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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN CHARTER 2019-04-04 (2018-2020) - Public HearingHawaii County Charter Commission Public Hearing Hawai`i County Building, Hilo Council Chambers 25 Aupuni Street, Room 1401 Hilo, Hawai`i April 4, 2019 CALL TO The public hearing of the Hawai`i County Charter Commission was called to ORDER: order at 5:06 p.m., in Hilo by Mr. Douglass Shipman Adams, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Douglass Shipman Adams, Chair Ms. Jennifer Zelko-Schlueter, Vice Chair Mr. William Carthage Bergin, Commissioner (Waimea Council Office) Ms. Michelle Galimba, Commissioner Mr. Paul K. Hamano, Commissioner Mr. Kevin D. Hopkins, Commissioner Ms. Sarah H. Rice, Commissioner (Waimea Council Office) Ms. Marcia A. K. Saquing, Commissioner Ms. Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, Commissioner Absent: Mr. Christopher John Imiloa Roehrig, Commissioner Ms. Donna Mae Springer, Commissioner Also Present: Mr. J Yoshimoto, Commission Attorney Mr. Jon Henricks, Commission Analyst Ms. Shannon Magnuson, Commission Secretary CHR. ADAMS: Welcome to the Hawai`i County Charter Commission's Public Hearing in Hilo. I would ask that you all please silence your communications devices. I am convening this hearing at 5:05 p.m. on Thursday, April 4th, 2019. This hearing will be recorded for the purpose of developing minutes that will be available on the Commission's website. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony from the public regarding the work of the Charter Commission to include proposed Charter Amendments that have achieved first reading status. At this time I will ask our Commissioners to briefly introduce themselves to include identifying the district they have been appointed from. I would point out that as yesterday, we had Commissioners that were in Waimea, here in Hilo, and then in Kona which is where the Public Hearing was being held. Again, we have Commissioners in Waimea, we have the Kona site is also open for VTC (Video Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 Teleconferencing) purposes so that members of the public can testify or observe from there, we have no Commissioners there, and then we have the Commissioners here. So I would ask our Commissioners in Waimea please to introduce themselves. MR. BERGIN: Billy Bergin, district nine. MS. RICE: Sally Rice, Kona. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you and then Paul if... we would start with you. MR. HAMANO: Paul Hamano, Hilo. MR. HOPKINS: Kevin Hopkins, Hilo. MS. SAQUING: Marcie Saquing, Hilo. MS. TODD: Bobby Leithead-Todd district two, Hilo. MS. ZELKO-SCHLUETER: Jennifer Zelko-Schlueter, Hilo. CHR. ADAMS: And Doug Adams, Hilo. Copies of the protocols for this public hearing are available at the registration table. Let me just highlight a few. Registration to testify occurs at the registration table. I will call speakers to the table here in front with the microphones. As you prepare to speak, please state your name, any organization you are speaking for, and the relevant Charter section or proposed amendment you are addressing. Speakers will have up to a total of six minutes for their testimony. Speakers may testify once during this public hearing. To avoid the potential of Sunshine Law violations and to emphasize the purpose of this hearing, Commissioners shall refrain from making comments or asking questions of testifiers during their statements. I would ask all of us to please maintain an appropriate level of decorum during the hearing. We are all looking forward to providing an equal opportunity for all testifiers to make their statements. And finally, to provide some context for this hearing, allow me to briefly address the Commission's efforts to date and what follows. First, this is the fifth Charter Commission since the County Charter became effective 50 years ago. The Commissioners, all of whom are County residents and none of whom are elected officials by statute, were appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council at the end of June, 2018 and have met at least once a month since July to accomplish our mission as the Charter outlines it. To study and review the operation of the Page 2 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON LESLIE COLE -BROOKS: government of the County under the Charter. We have done that by receiving information from County departments, the Mayor, and the Council, as well as receiving over 500 communications from the public and County. Second, since October, we have considered 27 different proposed Charter Amendments to include changing the structure of terms for Council members, refining the process by which the Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Preservation mission is accomplished, adding disciplining options for the Council, the Fire Commission, and the Police Commission, establishing a Disaster and Emergency Fund, and modifying minimum qualifications for Corporation Counsel, the Fire Chief, and Public Work's Director. Information on these proposals is available on the Commission website, the link to which can be found on the County's homepage. Third, we are convening six public hearings, one in each geographic district as identified in the County Charter. This is the sixth Public Hearing. Following these hearings, we have until the end of June to submit to the County Council a report on our activities, findings, and recommendations together with a draft of the Proposed Charter Amendments. The Council has 30 days to return the proposals with any alternatives to the Commission, after which within a month, the Commission shall provide its final draft of proposed amendments to the County Clerk. Ballot language will then be developed by the Commission for submission to County voters for decision on the November 3rd, 2020 election ballot. So, at this time I'd like to take our first speaker. I would ask Leslie Cole -Brooks to please take a seat at the table. I would also ask Scott Uehara please to come to the table as well. Again, I would ask you to please provide your name, any organization you are representing, and the Charter Provision or proposed amendment you are speaking to. Mahalo. Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18 in support. MS. COLE -BROOKS: There better...Good evening my name is Leslie Cole - Brooks. I am representing myself and I am here to discuss CA -7, CA -9, well, CA -18, and CA -27 briefly. First I just want to say thank you. I think a lot of people don't realize that you are volunteers and I have seen you during the day, but here we are now after work in the evening, and I think that can be really tough Page 3 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 sometimes, so thanks for being here. Okay so first, another thank you is for voting down CA -7. I think that really helped focus what we are doing. I know it wasn't unanimous, but I think now that we have decided not to reduce the fund, for the PONC fund, that we can just move ahead and find a way to make it work really effectively. So to CA -9, the position... that creates a staff position for the PONC, very in strong support of that. I also saw looking at the minutes... and I always read your minutes even though I am not able to stay for the meetings, and I was really gratified to see that there was unanimous support for that. So I feel like we are all on the same page in understanding that. The fact that there is money still in the fund isn't because no one is interested, or because there aren't lands to acquire that are special. I think it is because the Administration has been hard and having a staff person dedicated to that would just be so important, so I really hope that CA -9 keeps moving forward and that we get the voters to approve that. So thank you again for that and it is just a really great idea. Jumping to CA -18, first going to Department of Finance, I think is a very good idea. I think that it will... I think Finance is just... they are going to deal with the deadlines, they are going to deal with getting in the reports, they are going to deal with the auditing the (c) (3)'s to make sure they did what they said they were going to do, and I think it is just really their kuleana to do that, so I think it is the right place to put it. Also, allowing 501(c) (3)'s to use some of the monies for salary is really smart. I have worked for non -profits before and it could be so frustrating with volunteers. I don't know if any of you have ever worked with volunteers, but they are all gung ho and then life happens and then they are not there anymore. And so, it is hard for a (c) (3) to apply for a maintenance fund and then worry that maybe the volunteers that were going to help say with a fencing project or something that they got $50,000 for, aren't available anymore. So letting a (c) (3) actually use the money in a reasonable way to help with salaries would be very helpful, so really in strong support of that... that provision that is in there. The only other thing that I wanted to say about CA -18 is, I saw that the 70% got taken out. I think it was in the last hearing. I haven't seen those minutes yet, but I am a little concerned that right now there is just one deadline and that is how Parks and Recs (Recreation) does it, and so it doesn't really work that well and I guess this might not even be part of this group. It might not go in the Charter but it is just something to think about, is right now there is just one deadline so if you have something like you discover a fence is down, or you discover that invasive species you thought you had eradicated are in, you want to apply for maintenance monies now and get them and you know in three months, not a year later. So, that would be something I think that would really make that maintenance fund more effective. That if you go... you know, this is again from a 501 (c) (3) point of view, you go to review your property, the PONC fund, you've got the money for it, there it is, and you discover that the fence is knocked down or there is a fire issue, or the guinea grass has started to sprout up again, you want to be able to get the money and get in there and get it right away and not Page 4 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 have to wait a really long time. So again, it might not be to go in the Charter. It may be that working with Department of Finance, cause they are going to manage it, and I think they would want to have not one big fat deadline every year where everybody tries to apply for funds, but maybe twice a year or something like that, so... CA -27, I heard a lot of testimony at the last hearing, people talking about eminent domain, using the PONC fund to get easements via eminent domain. I strongly oppose that. It... as I said before and I know you have heard this. It is just the wrong... it is just wrong . It is the wrong way to use the PONC fund. It would erase so much good will. It would prevent people from wanting to add to, do matching grants and all kinds of really true parade of horribles I think would happen with that idea. There might be some other way to think of a way to acquire easements, but anyway, I see that it is still on the list so... well, thank you very much and again, thanks for being here this evening. I really appreciate it. CHR. ADAMS: Thanks so much. If I could ask Cory Harden to please come to the table. Sir, go ahead. SCOTT UEHARA: Proposal No. CA -14 and CA -15, commenting. MR. UEHARA: Good evening. My name is Scott Uehara from the Hawai`i Police Department. I am coming here today to speak about CA -14 and CA -15. There's just some alterations we wanted to make for some of the verbiage inside of this and I do applaud you guys for updating some of the outdated terminology in this section of the Charter. But specifically I wanted to speak about Section 6- 4.4, section (a). This one is to include the Office of Prosecuting Attorney and the Hawai`i Police Department to be also excluded such as the Department of Water Supply. That is something that you know it is okay. In CA -15 it's in there but in CA -14 it is not, so I just want to be sure that it is included in CA -14 also. And then also just so that the DIT (Department of Information Technology) cannot exclude other departments from using shared resources. I also wanted to include this last line of "exemption will not preclude shared resources used amongst departments." And that is all I have for the Section 6-4.4(a). The other part I have, I wanted to clarify also was Section 6-4.3 for the qualifications for DIT Director. I wanted to add in the idea that the Director will have at least three years of administrative and managerial experience in an information technology environment which is comparable to that of the Hawai`i County Information Technology infrastructure. Right now it just says at least three years of which shall have been in an administrative and managerial capacity in a technology environment at least comparable to that of the County's system. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Alright. Thanks very much. If I could ask that Betty Oberman please come to the table. Ms. Harden. Page 5 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 CORY HARDEN: Proposal Nos. CA -1, CA -2, CA -4, CA -5, CA -6, CA -9, CA -12, CA -14, CA -15, CA -17, and CA -18 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 in opposition. MS. HARDEN: Good evening and thank you for all of your work on the Commission. I will just run through various measures. I support CA -2 for equal amount of Council meetings in East and West Hawai`i but you might want to allow for the possibility there is an odd number of meeting dates for some reason and what happens then. CA -4 I support adding to Office of Research and Development Environmental Community Economics Sustainability and Resilience issues. I am very happy to see those added. I opposed CA -8 about lengthening Council terms to four years. I remember Brenda Ford and Russel Ruderman both came and spoke against it and Russel talked about Council members really needing to listen to their constituents and the two years helps focus them. If someone is good they will get reelected for another two years. I think we want to work against concentration of power. This is a democracy. You kind of want to spread the power around. I support CA -9 for money from the 2% Land Fund to pay a staff person. We have talked about how it is just very difficult with kind of part-time staff working on that. I think we need to really strengthen the 2% program. At the various meetings I haven't heard... maybe there was someone, but I haven't heard anyone come say "oh, we need to weaken the program and get less land." I haven't heard that from the public but I have heard a lot of the public saying "we need a good strong program." And since the taxpayer dollars are going in, I would like to see us get the program really working and get the benefits from the program. And I would like to see the wording that Debbie Hecht has suggested, so there will be one full-time staff person dedicated to administering the program in addition to the PONC staff person for that group. I support CA -17 for a Disaster and Emergency Fund. I have seen time lapse maps of how Pele has paved and repaved Puna for the past 1000 years and scientists thinking... saying that is going to continue with climate change. Hurricanes are getting worse and we need to plan for disasters. I support CA -18 about the 2% Land's maintenance fund language. I support having it in the Finance Department, allowing building of restrooms, small structures, trails, and paths, and paying people who work on the land so they won't burn out on doing their volunteer work and generate some jobs in rural areas. Page 6 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 CA -22, removing the requirement for last four digits of the social security number on recall petitions, I think that is very timely with all the concerns about identity theft these days. And CA -27, I think that is one that talked about taking land by eminent domain which would not work with a 2% Fund, you know, several people have testified how that would be very difficult. Just in general the 2% fund, anything that we can do to strengthen it, get it working the way it is supposed to, I think would be wonderful. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. If I could ask Mary Begier to please come to the table. Ma'am. I am sorry, if you could speak into the microphone please. This is for recording for our minutes purposes. Thank you. BETTY OBERMAN: Proposal No. CA -17, commenting. MS. OBERMAN: Hi. Thank you for being here. I am Betty Oberman. I come from Kapoho Vacationland and I am also on their Water Board and we have an annual meeting coming up. My concerns this evening are in regards to the Disaster Emergency Fund and I know that you are looking at a new fund as a reserve for what may happen in the future. Concerns right now is for an example today in the news, $2.5 million was allocated towards tourism and the Council intends to go to California, do murals on buses and travel from San Diego to San Francisco to bring the tourists to the Big Island so that we get the tourist dollars, but where are we going to put them? I have been coming to these meetings, I don't see any money going out. We are taking care of the situation that we have right now and I just want all of you to be aware that we need to help our people get out. I mean I don't have a home and I won't have a home for many years to come. I am under 60 feet of lava, but there are a lot of people all over lower Puna that need a lot of help to restore what we have, and we need our roads, and we need our roads so we can have a road to go home and try to develop and I would like you to keep that in mind. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thanks very much. Appreciate it. If I could ask Smiley Burrows please to come to the table. Ms. Begier. MARY BEGIER: Proposal Nos. CA -9, CA -18, CA -26, and CA -27, commenting. MS. BEGIIHR: Thank you and truly a thank you to all of you for serving. You are volunteers and this has been an intense process. I feel like I owe an apology for being a bit late to the game. I have been watching it, I have been reading minutes, kind of complaining in the background, talking to people about "seriously, that's going to happen? Oh my God look at what is happening now." And that is why I came tonight, is because I owe you an apology because you may not be able to do anything about some of the things that I wish you could do Page 7 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 something about. I am finally going to speak up about tonight and then I will keep it brief. The... for many years private citizens particularly people who were supporters of private property rights said "look government, if you don't want me to build here, if you don't want me to develop that, if you don't want me to bulldoze that, then you buy it. If you think it is for all the people, then all the people should pay for it." Thus the PONC fund was born out of that. The PONC fund, I am a supporter of it. I think it is a good idea that if something is good for all the people, then all the people should pay for it and I frequently testify on many subjects on that basis, that we shouldn't have special funds that only special... some people pay for. So taking something out of a general fund is a reasonable thought, but I think that it needs to be tempered with the whole big picture of our community and when we face something like we have faced in the past year, we need our funds for other things. The woman who just testified spoke of a very real and needy situation that we can't address because we don't have the money. Okay maybe a disaster fund would have helped it but how are we going to fund the disaster fund? I think that the PONC fund really needs to be something that has more flexibility to it. I think that it is... I appreciate the idea of them having a dedicated staff person because having volunteers on an advisory board comes and goes, ebbs and flows, it is difficult to have a consistent pattern of behavior possibly. But I just think that we need to have more flexibility. I am concerned about the monies being allowed to be used for the installation of bath facilities, bathroom facilities... because now we are taking what was conservation land, land that was purchased for the purpose of conservation is now becoming a public park. Might be a great idea, that parcel of land that area maybe is just begging for a public park, but how is that all going to get decided and who... when do we say "okay, no you can't have a bathroom there." Or "you can have a bigger bathroom over here." It just... for the PONC fund to now be encompassing all of that, just causes me to hesitate and I ask you to do the same. I forgot to cite the numbers of these things, but I think you probably know them by heart. The... CA -8, the terms of the Council. I am a supporter of the four-year term. I have worked for, I have helped a number of people on their campaigns from everything from County, to State, to Federal level and watched those people who were really volunteers when they were running for office, they weren't getting paid when they ran for office, and then they get in office and they get this usually kind of small paycheck relative to the amount of time that comes out of their life and their family's lives to serve all of us and the idea that people with a two-year cycle, they have barely been elected and know what they are doing before they gotta start running again. And I think that while some people feel that that makes them accountable to their constituents, I think sometimes that accountability gets twisted into some sort of beholden and that is not really democracy in my opinion. Last but not least, CA -26, the removing of the PE (Professional Engineer) requirement for the Public Works Director. I think that that is really important to Page 8 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 SMILEY BURROWS: remove. I think that we should possibly be looking at all of our MQ's (Minimum qualifications) the minimum requirements that they have for any position. I have been privileged to serve on many search committees both in private sector as well as public sector and the major contrast that I noticed in that experience is in the private sector when we start to look at all the resumes, we realize my goodness, there are some really great candidates here but none of them have X. None of them have you know, gone to that other level of education or that many years of experience or something, and in private industry there is the ability to maybe go back to a board of directors or an HR (Human Resource) Department and say "can we modify this?" and it can happen fairly simply. In government, we probably have to wait for you to reconvene or some other kind of a commission and in the meantime possibly very good candidates say "you know what, I don't want to work with that kind of situation" and we as the citizens end up losing out on a really qualified employee who would love to work in public service, but because we lack flexibility, we lose out and so I really support CA -26 and I thank you for your time. And again, I do genuinely apologize for maybe being a little late to the game on some of these subjects. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Appreciate it. Ms. Burrows. Proposal No. CA -17, commenting. MS. BURROWS: Aloha. Good afternoon. My name is Smiley Burrows and I am from Kapoho Crater and live in Leilani. We actually lost three of our homes but we had not sold our Leilani property so I am in Puna and working to the best of my ability with a coalition that we have formed in lower Puna to follow the money that is going to be used in the eruption and to specifically make sure that our Puna area actually gets the funding needed specifically for the disaster. Prior to the eruption, we had a hurricane and I actually met several... I recognize a lot of you guys because you were all very involved with that and were incredible to help guide us with disaster and disaster preparedness and sustainability so after the hurricane, we actually... a group of us in Kapoho at Green Mountain with the help of Civil Defense, started a Disaster Relief Center. Primarily at that time we had more concerns with flooding and tsunamis so a lot of these possible tsunamis, we would be up on the top of Green Mountain and open our gates for the community to see what was going on, and luckily we all kind of were able to get though those without any bad effects but the hurricane really kicked our butt and we established a community garden. We really started focusing on the fact that we might get completely blocked off from the rest of the County and it was a real issue so it actually created a lot of positive energy on focusing on disaster and preparedness, connectivity is absolutely number one for the sake of the whole island. In discussing some mapping the other day with some of the eruption recovery people, we were with the geologist from Hawai`i Tracker that is very understanding of the geology of this whole entire island specifically regarding Ocean View in the fact that they might be the next ones or you know, we don't Page 9 Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 know where... but we need to be aware that we need to set a precedent and know that these disasters aren't going to I think lessen, but I think we are going to have a lot more to focus on, so I am absolutely in support of putting energy into a disaster fund and I am here to support you guys and help in any way. Connectivity and food are real big factors. You know during the eruption I looked under disaster and there were 30 pages regarding tsunamis but not one page about lava and how we deal with a lava eruption and it really surprised me so, I think that the more we focus on how to help each and every community that might face these issues, we are actually, even though we have a lot of lava to grade and rip and open and we need our roads open of course, but to have a fund that can be in place for every district, to make sure that the recovery is possible, is great so, I am in support. I also want to express my support for Council terms being four years. Yeah, I think there is a lot of... I think that four years is a great amount of time to really let a Council person dig in and get their work done and then be able to see the work that they have done and follow up and take credit for it. Just talking to an ex -Council person yesterday I said "wow, that was so great that you got that done and this done and that done." And she said "well, actually it was the one before me that did all the work to get that and I kind of got the honors." So I am really happy with our County Council right now and the people that are elected and for those people to have the opportunity to take their brains and really get nitty gritty for four years versus two years is up, now we have got to spend six months you know with the election once again. I think it diminishes the opportunity for them to really put good focus in on it so I am in support of that too and thanks very much or all that you guys do. Mahalo. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Let me just ask do we have any speakers or testifiers in Waimea? MR. BERGIN: None. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Do we have any testifiers in Kona? MR. RUEDY: Good evening Chair. We have no testifiers here in Kona. CHR. ADAMS: Great. Do we have any other speakers or testifiers here in Hilo? It appears that we have no more speakers. I would like to thank all the testifiers for their statements. I actually have this written thing. I have this thing that is written down that I prepared a couple of weeks ago, but this is the last Public Hearing of the six that we went around to and I just want to thank the testifiers that have come to all of those hearings and have contributed their knowledge and their concerns, and their passions to what we are trying to do as a Charter Commission in placing important things having to do with the Charter in front of the voters. The voters will make the decision. The Charter Commission's responsibility is to try and do a good job in making sure that the things that they Page 10 Hawaii County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 4, 2019 are voting on matter and so I thank the testifiers that have come out and helped us with that duty. 1 would also like to thank our Commissioners. I have heard a number of folks who have talked to me and I know some of you as well have been appreciated for you being at as many of these Public Hearings as have been able to be at and so, thank you for your attention to our testifiers as well as to your sense of duty and obligation at being here during these hearings, but we are not done yet and you know that. And finally, the staff whether it has been the staff of the County Clerk's Office or the Parks and Recreation folks that have been at the variety of locations that we have been at, really appreciate all of their efforts in helping us convene the hearings that we have had including this one. The Hawaii County Charter Commission will next convene at our regularly scheduled meeting and that will be held Thursday, April 25th, so 1 will repeat that. It's Thursday, April 25th, not Friday, but Thursday April 25th at 9:30 a.m. here at the Hawai`i County Building, Hilo Council Chambers, 25 Aupuni Street, in Hilo. Again I would ask you all to please drive safely. I thank you for your attention and for your interest in the work of the Charter Commission and thanks for corning. Commission Approval: April 25, 2019 ass Shipman Ada s, Chair -2020 Hawai`i County Charter Commission Page 11