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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN COUNCIL 2025-05-07 2024-2026 Hawaii County Council 121h Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii May 7, 2025 INVOCATION: Pastor Charles Brodhead of Kona Church of the Nazarene gave the morning's invocation. CALL TO The regular meeting of the Hawaii County Council was called to order at ORDER: 9:03 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Chair Mr. Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, Vice Chair Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member Mr. James E. Hustace, Member Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member (via videoconference from Hilo, came in later) Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member (via videoconference from Hilo, came in later) Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member(via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member PLEDGE OF The Chair directed the Council to the next order of business, Pledge of ALLEGIANCE: Allegiance. (At this time, County Clerk Jon Henricks 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: Change Order As directed by the Chair and with no objection from the Council Members, the of Business: following item was taken out of order: APPROVAL The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Approval OF MINUTES: of Minutes. Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 CHR. INABA: Noting that on the agenda we have two sets of minutes for approval. The February 19 minutes needs some further revisions. Chair Inaba announced that the Minutes of March 7, 2025, were approved. Return to Order The Chair directed the Council to return to the order of business. of Business: 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 individuals registered to speak and came forward when called by the Chair: Tim Hansen: Res. 148-25 (Comm. 248), in support. (representing The Rotary Club of South Hilo Foundation) Charlene Iboshi: Res. 148-25 (Comm. 248), in support. (representing The Rotary Club of South Hilo Foundation) Amy Hayoung Lee: Res. 152-25 (Comm. 252), in support. (representing Hospice of Hilo) Toni Withington: GOEAC-38 (Comm. 229); and (representing Ka Makani O Res. 120-25 (Comm. 204), in support. Kohala Ohana—Kako`o) (See Comm. 204.14) Chuck Flaherty: GOEAC-35 (Comm. 226), in opposition. (See Comm. 226.1) Alohalani Hope Cermelj: GOEAC-37 (Comm. 228), in support; Res. 120-25 (Comm. 204), in opposition; Res. 121-25 (Comm. 208), in opposition; Res. 144-25 (Comm. 244), in support; Res. 153-25 (Comm. 253), in opposition; and Res. 161-25 (Comm. 261), in opposition. Roylen Valera: Res. 155-25 (Comm. 255); (representing D.A.R.E. Hawaii) Res. 158-25 (Comm. 258); and Res. 163-25 (Comm. 263), in support. Page 2 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vern Hara: Res. 164-25 (Comm. 264), in support. (representing Hawaii Fire Department) Daniel Volpe: Res. 164-25 (Comm. 264), in support. (representing Hawaii Fire Department) REPORTS: The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Reports. GOEAC-35 NOMINATION OF ALEXANDRIA "LEXI" AYERS TO THE LEEWARD (Comm. 226): PLANNING COMMISSION Requires Council Confirmation by: May 10, 2025 (Section 134(k), Hawaii County Charter) Motion to Approve: Ms. Galimba moved to adopt Governmental Operations and External Affairs Committee Report No. 35. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. (Note: At this time, nominee Alexandria"Lexi" Ayers came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. VILLEGAS: Would you be willing, if approved, if this nomination moves forward, to recuse yourself from any discussion and/or decision-making as it relates to any of your former or current clients coming before the Leeward Planning Commission? MS. AYERS: Yes. MS. VILLEGAS: Would you recuse yourself from discussion and/or decision- making when applications and/or agenda items would involve the clients of Luxury Properties Hawaii LLC? MS. AYERS: Yes. MS. VILLEGAS: What is the potential for the team of Luxury Properties (Hawai`i) LLC real estate agents to become an indirect influence on the discussions and decision-making of the Leeward Planning Commission? MS. AYERS: I would say none. We are all independent real estate agents and/or brokers. We do our own businesses and we really handle that if, let's say, someone needs help with an open house or showing a home to a client. But other Page 3 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 than that, we really understand our clients the fiduciary responsibility to our clients and the public in keeping information to ourselves. And so I don't think there's a chance of that happening. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Were you at all interested in potentially serving on a CDP (Community Development Plan) Action Committee before putting forth this application to serve on the Leeward Planning Commission? MS. AYERS: I wasn't aware that there were that many openings. I just thought with the knowledge that I have with real estate and also the kind of voice of the working class people,just based on age and my demographic of friends and family, that the planning commission would be the most appropriate. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Do you have any direct representation or working with a number, and I'll just list them, these are all subdivisions kind of in-process in South Kona: Mauna`oni Properties LLC, the Pali Kai Subdivision. MS. AYERS: I saw the list and, no, I do not have any direct relations with the developer or realtors that are listing in that. MS. VILLEGAS: You don't have any listings there? MS. AYERS: No, not in that area. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. That would also pertain to Kona 167 LLC, IDH LLC, the Kona Horizons Subdivision, and Kona Estates at Opihihale. MS. AYERS: No, I do not. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. My last question then relates to, as has been testified to, and I've had some people come to me with their concerns, and part of that is because we don't currently have somebody on the Leeward Planning Commission who is kind of an expert in the cultural aspects and environmental focus. And so, in order to support you in this role, I'm wondering if you would be open to and commit to working with our Sierra Club chapter in order to take into consideration their insights,perspectives, the vast amount of information they have about—well know South Kona is a wealth of cultural sites, not to mention pristine ecosystems that some people look at and see it as an opportunity for commodification and commercialization, but that I think deep down we know are vital to the longevity and regenerative nature of our island. So would you be willing to work with and collaborate with and I don't know if mentorship or—but to be committed to garnering that information and looking to them for those kind of insights, so that you can ensure that you have all the information necessary when you sit in meetings that quite frankly can be very overwhelming. And predominantly the people that come to present to you are Page 4 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 people paid to convince you to make a certain decision. And your common everyday working person is working and can't get there or doesn't have access to the legal documents or the historical paperwork or whatnot. So is that something that I personally and professionally in this Council and County can rely on you to authentically align yourself with that organization, in order for guidance and advice as you navigate what will be a very interesting adventure? MS. AYERS: Yes, I would be willing to work very closely with the cultural department because, like in my work and just as a parent, you are not the expert. And the whole point is to garner around you people that know more than you do, especially in this position, to make decisions. I cannot garner all that knowledge, but there definitely will be great people I'm surrounded with that I can rely on for that. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. And more specifically, the Sierra Club. Yes? MS. AYERS: Yes, specifically. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, thank you. (Ms. Villegas went on to speak in favor of the appointment.) CHR. INABA: I want to mahalo you again for your willingness to serve. In terms of that commitment, I would just advocate you're not committing to a certain group's perspective. But your commitment here is to have an open mind and open ear to all groups who want to reach out, including the group that Council Member Villegas pointed out. And so we're happy that you're going to be able to serve our community. Vote on GOEAC-35: The motion to adopt Governmental Operations and (Adopted) External Affairs Committee Report No. 35 was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. GOEAC-36 NOMINATION OF DAVID F. BRUNO TO THE BOARD OF ETHICS (Comm. 227): Requires Council Confirmation by: May 10, 2025 (Section 13-4(k), Hawaii County Charter) Page 5 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on GOEAC-36: Mr. Hustace moved to adopt Governmental Operations and (Adopted) External Affairs Committee Report No. 36. Seconded by Mr. Onishi and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. GOEAC-37 NOMINATION OF DARDE M. GAMAYO TO THE HAWAI`I COUNTY (Comm. 228): CULTURAL RESOURCES COMMISSION Vote on GOEAC-37: Ms. Kimball moved to adopt Governmental Operations and (Adopted) External Affairs Committee Report No. 37. Seconded by Mr. Hustace and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. GOEAC-38 NOMINATION OF MAYA K. GOODONI TO THE PUBLIC ACCESS, OPEN (Comm. 229): SPACE, AND NATURAL RESOURCES PRESERVATION COMMISSION Requires Council Confirmation by: May 10, 2025 (Section 2-2150), Hawaii County Code) Vote on GOEAC-38: Mr. Hustace moved to adopt Governmental Operations and (Adopted) External Affairs Committee Report No. 38. Seconded by Mr. Onishi and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 6 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 GOEAC-39 NOMINATION OF KIM L. LIN TO THE REAL PROPERTY TAX BOARD (Comm. 230): OF REVIEW Requires Council Confirmation by: May 10, 2025 (Section 13-4(k), Hawaii County Charter) Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Governmental Operations and External Affairs Committee Report No. 39. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. (Note: At this time, Executive Assistant to the Mayor Micah Alameda and nominee Kim L. Lin came forward to address the members of the Council.) Vote on GOEAC-39: The motion to adopt Governmental Operations and (Adopted) External Affairs Committee Report No. 39 was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. (Council Members spoke in favor of the appointment.) Relinquish Chair: At this time, Chair Inaba relinquished the chair to Acting Chair Onishi. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Order of RESOLUTIONS: Resolutions. Page 7 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 120-25: AUTHORIZES THE DIRECTOR OF FINANCE TO ENTER INTO NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF LANDS AND/OR CONSERVATION EASEMENTS FOR ALL OR A PORTION OF ANY PROPERTY IDENTIFIED IN THE PUBLIC ACCESS, OPEN SPACE, AND NATURAL RESOURCES PRESERVATION COMMISSION'S 2024 PRIORITIZED LIST, UTILIZING THE PUBLIC ACCESS, OPEN SPACE, AND NATURAL RESOURCES PRESERVATION FUND Provides authorization for the Director of Finance and Administration to initiate the acquisition of any or all of the ten properties identified in the 2024 Annual Report of the Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Preservation Commission. Reference: Comm. 204 Intr. by: Council Member Inaba Approve: LAAC-12 and Comm. 204.9: From Council Member Heather L. Kimball, dated April 24, 2025, transmitting proposed amendments to Res. 120-25. (Note: Comm. 204.10, from Finance Deputy Director Malia Kekai dated May 6, 2025, transmitting the Status Report of Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Priority Listed Properties, was circulated.) Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to adopt Res. 120-25 and Legislative Approvals and Acquisitions Committee Report No. 12. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you, Acting Chair Onishi. I ask for your continued support in this effort to expedite this process and get some of these properties before the Property Management Division and authorize Finance Director to be able to negotiate on purchase of the properties or conservation easements over the properties. I'm happy to take any questions if there are any. Mahalo. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Is Deputy Director Kekai there in Hilo? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: She is here. She's coming up. MS. KIMBALL: Thanks. (Note: At this time, Deputy Finance Director Malia Kekai came forward to address the members of the Council.) Page 8 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MS. KEKAL Good morning. Malia Kekai, Deputy Finance Director. MS. KIMBALL: Good morning. Thank you for being here, and thank you for putting together the report that's provided in Communication 204.10. Can you just describe the breadth of the ones that are listed as open? I'm sure that not all of those are in some sort of active negotiation. Can you clarify what that terminology means? MS. KEKAL Sure. I mean, that's basically just everything that's on the list that hadn't been purchased or that's not currently in negotiations. There's a few actually, I should say we have three that are in active negotiations right now. But the rest of them are basically just open, waiting for either to be prioritized or to be re-reviewed kind of to see if they still are in the state that they were when they were put on the list. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, the ones that are in active negotiations, they're not labeled differently as far as I can tell on this. They just— MS. KEKAL They are not. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. They're labeled as open as well. MS. KEKAL That's correct. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Thank you again for putting this together. So, as I understand, we only have three that are in active negotiations. I would like to make a suggestion, Chair Inaba, that maybe you and I sit down with this list and do some prioritization cleanup. I like that we have a lot on here, but we kind of need to figure out what we want to pursue I think in a little bit more detail. I do have an amendment, if I may introduce that. Motion to Amend: Ms. Kimball moved to amend Res. 120-25 with the contents of Comm. 204.9. Seconded by Ms. Villegas. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Go ahead, Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. As I mentioned in the Committee hearing on this, although this only pertains to this year's PONC (Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Preservation Commission) nominations, I do have concerns about precedent setting and wouldn't want to have us always move the entire list coming from PONC forward. Similar to our Waiwai program grants-in-aid where we have a cutoff at basically, you see, 70 percent, I think that that's also appropriate with respect to PONC properties. So this amendment proposes that only those that received a 70 percent or greater from the PONC will automatically be moved forward for negotiation. Again that, in this case, is just going to mean Page 9 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 that one of those on the list that was provided, which is the Kaloko residential park, will be excluded from automatically going to negotiation for finance. Thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. The property that would be removed via this amendment is in my district nearby here. I prefer—while I think there are definitely other properties that are far better use of our PONC funds, I wouldn't want to see this property removed. And I do have concerns about this amendment, specifically No. 4, in that it's saying the tenth clause is being amended but the language contained there in the amendment is actually amending the ninth clause of the resolution. So I'm not sure that this amendment is proper. So I would advise and ask my colleagues not to support this amendment. Thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, any other members in Kona? MR. HUSTACE: Chair? ACTING CHR. ONISHL On the amendment, correct. Okay, Mr. Hustace. MR. HUSTACE: Chair, it's not really on the amendment. It's kind of ACTING CHR. ONISHL Just on the amendment. MR. HUSTACE: Yes. MS. KAGIWADA: On the amendment, Chair? ACTING CHR. ONISHL Anybody in Hilo? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes, on the amendment? ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, yes, on the amendment. Go ahead. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Yeah, understand that there might be an issue with the exact details around the tenth versus the ninth clause, but I do support overall this amendment. I think we need to draw some lines somewhere. It makes a lot of sense that we look at properties that the PONC commission has spent a lot of time delving into and take their ratings to heart, and really prioritize those that have gotten the higher ratings by the PONC commission, because we won't be seeing these individually come before us. We don't have a chance to weigh in. So I think that this is a fair way to at least know that we are following Page 10 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 what the PONC commission has advised by putting a cutoff rate. And I think 70 percent seems good to me, but I'm happy to discuss if that's not the exact point we should be using. I'll yield for now. Thank you, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Any others in Hilo? Okay, coming back to Kona. Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: What an interesting process to be looking at, the PONC process. Very close to my heart, based on some phone calls this morning. I appreciate the nature of this proposed amendment; however, I have some concerns with it. So much work goes into it. They have a list that they're supposed to come up with. I have reservations about all the things we do now that are all numerical. I think it's great from a data-driven standpoint, but it doesn't always capture everything. I see it does no harm to include, for instance, this property in Kaloko on the list. The process of PONC purchases is they come up with a list; it gets presented to us. We have a chance whether or not we vote on it individually or as a collective. It then goes to the Administration to follow up on. A number of the properties, they don't have willing sellers, or there are other issues relating to it. But it gets it on this list to be considered by the Administration to move forward. As Deputy Director Kekai pointed out, of this whole list we have in front of us, only three are currently in potential negotiations. I have some questions about that process in general because I think we're seeing some potential hiccups in the nature of the process. I believe our property management manager that's, yeah, a double entendreis no longer out for an undisclosed amount of time. So this is a program and project that I hold very close to my heart. I want to make sure that we are not missing chances to purchase properties that have viable sellers. But I don't see any negative to including properties that may not have met that 70 percent marker. I also just want to point out that when the whole list comes to us, we have the opportunity to talk about all the properties there. So that's the time for discussion. We're not being denied that opportunity is my point being there. So I have reservations. I don't think I'll be supporting this amendment because I don't want to see something pulled off, regardless of its numerical standing. It just doesn't do any harm to have it included in the list. And having navigated a number of resolutions, I think six thus far in my tenure in office, passing resolutions for PONC purchases, and I think two have gone through. So I don't want to see things removed here. And if anything, I want to provide more support and advocacy to the Administration to follow through because I think there's $18 million currently in the PONC fund. And there are a number of properties with willing sellers. And this is vital land for us to create for public purpose in perpetuity. So that's my two cents. I yield. Page 11 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 ACTING CHR. ONISHL Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. First, I had a question for the Clerk with respect to the error that Chair Inaba pointed out. Is that problematic with respect to the adoption of this amendment? MR. HENRICKS: Before you do that, I'll take personal responsibility for that error. Note that. And then secondarily, it is if the Council feels it is. It's been stated on the record. So the Chair would be the first arbiter of whether or not that's a problem, I believe. And then the body can decide for itself whether or not the document is beyond repair—or shouldn't be used due to that flaw. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. I will acknowledge that it is incorrect. It should refer to the ninth clause rather than the tenth clause. But I think since the clause is written out there, hopefully that can be overlooked. Just to follow up real quickly to Council Member Villegas, maybe think of something that just because this resolution passes the whole bunch from the report to the Administration to begin negotiations, if we cut the threshold at 70 percent, what I think that—it doesn't preclude those that fall below the 70 percent from being brought forward individually and discussed. And I think that's appropriate. Like if PONC is scoring them at less than 70 percent, I think it does warrant the Council having a deeper dialogue around that number and some of the qualitative things that may not have been considered by the PONC when they established that number. So what this does as far asagain,just for this year, those that have more than 70 percent, automatic, go to the Administration for negotiation. But anything less than that would have to come as an individual resolution that would allow us to have a deeper discussion about PONC's concerns that gave it that lower score. So thanks. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Anybody in Hilo? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair, if I can. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ultimately, the amendment removes one property because all the other properties that were listed by the resolution are over 71 percent. So we're really talking about No. 10, which is the Kaloko residential park, which is interesting just in reviewing its location, its existing state, some of the past I mean, the weaknesses and strengths provided by the document in front of us, the resolution. This is interesting reading. Page 12 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Yeah, I'm not too concerned with the tenth clause, ninth clause condition,just to Mr. Henricks' point. Who's in charge from the Administration on the document itself, Ms. Kekai? Just for the resolution itself, if this were to pass today, it goes to whom? MS. KEKAL Basically, you're authorizing the Finance Director, so it would come back to Finance. But we get our direction from the Mayor's administration on which properties to prioritize. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So we pass it, it goes to Finance, Finance goes to the Mayor, Mayor decides which ones on the list he's going to shoot for with the available funding. MS. KEKAL That's correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, I yield, Chair ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, thank you. Anyone else in Hilo? Okay, if not, back to Kona. Ms. Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. I'm in support of the amendment. I think the 70 percent threshold is appropriate. I think the property would be a good case even for a higher level since there's many properties and limited funding. But given that we have that 70 percent cutoff on other grant programs, I think that's sort of a good number to go with at this time. I think this is a good opportunity, however, to talk about the PONC program, which I want to do when we get back to the main motion. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, thank you. Okay, if there's no other discussion, I just want to make a comment on this amendment. I would recommend that we move forward with how it already is, how in 2024 they came up with a list, and therefore anything after, like on the next round when the committee does go and evaluate properties again, then we do the 70 percent rating. But for me, they already did this process. They have the list of all the different properties, and we should just stick with that, and not at the eleventh hour we change the rules. So that's my suggestion. So, Mr. Clerk, not hearing or seeing any other, we can do a roll call on the amendment. Page 13 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Motion The motion to amend Res. 120-25 with the contents of to Amend: Comm. 204.9 failed by the following roll call vote: Failed Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, and Kimball —4. Noes: Council Members Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Villegas, and Acting Chair Onishi —5. Absent: None. Excused: None. (Note: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder voted "kanalua"then "no." ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, back to the main motion. Any more discussion? Ms. Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. Thank you to Deputy Director Kekai for bringing forward this list and providing us with the insight that there are three that are actively being negotiated at this time. I love the PONC program. I think it's done so much good, especially in my district. We've had a really great success rate, and I think partially it's because it's a bargain down there. The amount of land you can get is much greater per acre, and it's also of course beautiful and has amazing cultural resources and natural resources. So it's nothing against PONC, but I do think that there are ways that would make it a much better, more efficient program that will require some fairly large changes. And because of the way it was—some of it is written into the Charter, so it may be a very long process. But it would be good for us to begin and support the idea of discussions on the side about it,perhaps even a PIG might be a good idea, permitted interaction group. The model that I think would be really interesting to explore would be the one that's used by the Legacy Land Commission at the State level. So they have a similar program, and they get a certain amount of money every year allocated to this program. They have something like the PONC commission. They have a Legacy Land Commission that ranks the applications. The applicants actually have to come in for a set amount of money, and the Legacy Land Commission then looks at that amount, looks at the properties, ranks the properties, and establishes a certain amount of money to each project. So it's sort of pay-as-you-go, rather than this process where we have this enormous list that some of them probably will never be in negotiation because they're too complex, too expensive, etcetera. And there's also a time limit at the Legacy Land Commission. It's a long time limit,but there is an expiration date so you don't have a list like this that just keeps growing. So I think there's a lot to Page 14 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 look at and learn from that particular program. Not all of it may be appropriate for PONC, but it's I think a good, interesting model for us to look at. So thanks. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Nice. Okay, Mr. Hustace. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member Onishi. Deputy Director, could I have a little bit of your time,please? Thank you. The list, it's a manini thing but the list says "past prioritized report," and we haven't yet approved these ten ones but they're on the list. So just kind of a minor thing there. But I do really appreciate this list because it is eye-opening to me to see how many are considered open. So I do have a couple questions for you, Deputy Director, on our capacity to go out after some of these parcels that have been prioritized going back to 2007, and some have still remained open. So what is our capacity in Finance right now to continue this work? And do we have the staff capacity? Do we have—yeah. MS. KEKAL Thank you, Council Member. First, I just want to clarify these are all the priority listed properties, right. So some of them have resos (resolutions) and some of them don't. What we're doing today is you would basically be giving them all resos for them to be authorized for purchase. So this does include all properties that have been put forward by the PONC commission, whether they have a reso or not. So the "open" is basically they could possibly be purchased. When we talk about capacity, you're basically looking at the PONC capacity at this point in Finance. I have taken over pretty much doing the commission and moving forward negotiations and appraisals and all of that. We are currently one position is out. So anybody who would like to be a property management technician, please apply. Also, we are working on a program manager position for PONC as well. Knowing that this program continues to grow every year, there is a good amount of money in this program to purchase properties. But, yes, our capacity right now is very stretched. We will continue to recruit, and we will continue to move this program forward and not let it drop. But I know that there is definitely a lot of people concerned, but we will have a meeting next Monday. So all the community members can come out and also provide testimony to the new suggested properties. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Deputy. I appreciate that and I appreciate the clarification on my first point there. I do now see the last page on the communication noting the resolutions. It just wasn't clear on the list so thank you. I appreciate that. One of the questions I have is, in the grading process conducted by the commission itself, do they incorporate the availability of the parcel, the Page 15 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 willingness of those landowners, and the ease of acquisition? Or is it really from a conservation, cultural lens? Or are they also including more of that fiscal responsibility and identification for those parcels? MS. KEKAL All the things you mentioned are included in their criteria as they review parcels. Willingness is one of the points. MR. HUSTACE: Okay, thank you. And then there's been some discussion here on the dais about prioritization. The PONC, the commission themselves, they, through their grading process and their review of the applicants and these proposals, they prioritize it based upon their rubric and their scale. Then it goes to the Mayor. That's organized basically from my understanding on what the commission has done their work when there's been some other discussion on further prioritization of things, and as well as in the Finance Department about how we prioritize things. It seems like there are all these different priorities all jumbled together, and I don't know how really stick to one list. If this project received 99 percent, whatever it was, shouldn't that be the one that we're going for first out of all the 200 other ones? I mean, that's what I'm kind of curious about. If you rank them all against each other after all of these grading processes, shouldn't we be targeting the ones that have the highest grade based upon community review, volunteer review, finance review, mayoral review that that's the one we should be going for first? MS. KEKAL I think the hard part here is that we're looking at lists from 20 years, right. So we could be looking—if we did No. 1 from every year, right, you're still looking at 20 different properties or projects. So I think that's really where it comes really tricky. I even asked the so-called creator of PONC kind of what the intention was of these long-lasting properties that have sat on these lists without being purchased over the 20 years of this program. Like what are we supposed to do with that? Do you want us to re-rank it? Should it go back to the commission? Should it come to the Council? So,yeah, we don't really have that process currently, but I think it is definitely something that as this list grows, we do need to look at. Also if these properties are now some 15 years later, do they still have the resources that we were first seeing when the PONC commission first reviewed them. I mean, there's just so many moving factors at all times, willingness for people to sell, those kinds of things too, right. You could be 100 on the list and have an owner that doesn't want to sell. So all these things are taken into consideration when we're looking at properties. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Deputy. You did answer my last question on—and I really appreciate your thought and attention to this. So thank you. My last thought was kind of about the change that happens for a lot of these projects over Page 16 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 that span of time, and how do we review those properties and kind of come back to that. So thank you for spending some time here and answering those questions I have. Mahalo. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, thank you. I'll go with Ms. Kimball first. Point of MS. KIMBALL: Just a very quick point of clarification to the maker. I think I Clarification: may have misheard something here, but this resolution only authorizes the list from 2024, not any that have been previously provided but not authorized. MR. INABA: Correct. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Just wanted to make sure that that was crystal clear. Thank you. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: I like serendipitous, synchronistic opportunities, I suppose. Director Nakagawa, can I ask you to come to the hot seat? (Note: At this time, Finance Director Diane Nakagawa came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. VILLEGAS: I got a call from somebody who works here on the west side who has been an incredible advocate working with large property owners who oftentimes purchase these properties at auction, get them for a steal. All they see is the zoning and it's in Hawaii, so they buy it for pennies on the dollar with the intention to flip it, not knowing the history of the property, the sensitivities, whether or not they're cultural or environmental or just overall the community's opposition to development in these places. He's been a great advocate and supporter in educating these landowners of what they would face if they tried to move forward and providing them an opportunity, and speaking with such high regard of this program and the County's due diligence and authentic intention to utilize opportunities when we can purchase these properties to have them preserved in perpetuity for public use. It's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that once a resolution is passed by Council, whether or not this comes as a group or it comes individually, then it goes to the Mayor's office for approval, at which time he would give a directive to Property Management to move forward with an appraisal. Correct? MS. NAKAGAWA: Good morning, Council Members. Diane Nakagawa, Finance Department. Yes, that is correct. Page 17 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. And once the appraisal comes back, it's also my understanding that the appraisal the current Charter prohibits the County from purchasing a property through PONC at any price that's higher than the County's appraisal. MS. NAKAGAWA: Higher than the appraised value. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Is there any protocol established in then what the County offers? I mean, if they come back and lowball a property owner and it's even lower than the assessed value that the County otherwise has associated as relevant to that property, is there any protocol or prior history of what the norm has been? MS. NAKAGAWA: So the process on that has been that we rely on the expertise of our staff, Real Property Management, which I do want to comment a little bit after this. But we rely on the staff to do some due diligence, to do comparable comps, to look at the property,just to do the evaluations that they normally do and to determine what a good offer would be. So that is left to the expertise of our staff. MS. VILLEGAS: But they hire an appraiser, correct? MS. NAKAGAWA: Yes, we do hire an appraiser. But as you mentioned, there is a negotiation process that happens. MS. VILLEGAS: Right. So they hire the appraiser. The appraiser brings the amount back, and then people in Property Management then essentially bring it to the Mayor and Director of Finance and say, "Okay, this is what the appraisal was, but this isif there's any extenuating circumstances" MS. NAKAGAWA: Based on the information that's presented forward, it's discussed both internally in Finance and with the Mayor's office. And there's a recommendation going forward on what the offer would be. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Is it due practice for what the appraisal—is the appraisal findings public record? MS. NAKAGAWA: You know, we just hadI'm going to ask Corp. (Corporation) Counsel. We were just going through that recently, so I know where you're coming from. So I would just like to ask if I could get some guidance on the most recent determination that was made (inaudible) question. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. That would be really helpful. (Note: At this time, Deputy Corporation Counsel Keyra Wong came forward to address the members of the Council.) Page 18 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MS. WONG: Good morning. Keyra Wong, Deputy Corporation Counsel. I'm sorry, I missed your question. MS. VILLEGAS: The question was whether or not the appraisals that come through Property Management as they relate to PONC properties are public record. And if not public record, if then the capacity for a Council Member who represents the district the property is in. MS. WONG: So the question is whether the appraisal would be public record, and if not to the public then whether a Council Member would be able to receive that information. So my understanding is that under Chapter 92F, when an appraisal is submitted to the department and the acquisition is pending, that's not a public document at that time because the decision hasn't yet been made. MS. VILLEGAS: About the purchase. MS. WONG: Yes. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. I think you know where I'm going with this, Diane, and you probably know the circumstance I'm talking about. So I definitely want to follow up on this. I also have spoken to this representative who's advocating for, quite frankly—it's interesting you said land in your district is such a steal, and I agree for the amount of acreage. But there are a number of properties in District 7 and in West Hawai'i, and we know that the real estate prices are astronomical. And so I have been remorse. I've been just really saddened by the properties that have slipped through the cracks as opportunities for purchase. And so I will be advocating for moving forward with this in the best way possible, ensuring we don't insult landowners by lowball offers or whatnot. But I did explain to them what's happening in Property Management, and I'm sure that puts an extra burden on Finance right now in navigating this without having Hamana there. MS. NAKAGAWA: Thank you for your comments. I do want to ensure you that every intention is done in the best interest of the County. There is no intention to lowball or do anything that is unfair. We are going based on the information we have and what is right to us at the moment, but the intention, of course, is to be fair and do what's right for our County purchase. I just want to put that out there that that is 100 percent our intention. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, great. Well, I'll put in for a meeting and hopefully it can share some more information to ensure the intentionality aligns with potential outcomes so we can get the greatest possible outcome here. MS. NAKAGAWA: Thank you. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you so much. I yield. Page 19 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 ACTING CHR. ONISHL Anyone in Hilo first? MS. KAGIWADA: Chair, yes, thanks. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, go ahead. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Deputy Finance Director, thank you for putting this list together. Maybe everybody knows but me but are you able to tell me which three properties are actually being worked on now? MS. KEKAL Sure. The three right now are `Anaeho`omalu. That's a conservation easement. The other one is Keakealani, which is over on Ali`i Drive. And the third is Kawainui Makai, the one that you guys previously just approved. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. And I see here you have you talked about the resolutions, like some have resolutions and some don't have resolutions. So you have some that have resolution numbers. But there are some here that have been put through as a resolution, but it says "open"under resolution number. Are those two different resolutions that I'm thinking of? One that brings it to Council and says that you can go ahead and start negotiating, and then this resolution number, which is something different? MS. KEKAL These resolution numbers should be the one that allow them to be negotiated. The previous resolution that creates the priority list is not listed here. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. So if we have done a resolution for something and it's still listed as "open"under resolution number? MS. KEKAL Yeah. So, basically, if you guysI shouldn't say "you guys"—if the Council has not brought forth the property after the priority list is approved, and then if you haven't brought forward a reso to open negotiations, then there is no reso and MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I'll follow up with you on the one that I think MS. KEKAL We may have missed it, it's very possible. There's many properties. But yes. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Yeah. I'm wondering, and I don't know if you're the right person to ask or just maybe it's a general discussion, if maybe like every ten years or so we ask PONC to look at this entire list and kind of just take a quick look, read through all the paperwork and just kind of weed out the ones that are no longer really possibilities. I know you probably have a sense of that yourselves, but it's just so hard for us to know and for the public to know, and especially since it looks like we're going to continue doing these blanket Page 20 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 resolutions for large numbers of properties so we won't be able to be following them individually, necessarily, unless we take a particular interest and do that on our own. But as a body, we won't be doing that. So I'm just wondering, is there something like that that you or somebody that's been involved in this process might consider that we look at? Is that something that's been talked about? MS. KEKAL Not I mean, it's always kind of something that we talk about. I think it is a commission function. I think that they're the body to do it. I don't know that there's a mechanism for it right now. It might maybe be a Code change or a rule change. We'd have to discuss that. But I think there definitely is value in reevaluating the properties that have just been sitting on the list, and seeing kind of where they should be now at this time. MS. KAGIWADA: Yeah. I'm even thinking kind of they do the rankings per year of the new properties that come in, but kind of ranking as a whole what's in the big pot almost so that it would help you guys focus on which direction to go in I would think. MS. KEKAL Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of moving pieces to that. You're also looking at different commissions with different points of view over time too. Then you'd kind of be putting them all into one commission's hands. I mean, I think it's definitely we continue that conversation and just how do we best manage this list, and how do we make sure that we're pursuing the properties that are in the best interest for the County. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Please just refresh my memory. Do we get anything from you guys, as far as where you are in the process with like this list, on a regular basis? MS. KEKAL I do not believe besides this list that gets updated on the actual website. And I don't think we are providing (inaudible). MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so it's just on the website, but we don't have you guys come before us and have a discussion about it every so often or anything like that. MS. KEKAL Not to my memory, but also I've only been in Finance for a little bit. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I think there's some good possibilities to maybe make this a little more streamlined and amenable, and I liked some of Council Member Galimba's thoughts on what they do at the Legacy Land Commission. Did you have any initial reactions? Are you familiar with that program? MS. KEKAL I am not very much, besides that they've worked with us to purchase some properties in conservation easements that they put money in. But besides that I am not familiar. Page 21 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. All right. Well, thank you for your work on this and, yeah, look forward to seeing how we can make this great program better. I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Thank you, Ms. Kagiwada. Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Malia, can you remind me how this resolution is different than our normal process? I'm just trying to remember from our last meeting. MS. KEKAL Yeah, of course. So, in previous years you would just approve the priority list, which is the one that comes from the commission to the Mayor, then forwarded to you all, which has the ten properties, as it is now. And then Council Members would bring forth one property at a time instead of doing all properties at one time. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so the priority list matches what we have in front of us today with Resolution 120-25? MS. KEKAL Yeah. Ten properties, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So this is basically the same process. We've just stopped any more additions? MS. KEKAL No, you're basically not doing them one at a time. So, instead of doing—so you guys actually previously did Kawainui Makai that is on this list. So that was the old way, right: We'd just bring one property at a time. We think this is the most important one at this time, so we're going to authorize this one for negotiations. Instead, this condenses all of that and just says, "Okay, we're going to authorize all of these properties for negotiations at one time." MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And these are the only properties we're now looking at, or are we looking at the entire prioritized list that has existed that we've been talking about, like Ms. Kagiwada brought up? MS. KEKAL My understanding, and Chair Inaba can confirm, is that it's just for this 2024 list, the ten properties. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So 2024 available PONC funding will only look at these properties that we've listed in this resolution? MS. KEKAL No. So we can look at all properties that previously had a resolution, and then add these to that bunch. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So this just adds them to the big list. Page 22 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MS. KEKAL Yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So you still have to run through the whole list. MS. KEKAL Yes, all the ones that have a resolution. Not all of them do. If you look at the last page on the report I provided, there's still a good 39 projects that don't have resolutions. So, yes, I think we would be looking probably at about 30 properties now. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So there's no guaranty any one of these will be picked. MS. KEKAL Yeah. Well, there's no guaranty in property transactions as it is, right. Yeah. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Was there ever a document provided to the Council that shows how much available funding there is, and what the total property values on the list would equate to? MS. KEKAL I don't I mean, you guys get the balance of the PONC fund every year in the budget, but I don't know that we've ever valued all the properties on the list. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Which gives us just the reality of we have $20 million; there's $140 million of properties on the list. We're not going to pick all of them, obviously. MS. KEKAL Yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So we don't get something like that? MS. KEKAL No. We probably could work with Property Management to just get the assessed values, but to get market or appraisal values we'd have to order appraisals for everyone. And that'd probably not be a good idea to run that much money out right now. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Kekai. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, thank you. Ms. Kierkiewicz, do you have anything? No? Okay, thank you. Okay, then we'll go to Mr. Hustace. Oh, before this, we'll go to Mr. Inaba so you can kind of clarify. MR. INABA: Yeah, I just want to make sure that the record is straight. We don't approve a list. We receive the list from the Mayor, which he receives from the Page 23 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 PONC commission. So, once we receive it, then it's up to the previous year's individual Council Members to introduce a resolution typically for properties within their district, and then in this case, as Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder asked, we are just condensing it into one instead of having potentially ten separate resolutions on the Council agenda. But I think we've had good discussion, and then we can perhaps get to the vote at this point. If there's process questions, I'm not sure that that's specifically relevant to this resolution before us. Thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, thank you. Mr. Hustace, let's close it up. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you. I appreciate that comment, Chair Inaba. I just had a question on some of the costs because I'm just looking at the numbers. We have about 25 million in the PONC fund right now. I haven't seen any this is a concern. I haven't seen any major purchases. We have a huge list of projects that the community is wanting to go after and needs our support, but we haven't made any major purchases in the last year. So I'm just expressing that concern. And the only other question I had, Deputy, was on the appraisals. All this time has passed and we've appraised properties. Have we had to go back and reappraise them as well? MS. KEKAL Yes. We only hold an appraisal for a year, and after a year we get a new appraisal. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Ms. Kimball, you can close it up now. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, I just want to lend my support just based on the conversation we've had thus far on setting up an ad hoc to look at this process in a little more depth than potentially the proposed changes so that we can have some greater efficiency and greater clarity. I think a lot of stuff has been pointed out that it's well-intentioned. And to Council Member Hustace's most recent point, I have some concerns about us continuing to acquire properties and having to do the stewardship and management and not accounting for that as well. So whoever has the ability to put the ad hoc request together I'm looking at Michelle that would be I think a part of the conversation I'd like us to see too. But thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Thank you. Okay, Mr. Clerk, let's do a roll call. Page 24 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Res. 120-25: The motion to adopt Res. 120-25 and Legislative (Adopted) Approvals and Acquisitions Committee Report No. 12 was carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Council Members Hustace, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Villegas, and Acting Chair Onishi —6. Noes: Council Members Galimba, Kagiwada, and Kimball —3. Absent: None. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Acting Chair Onishi relinquished the chair to Chair Inaba. Res. 121-25: AUTHORIZES THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I OFFICE OF RESEARCH SERVICES Funds in the amount of$25,000 from the Department of Research and Development would be used to conduct GoFarm Hawaii, the university's comprehensive agricultural education program. Reference: Comm. 208 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada(B/R) Approve: GOEAC-40 and Comm. 208.2: From Research and Development Deputy Director Dennis Lin, dated April 25, 2025, transmitting additional information regarding the GoFarm Hawaii program. Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 121-25 and Governmental Operations and External Affairs Committee Report No. 40. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: We do have Deputy Director Lin here in the Hilo Chambers. Would you like to come forward and just share a little bit about this resolution but also the additional information provided? Thank you. (Note: At this time, Research and Development Deputy Director Dennis Lin came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. LIN: Good morning, Council Members. Dennis Lin, Deputy Director for R&D (Research and Development). Just wanted to thank you, Council Members, for an opportunity to provide extra information, especially some of the questions that Council Member Onishi and Council Member Kierkiewicz asked for. So we Page 25 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 did have a response from the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, or CTAHR. So all of you should have received that communication with some of the statistics and some of the impact that this program does provide not just for our island but across the State. So I'm happy to answer any further questions that you may have. Thank you. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. I yield so that other Council Members may ask questions. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving Resolution 121-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 121-25: The motion to adopt Res. 121-25 and Governmental (Adopted) Operations and External Affairs Committee Report No. 40 was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 122-25: AUTHORIZES THE PAYMENT OF FUNDS OF A LATER FISCAL YEAR AND OF MORE THAN ONE FISCAL YEAR FOR A MULTI-YEAR AGREEMENT FOR FIXED ROUTE TRANSIT OPERATIONS FOR THE MASS TRANSIT AGENCY Authorizes the Mayor to enter into a three-year agreement with two renewal option years for a selected contractor to provide vehicles, drivers, management,personnel, dispatching, maintenance, and other ancillary services to operate an island wide public transportation system. Reference: Comm. 209 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Approve: FC-38 Vote on Res. 122-25: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to adopt Res. 122-25 and (Adopted) Finance Committee Report No. 38. Seconded by Ms. Galimba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 26 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Change Order As directed by the Chair and with no objection from the Council Members, the of Business: following items were taken out of order: Bill 39: AMENDS CHAPTER 19, ARTICLE 1, SECTION 19-2, AND ARTICLE 7, (Draft 2) SECTION 19-53, OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO THE AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING REAL PROPERTY TAX CLASSIFICATION Repeals the definition of"affordable rental housing," amends the definition of "affordable rental rate," and amends subsection (h) Eligibility for affordable rental housing class. Reference: Comm. 206.2 Intr. by: Council Member Inaba Approve: FC-39 (Note: Comm. 206.3, from Council Member Holeka Goro Inaba dated April 29, 2025, transmitting information relating to Bill 39, Draft 2, was circulated.) Relinquish Chair: At this time, Chair Inaba relinquished the chair to Acting Chair Onishi. Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to pass Bill 39, Draft 2, on first reading and adopt Finance Committee Report No. 39. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Go ahead, Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. I think we had some pretty good discussion around this bill in Committee. The Real Property Tax Division was able to ascertain how many properties are currently at max rent. So there are 112 rental units that are currently at the max rent allowed by the affordable rental program. That is 4.39 percent of all properties in the program, and those are pretty much distributed around the island. So I ask for my colleagues' continued support. Again, this would help to reduce—similar to a bill that we discussed yesterday reduce work on the Real Property Tax Division as any of the properties that are in the Section 8 program would be provided to the Real Property Tax Division to allow them to be a part of this program. I ask for my colleagues' support. Happy to take any further questions. Mahalo. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, Ms. Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. I think we did have a good conversation, and a big part of that was sort of the two sides of the island having very different sort of rental property markets. And I think that is a very interesting part of our island. It causes us a lot of consternation. After considering it, I think the 80 percent is a good number to go with at this time. It keeps it very simple and provides a lot of Page 27 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 incentive to get into the affordable housing program, which I think we can all agree is something that we want to happen. I'll be in support of this as it currently is. Thanks. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Any other members in Kona? If not, anyone in Hilo? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes,please, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, go ahead. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. One of the things that I asked for last time was that we get information about what the market rates are on the east side and the west side so that we can kind of look at what the gap is between the market rate and what these new 80 percent affordable rates might be. So I don't see that here. Did I miss it? Am I missing it? Was that information provided? MR. INABA: You are not missing it, Council Member Kagiwada. It was supposed to be submitted, and I believe it is not in the system. The Office of Housing and Community Development did send it over to my office. It wouldn't have been provided in the format of the previous information however, because each of the zip codes on our island have their own market rate. I'm sorry that I don't have that. I'll double-check with my office where it is, but it wouldn't be able to be provided in the same format, because the data isn't provided in that format. It's provided by zip code. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, sure. So we could then look at a zip code on the east side and at a zip code on the west side and see where those compare to the proposed affordable rates if we (inaudible). MR. INABA: Yes, and I'll get that information to the Council. MS. KAGIWADA: Could we maybe table this until we have that information in front of us? ACTING CHR. ONISHL Would it be okay? MR. INABA: Yes. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, can I have a motion, then, to table Bill 39? Page 28 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Motion to Ms. Galimba moved to table Bill 39, Draft 2. Seconded by Table: Ms. Kimball and carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Acting Chair Onishi —9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Acting Chair Onishi relinquished the chair to Chair Inaba. CHR. INABA: Thank you. I apologize for that. Our office is working on it right now. With that, we will proceed to the next order of business, Bill 40. Bill 40: AMENDS SECTION 25-8-33 (CITY OF HILO ZONE MAP), ARTICLE 8, CHAPTER 25 (ZONING) OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CODE 1983 (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), BY CHANGING THE ZONE MAP CLASSIFICATION FROM AGRICULTURAL— 10 ACRES (A-10a) TO AGRICULTURAL—5 ACRES (A-5a) AT PANA`EWA, HILO, HAWAI`I, COVERED BY TAX MAP KEY: 2-2-048:013 (POR.) (Applicant: Ho`oulu-Lahui) (Area: approx. 12.043 acres) The Windward Planning Commission forwards its favorable recommendation for this requested change of zone, which would allow the applicant to subdivide the property that currently houses Kua O Ka La New Century Public Charter School and enable the school to transition from a lease agreement to fee-simple ownership. The property is located at 345 Makalika Street. Reference: Comm. 207 Intr. by: Council Member Kimball (B/R) Approve: LAAC-13 Vote on Bill 40: Ms. Kimball moved to pass Bill 40 on first reading and (Approved) adopt Legislative Approvals and Acquisitions Committee Report No. 13. Seconded by Ms. Galimba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 29 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Bill 41: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO. 24-32, AS AMENDED, THE OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2025 Decreases the appropriation in the Transfer to Housing Fund account($451,221); and appropriates the same to the HOME Program Income Repayment account. Reference: Comm. 210 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Approve: FC-40 Vote on Bill 41: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 41 on first (Approved) reading and adopt Finance Committee Report No. 40. Seconded by Mr. Hustace and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Bill 42: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO. 24-32, AS AMENDED, THE OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2025 Increases revenues in the Interest—Other Federal account($660,000); and appropriates the same to the Emergency Rent Assistance 2 COVID-19 account ($600,000), Hawaii Island Landlord/Tenant Mediation account($10,000), and 2021 Hawaii Island Homeowner Assistance Program-Administration account ($50,000). Reference: Comm. 211 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Approve: FC-41 Vote on Bill 42: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 42 on first (Approved) reading and adopt Finance Committee Report No. 41. Seconded by Mr. Hustace and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 30 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Bill 21: AMENDS CHAPTER 2, ARTICLE 15, OF THE HAWAI`I COUNTY CODE 1983 (Draft 2) (2016 EDITION, AS AMENDED), RELATING TO NEPOTISM Adds provisions and definitions consistent with standards set forth in Section 84-13.2 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, which are intended to provide for fair and impartial hiring, personnel, and contracting practices within the workplace. Reference: Comm. 91.2 Intr. by: Council Member Kimball First Reading: April 16, 2025 and Comm. 91.3: From Council Member Heather L. Kimball, dated April 24, 2025, transmitting an opinion from the Board of Ethics regarding Bill 21, Draft 2. Motion to Approve: Ms. Kimball moved to pass Bill 21, Draft 2, on second and final reading. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: We've had pretty in-depth discussions about this. Glad that we had the formal approval from the Board of Ethics,which is there in your packet. Just ask for my colleagues' continued support. Mahalo. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Bill 21, Draft 2, at second and final reading,please say "aye." Vote on Bill 21: The motion to pass Bill 21, Draft 2, on second and final Draft 2 reading was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 31 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Bill 36: ADOPTS A PAY PLAN FOR PERSONS EMPLOYED BY THE COUNTY OTHER THAN THOSE WHOSE PAY IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR, DESIGNATING PAYROLL PERIODS, PAY DAYS, PRESCRIBING REQUIREMENTS WITH RESPECT TO OFFICIAL FIDELITY BONDS, AND REPEALING ORDINANCE NO. 24-28 AND ALL AMENDMENTS THERETO, SAID ORDINANCE TO BE KNOWN AS THE SALARY ORDINANCE OF 2025 Establishes rates of compensation for appointed employees in the Legislative Branch and the Office of Housing and Community Development, the County Physician, Student Helpers, and Senior Community Services Aids for various County agencies, and incorporates updates to minimum wage positions. Reference: Comm. 183 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) First Reading: April 16, 2025 Vote on Bill 36: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 36 on second (Approved) and final reading. Seconded by Mr. Hustace and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Members Kimball — 1. Excused: None. Bill 37: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO. 24-32, AS AMENDED, THE OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2025 Increases revenues in the Fund Balance from Previous Year account($70,000,000); and appropriates the same to the Provision for Compensation Adjustment-General account. Funds would be used to pay for Temporary Hazard Pay for all covered employees for work performed during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to March 2022. Reference: Comm. 184 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) First Reading: April 16, 2025 Page 32 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Bill 37: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 37 on second (Approved) and final reading. Seconded by Mr. Onishi and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Members Kimball — 1. Excused: None. Bill 43: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO. 23-40, WHICH AMENDS ORDINANCE NO. 22-125, WHICH AUTHORIZES THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO AN INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT FOR A STATE WATER POLLUTION CONTROL REVOLVING FUND LOAN FOR WASTEWATER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS AND AUTHORIZES THE ISSUANCE OF $17,000,000 GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINANCING QUALIFIED WASTEWATER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS OF THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I Increases the amount of funds for the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant Rehabilitation Project from $17 million to $52 million. Reference: Comm. 225 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) First Reading: April 16, 2025 Note: Requires 2/3 vote of the entire membership, pursuant to Section 47-5, Hawaii Revised Statutes Vote on Bill 43: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to pass Bill 43 on second (Approved) and final reading. Seconded by Mr. Hustace and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kimball — 1. Excused: None. Return to Order The Chair directed the Council to return to the order of business. of Business: Page 33 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 143-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HURTS ANIMALS AND PEOPLE FOR ITS HUMANE EDUCATION INITIATIVE Transfers $2,055 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 8); and credits to the Animal Control and Protection Agency account. Reference: Comm. 243 Intr. by: Council Member Inaba Motion to Approve: Ms. Galimba moved to adopt Res. 143-25. Seconded by Mr. Onishi. CHR. INABA: I ask for my colleagues' support on this resolution. All those in favor,please say "aye." Vote on Res. 143-25: The motion to adopt Res. 143-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kimball — 1. Excused: None. Res. 144-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO IKAIKAMAULOA YOUTH FOUNDATION INC. TO ASSIST WITH EXPENSES FOR THE KONA GOLD BOXING CLUB'S TEACH TO REACH INITIATIVE Transfers $8,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 8); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 244 Intr. by: Council Member Inaba Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 144-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: This is my resolution as well. Asking for my colleagues' support in supporting one of our only boxing facilities here on the west side. They work Page 34 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 with youth in our community to provide a safe recreational extracurricular activity to keep them off the streets. So, asking for your support. All those in favor of approving Resolution 144-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 144-25: The motion to adopt Res. 144-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. Res. 146-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO SPECIAL OLYMPICS HAWAI`I, INC., TO ASSIST WITH EXPENSES FOR THE WEST HAWAI`I REGIONAL SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT Transfers $5,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 8); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 246 Intr. by: Council Member Inaba Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 146-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: I ask for my colleagues' support. This event creates a tournament here in West Hawaii for our Special Olympic community. You can see any of the associated expenses as an exhibit to the resolution. With that, all those in favor of approving Resolution 146-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 146-25: The motion to adopt Res. 146-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. Page 35 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 147-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO HILO BAYFRONT TRAILS TO PURCHASE A DEVICE THAT COUNTS PEDESTRIANS AND CYCLISTS Transfers $5,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 2); and credits to the Department of Parks and Recreation, Administration Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 247 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 147-25. Seconded by Mr. Onishi. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you, Chair. This is a really cool project. This eco counter will count people as they go by and note if they're pedestrians or cyclists. This can just really help if new programs are instituted to know what the uptick in cycling or walking is. It can also help with managing the trail and possibly applying for additional outside funds to add things to the trail. And another very interesting thing is it can be moved. So they can use it in one section of the trail and then move it to another section at another time if they want to get specific information. So, looking for everybody's support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 147-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 147-25: The motion to adopt Res. 147-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 36 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 148-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE ROTARY CLUB OF SOUTH HILO FOUNDATION FOR EXPENSES RELATING TO THE CREATION OF A PEACE POLE TO BE INSTALLED AT KALAKAUA PARK Transfers $6,500 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 2); and credits to the Department of Parks and Recreation, Administration Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 248 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 148-25. Seconded by Mr. Onishi. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much. This is working with the rotary club. Going to install a granite peace pole in Kalakaua Park, and it will be done in early August to mark the 80'h anniversary of the bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So, working with the community to figure out. Working with the Mayor's office, the rotary club, and potentially sister cities to figure out the best timing on that. I'll let you all know when we know the date. But really important marker to think about peace in our communities around that time. Thank you so much. Looking for your support. CHR. INABA: Thank you. Seeing no further lights on, all those in favor of approving Resolution 148-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 148-25: The motion to adopt Res. 148-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 37 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 149-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO HAWAI`I INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE EXPERIENCE TO ASSIST WITH EXPENSES RELATING TO ITS FIVE-DAY SCIENCE EXCURSION AROUND HAWAI`I ISLAND Transfers $7,750 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 2); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 249 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 149-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I was approached by the young people of highs—High High seniors and juniors, as well as Waiakea High School seniors and juniors. They participated as a group for the past several years going to Japan to do these really intense science and cultural exchange experiences. And this time they really would like to host other people coming to our island to learn about the way we do things here on our island. So I was very happy to be approached and happy to support this effort. Yeah. Looking for everybody's support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Mahalo. All those in favor of approving Resolution 149-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 149-25: The motion to adopt Res. 149-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 38 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 150-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO HAWAI`I ISLAND ADULT CARE FOR ITS POSITIVE APPROACH TO CARE TRAINING PROGRAM Transfers $5,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 2); and credits to the Office of Aging, Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 250 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 150-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much. Yeah, this is a program that our HIAC, Hawaii Island Adult Care, has been doing. It's been very popular with the community. In fact, their next training is today, but all the spaces have been filled up. So this funding is going to allow them to do another training and opportunity on June 4 h. So you can contact HIAC if you're interested in getting involved. But it's a really great program and it's really supported home caregivers,people caring for their relatives and loved ones at home, to give them clear guidance and ideas for supporting their loved ones at home. And it's been a real game changer for some people. So, happy to support this and looking for all my colleagues' support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 150-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 150-25: The motion to adopt Res. 150-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 39 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 151-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO YWCA OF HAWAI`I ISLAND FOR EXPENSES RELATED TO ITS DEVELOPMENTAL PRESCHOOL Transfers $10,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 2); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 251 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 151-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Just helping to support our developmental preschool here in Hilo with making sure that their students are fed. They got some of their funding cut around food for their preschool, and I wanted to support that effort. As we know, young children especially cannot learn and develop if they do not have nutritious foods. So, happy to be able to do this and looking for all your support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 151-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 151-25: The motion to adopt Res. 151-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 152-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO HOSPICE OF HILO FOR ITS 21sT ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF LIFE Transfers $3,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 2); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 252 Intr. by: Council Member Kagiwada Page 40 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Motion to Approve: Ms. Kagiwada moved to adopt Res. 152-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Just supporting this annual celebration of life put on by the Hospice of Hilo. This year it will be May 25 h down at Reeds Bay. This is an opportunity for the community to come out and remember and pay tribute to loved ones that they've lost. And it is a very wonderful community event, and I hope that those who have lost somebody and want to mark that in someway can join the event this year. Thank you. Looking for all your support. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 152-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 152-25: The motion to adopt Res. 152-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 153-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE WAIAKEA HIGH SCHOOL PARENT TEACHER STUDENT ASSOCIATION FOR THE 2025 WAIAKEA HIGH SCHOOL PROJECT GRAD NIGHT Transfers $2,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 5); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 253 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair, actually I need to recuse myself from this vote. My daughter is in the graduating class. CHR. INABA: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, you introduced this measure. I don't think there's a concern because there's a bunch of students also graduating. So if you would like to make the motion, please, and take a vote on it as well. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, I'll make the motion. Page 41 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to adopt Res. 153-25. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. Again, recusing myself as she is graduating this year. This is my baby. She's 18. But, as a whole, the Waiakea High School, I just like to lend my hand as do all of us to any of our graduating classes. So I hope that it all goes well and congratulations to all of our graduating seniors at Waiakea High School. CHR. INABA: Thank you. I'm going to call on the Clerk for a procedural matter here. MR. HENRICKS: I just would ask for a quick recess to confer with the Chair. CHR. INABA: Thank you. We're in recess until 11:10. Recess: At 11:06 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 11:12 a.m. CHR. INABA: We are on Resolution 153-25, and we are ready to take the vote. Vote on Res. 153-25: The motion to adopt Res. 153-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. Res. 154-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO NA PULAPULA, INC., FOR EXPENSES RELATING TO THE KEA`AU FAMILY FUN DAY Transfers $5,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 5); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 254 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder Page 42 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to adopt Res. 154-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. I cannot express enough how much I appreciate this organization. This is the second, maybe third, year they've done this now at the Shipman Park. And Stacey and his `ohana, the Jarneski `Ohana, really does a tremendous job putting on an easter egg family fun day at the parkwaterslides, events. I mean it's just beautiful; music, the whole thing. So I really appreciate them, and they just got their nonprofit together. So this is Na Pulapula Incorporated. I can't say enough about their organization or the event, and Parks and Rec. (Recreation) for participating and helping make all this happen. So just look for everyone's support. Mahalo. CHR. INABA: All those in favor of approving Resolution 154-25, please say Ic aye. Vote on Res. 154-25: The motion to adopt Res. 154-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Villegas — 1. Excused: None. Res. 155-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO D.A.R.E. HAWAI`I TO ASSIST WITH EXPENSES RELATING TO ITS 2025 D.A.R.E. DAY CELEBRATION EVENT IN EAST HAWAI`I Transfers $2,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 5); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 255 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to adopt Res. 155-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I look for everyone's support. Thank you. Page 43 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor MR. HUSTACE: Chair? CHR. INABA: Oh, sorry. Council Member Hustace, go ahead. MR. HUSTACE: Thanks, Chair. I just want to mahalo my colleagues for supporting D.A.R.E. Day. And I want to thank Captain Roy Valera for his testimony earlier today and the work that they've done with our students across the island. Myself as well as Council Member Villegas had an opportunity to attend the West Hawaii D.A.R.E. Day celebration. It was a fantastic event. I mean, there were 500 students there. We definitely need to support them with their school resource officers. I think we were missing Kealakehe that day, but it was quite an event and the energy put on and displayed by our Police Department and the partners with D.A.R.E. Hawaii was quite fabulous. So mahalo for all your support. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Hustace. And, yes, this event is happening May 20'h at the Kawamoto Swimming Pool in Hilo. So all those in favor of approving Resolution 155-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 155-25: The motion to adopt Res. 155-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 156-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO LALAKEA FOUNDATION TO ASSIST WITH EXPENSES RELATING TO ITS HILO ALOHA EVENT Transfers $3,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 5); and credits to the Department of Research and Development, Tourism Promotion account. Reference: Comm. 256 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder Motion to Approve: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to adopt Res. 156-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Page 44 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I look for everyone's support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 156-25: The motion to adopt Res. 156-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 157-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO POHAKU PELEMAKA FOR ITS HO`OWEHE I KA NIU SUMMER CAMP Transfers $4,345 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 4); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 257 Intr. by: Council Member Kierkiewicz Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to adopt Res. 157-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I just want to mahalo nui Leila Kealoha, our community partner, executive director of P6haku Pelemaka, for hosting the summer learning programs. They are meant to connect keiki with kupuna. This year's focus is on niu, or coconut, and the multitude of uses. So keiki will learn from kupuna how to use and care for niu. Looking for everyone's support. Mahalo, I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 157-25, please say "aye." Page 45 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Res. 157-25: The motion to adopt Res. 157-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 158-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO D.A.R.E. HAWAI`I FOR THE 2025 D.A.R.E. DAY CELEBRATION IN EAST HAWAI`I Transfers $2,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 4); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 258 Intr. by: Council Member Kierkiewicz Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to adopt Res. 158-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I'm just joining my colleagues in supporting this important event for our youth. And special thanks to our Police Department for helping to host this special day. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 158-25: The motion to adopt Res. 158-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 46 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 159-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE PUNA RISING `OHANA FOR ITS PUNA STORYWORKS PROJECT Transfers $7,425 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 4); and credits to the Department of Research and Development, Business Development account. Reference: Comm. 259 Intr. by: Council Member Kierkiewicz Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to adopt Res. 159-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. A special thanks goes out to Robert Golden, as well as Mya Dolena and Kai Manor. They have been hosting a number of workshops to help individuals in community learn how to start or scale up a business. These have been very successful. So they are going to be taking these trainings and putting them into online modules. So this CRF (Contingency Relief Fund) will be supporting that so that this kind of learning is available to a broader audience here on Hawaii Island. Looking for everyone's support. Thank you, I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 159-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 159-25: The motion to adopt Res. 159-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 47 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 160-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE FRIENDS OF THE PALACE THEATER FOR THE 2025 EASTER EXTRAVAGANZA Transfers $2,500 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 4); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 260 Intr. by: Council Member Kierkiewicz Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to adopt Res. 160-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: We are so lucky to have a number of community partners who step up to fill in a gap. Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder talked about the Jarneski `Ohana stepping up to do something in Kea`au and I think Ka`u for supporting our keiki and our `ohana. I do want to take an opportunity to thank Gary "Gigi"Napoleon for literally working an Easter miracle to host this Easter Extravaganza event at Wong Stadium, with support from Prosecuting Attorney's office. I had the chance to go check it out; 30,000 eggs disappeared in like six minutes. So a shout-out to the many hands that went into stuffing the eggs and just creating a space for keiki and `ohana to have fun together. Looking for everyone's support. Thank you, I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 160-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 160-25: The motion to adopt Res. 160-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 48 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 161-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE BIG ISLAND LIONS FOUNDATION TO SUPPORT THE 2025 HILO CHRISTMAS PARADE Transfers $1,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 3); and credits to the Department of Parks and Recreation, Administration Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 261 Intr. by: Council Member Onishi Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 161-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Vice Chair Onishi. MR. ONISHL Thank you. Is Roxanne Aburamen at the Hilo chambers with the Akaka Falls Lions (Club)? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Council Member, she's here. MR. ONISHL Okay, thanks. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Representatives are approaching. (Note: At this time, Roxanne Aburamen, Akaka Falls Lions Club, and Nathan Tajon, Hilo Crescent City Lions Club, came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. ONISHL Okay, I just want to say that they came and asked for some help. And then what I'm doing is I asked them for a budget of what they needed. And so I looked at the list, and what I wanted to provide funding for was to help with having equipment or, I guess, supplies that they could use for the years to come. In that way, they won't be always hitting the Council Members for funding. And so we're kind of setting them up. So you folks want to say something? And this also, this Christmas parry, is so awesome that they put on with all the Lions. I mean, we have thousands and thousands of people that line up the streets to watch this celebration. So, Roxanne, you folks want to say something? MS. ABURAMEN: So, we just want to thank Mr. Onishi and the Council Members for always supporting our Christmas Parade. This is put on by four Lions Club here in Hilo: Hilo Lions Club, Crescent City Lions, Waiakea Lions, and Akaka Falls Lions. Nate Tajon here is the parade chairperson. This is the second year he's doing it. I mean, the parade is awesome. We would like to thank you all for supporting us. Page 49 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 So we'll be using the funds from Mr. Onishi to purchase traffic safety batons. We didn't realize we needed it until Mr. Tajon came on and he said, "We can't be directing traffic at night with our hands." We'll be picking up two-way radios. We didn't realize we needed two-way radios until Mr. Tajon said, "We need radios. We can't use our cell phones,"which is true. And we'll be picking up safety vests for our volunteers. So thank you very much. Nate, do you want to add? MR. TAJON: Yeah. We're supplying the safety vests. Some of them got damaged over the years, so just going through that. And picking up more radios to help with the officers. We found the officers needed radios as well. They use their own. But if we can lend them some of ours, that way everybody's on the same page, everybody's on the same communication; it goes a lot smoother. Thank you. MR. ONISHL Thank you. Can you folks identify yourselves and who you guys are representing? MR. TAJON: I'm Nathan Tajon. I'm with the Hilo Crescent City Lions Club. I'm this year's chair for the parade. MS. ABURAMEN: I'm sorry, I'm Roxanne Aburamen. I'm with Akaka Falls Lions Club, but I'm also secretary for the Big Island Lions Foundation. Nate here is the director of the Big Island Lions Foundation. MR. ONISHL Okay, right on. Okay. And so I just want to thank you folks. And when I was having a discussion with Roxanne, I just wanted to make sure that they had enough two-way radios, enough safety vests so that everyone who is helping, the volunteers, all have vests for them to wear. So thank you very much, and thank you for attending this meeting. MS. ABURAMEN: I would like to add, though, we would like to invite the County Council to participate with us and join us in being a part of the parade. If you decide, we can send you information and we can have you folks enter as a group. Thank you. MR. ONISHL Thank you for the invite. Council Members, think about it and let them know, okay. Thanks. So I'm asking for you guys. I'll support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 161-25, please say "aye." Page 50 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Res. 161-25: The motion to adopt Res. 161-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 162-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE LIONS CLUB OF KONA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION, INC., FOR THE 39TH ANNUAL HAWAI`I KUPUNA HULA FESTIVAL Transfers $2,800 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 3); and credits to the Department of Parks and Recreation, Administration Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 262 Intr. by: Council Member Onishi Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 162-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. MR. ONISHL Just for the record, I wanted to mention that I did work for the senior activities division, and I used to help with this kupuna hula way back. It was many years ago. But we have—can you help? (Note: At this time, Program Director Nicole Sasaki Simmons, Parks and Recreation Department, came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. SIMMONS: Aloha. I'm Nicole Sasaki Simmons with Parks and Recreation Elderly Activities Division, Elderly Recreation Services Program Director for this kupuna hula festival that we're hosting in September. Thank you to Council Member Onishi for supporting us, and his funds are going to go towards our house band and program printing. We normally don't have to ask out for funds, but because of the five-year hiatus we had due to COVID (coronavirus disease) and all that, last year we had our competition and prices of everything just went up substantially. So we're trying to catch up so we can get back on track and hopefully not have to ask again. But thank you for your support. Page 51 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. ONISHL Thank you very much for all your hard work and getting it back in activity again. The only thing is I'm hoping that the Japan economy improves. Because when we were running the festival, we had at least eight to ten halaus coming from Japan. One halau came from Okinawa. What was amazing was the musician from Okinawa, he could sing such beautiful Hawaiian music when they performed, but he couldn't speak one word of English. It was so amazing. I was like, "What!" And he sang so great, and then when you talked to him, he couldn't understand any English. But yeah. But thank you very much and MS. SIMMONS: We have one coming from Japan this year. Last year they couldn't come. So we're really happy to welcome them back. They'll slowly start coming back. MR. ONISHL And I'm hoping that we can get more in the future. I'll be there to help support you guys. MS. SIMMONS: Thank you. MR. ONISHL Okay. So I'm hoping for support, Members. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Vice Chair Onishi. Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you so much for all your amazing work. I'm so excited to see this program coming back. I'd also love to offer some support from District 7 in my office. Because this is in Kona, yeah? Yeah. I just have a quick question for Corp. Counsel. This is more clarity for myself because I'm getting CRF requests, but the event doesn't happen until the start of the new fiscal year. So my question is for clarification because I'm in full support. But I was under the understanding that funds being allocated for events that don't happen until the following fiscal year, that the funds have to be utilized for an event happening within the fiscal year that the funds are allocated from. (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Renee Schoen came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. SCHOEN: Renee Schoen, Corporation Counsel. Yes, you're correct. So I'm sorry, I didn't read this particular one and the details. But I know the prior one, they were asking for equipment for that particular fiscal year, even though the event itself was happening the next fiscal year. So if that's the same, I think it's a permissible expenditure. But you are right; generally, you have to expend within the fiscal year. MS. VILLEGAS: So even these funds, they have to expend in this fiscal year. Thank you so much. That's good clarity for me as well. But please do reach out as the event gets closer, because I'd be honored to support. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. I yield. Page 52 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. ONISHL Mr. Chair. CHR. INABA: Vice Chair Onishi. MR. ONISHL Just to add. So with the Christmas Parade and also the Puna hula, I did put money in to purchase now for the event, yeah, instead of waiting until, like, going towards the event itself. Yeah. So that's why I got to select how I wanted to give the money or where to give the money to. But thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 162-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 162-25: The motion to adopt Res. 162-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Res. 163-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO D.A.R.E. HAWAI`I FOR THE 2025 D.A.R.E. DAY CELEBRATION IN EAST HAWAI`I Transfers $2,000 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 3); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 263 Intr. by: Council Member Onishi Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 163-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Vice Chair Onishi. MR. ONISHI: Just asking for support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor, please say "aye." Page 53 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Res. 163-25: The motion to adopt Res. 163-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public. PUBLIC ON RES. 164-25 The following individual registered to speak and came forward when called by (COMM. 264): the Chair: Grant Baclig: In support. (representing Hawaii Fire Department) Res. 164-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PURCHASE EQUIPMENT FOR THE KEA`AU FIRE STATION Transfers $9,500 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 3); and credits to the Hawaii Fire Department, Fire Auxiliary Services Equipment account. Reference: Comm. 264 Intr. by: Council Member Onishi Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 164-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Vice Chair Onishi. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Mr. Chair. Captain Baclig, so maybe you can mention about the cameras that Fire is going to be purchasing for your station because of some problems you folks faced in the past. (Note: At this time, Fire Captain Grant Baclig came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. BACLIG: In the past, yes. We've had—while we would be out on alarms or at night when there's nobody patrolling outside, we have had instances before where our cars were broken into. A long time ago, somebody's car got stolen and Page 54 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 the ambulance passed their own car coming back from the hospital. So it would help with the safety of this area and our station, as well as keep our personal stuff as well as the station supplies and everything safer. MR. ONISHL Thank you very much for all that. And also for myself, when I (inaudible) get on the Council, I always go and visit all my fire stations that are in my district to make sure that, one, as Captain mentioned, the safety for our first responders. Because we need to make sure we take care of them. Because if we cannot take care of them, how do we expect them to take care of us? Right? And so that's why I always try to help out with visiting the stations, going to police stations and so forth. So this is a dire need for them. They have all their equipment, especially to keep them in physical shape, all outside, out in the elements of the weather. And so it gets deteriorated and so forth. So they also will be fixing up a little bit of that area that they're going to be exercising and doing their workouts. So that's great. Also included is the air-conditioning. Because in this building, right there you can see where he is. In the background, it's kind of compact andI mean, it's really cluttered over there. So the air-conditioning is going to be really helping them. And as he mentioned about the cameras,just a story. Like with Waiakea fire station, it had a lot of homeless. At the time, they didn't have the fencing. So they had a homeless person take one of the fireman's—what was it, a jacket? What do you folks call that? MR. BACLIG: That was here! It was here a bunch of years ago, yeah. We had the door wasn't locked and some guy put on the turnout gear and actually came into the station. He came into the dorm with a helmet and everything. MR. ONISHL So thank you. So I'm just asking my colleagues for support. And thank you, Captain, for coming online. MR. BACLIG: Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. MR. ONISHL You're welcome. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair? CHR. INABA: Oh, sure, Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sorry. I do want to thank Council Member Onishi for this very generous kokua. Thank you, Captain, for being on. But I do want to disclose that my partner, he is an FEO (fire equipment operator) at the Kea`au station. So I just wanted to make sure that was noted for the record. But all firefighters will definitely benefit from this kokua. Thank you, I yield. Page 55 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. BACLIG: Definitely. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Kierkiewicz. All those in favor of approving Resolution 164-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 164-25: The motion to adopt Res. 164-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public. PUBLIC ON RES. 165-25 The following individual registered to speak and came forward when called by (COMM. 265): the Chair: Marcia Timboy: In support. Res. 165-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE GRASSROOTS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GROUP FOR THE 2025 HILO LEI DAY FESTIVAL Transfers $500 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 3); and credits to the Department of Liquor Control, Public Programs account. Reference: Comm. 265 Intr. by: Council Member Onishi Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 165-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Vice Chair Onishi. MR. ONISHL Just asking for support. I'll be helping you folks out more next year. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor, please say "aye." Page 56 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Res. 165-25: The motion to adopt Res. 165-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public. PUBLIC ON RES. 166-25 The following individual registered to speak and came forward when called by (COMM. 266): the Chair: William Derr: In support. (representing Hawaii Police Department) Res. 166-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT FOR THE HAWAI`I POLICE DEPARTMENT'S COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM IN COUNCIL DISTRICT 3 Transfers $5,883 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 3); and credits to the Police Department, Hawaii Isle Police Activities League Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 266 Intr. by: Council Member Onishi Motion to Approve: Mr. Onishi moved to adopt Res. 166-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. Motion to Amend: Mr. Onishi moved to amend Res. 166-25 with the contents of Comm. 266.1. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Vice Chair Onishi. MR. ONISHL Thank you. I had a little bit extra funding, so I just wanted to increase more to community police to help them with their bike patrol, which will help out East Hawaii a lot with all of our activities. Like, for example, the 4 h of July celebrations, patrolling down the beaches, Downtown Hilo. Also, what I want to really thank is the whole staff from the Police Department to the Mayor's office to my office on how we got this done within so many hours. Because if Page 57 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 not, I would have to table this and see if we could get it done before the end of our Council meeting. But yeah. But thank you. So I'm asking for your guys' support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. On the amendment, all those in favor please say Ic aye. Vote on Motion The motion to amend Res. 166-25 with the contents of to Amend: Comm. 266.1 was carried by the following voice vote: (Approved) Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. Vote on Motion Mr. Hustace moved to suspend Council Rule 23, to to Suspend Council waive the holdover for the substantive amendment of Rules: Res. 166-25. Seconded by Ms. Kimball and carried by the (Approved) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. CHR. INABA: Back to the main motion, Resolution 166 as amended. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Chair. As you guys know, as Mr. Hustace always makes a joke with me, it's something about HI-PAL (Hawai`i Isle Police Activities League). So he's telling me now that I need to recuse myself, but I'll be supporting that. But also, Lieutenant, are you still on? I think the bikes are supposed to be electric bikes to help them, right. Is that correct? Are the bikes supposed to be electric? (Note: At this time, Police Lieutenant William Derr came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. DERR: Yeah. Initially, we received 6 e-bikes and another 12 are on order. And as you had explained, we're going to be utilizing them both day and nighttime hours downtown, and then during daytime hours basically on the beach run between Richardson beach and Onekahakaha. Because, we get a lot of activity and the bike patrol is more suited for those areas than regular patrol cars. Page 58 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. ONISHL Great. And then, Lieutenant, are you folks looking to expanding to the west side along Ali`i Drive and all those other areas? MR. DERR: Yes, absolutely. It's my understanding that out of those 12, I believe 4 are slated to be implemented down there so they can be doing Ali`i Drive, Old Airport, that kind of thing, and get the bike patrol up and running. MR. ONISHL Great. Thank you very much for that, Lieutenant. Yeah, so like I mentioned before with Fire, I always try to support our community police officers because they're always involved with the community, right. And then to me, the community, when you have those great relationships, they're the eyes and ears for the department and makes the police officers an easier task on their work. So I'm asking for your support. And as Lieutenant also mentioned about the Keiki IDs, I know you folks, when you guys go to these big events, there's always a request from the events that they want community police down there to do the Keiki ID. So this will really help them because their equipment is, like, how old? It's really old, right, Lieutenant? MR. DERR: Yeah. Basically, our printers that we use to make them, they're falling apart. So we mix and match parts and do what we can, but yeah, it'll help procure some more machines. And then like I said, with the banners, it'll help people know where to come to get those IDs. Because, we want to expand it further than just special events, which is where we typically do it. But we want to do a partnership like with the library. You know, every third Wednesday of the month, you can go to the library, and we're going to be there if you want a Keiki ID, instead of having to wait for some special event where we're going to be yeah. And then we have the consumables that we have to purchase, like the ribbons and the ink cartridges, that kind of thing. MR. ONISHL Yeah. So thank you very much, LT (Lieutenant). I'm just asking my colleagues for support. Thank you. CHR. INABA: Thank you. All those in favor of approving Resolution 166-25, as amended, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 166-25: The motion to adopt Res. 166-25, as amended to Draft 2, Draft 2 was carried by the following voice vote: (Adopted) Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Page 59 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Res. 167-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO KONA HISTORICAL SOCIETY FOR ITS KONA BEEKEEPER LEGACY PROJECT Transfers $2,500 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 6); and credits to the Department of Research and Development, Agriculture Other Current Expenses account. Reference: Comm. 267 Intr. by: Council Member Galimba Motion to Approve: Ms. Galimba moved to adopt Res. 167-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Asking for my colleagues' support. This program has been supported by a couple of my fellow colleagues, and it is a great project highlighting beekeeping in Kona. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. Yes, this exhibit will be there through July. So, encourage folks to go and visit it at the Kona Historical Society. All those in favor of approving Resolution 167-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 167-25: The motion to adopt Res. 167-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Council Member Kagiwada— 1. Excused: None. Res. 168-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AN APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITS SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A GRANT TO THE SOCIETY FOR KONA'S EDUCATION AND ART FOR THE TERMITE TREATMENT OF ITS HISTORICAL BUILDINGS Transfers $8,705 from the Clerk-Council Services —Contingency Relief account (Council District 6); and credits to the Department of Research and Development, Business Development account. Reference: Comm. 268 Intr. by: Council Member Galimba Page 60 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Motion to Approve: Ms. Galimba moved to adopt Res. 168-25. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. INABA: Council Member Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. So pleased to be able to support this organization. It's been providing programming for 46 years now. They do have some infrastructure needs that they need to take care of. So this is the first part of their plan and termite treating. They operate out of the old Japanese language school and headmaster's cottage in South Kona, and provide programming in a wide variety of subjects to the community—art, dance, crafts, Tai Chi, karate, music, and even cultivating mushrooms. So a terrific organization. I'm asking for my colleagues' support. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. All those in favor of approving Resolution 168-25, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 168-25: The motion to adopt Res. 168-25 was carried by the (Adopted) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. INABA: I think that was a record for a number of CRF resolutions on one agenda perhaps. But with that, we will go back to Bill 39. Can I get a motion to remove Bill 39, Draft 2, from the table? Vote on Motion to Mr. Onishi moved to remove Bill 39, Draft 2, from the Remove from Table: table. Seconded by Ms. Villegas and carried by the (Approved) following voice vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Inaba—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Chair Inaba relinquished the chair to Acting Chair Onishi. Page 61 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. INABA: I want to point out that my office provided the requested information via Communication 206.3, which the information being the market rental rates by zip code across this island. Happy to take questions. And again, I want to apologize for the oversight here in not having that information ready for you folks today. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Ms. Kagiwada, do you want to go ahead? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes. Thank you so much, and thank you for providing the information. So, looking at this information,just take the one-bedrooms for instance, looking at the 80 percent AMI (Area Median Income), which is the proposed rate change of$1,663 a month. Of all the zip codes in our County, 22 of those are lower for one-bedroom for market rate than that proposed 80 percent AMI rate. So you've got 22 zip codes I would guess mostly on the south and east side out of the, what, 31 zip codes or something that we have? So a good portion, two-thirds, more than half, are going to now have market rates that are lower than our proposed affordable rental rates, which means people will be getting tax benefits, tax incentives, and we will be losing revenue for somebody who is providing a rental that could be even higher in many cases than the market rate. So I would love to hearI guess we've got our real property tax folks here. I would love to hear from them if that's okay. I would like to ask our Administrator and Assistant Administrator to come up and talk about potential revenue losses, what this could mean. (Note: At this time, Real Property Tax Administrator Lisa Miura and Assistant Real Property Tax Administrator Keita Jo, Finance Department, came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. MIURA: Real Property Tax Administrator Lisa Miura. We have so much data that we try to bring. So we're going to pull out those sheets real quick. MS. KAGIWADA: Great. MS. MIURA: The affordable rental guidelines for the one-bedroom, that would go up to 1,663 for example. And then when you went through the one-bedroom for the fair market rent that you all received today from Chairman Inaba, you said has approximately a whole bunch MS. KAGIWADA: Twenty-two that the market rate is lower than the proposed affordable housing rate. MS. MIURA: On the one-bedroom? Page 62 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MS. KAGIWADA: Yes. MS. MIURA: Okay, I'm not seeing that. MS. KAGIWADA: So the rate that is proposed is 1,663. MS. MIURA: Correct. And there's 22 of them under the one-bedroom that is less than that? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes. MS. MIURA: Okay. So our data isn't kept by zip codes. So I will tell you all the data I researched because zip codes is something MS. KAGIWADA: Apples and oranges. MS. MIURA: It is. MS. KAGIWADA: Oh gosh. MS. MIURA: So we prepared a lot of data according to what was asked last time, but not this one. And I believe Housing would probably be better at least in answering this question when it comes to the potential loss in revenue. We were looking at it from more if it went up, how many properties might go into it, which that part I don't know. We calculated I believe a question one of the Council Members asked,just so we can share that—we didn't come totally empty- handed—the total percent that was already at the max because that was a big concern last time. So I can stay back till it comes up to that question again, and then have the Housing Administrator answer your question now. MS. KAGIWADA: You can go ahead and speak to potential impacts on our revenue, yeah. MS. MIURA: Okay. So, regarding the—well, the maximum rent, I think the biggest concern last time, if I recall, besides revenue was everybody could raise up their rents, and how many were already at the max that would go up. So we did calculate those that were at the max for the 2025 tax year, because we've sent certified so we could provide that data. And there's only 4.3 percent, or 110 parcels, of the over 2,000 that applied that are at the max. So we took it one step further because we thought, well, somebody at Council might ask, "Well, what if it's within a hundred dollars,"because going to just that exact amount seemed like we could go one step further. And even at that, there is 7.2 percent that is within a hundred dollars of hitting the max allowed monthly rent. Does that make sense? Page 63 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 So, basically, you have 88.5 percent that are not within even a hundred dollars of the max rent right now. So, even though the rents were going up, a lot of those in here did not increase to the maximum amount. I cannot guarantee that they're not going to increase it. I mean, all I can say is what the data has shown us, whereas in years past, we were not able to provide that. Our staff entered that all in for this tax year. MS. KAGIWADA: Yeah. So I hear that and I understand that. I guess it's the people who are charging market rate that can now go into this program and get all the tax benefits for charging market rate. Right? MS. MIURA: Correct. MS. KAGIWADA: Or above market rate in many of these cases. MR. JO: I think what the data is showing is that people are not hitting the max on the affordable rental rate as it is. MS. KAGIWADA: Absolutely. MR. JO: It's actually to the contrary. So I'm not sure increasing the rate is going to drive the market up. We don't know. (Inaudible), right. MS. KAGIWADA: Yeah. I'm not saying it's going to drive the market up. What I'm saying is people who are just renting their places for market rate or even above market rate in 22 of our zip codes can now get all the advantages and tax advantages, lowering tax rates, getting the 3 percent cap, all these things and they're still charging above market rate. But we're going to make it so that they all get these tax advantages for charging above market rate. MS. MIURA: Yes, and that could happen. Until the long-term rental tax class comes out, I wouldn't be able to provide you accurate data, right. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. So all those people will be going from paying a tax rate in residential or apartment and go to the affordable rate. MS. MIURA: Potentially, if they applied, yes. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. Okay. So that is my concern on the east side, as well as the fact that those are not going to be any more affordable. We're not driving affordability. We're not making things more affordable by doing this on the east side by any means. We're only making it more affordable on the west side, but actually potentially allowing people to raise their rates on the east side. MS. MIURA: Possibly. And again, I'd have to let the Housing Administrator speak to that. That is not the area that we are familiar with on what drives what. Page 64 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 And perhaps maybe the introducers could share the intent of it, and I don't think it was just for East Hawaii that has a lot of rentals available. It was to get areas that have no rentals available into the program. And we are looking at the one- bedroom, but the higher up you get, it kind of flips a little bit, right. Because, it seems like it's not going up in the same extreme that the lower side is. MS. KAGIWADA: For a four-bedroom? MS. MIURA: Correct. And I will admit, looking at this many zip codes from a real property tax standpoint is a little confusing, not just I think for us, but it's going to be for the public. And I really hope we don't go to 31 different rental amounts. MS. KAGIWADA: Right. Absolutely. But I think the discussion we had before was maybe two different rental amounts, one for those higher-cost zip codes on the west side, and one for everybody else. And I think that was what I was requesting we delve into and what some of my colleagues were maybe talking about as well. So that's the only thing I'm talking about, is that this is potentially really affecting the different areas quite differently. And whereas I think it's important and critical that we support the west side and making sure that we have more rentals available over there, I think unintentionally could really hurt the rest of the island, other than those eight or nine zip codes that are the high end zip codes. So I guess that's where I'm just—and then, yeah. And then concerns for revenue loss if tons of people jump this. Because, it is quite a difference from going from apartment cost or residential Tier 1 to affordable rental. MS. MIURA: Correct. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. So that's all I have right now on that. I did remember, or I looked at the report from the Committee hearing, and there was also data requested on the geographic distribution of Section 8 vouchers. So maybe we're going to hear about that. So thank you. Thank you, Chair Inaba, for providing this additional information. I just, yeah, hope that we can have more of a conversation about this disparity on the different parts of the island. I'll yield for now. Thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Mr. Inaba, would you want to make any comments? MR. INABA: Let's see. I think what we need to realize also is that the payment standard is fluid, and that could really change from year to year. So I don't know if Administrator Costa wants to kind of explain how that could potentially really be fluid. So the argument that we are increasing the rents I don't know is accurate, but I'll just give the opportunity to Administrator Costa if she wants to chime in on those comments. Administrator? Page 65 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 (Note: At this time, Housing Administrator Kehaulani Costa came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. COSTA: Hi. Kehau Costa, Housing Administrator. So, as I understand it, the intention of this bill is to detach the Affordable Rental Housing Real Property Tax Program from the payment standard and moving towards the AMI chart that is provided by HUD (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development). The AMI chart is broken down into low income and extremely low income AMI; 80 percent, 60 percent, 30 percent. So that's my understanding of this bill. Why we were asked to take a look at moving away from the payment standard is because the payment standard is based on OHCD's (Office of Housing and Community Development's) ability to set the payment standard between 90 percent and 110 percent of fair market as established by HUD, understanding that HUD's studies are relatively old, three to five years old. So those market rents are not current market rents. They're three to five years old, based on the last HUD study. As we're looking at the current Federal, I guess, situation, we may have to adjust our payment standard. We're not sure what the proposed budget will be in the coming year. So, as we adjust our budget and our payment standards between the 90 and 110 percent of fair market, that is going to affect, if we don't detach it, it will affect Real Property Tax's ability to manage the program and certify leases. And it's a disruption to landlords, because they will have to adjust their rents annually based on our changing payment standard. So that's my understanding of the intention of the bill, is to make it administratively less burdensome on certifying those leases and the rent amounts to have a little bit of stability in determining the rent amounts from year to year, and allow OHCD to set payment standards that are also not—every year when we set the payment standard, we're considering the implications to the affordable rent program. And so detaching that would be helpful. MR. INABA: Thank you, Administrator. MS. COSTA: I don't know if that answered the question. MR. INABA: Yeah, no, thank you. You did as it relates to the payment standard, really. And after the last Committee hearing, I had some discussion in trying to determine whether there's a way to make those two different rates. I, myself, am not comfortable just choosing which zip codes are going to be a part of a cheaper rate and which will not be—and then to determine for that class what AMI they'll be having to rent at. So I do feel comfortable with the 80 percent in review of the market rate and in review of all the benefits that this bill has to offer in terms of getting people into the program, and also reducing some of the load on our Real Page 66 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Property Tax Division, and having to go and checkout each of the properties, making sure that they're permitted. We're just getting that information from Office of Housing for those Section 8 properties. So I ask for my colleagues' support. Thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair. So, as I understand this, the fair market rates that you've presented to us in this communication are from HUD. And they represent, according to Google, the 40'h percentile for the standard rental rates for the units, meaning that 40 percent of the units in the area would be provided at rental rates lower than the FMR (fair market rate), and 60 percent would be higher than the FMR. So it is not the same as the median, not the same as the affordable based on the AMI that we're getting from HUD, but there is going to be some sort of mathematical relationship between FMR and these values such that the blanket statement that 22 of these are valued higher really makes sense. In other words, it's complicated, I think, this relationship between FMR and the AMI rates. I'm going to throw a crazy idea out to the maker: What if we took a stab at this to just provide some flexibility to the Office of Housing to make adjustments based on their observations in terms of what they see happening in the market, and the differences between the east side and west side maybe through rulemaking or presenting a resolution to Council. But kind of what I'm hearing here is that this is really kind of tough to fit in a one-size-fits-all across the County. And I do agree with Council Member Kagiwada's assertion that if we do a one-size-fits-all, it's going to hurt the west side a little bit more than the east side I think. I haven't really thought it through, but maybe speaking with Kehau at some point we could consider that type of approach here. Just a thought. Thanks, Chair, I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, anyone in Hilo? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, go ahead, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Still working on that one. Thank you, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Thank you. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ms. Costa, I believe last time, and I appreciate the zipcoded information, but I think I was looking for more of a condensed conversion. We're looking at Hilo, Kona, Waimea, Puna. (Inaudible) Page 67 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 the zip codes. I'm not a genius with zip codes. I know most of those. I know the big ones: 96749, 96720. What is our density of affordable rentals or Section 8 vouchers being utilized in those different zip codes? I didn't see that in the document that you provided. My next question is coming. You know my next question. MS. COSTA: You're asking about vouchers? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. And maybe I should preface that by saying the bill hopes to engage more homeowners to enjoy the special rates of the affordable rental class. MS. COSTA: Yeah, so two separate things that this bill is doing, right? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. MS. COSTA: Setting the rent rate is one thing, and then the amendment to the bill was to include Section 8 units. Currently, we have, I would say, about 70 percent of our vouchers are east side; 30 percent are west side. Very low adoption in West Hawaii. Waimea through West Hawaii, very low adoption of the Section 8 program primarily because market rents are significantly higher than even the Section 8 payment standard at 110 percent of the fair market rent, which Council Member Kimball is correct. It's a statistical calculation based on those that respond to a rent survey. So it's not necessarily a comprehensive data set that's collected on all market rents. At OHCD, we don't really deal with market rents, right. We're dealing with HUD's fair market rent, which is a different calculation. We're not looking at market rents and collecting full market data. That would really be a different organization that does that. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So, if the density of our Section 8 vouchersI don't want to say anything that's not within the bill, but if the bill is guiding Section 8 vouchers and hopefully getting more people into the affordable rental class, and we're seeing mostly utilization of—is both of those categories mostly in East Hawaii, your affordable rental class and this is kind of blending real property MS. COSTA: Yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And OHCD? MS. COSTA: I'm going to—Administrator Miura could answer this question better but Page 68 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And while she's coming up, kind of back to what we said. MS. COSTA: Yup. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We're seeing a lot of utilization of Section 8 vouchers in East Hawaii. Does that include Waimea MS. COSTA: No. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Or is that just Hilo side MS. COSTA: Yeah. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Pahoa, Kona? MS. COSTA: A smaller percentage in Honoka`a. But I would say primarily our vouchers are in Hilo through Puna. That would be the bulk of our Section 8 vouchers. A small amount,just lower inventory there. Yeah. Project-based vouchers are in West Hawaii. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How many vouchers? MS. COSTA: Twenty-three hundred in our total MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: In the County? MS. COSTA: We have 2,300 total vouchers. Our total utilization would be 2,300 in the County, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And then do we know how many is Hilo and Kona? MS. COSTA: I don't have that break down. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's kind of what I was hoping for. MS. COSTA: I know. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Real Property, can you help with that question at all? MS. MIURA: Real Propter Tax Administrator Lisa Miura. This is not going to make you happy, but I don't keep track of Section 8 housing, right. So we keep track of the affordable rentals and Page 69 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's good because that's OHCD, and you guys are Property. So I'm looking for affordable rental class. What do you guys see as far as kind of just to have—would be council districts maybe 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 versus 6, 7, 8, 9. MS. MIURA: So I didn't break it down to council district because your guys' lines just kind of go all over in but I did break it down to Lower Puna, Kalapana area versus Puna, HPP (Hawaiian Paradise Park), Nanawale, Leilani. So I can tell you that information if that's okay. If you want me to clump it into East Hawaii versus West Hawaii, I could. The hard thing is Council Member Kimball's area—not Kimball, excuse me, Council Member Galimba, which kind of goes over both of the areas. But I'm more than happy to share this with you. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think today's discussion is kind of leaning like east and west— MS. MIURA: East, west. Okay. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And understanding what our—where are we seeing a lot of the affordable rental utilized? MS. MIURA: Oh, East Hawaii. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: East Hawaii. MS. MIURA: Hundred yeah. I can give you that exact number in a second, and I'm going to include Ka`u for the sake of this purpose in with West Hawaii because their numbers are really low. And I ran this by dwelling units, and not to make this more confusing, but while your certification for the 2025 data is based on parcels, some parcels have more than one dwelling unit in the Affordable Rental Housing Program. So, great for us because it's more units. But out of the 2,541 dwelling units, 246 are in West Hawaii if you also include Ka`u. That does not include Hamakua. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What about by MS. MIURA: 246 divided by 2,541, so that's 9.6 percent. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: 9.6 percent of MS. MIURA: Less than 10 percent, the total. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Folks participating in the affordable rental class? MS. MIURA: That are in West Hawaii. Page 70 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So 90 percent are in East Hawaii. MS. MIURA: Correct. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Ms. Costa, does this bill begin to balance the discrepancy that we're seeing between almost all of the affordable rental class and almost all of your Section 8 vouchers being utilized in East Hawaii? Does it begin to balance the market? Or is it shifting more ability for the East Hawaii market to take advantage, which they're already doing, or because we're the center of where people live who participate in affordable housing for whatever reason? Does it begin to balance that, or are we just creating more of a divide? MS. COSTA: This bill would begin to balance the affordableI believe this bill would be able to balance the affordable rental program and utilization of Section 8 vouchers because it would incentivize landlords in West Hawaii to better participate in Section 8, to provide more Section 8 units in West Hawaii because the rents would be a little bit closer,just a tiny bit closer, to what the market is. And they would be able to take advantage of the exemption. That's not happening right now, right. So, right now, it's very divided. I'm going to make a huge generalization and a huge assumption here, but my assumption is that this program helps to keep the rents affordable in East Hawaii. That's why you see many of the rents that you're seeing in that small area for market rent lower because most of the units in the affordable rent program are in these zip codes where housing is more affordable. So it's kind of driving. It's a little bit of a driver of the rents, whereas in West Hawaii it's so far off. It's so far off from what they can charge in rent, what they can get from Section 8 that we're just really not able to have good participation in West Hawaii. I believe this bill tries to balance that a little bit. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How does it do that? How does it accomplish that? MS. COSTA: The 80 percent AMI is just a little bit closer, not much closer. And then if a landlord is looking at, "Well, in West Hawaii I can participate in the affordable rental program,"that's a little bit more of an incentive to bring the rents closer to the 80 percent AML So the two together may allow more landlords to participate. I'm talking primarily about Section 8, right. I'm talking primarily about Section 8 participation. And when you have more landlords, what we talked about at Committee is when you start to have more landlords participating in the Section 8 program, it kind of helps to stabilize some of the rents in the area because it starts to balance out the market. When we look at comps for rent affordability, you're having a more blended rental mix than just all market. Page 71 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then for Lisa, with what Ms. Costa just said as far as looking to balance market, what do you see the effect of the bill being on the East Hawaii market? Because if I remember right from my last meeting when we had the discussion, what I saw was we're going to see an increase in rents on the east side of the island given the implementation of the bill. I might be wrong, but that's what I remember. MS. COSTA: I think some of the data that Real Property ran with regards to how many of the units participating in the affordable rental program are actually charging that max rent, that's interesting data because only MS. MIURA: 4.3 percent were at max rent, and 7.2 are within a hundred dollars of the max rent. MS. COSTA: So 100 percent of the units that are participating in the Real Property Tax, only about less than 10 percent are charging that max rent cap. So, if you're thinking that the max rent is going to go up and it's going to push the entire rental group up, that's not what the data's showing. That data is showing that 90 percent of the landlords participating in the real property tax exemption program are charging less than the cap that we set,the high rent that we set, which that's great to see. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, what about the vouchers? MS. COSTA: What are you asking about the vouchers? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Will the voucher amount covered be allowed to increase? Because, the owners of the properties participating in the affordable rental class and/or Section 8 voucher program, will they be able to increase their rents that they can utilize the vouchers for, which is our subsidization of rents here in East Hawaii? Will they be able to increase them? Do you understand where I'm going? MS. COSTA: Landlords in the Section 8 program are not able to MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Will this bill increase the rental amounts they can charge? MS. COSTA: If you're asking if it will increase the rental amounts they can charge because they want to charge more, no. Because, we help landlords to set their rental rate based on the comps of the area. So, if a landlord says, "I want to charge $2,000 for a one-bedroom in Kea`au,"we do a comp of the area and we say, "The rent that you're wanting to charge is too high. It's not comparable to the area, so you have to bring your rent down." So they could request to increase their rent, but it still has to be within the payment standard, and it still has to be Page 72 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 within comparable rents in the area. So our landlords aren't able to just increase their rent because this program is increasing the rent. They have to request a rent and we'd do a study. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So the bill won't directly allow affordable rental owners to just increase their rent because we've allowed to do so (inaudible). MS. COSTA: Not in the Section 8 program. They can't request a rent increase within a year of their lease. It has to be annual. And if they request a rent increase, we have to determine that that rent is a reasonable amount. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then broad spectrum ACTING CHR. ONISHL Wait, hold on. Let's hold those thoughts and I'll see if anybody in Kona wants to say anything before we move back to Hilo. Anybody in Kona? No? Okay, go ahead again then. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Onishi. I think this is my last question. So broad spectrum between the two different abilities of landowners in East Hawaii using the affordable rental class and/or Section 8 voucher program, or a combination of both because I think they overlap, correct? Broad spectrum, does this bill allow for the market as a whole to begin to raise market rates for rentals, fair market rental rates? And will it increase market rate ability for the landowners to charge more rent because they can, because they can use the subsidizations from the Section 8 voucher program and utilizing a lower tax bill at the same time? I'm trying to put it all together in a way that makes sense to my brain. If it doesn't make sense to you, then I'm thinking about it wrong. But I think I've got a grasp on it. MS. MIURA: No, I think I understand what you're asking or what you're stating, and it might be similar to what Council Member Kagiwada said. The concern may not be so much for the people already in the ARH (Affordable Rental Housing) Program, but for the people who could qualify and come into the ARH Program at a higher rate. Because in East Hawaii or for a lot of those zip codes, it would increase. Whereas, in West Hawaii, it may not be giving enough to still incentivize them to come in. And the answer I think is going to be, yes, I think there will be more people in East Hawaii that are not in the ARH Program currently that could qualify to come in because maybe they're over it at this point. And when you look at two- bedroom, all the numbers shift on that zip code. A possible solution to that, not that I was asked that, but in going to where your concerns are is possibly maybe a different median for certain areas and a higher percent of median for other areas, Page 73 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 which I realize the Chair was trying to stay away from for simplicity. If anything, less than 31 zip codes would make us happy at this point, because I'm afraid we're going to head there. And I just— MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No, I don't think it's necessary. MS. MIURA: Yeah, I don't think so either, but where people draw the line between East and West Hawaii, it's been moving a little bit because people in Honoka`a sometimes refer to themselves in West Hawaii. So, without getting into that, when I was looking at what the 75 percent and 60 percent median from HHFDC (Hawai`i Housing Finance and Development Corporation)was, it seems a little bit more in line. Some areas go down. But that might be a possibility. I'm not the housing expert, but just from the tax side, I understand where your concern is coming from. And that might be an option if the maker of the bill is open to it. We're not opposed to having two different. We've had two different numbers all the time, but I can appreciate Housing wanting us to get away from their payment standard so they can use that for how it was intended. And we would be grateful because the AMI comes out earlier. So it would give the public more time. But I do believe by increasing it by that much, other people would qualify for the program. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Ms. Costa. MS. COSTA: Can you repeat the question? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Probably not. I think we're looking to balance and find equity in two different sides of the island; one with an incredible amount of property taxes. They drive the property taxes in our County as far as revenue. The east side being the major center of both affordable housing rental rate usage and the Section 8 voucher program. If we enact the bill, we may inadvertently begin to drive up the rental market rate in East Hawaii. That's not really, to me, the direction I think we're trying to go. I think this is trying to balance the equation as far as getting more people to participate in West Hawaii, not increase the market rate on rentals in Hilo to push people into Kona because that isn't going to happen, in my opinion. So would there be a way of balancing the payment standard of 80 percent AMI, or one of those numbers, to provide equity to the bill that's in front of us today in your opinion? And I think Lisa gave us an interesting and doable option should the Council choose to do that. MS. COSTA: Absolutely we could look at ways to do that. It's a little more complex. It would take a study and it would take some work, right, from either it would probably be OHCD that would need to do the work and take a look at what thoseI'm looking at blending some of this small area of rent, doing better Page 74 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 housing studies. So it's not as simple as selecting an AMI on the chart. It would take some study. Yeah, we'd have to do a housing study pretty regularly and look at geographic areas by grouping them: North Hawaii, east, west, south. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, good. Not opposed. MS. COSTA: It's possible but the methodology would have to be determined. So I think that's where my hesitation in answering this is. That methodology would have to be determined. I don't know if you have to determine that methodology within a bill or you create a rule aroundI don't know how that works. But anyway, I'm thinking about the methodology, right. What methodology would we use to calculate that regularly, consistently from year to year. And I think this was an attempt to move away from Real Property Tax waiting for OHCD to determine methodology, which is right now very simple. We wait for the payment standard the fair market rent to come out from HUD. We do our calculation of 90 to 110 percent. This includes utilities. We set our payment standard and they're ready to go. So creating a more complex methodology that would take more time doesn't satisfy what I think—one aspect of this bill was intended to simplify and allow Real Property Tax to run the program. But what you're talking about is housing policy and the greater picture of housing affordability, rental affordability. So it would take some work to determine that methodology. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think the effort would be incredibly worthwhile, especially because we started this conversation saying we're using the data from, what, the 2020 Census? MS. COSTA: Yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So this was really not incredibly accurate or detailed given the timing of that study and what it did. Yes, I would like to see you put your heads together as departments and figure out a methodology and process that works, even if it does take a little bit of effort. And maybe we can guide that by policy if can, or if I need to sit down and just walk it out with you guys if we can. Thank you. Chair, I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, thank you. Anyone else in Hilo? MS. KAGIWADA: Yes, Chair. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay, go ahead, Ms. Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. I just want to bring us back to a discussion that we had, realizing that it wasn't exactly this body. It was our previous body. Page 75 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 When we talked about the long-term rental bill, there were concerns that were brought up at that time that we didn't—some people brought up the fact that if people are renting at market rate, they didn't want to be giving them these major tax benefits. But what we're proposing here would be giving much greater tax benefits than we even talked about for the long-term rental program, because this is the very lowest tax rate, the affordable housing tax rate, and the 3 percent cap, which are not included in those other ones. So I just want to remind us that we have had some of these conversations and that that was the concern. And now we're turning around and actually doing that at a greater level. And so I just want to go back to, I thinkI understand we have to do something to help West Hawaii, and we want to get more people into affordable housing and using Section 8 vouchers, yes, yes, yes. And there's just such a difference between East and West Hawaii,that doing a one-size-fits-all I think we will be over correcting for East Hawaii here, and probably still not even getting to where we want to be for West Hawaii. So I just would encourage us to do what Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder suggested, which is figure out a way to have two different rates maybe. And as said, that's way better than 31 different rates. It's not as good as one rate, absolutely, but two different rates. If we can figure out an easy way, I feel likeI mean, I don't know. Could you just look at all the zip codes that are under the rate that we're proposing and all the zip codes that are over the rate we're proposing and use that, and do it every five years or something? I don't know. Thank you and I just hope we can continue to think about this because I don't think a simple fix is going to get us to where we ought to be. I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Thank you. Ms. Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. I started out saying that I was supportive of just the one rate. And because of the conversation and sort of looking at Zillow for Kailua and Hilo, I worry actually that we'll do none of the good things that we want to do. If we want the rate the 80 percent will be too far to go down for West Hawaii and then provide—well, I don't know if it would provide an incentive to raise rates in Hilo. It potentially could but the market there might just keep it where it is. I do think that we need to have a more nuanced mechanism. So I'm also changing my perspective to go along more with what has been suggested, that we do a little more study and come up with a slightly more complicated but I think will, in the long run, be a more effective way to get where we all want to go with getting more affordable housing folks—landlords in West Hawaii. Thanks. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Mr. Inaba. Page 76 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 MR. INABA: Thank you. It's a little funny because I think the more information provided allows for a lot of different interpretations of what could potentially happen here. And I just want to boil it back down to we want people to be in the affordable rental class offering long-term affordable rentals. The amount that is proposed to be increased from the current payment standard, again which could change from year to year, to the 80 percent AMI is not that great in considering that only 4 percent of all properties in the affordable rental program are charging the max amount they could charge right now, really indicates that it's unlikely that all of them would go up to the next 80 percent AMI limits. I think the bill stands on its own merit, bringing in also the Section 8 vouchers. I'm going to ask for my colleagues' continued support. And, yeah, I want to thank Real Property Tax and Office of Housing for providing this information, and for answering the questions of our Council today. Thank you, Chair, I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Any other discussion? Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Can I just ask the members of the housing committee working on Chapter 11 if this has been—isn't this an outcome of the conversations of that group, or is this something independent? Has this been discussed in that group? Maybe the maker can respond. MR. INABA: No, it has not. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I'm going to support this today from the standpoint of I don't think it changes much except the mechanism by which we determine affordable or not. And it changes the values a little bit, but not in a standard way across the board. Does it have the potential to do great harm? Maybe a little bit. And so I think it's something we need to be attentive to as it proceeds. But I'd like to express that I also don't think it's the final place we need to land. I think that there's a lot of value in the discussion that has been had today, particularly needing some flexibility between east side, west side, potentially even east side, west side, north side, south side. Clearly not a one-size-fits-all just because of the great differences in different areas of the County here. So, happy to offer to work with you, Chair Inaba, or anyone else on maybe a more nuanced approach. Like I said, I'm willing to support this today. I don't think it's going to be detrimentalobviously, I wouldn't vote for it otherwise but I think it can't be the end of the conversation. So thanks. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Just a quick two cents. I just have to believe that somewhere else has the same issues. There's got to be another municipality that has the difference in rental values in relation to being in the same county. I mean, a lot of places have a city council, right. The whole city is considered a county, so they Page 77 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 have a city council. But I just—that's where Imy just small, humble recommendation would be to look at municipalities that may have navigated this, because yeah there is a big difference between rental rates, property values, etcetera, between East and West Hawaii,just as there has been big discrepancy in the allocation of resources between East and West Hawaii. And so a lot of West Hawaii people think they pay a lot more, and more of the benefits have gone to the other side. So I would be remiss in not mentioning that as being a historical statement. So I appreciate this attempt to navigate a system and complexities that are quite mind-blowing, and to come to the most equitable solution to serve our diverse population here on this island and bring the most good without causing harm to anyone else. So kind of my two cents is let's look at where it may have been activated and utilized with success. I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Mr. Hustace. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Vice Chair. I'm curious to see where some of these discussions go forward with kind of looking at different parameters for different models. Because adding the zip code piece, it really kind of threw my mind because there are zip codes across District 9 that encompasses all aspects of the market from extreme rural areas in affordability to really high end. So that piece really kind of skews it for me a bit. And whether it's north and south, east and west, I mean we have to look at it—it's going to be a complex model for sure,just looking at the demographics of District 9 alone,just at every end of the spectrum for sure. So thank you. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Anyone else in Hilo? Last one? No? Okay, no one in Kona? That's it? Okay, Mr. Clerk, can we do a roll call? Oh, I'm sorry, hold on. Ms. Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: Just briefly. I'm going to support it today, but I do really hope we can work on a more nuanced approach as well. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: I'm definitely open to having an amendment. I, myself, won't be working on it because, as Administrator Costa pointed out, I think that to do a really good job and to be able to break it up would take time and money that I don't think I have the expertise to try and piece out and go by zip code or make groups. And I don't, like I said at the beginning of the conversation today, I don't want to make a willy-nilly decision on who gets to be in and at what AMI percentage they're going to pay. I think what's proposed is fair, but welcome any of the Members to, in the meantime, work and bring something that the Council might pick up. But thank you all for your input on this bill. I yield. ACTING CHR. ONISHL Okay. Mr. Clerk, a roll call. Page 78 Hawaii County Council-12 May 7,2025 Vote on Bill 39: The motion to pass Bill 39, Draft 2, on first reading and Draft 2 adopt Finance Committee Report No. 39 was carried by the (Approved) following roll call vote: Ayes: Council Members Galimba, Hustace, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Acting Chair Onishi —8. Noes: Council Member Kagiwada— 1. Absent: None. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time, Acting Chair Onishi relinquished the chair to Chair Inaba. BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, Bills for ORDINANCES Ordinances (First Reading). (FIRST READING): (Note: Items in the category were taken up previously, out of order.) 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): (Note: Items in the category were taken up previously, out of order.) 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. MR. HUSTACE: One of the challenges that we have across West Hawaii is our unexploded ordnance. That kind of impacts a lot of our housing initiatives and other challenges. If you're interested in those sort of discussions, there is the Waikoloa Maneuver Area Restoration Advisory Board happening tonight in Waikoloa. Otherwise, you're welcome to join myself and Council Member Kimball, along with Representative Tarnas and Senator Richards, doing a townhall series across the district. I had a great conversation with Senator Richards, Representative Tarnas, and Representative Lowen in the Waikoloa community last night and we kind of continued this conversation, especially as the State Legislature has adjourned for their session this spring. So trying to bring them into the community and share about the work that they've been doing on behalf of all of us. So, look forward to seeing the community out there and our partners. So mahalo. Thank you, Chair. Page 79 Hawai`i County Council-12 May 7,2025 CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Hustace. Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: I just want to give a shout-out to the advocates and strong and diligent people working to help to protect our immigrant community. My phone's been blowing up all day. I want to honor and acknowledge those that continue to remain vigilant with support and advocating for legal due process and procedure, and state that I, myself,personally and professionally take—am deeply concerned, frustrated, and saddened by what's happening in District 7 and District 6, and I believe in District 8 today. To the families and the friends of the families,to the teachers,to the boy who should be in a Konawaena classroom preparing to graduate but is now in a Texas detention center, I call out to all of you and say, "Remain vigilant. Our community stands with you." This may not be appropriate but I'm saying it anyway. I yield. CHR. INABA: Thank you, Council Member Villegas. ADJOURN- There being no further business, Chair Inaba adjourned the meeting at 12:55 p.m. MENT: Council Approval: JUL 2 3 2025 TY CLE JH/dg • Page 80