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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN FC 2025/07/22 (2024-2026) DRAFT Committee on Finance 15th Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii July 22, 2025 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Finance was called to order at ORDER: 9:04 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona by,Mr. James E. Hustace, Acting Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. James E. Hustace, Vice Chair Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member(yia videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member(via Videoconference from Hilo, came in later) Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Mr. Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member Absent& Excused: Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder,Chair STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) COMMUNI The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of Business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 23.16: REPORT OF FUND TRANSFERS AUTHORIZED: JUNE 1 — 15, 2025 From Controller Jon Arbles, dated July 1, 2025. Motion to Close File: Ms. Kimball moved to close file on Comm. 23.16. Seconded by Ms. Kagiwada. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Members, any discussion? Mr. Onishi, please. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Chair. Is Fire or Finance in the audience in Hilo? MS. GALIMBA: They're coming up. MR. ONISHL Thank you. You can introduce yourselves. FC-15 July 22,2025 (Note: At this time, Fire Accountant Nikki Konanui and Professional Trainee Isabelle Fa`agata came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. KONANUL Good morning. My name is Nikki Konanui. I'm an Account I at Fire. MS. FAAGATA: Good Morning. My name is Isabelle and I'm a Professional Trainee at Fire. MR. ONISHL Okay. And I guess we got to see you folks at the last Council Meeting because one of your colleagues got awarded, right, for her outstanding work? MS. KONANUL Yes. MR. ONISHL And I really appreciate your guys hard work. I'm just wondering, this transfer of funds from the Ocean Safety regular`salaries and wages (S&W), which is $390,000, and it's going to Fire Operations Overtime. So my question is I though you folks didn't have money in that account, salary and wages, to provide more manpower: ;So during this recentbudget we included more funding for you folks to get permanentlike Ocean Safety personnel for the beaches in Hilo in Keaukaha. So I'm just wondering what's going on? MS. KONANUL Sorry. I apologize in advance. A representative is on their way to answer these questions. They're in a quarterly meeting right now right next to us, so I did inform them that your do have questions and that they're on their way. MR. ONISHI; Okay. Thank you. So Mr. Chair, I don't know if we could maybe table this until Fire comes back? ACTING CHR.'HUSTACE: There are other items on this particular communication so if there's MR. ONISHI: Okay. So I'll yield for now and see what happens. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any other questions on this item before we consider a motion to table? Any particular questions on any item with Communication 23.16, Members? Council Member Galimba,just want to check in with you at all. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. I believe that the person who will be able to answer this has just walked in, our awardee from last time. Thank you for coming over. Page 2 FC-15 July 22,2025 ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member Galimba. So I'll pass it back to Mr. Onishi to ask his question. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Chair. So I'm just wondering, so this past budget Finance helped me in getting funding to help provide temporary part timers of Ocean Safety staff to full time, and those were like two positions in Hilo and one in Puna. But now when I'm looking at this transfer of funds you folks have Ocean Safety regular salaries and wages of$390,000 transferring to the Fire Operations overtime. So I don't understand, or I don't know if Director of Finance can help explain? MS. GALIMBA: Director Nakagawa's corning up. (Note: At this time, Finance Director Diane Nakagawa came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. NAKAGAWA: Yes. Good morning, Council Members. Diane Nakagawa, Finance. Happy to answer your question, Council Member Onishi. So what you see in front of you in the request to transfer is actually for fiscal year 2025. So this is covering the period of July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025. And normally what you see at the end of theyear is that any vacancies will be supplemented with the overtime that's needed. So the funds that you have in S&W get transferred to the overtime account and this is for last'year. So the positions that you mentioned are for fiscal year 2026 in this budget.- So Fire can look at that appropriately in the currents fiscal,year. MR. ONISHL Okay. And just that if there was money in there then they should've like maybe restructured how the positions or filling,you know, moving funding from the salaries and wages to other positions, right, where I think later today in this committee we're going to be doing something like that at the County Council budget: And also in P&R (Parks and Recreation) in their summer fun program is the same way, that they have all these open positions that are not filled,right? And so,to me, if they aren't going to be using it then we should be using it for other needs that we need more positions at. But, okay. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions from the body on this communication? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor of closing Communication 23.16 please say "aye." Page 3 FC-15 July 22,2025 Vote on Comm. 23.16: The motion to close file on Comm. 23.16 was carried by Filed the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace—6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Kierkiewicz—3. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Next item please. Comm. 98.2: FOURTH QUARTER REPORT OF PERSONS EMPLOYED UNDER A CONTRACT FOR LESS THAN 90 DAYS: APRIL 1 —JUNE,30, 2025 From Human Resources Director Sommer J. Tokihiro, dated July,1,2025, transmitting the above reports pursuant to Section 2-12.5 of the Hawaii County Code. Vote on Comm. 98.2: Ms. Kimball moved to close file on Comm. 98.2. Filed Seconded by Mr.,Onishi and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace—6. Noes: None. Absent; Committee Members Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and,Kierkiewicz—3. Excused: None. ORDER OF The Clair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. Res. 240-25: AUTHORIZES THE PAYMENT OF FUNDS OF A LATER FISCAL YEAR AND OF MORE THAN ONE FISCAL YEAR FOR A MULTI-YEAR AGREEMENT FOR BODY CAMERA EQUIPMENT, MAINTENANCE AND STORAGE Authorizes the Mayor to enter into a five-year agreement with Axon Enterprise, Inc. to acquire 400 Axon body worn cameras, maintenance and cloud-based storage to be used by the Police Department. These body worn cameras are to replace units that are damaged, destroyed or obsolete. Reference: Comm. 384 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Page 4 FC-15 July 22,2025 Motion to Approve: Ms. Kimball moved to recommend adoption of Res. 240-25. Seconded by Mr. Onishi. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any discussion on Resolution 240-25? Council Member Kimball, please. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm missing it but I'm not seeing a value associated with this amount. So if Finance or HPD (Hawai`i Police Department) could clarify? (Note: At this time, Police Accountant'Hau`oli Aiona came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. AIONA: Good morning. Hau`oli'Aiona, Accountant for Hawaii County Police Department. It is a multiyear. The value would be at$ .4 million, but we enter in a contract annually, which is about$480,000. We also appropriate it in our budget annually. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I'll reach out to our Finance Chair. It does seem like that should be documented somewhere in either to resolution or the B-52 before we do final approval. So an amendment may be needed. Thank you. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions on Resolution240-25? Appreciate the question, Council Member Kimball. That was something I,was looking for as well on that. So we need to make that amendment going forward. Any other discussion before we move forward? Okay. Those in favor of moving Resolution 240-25 to Council with a favorable recommendation please say "aye" Vote on Res. 240-25: The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 240-25 was (Approved) carried by,the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace—6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Inaba, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Kierkiewicz—3. Excused: None. Page 5 FC-15 July 22,2025 Res. 241-25: ACCEPTS THE DONATION OF SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEMS TO THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION The donation of security camera systems from Blue Shield Security Hawaii, with an estimated value of$4,500, would be installed at the Pana`ewa Park and Covered Play Courts in Pana`ewa Hawaii. Reference: Comm. 385 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Motion to Approve: Ms. Kimball moved to recommend adoption of Res. 241-25. Seconded by Mr. Onishi, ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Discussion, Members? Council Member Onishi. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Chair. Is anyone from Blue Shield Securitymin the audience? MS. GALIMBA: Sorry. No one is. MR. ONISHL Okay. Finance Director or Darks and Rec? MS. GALIMBA: Parks. Yes. Parks.,is available. (Note: At this time, Recreation'Director Alex Walker and Hilo Recreation Manager Royden Chow came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS.WALKER: Good morning. I'm Alex Walker, Recreation Director at the Pana`ewa facilities. MR. ONISHI: Royden? MR. CHOW: Good morning. Royden Chow, Hilo District Supervisor for Recreation. MR. ONISHL Thank you. Good morning. This is great. I like this. Maybe we can work together and see if we can do this same system up at Waiakea Uka since they got vandalized too, and theirs one was major, right? MR. CHOW: Correct. MR. ONISHL Yeah. Okay. So I'll have my office contact you folks so that we can maybe work with this Blue Shield Security to see if, you know, we can purchase some of that system for Waiakea Uka. Is that okay? MR. CHOW: That would be great. Page 6 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. ONISHL Okay. Thank you. I yield. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Onishi. Any other questions on Resolution 241-25? Thank you, Parks, for being here. Members in favor, please say "aye." Vote on Res. 241-25: The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 241-25 was (Approved) carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Actingt Chair Hustace—6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Inaba, Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Kierkiewicz-3. Excused: None. Res. 242-25: TRANSFERS/APPROPRIATES AND APPROPRIATION OUT AND FROM THE DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT AND CREDITING SAME TO A DESIGNATED FUND ACCOUNT Transfers $5,000 from the Liquor Control/Public Programs account to the Sundry Refund account to return funds to the General Fund; Reference: Comm. 386' Intr. by: Council Member Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Motion to Approve: Ms. Kimball moved to recommend adoption of Res. 242-25. Seconded by Mr. Onishi. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Members, any discussion on the resolution? Mr. Clerk, is there something else to add to this resolution here? MR. BROWN: Yes. If you don't mind, Chair, I just wanted to let the body know that Finance had made us aware that they are going to be changing an account number in'this resolution. So working with LRB (Legislative Research Branch) there will be an amendment to the resolution just making that correction. And being that there is one more reading at Council I think that should be okay where you guys can approve it at the Council level with the amendment in place for you guys to consider at Council. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Any further discussion or questions? I believe is Finance available for this one or Liquor Control, I guess? Thank you, Director. I just had a question if you could clarify what happened here? There seems to be a mishap with this contingency fund request. Just a broad overview of how it happened and how we can avoid this going forward? Page 7 FC-15 July 22,2025 (Note: At this time, Finance Director Diane Nakagawa came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. NAKAGAWA: Sure. I'll let Liquor describe what actually happened with this particular grant. But what we're doing here in this resolution is actually getting it back into the general fund since it was not spent. But for the issue, I'll let Liquor explain. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Director. (Note: At this time, Liquor Control Professional Trainee Nyssa Hatori came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. HATORL Good morning. Nyssa'Haton, Professional Trainee with the Department of Liquor Control. I guess what had happened was the grantee was Na Pulapula Inc., and they weren't able to provide sufficient insurance"document to meet the contract requirements, so itwas actually flagged in the routing process then they decided to pull back this a just forfeit the funds, so forfeit receiving the funds. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Ms. Hatori. It seem that we went down pretty far to have a resolution to award it though and then had to come back and transfer it back out then. MS. HA'TORI: Yeah. Correct. Unfortunately, it was overlooked in my review, and it was flagged later in the process. ACTING CHR,HUSTACE: No problem. I appreciate you catching that and working on this correction here. Thank you, Ms. Hatori. Thank you, Director. Appreciate your time on this; MS. NAKAGAWA: Thank you. ACTINGrCHR. HUSTACE: Members, to forward Resolution 242-25 to Council with a favorable recommendation please say "aye." Vote on Res. 242-25- The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 242-25 was (Approved) carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace—6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Kierkiewicz—3. Excused: None. Page 8 FC-15 July 22,2025 Res. 244-25: AMENDS SECTION 3(B) AND SECTION 7.01(A) OF ORDINANCE NO. 25-39, THE SALARY ORDINANCE OF 2025, TO ESTABLISH AN OPERATIONS MANAGER POSITION WITHIN THE LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH BRANCH Reference: Comm. 389 Intr. by: Council Member Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Motion to Approve: Ms. Kimball moved to recommend adoption,of Res. 244-25. Seconded by Ms. Kagiwada. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Council Members, do you have any questions or discussion? We also have our Clerk here to provide some insight into this resolution. Would you like to start offwith'the Clerk? Clerk Henricks, please. (Note: At this time, County Clerk Jon Henricks came forward to address the members of the Committee), MR. HENRICKS: Thank you, Vice Chair Hustace, Members of the Finance Committee. This resolution is relatively simple.What it is it's an organizational change that by creating thi�s'position what we're ready doing is as you know you have met some people that have joined our LRB team. Every position in LRB is now full, we have no vacancies, and,part of that is just to build up that division within our department. And that's really how I'm looking at the Legislative Research Branch as a Division,as much as Support Services, Council Services, and our Elections Division. They do very important work. So when you start to expand in that way where you have more employees, more responsibilities, and also we look to be doing more things in the future. We've already seen some changes coming through where now we are in the process of trarisitioning to where all the legislation that comes before you regardless of its origin is reviewed by LRB with the hope and the belief that there will be information that will assist not just the Council but the public as well to know exactly what is coming before the Council to determine whether or not it's something that they are interested in. Previous example you gave, there is a resolution where there wasn't quite enough information for the Council's comfort level. So one of the goals is then to make sure that when things come through, they're as complete as possible, anticipating what the Council needs to know at least to have a good starting point for discussions. That's just one of the areas where LRB will be expanding. I anticipate that there will be more opportunities for Council Members to ask questions of Legislative Research Branch when it comes to research questions for specific matters of the Council, but also more broad subject matters. With that growth becomes more responsibility and at a certain point I believe Page 9 FC-15 July 22,2025 it's then critical to have a really proximate oversight of the operations, and at that point you need a division leader or supervisor. And quite frankly, the best title I could come up with is Operations Manager. It may not be the best title in the world but it's what I came up with for now. So the goal is very simple. It's to make sure that the staff in the Legislative Research Branch has direct oversight within the office itself,provide guidance, vision, and just basically administrative oversight of what's occurring there, which will then free up the Deputy Clerk and Clerk to take on more of a consultive role to that division leader to work closely with them, to make sure that we're doing everything that we're required to do. And we're doing it at a very high level, and that we're providing services not just to the Council but the entire County. And again, with the consistent approach of that,we are also working for the community to make sure that they Have an opportunity to engage in this process. So this is about growth and'with that growth again comes the responsibility to have again more clear, consistent, and approximate supervision of those responsibilities on a day to day basis.. This has been looked at many times over the years and I wanted to implement this is the past. So the time is right now as far as I'm concerned. So I'm hoping council will agree and will strongly consider this organizational change. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have at this point and time. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Council Members, any questions? We'll start off with Council Member Onishi. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Chair. Good morning. MR. HENRICKS Goad,morning. MR. ONISHI: In yourwhereas Number 5, it says the Council finds that establishing an Operations Manager position within the Legislative BranchI didn't get any contact on how important it was. MR. HENRICKS: Sure. Yeah. MR. ONISHL So I think what should've been done first was that get feedback from the Council Members first before you folks move forward on trying to, I guess, promote one of the positions that you folks already have established. Second is I understand what you're saying but then the Clerk's Office also sent out to all the departments that now with the legislation they need to prepare everything prior and then come into LRB for finalizing, right? MR. HENRICKS: Mostly to a certain extent. There's also the opportunity for departments to submit their proposals and the LRB would actually draft the resolution or bill working with them to accomplish that. Or they could submit Page 10 FC-15 July 22,2025 their drafts and they would work with that department then to bring it to its final form. MR. ONISHL Because I did talk to some of the departments and they were kind of like not understanding how the whole process is, right? MR. HENRICKS: Right. MR. ONISHL And so to me, would've been where you set up your staff first to make sure you can,you know, be able to provide that services to the departments and then reach out to department and making sure they understand what the process is going to be. MR. HENRICKS: Sure. Yeah. Understood.When we undertook this transition to that specific, what you're talking about,you know, I had to adept that it wasn't going to be an entirely smooth process and there was going to be some confusion perhaps and misunderstandings along,the way:So we've been working really hard with individuals and also having meetings with people to iron it out knowing that, you know, it will take a little bit of time for people to come accustomed to that for sure. Yeah. We have been working really hard to communicate that and we've been working really hard to emphasize that what we are really trying to do is to help the departments in every way possible to accomplish what they need to accomplish when the departments are required to work with the Council to move forward on their projects and programs'. MR. ONISM: Okay. The other thing is during our budget hearings, right, this was never mentioned. MR. HENRICKS I might have touched upon the fact that we were going to be hiring additional people and that we're looking at a structural change but nothing specific during the budget process. No. MR. ONISHL So within the budget, was this money or funding put on the side or was it increased without the council knowing? MR. HENRICKS: Well are there funds specifically allocated for this position? No. However, that being the case this isn't a new position that isn't unfunded. We are taking essentially a position that already exists that is funded. There may be likely be an increase but that can be absorbed in excess, you know, over time or other areas where there is funding for salaries and wages. And it should not cause any issues where it would require a budget amendments or anything of that nature. MR. ONISHL So this position right now without being upgraded, what is the highest on the scale? Page 11 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. HENRICKS: If you look at I believe Page 2 at the top, there is a salary schedule. Yeah. So the highest would be MR. ONISHL No. Not as an Office Manager, but at that present position? MR. HENRICKS: It's whatever is in the salary ordinance under LE-1 as the highest step. Yeah. MR. ONISHL Okay. Because, I mean, if you look at themaximum LE, it's like almost$100,000. MR. HENRICKS: Correct. Yeah. MR. ONISHL And your supervisors for your Council Services,„are they about that same level too? MR. HENRICKS: No. But the reality,there is that they're under collective bargaining and differences, things of that'nature, that we have relatively little control over. But knowing what the responsibilities are going to be and the daily challenges of making sure that this role is performed in a matter that is expected to be, and in looking at other structures in different counties and how they are operating in the same way, what we have right there as far as the proposed salary schedule I believe is more than fair; Especially when look at the Legislative Specialist that would be working under the Operations Manager and what those salary structures, you know, where they start and what they possibly can be, I believe it's a fair starting pointto make sure that it's an appropriate hierarchy of salary structure, if you will, thata supervisor certainly would be generally. But there will be salary inversion issues too. If you're familiar with those situations in Fire and Police where you have people that are working there for a very long time and have risen pretty high. So they'll be pretty close to what the Operations Manager would make at that point and time because of their tenure. Yeah. MR. ONISHL My ether last thing is has this position already been tentatively filled or appointed? MR. HENRICKS: Not officially. But I definitely have a plan in place and we have been working towards that transition so that it's not going to be abrupt. Yeah. MR. ONISHL So my question is, are you going to open this up for anyone? MR. HENRICKS: No. MR. ONISHL It's going to just be appointed to someone? MR. HENRICKS: Correct. Page 12 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. ONISHL So where is the transparency? How can we just appoint someone whenever we want? MR. HENRICKS: To be fair, that would be a matter of trusting me as the Clerk, as the administrator of the office to be doing something that is in the best interest of the office that is based upon my experience and what I believe is in the best interest of the office to operate. MR. ONISHL When you hired these two new staff nn LRB, did they have to go through a process? MR. HENRICKS: We did do a recruitments and we did do interviews, and we selected two people out of the seven people we interviewed on our own accord. MR. ONISHL And that's transparency. MR. HENRICKS: True. But also not unlike,Council Members hiring,you know, legislative assistants or district staff. These,at will positions MR. ONISHL But I think that's who different,we're talking about apples and oranges. As Council Members, we have our ability to do that. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. MR. ONISI: Right. And then we answer to our constituents. MR. HENRICKS: Sure enough; MR. ONISHI; And so we try to get staffing that will help us in the office but also within'the communities, right? So your situation is different. MR.'HENRICKS ,Okay. I look at it this way, it's ultimately I'm accountable and responsible for the operations within LRB. I generally appreciate the trust that the council has placed in me to make sure that when I do those things and I make decisions, that they are very well thought out and very considerate and they're made based upon experience and they will produce the desired results. They are in the best interest of the office, and I generally have received that support. I apologize if you feel like you were not included in these things, but thatis just generally how I have approached these things in the past. MR. ONISHL Well I'm just saying is that there is a process and you've done that to fill other positions, but with this one,you're not doing that. MR. HENRICKS: No. Yeah. Page 13 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. ONISHL And you're just going to be appointing and asking us as Council Members to trust you in your decision. MR. HENRICKS: Yes, I am. MR. ONISHL Right. MR. HENRICKS: Yes. That's exactly what I'm doing. MR. ONISHL And to me, That's not right. MR. HENRICKS: Okay. MR. ONISHL Yeah. So, I will yield right now, Chair, and'I will listen to other members if they have any comments. Thanks. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Open up to the floor again. Council Member Kagiwada. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you. Thank you for being here, Mr. Henricks, and for this proposal. It makes a lot of sense to me as for as,you're growing the group and needing somebody right there. My question is more around the timing. You talked about basically departments being able to come directly LRB. I guess I have some concern over it is the Council's job and only the Council's job to put legislation,forward MR. HENRICKS: Right. MS. KAGIWADA: So this expansion seems to be a service to the administration to some extent? MR.'HENRICKS ,I look at it this way. When the administration, and I'll use the word required because it's usually mandated, comes to the Council with resolutions and bills that they can move forward and exercise their programs and things of that nature. It is the Council's business. And what we're trying to do, with that in mind, is ensuring that the legislation that the Council reviews at the request of the administration is consistent and in the same form as the legislation that you introduce on your own initiative. Almost as if, you know, a committee chair would say, hey, here's these matters that are coming before my committee. This department wants me to do this. I'm going to introduce this bill and then the expectation is then that it would be reviewed by LRB because essentially that is what LRB does. Other than maintain the code and a few other projects, its primary purpose is to ensure that bills and resolutions, they meet all standards of proper form,you know, they're as clear as possible, and they're put in simple terms, so everybody understands what is being asked. Page 14 FC-15 July 22,2025 Again, not just the Council Members, but again we look at the public and the community to be able to look at these things and decide whether or not it's something that the community wants to engage in and come help the Council do their work. So I look at it both ways. Yeah, we are assisting the administration but we're doing it on the behalf of the Council and community to make sure this legislative process is as smooth, efficient and effective as possible. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay, so will Council Members be brought in at some point for legislation the departments are coming straight to LRB"with as far as chairs of committees or for a specific district; how will that work, and will there be any timing issues; will there be a longer length of time for some of this? I'm trying to just get a big picture of it. MR. HENRICKS: I don't really foresee it that way because what was unofficially happening was that when the administration would submit its bills and resolutions for referral as soon as possible, whatever the nature is, chair staff would come to myself or LRB and say, can you look these over and make sure that they're good to go. Because if they're numbered and they're brought forward and if there's errors, then it takes time to fix them to make amendments and sometimes you can't fix them due to their.structures. So we were doing that unofficially and it worked, but I don't think it was as effective as possible>because, again, there wasn't a structural system in place to do that. So we looked at how do we organize that and structure that. And e worked very hard to create a system that is as simple as possible for the administration,to utilize and also does not add a time element that would affect, you know, the timeliness of their operations as much as possible. We'll actually, over time, as people become more accustomed to this process and again determining how they want to interact in that way and then even becoming, you know,'as much as your Legislative Assistants get better and better over time at doing certain:things that will actually be more efficient, and again, things will look like you expect them to look. They'll hopefully, and I don't mean in any way, shape, or fortwas a criticism of what has been submitted in the past but just having the eyes to know what you guys would expect to see like dollar figures in resolutions or say there's a resolution to authorize like a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and agreement, as much as possible including that as part of an attachment so the Council knows exactly what it's being asked to authorize and what the outcome would be. And again,just as importantly, the public would be able to look at those MOUs, MOAs (Memorandum of Agreement), or even contracts for other things and decide whether or not it's something they want to come and testify on and help the Council in its decision-making process. So, again, I look at it as this is something we're doing to assist the County as a whole in its operations with specifically its engagements with the Council. Page 15 FC-15 July 22,2025 MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. I see. I would just hope that I know this has kind of been the unofficial practice, but this is making it more the official practice. So as we are looking at making it the official practice I guess, you know, when I see bills that come to my committee by request and I haven't had any interaction with it or understanding of it or anything beforehand, that can sometimes be problematic. And I would just think since we are very used to working with LRB that I would I guess I'm wondering is there a way to kind of loop Council Members in before the final product is on their desk? MR. HENRICKS: That makes a lot of sense to me.,but I don't know that I would be comfortable with the Legislative Research Branch and the Clerk's Office being the arbiter of the relationship for any particular piece of legislation between the administration and Council Member. You know, the comfort level there of collaborating on that prior to introduction makes a lot of sense to me, but what we want to make we don't do in LRB is become micro managing from that aspect because I feel like we are going to lose some support for our efforts. What we really want to do is make surepeople know that this isn't something that is like a roadblock or something that will stop them from what they want to do. What we want people to do is what I believe most Council Members feel after a while is it's something that they appreciate, that helps;things become better, smoother, again, more efficient so it's really not somethingthat feels like homework or some kind of an assignment or-something that is unappealing. But as far as the relationship between the'administration that's asking the Council to do something, and then the committee chair that would introduce it by request as part of their duties. You know, sure, sometimes I think that in certain circumstances that would really be beneficial, but that wouldn't be for me to say when;a department head feels like they would like to engage in that and or when the respective committee chair would then participate in that. And some of the hard part for that too is the Clerk's Office and Legislative Research Branch isn't involved int6 what matters to refer to what committee, so we wouldn't know sometimes. The appropriate Council Member for the administration to contact to say, hey,here is what we are looking at doing;you know, it's part of your committee,,we're going to ask you to introduce it,we want to give you a heads up on why we're doing this and perhaps give you an opportunity to work closely on that project. That's something that would be outside of our field. But I totally get what you are saying. MS:KAGIWADA: Yes. If you make this more the official route, it makes it in some ways a lot easier for departments to just go to LRB and not work with the Council Members necessarily because they don't need any support. MR. HENRICKS: So for me in the position that I'm in, I have no clue as to how departments are working with Council Members now prior to introducing things. So that's not something I'm aware of. It just doesn't come across on my radar. I don't know how that would change. I would hope that if that's happening now Page 16 FC-15 July 22,2025 that it would continue to happen and the structure that we've set up and how we're doing things wouldn't impact that at all. It might make it a little bit easier because you have somebody that is helping to facilitate that process that hopefully everybody is comfortable with and has trust and credibility with to do that. I can foresee that happening for sure. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Well I hope you are right on that. On the position itself, is this person still going to be doing direct work on bills, legislation, with or are they going to purely be doing management? MR. HENRICKS: You know, I would hope that overtime we will have such a strong staff of four people that are the staff people that'c6uld handle that load and then you'd have a division leader then whose primary task would be to provide final reviews and also training along the way: You're working closely with that person especially because we have new people that are learning on the job, but most of our supervisors are working supervisors including yours truly. 'Generally we all work and that's probably true for most of,our department heads and other things, you know, if we've come up through the system then we still do day-to- day work as well. And then there's always an all hands-on deck philosophy when it comes to those things. Nobody is excluded or immune from putting in a good day's work regardless of what that might mean or what-level of work that is. No job is too big or too small for anybody to do. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Andfinally my,last question is just is this a civil position or an exempt position? MR. HENRICKS: No. No. It's an at will position. And that goes back to what Mr. Onishi was saying, all very fair comments and take that into consideration. You know, with these at will positions we do have a lot of flexibility to hire without the,What some people might consider either limitations of civil service recruitment but also there are upsides to civil service recruitments as well. But no, this is an at will,pos�,ition. It's not a new position. We'd just be converting existing Legislative Specialist position into this position, but in order to do so, it needs to exist in the salary ordinance and there has to be a pay structure there and that's whafwe're talking about today. MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much. I think I'm good. Thanks. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. We'll go to Council Member Villegas, please. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you for being here, Mr. Henricks, and for enduring all of these questions. MR. HENRICKS: No. They're great. They're excellent questions. Page 17 FC-15 July 22,2025 MS. VILLEGAS: I think there is wisdom in asking these questions as we allocate and move around public funds. I myself will be supporting this today. I have witnessed and had both the pleasures and challenges of navigating LRB through my last couple of terms. But I see things really moving in a positive direction and the efforts being made to align the terminology, the succinctness of our policies as they come to Council actually makes our jobs easier and for lack of a better more eloquent way to put it, covers everybody's butts. And I'm seeing that and experiencing that personally to my own sometimes growing pains and I have to take my ego and set it to the side and acknowledge the expertise that I see coming through LRB. You know, in my hope to assuage the concerns of one of,my colleagues as it relates to the potential for the administration kind of to monopolize LRB and utilize their resources to bring us things without communication and relationship with different departments. To that I would say, you know, it's each of our responsibilities to ensure that we have relationships with department heads so that they come to us. I also know, you know, that's the term by request:' When things come to our committee more often than next there will always be exceptions. We'll be communicated with if by no other means then when they make the agenda schedule for what's to be heard on our committee, that piece of legislation is included in there and'the lines of communication are opened up for the chair of that committee to communicate with the director or division lead, or whoever is directly responsible and working on'that piece of legislation. So I'm grateful for myself. I don't have a particular concern,in'that with potential monopolization by the administration. With some of the challenges in the past for bills, ordinances, resolutions not going through LRB first then as they came directly from the administration and or work directly instead of Corporation Counsel or what not, we had some hiccups and the goal is to avoid those hiccups because sometimes those are kind of shame times, right, like for everybody. And so let's avoid those and ensure that our legislation goes through that,process with the experts. MR. HENRICKS: No. To your point, I think the main focus that we're trying to accomplish here is that whenever a bill or resolution comes to the floor, we really want the Council, the public, the administration to be focusing on the merits of that idea,that proposal, that change, and focusing on, you know, looking at what could,be some of the inadvertent outcomes. What are the pros and cons; how can we modify this to make it even better than it is as opposed to what are we actually talking about, not spending too much time on trying to clarify the purpose of the objective of the measure but more spending that time on how to refine it and put it in their best form so that when it, assuming it passes and becomes an ordinance or resolution, allows the Council to move forward on something then they can just hit the ground running and become what it was intended to be. That's always the goal when LRB works with you folks, Council Members and staff, and it's going to be the exact same goal with the administration. You know, there's a large Page 18 FC-15 July 22,2025 amount of bills and resolutions that you folks consider that are initiated by the administration that are introduced by request. It's not a small number. It's a high volume. So we're just trying to make sure that everything you get would look that same as what you would expect had it come from your office. MS. VILLEGAS: And it's been vetted. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah,yeah. And I want to go back to this. By a large, I don't think it would be too tough of a hill to climb because the administration has really good people that are dedicated to doing their best work to bringing these things forward and in good form. So this would be minor refinements and minor additions or deletions or inclusions of information that, you know, might even just be subconsciously improving the process as opposed to just clearly like outright like okay, this is different and this is something that is noticeable. But I'm very confident that it will improve the process for everybody involved at whatever level they're involved. And then I go back to, you know, a lot of this is for our community because I believe the Council does its best work when'the community is engaged, and it doesn't mean they always come here and testify but when they call you, they email you personally, or you even get written testimony. That process will become easier for the public to determine whether or not they want to engage and also will make their engagement more efficient, more clear as to whether or not I mean, I'm sure you've all seen testimony and felt like they don't really understand what the bill does. MS:VILLEGAS: You mean like the 1,400 emails I got today on a certain bill. MR. HENRICKS I don't know, and I don't want to bring it up anything specifically; MS. VILLEGAS: , 1,400 of incorrect statements about the actual bill. MR. HERICKS: Yeah. That is a large part of the primary objective of all of, you know, what we're trying to do right now moving forward. I would say,you know, was everything okay? Yeah, nothing was broken. I'm not sitting here saying anything was broken. And some people say, "If it's not broke, don't fix it", But I don't think the status quo is what the County deserves; I don't think that status quo is what the public deserves, and I don't think the status quo is what the Council deserves. So if this doesn't work I'll be fine with that, I'll be okay with that because it's important to try. It's important to take measures that are active and hopefully well thought out and properly implemented with the best intentions, with great people to improve things. And that's what this is all about. MS. VILLEGAS: I will just summarize this as what I see it as. Number one, there's an opportunity, there's an appointed position that we have the opportunity Page 19 FC-15 July 22,2025 to approve of. Very seldom when there's an appointed position available, do we have the potential appointee interested and available for the position. So there's some synchronicity that I see in that, which urges me personally to take advantage of that opportunity. I also like in this back into infrastructure and some of the challenges we've faced as a County is if it's not broke, don't fix it and we haven't invested in our infrastructure, hence the Hilo Wastewater Treatment facility. It wasn't broke yet, so don't invest in the infrastructure and here we are sitting on absolute potential catastrophe. Thankfully, LRB and the Clerk's Office is not that kind of catastrophe. But I see this as investment in the infrastructure and the human,capital in the positions so that the internal aspects of the Clerk's Office and of Council and of the administration as we navigate creating„amending, whatnot of policy has the best infrastructure possible to be successful and to guide us as we personally navigate the process here. So with that I will be supporting this today. Thank you for sitting here and sharing both your personal and professional perspectives and I see members of your staff here as well. Thank you for being here; thank you for your willingness to step into these roles thatserve under challenging circumstances, and I do hope that we would pass this today and be able to provide you with the necessary infrastructure for this division to operate. I yield. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. I'll be very brief since many of the questions and comments were made already. One comment. I think that this is a great idea from the standpoint of I think it's beneficial to the County to have organizational structures that present opportunities for growth and development rather than having a lot of folks at the same level with some sort of opportunities for development: I think that's one of the issues that we see in other areas of the County where there isn't a place to move up to and there's less incentive. So I like the idea of adding this different structure. I would request two things, and you mentioned one being able to ask questions. I'm hoping that this, the additional staff and the organizational restructuring will provide more opportunities for us to get legislative review of support, you know, sort of the legislative history, reviewing legislative histories, comparing legislation from other counties, that sort of thing that we haven't been able to fully do. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. Yes. MS. KIMBALL: So, that's a priority for me. Secondly, I would emphasize the budget time period and our ability as the Council to evaluate the budget. I will just say that I think we could do a better job onus of that. But I think lot of that would actually include having more support from LRB. So, those are the two areas that I would ask that the new arrangement focus on adding. Page 20 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. HENRICKS: Makes a lot of sense. There will certainly be a structured element to what the legislative research branch is responsible for, expected to do. But I'm also one who believes that, you know, if there's other things that haven't been contemplated before but they're possible, we absolutely do them. It's an opportunity to grow, to learn to do new things. And that is a big part of it is that it's turning it into a true legislative research branch as opposed to just a review branch. That is part of this and trying to effectuate that vision that I think a lot of people have had since I started working there so many'years ago is to offer more on those grounds to hopefully improve the process on crafting legislation, knowing more, diving deeper, asking questions. You know, I envision kind of like an ask LRB button at some point. It doesn't mean that everything that's asked is going to get answered but you're going to have the opportunity to ask any questions you want that will then be, you know, we'll look into deeply. Toughly give you guys a more foundation from a policy perspective for sure; 100 percent. I'm pretty excited about it actually to tell you the truth. It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time but as Ms. Villegas put it,you can have a great idea or at least you can think it's a great idea for yourself, but if you don't have the proper timing and people in place, you have to wait and be patient; I think the patience has paid off. I believe that I'm very confident in the people that are in place to do this s0 the time is now. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. I just want to make note for the record that we welcome Council Member Kierkiewicz here in the Hilo Chambers and would like,to pass it to Council Member Galimba for any further questions. Council Member. MS.'GALIMBA: Thank you, Chair. I just want to commend our Clerk for his work on turning the Legislative Review Branch into this Legislative Research Branch. T think it's definitely a great effort in a good direction. So I very much support this. Thanks. ACTING CHR HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Kierkiewicz, any further questions or thoughts? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I just want to quickly weigh in here, Chair. Thank you. You know Clerk Henricks has been with the County of Hawaii for a number of years within Council Services. You know, during my time here on the Council going on seven years this year, I have really gotten to know and appreciate and gust our clerk and the vision that he has for Council Services and just the County in general because he is somebody that truly cares very deeply about the County and its people and the direction to go. So I trust his vision and I trust what he's trying to do with the Legislative Research Branch. As someone who works with departments to craft legislation, it's hit or miss. not everybody truly understand, appreciates or knows how to go about crafting solid Page 21 FC-15 July 22,2025 legislation. So I do appreciate the support that LRB will be providing to the departments. I mean,just this year we had a couple of bills out of the Planning Department that really needed a lot of work, and it was because of LRB that we were able to turn those pieces of legislation around into something that was implementable, and folks could clearly understand. So thank you, Clerk Henricks, for your vision and leadership. In full support of the resolution. Thank you. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other discussion or thoughts or questions for our Clerk here while we have him? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. I appreciate the insight in here and providing some succinct answers to the colleagues here. I just had a question and we've kind of talked around a little bit and it may need to be a different discussion or report to Council regards to the workload. I mean we've talked a little bit about this balance here and bringing on the manager seat for LRB. `But I'm just curious on that transition or transfer of work load that the administration has done previously. We've kind of touched on it a little bit, but now it will be taken on by LRB and if you had any insight or thoughts? I know it's something that we still have to explore a little bit further. And what relief or what support we are offering the administration through this expansion of LRB and the growth of the division itself? MR. HENRICKS: I think,it goes back to kind of to,what Council Member Onishi was talking about as far as process and sequence of events. And I honestly wish it could be more seamless, and I guess, you know, better coordinated at times when it comes to that, but that's why Fm comfortable. You know, we would be doing this anyway. I'll be blunt. It's been very challenging to find people that are equipped, you know, from a technical standpoint, and a standpoint, educational standpoint, to work as Legislative Specialist in LRB. One of our-,in,one of our first moves was to go out and try to find one person to join the team to fill it outbecause knowing that,you know, we were going to be doing,more work and different work, and we have big projects coming forward. In a mmatter of time you'll have a whole County Code to look at because we're required by law to publish the County Code and we're not going to do it in a minimal way. We're really going to dive into that project to improve the County Code and,take out a lot obsolete material that's there that I'm sure you have seen and improve. And there's other projects too. So quite frankly I was just really thrilled and surprised to be able to bring,you know, it's kind of double the Workforce in there but then,you know, that brought open the necessity and in my mind, the requirement that there is a supervisor there to do that. So we are in a really good position right now to increase our workload, increase our responsibilities and increase our presence if you will within the Clerk's Office and the County. I've been very active in working with LRB to do a lot of the things that this new position would do. So I will continue to be a very close consultant working very closely with the Operations Manager and the staff at LRB. It's my background. Page 22 FC-15 July 22,2025 But by having this position there with somebody I know I can trust to manage a lot of the day-to-day things that take time, it will also provide me with more time to, again, look at the bigger picture on how we can improve things and also apply more of my time to some things that have nothing to do with legislation. There are always something going with Elections if you can believe it or not, even though we are so far away from an election, and other matters,personnel matters, and other of our divisions that I would like to be able to apply more of my attention and energy towards. And this also provides that benefit as well. So we're in a very strong position right now to increase that workload. And I don't have any concerns about the ability to do so in an,efficient manner that won't cause any undue duress or time delays for the Councilor the administration in any way, shape, or form. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. One of the responsibilities mentioned for the Operations Manager is maintenance of the County drafting manual. MR. HENRICKS: Yes. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: And so I guess my question would be, you know, will this role also be taking can that responsibility as a part of that to really document this official practice of how administration is going to come to really flush that out and really build that system to what,itlooks like so it can be shared with the departments, shared with Council Members so there is this process and a workflow, MR. HENRICKS: Sure. Yes. So that's two slightly different tracks that you're addressing. So your County Drafting Manual is really going to be tailored towards actually drafting,a resolution and bills from a technical procedural standpoint; what to have and not to have. I think what you're talking about is something we're going to work on too. It's just more of an operations manual for how things work and put as much down on paper in a simple, easy to understand way as possible. Understanding that there's always these nuances and variables that you really can't articulate on paper then that are just going to require communication and just working with people and establishing relationships and credibility and trust amongst the various people that LRB would be working with the administration, much as we do with your guys staff and as new people come on,and things of that nature and working with them and bringing them along to become better at their jobs as well. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Yeah. I was at a nice meeting the other day with Real Property Tax, and I want to give a shout-out to Administrator(Lisa) Miura. She held a good meeting in Waimea the other day regarding the agricultural property tax program. And working with CTAHR(College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience), they presented a very interesting workflow plot process about the path that people need to take regarding these particular Page 23 FC-15 July 22,2025 questions. So it may be something to work towards as this manager role working with the departments. And then of course some questions about at what point do you bring those Council Members in; is that a conversation especially for these items that are by request, and it always seems like Council Members want to bring these items forward, but they have that leeway of whether they want to or not. And that's part of those questions that need to be answered in terms of that interface between administration, LRB, and Council. So I look forward to seeing where this goes. And I think there are a couple other questions so I'm going to yield the floor over first to Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes. Just one more quick question. T guess I first want to, I guess I'll just make it—does the creation of this position in any,way potentially replace or displace anyone currently working in LRB? MR. HENRICKS: No. It doesn't displace or,replace anybody. We have five positions in there. Four of them are completely at will. One of them is a civil service position—excuse me, five positions in there and they're all five currently filled and one of those persons would then assume this position without anybody being displaced or removed;if I understand you nestion correctly. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. So they would,still stay in their current positions, current responsibilities and whatnot? MR. HENRICKS: Except for one of them, which would then assume these new responsibilities and this new title. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. Would you be backfilling that other position? MR. HENRICKS: No. So we're not making a new position. MS. VILLEGAS: Gotcha. We're just changing MR. HENRICKS: We're taking an existing one and then converting it into this position. I think that would be a much bigger ask of this Council to create an entirely new position. And I really feel like four staff members and a working supervisor for what we're looking at as far as workload and what responsibilities would be is sufficient at this point in time. And of course we'll look at it going forward and then,you know, we're always open to recommendations and considerations for additional things to do or how we're doing things now. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Well I wish you luck. Change can be challenging. MR. HENRICKS: It is. Page 24 FC-15 July 22,2025 MS. VILLEGAS: Especially or people who have worked for a long time in a division. MR. HENRICKS: Yes. MS. VILLEGAS: I wish you all the best in management skills as you navigate this change. I also firmly believe to me it's the truth that change is a constant. MR. HENRICKS: It is. MS. VILLEGAS: So it's how we adapt. But the interpersonal and social networking that happens within a division I know can be like dancing on a razor blade. So I will wish you the best in thaf and with your team as well and newer members being humble, gracious, and operating in gratitude for those who have been there for longer periods that I have just in my short time, I have endured what could be considered sometimes the twilight zone of differences in the way things have happen and those stay with:us. And'so there's a lot of wisdom to be garnered from people with history and'legacy from serving in a division and a department. So with that, I'll yield. MR. HENRICKS: And toy your point, Committee Member Villegas. You know, I kind of grew up working in that division and my experiences were I believe would've benefited from having a supervisor that was very familiar with the work we were doing and somebody I could have access to easy, readily available access to. And itwasn't part of our office's structure. So it's just something that,you know, I know previous clerks had talked about and done or wanted to do and it just never really materialized. Se this isn't a new idea and it's something that through my personal experience that I strongly believe would have benefited our operations while I was there in fact. It would've been something I would've appreciated; ACTING CHR.' USTACE: Thank you. Council Member Onishi. MR. ONISHL Thank you, Chair. Listening to the discussion, I know LRB is really important, right? The only thing I was mentioning is about how the process of awarding this Office Manager, right? MR, HENRICKS: Sure. MR. ONISHL And that's my concern is that, like I mentioned before, there's a process, right? And to have the Clerk decide I'm going to put this person in charge is, to me, kind of uncomfortable. But saying that, LRB, when we submit legislation for your review, you do your process, then it gets sent over to Corporation Counsel, is that correct for final approval? Page 25 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. HENRICKS: Not necessarily. Whenever we receive something from a Council Member for review, generally part of the recommendation or question is has Corporation Counsel reviewed it yet. If so, at what point? It is not a formal part of the process. It's a choice a Council Member makes ultimately whether or not to have legal review of their legislation prior to introduction. But it's generally recommended. Sometimes it doesn't appear to be necessary. MR. ONISHL Just legislations, right? Like communications, yeah, I can see that not happening. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. Yeah. MR. ONISHL Because even like with.our contingency funds, doesn't Corporation Counsel review those documents? MR. HENRICKS: I believe they dojust as part of the process oil having the mayor and department head sign off on it saying that they'll accept"those funds. They will have Corporation Counsel review to be sure it's a proper expenditure of public funds and it's within the programs parameters of the department. MR. ONISHL Of course. Correct. MR. HENRICKS: But if you're talking let's say for instance, a bill to amend the Zoning Code,you know, some kind of part Chapter 25, LRB's recommendation would always be to have Corporation Counsel do a legal review of that. Yeah. MR. ONISHL 'That's what I'm trying to get at because without Corporation Counsel,because I've had discussions with you before in my previous Council, when you were just an LRB staff. MR. HENRICKS: Yes, Sir. MR. ONISHL Is that LRB for your research is great but for legal opinions, you folks cannot do that. MR. HENRICKS: And we don't want to. MR. ONISHL Yeah. I know in the past we had run ins because of that situation. And that's why we always depended on Corporation Counsel to give us that legal advice because if something should happen and we didn't follow it through with Corporation Counsel, LRB cannot represent us in court, right? MR. HENRICKS: No. Yeah. MR. ONISHL And so there is your part but then there's also the part on Corporation Counsel. Page 26 FC-15 July 22,2025 MR. HENRICKS: Yes. 100 percent. MR. ONISHL So I just kind of wanted to make that kind of clear where you folks are important, but also to me the last review is with Corporation Counsel. MR. HENRICKS: The best legislation is always a collaborative process with all the required elements. A really properly trained and experienced Legislative Specialist within LRB will be able to flag things that appear to be legal concerns but would never make a determination that something's a legal concern. So that's something they give you a head start and just say,here's some specific part of this legislation you might really want to hone in with Corporation Counsel. It's always in a consultive capacity though as opposed to you can't do this because of that. MR. ONISHL For example, another one is the cellphone tower right, that bill. MR. HENRICKS: Yes, sir. MR. ONISHL They went through many years with discussion and then kind of like on the 1 lth hour,then we have a ruling from Corporation Counsel that in the bill we were kind of like'volating something, state or federal laws, right? So now they have to redo that again. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. MR, ONISHf: It went through the LRB process, right? MR. HENRICKS: Well, one of them did. Ms. Evans did. And the version from the Planning Department did not officially go through that process. So I'm glad you broughtit up because for me in an ideal situation where you have is if it was a Planning Director initiated bill, the cell phone tower one, before it would even go to the Planning Commissions, it would come to Legislative Research Branch, it would perform its function, its role, and then it would go to Corporation Counsel to perform their function and their role, and we would collaborate with Corporation Counsel to make sure that the language is as clear as possible and it meets all legal standards; and then it would go to the Planning Commissions and then make its way to Council. And by the time it gets to Council, we're good to go And whether or not it's something the Council supports or not, that becomes the question at that point. MR. ONISHL But did Ms. Evans' bill also had some of that inside of her bill that was not like appropriate, but it went through process. MR. HENRICKS: Sure. We make no guarantees that something will be pristine and just to be clear too, LRB will often, not often, but sometimes make recommendations that Council Members decline to incorporate into their bill. Page 27 FC-15 July 22,2025 These things happen. It's the Council Members that signs the bill. So ultimately they're putting their name on it, so they have the ultimate control over the language in that bill. MR. ONISHL Correct. Correct. And the last thing is just that through my years of experience something that like I guess repeated year after year, it goes like through LRB but then when someone, another staff—okay so one staff maybe this year reviews something I submit, right? So it gets approved, and we pass it. Then next year we do the same thing, kind of same Numbers, same wording or whatever and whoever reviews that one changes it again. So to me I think if you folks can kind of make it more consistent. MR. HENRICKS: Sure. MR. ONISHL If it's something that's being repeated year after year, somehow you folks need to track all that and make sure it just moves forward." MR. HENRICKS: Yes. If something worked in the past and there were no issues with it then that'll be something that would go through the system very quickly. The contingency relief transfers have all been consolidated and centralized for the Chair's Office now. So I think that's going to be a very different process now where it's going to look different and feel different., But for legislation outside of contingency relief, if there's some similarities or if there is a bill, say a simple bill to change the bus fares and it worked before then we would go to that bill; we would just use it as a template and just change the parts that needs to be changed, and it would be a very quick efficient process. MR. ONISHL Right. I yield, Chair. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. And I think some of those pieces,just to go on some of your points, Council Member Onishi, may not necessarily all be reviewed by Corporation Counsel especially some of the contingency things. I don't know if they all get their eyes on those. I think it may depend on-our engagement with LRB and the Clerk's Office and Corporation Counsel to kind of look at some of those pieces so it may not have all eyes on it for some of those smaller pieces. At least I'm getting that message from Corporation Counsel. You had a lot of questions on this. So I appreciate the time we spent on this and dialogue and conversation. Unfortunately some of our members aren't all here to kind of engage in some of this conversation being it is I know changing that structure of LRB and having a nice dialogue about that. But my request is kind of stemming from a lot of these different pieces here and there is to really establish those SOPS, those standard operating procedures that kind of documented workflow. You know, regardless of the individual in that seat that it is kind of Page 28 FC-15 July 22,2025 carried on through the office so that we are pulling in Corporation Counsel, that we are pulling in administration at the right pieces. MR. HENRICKS: Okay. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: If they're submitting, you know, something to LRB at what point does a Council Member come into this conversation as part of that by request piece of legislation. So trying to figure that out. I think that's up to you and LRB staff. I do hear your concerns, Council Member Onishi, about the staff that have been in that office for some time and trying to make sure that we are filling that seat appropriately and working with,all the members to make sure that everyone is comfortable in that space that have worked for the County for some time. So just want to recognize that. And we are putting trust in you, Mr. Clerk, to fill that seat so we can really stand up LRB, Working with them from the legislative side as well as the administrative side. Sokind of blending all of those pieces together. There's definitely some work to do there to kind of flush this all out and bring it together. So thank you for,presenting this to us and this option, and idea to move the dialogue forward. Any other questions or thoughts? MR. HENRICKS: Yeah. I just again ask for all these kinds of situations, you know,just reasonable amount of patience for things to fully develop and that of course like everything else, this will evolve beyond what we are talking about today and things that, you know, we simply haven't considered because they Haven't come up yet. But just know and trust that throughout this process we'll be very' thoughtful and considerate and there won't be any impulsive changes or anything of that nature. We will work even harder to communicate with the Council, the administration, and everybody else to make sure that things go as well as possible. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Clerk Henricks. Appreciate the time. o at this time,Clerk Brown, if we want to take on a roll call vote on Resolution 244-2 , I'd appreciate that. Vote on Res. 244-25: The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 244-25 was (Approved) carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace—6. Noes: Committee Member Onishi — 1. Absent: Committee Members Inaba and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—2. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. With no further business on the agenda. We are adjourned. Page 29 FC-15 July 22,2025 ADJOURN- There being no further business on our agenda today, Acting Chair Hustace MENT: adjourned the meeting at 10:26 a.m. Thank you very much. Approved: Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Chair (Date) Finance Committee MK/tk Page 30