Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN CRCOC 2025/09/02 (2024-2026) DRAFT Committee on Communications, Reports, and Council Oversight loth Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii September 2, 2025 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Communications, Reports, and ORDER: Council Oversight was called to order at 1M p.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Chair, ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Chair Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Vice Chair Mr. James E. Hustace, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba,Member Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Mr. Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, Member(came iri later) Absent& Excused: Mr. Matt Kdneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA,ITEMS: The following individuals registered to speak and came forward when called by the Chair: Toni Withington: Comm. 445; comment. Sylvia Dolena: Comm. 447; in support. (representing Aloha Animal Advocacy Association) Sheila Brown: Comm. 447; in support. (representing Aloha Animal Advocacy Association) William Brown: Comm. 447; in support. COMMUNI- The Acting Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 Comm. 444: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY THE DEPARTMENT OF WATER SUPPLY REGARDING THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I'S ONLINE WATER AVAILABILITY SYSTEM From Council Member Holeka Goro Inaba, dated August 8, 2025. Motion to Close File: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 444. Seconded by Mr. Hustace. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Earlier this year we passed,Resolution 137-25, which urged the Department of Water Supply (DWS)to devel6p and maintain an online system showing general water availability County wide within our current service areas including the number of units, active commitments, and developer agreements. And I'm thankful that they are here today to show us the online resource that is the result of that resolution that this Council passed: So we have our leadership team here from the Department of Water Supply. I'm going to ask you folks to navigate us through, kind of give us an overview of what this system shows, how to operate it, and then the website link should be active by this afternoon so that both us Here on the dais and'"the members of the public can access this database. So I'll hand it over to you atths time, Chief Managing Engineer. (Neste; At this time, Water Supply Managing Chief Engineer Keith Okamoto came forward to address the members of the Committee.) Mk OKAMOTO: Alright. Goad afternoon. Keith Okamoto, Manager Chief Engineer,Department of Water Supply. Real quick I want to introduce; we have Deputy Kawika Uyehara with us, Chief of Operations Greg Goodale, who's actually here for the next one', and Ryan Quitoriano for this particular presentation. `With that, I'll turn it over to Kawika and Ryan. (Note: At this time, Water Supply Deputy Kawika Uyehara and Water Resources and Planning Engineer Ryan Quitoriano came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. UYEHARA: Good afternoon, Council Members. Again, Kawika Uyehara, Deputy with Department of Water Supply. So yes, in regard to Resolution 137-25, if I could just highlight a couple items that is in the sixth whereas and also in the be it resolved section. We were asked to contemplate and create an online map showing our general water availability across the island and with that we've developed a tool, GIS (Geographical Information System)based that, one, will show the number of water units, the general water availability, active water commitments, and then developer agreements. So at this time, I Page 2 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 think we'll pull up the GIS link, the map link. I just want to make sure that we're sharing it. MR. INABA: It's there; we can see it. MR. UYEHARA: Okay, to the public too? MR. INABA: Yes. They can see that screen. MR. UYEHARA: Okay. Very good. Okay. So I guess first will be Ryan, if you want to introduce yourself and then maybe ease us through this first interface. MR. QUITORIANO: Okay. Ryan from Department of Water Supply, Engineering Division, Water Resources and Planning Section: So this would be the first screen that you see when you click on the link. So just 4,disclaimer just stating that, you know, the information,provided,here is just for general water availability and planning. And so if anyone needs"specific information for a particular parcel is just to make sure that they"contact my section. MR. INABA: And I ra justgoing to ask; it is a little small so if you can just kind of describe, you know, the general areas you're covering and maybe go there with the mouse or the cursor so+that members of the public and members here in chambers can see. MR.QUITORIANO: Okay. (Note: At this time, Mr. Quitoriano and Mr. Uyehara came forward and provided,a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or online at http://hawaiigounty.gov.granicus.com. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation,is made a part of the record, see Comm. 444.) MR. INABA: Perfect. I just want to mahalo you folks. I think it's beneficial to us and members of the public to try and go on to the actual website, use those directions at the top, the map instructions. You know, there was some preliminary review of this map, but it is a work in progress and the department is willing to make changes to improve and,you know, hopefully eventually be able to add even more information similar—we have another mapping system right now that shows where outages are and eventually integrating it altogether to have some kind of really comprehensive system. But right now this is the first stab at showing water credits and availability here in our County within the existing infrastructure of DWS. So it won't show areas where DWS services isn't currently provided because there is no water credits committed to those areas at Page 3 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 this time. I'm going to yield for questions, but welcome my colleagues to offer suggestions, if there are any already. But ultimately, try and go onto the website later today and dive into it and see how we can improve it even further. So thank you again to DWS for acting so quickly. I believe we passed this resolution just,you know, a few months back. So the work on this was quick and I think the start of something good, not just for you folks but and for the public but even for other County;agencies like Planning when we have to review land use applications. It's a help to all of us. I yield at this time. Thank you. MR. UYEHARA: Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Anyone? Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Thanks for berg here and thanks for presenting this so quickly. I see we're farther along now than we've ever been as far as full disclosure and kind of transparency. No better time than now as, especially in the west side in District 7 with this affordable housing crisis, I'm using quotes, and the availability of water on the west side being one of the biggest challenges. First off, I just want to make very clear because I, myself, would call it credits, but they're water units; or is there A difference between a water credit and a water unit? MR, UYEHARA: Okay. I'll start with that. So one water unit is what we quantify as 400 gallons per day, one water unit. Now I think we also talked about commitments, which is our actual terminology that we use in our rules and regulations ofhow Ryan,eplained, you know, once they go through a land use process and they can put a deposit down for this water commitment I guess is determined as acredit. MS. VIUUEGAS: So a commitment is basically a credit because they've paid for it. So they have credit for it. Is it the same actual amount, the 400 gallons per day, it's the same amount as a water unit. MR. UYEHARA: Correct. 400 gallons per day. Correct. MS. VILLEGAS: It's just different terminology because one's been paid for. MR. UYEHARA: Correct. MS. VILLEGAS: Correct. Okay. Thank you for that. One statement that was made was with developer's agreements, essentially a developer needs more water, so they make a deal with you guys in order to get approval from Planning and all Page 4 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 the other departments to get approval. For the approval for the development they have to prove that they can come up with those other water units, right? Because the TMK (Tax Map Key) doesn't have enough. So one of those options is to drill a well, right, and they have to pay for it. And so they put in the well and how does the water from the well then get divvied up? MR. UYEHARA: So typically when we do a water source well development agreement, typically, it's two-thirds goes to the developers and one-third to the department. The department, that system. So like in North Kona say, it would be the North Kona Public Water System to be used for'existing customers, existing availability in that water system. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. But the developer continues to maintain the well and the pump? MR. UYEHARA: No. So normally,under these development agreements the intent normally is that well is dedicated to the department and then the department operates and maintains that equipment and well in perpetuity. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay; Interesting system.'I'm interested in the history of how we got here, right, because sometimes that explains,'you know, where we are by how we got here on how these agreements were made and how it ties into the history of Hawaii in general. So the ether question you had was the developer drilling a well to provide that,extra water is the typical way that an agreement would be made,,but what are the others? MR.UYEHARA: So my experience has been well developments. I believe there's other way if there's other offsite infrastructure that could be upgraded, that's a possibility: Infrastructure like other tanks or waterline improvements. MS: VILLEGAS:,, Not on their property. MR. UYEHARA: It would have to be on other property. It depends where in the system it is actually. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. So if they make an investment in Department of Water Supply;infrastructure, there's the potential for them to earn. They still have to pay for itbecause it becomes a credit, right? MR. UYEHARA: Okay. So it's still the developer's investment to supplement the DWS system. And exactly how many credits or commitments that turn into, it is project specific. MS. VILLEGAS: Is there a template or a platform or specific equation that gets allocated or is that just decided within Department of Water Supply? Page 5 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MR. OKAMOTO: Keith Okamoto, Manager Chief Engineer. So again, every situation is different and it's an agreement that actually goes and gets review and approved by our Water Board. And it's something that gets worked out with the developers, not done in a vacuum just by Department of Water Supply. Before we take it to the Water Board it's essentially agreed by both sides that this is a reasonable solution for them to move forward. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. It's interesting because I just was reading an article this morning in Civil Beat about the greatest users of water in Oahu are resorts, is one of the top three and the other was industrial complexes and I'm forgetting one of the third ones. So with just the number of resorts on the west side I think of how much water we have utilized there and the underutilizatiori of reusing water. So I'm really grateful to see this map. I suppose for me, and this is a starting point, but as we, you know,I've had people who through their lineal descendants who've ended up with big swaths of land that do or don't have water units located to them or they have quite few but they don't need that many because they're never going to build that many homes or anything on there. Then they wonder if they,can sell the water units, but they can't sell the water units. So then what do they do with the water units? And then my question is who decided where all the water units went and when was that decided? And I have a feeling it was decided by a bunch of people way back in the time when resources in Hawaii were essentially under the control and management of a small group of people and they just made these decisions. So as we navigate our way into the 2l sf century,you guys are responsible for, and I know you take that seriously and,that is one of the dances is you're trying to protecfa resource,,almost priceless, under much pressure. And so I'm so grateful because years ago we had a conversation and you didn't even have the technology at your fingertips to provide, you know, some of these more challenging answers. So we still have along way to go but I hope I'm still being very clear that we also need to look at how we got here because that dictates how we've made these decisions, and is it really equitable, is it wise, and does it contribute to a regenerative sustainable future for our island that has capacity? So I yield. MR. OKAMOTO: Thank you for those comments. If I just could maybe respond to some of those. You know, typically when we enter into an agreement and it's for lands that are owned by a developer who's proposing to develop them, so they have that right to that property already. I'm not aware of any where we,you know, lineal descendants, you know, definitely we would respect their input if that was the case. But you're correct in that water units cannot be sold by a developer to somebody else because then it kind of turns into a commodity of that precious resource and that's really not the direction that we want to go. So thank you. I know you brought it up some years back on wanting to see a tool like this and I apologize it took us this long. But again, hopefully it's a good starting Page 6 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 point. If you have any suggestions for us, we'll be happy to try and incorporate that. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: I was getting there. I was just looking at everybody's lights very carefully. MS. KIMBALL: She always forgets me. CHR. GALIMBA: You're on. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you for being here and thank you for putting this very, very useful tool together. I have just two really manini thugs. Could I request that you show us again either how to get to this or email u ,the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) directly? Okay, Great. Thank you. And then„my second question just tangential, did Planning when they did their scenarios for;the General Plan, did they utilize this information to do their search to your knowledge? I'm seeing a "no"behind eau. MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah, this is quite specific like I think Ryan mentioned, by parcels. So they did ask us for input on the General Plan process, but not to this specificity. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Alright. 'I still owe you folks kind of a brief on the scenario planning that Planning did with respect to the General Plan. And there's some interesting things about the infrastructure situation and zoning that we already have and stuff like that;which I'll have to double check then too how they looked at water because if they didn't use specifically your map then, I think they must've used something. But yeah,I'll follow up on that. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. Just real quick and final. I suppose for me where I'd love to see this be able to get to is if we know how many wells we have, we know what sustainable yield is, we know how many units are out there, how many have been allocated, how many are also promised or committed, water commitments, then how much water do we have left? Because we keep getting different percentages and there's, you know, a perceived ideal of how much and now I'm hearing that we may be already past that in other conversations. So that's where I would like this tool to be, and as it relates to our aquifers, which are a limited resource, right? There's a lot of rumors going around, "Oh, Big Island's got so much water; we'll got this big, dadadadada..." But it's a limited resource that you guys know more than anybody that we have to be responsible with. So it's such a funny thing to try to mathematically regulate and be responsible for something. But I'm just really hopeful that this tool can bring that forward to make it more black and white and reduce some of the pressure on you guys to have to sit and, Page 7 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 you know, have people come to you pushing for more water units and water commitments. So I yield. MR. OKAMOTO: No. Yeah, we hear you. And we've heard that from other sources as well. So we get that, you know, it'd be good to compile everything, compare to the sustainable yield. That makes perfect sense. We do have some information available. It's through our water use and development plan. Although it hasn't been officially finalized and it's quite old, and I think you were there in the process too. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. Yup. MR. OKAMOTO: So what we're going to do is,you know,,np sense we try and tweak that at this point. We're going to do another one. And even the old one accounted for the commitments, the developer agreements, and'all those proposed uses added onto existing pumping and compared it to sustainable yield. So even with that comparison, I think I've heard other,you know, I guess suspicions that we're over sustainable use. We're not there. MS. VILLEGAS: But westill have to take into consideration cultural practitioner, sea level rise, climate change MR. OKAMOTO: So that's currently happening now with our discussions with the State Water Commission. MS. VILLEGAS: Great. Great., And I've been watching some of those conversations and it's a heavy lifts but it's an imperative time to do so because other islands are haying to navigate what happens when we don't. MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah, agreed. Thank you. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Thank you. I yield. CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you very much for this presentation. I know you folks will stay here for the next one. I guess just looking at' t, you know, it reminds me of the Real Property Tax website of course. So that might be a good place just even to put a note. Have Real Property put a link to your website so that people that are looking at parcels there can also get this information. Yeah. MR. OKAMOTO: Okay. Sounds good. CHR. GALIMBA: Great. So seeing no other lights, all in favor of closing file on Communication 444, please say "aye." Page 8 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 Vote on Comm. 444: The motion to close file on Comm. 444 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Hustace, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Chair Galimba—8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder— 1. Excused: None. CHR. GALIMBA: Communication 445, please. Comm. 445: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY THE DEPARTMENT OF WATER SUPPLY REGARDING ITS ONGOING WORK ON THE NORTH KOHALA WATER SYSTEM From Council Member James t. Hustace, dated August 13, 2025. and Comm. 445.1: From Council Member James E. Hustace, dated August 25, 2025, transmitting a revised presentation from the Department of Water Supply. Motion to Close File: Mr. Hustace moved to close file on Comm. 445. Seconded by Ms. Villegas. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Hustace. MR. HUSTACE Thank you, Chair. As a lot of you know, we have a water challenge right now in the North Kohala Community, and in August we had a failure as well for one of the well systems. And at that time I requested the departments to give an update and presentation on their repair efforts given that period of time.,Unfortunately, that same well is having issues as of yesterday. So don'tknow about the timing but that is a, you know, very interesting piece of it all sometimes. But grateful for Department of Water Supply and leadership here to kind of present some update and overview of the North Kohala system as well as their recent work, ongoing work, and help to address any of the questions that they've been so grateful to kind of participate in that community dialogue and addressing some of the concerns that are ongoing particular with the water challenges and essential needs use only that's been issued for the North Kohala region. So with that, I do have some questions that we can kind of dive into of course, but I'd love to hear from the department to run us through a couple of images here and updates on the presentation. So thank you, Chief Engineer Manager, for being with us today. Page 9 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 (Note: At this time, Water Supply Managing Chief Engineer Keith Okamoto came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. OKAMOTO: Yes. Thank you. I think I'm technologically challenged because what I'm doing on the screen is not happening up on the but in the meantime, I'll just kind of verbally go through what happened. Thank you, Council Member Hustace, for inviting us here so we could share with the community some updates on the situation in North Kohala, And first of all, I really sincerely do want to apologize to our customers and the community out there for the hardships that they've experiencedfrom the first failure. Well it's not the first, it's the first in recent times. August I"was when Haw!Number 2 went down. (Note: At this time, Mr. Okamoto came forward and prodded a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee,. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or online at http://hawaiigounty.gov.granicus'.com. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 445.1.) MR. OKAMOTO: With that,I don't know, Greg,do you want to introduce yourself and add anything else? (Note: At this time, Water Supply Chief of Operations Greg Goodale 'carve forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. GOODALE: Sure. Good afternoon, Chair and Committee. Greg Goodale, Chief 'of Operations,Department of Water Supply. As Keith said,you know, when weIhave outages like this, they're unpredictable and we want to try and get the community back up and running as quickly as possible. But in this case, we were, fortunate, as Keith said, that we did have the spare pump and motor set and fortunately we had a second spare pump and motor set located here in our department warehouse. Again, it still takes time to go through the process of, you know, pulling out all those column pipes and replacing the well. But in the meantime, while all this is going on, we had a lot of people from our department primarily up in the Waimea District running around,you know, basically 24/7 making sure that the water was staying on. And,you know, that may come across as being kind of a big thing but our folks, that's what they do. I mean, they know it's important to the community and we don't take it lightly. We sincerely appreciate, you know, every overtime hour, well regular time hour that's spent as well. But from our end,you know, on the administration side, we look at these things and look at what amount of time that our people are putting in and it's just one of those things that is done and is done without any grumbling or complaining. You know, that's, I think, what I really wanted to bring up is just Page 10 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 the amount of time and effort that was put into getting folks their water service back. Now we don't want to see the water go out in the first place, but at the same time, you know, when it does go out that is kind of our mandate is that it gets back up and running as quickly as we're able. So anyway,those are just some of the things I wanted to share from the operations side. Thank you. MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. Greg, thanks for reminding. Our men and women, the blue-collar guys, boots on the ground, I can't say enough how much dedication they have to restoring water service, making,sure that itdoesn't go out in the first place. So I really want to take this opportunity to thank'them, acknowledge them, because they don't get typically the acknowledgement thatthey deserve. But I guess at this point, any questions? CHR. GALIMBA: So ahead, Council Member Hustace. You have the floor. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Manager Chief Engineer. Thank you to your team and all the work that you do in recognizing your staff, your employees that are constantly working on these systems and making sure that they're maintaining regular procedures and the system is operational at all times, if possible. Of course we have these instances where it fails. I do have a couple questions if we could jump into it a little bit here. I guess if we could start with, what is, if you have at this time, the diagnosis of when HdIvi"Well Two went down the first time in August, if there was some indication of that failure and what may have happened in that instance? MR. O AMOTO: Yeah. Not that I know of, not yet. So what happens typically when one of these units fail,we actually contract out for a tear down and assessment., Almost like forensic type analysis I guess on potential causes of failure,yeah, unfortunately. But as part of our communication effort we know that that's an interest and some information that—so as soon as we figure that out, we'll put that information out. Do you have any other thing? MR. GOODALL Yeah. So far, as Keith said, we haven't done any tear down on the old pump and motor set but, yeah, that's taking a backseat to getting a new one put in at this point. But yeah, obviously, once we get that well back up and running, we'll have the contractor do the tear down. MR. HUSTACE: I definitely understand that there's time to kind of, you know, undergo the diagnosis of the system. I'm just worried that if there's any correlation between this failure and that failure for that particular reason. But also the question from there is, you know,you mentioned about having additional supplies within the region and they're very specific to those well. Do you ever have any concern that you have those spare parts,you have those spare pieces, but Page 11 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 if they're not being used, they kind of sit there, they languish. Are there any sort of challenges with those pieces? MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. Exactly. You hit it on the head. If we could,you know, if we had a crystal ball, you know, we'd know when to kind of stock the shelves. Unfortunately, we just go based on past history as best as we can. Greg and his team is working on maybe some kind of improved asset management type of process where maybe we have better metrics thatwe can track some of these failures. So our guys have the history of previous failures, so when we know what caused them, you know, we try to address them for the next repair. We don't like to put the same thing down the hole when we know what failed the first time. That's why we do the tear down and what not because we're just as interested in knowing cause of failure because as much as possible, we don't want to repeat it if we can. So that's definitely always a concern when we store these things. That's why we actually store them down in Pana`eawa where we actually have a covered facility. Ideally, because these units are installed and operated vertically,you want to store them vertically. But that means you have to dig a pit that you can store them in that is that deep, and we're not quite there yet.-So we're still storing them horizontally and that may putsome burden on barring'sand stuff like that. So what we're also trying to do is if we have the you know, again, better asset management. But if we can get to a point where we have some kind of maintenance on the spare equipment, if we've got to rotate them, things like that. MR. HUSTACE: That's what I'm a little curious about, the maintenance of those spare parts. Is that something thatthe staff undergo was well? MR. OKAMOTO: Not,you know, I've got to say, not at this time. Basically they're crated up and they're,sealed. And because we also want to prevent corrosion, we leave them sealed. So that's the challenge. It's always a balancing act. Do we open them up, rotate them, and then we start getting corrosion issues? So yeah,I guess that's as best as I can answer that. MR. HUSTACE: Okay. And related to maintenance. Their systems are active and operational. What does maintenance look like on that system on a regular basis to ensure everything, you know, above ground that we can see is performing atcapacity? Whether it's our generators, whether it's other things that are on surface level. MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. Maybe, Greg, you can address the generator maintenance. MR. GOODALE: Yeah. So that's a great question and from our end,you know, we have staff that visit these sites on a daily basis. Any of our well pumping sites Page 12 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 get checked on a daily basis to check the chlorine residual that comes out of the well, but also to check any other indicators that may give us an idea if there's any issue at the site. Unfortunately, most of the equipment that we have,you know, when it's down hole like that, it's a very harsh environment and even in cases where we've made attempts to put monitoring equipment on some of these wells, it's lasted for a period of time. And going back to what Keith said, you know, we've continued to try and find ways that are going to be successful for us to be able to continue to monitor this equipment. But unfortunately,you know, where we're replacing them for services is pretty harsh and usually doesn't last a whole long time. You know, we have gotten some indicators, you know, our plant operators can check on and make some determinations. ,But unfortunately for us in a lot of cases, we don't find out until say one of our electricians may come and find that the pump and motor shut down and we find out the pump and motor failed on us without really any indication one way or the other. I mean, when you think about something like a car, you might think the oil pressure is going to go up or you're going to get some indicator light that going=to go on. Unfortunately, in this situation there are no indicator lights or anything like that that would give us a clear determination thatthis thing might be going bad. So that's why we've kind of gone the route of essentially stocking a spare on,island for different groups. Essentially what we've done is we've identified groups of pump and motor sets that are very similar, maybe not identical, but very similar and that's kind of how we put together our space list. So we do that for sites all over the island. It's not just specific to these Haw! sites. So we've identified what we would consider to be our more crucial sites in terms of population served and the amount that's being pumped. But;yeah, having that space has actually served us well. I mean we've seen'the benefit'of that, where we've had turnaround on replacement of pump and mentor and,you know, in this last case it was just about a week's time, which in the past would've been months and months waiting for something to actually get built and,shipped from the mainland. You know, it's one that we constantly talk about within our operations is,you know, we are the farthest away from any supply chain, so we have to act accordingly. We have to keep the parts and pieces we need for,you know, daily basis, but even for what we're looking to for the future. So if we're anticipating, you know, being able to proactively replace a pump and motor—in some cases we have the ability to do that where we may have two pumps and motors in one location. So in a case like that we would be able to proactively replace. Unfortunately, we're still trying to get to that point. But first thing is keeping our space pump and motor the way it has been here lately and, as Keith said, we're not satisfied with status quo, so we want to see us, you know, make sure that we've got any of those gaps filled for any of our other sites. Page 13 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MR. HUSTACE: Thank you. If you could explain a little bit about the flow restrictors? Manager Chief,you kind of talked about that impact on the system and the work you did with some of the large users in the area, and you were sharing with me some of the numbers that some of those users were, you know, putting an impact on the system. Could you kind of dive into that just a little bit? MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. Thank you for allowing me to explain some of that. So flow restrictors is essential like a washer of a castile, a circular plate of steal with an orifice. So a 5/8-inch heater, you know, we're talking water credits and things like that, it's really only supposed to handle one water unit, which is 400 gallons per day. But we have, not a whole bunch, but enough that equal quite above that and quite above meeting magnitude often or higher. So that's when we actually put in flow restrictors. We try to reach outto them first and say, "Hey, we have this situation, can you cutback?" But as we all know, in that industry when it's dry that's kind of when they need itthe most too. So we get that they reed it, but our primary mission of course is human health and safety. So that's our focus. And if they're using it for other reasons then even more so we try to limit that overuse. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you. I appreciate that In terms of the communication efforts, and I want to give you props, Manager, aboutyou include me on emails where you were specifically replying to customers,and users in the area. So I want to thank you for engaging with community about that personally. And then of course we have our social media pushes and that outreach and of course you have it on your website too. You also have your email outreach. But the email outreach is much,like Everbridge in a sense where people have to voluntarily sign up for that. MR. OKAMOTO: Correct. MR. HUSTACE;; Is there ever a situation where these are our customers and users'of the system, should they not receive an email automatically? MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. Good point. And that's something I think we're trying to see if we can move in that direction. We just don't have that particular technology, which is why we're kind of touting Everbridge right now because then it's not just for us,yeah, it's for whatever situation. But yeah, that has been thought of as well. You know, all our customers, we have a hard time even contacting our customers. They might've changed their phone number and forget to update our information on our side, and that includes emails also. So no perfect system but the more we can try to do, I think, we'll get better results. MR. HUSTACE: Some of that's definitely connected to their billing, like their billing online, they have technically some sort of interface with your system though. So I'm trying to think if there's other sort of connectivity through the Page 14 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 billing efforts and how you can retain with them on that side. I don't know if there's any sort of work there. There's an idea there. MR. OKAMOTO: Okay. Yeah. We'll try look into that. Yeah. Great idea. Thank you. MR. HUSTACE: Okay. I have a number of questions, so I'd appreciate any sort of leeway here, Chair. But if others have other questions,Iwappreciate the support. The power outage impacts, and you know this is particular to the department. It's a very isolated system and we have ongoing challenges with Hawaiian Electric for that region as well. So you have the backup,generators; I'm curious if you have any other sort of plans for redundancy in the system to kind of keep things active and so forth? Because that's this challenge -we have with our single transmission line over Kohala Mountain Road, that all those systems are reliant upon that and when that goes down, I mean, when they had their August outage that we all sort of at the same time we had a power outage. It's crazy to think thatthat isolated community can be affected by so maAy,things at the same time. MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. You know, we really,feel for our Kohala community because of those challenges, ,You know, all Tcan'say at this point is we've developed a relationship,with Hawaiian Electric, and,they pretty much know all our facilities that use powers, and they especially know that our wells are critical, and they know that Kohala is a very vulnerable system. So we're communicating with them via text messaging, ernails for updates. However at the same time, you know;we don't have the resources to duplicate their system. So we still have to rely on them." We're trying to do what we can, again, with the backup generators andthe transfer switches. I don'tknow, do you guys have anything else? MR. GOODALL As Keith said,yeah, we can't duplicate the grid, but we have in'this instance have identified almost the next best thing, which is essentially being able to hook up generators to each of our booster stations. When I talk about'abooster station, basically it's an interim point that used to pump water from one tank up the hill to the next tank. And in this system, there's several different lifts like that that take place. So essentially what we're trying to do is have transfer switches at each of those booster stations which would ten allow us to basically pump water into the entire system. And from our end,you know, that's achievable on a smaller system like this. Some of our larger systems, that would be, you know, next to impossible to, as Keith said, try and effectively duplicate the power grid. But at the same time, you know, we have put a lot of time and effort into figuring that out and working in that direction so that we can essentially, if there was to be a long-term power outage, we could keep that system sustainable. MR. HUSTACE: Thank you. I've been in conversation with Hawaiian Electric and Aunty Toni and a number of the community members up there trying to Page 15 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 identify a system that can island itself in case there is a grid failure with that Kohala Mountain Road fails. So there are those ongoing conversations and I'm curious to see how that unfolds and that would further support,you know, that community resilience effort in North Kohala. I'll just keep going down my list, Chair. If there are other questions, other thoughts, I can take a pause. I know you have other presentations too. CHR. GALIMBA: Yes. We do have a couple more. So, I'm pressed. MR. HUSTACE: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Could you speak a little bit about kind of your overall goals for the region? So we had,the Halaula well, it's currently nonfunctioning. Where are we in that warranty process within that two- year timeframe? MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. So my understanding,we just were talking about that this morning too, is my understanding is that;you know, we review that efficiency submittal, looks close enough. As far as I know, we've directed to a contractor to go ahead and start shipping that unit over already. Unfortunately, with some of that bronze debris thafgot;into the system, it looks like it's going to be more effort than just replacing the broken pump. If it got into like our chlorination system and some of that stuff needs to be repaired and replaced, we might have to do that too. So shipping of the pump in eminent and then we're already telling our project manager to coordinate with the contractor to go and investigate other parts of thatwhole project to see if there's anything else that looks like gotta be replaced or whatever and get that done as soon as possible. MR. HUSTACE; Okay. And I guess I'll kind of wrap it up here in sense of what are your efforts right now;is it kind of very similar to the course of action you took in August to the repairs for Haw!well too. MR. OKAMOTO., Yes. Yes. So what we're going to do is we're going to take one little bit extra step that we didn't do in August. We're going to rush and bale that well. You know, basically, what do you call that; almost like barnacles build up inside the casing over time and if those things flake off and get into your pump, they may cause resistance and cause the motor to burn. So we'll do that extra step that might take half a day more than prior. But besides that, we're looking at about the same timeframe as the August situation to get Haw!number two. MR. HUSTACE: And you have the components you need on island then for the repair efforts? MR. OKAMOTO: Yes. Yes. Page 16 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MR. HUSTACE: Okay. MR. OKAMOTO: And from what I understand, contractors should be on site shortly if he's not there already. And as soon as he gets there, he knows the drill. He's the one who did it the last time, so very familiar with that particular well. MR. HUSTACE: Okay. Thank you, Manager Chief Engineer. I appreciate the time with you here today. I'm happy to have more conversations with you and your team about other options and other ideas for redundancy in the system. I mean, community members were talking about you're bolstering water uphill. I don't know if there's other conversations about wells more mauka and that kind of connectivity with systems so that you're kind of more cif a,you know, downhill sort of trajectory for things. And of course there's also the conversation about Maliu Ridge and what's needed in that area for great improvement of a lot of our older plantation systems. I know I don't have a lot of time here;butgrateful for the time that we've had with you here today and the work that you're doing with you and your team to bring these systems onl he, to communicate with your customers and users in the area for the need of water. So thank you so much. MR. OKAMOTO: Thank you. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Thanks, everyone. And thank you for your presentation and discussion. I was just wondering,what's the approximate cost per spare? You know, I guess these particular pumps and motors. MR. GOODALE: Yeah. It can vary. And a pump and motor set like this, 800 feet,probably going to be in the range of about$300,000-$400,000, for a string like that. It goes up significantly when we start talking about wells that are like 1,500 feet deep: CHR. GALIMBA. Okay. And then the other question I had, you know,you're saying there's no sensors or blinking lights on these. It's just a pump, right? Is there a way to add that on like separately, like auxiliary systems? Because we have water trough sensors for our ranch that we potentially add, but we don't do that; but we could potentially add that on to make it a smart water trough. Could you use there something like that? MR. GOODALL Yeah. And I guess that's kind of what I was referencing is we have made those efforts to put different sensors on our equipment in the past and not to say that we've given up on that; we're continuing to look for better options, better technology that will stay working for longer. We had some that, you know, maybe a month, two months after installation might be working but as time goes on, especially just the environment at 800-1,500 feet deep, some of those things just don't stay for very long. So then you're back to kind of flying blind again at least in terms of whatever that sensor was supposed to be measuring. You know, Page 17 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 if it was temperature,you might know what the temperature is up to a period of time and then you're without that. The good thing is it does give us some good data at least in terms of,you know, what level those pieces of equipment should be running in. MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah. So really quickly, I think one of the sensors that Greg was talking about is we tried putting temperature sensors on the motors that are down hole, but they didn't last long. You know, if the heat starts going up, that's an indicator. So on the topside at our control building, we also have other protection type devices to protect against surges, to protect against balance load, you know, the three-phase power. And then our fobs who visit the site, if they notice that the pumping rate is dropping, that's another indication. If the motor is above ground and there's noticeable increase in'vibration,=that's another indicator. So not the kind of maintenance you could do like preventive like change oil kind of things because these things are down in the hole. But we do have indicators in place to indicate I guess if there's'a potential problem. CHR. GALIMBA: Are you training your guys to watch for certain signs and things that might be happening? MR. OKAMOTO: Yeah, CHR. GALIMBA: Okay.' Thank you very much. MR. OKAMOTO: No smart troughs though. CHR, GALIMBA: And I don't see any other lights so all in favor of closing file on Communication 445,please say""aye." Vote on Comm. 445: The motion to close file on Comm. 445 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Hustace, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Chair Galimba—7. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and Onishi —2. Excused: None. CHR. GALIMBA: We'll move on to Communication 446. Page 18 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 Comm. 446: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS REGARDING THE UPDATED STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES FOR THE HIGHWAYS DIVISION From Council Member Holeka Goro Inaba, dated August 12, 2025. Motion to Close File: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 446. Seconded by Ms. Kagiwada. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. This was a request from the department. We had an audit prior, and we have now the updated standard operating procedures. We have Acting Director(Neil) Azevedo and'our consultant fbolieve to present to us today these new standard operating procedures. Acting Director Azevedo. (Note: At this time, Public,Works Acting Director Neil Azevedo came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. AZEVEDO: Good afternoon, all. Acting Director Neil Azevedo, Public Works. I have Andrea Brinkley with me. She was the lead for SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the Highways Division: 'And'now we have standard procedures; we're ready to go. Thank ,you. I'll pass it on to Andrea. (Note: At this time, Berry Dunn Community Development and Utility Operations Project Manager Andrea Brinkley came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. BRINKLEY: Well good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for your attention and thank you for inviting this presentation. I'm able to share with you what a joy it'was to work with the division, and I think we have some members of the division with us that were part of the process sitting in, coming from very far away in"some cases; We did our best to integrate at multiple levels in the organization across 'multiple geographies and there's six divisions that were represented,with both the leadership and also the administrative staff and then of course at the department. So I'll just make sure that I can keep moving here in the presentation. �(Note: At this time, Ms. Brinkley came forward and provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or online at http://hawaiigounty.gov.granicus.com. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 446.) Page 19 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MR. INABA: Thank you so much, Ms. Brinkley. With that,you know, looking back at the audit from November of last year, first question; did that really inform, the findings of that audit really inform how you folks attack this project? MS. BRINKLEY: Yes. Yes. It certainly did. We wanted to make sure we had a good basis, which is we acknowledge what the audit has said and made sure to make a good kind of—we acknowledge that as a basis and a good foundation, but looking at the issues fresh as well and then returning back to that. MR. INABA: Alright. Acting Director Azevedo: ,, , MR. AZEVEDO: Sorry. I'll introduce our staff. MR. INABA: Sure. MR. AZEVEDO: Kelsey Kalua-Lewis, Business Manager; T'Jaye Forsythe, Acting Highways Division Chief, Noble Kail , Hilo Base yard; Loren Bisel, Puna Base yard; Nathan Tajon, our all-aroundguy from radios to inventory to everything. He's justthere to help us. And there's Taylor Tomita; she's our GIS person where you need something and she'll get'it right away for us. And then Leighton Ahnee, Overseer for Ka`u District. Thank you. MR. INABA: Thank you, Acting Director., And in your opinion, having worked with your team here who is, you know, kind of the alaka`i in each of these specific areas, how far do you think this project and these SOPS get us in addressing the concerns and the recommendations provided in the audit from last year? MR. AZEVEDO: You know,we just started off with the SOPS and that's a stepping stone from there.` You know, we learned the process and everything there's a process of doing and right now I think we are pretty much 75 percent going forward. Then we've got our next things we need to be accountable for all our drainage and all that. So we're moving on that way, and I think this is the start right here and working with Andrea was a blessing. I mean, she really guided us in the right direction. And it wasn't just our way, she hasn't worked Public Works, too. It helps us big time. You know, she knows what to do and our steps. Thank you. MIS. INABA: Great. Because I'm looking back at the audit and I know it was specific to bridges and culverts, but this is taking it multiple steps further to broaden its scope to include all areas of the department, we solve the finance, the administration, everything, maintenance. So I think if we follow these SOPS like we should we're going to be attacking more of what we see here in the audit's recommendations. Would you agree? Page 20 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MR. AZEVEDO: Yes. And we've got Engineering Department going out there, helping us to look for more culverts and making sure by the end of this year we'll be close to 100 percent with all the culverts, drywells, bridges, making sure we're up to par with everything. Thank you. MR. INABA: Great. And I just want to recognize your leadership because I know prior to this contract you already took some preliminary steps based on the findings of the audit. But to see this come to fruition and;;you know, hopefully it's helpful to all of your staff behind you to get the job done in an efficient and effective manner. So that's all I have. Thank you for being here today to present to us and the public on how we're going to be making improvements in the department. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. Aloha and thank you for being here. Thank you for your support of this imperative department with so many divisions under it, Highways being one that impacts every single one of us on this island. Should we leave our homes in some capacity, we touch on County roads. I just have to say, you know, being here, my time of service here inCouncil is so manini compared to what I see of years of service,not only for your Nor.Azevedo, but also for your team and staff. But in my time sitting up here, the difference that I've seen in DPW (Department of Public Works) and the radical improvements and support being provided to help take a massive department kind of into the 21 sf century of providing you guys with a standard operating procedure; less guessing game, less this'guy did this way, that guy did it that,you know. Our County has grown, the staff has grown,the budgets have grown. We have to make sure that we grow the support modules and., you know,paperwork's not that fun, but it provides stability and consistency and understanding with one another. So I don't knows I'm just excited and I'm grateful to see this. And I know that some of it came through an audit, but if I remember correctly, didn't you ask for the audit` Yeah. So you saw a need in your department, and you asked for the support to bring that about and you introduced your team and your staff. I know how proud of them you are. And so I see this as a reflection of servant leadership. And so we have great people, and I am so grateful for the consistent improvements, and I see it in the paved roads and all over the place. So I could keep blathering, blathering, blathering, but instead I'm just going to say mahalo, mahalo, mahalo. MR. AZEVEDO: Thank you, Rebecca. I really appreciate that. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Kimball. Page 21 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Thank you for this effort. And thank you, Neil, for everything you've done and your team, especially Kaiwiki Road. That response was appreciated so quickly. What are the next steps with this then; are these SOPS still being reviewed? No. They are launched. Can you maybe speak to how you intend to socialize them with the staff? Are you guys going to be conducting trainings or how is this going to be integrated into your processes? MR. AZEVEDO: Yes. We'll review it with all our,staff. Actually, we'll be getting a meeting coming up soon, our Highways luncheon we do once a year. So you guys are going to find out soon. And from there we'll just show everyone what we're doing and then from there each base yard will get big posters about what are the SOPS about and,you know, which one? And,whenever we get a new worker at least they're going to know what to do,what tools they need to bring out when we're doing it, not this we've got to go back to the base yard because we forgot this and all that. So it's'going to save a lot of time and'money for us. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Great. Is there any component of like particularly the repair and maintenance SOPS that specifically address the prioritization of work areas? I know we were using that tool,you mow, the LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) tool,you knew, and scoring things;is that included in the SOPS; can you maybe speak to thaf part,of it? MS. BRINKLEY: In terms of the capital improvements; is that what you're speaking towards? MS. KIMBALL: More the repair and maintenance prioritization. You know, there's Big Island, lots and lots of culverts and roads and all that kind of stuff. And what is the process internally; is that in the SOPS? MR. AZEVEDO: Okay. So that right there, we actually put in this year for a camera truck. So from there we're going to be videoing all of our culverts, bridges, you know,underneath. That way we can see it; we don't need to climb down, we don't need to climb in. So at least we're going to know what to do right away. We would video and then from there we will know what we need from there. Hopefully that's the answer. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. (Note: At this time, Public Works Business Manager Kelsey Kalua- Lewis came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. KALUA-LEWIS: Hi. I'm Kelsey Kalua-Lewis, Business Manager, Public works. So for this SOP it specifically addressed the Highways Division. When you talk about prioritization of the bridges, culverts, paving projects, et cetera, it becomes a larger picture. A lot of time the Administration Division gets Page 22 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 involved. We have conversations with,you know, emergency procurements, whatever the administration's priority is at the time for community needs. I think that goes beyond what this SOP was about; more on not a standard way of doing it but just communication and collaborative communication. So maybe you need engineering, admin, and highways, versus this SOP which just focused on highways. So I don't think too much of that prioritization kind of thing was in here, but the directions to the staff when you're assigned something is made clear in this SOP. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Yeah. The main reason'I ask for that is again, there's just so much. You guys just have to deal with so much. We have almost 1,000 miles of road that we're dealing with and our ability as Council Members to be able to explain to our constituents why;they're going to have to wait three months or a year for a particular project to be completed because public health and safety, which is obviously number one priority for all of this means thatproject x, y, z, needs to be done by that other project: So it looks like you want to respond so I want to give you that opportunity. MR. AZEVEDO: So every part of the roads drainage, bridges, whatever it is, it's very important to us. So we look at it,you know,which one we're going to move first. And it might be the first one right now but something else big might come up and we may jump in front that and,,you know, sorry, we've got to do this first. It's happening a lot of times. And each district got only so much men. You know, if we've got 100 people in Hilo District, it's fine. We can take care of a lot of things. But right now, with minimum whatever we've got 40-something in Hilo we need to work that 40. But we still gotta cut grass; we still need to fix the potholes; we still need to clean the bridges, we still need to clean the drains, we still gotta put guardrails,you know, we've got to bunch of things we need to do. o really, welook at it how, what is the most important one, then we jump from there. You know,like Kaiwiki Road. How important was it? Very important. So now we're working with our private utility company for moving the poles, then from there we work together and make another road. You know, we just shift the road a little bit to Hilo and get a two-lane road. So hopefully I answered. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. It's definitely a lot of things to juggle. And I think Council Member Villegas said it, you know, Highways and the work that you do is probably top three most important; it's probably most of the time most important, most of the time for most constituents except when they need fire and except when they need police. But otherwise it's being able to utilize the roads and that comes to top of mind at least when I'm talking with my constituents. So being able to reflect clearly like that there is a fair decision-making process, and of course you're also limited by the amount of dollars you can spend in any given district too from the highways tax and stuff like that. So being able to reflect how those decisions are made from my side, from the Council Member side, is helpful. Page 23 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 So if those SOPS can provide that at some level, I think that's useful. Did you have a thought or comment? MS. BRINKLEY: I was just going to add that the SOPS provide for collecting of asset inventory and adding to that inventory, and then also inspections of and then the conditions being noted. So those are some of the critical kind of building blocks in order to make the decision about what is the criticality of failure or what should become a capital project or be elevated to a discussion about priorities. So I think that before maybe it wasn't so clear, but there's not the ability to record that in work orders that can then be attached to that asset, whether that's a drywell or a cross culvert under a roadway, that those'things'all get regularly touched and looked at. And looking at all of the assets within a district or all of the assets, for example, all drainage assets, and then,having the conversation with the other departments that are needed as was just mentioned to be able to elevate that. So without information at the very base level, it's a little hard to be able to see until something fails. MS. KIMBALL: Right. MS. BRINKLEY: So now L think we'll be a little bit farther along and prepared next time. MS. KIMBALL: That sounds great because I can imagine part of what you struggle with is like, "Oh, gotta send guys here; nope, now they gotta here, now they gotta go here." But if you have that kind of data, you can say, "Okay, we're going to send a bunch of guys over here and work on these three things, and we're going to send them over here the next day and work on these four things." Yeah, so that would be super helpful. I did note, and I don't know if this is just that the one item Number 7, Highways, bridge and trail maintenance, and I'm just bringing it up; do you guys do trails or do you,not do trails? MR. AZEVEDO: Highways does everything. You know, so sometimes the tree falls down,on a trail, we need to cover it,you know, clean it up, clear it, making sure it's safe. You know, our main thing is safety for the public and we're going to do that. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. So it's more emergency maintenance than regular maintenance? MR. AZEVEDO: Yes. Yes. Maintenance usually goes to Parks and Recreation. But if a major tree falls down and we've got to respond, we will respond for public safety. Page 24 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I bring it up in the context. I've been working on something for Pepe`ekeo where I'm sure you know, we somehow got a bunch of trails that we're supposed to maintain that the person who assigned it didn't indicate which department was supposed to do that work. So whenever I see somebody doing trail maintenance, I'm like, "Oh, it's you." But maybe it's still not you based on that response. Can you maybe speak a little bit to the findings around the vegetation management? SOP said you looked at some of the best practices and it's been a touchy thing, of course. There was a voluntary stoppage of the utilization of round up and then it was like well then, I got all these complaints that there was too much grass and all that. So it's like tricky. What did you find; what is the recommendation? MS. BRINKLEY: It is very tricky and`I think counties across the country, right, whether it's here in Hawaii or in other County,you know, sometimes it's even urban counties and rural counties alike struggle with, you know,how do you make sure that the street and the roadway is safe and there's a safe area to shelter along the roadway for is you have a breakdown, you know, that it's not overgrown and that you are kind of like in'a thicket or in a forest or whatever. So it's really something that has been a conversation and, you know, there's not too many tools or we'll say compounds that are very,effective. But it's very helpful to see some of the decision-making documents that,we referenced as part of the SOP to be able to kind of have a'good,basis and just looking at what are other counties doing; what are our peers doing? And I think they're once again utilizing the chemical application but also pairing that with consistent—and I say consistent here might be constant because everything is always growing constantly. So constant and consistent mowing and trimming of that and sometimes, you know, we would say use a brush hog or use some heavier duty equipment. It's not just,you know, we're going to just go mow with the regular kind of ride along mower. Some areas you can do that, and some,areas really require heavy duty maintenance but not allowing it to get too overgrown before having to do that chemical application. So there's lots of tools in the toolbox and I think there's a lot of interest in having care for the environment, care for the food chain, care for staff, right, so it's all very, very important that we would not put anybody in all the proper safety equipment. There's one SOP dedicated 100 percent to what are the weather conditions, the wind;the humidity, looking at the tools, making sure that it's safe practice, being able to notify the community that this is happening; being able to take steps to stay away from schools especially when schools in session. To be able to have all of these multiple care process and the public concern process is to be able to notify with signs, notify with the public notice process to be able to have that throughout so that nobody is surprised or nobody has this concerned feeling that there will be something that is done that is not safe. Page 25 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Thank you for that. I think there's lots of reasons to be concerned about glyphosate. But probably first and foremost in my mind has always been for the folks out there that are applying it every day, and the exposure is definitely different, right? So I'm glad to see that having make sense if that would be appropriate. MS. BRINKLEY: Wearing the proper PPE(Personal Protective Equipment) is a definite component. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. MR. AZEVEDO: And I just want to say, thank you guys for the equipment we can get. You know, we can submit the equipment, but you guys need to approve it and so far,you guys have been approving almost everything we need. So from there, you know, different equipment we're bringing into Highways to help us to keep everything down. We're trying cur best right now. Just thank you guys. So I appreciate that. MS. KIMBALL: Well things aren't growing that fast in Hamakua right now. They're just drying out,unfortunately, which°is, yeah. Kona, you guys got a different situation. All of our rain went over. Mustbe that cloud seating. I have one last sort of silly question, Andrea. I'm just curious. In your credentials, you're a PMP; what is a PMP? MS. BRINKLEY It's a Project Management Professional. So my degree is in local government administration, public administration. But I was a project manager for many years in capital improvements and then also in Public Works. So, you knows kind,of the gamut. And it was something that was helpful, it's just the organizational process to gets things from A to like delivery, right? So kind of making that throughput happen. MS. KIMBALL: Cool. I feel like you probably run a very efficient household and life. So thanks for your help on this. It's really very interesting. I appreciate it. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you very much. Yeah,beautiful presentation. I love how you were able to do 15 slides in less than 15 minutes and have so much information in there. I look forward to how these SOPS can interact with our new financial and work order software. So hopefully this will be much more clear, find much more clarity but not too much—hopefully not even paperwork. Hopefully it will just be like online and not having to fill out papers. So thank you again. Thank you, Mr. Azevedo, for all your work. And all in favor of closing file on Communication 446,please say "aye." Page 26 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 Vote on Comm. 446: The motion to close file on Comm. 446 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Hustace, Inaba, Kimball, Villegas, and Chair Galimba—5. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kagiwada, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewcz, and Onishi —4. Excused: None. Recess: At 4:29 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 4:34 p.m. CHR. GALIMBA: Alright. Calling this meeting back into session; Can we read in Communication 447? Comm. 447: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY ALOHA ANIMAL ALLIANCE REGARDING CAT POPULATION MANAGEMENT From Council Member Michelle M. Galimba, dated.August 12, 2025. Motion to Close File: Ms. Kagiwada moved to close file on Comm. 447. Seconded by Mr. Inaba CHR. GALIMBA: I will turn it over the Lauren Foo to give a presentation regarding cat population management. Thank you so much for being here today. (Note; At this'timex,President and Co-Founder of Aloha Animal Alliance Lauren Turnbaugh-Foo came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. FOO: Well thank you and aloha, Council Chair and Members. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to all of you at once. So I really appreciate this opportunity to present to all of you to talk a little bit about cat management. My name is Lauren Turnbaugh-Foo and I'm the co-founder and president of Aloha Animal Alliance. (Note: At this time, Ms. Turnbaugh-Foo came forward and provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or online at http://hawaiigounty.gov.granicus.com. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 447.) CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you. Council Member Kagiwada. Page 27 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MS. KAGIWADA: Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you, Lauren, for this presentation. I guess I want to say, first of all, I'm disappointed that a couple of colleagues who I know would have a lot of good questions about this are not here today because I do think that they would have a lot of questions and it would be a really good dialogue. But I wanted to ask you, in working this out did you work with our Animal Control Agency at all or was this something that you kind of did independently? MS. FOO: We did it in combination with just observing actions that are seen from the outside in. We didn't have a lot of opportunities to look into what's actually happening on the ground at Animal;Control: We based the recommendations on best practices that we see in the industry and the direction is the industry is going now. MS. KAGIWADA: Thanks. And,,you know,you talk about the triangle of where it's easiest to kind of so assistance and less costly. Can you just say a little bit more about what assisting owned pet population because that's the lowest cost intervention; what are some of those things; what does that look like? MS. FOO: Right. So here's a really good example of that. So say you have a person who is a repetitive offender in letting the dog escape their yard, for example. That would involve a visit to that particular house to say, "Okay, what's going on? Let's take a look at your property." And in some cases, really, that means providing that individual With a dog kennel that is safe and,you know, escape proof,',That solves the problem quickly and it reduces the need to actually impound the animal in the first place. That's one good example. The other good example would be reaching our to the community to provide veterinary,services, Which we're doing right now. Currently we offer two low-cost veterinary clinics. One in Waimea and the other in Hilo. And so by haviug;a veterinarian touch the animal and provide shots and microchip services and explaining care'et cetera, we can prevent issues before they come up. And the fact,that they are actually getting microchipped, we've had countless examples of people who have been registered, which we register everyone who touches us, where the animal has been lost and then been reunited with their owners again. NMS. KAGIWADA: Okay, great. I guess just following up on that I heard you earlier say that for instance the help desk might provide information about say you're moving off island and you feel like you can't take your cat with you. What do you do with that cat? So what do we do because we don't seem to have a great answer for that right now. MS. FOO: Yeah. So that is definitely one of the issues that could potentially be answered through the help desk. So the help desk is a list of best practices and resources and are available that can be answered based on questions. If the Page 28 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 answers aren't able to satisfy the person using the system, then it is passed through to a call and someone will get back to them with help. And so,yes, we do have situations where we have helped people to get their animals together in terms of vaccinations and health certs, et cetera, to allow the family to take the animal with them if they need to at a lower cost. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. So providing some resources so if they can't afford to fly the pet or to do the things necessary to take the pet, helping them with those? MS. FOO: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Alright. That's good. I mean,I hate to say this, but we don't really have a place to put extra cats,,but at the same time if we could at least fix them before they get dumped. I mean, that's what drives me crazy is then we get,you know, these liters of kittens exploding in the area. MS. FOO: Yes. That's definitely a huge challenge. And so it's not just about sterilizing the community cats, it's actually making those sterilization services available to the community before they become a community cat, right? And so you have to attack the problem at the source. Our goal is actually no cats, no community cats. How do you get there? You go to the source, which is the owned pet population, and you make sure that everybody understands about the importance of sterilizing their animal. This is not something that you can litigate away. It's something that you have to educate to get there. M . KAGIWADA: Yeah. Do you have any other suggestions? Given the fact that we do have a law in the books that says you cannot dump animals, do you have any,other thoughts on best practices? Because we continue to see that happen. So,you knew', should we be spending more taxpayer dollars on police looking for people who are dumping animals or what's your thoughts being in these spaces before? MS. FOO; Yeah. Part of the issue is actually getting in the community and working with the people before they get to that point, right, and providing assistance where possible. We don't have places for people to take cats. We do have a few sanctuaries that are here. But sanctuaries again are at the very top of the pyramid and if you take just a quick cost and you take a look at how much does it to maintain a cat for a whole year, and assume that it's $1,500, and you're going to spend that$1,500 for which cats? How do you make that choice, right? And so it's really about education to prevent more cats from coming into the system, more gods from coming into the system. People have to understand and, you know, make those resources available to them. I can tell you know there are great organizations who are doing spay neuter out there in the community. We do spay neuter clinics as well. The problem is access to them. How do you make an appointment; make sure that the appointments are easy to make and Page 29 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 affordable for them to do. I'm not saying that they all have to be free, but it has to be accessible when people need it. And I think that is really the answer. MS. KAGIWADA: Okay. Thank you. I'll yield at this time. CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you for being here. Let me just,kind of start for my colleagues. My cat journey started with a call from some of my halau buddies down at the bay front here that said the cats are all over the canoes. Can you come and can you do something? And I don't know how we ultimately got connected through that conversation. But that's where it started, was the frustration that there were these colonies of cats moving into the canoe hale. Part of the conversation that I thought what to do about it was well if you remove the cats from the canoe hale, then they come in from Wailoa State Park, then they come in through Suisan or Banyan brie, or whatever and that unless you had a systems type approach, it was kind of one of those intractable problems. And if there's anything that infuriates me aboutgoyernment it's when we approach things with a siloed vision this is my lane, this is your lane, then we just throw money at an intractable problem and essentially;waste it. And I think that's kind of the message here is thatour strategies around this particular problem have been wasteful of tax dollars. Regardless of what happened with Bill 51 and all of that, the main thing is we as a body, whenwe come to look at the budget in future cycles need to look at this aspect of how we spend funds from the standpoint of a systems approach rather than'this siloed you do your piece, you do your piece. There has to be this coordination. The other function that I think we as the government hold here is that sort of coordinating authority whether it's through Animal Control or some other thing. I mean, that was kind of the whole point of the working group is to have this hui of people that were actually talking to each other about how to address this particular problem. And if there is one thing that I think needs to happen with respect to Bill 51 is that a certain amount of trust was potentially broken with people that we need to bring into the fold. I mean, if I'm being honest, the folks that are out there that are the cat feeders and what not, they need to be brought into the conversation so that they're cooperating and participating with us. And I do think the Bill 51 process had a negative effect on that trust that we were trying to build. I don't think it's unsurmountable but I do think as a body like that's part of what we can address going forward is maybe a County park is not the place to do this pilot project, but if the body is generally supportive of this strategy as a more systematic and wholistic strategy to address this problem so that we actually end up with fewer cats on the island I think that will be helpful towards building those Page 30 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 bonds that we need to build in areas where there's already a significant amount of distress. So thank you for your time today. Just again to reflect back just asking my colleagues to think about how we might strategically invest funds in a more meaningful way to enforce a process like this that is actually going to produce more bang for our buck when it comes to feral cat management. That's the ask. Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah. Thank you for being'here It took a lot of time, energy, organization, research, to put this together. And whether or not it was necessary for Bill 51 to get passed in order for this to get to, to the synchronicity was there or wasn't there, or however we've gotten here, you've continued,to push through and endure and show what your truest intention is and create a framework for how to get there. You know, Council Member Kimball, yeah, we have,been fragmented on this. Once again,just go'to the history of this place, Hawai`i. Colonization; we're dealing with cat colonies. We're dealing with people that move here and leave and leave their animals or dump their animals, we're also dealing with. And,you know, I recognize because I know a lot of cat lovers and a lot of them aren't as excited about me, you know f6r aAot of these reasons. And I appreciate what Council Member Kimball says about the trust being kind of broken. But I'm going to go back to that trust was broken decades ago. Unfortunately,it's not the same human beings. But that trust was not broken by us. The cat calory feeders have,been breaking trust with our community and with those who have been working and advocating in Animal Control and Humane Society, and whatever. A lot of that fragmentation also happened on their account. So I just want to level that playing field. I mean, I have navigated it for years working in the restaurant industry with people with empathic heart and compassionate,intention, but that are perpetuating a colonization of a space where this is riot a native species, you know, none of the species that are being perpetuated in this kind of feeding. So I am hopeful that as we move forward and navigate this process, I mean, our kids grew up together. I know you're here for the long haul; I'm here for the long haul_ And I am hopeful that this becomes an avenue for a legitimate collective movement orwar n so appreciate hearing animal advocates say that the goal is zero cats living outside of domesticated homes. So I appreciate that, and I think it's important that the public hear that and our communities all hear that. And so, thank you for sharing this and not just walking away and going that extra step. MS. FOO: If I could just respond to that just a little bit. So my board of directors includes people who are professionals in the industry, meaning animal welfare Page 31 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 industry. But we've also brought on a person who has a Ph.D. in education and has extensive place-based science-based programs that keep in mind community solutions for challenging situations. And what we're saying is yes, we agree there are places where there shouldn't be cats and there needs to be a process in place by which we are able to make that happen and it can't happen all at once. And so we're trying to bring some sanity, some science, and some process into this and not leave it to just emotion because that is one of the key issues, I'll give you that, is that there has been a bunch of people trying to helpwwith the best of intentions. And I'll tell you, the road to hell is paved by the best of intentions. We all know that. And so by putting in the training modules and making sure that these individuals understand that in fact they're actual stewards of the environment and what they do has an impact where they are and what happens as a result of that. So yes, thank you. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you. I leave that. Sanity and science. Imagine that. Appreciate the balanced perspective and all the different avenues that you are touching on. And with that, I yield. CHR. GALIMBA: Council Member Kierkiewi„cz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for being here. Was this presentation just designed,for the Council or to what extent has this been shared with the administration? Sorry if I missed that part. MS. FOO: ,We put it together for you guys because we saw what happened and we saw the craziness that happened as a result of the legislation. All good intended. And we said, you know what, we understand, and we want to still help. And the best way to,do it is to tape a couple steps back and take a look at things comprehensively. MS: KIERKIEWICZ: And that's where I wish we started. And the budget that you've crafted and'presented here is based on national research and what's being done in other municipalities. Tell me about how you put this together. MS. FOO; So the budget that was put out there is basically a combination on Hawaii Island of what's being spent today on animal related things, both public and private. M . KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MS. FOO: So that encompasses the public funds of$7 million for Animal Control as well as HIHS (Hawai`i Island Humane Society) budget, as well as Aloha `Ilio budget and Action for Animals. So the bigger animal welfare organizations on island. Page 32 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. That's really helpful. And I think some of the struggle that Council Member Galimba and I have been having with the refresh of Chapter 4, concerning our animals, is what is the County's capacity? Because there's all these things that we want the Animal Control and Protection Agency to be able to do, but we recognize that we just don't have enough manpower. And to Council Member Kimball's point, it cannot just be the County. MS. FOO: Exactly. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It has to be a coordinated collected action movement by various parties and there has to be like flexibility in the process because sometimes the County can do more. And them there are going to be times in which we're going to lean on the community a little bit more.,But we've got to start talking to one another, rebuilding the trust, the relationship, so that we can be more coordinated going forward; I'know that there's some potential leadership changes within Animal Control and Protection Agency right now, which is kind of the reason why we've had to pump the brakes on some legislation. But I think using the moment of Bill 51 to bring everybody back to the table and start talking about, okay, what can we all realistically commit to and use that space to collaborate to just take the first step together. And I think we're in a really goodtime now because our Finance Director just reminded us that they're starting totalk next year's budget. So we're in, I think, prime time to start talking about that collaboration and what it's going to take in terms of,you know, County budget and other grants to have a more coordinated approach. So Ljust want to thank you for your being here, your presentation, and for also like offering a solution and away forward. So often we are having to deal with just public criticism without something tangible. So I just want to take and honor,the time and effort that was put in to come and share this with us today. M& FOO: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I yield. CHR. GAL,IMBA: Thank you. Anyone else? No. Okay. Yes. Thank you. It's what I've always appreciated about your organization is that willingness to kind of take a higher-level look at the system and try and come up with some positive approaches and frameworks for all the groups that are involved in animals to potentially pursue. And I also appreciate your willingness to continue to engage. I suppose what do you foresee as next steps for your organization and your approach to animal welfare? MS. FOO: Well we are willing to help in whatever way we can. We'll continue to help. We'll continue to reach out to the community through our wellness services. Matter of fact, we'd like to expand them because the more houses that Page 33 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 we touch, the more opportunities we have to change mindsets and behaviors. And we truly believe that we need to be managing to the 80 percent as opposed to managing to the ten percent that don't follow the rules. We know they'll always be there. But still, we need to provide those programs and systems in place so that we can help the people who need us the most. CHR. GALIMBA: Thank you. I just went over and visited Pet Fix's new facility in Ocean View that they basically bought a house thatpeople were squatting in and got it renovated in order to be a clinic so that they can do higher volume of animals there where some of the greatest need is and we had a really interesting conversation. One of the things that we were talking about was sort of impact and as you said, we really don't have data. Yeah. So it's crazy to try and do things and not ever know if you're making an'impact. So that's definitely something I think we need to think about more. The other thing that we talked about which is kind of an interesting subject, is they feel like the feral cat population is almost like nativized, that they're everywhere. I mean one of the things thatL think about is we don't have predators, or we don'thave winter. So there 'really is in some ways nothing to help us as humans to get atthat fact that they've become almost part of the ecosystem in not necessarily in'a good way, but they're just there. Some of them are abandoned but there's a lot of them that are like,two, three, four, who knows how many generations, feral. So I wondered what your thoughts are around that, if you have any ideas on that? MS. FOO: Yeah. Actually I really do and that's where working a partnership with DLNR (Department of Lana and Natural Resources) makes a lot of sense because they're the ones that are tasked with preventing and caring for our most precious species that are here. And so we look to them to prioritize, where are the no cat zones first. Let's look at those areas first and let's get to the point where we can actually do proper TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) for those specific areas and then let's look at potential relocation opportunities for those cats. And when'l say relocation, let's talk a little bit about that trap, neuter, return methodology that we're promoting. And what that means is that it's veterinary guided, right? It's not return every single cat back to that location just because this is what we do. No. It's gone through them, make sure that the animals who are sick and who are not able to handle things on their own are not put back into the environment. I mean, I just sat here listening to hours about the water management system. We have a precious resource of our watershed that we have to be really conscious of, and we can in conscious say that animals who are sick can be put back into specific areas where it's sensitive, right. So we need that guidance from DLNR to say, okay,please tell us where are the most sensitive areas; where are the areas where the nene are, and then we can target, and we can hone in on those areas first. And then across the board, the other categories, the Page 34 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 cats who are managed by colony managers now, let's make sure that they're all educated in the same way; let's make sure that they're all talking the same language and looking out for the same things using the same tools and communicating with each other. Part of the problem is that this has gone underground for far too long, right? And underground means that people do things the way they feel like doing it and that's not always best practice. And so,you know, we had within our plan there was a system to identify these caretakers with uniforms,and they have a badge, and it's not just a regular badge, it's an electronic badge.° So if they're not using the system and doing the things that they need to do under supervision, that badge light goes off. And so this can be a help for the enforcement side of it, right? Because you can't have this happen in a boy, You have to have an enforcement component, and the enforcement component means yes, you need to identify the people that are abandoning their.animals. But the more important question is not that they're abandoning the animal, but why? Why are the abandoning it; is it a housing issue; is it a financial issue? We don't know those answers. And so access to that kind of data is going to helpus tremendously put those cats into the right kind of bucket so that we can create the system that's going to fix this problem. CHR. GALIMBA: Thanks for that; Yeah. Thanks''for that detail. You know, it's funny; my mom was a'cat feeder for a very short time. Probably too long from nay dads thinking. ButI actually learned so much from that, but I never actually kind,'of put it together that, I mean, it was very annoying because she was feeding one cute cat and before you know it, it was dozens. They were everywhere. And then she had to stop because it was just too much and they did dissipate, and she actually solicitously relocated some as well. I felt bad for her, but she was just trying to deal with the situation. But I never realized that actually, thatfeeding can be a positive tool of really drawing the cats away from certain areas and then managing those colonies. MS. FOO; Exactly. CHR. GALIMBA: So I think that might be something that we need to look at going forward in order to address that feral cat situation. MS:FOO: Sterilization, sterilization, sterilization. CHR. GALIMBA: Right. MS. FOO: That's the way to go. CHR. GALIMBA: Absolutely. So yes, thank you so much for coming and hopefully we can engage in a more positive way going forward. Page 35 CRCOC-10 September 2,2025 MS. FOO: Thank you. CHR. GALIMBA: And with that, all in favor of closing file on Communication 447, please say "aye." Vote on Comm. 447: The motion to close file on Comm. 447 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Hustace, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Villegas, and Chair Galimba—6: Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Onishi —3. Excused: None. ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 5:l7 p.m.,Chair Galimba adjourned the MENT: meeting. Approved: Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Chair (Date) Communications, Reports, and Council Oversight Committee MG/tk Page 36