just wondering if there was some kind of event that happened or loss of business. How does the assessment work? Is it based on a property or income or how does the assessment work? Page 6 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 MR. WILSON: It's based on the assessed value of the property that the Finance Department assesses, and it's $1.75 per thousand in Zone 1 and 58 cents in Zone 2. For the residential in the Village, if you're a permanent resident in the Village and your assessment is no more than $100. MS. GALIMBA: Okay, thanks very much. Sounds like you're doing really great work there. So, I congratulate you, and I yield. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Anyone else in Hilo? MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. CHR. VILLEGAS: Council Member. MS. KAGIWADA: Thanks so much. Thank you, Mr. Ross, for presenting this information and for sharing all you're doing over there in the Village. I'm very happy to see and hear you speaking compassionately about the homeless and seeing you trying to grapple with some very challenging issues obviously. I'm just wondering, do you have any concerted effort from your group to support low income, affordable or permanent supportive housing for people over in Kailua-Kona? Is that something that you've spent any time doing as a group? MR. WILSON: No, it's not part of our mission, but it needs to happen. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, it just seems like an obvious part of this whole puzzle, and I know as a coordinated group that you're weighing in on things might be helpful when trying to struggle to get some of these things done that are challenging in and of themselves. So, just want to put that little thought in the air and think about that because I can see that you're doing quite a lot to try to deal with issues around the houseless population. So anyway, thank you for your report, I appreciate it. MR. WILSON: If you look in the report, there's an area there that shows replanting, so replanting of Emma's Square and Ali`i Drive and it looks beautiful with laua`e and naupaka. Within a couple of days of us replanting that, the homeless went in and pulled it all out and killed it all. So right now, we're back to going back to replant it again. So, those are the kinds of issues you deal with. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, thank you. CHR. VILLEGAS: Anyone else in Hilo? With that, I'll bring it back to Kona. Council Member Evans. MS. EVANS: Thank you. Good morning. I have a couple of questions. There's a big expense here for what —category is Ambassadors. Can you — Page 7 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 MR. WILSON: Pardon me? MS. EVANS: Ambassadors. One hundred forty is quite a big amount of money. Can you tell me about your ambassador program? MR. WILSON: The Block by Block group are all ambassadors. So, we have cleaning ambassadors, which are the janitorial, we have the landscape ambassadors and the security ambassadors. So, the total budget, off the top of my head, to Block by Block is somewhere in the neighborhood of $666,0000 or something. MS. EVANS: They have a name; you call them ambassadors. MR. WILSON: Yeah. MS. EVANS: When they're out working, do they have a t-shirt that says they're — MR. WILSON: They're fully uniformed with caps so they're identifiable. We haven't chosen to put in aloha ambassadors. And I was just in Seattle for that conference, and I didn't find that they were useful. So, at some point in time, we might do the aloha ambassadors, maybe on ship days on the pier to help when we have an influx of a thousand people. But on a day-to-day basis, we haven't found that was helpful. MS. EVANS: I found it helpful in San Antonio, but they just had senior citizens volunteering and they were ambassadors. You could tell what they were because not only did they have a t-shirt, they gave them a special hat. MR. WILSON: Yeah, we have the same thing. MS. EVANS: You have something like that? Yeah, thank you. The other question I have is on fireworks. What do you see as the future of fireworks for Kailua-Kona, given that it continues to be an issue? Should we support it, not support it, not enough? Used to be 20 minutes it's now going down to 10, we're having a harder time raising money for it. Can you give us some insights into fireworks? MR. WILSON: Yeah, Barbara Kossow and the Rotary Club for the last 20 years have organized businesses and others to donate for the fireworks display on July 4th. Off the top of my head, it's usually in the $35,000-$40,000 worth of fireworks. The BID provides, I think, $5,000 in the budget through that committee and the various businesses and the county. I think the Fire Department provides the rest of the funding. We'll continue to support it. It brings a ton of visitors and locals into the Village, both for the parades and the fireworks. If Page 8 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 people congregate, they spend money. So, from an economic standpoint and I'm not talking about personal fireworks, I'm talking about the fireworks displays. MS. EVANS: Right. I just know it's getting expensive, and I understood it was much harder to raise money for it. MR. WILSON: There's a new committee since Barbara and Renee Craft have retired after 20 years. So, I think they're going to look at drones and some other things. I don't know what they're coming up with, but I'm happy that somebody's taking it over because I think you've got to celebrate some of these things. MS. EVANS: Right. Okay, and then my last question has to do with —I love the streetcar, but I'm wondering the relationship you have with our new Mass Transit director and moving people in and out of these zones using our mass transit. Plus the other thing I noticed being in that area recently, is you're just running out of parking because you're more —the more residents that we have that enjoy coming into that area because of the restaurants and the view and just enjoying the ocean, the more we build our residential community as well as tourists. You know, we've got these issues, so are we going to do park and ride? Are we going to create a place for people to park and ride into the downtown core, because it just seems like this whole moving traffic around is starting to, I see it as one of your growing issues. MR. WILSON: I've been meeting with Transit Director Victor Kandle so often, they think we're related. We instituted a park and ride with the Kona Trolley picking up every 30 minutes from the area on Loloku Street, the street directly in back of Target. It was not successful. We haven't found that local folks want to park somewhere and ride a trolley or a bus into the town. Everybody wants to park close, so that didn't work. The Hele-On bus is free and there's a lot of ridership island -wide; people come here from everywhere to come in. The Kona Trolley is no longer in existence. Last year, I think we had 130,000 riders, but the Kona Trolley was under Roberts Hawaii and Roberts was contracting with the county. The county took the buses over now and is using Roberts' employee and is using a county transit schedule instead of a trolley schedule. We, meaning the BID and other businesses, sponsored the trolley and we're hopeful the trolley will run again because it's a useful service. MS. EVANS: Okay. Does your group —it Just reminded me, does your group ever weigh in on the density? When we talk about density, we have ADU (Accessory Dwelling Units) bills, but we've talked about height and filling in so that we don't do urban sprawl. Does your group at all take a look at kind of Page 9 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 where we're zoning and what we're doing, the General Plan? Are you weighing in at all on this? MR. WILSON: We haven't there. Personally, our members including myself, worked on the Kona Community Development Plan, which basically said the area for growth is going to be between Kailua and the airport. It's going to be denser and taller. Unfortunately, those that have moved in recently and those that did not attend the meetings are not in agreement with some of the density issues that's in the plan. And the plan was designed to eliminate sprawl, but we'll see. But we haven't weighed in and it's not our role to weigh in on specific developments. Members of our group, our board, or anybody in the district, can weigh in on their thoughts, personal thoughts, including myself. MS. EVANS: And the only reason I say it is it is a business. I mean there are employers. You know how it is, you know, it's about business and people being here, and I just thought maybe that they would maybe weigh in a little bit on it. MR. WILSON: I should tell you that there's some innovation going on and some changes. The Village is changing for the first time in about 50 years. The good news is the Village has very few property owners and the bad news is the Village has very few property owners. So, the ones that maintain their properties, it's awesome. The ones that don't, you're stuck with them. But Uncle Billy Kimi passed away and some of his property changed hands. Sandy Shapery bought the fonner Uncle Billy's Kona Bay Hotel and is renovating it as we speak. What he did, he's looking how to house employees or management people. He bought an apartment building in the area in the back of McDonald's. So, housing is critical for not only the homeless but all of us that live, work, and play here. MS. EVANS: Right. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Council Member Evans. It doesn't look like anybody else in Hilo, so with that, I'll just go ahead and wrap up. Thank you, Ross, for being here again today, for your work and leadership in navigating something that is quite unique in Hawaii being one of three business improvement districts. I really also appreciate, being that this is my hometown, that you continue to perpetuate in the branding and even just the name of the organization, that Kailua- Kona is a village and the vision for Kailua-Kona remains perpetuating that village model. So, as we continue to grow and change, and things like density have been pointed out, it's become very apparent that all of that is reliant on and contingent with infrastructure because we cannot keep adding more burden on to roads and sewer lines that are not up to par. I mean, we just had a massive spill off of the pier of sewer from a backed -up bathroom on the pier. Page 10 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 MR. WILSON: That was by a homeless person CHR. VILLEGAS: Exactly. So, I also just wanted to point out that permanent supportive housing is not the job of the Kailua Village Business Improvement District. However, they work hand in hand with the organizations and the homeless service providers that are working diligently within Kailua-Kona. All you have to do is look at our reports and you will see that the lion share of funding goes to the east side when it comes to homeless service providers Unfortunately, Kona doesn't get the same equitable distribution of those funds or services, and you guys have stepped in, in the interim, and you work hand in hand with community policing and with the homeless service providers that are here. One of them, 808 Homeless Task Force, which it's my understanding they have been able to send home almost 100 people already this year who got stuck here after coming here thinking it would be a lovely place to be unhoused, and quickly discovered that that's not the case. I'm glad that you mentioned the drone show because that's been something that has been really heightened for me, and with a lot of people bringing forth that opportunity to transition from fireworks to drone shows. We've had lengthy conversations, and I have a feeling we'll be having more of them about the paid parking, transition to paid park in the Village, which is now causing not only challenges for our local people and kama`aina, who aren't visiting the Village as often, but are small businesses. So, I'm hopeful that we can continue to work together and maybe sit down with these landlords and property owners who have decided to implement parking fees which, for the public out there listening, it's private property. So, government does not have the authority to go in and tell them they can't charge for parking. However, I have hope that potentially, we could have conversations. If parking rates were closer to like $3 an hour, that's feasible, but at $12-$15 dollar an hour rate, that's Waikiki rates. We want to perpetuate the vision of a village where everyone can come and people can afford to live and be in a safe and healthy environment, and our unhoused can receive the services and the support that they need and deserve. And when they don't desire it, that there would be other options for them to move to other places where they're not in jeopardy and in danger and they're not negatively impacting the lives of everyone else. Because as a community, we're stronger, right, Ross, but when certain people monopolize resources or spaces, it jeopardizes that experience for all of us. So, I thank you for your leadership, your continued humble support, and navigating some really interesting times, but I think we're farther along now than we've ever been. So, thank you for being here today, and I'll reach out shortly because we've got some more work to do together. Page 11 CRCOC-34 September 16, 2024 MR. WILSON: Happy to meet with any of you privately, individually, to talk about some of these issues. My commitment to you guys is let's do great things; let's do great things together because I think we can solve some of the issues. I appreciate it, thank you very much. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Ross. With that, all those in favor of closing file on Communication 1013 please say "aye." Vote on Comm. 10 13: The motion to close file on Comm. 1013 was carried by (Filed) the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Evans, Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, and Chair Villegas — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. ADJOURN- There being no further business, Chair Villegas adjourned the meeting at 9:40 a.m. MENT: Approved: Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Chair Communications, Reports, and Council Oversight Committee RV/jrn ZW (Date) Page 12