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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN GREDC 2020/03/25 2018-2020 Committee on Governmental Relations and Economic Development 20th Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawai i March 25, 2020 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Governmental Relations and Economic ORDER: Development was called to order at 1:02 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member (via videoconference from Kona, came in later) Ms. Karen Eoff, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member (via videoconference from Waimea) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Absent& Excused: Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Chair STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. (There were none.) ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. GREDC-20 March 25,2020 Res. 505-20: URGES THE ADMINISTRATION TO DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT A LONG-TERM PLAN WITH THE STATE OF HAWAII DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO IMPROVE THE HIGHWAY 11 CORRIDOR IN KEA`AU Seeks a long-term plan for improvements to align with the Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries, through better traffic engineering. Reference: Comm. 766 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder Postponed: March 10, 2020 (Note: There is a motion by Ms. Poindexter, seconded by Ms. Villegas, to recommend adoption of Res. 505-20.) ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you Mr. Clerk. With that, since we have a motion on the floor. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, this is your matter. Please go ahead. MR. KANEALII-KLEINFELDER: Mahalo, Chair. I'm actually going to ask to postpone this one. Having meetings right now has been very hard, and I'm going to postpone it until the next committee meeting. If that's okay, with the Council. I know we just came out of postponement, and there's more pressing matters. And I haven't, I need more time to work on this with the rest of the Administration. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Go ahead. MR. KANEALII-KLEINFELDER: Postpone Resolution 505-20 to the next meeting would be MR. HENRICKS: I think follow Chair Chung's lead earlier today and just say next meeting because it's kind of uncertain right now, yeah, what we're doing. MR. KANEALII-KLEINFELDER: Okay, till the next meeting. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. Mr. Clerk, we have a motion to postpone to our next meeting by Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. A second by Ms. Poindexter. Motion to Postpone: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to postpone Res. 505-20 to the next meeting. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Open for discussion. Page 2 GREDC-20 March 25,2020 MR. CHUNG: Yeah, I just have a question. And the reason why, you know, it was necessary to bring this up again, was because it has been postponed once to our meeting, which was supposed to be yesterday. So I'm just wondering is everything going to be ready for the next meeting, or do you want it to be at the call of the Committee Chair, you know, giving professional courtesy to the request by the introducer. I mean because if we do, then we're going to bring again maybe two weeks from now and we still might not be ready. And you know, as you say we have pressing matters that are before us. I just want to bring that up as a matter of efficiency, that's all. Yeah, so you'll be ready in two weeks? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, I yield. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Sorry. MR. CHUNG: No you're right. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Chair. That's a great point let's do it to the postponement to Call of the Chair. MR. HENRICKS: Can you recite that back? ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Clerk, what we have is a motion to postpone Resolution 505 to the call of the Chair, by Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. A second by Mr. Chung? MR. CHUNG: No. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: No. MR. HENRICKS: Ms. Poindexter do you keep your second for that motion as well? MS. POINDEXTER: I have a question though on that. My concern is that if the Chair decides not to bring it back, when we do to the call of the Chair that's completely the Chair's decision, correct? MR. HENRICKS: It sounds that way from the motion. Page 3 GREDC-20 March 25,2020 MS. POINDEXTER: Yeah. So that's one thing to think about as well. Because if it's to the call of the Chair, the Chair has that responsibility of bringing it back. She can or she doesn't have to. I don't know. That's my only concern. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Poindexter. Mr. Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, and that's why I was going to suggest that it could be at the call of the Chair, or another way would be at the request of the maker too, I mean, the introducer. You know, so you have professional courtesy. When Matt is ready, then he will make the request, and it will come up. And I yield. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, I think what you have are—we're trying to provide the most flexibility to you without handcuffing you if you're not ready, right. And so what I hear, call of the Chair, maker of the motion, or introducer of the piece of legislation. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I would have to say Chair, that I like version two. But I like the Clerk to weigh in. MR. HENRICKS: Yeah, I'm just concerned about creating brand new motions we've never used before without analyzing what this could mean. You know, this is a quick discussion, and then we do it and then it works this time. Maybe no work next time. Maybe other complications that come from, you know, introducer decides, and what does that mean? Probably wouldn't mean calling a meeting on another day. But I never really think about this too much. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: This is going to be an interesting time for us, because we're going to have things like this come up, where we weren't able to have a meeting, we weren't able to follow up with phone calls, people aren't able to come in and talk to us like we said this morning. Maybe postpone to another date. Keep it simple, or MR. HENRICKS: Then the Chair's point though, we would technically be required to do it on that date. And it may not be the best date to have meetings even at that point. Which is why I thought earlier, you know, part of his point of not saying till April 8h was what if we meet before that or after that, and giving that leeway. I understand Ms. Poindexter's point. But I think historically postpone to the call of the Chair has been effective way to give proper amount of time to complete conversations and prepare work, without creating such a finite date where we come back and maybe have to repeat this process, yeah. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Let's go with call of the Chair. If there's any complications from that I'd be surprised, and it would be eye opening. Let's just say that. Page 4 GREDC-20 March 25,2020 Vote on Motion Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder moved to postpone Res. 505-20 to to Postpone: the call of the Chair. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter and carried (Approved) by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Poindexter, Richards, Villegas and Acting Chair Lee Loy—8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Chair Kierkiewicz— 1. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Our next item. Res. 506-20: URGES THE MAYOR AND THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH THE U. S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS TO DEVELOP A PLAN FOR REVIEW TO MITIGATE SURFACE WATER IN PUNA The surface water mitigation plan would identify areas prone to flooding and hazardous conditions, and would be reviewed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Reference: Comm. 767 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder Postponed: March 10, 2020 (Note: There is a motion by Ms. Lee Loy, seconded by Ms. David, to recommend adoption of Res. 506-20.) ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. With the motion on the floor, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder please. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So this one is incredibly important I cannot say enough how much the water flow affects every subdivision, every person in Puna from top to bottom. Doesn't matter if you are from Ola`a, Volcano, or Paradise Park. The amount of water coming down from the volcano through every subdivision on the way down the hill is absolutely impressive. I think someone stated it as being equal to that of the Amazon River's output. In light of everything that's going on, I was able to have a meeting with Roy Takemoto and with Mike Wyatt from Army Corp Engineers. There was an approval from Roy that we could go ahead and begin the basic process, and that they're okay working together with us on this resolution. It has been hard to put together the meetings, but we were able to have that conversation. Mike Wyatt from the Army Corp Engineers is on board and there is some talk of doing some preliminary work as far as doing LIDAR (Light, Detection and Ranging) Page 5 GREDC-20 March 25,2020 mapping, and the beginning phase, and this doesn't cost anything for the county, but it's a way to start working through the process of working on drainage which is a huge issue. So I look for your support on this, I'm here for questions. Unfortunately due to the way things are, we may not have people to answer questions you would have. So I'll do my best to answer anything that there is from the Council. I wish the community can be here for this, but this is important and I'd like to move this ahead. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. Anyone? Any questions? Mr. Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yeah. And then so Mr. Takemoto said he could work with you, and the community in this regard. They're open to it? Yeah, okay, good. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, Mr. Takemoto and I had a conversation with Mike Wyatt from Army Corp Engineers. And kind of ran through the process. And the first step for them, which is again, zero cost. And requires a letter from the Mayor's Office, saying yes, we want to proceed with LIDAR mapping. And Roy Takemoto was onboard with that, and again, not cost to the county. And it just gets us moving in the right direction, so yeah. Thank you Aaron. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. Not hearing any other comments. Mr. Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder, I appreciate the LIDAR mapping and how to move this forward. There is one recital here that I—it's the 6h Whereas, where it cites some data. And I'm trying to understand how you came up with your numbers. And it's something that I don't mind maybe working with you on helping retool or refine this to give it what you and Roy are looking for, which is the support from the Council. I just couldn't calculate the math. It was 31,000 in 2000, 45,000 in 2010, forecasting a 45 percent, and then a total of 65,000. And so I was just trying to understand that math a little. And then there's just some minor edits that I see in your final Be It Resolved. You mentioned Mike Wyatt and just, you know, identifying him as the Chief, Honolulu District Civil and Public Works branch from Army Corps, and Engineers helps again lend itself to get the kind of letter that you need and support. And I'm willing to just kind of offer that up as edits and move it forward, and then refine this and keep it nice and tight so it has the weight of the Council that you're looking for. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. This data was pulled from another resolution that was put forward by another member previously. So any questions about that we can run through that and look it over. But those are Census Page 6 GREDC-20 March 25,2020 numbers that were put out 2000, 2010. Being that we're in 2020 and we've seen a huge increase in population in Puna as a whole and a lot of movement post eruption too, these are basically the best estimates until we have good Census number run from. I say between 55,000 and 65,000. That's my guess right now. As far as touching on Mike Wyatt's actual, you know, better description of what position and who he is. We can do some amendments this small, yeah. Do we need to do that now? ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: We can get it nice and tight. And because we're in committee, when we have our next Council meeting, we can do the amendment and get to the next Council meeting with all the refined edits. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So I'll work together with you on that. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: Yeah, that be perfect. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Beautiful. Thank you. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: And then something you touched upon in the past, which is using words like shall or will. There's one here where you may lack the financial ability. Maybe we can find some other more robust words that actually give it the force that you wanted, or actionable items you wanted to have. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. ACTING CHR. LEE LOY: So with that we have a motion to approve Resolution 506-20 and send it with a favorable recommendation to the Council. All those in favor—do we have Ms. Villegas in Kona? Yes we do. Vote on Res. 506-20: The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 506-20 was (Approved) carried by the following roll call vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Poindexter, Richards, Villegas, and Acting Chair Lee Loy—8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Chair Kierkiewicz— 1. Excused: None. BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of ORDINANCES: business, Bills for Ordinances. (There were none.) Page 7