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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PRC 2019/08/06 2018-2020 Committee on Parks and Recreation 2nd Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii August 6, 2019 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Parks and Recreation was ORDER: called to order at 10:30 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Chair Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member (came in later) Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Ms. Karen Eoff, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member (came in later) 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.) CHR. POINDEXTER: Okay, Mr. Clerk, we'll move on to Communications. Please read in Communication 373. COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 373: REQUESTS AN UPDATE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION REGARDING THE STATUS OF FEMA FUNDED PROJECTS AT THE PAHOA RECREATIONAL COMPLEX AND THE STAFFING AND HOURS OF OPERATION AT THE PAHOA COMMUNITY AQUATIC CENTER From Council Member Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, dated July 11, 2019. Motion to Approve: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to close file on Comm. 373. Seconded by Ms. David. CHR. POINDEXTER: Council Member Kierkiewicz. PRC-2 August 6,2019 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thank you"Mo" (Maurice Messina) for joining us in Kona. And I see Director Waltjen and members of the Parks and Rec. staff here. Thank you for being here, and thank you for also taking the time to meet with me ahead of this meeting to just get up to speed on what your challenges are. And so, I'm really happy that we're going to be having this discussion so that the community can be made aware of the many challenges that your division and department are facing. I also want to thank you so much for all of your work to bring the Pahoa pool back in working order, especially before the summer. We've seen a huge uptake in use. Alejandra, you provided me with some pretty incredible statistics about the usage at Pahoa pool. In June 2017, there were 15,000 pool goers. This June, there were close to 20,000 people. Almost 700 people a day going to the Pahoa pool. That's a lot of folks. So it's a very, very important public recreational asset. And because of the high use over the summer, we've seen a number of calls and emails from constituents about staffing, hours of operation, and the various, I think, important programming that you are providing to the community. So I just wanted to get an update from the department as to the challenges you're facing, and then also share with us the status of work at the Pahoa District Park Complex, and your 428 (FEMA) submittal. So, I think, Mo are you going to be doing a quick update for us? (Note: At this time, Parks and Recreation Director Roxcie Waltjen, Deputy Director Maurice Messina, and Aquatics Specialist Alejandra Flores-Morikami came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. MESSINA: I can, unless Roxie would rather open it up. CHR. POINDEXTER: She defers to you. MR. MESSINA: Okay, so right now we're fully staffed at our Pahoa pool. Over the summer we had pulled some lifeguards from different areas for temporary staffing to help keep the pool open seven days a week. Some of the common complaints that we have from constituents were our daily, or our lunchtime closing. And we just wanted to let people know that the reason for those lunchtime closings are number one, of course for our staff to have lunch; but also because of the amount of people, and Ashley how you said, we have about 700 people a day in that pool. We have to check our chemical levels during this lunchtime period and make sure that all of our chemical levels are safe for the public. And also, the cleaning of the bathrooms. So right now we are fully staffed at the pool. We have run into some issues at the pool over the summer. For instance, we had our senior lifeguard running a Page 2 PRC-2 August 6,2019 handicap program in the first part of the day, and that was taken away from some of the open-swim times. This was a pilot project that we tried and it was very successful. And we did try to explain to the public at times that because these children were handicapped, that it required full participation from our lifeguards. And for the most part, everybody understood. We also have senior programs during the day. And we have our open-swim times for quite a few hours during the day. Now that school's back in session, of course, we expect to see our usage go down. But right now, we're fully staffed and ready to serve the public. And we're still going seven days a week right now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Mo. Just a couple of points I want to pick up on. First, I'm very appreciative of how inclusive your department is, and providing the County's first adoptive swim program in Pahoa. I mean it's wonderful that every person, no matter their abilities, is able to swim. How wonderful that you folks are going that. So, thank you. Can you tell me a little bit about the closure during lunch, because I recognize staff needs to eat, but it's more than just that? It's beyond running the chemical tests. There have been some instances in the bathroom that I would like for you to share with my colleagues, so they're aware of—it's not just lifeguards watching people swim in the water. They're having to keep their eyes on the entire Aquatic Center. And with that comes a number of issues. MR. MESSINA: Right. So the way the Pahoa pool is set up. If you haven't been there, when you come from the parking lot area, you walls through our gate and on the left and right-hand side are our bathrooms. And then after you pass the bathrooms then you go into the pool area. What this allowsI believe that this setup was for, like if you had somebody outside in front, either paying to enter the pool or people checking for them to enter the pool. That way, you know, somebody would always have eyes on them. But instead what's happening is, our lifeguards do not see the people until they pass that barrier of the bathrooms and they're actually in the pool area. We've had instances of where we found or our lifeguards have found bags of methamphetamines in the women's bathroom. Recently, we had a houseless woman with open sores showering in the bathroom, and refused to leave or refused to get assistance from us. And so, we ended up having to call the police. We've had two vehicles stolen out of the parking lot. As people would come in and go in through the back area or through the entrance area where everybody keeps all of their belongings. And of course, our lifeguards, they're trying to pay attention to everything that's going on in the water and in the kiddie pool. And we've had two vehicles stolen there. Page 3 PRC-2 August 6,2019 So we have some issues. So our lifeguards, they're watching the patrons, they're watching the bathrooms, they're watching, for lack of a better word, criminals coming into the area. So it's a very, very stressful environment. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And, Mo, what's their hourly rate? They're SR-15's right? MR. MESSINA: Yes, I'll let Alex (Alejandra) answer that. I think it's about $17. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: $17.60. Thank you, Alex. That's a lot of work for that amount. MR. MESSINA: Yes, it's a very high stressful environment. The times when I've visited the pool, I look at our employees, I look at our staff, I look at our lifeguards at that pool. You can see it in the faces. We've had complaints that people are saying they're really very strict at the pool. Well, if I'm at that pool and I see that number amount of pool in the water. If I'm that lifeguard, I'm going to be very strict, because if one person goes under—we have a policy, well they're all trained to where if somebody goes under or somebody needs assistance in the pool, there's supposed double lifeguards saving that person. So there should be two lifeguards. If we only have one lifeguard at the pool. And there's a lot of people in the pool, they've got to actually clear everybody out of the pool while they're trying to save someone's life. And so, it's a very high stress environment. Our lifeguards do call in on sick days when it gets to be too much for them, and we do our best not to shut the pools down when that happens. We have pools in all of your districts, so you understand our history is that we try to keep you all updated as well when we have to close a pool for some reason. Because we know the public will be calling. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Mo, can you just share with my colleagues why we can't shuffle lifeguards around between the different pools. They're hired into those specific positions at a specific pool. Can you elaborate on that? MR. MESSINA: Yes, it's just like all employees in other departments, if you get hired for the Pahoa pool, that is your station. If we do ask, when we are short at another pool, or when we're short at a—for instance, the Pahoa pool and we try to get a lifeguard from another pool, we actually may have to shut that pool down to run the other pool. So it's a big shuffling game that Alejandra and Mason (Mason Souza) are constantly doing. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Any lifeguard openings across the County, or are you fully staffed everywhere? I realize that even if you are fully staffed, you're not really fully staffed. You could still use more personnel. Page 4 PRC-2 August 6,2019 MR. MESSINA: Correct, we're almost fully staffed, and we have two pools that are down right now for repairs. We have the Honoka`a pool, so we have our lifeguards at Honoka`a pool working at Laupahoehoe pool. Try to get more hours there. And at KCAC (Kona Community Aquatic Center)in Kona, we're down, so we shifted those lifeguards to Konawaena to extend our hours there. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you Mo. And then if you could just update us on work that's happening at the Pahoa District Park, and the status of the 428 alternative project submittal to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). MR. MESSINA: Okay, so we've submitted two 428's and that is for Pahalanui warm ponds and also for Isaac Hale or Pohoiki Park. As far as the Pahoa District Park goes, we completed all repairs at the pool obviously, which is why it's opened now. We recently completed all work on the playground equipment, so our playground is open now. We've done some temporary fixtures in our gym to keep the gym going. And we are currently working with FEMA right now for the amount that we're going to be—for the estimates for the repair work at Pahoa District Park. But while that's going on, we've already started working on our scope of operations and our bid document. So regardless of what's happening with FEMA, we're still going to be moving forward with our repairs at Pahoa Park. Our repairs include damages to, obviously almost all of the fields there, the gym flooring, the weight room, and the dugout MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Mo, do you have a timeline for when the fields will be able for community to use? When will the repairs be done? MR. MESSINA: Like I said, we're working on those documents right now. But this is also in conjunction with our 13 ADA (Americans with Disability Act) projects that we're also working on throughout the island. We have one Planner that is doing all this work right now, and doing all these documents. So, we are moving forward with everything, and we're doing what we can as well. And if there's a way we can do some of the work in-house, we're trying to do that as well, but our maintenance staff is—for instance, they just got through working all week in Kona where I'm at now, getting the fields ready for the kupuna softball. And they have about four more months of solid straight work that they're going to be doing. So as soon as we can get a timeline, I'll get it to you, but we are working on the documents right now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, and if we can just post some of this information on the Parks and Rec. website, that would be really helpful. I'd be happy to also share that information with the Puna community. People are just, they're wondering and they Google when they don't know. And so if we can have that Page 5 PRC-2 August 6,2019 information easily available online that would go a long way. I want to thank you for just doing it. MR. MESSINA: So real quick, so Roxcie put a high priority on at least getting all of the playground equipment done at Isaac Hale and a couple of our other parks for damage from (Hurricane) Lane and from the lava. So she put that as a very high priority and we were able to complete all those at the end of last month. But this is her next priority, Pahoa Park. For both of our Planners, this is their next priority, that they got to get this done. Very, very highly used area. There was one weekend last year at Pahoa Park, we had 5,000 people on the field and in the park. So, she understands how important this is, and has set as a priority. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you both for your leadership and your commitment, and your "just do it" attitude. I mean, you guys are the epitome of like a really well working department that's incredibly resourceful and creative, and I appreciate it. Puna appreciates it. So thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR. POINDEXTER: Any other discussion? Okay, Council Member, Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. And thank you Mr. Kierkiewicz for bringing this forward, because I know during our lava situation, we had gotten some funds to help the pool out in Pahoa. And maybe Mr. Messina, could you just share, because through the Parks Department, I think, there was some lane lines that we helped with some of the recovery money. And I was just wondering, you know, how that has helped that community with those tiny little gives that really stood that pool back up, and the Easter Egg Hunt. MR. MESSINA: Right. Oh, the Easter Egg Hunt was, for a lack of better words, it was awesome. I was out there, and I believe Ashley was out there, and we had other people out there. It was part of the community revitalization project. You know, we had a community that suffered great, great loss out there, and so just bringing the Easter Egg Hunt, people in Pahoa was justit was a big heron thing that happened. As far as the pool repairs, during the lava event, our department just like many other departments took a really, really big hit on our budget, on our overtime, and everything. So, all the help that was given to us was put directly into those projects. And it would have been a struggle or it would have been a big ask to go and find those funds. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Again, I have to echo what Ms. Kierkiewicz is saying. You know, Parks Department touches so many people's lives, from our keiki to our kupuna, and I really do appreciate the hard-working staff over at Parks. You know, our community really needs those recreational facilities in times like lava to just feel normal again. So thank you for all your hard work. Ms. Waltjen, thank you. Mr. Messina, thank you so much. I yield. Page 6 PRC-2 August 6,2019 CHR. POINDEXTER: Any other discussion? Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Parks and Rec., for giving us an update on the pool. It was a very wonderful moment to have that pool opened before the end of summer. And I'm glad we're staffed at the end of summer. It would have been nice have the staffing during summer, before the kids went back in school. So, I'm going to play a little bit differently. I appreciate our lifeguards. I appreciate what they do. Yes, it is a high-stress job. I do come from the private industry, and we climbed roofs and worked on roofs in rain and wind and played with electricity on roofs, and some of the guys made less than $17 an hour. So I can understand the high-stress job, but there are other high-stress jobs around this island that pay less. So, I'm going to want more. Can you please break down for me, why we cannot move staff from one department in Parks and Rec. to another department without a whole lot of paperwork? MR. MESSINA: Well, when you say move staff, are you talking about moving lifeguards from one pool to another? CHR. POINDEXTER: Excuse me, Mo, Roxcie is on her way up to the table and said she could answer that if you don't mind. Thank you. And just identify yourself for the records and the minute taking. Thank you. MS. WALTJEN: Roxcie Waltjen, Parks and Recreation Director. One of the reasons that we can't move staff from Pahoa to Kawamoto pool, to different types of pools is because all of these people belong to the union. Whenever you change the scheduled workplace or the scheduled worktime, you need to consult with the union and they need to agree. And that normally takes about two weeks. And if you have a person who's going to be sick today, you need that person right now, so it is a problem. But one of the solutions that I am working on is having like aI'm going to, for lack of better terms, I'm going to call it a substitute list. And I have already spoken to HR(Human Resources), and we're in the process of developing this. And it's not only for the Aquatics, but it's also for Recreation, because there are times when people get sick or they get hurt and they're going to be out for an extended period of time, and then that facility suffers. So it would be creating the list—putting the job out there, creating a list, having to go through the regular recruitment process, but they would be like an on-call person. So when we would have a person who can't show up for the next two, three days, we would immediately go to that list and grab that person, Page 7 PRC-2 August 6,2019 "Hey you want to come in, you'll get paid," and that's how we're going to be doing it. So that is something that I've been working on with HR for the past couple months to alleviate that problem. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That sounds good. If you have some kind of solution. MS. WALTJEN: Yes. We realize that, you know. We don't want to be like this, and we know we can't afford to hire enough staff to have enough people to cover everything. But this is one of the solutions that we're trying to work out, and whenever you do things like this in a government type of run organization, there's a lot of parameters, and there's a lot of"i's" to dot and "t's" you got to cross. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So if I remember right, we had a pool closure in, is it Laupahoehoe? And then we tried to transfer the staff from that pool to the Pahoa pool. How long did that take? MS. FLORES-MORIKAML I'm Alex (Alejandra) Flores-Morikami. I'm the Aquatics Specialist. Yeah, I'm not really sure. I recall Laupahoehoe to Pahoa as far as our permanent staff, we were able to get a summer hire to cover one day a week at Pahoa. And that took a lot to the budget. We had to make sure we had enough money to give him; the extra hours to go there. However, to get staff from other pools to another pool permanent staff that do have their union benefits. It takes approximately two weeks, and we have to get everyone's approval before we can make that happen. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Have we transferred staff from any other pools to Pahoa? MS. FLORES-MORIKAML Yes, we were able to get one from KCAL. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How long did that take? MS. FLORES-MORIKAML A little bit over two weeks, actually. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: More than two weeks. And at the beginning of summer, we didn't try and hire more staff knowing that we just opened a brand new pool? And the community was crying out for it. And we didn't overstaff in anticipation of that? MS. FLORES-MORIKAML Like Roxcie said, we have a certain amount of positions at the facility. And when you're hired, you're hired into that one position. So there's no way to over-staff We were able to get summer hire, though. Page 8 PRC-2 August 6,2019 MS. WALTJEN: The bottom line is, when you're hiring for—with Summer Fun or Summer Aquatics or whatever, you have a total amount of budget and you have so many facilities. Each facility is broken up into what you're going to need to run that facility. For example, you're going to need one Program Director; you're going to need one Group Leader, and it's all figured out by the amount they're going to be paid and for the amount of weeks. And that's how you come up with the total amount—your total budget for running the program. Sometimes we don't anticipate how much usage we're going to have. I've had people call me and complain because they couldn't get into Summer Fun sites at the Andrews Gym. Well, we have one staff person with the assistants, but only 100 slots and we have like 15, 20 on the waiting list. So, yes, if we had more money, we probably could open up an additional site, but a lot of people just want to go to that one specific site because maybe it's near where they live. So there are a lot of factors. And each time we do Summer Fun or we do Aquatics summer session, what we try to do is tweak it so that we kind of fix it as we go along. It's hard to predict the future, you know. We had no idea that we were going to be dealing with lava last year, and we didn't realize that the pool would be closed for a period of time. And we didn't realize how many people would be coming this year. In addition to that, you know, it's not only that the pool opened, it's also that all the other groups wanted to get their time in, too. So, yeah, it does create a problem. But any kind of assistance or you guys have any formula that you think that we should try, we'd be sure to listen to. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: It came to my attention that there is actually an HR department within Parks and Rec. Because when I first heard we had staffing problems I called Bill(William) Brilhante, and I said, hey why can't we get staff faster? And he explained that in some ways, his hands are tied because Parks and Rec. has their own HR person who has their own process that they follow. So not only to rehire someone from within the department within the County, we have to go through two hiring processes basically. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but we have to go through Human Resources in Parks and Rec., and Human Resources in the County. Is that right or wrong? MS. WALTJEN: No, it's one hiring process. If you want to apply for a County job with any department, you apply with the County of Hawaii Human Resources. When there is an opening in whatever department you are, you will put in a request that you have a vacancy you want to fill, at which time they will do the screening and then they provide you with a list. At that time, we do the interviews and we select the person. We write up the recommendation for hire, and then everything gets sent back to them so that they can approve everything and it needs to be signed by all the different departments including Corporation Counsel, the Mayor's Office, and then the person is hired. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So there is no doubling between Page 9 PRC-2 August 6,2019 MS. WALTJEN: There's no two, double. No, there is no two, double types of employment. It's just that, we are a County agency and you have checks and balances. And that's why sometimes I find it kind of funny when people think that you can get away with something and get away with it forever. Because when you work in a government agency, your work and what you do is always checked by one other agency. One or two other agencies. And HR is the overall umbrella for everybody. But yeah, we follow the same rules. As far as for the little—deciding like for example if you can transfer. Say you want to transfer to another position from a level position here in Kona, and you want to transfer to an opening that there is in Hilo and it's a lateral transfer, that's the only kinds of things that we have a little bit of say on. Do we just take anybody, or do we go—and normally what we do is we follow the union rules, which means the person with the longest seniority will get it. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So when we have someone already working as a lifeguard, and we're going to transfer them from one pool to another pool MS. WALTJEN: Permanent now, okay. Not just temporarily. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Not temp, so a permanent move. They have to go through the process again? Or are they already in? MS. WALTJEN: No, they just let us know. And then when the opening is actually open, they can just apply and then they will be put MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: They have to apply? MS. WALTJEN: They have to apply, yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: They have to apply to move from a pool to a pool? MS. WALTJEN: Yes, because they're moving from a different geographical area. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How much time does that take? MS. WALTJEN: Well, that takes longer than two weeks. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That is interesting. So we already have an employee working for the County; working at a specific job, moving from a location to a different location to the same job, and it takes longer than two weeks to process that paperwork. Page 10 PRC-2 August 6,2019 MS. WALTJEN: Yes. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Why is that? MS. WALTJEN: Well, probably because there's a lot of paperwork that needs to be done. And it doesn't go through two hands, it goes through a lot of hands. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's what I realized when I went through the process. MS. WALTJEN: This is the process of how it's been done all this time. And you know, there was a time in the County when a lot of these things were relaxed. And that's probably why we got audited when I first came on. When all of this was relaxed, this is why we were in the position where we were, where we didn't have enough staff, a lot of our positions were vacant. We couldn't even get people to be hired; and qualified people were not hired, because of the relaxed rules and procedures. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So we created more procedures. MS. WALTJEN: We created safeguards. Actually what was done is the procedures that were in place prior to all of those relaxed, were just put back in place. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What kind of issues were we having? MS. WALTJEN: Issues as far as why the audit took place? Well, some people were hired and they never went through the screening process. Some people did not go for an interview, they showed up at a worksite and they were hired. So all of this happened prior, and all it came to light, so that was one of the reasons that the audit was done. And Parks and Recreation being one of the biggest departments, we were the ones audited. And so those are some of the things that when I got appointed on September 25�h, 2017, I was faced with that the first week that I was appointed. In fact, at my confirmation, I think Aaron asked me that question. "So how do you plan to deal with the audit that you received?" So I had already met with our HR department to see how we were going to move forward, because we couldn't move forward in the condition that we were. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so next summer, as we walls into summertime, perhaps we can be more staffed so that our parks and our pools can be opened and not closed during the hottest months of the year when the kids are able to go, not before they go back to school. Because school just started and now we're fully staffed. And that's, I mean I know not just kids go the pool, but you Page 11 PRC-2 August 6,2019 know, families waiting for that pool to be opened, impatiently, patiently. And we opened back up and then we had to close randomly as things happened. MS. WALTJEN: And they were like three or four days that they closed, and one day was because someone vomited in the pool, so everything had to be cleaned again. There was another day that someone had diarrhea in the pool, yeah. So that's another thing that again, prevented it from being kept open. And I think there was one more kind of big incident; thunder and lightning. Whenever there's thunder and lightning, whenever we have storms, we're always on high alert. If thunder starts, we need to take everybody out of the pool because they could be electrocuted. So you know, and that's why we say that there is a lot of things going on. You know, if you're just a parent and you're bringing your children to the pool, I get it. I'm a mother too. I get it, that you know, you want to see your kids enjoy. But if there is chance of there being a storm, and that you know, this type of thing takes place, then our hands are kind of tied, because we have to think of the liability. And we don't want anybody to get hurt, too. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think most people understand when there's thunder and lightning that they're not going to go jump in the pool. MS. WALTJEN: The other thing is you know, the way how the pool is made, as Mo touched on earlier, I did come up also with doing a different kind of thing. You know, on this when the lifeguards have to go and check the bathrooms and check for security things, and reasons. And there being no sign-in, sign-out kind of thing, so you really don't know who should be there and who shouldn't be there. I talked to the Aquatics people and I was thinking that we would probably start to implement some type of security pool attendant kind of position. There would check you in and check you out, so you would have a little better handle of who is actually in the pool and who is out of the pool. That person would also be in charge of watching the bathrooms, making sure that, you know, not the wrong people are in there. You know, the pool is built a funny way, where you enter the pool—you can go into the restrooms without even entering the regular pool area where the lifeguards are. So, it's a little bit hard for them to watch back here, when they should be watching here. So, I talked to Alex already about looking at an additional position, maybe a pool attendant kind of thing that, that person would be stationed outside at the front entrance where you'd have a check-in, check-out kind of thing. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is there another entrance? MS. WALTJEN: Back entry, but that's not open. Page 12 PRC-2 August 6,2019 CHR. POINDEXTER: Yeah, you used your time. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Sorry, give me a little, what is that called? Latitude? CHR. POINDEXTER: Just one more—is it okay, because then I know that Council Member Richards is waiting, but go ahead with your last question. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, our lifeguards shouldn't be watching our bathrooms, they should watch the people in the pool. MS. WALTJEN: Right. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So if we can find another way of entry or find another way to work the access to the pool from the front. MS. WALTJEN: And we did talk about that also. You know, the entryway. If we do another entryway, we would have to abide by the ADA (Americans with Disability Act) rules. So it's going to be a kind of costly project, but I'm willing to do that. And you got the money? We can get it done. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you Roxcie. Thank you. CHR. POINDEXTER: Council Member Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. First of all, I appreciate the conversation Rox. Thanks so much. Mo, thank you very much. I think that conversation pointed out that Parks and Rec., and what Council Woman Kierkiewicz had said, does a huge amount for the County as a whole. When we had our volcano incident or our lava incident, they also become shelters and they did all that. And so, I was going to highlight the fact that they've really stepped up to the plate to do a lot of things that most Parks and Recreations do not do. That being said, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder points out that more funding would be very helpful for Parks and Rec. to get some things done. I know we've got some closed parks. Kolekole, as I drove by in this morning. So with that, I just wanted to give a big shout-out to Parks and Rec. But also say that we've got to see if we can find funding for them, because that'll help get them even firmer on ground. So with that I yield. CHR. POINDEXTER: Council Member Eof£ MS. EOFF: Thank you. Just wanted to also thank you folks because you think a little bit out of the box. And looking for this HR fix about a substitute list that might go a long way with a couple other departments I can think of, too. So, thank you for exploring that. Page 13 PRC-2 August 6,2019 MS. WALTJEN: Yeah. And it's not only P and R. I mean you know, there are people that get hurt, and they're going to be out for six weeks. Or they have surgery or you know, for whatever reason. Maybe they fall down and got hurt at work. So you know, it's going to be an extended period of time. You don't want to fill that position permanently, but yet, if you're going to go through the regular hiring, you know, temporary, it's going to take longer. So if we already have a list that's prepared that we can just draw from that would really help. MS. EOFF: I just wanted to thank you for looking into that for us. CHR. POINDEXTER: Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to touch on something Mr. Richards brought up. That sponsorship agreement Roxcie, that will be a tool for you folks to utilize to gain some resources to help with the parks. So as soon as we can put those Administrative Rules together; take them out to the public, there's one more opportunity there for funding. MS. WALTJEN: And Maurice has been working on it. We just want to make sure that we're doing it correctly. And we're looking at Oahu's one and we're trying to merge the two, because we don't want to make it exactly the same. But we want to make it, for lack of better terms, we want to make it better. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Thank you. CHR. POINDEXTER: Council Member Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, if I could just take us home on this one, please. Director, bottom line, how many folks does your department need? Because over the years, we have built more recreational assets; we've needed to maintain aging assets. And you've been doing that with, I think, long-standing staffing levels. So give us the sense of what your needs are, so we can start thinking about it, because we'll be in budget season very soon. MS. WALTJEN: Let meI'm going to give you some history, and then you can see where we're at, and you know, with each passing day and each passing year, the needs don't get less. They don't decrease, they increase. The population grows. As the population grows and the population ages, the needs also grow and it gets—and you know the facilities get older. So in 2003, Parks and Recreation had 600 employees. In 2003, we had 140 facilities to take care of. And that's maintenance, staff, and that kind of things. Everything from senior centers to gyms to baseball fields, and cemeteries. Today, we have 387 facilities, and we 487 employees, permanent workers. Okay, so there is a big disparity between what we have, the facilities and the programs, and the services that we have to provide, in comparison to the staff and manpower Page 14 PRC-2 August 6,2019 that we have to do these. So yes, if you're asking me how many staff I need, I'll take all that I can get. But you know with that, you also have to able to pay them and pay them, the right wages you know. As it is, you know, if you compare what people get paid when you work for a County agency, it is below the private enterprise. You know, and you have to love what you're doing, because needless to say, even though we get a lot of complaints on a daily basis. You know, people complain if they go to a bathroom and there's no toilet paper or they go to a pool and they didn't realize that today was not their day that they could there and swim. But,people there and all the people who work in Parks and Rec. truly love what they do. They come back every day to do the same thing, and probably hear the same complaint, and they try their very best. And I will put my money behind all the staff that I have because they really do a good job. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I appreciate that. And Ally, I don't know if you want to just comment a little bit about how proactive you are in insuring that we get these hiring announcements out before summer, because we anticipate having to really ramp up our staffing for Summer Fun programs. For different programming at the various pools around the island. So, I just want to stress that you're not waiting till the last minute, as what's being asserted. That you are being very proactive in finding adequate staffing and being really creative about how you deploy the resources so that you can insure these very important programs are available to our community. MS. FLORES-MORIKAML Yeah, so we actually offer lifeguard training at all of our facilities, and we try to do that throughout the year so that when summer comes around, we can especially have our vacancies filled and our summer hires. This summer was a little bit different. We went into summer with eight permanent vacancies. So it was especially rough across the island. We also held two lifeguard training classes across the island in May, which is when we were already supposed to have all those vacancies filled. We also lost four employees in May, so it was especially difficult. But yeah, I'm a lifeguarding instructor trainer as well. So, we're trying to get more of our staff, not just for Senior Lifeguards training, but trained as lifeguard instructors, so we can hold more certification classes throughout the year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for sharing, and thank you both for being very honest about your challenges. MS. WALTJEN: In addition, I need to also tell you that I did meet with Mason and Alex, and next year we will be starting recruitment earlier than what we did this year. This year we started recruitment for Summer Fun positions and summer Aquatic position in January. Next year we will be starting in December, giving them early part of December, so that the kids who come home college during their Page 15 PRC-2 August 6,2019 Christmas break, they can already get going and perhaps apply if they're interested in working. In addition, we will be starting all of our things earlier, so that we will get a head-start on it. So that paperwork, everything will be all pre- done prior to them actually starting work in June. So that we don't have a problem of not having a person on staff MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So Director,just to clarify, you're going to start the recruiting process this December for next summer. MS. WALTJEN: That's right, yeah. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for being proactive. Thank you for not waiting to be told, and just doing it. You know, I wanted to bring this communication forward so that we could just better understand what you're going through and just step back for a minute and be a little bit more patient with one another. And empathetic and understanding of this very unique situation. So, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. CHR. POINDEXTER: And thank you for that statement of just being patient, because I know in my community we're trying to be patient and work with you, because there's a lot of times we don't know the underlying circumstances and the unsafe conditions that causes the pool closures. So, always the open communication, I thank you and Mo for always being there and being transparent and open with, you know, why things are happening the way they are. Sometimes we don't like to hear it, but it is what it is. I like the idea of the substitute list, definitely. Especially out in the rural communities, because you know, a lot of times our pools have been closed because we don't have a substitute lifeguard. And we have a lot of swimmers. You know, a lot of the kupuna, and the keiki too, but a lot of kupuna. And when we talk about funding, you know when I agreed to vote in favor of raising the GET (General Excise Tax), it was with the understanding that we would relieve a lot of money in that General;put it in Transportation, and Highways. I don't know about Highways. Transportation, I know a lot, and that would free up a lot of money. And I remember telling Mayor Kim, so Mayor Kim if you listening, if you can remember our conversation that we could take care of our Parks and Recreation facilities, all of our facilities. I've been doing an assessment of each district and what they have. I've been working with Mo, so that we can see if we are properly staffed in those areas, and what facilities we have. And areas that are needing a little bit more attention, another facility or some type of evacuation center like we talked about in Waimea. And putting some of that money in there into Parks and Rec., because the bottom line is those places are the heartbeats of every single community, because that's where relationships are built. That's where family strengthening, Page 16 PRC-2 August 6,2019 you know, activities go on. You bring a community together. Those are the heartbeats. If we want to continue to have healthy and safe communities, we need to invest in them. So the GET, Mayor, I voted for that because of that and I brought that to your attention. So there's some funding there that we need to use wisely for our people and our communities. But, thank you, Roxcie for your leadership, very well done. Thank you. MS. WALTJEN: Thank you. CHR. POINDEXTER: Motion to close file. All those in favor of closing file, please say"aye." Vote on Comm. 373: The vote to close file on Comm.373 was carried by (Approved) the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Poindexter—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. POINDEXTER: Okay, Communication 373 is filed. Can I have a motion to adjourn? ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 11:23 p.m., Ms. Lee Loy moved to adjourn MENT: the meeting. Seconded by Mr. Richards and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Poindexter—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. POINDEXTER: Okay, this meeting is adjourned. Approved: .1C ? - August 26, 2019 Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Chair (Date) Parks and Recreation Committee VP/dt Page 17