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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PSC 2019/11/05 2018-2020Committee on Public Safety 7th Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii November 5, 2019 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Public Safety was called to order ORDER: at 9:03 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Chair Ms. Karen Eoff, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member (came in later) Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, 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: Glenn Carvalho: Comm. 558, comment. Margaret A. Bartelt: Comm. 558, in support. Teresa Metcalf: Comm. 558, in support. Jennifer Spincken: Comm. 558, in support. Batina Grossett: Comm. 558, comment. Maurice Messina: Comm. 548, in support. Lei Kapuni: Comm. 558, in support. CHR. VILLEGAS: Seeing no more testifiers, I'll close testimony at this time. Moving on to Communications, Mr. Clerk. PSC -7 November 5, 2019 COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 548: NOMINATION OF MARCELLA ST. AMBROGIO TO THE POLICE COMMISSION From Mayor Harry Kim, dated October 18, 2019, submitting for the Council's review and confirmation the above nomination. Requires Council Confirmation by: December 1, 2019 (Section 13-4(1), Hawaii County Charter) Vote on Comm. 548: Ms. Poindexter moved to recommend confirmation of the (Approved) appointment of Ms. Marcella St. Ambrogio to the Police Commission. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, and Chair Villegas — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. Executive Assistant to the Mayor Rose Bautista provided a brief narrative of the nominee. Committee Members spoke in favor of the appointment. Chair Villegas informed Ms. St. Ambrogio that she does not need to appear before the full Council for final confirmation. CHR. VILLEGAS: The nomination of Marcella "Bobby" St. Ambrogio moves to Council with a positive recommendation. Ms. Ambrogio you are no required to be present for the final confirmation at Council in the next two weeks. Comm. 549: NOMINATION OF ROD QUARTARARO TO THE POLICE COMMISSION From Mayor Harry Kim, dated October 18, 2019, submitting for the Council's review and confirmation the above nomination. Requires Council Confirmation by: December 1, 2019 (Section 13-4(1), Hawaii County Charter) CHR. VILLEGAS: If there are no more questions, I want to thank you for your willingness to serve, and all in favor of the motion to move to Council with a positive confirmation, please say "aye." Page 2 PSC -7 Vote on Comm. 549: Ms. Eoff moved to recommend confirmation of the (Approved) appointment of Mr. Rod Quartararo to the Police Commission. Seconded by Ms. David and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, and Chair Villegas — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. November 5, 2019 Executive Assistant to the Mayor Rose Bautista provided a brief narrative of the nominee. Committee Members spoke in favor of the appointment. Chair Villegas informed Mr. Rod Quartararo that he does not need to appear before the full Council for final confirmation. Recess: At 9:50 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 9:55 a.m. Comm. 558: REQUESTS A DISCUSSION WITH HAWAII ISLAND HUMANE SOCIETY CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER CHARLES BROWN, REGARDING POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR RESPONSE TO ANIMAL ATTACKS From Council Member Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, dated October 16, 2019. Motion to Close File: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to close file on Comm. 558. Second by Ms. Poindexter. CHR. VILLEGAS: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, this is your communication. Please go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Charles Brown, are you here? Can you come up please? Thank you for being here today. So, can I ask Margaret (Bartelt); can you come up too, please? (Note: At this time, Hawaii Island Humane Society Chief Executive Officer Charles Brown and member of the public Margaret Bartelt came forward to address the members of the Committee So as we heard this morning, Margaret had a very traumatic event happen to her in my district, our subdivisions. And so I'm here, and I want to get started by saying that there is a very substantial set of code that exists already regarding animals and how the County is involved and what we've set in stone already. Page 3 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 And I also want to say, because everyone's watching, that you know, I've always had animals, dogs, cats, chickens and even alpacas. But so there's no misinterpretation, what we're talking about today is specifically loose dogs attacking a person who does not intend any harm towards other people. I'm not looking to remove any rights of animal lovers or from people who depend on their animals for safety in the County. But I do seek to understand the interdepartmental processes involved in the response and the follow-up for a dog attack, like what happened. So can you just—we heard Margaret and what happened. Can you just from your point of view—and I have a couple more things that I want to work with the Humane Society on. But one, I want to get to know you a little bit, because it's my first time meeting you. And I want you to walk us through the process of what happens in a dog attack and what role the Humane Society plays. And I want to see if we can clarify what happens where we can go and how we can get better. MR. BROWN: Okay, absolutely. First, you know, I do want to take the opportunity to kind of give a little bit of background about myself. I've been in animal care and control for well over 20 years all over the country. I take public safety excruciatingly serious. In an attack like she had suffered, you know, it leaves physical scars, and it leaves emotional scars too. And I think we all have to be very cognitive about that. As it stands now, the onus is on the Police Department to investigate animal on human attacks. The Humane Society typically does animal on animal attacks, stray loose animals, things of that nature. So which you know, certainly the correct thing to do is if somebody is being attacked by an animal is to call 911. We are not a lights and sirens operation. We do not even have radio contact with the police or any dispatching unit. I mean, you know, getting here, I've been here for a couple months. I have three very strong suggestions around animal control to make it more responsive for both animal and human. But basically so then, once the police investigates, the onus is on them to then, you know, kind of dump the case to us to follow-up on citations. Like in this case, we've issued six citations on each of the animals. You know, so we would follow-up with civil infractions. We really don't handle, you know, high misdemeanors and certainly we don't handle any kind of felony. We typically take care of what would be considered civil infractions. Without discrediting ourselves, I mean think of it as traffic, you know, parking tickets, things of that nature. That's really the length of the scope that my officers have, which I don't think frankly, is enough to respond to, you know, the growing concerns of the public. Page 4 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 I think very strongly that we do need to look at the ordinances. I don't believe that they have been looked at and revised for some time. You know, things change, population shifts. I do think that we need an apparatus within those things, that if an animal is identified as dangerous, or more importantly potentially dangerous, that there becomes a mechanism in which the Humane Society or the Police Department, or whatever agency is tasked with it, does have the ability to confiscate and hold that animal. Animals are property, and so they are subject to all of the other property rights. And for me as a Humane Society or as an animal control person, to take your property, you're entitled to a whole lot of due process. And if we don't have a system, you know, in the code to navigate that due process, things like this unfortunately are going to continue to happen. The other thing that I think is absolutely critical for animal control, is to have radio contact with the other emergency services through a central dispatching. You know, our offices handle hundreds of calls a day, everything from my kitty's sneezing; my grandma needs a new cat. And then throughout this we're also filtering in animal control calls. That needs to be alleviated from, you know, our normal front desk people and put into, like I said, a que system that would be a central dispatching. Those are really the three main things that I feel very, very strongly that this Council and my organization should work very hard to achieve. I think it's going to make animals safer. I think it's going to make people safe. And I think it's going to make the island that much more enjoyable. I mean, obviously as a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of a Humane Society, I love animals. I have dogs; I have cats. I love them on my property. You shouldn't have to love my dog in your yard. That's not how it should work. So those are the things that I think we do need to bring to the forefront. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you for that. How long you've been with us? MR. BROWN: Oh, I've been here about three months, give or take. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Three months. Okay, is anyone from the Police Department here that could speak for the Police Department? Okay, thank you. Margaret (Bartelt), can you from your opinion, because we spoke on the phone, can you—can I call you Marge? You want me to call you Marge? MS. BARTELT: Marge is fine. Page 5 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, Marge. Can you, from your opinion—you shared with us earlier what happened. And we have the pictures in front of us, and I don't think that anybody else here needs more explanation on what we're talking about. If you want to get more into it, you can; I also don't want to bring that up if you're uncomfortable with it. MS. BARTELT: Oh no, that's fine. I mean, so you're asking about the incident itself? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What I want to know from you, because we spoke a little bit, is how you think this could have been handled better? What would create a smoother flow for you? And how we as the County could have acted as a better intermediator between the attack, to the Humane Society and just what your thoughts are? MS. BARTELT: I think the most difficult thing for me, and I'm probably like most of the residents of this island, I assume if I get bit by a dog, the Humane Society is going to be able to come and grab that dog and take it. And I'm not going to have to worry about walking the next morning. They cannot as it stands now. If I had my way, and I don't know all that goes along with it, when a bite happens, those dogs should be confiscated. They should be locked up at the owners' expense until a determination is made that they're safe to return to the public. MR. BROWN: If I may interject a little bit? One of the things that's unique here on the island, and it's a good thing, we have no rabies. So on the mainland, typically if my dog bites you, it has to go into quarantine for 10 days for rabies observation. Within that time then your animal control, you know, has the chance to fully vest the case, understand what occurred, and then make a determination on the temperament of the dogs, which frankly, nine times out of 10 after a serious bite, you know, the dogs are euthanized. We don't have that mechanism because we don't need to quarantine them by law. You know, certainly I would think if we would have been dispatched at the exact same time as the police, we would have had the police there to give us that extra authority to actually deal with the dogs and maybe take them into custody. You know, work that angle. But when we get information days later, dogs are confined; the person, you know is already in the process of litigations. We really don't have a strong direct objective then to seize the animals. And if we're going to seize animals, I mean the onus would have to be okay having police presence as well for me to take your property. We don't want a situation where you have, you know, folks out there that just think that they can take property whether it's living or not. Page 6 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, I agree. MS. BARTELT: And again, I'm speaking only to dog bites. Facebook has lit up like a Christmas tree. I can't tell you the support I've gotten from the community out there, and I thank them. They've come up with a number of other issues, and my response to them. You know, like dogs accidently getting out and vigilante people. I can only speak to dog bites. But, you know, there's got to be some mechanism there, and then there's got to be some accountability. I think back to my CPS (Child Protective Services) days. I was not an investigator, I was a case manager. I was the social worker of record for 17 years for the "Peter Boy" Kema case. So I know about the ins and outs, and everything takes it time and its process and all of that. But you know, for these dogs to be out there yet and having gotten loose again put your grandchild's face on those pictures I gave you. Go and put them on, because my injuries are manini kind compared to so many people I've talked to. But put your grandchild's picture there. That coupled with the fact that there's no repercussions. Small fines, probably will never get to court. The other thing that I'm going to be dealing with right now, and I talked to Matt about this, is I had a very, very difficult time finding out who the owners of the animal are. I got the police report. It was a face page only. I don't want to publish the names and go after them. I wanted to know if I had any contact with them the 21 years I was at CPS. If there was any vendetta for me out there. It took me two weeks to get to that point. That shouldn't have to happen. That shouldn't have to take place. You know, Matt, can you think of anything else? I'm sorry, I'm getting a little—that we talked about. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So what we had talked about was a quicker response between officers and Humane Society and clarifying that role. We talked about records of who the owners were. MS. BARTELT: Oh, that's the other thing. I'm trying now, I believe the people—the dog owners are renters. The property owners live on the mainland. I have to contact them to find out if they have homeowner's insurance, because if I don't, if Medicare and HMSA (Hawai`i Medical Service Association), I'm a State retiree—and Tricare, I'm also a military retiree, when they see dog bite, they're going to deny payment until I can justify that I've exhausted any other means. I've talked to the police about getting that information. I've talked to the Prosecutor's Office about getting that information. I've talked to the Humane Society but it's not really their realm. I've been told, "Well, we've really never faced that before, we don't know what to do with that." It's not going to help me, but I'll dog it, because I've had to dog 21 years at CPS. I kind of know how to, you know—and if I can't get through, what about, "John Q" citizen that's out there? Our local families that get caught up in this. Page 7 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 It blows me away. And I don't want to give up 37 years of walking my animals on the roads out there. Exercise is good, excuse me. You know, I'm 73 -years -old. I had polio as a kid. I'm trying to keep myself so I don't have to take unlimited medical resources, but enough said. Anything else? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: You had a few other things, but I think you touched on most of them already. Medical, finding a way to remove the dog, and then allowing the Humane Society to act on the bite. MS. BARTELT: You know, I don't hate dogs. It's not the dog's fault, it's the owners. You know, and the other thing, and I may have said it before, that really, really disturbs meI called out for 10 solid minutes or more. I was like here, two ladies from this side of the road came to help me after they locked up their own animals. The owners of these animals lived here. They were home. The police officer came to the Emergency Room to see me after they went out. They were home. They had to have heard me, they never came. Am I frustrated? Yes. I look forward to any suggestions and any working, any whatever. I've already gone to the community watch group in Hawaiian Acres. haven't talked to Officer Haskell yet. I've talked to a number of other people. I know my name is all over the place but that's okay. But you know, if we can have a protocol, a way we can help you. I realize this is low on the priority pole. Sex abuse and child abuse, and drugs and all of this. But at the same time, like one of the other speakers said, her child got tore up. Cannot, cannot. So, I'd be happy, if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance. I'm retired now. I purposely have stayed off of a lot of committees and directors because I had my time in the public eye. I work with Rainbow Friends Animal Sanctuary closely. Let's do what we can do to be positive and change makers rather than just mouth, mouth, mouth. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So, I'd like to give some time for the other members to ask questions too, and I'll open it up. I do want to say that I'll be working with you to create some change. And again, there's a lot that exists already. I was reading through it. MS. BARTELT: I realize it can't happen overnight. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No, but we can make some changes, I think. We'll just create more clarity. And can you just quickly, so everyone here can understand the process that you went through. Just do a quick detailed process of what happened. MS. BARTELT: Okay, I was walking my dog. It was about 8:30 in the morning. I hadn't seen these dogs for about six weeks. Prior to that they had been out Page 8 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 before. Normally, I stop between 2 and 3 Road on C. This morning my mind was elsewhere. Got to the corner of 3 and C and my dog was sniffing. And as she was about to turn, the dogs came. I turned around to walk back up toward 1 Road where I live. Yelled at the dogs several times, "Go home, go home." And in the past, like two, three, four months ago, that worked. It obviously didn't that morning. So what I did was, I tookI have black Labrador, "Maile." And along with this, I had to say goodbye to our 15 -year-old dog, August 15th when my husband was on the mainland, of old age. I didn't want to lose another dog. So I put Maile between my legs to protect her. I had a retractable leash. If you folks are familiar, they have a plastic where the leash recoils. And I took that and I hammered back and forth because as soon I would get the one on the left of me to back off, and then the one on the right; the one on the left would come. After about 10 minutes, and I just did this for my own being. Where you are is up to you. I just got to the point, I as so tired I just said, "Lord I can't do this anymore, I just can't anymore." Within two minutes those dogs turned around and walked home. At that point, I was lucky I got a signal on my cell phone. I called 911, requested police and ambulance; called my husband for him to come. He was at home. And at that point, the two ladies came. One of the gals took the pictures that you have in front of you, the wound ones. The other ones were taken by my friend Teresa here. She took care of my wounds for a week -and -a -half. I was transported to Hilo Hospital, did stitches and whatever. The Police came, Officer Keefer came to talk to me; wanted further description of the dogs. One of the dogs had flip flops tied around its neck. I had forgotten about that. That's the way they assured that was—and your people went out. Although the call from the Police Department did not come until Thursday afternoon, two days after, Kino (HIHS Animal Control Officer) went out already on Wednesday, because Teresa and other people had contacted you folks. And he called me to say, "Marge can you give me some directions? I'm trying to find out where it is so when we do get the call, we can follow-up." So that's how that piece happened. And then like I said, I went through the process knowing people in various—be it the police, be it you folks. I've got a notebook full of numbers. So that's kind of how it went down. So, I'll have a nice scar for the rest of my life, but hey, I'm 73. It really doesn't matter that much, but you know, I want to be part of the solution, not the problem. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Okay, I'm going to yield. I have some follow-up questions, but I want to yield, letting everyone else have a chance to talk if you have anything to say. Page 9 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Council Woman Poindexter. MS. POINDEXTER: Yeah, and thank you Marge for sharing the devastation of what happened, because I do agree. Just to clear up, because a statement was made by the public that I did nothing. When Mr. Glenn Carvalho said I did nothing, that's completely absurd and unfair, because when he did report that he had loose dogs in the neighborhood and he was in fear of that, we made sure to tell him that he needs to call the police immediately and Humane Society. We also talked about it at our community meeting, so I would say that we need to make sure, always talk about these incidences at community association meetings and keep on going until solutions are done. So Mr. Carvalho always attends association meetings and then he never brought it up after that, so we thought it was all handled. So Mr. Carvalho, next time choose your statements wisely and attend more of the meetings and bring that up at the next meeting. Anyway with that said, I do believe that, you know, dog attacks are subject to police power and should strictly be regulated to protect our public, definitely. Definitely I believe that. We need to make sure that, even the dog owners should be prosecuted. You know, at this point some type of stricter laws need to be made because the owners of dogs, especially with pitbulls and dogs that are known to go on the attack, they need to be responsible owners. And if they're not, they should be prosecuted by the law. I believe that, because they're going to take a life of a child or even your life, you know, over that. I mean you could get an infection that—you couldn't have died from the dog bite, but you could have died from something that may have happened because of that dog bite, right? So it's serious. This is serious stuff. I really believe the Police Department needs to start working with the Humane Society closer and to come up with recommendations for stronger laws, and I think they need to start enforcing that laws. I mean we have laws in place now that I think can be better enforced that were not, and I think we need to start taking this very seriously. I spoke with a woman a couple years ago who was attacked at Bay Front by dogs. She had to go to the hospital. She has major scars, and deathly afraid of walking around near any dog, even though they're on a leash. You know, so it does, it's this PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) you end up with. It's trauma. And the dog is traumatized, you know. So yeah, we need to first start talking story, making sure that the Police Department and the Humane Society are all on the same page and what are their roles and responsibilities right now with what laws are in place so far and how do we enforce that to protect the public. Because there's some kind of disconnect Page 10 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 sometimes I see with the Police Department and the Humane Society. They both do good jobs, but somehow there's a missing link. So I'm glad. Thank you, Matt, for bringing this up for discussion because we've had a lot of incidents and basically, some dogs don't get put down and they just get back to the owner. And they may move away to another rental, and who knows when an attack will happen somewhere else. But thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for letting Matt know and pushing to get this to us to force us to create better laws. Thank you. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Ms. Poindexter. Council Member Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Charles, it's good to see you again. I appreciate this coming forward, Matt, and I think Charley, you and I touched on this. There were some issues in our County when you and I were visiting, and could you rephrase your three big's again, just real quickly? MR. BROWN: I think the absolute first thing that I think really needs to happen is a centralized dispatching system where the animal control officers are equipped with radios that feed back into the central dispatch that would be run by the police. So if the police are responding to an attack, they'll be responding with an animal control officer that has a catch pole and all the equipment that a police officer, you know, frankly doesn't have. And then the dogs can then be immediately, you know, seized, confined, whatever needs to happen. But those things really should happen in tandem frankly, and not three, or four, or five days later. On a personal level, that's a huge concern. And then the second thing is, I do think it's worthwhile taking a look at Chapter 4, especially around the dangerous dogs and the at -large dogs, and kind of matching the penalties to the problems that we're having. I mean if you live in a world and maybe 30 years ago that was the world we lived in here that, you know, if your dog was running aroundoh, it's made its way back home, no big deal. You know, now we do have folks that are having these larger numbers of animals on their property. They're intentionally wanting them to be unsocialized to protect that property, and they're getting off the property and doing damage. So that's where, I think, the ordinance needs to kind of think about. And then the other thing that's critically important is that apparatus, so the Humane Society or the Police Department—doesn't matter really what agency is tasked with it, but has a vehicle or mechanism in which a dog can be declared dangerous or potentially dangerous. Because again, you don't want a tragedy happen before you take action. So there does need to be, you know, some kind of mechanism that, if you're harassed by these dogs on multiple occasions, that they can be declared potentially dangerous, which puts the owner on higher alert. The owner would have to take, you know, "X" number of steps to keep the dogs. Improve fencing, I mean all those things that you've build into an ordinance. So Page 11 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 those would be the three things that would strongly, strongly encourage looking at. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so, and I appreciate those comments. And I'm not trivializing any of this because dog bites are severe, and they can be very impactful whether it be life-threatening or otherwise. And our society and our community have changed. Years ago we had one-third of the population. We've increased our population; also, our pets are far more mobile today than they were even 20 years ago, even 15 years ago. This is something we as a Council have kind of touched on previously, but never really brought to the forefront as far as a conversation. It's also, I think Council Woman Poindexter pointed out, we are talking about laws, but we're also talking about enforcement laws. And we're also talking about a police force that has limited resources relative to our huge geography. And so these are all the challenges we've got to go forward Matt, I think you're setting a pretty good stage for putting together a working group to review stuff, because I don't think this is a—it's going to take some time to get through what we need to get done. And you know, you were talking about, Charley, the rabies thing. I know we lose a couple of people a year in the United States because of rabies. And that's great for that legislation that mandates locking up a dog bite for the disease side. So that's wonderful. We don't have it, but that's also a metric that helps a society to manage their problem. So I think these are all conversations we need to have. I think it's kind of cool that we have a new Director of the Humane Society that has some experience relatively lately in this. And coincidentally and paradoxically we are soon to have a new commissioner on the Police Commission that has some background in this. So I think the stars are lining up for us here for further communications. I don't want to belabor this because I think it's not going to be a quick conversation here. It's going to be a long conversation as we put things together. I really appreciate the input and the insight and thanks for being here. I yield. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Councilman Richards. Council Chair Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yeah. You know, public safety is one of the major factors in creating improved quality of life. If not, the most important factor. And you know, I'm just kind of listening to what's going on here. I live in a residential area, but Marge knows. You know, I've worked with her for many, many years. We got to go venture into those rural areas, right, to go visit kids. And the first thing you ask is, "What, you get any dogs or what, you know on your property?" But you know, I've never even thought about those loose dogs. Page 12 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 Matt, you know, I really wanted to commend you for bringing this forward. Because up until this point whenever we deal with the Humane Society and our contract with them, it's always, you know, the things that come up. You really deal with euthanasia, yeah? But now you're bringing a different spin to all of this. And as, you know, Mr. Brown, Val, and Mr. Richards brought up, we need coordination. You know, one missing link you brought up, you touched upon it earlier. No more Police Department, right? I don't know if they were called, but we certainly need them in the discussion, because we've got to coordinate. It all comes down to that contract that we have with the Humane Society. You know, I don't want to talk too much about this, but obviously, we're going to need more discussion. A working group, possibly. More discussion here, you know, I don't know. But I will tell you this, I'm committed to support really harsh penalties, you know, as it relates to animal control. I think anybody who knows me knows full well that I'm not for this warm and fuzzy stuff People have to be held accountable for their actions. The problem here though is, think about it, what kinds of people would let their big dangerous dogs run amuck in the neighborhood? Do they have financial resources? I don't think so. Are they law-abiding people? I don't think so. So how do you coerce compliance with this segment of the population? I don't know. That's going to be the one million dollar question. So we're going to have to really work—we got to look at that contract. Get the Police Department in here. Make sure there's no disconnect. If something needs to be done with the contract to give it more teeth, no pun intended, then you know, we're going to have to do that, alright? I know, Mr. Brown, you made some comment about you guys only deal with animal on animal, and not animal on human being. I don't know if it's in the contract. I've been kind of looking franticly at the law here. I don't know where that comes from. Maybe it's just some operating principles that you guys MR. BROWN: It is. And I do want to just clarify though, when I say that, you know, we absolutely respond to dog on human attack. And you know, I think Kino's been helpful and he's trying to help. You know, so we absolutely do, but the distinction is that the police would take the lead on that, and that we would strictly be, you know, kind of a support mechanism for a dog on human attack. I don't want to say that we, you know, wash our hands of it and aren't involved, we certainly are. But we would not be the first point of contact with the dog on human. MR. CHUNG: But we need one central clearing house for all of this, because I think what Marge went through and what some other people—you know, I also want to share another story. This happened to a retired public school teacher in Page 13 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 my residential district. One of the dogs across the street got loose, chronically getting loose, went through his screen door at his condominium apartment; went and ran amuck, and I think you know, hurt either him or his wife. And his experience in trying to get some kind of help from either the police, Humane Society or Prosecutor's, was really unpleasant. But he eventually, you know, got a lot of support from the Prosecutor's Office, so kudos to them. But it's not a good situation. We have to make sure that when people have a problem like this, they have one place to call and then things are going to be set into action and then we move from there. Just know this, everyone here, I stand committed to imposing whatever harsh because harsh as you guys can think, I'm willing to support. Okay, alright. Thank you. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Chair Chung. Council Member Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you Chair. Chair Chung said that's the million dollar question. I actually think it's a two million dollar question, because I just pulled the budget. And we issue a contract for $2 million for animal control to Humane Society. I'm not going to belabor the point, and if I might suggest, because I pulled the Charter and the rules and responsibilities of the Police Commission. And I feel very strongly that they would be a perfect clearing house to take on evaluating Section 4 of our Code, and the duties and responsibilities as it relates to animal control. As Chair Chung mentioned, maybe even come up with some refined language where there is some coordinated effort. And rather than standing up a permitted interaction group, I think shoving it over to the Police Commission and make this a charge of that body, whose not only roles and responsibilities as outlined within the Charter is to look at those things, but also direct the Police Chief on his budget. That's really all I have to say. I think there's a way forward. I think it's all there. As Council Member Richards mentioned, the stars are lining up. And I think that's the perfect direction for a community group to provide a lot more home rule and policies that work for us. So Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, if you could help the members of the Police Commission kind of take this information and begin to work with our community, you know, the Humane Society and the department itself and drive that policy from the commission, whose oversight is the roles and responsibilities of that department, I think it will go a long way to empowering our community, synergizing the monies that is going through that department and coming back with policies that work for our community. Chair, I yield at this time. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. Chair Chung. MR. CHUNG: Oh yeah, one more point. And I was reminded of it when Page 14 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 Ms. Lee Loy was talking about it. It's where that contract resides. You know, she and I have been talking about this for at least, well for the past three years. Right now, the contract is administered by the Police Department. You know, I don't know if that's the appropriate place to have it resting. You know, it could go to Corp. Counsel; maybe with the Mayor's Office. But when you're talking about responsiveness, I think there's an inherent conflict, you know. It's hard for me to articulate, but when you have the Police Department who is really ultimately vested with the responsibility of public safety, administering a contract with some other agency now, it's easy to pass the buck. Yeah, so I just wanted to make that brief comment so that we can get, you know, at least thinking about that as well. Thanks. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Chair Chung. Is there anyone else that would like to say—Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Marge, do you have something to say? MS. BARTELT: Yeah, one thing that I experienced, I had to drop off some documents at the police station, and it turns out the officer that I talked to was also a personal friend through a father, grandfather or grandmother. But anyway it really struck me, because what she said was, "Marge, you know, I go home at night too, and I take my uniform off And when my uniform is off I'm just like you. I want the safety just like you want it." Help us to do it. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. So yeah, I'm not really wanting to, you know, pass the buck. I don't want to start a permitted working group because I find that those just take a lot of time. And then we don't always get results out of that. I would be interested in going through this and working with Marge, and Charles, and the police themselves; and maybe another member of this Council and other members who are interested in actually making changes in our Chapter 4 Code, and then submitting that to our Commission, or just moving it ahead to Council and seeing what we think, but with the public's input. Some of the biggest disconnects I saw were, you mentioned already, in a dog attack, there's not an instant connection between police and Humane Society. Which leaves the dogs roaming. And being naive, I would assume that if a human gets attacked by a dog in a non -confrontational meeting, you know, where you're walking the dog, you get attacked by loose dogs, the dogs would be retained by an agency and then there would be a follow up. But in this case there isn't. Two weeks later, same dogs are out running on the streets. Two weeks later that could be a kid's life. So we have a disconnect, and I think there's some wording in here that we could do just to take away the, "may" enforce, and turn it into a, "shall" enforce, which we've learned as we've done. And there's also a lot in here. Page 15 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 MS. BARTELT: When calling the Humane Society, the dogs run on the property when they've visited and they've instructed the people to keep them under control. So they have the means to do it. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: They do, and there's also some wording in this Code that requires people to keep their dogs contained in one way or another. Whether it's on a leash when you're walking; whether it's on the property within a fence line. There's also protection for someone who was attacked to have the animals taken. There is, you know, how you are you can be guilty of a petty misdemeanor if you're convicted under the sections where you are attacked by a vicious dog. And there's a lot of, "Shall be sentenced." You know, but you're also touching on, you have a five to six months normal time for prosecution of a dog attack. Our testifier earlier said she's five years in and still has no resolution for a dog -attack case. So, there is a gap between what we "shall" do, what we "may" do, and where the person who's attacked is left after an attack. And again, we're not talking of, if you break into someone's house and you get attacked by their dog, that's a different case altogether. This is someone who's walking their dog like Marge and got attacked. That is just unnecessary. A dog should be restrained. We need to be—you know as man's best friend, we need to take care of our dog and also make sure we're taking care of them and keeping them contained so they don't hurt anybody. So I am interested in working with Marge, Charles, the Police Department; we'll come together, we'll set a meeting time. If one member of this Council would like to be involved in that I am open to it, and we can talk about that later. Email me if interested, but I'm not going to do a working group, and I'm not going to go through that process. It takes too much time. So, thank you very much for being here. Charles, I appreciate your time today. MR. BROWN: Absolutely, thank you. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Second on my list, I talked to Kino about this. I'd like to create some kind of a document that is very clear for the public. A .pdf (Portable Document Format), something that we can broadcast so the County can provide that clearly shows who to call and when, what to do in case of a dog attack, and just kind of outline those basics of who and what to call. We can also work on including dispatch to be part of your discussion as well and that may alleviate it. But I think there's a lot we can do, and I'm really interested in working together with you guys to get it done. So, thank you for being here. And Marge, I'm sorry this happened. And this could happen anywhere across the island to anybody. So this is important. Thank you. Page 16 PSC -7 November 5, 2019 MR. BROWN: Thank you. CHR. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Just in closing, I had a couple things I'd like to say. So much of this is tragic and often inhumane. It's related to the tragic and often inhumane treatment of animals, which conjures a predatory behavior, their survival mechanisms, and they go into a hunting in a pack mentality. There is a correlation, and some of you who've worked in social services, there is a correlation between animal abuse, and child abuse, and domestic abuse. There's a lot of socioeconomic variables that are tied to these behaviors and the treatments of these creatures. Also tragically is this negative impact it has on responsible dog owners and the pets themselves. As we all know, pitbulls have gotten a really—they can be a wonderful creature, but just in their innate strength, they get a really bad rap when they've been abused, starved, kenneled, and driven to a pack mentality for survival. My daughter and grandson were recently confronted by a pitbull that now lives on a piece of property that squatters are staying on. And when she asked them graciously to restrain the dog they then started harassing her and encouraging the dog to bite her. And as a mother myself and her being a mother, the conflict that arises from deep within of basically killing the dog versus protecting your child, that fight or flight mechanism, was extremely traumatic for her when she came home. And of course, when the police came and confronted the owners, they had plenty of answers why. Oh well, this and that, and the other. So I'm really excited for this opportunity. I don't know if I'd call it legend, but the lore and horror stories of the packs of wild dogs that predate on the community and the livestock in some of our rural areas. We have the capacity. We have the inspiration. We have the humans here to put some teeth in the law to provide the right support to our police system and our Humane Society so that we can collaboratively utilize our resources. And we have amazing community members who are willing to stand up and continue to walls their dogs and not run away in fear. And I thank you for that. And my hope is that through some of the transitions and the recognition of the need to treat these creatures humanely, and not as basically modes of war or chaos, but to remember they're intended to be pets, and to be loved and cared for. And that that could penetrate through into some of these households that are most likely having challenges with other forms of abuse. And with that, I just thank you all again for being here today. And Council Members all in favor of the motion to file, please say "aye." Page 17 PSC-7 November 5,2019 Vote on Comm. 558: The motion to close file on Comm. 558 was carried by (Filed) the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kanealii-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, and Chair Villegas—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. (There were none.) BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. (There were none.) CHR. VILLEGAS: Okay, I see no further business, can I have a motion to adjourn? ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 10:40 a.m., Ms. Poindexter moved to adjourn MENT: the meeting. Seconded by Ms. David and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, and Chair Villegas—9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. VILLEGAS: This meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much. Approved: //',-(0, / 1 s. Rebecca Villegas, hair (Date) Public Safety Committee RV/dt Page 18