HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommunication No. 2022-21 Bartlett Email ResponseFrom:Bartlett, Heather
To:"tawn
Cc:Stevens, Elyse; Yeh, Justin
Subject:RE: Upcoming Hamakua CDP AC meeting
Date:Wednesday, November 2, 2022 3:10:00 PM
Aloha Tawn,
Congrats on taking on the role as chair and mahalo nui for your willingness to take on the role. It
looks as though you’ve put a lot of thought into the direction of the AC, so thank you for your
thoughtful questions.
I’m sending this as a follow up to our conversation. If you want to clarify the sunshine law aspects
you can also contact our Corp Counsel Suzanna at
Zoom
As far as Zoom is concerned, that’s definitely a possibility if you folks are interested in organizing
that. It can be a challenge to facilitate a hybrid meeting and balance the related Sunshine Law
requirements which include, having a ‘courtesy site’ available to the public where they can
participate in person and view, listen and talk to AC members that are on Zoom. You would need to
ensure that all members are on camera at all times (including members at the courtesy site), and
that if tech disruptions occur (like losing internet, camera, or microphones) you would have to recess
the meeting to fix the issues before the meeting can continue. If you lose connection and cant
recover it you would need to cancel the meeting altogether (even if you still have quorum at the
courtesy site). This is something I feel we can talk about more if you want to pursue it because
there’s some details that would need to be figured out to make it work.
Venue
For your venue, Elyse has been working with the Parks department to reserve a space but we’ve had
some trouble getting responses. She has been in contact with Niki and we will certainly keep you
updated if we can get some headway on that front from our end. In the meantime, having a back up
plan could be advisable to prevent us needing to cancel/postpone your meeting.
Mailing List
We have been and will continue to send your agendas and meeting packets to our mailing list a
week before your meetings. AC-led meetings are still official county meetings, so we are bound by
Sunshine Law to get notice out to the public all the same (so it’s a requirement, but more
importantly it’s the good/transparent thing to do regardless). As far as sending out other information
and notices, and we do try to share relevant community events if they are related to community
planning and if we have the time, so we are always open to suggestions
Budget
Unfortunately Action Committees do not have a budget, however if you had a specific project in
mind (like the Waipi’o valley one you mentioned) it may be worthwhile to connect with Heather
Kimball. She may be organizing outreach already for that specific issue or otherwise have access to
funding (like Council discretionary funds or knowledge on grant opportunities, etc.). I think there are
creative approaches or opportunities to explore grant funding for other projects which our team
would be happy to help brainstorm for future projects too
Newspaper advertising
Funding is also a concern here. I know we have done that in the past when we have monies tied to
Communication Number 2022-21
projects (plan drafting as a major example). Some ACs have connections with local news
organizations (ex. The Kohala Mountain News advertises NK Advisory Group meeting notices free of
charge, and the Ka'ū Calendar has for a long time attended meetings and helped to share
information). Some news organizations have community calendars or other resources where they
share local events for free as well. Its possible that news organizations would be willing to partner
and promote information to support the mission.. similar to how places will often waive reservation
fees for us when we explain we’re community-focused.
Upcoming Agenda Recommendations
It would be worthwhile to connect with Niki about your draft agenda to get her thoughts and keep
continuity with the work shes been doing (if you haven’t already).
It’s helpful to consider what you hope to accomplish from proposed agenda items you plan to
discuss. Is there a letter to send? Research to be done? Partners to work with? Information to share
with the community?
Here is the list Niki recorded in your last meeting minutes:
1.Subcommittee Report Back to Action Committee:
a.Waipio Wahi Pana Report
b.Housing Subcommittees Report and possible invitation of the Hāmākua Development
Corporation.
2.Presentation by the Planning Department on Permitted Uses.
3.Presentation by the Planning Department on Zoning Code Changes. Possible creation of a
subcommittee to participate
4.Presentation from Noeau Peralto from huiMAU: Possible Action Committee meeting at
huiMAU property or the creation of a subcommittee.
5.Presentation by the County of Hawaiʻi Fire Department: Fire Prevention Plans
6.County of Hawaiʻi Department of Water Supply – Discuss infrastructure needs and
installation and how they utilize the CDPs.
7.Next year’s calendar and locations
I can tell you the Planning Department won’t be ready to present anything. Same for the Fire Dept
and Water Supply, unless you guys already have a contact from their offices that you’ve been
working with.
Combined AC Meetings (AKA Community Learning Series)
I know Brad had suggested using our community learning series to bring the ACs together to discuss
the Code Update. We are currently looking ahead at balancing the community learning series
platform with larger ongoing projects such as the GP and Code Update which involves coordinating
with varies project leads and consultants. We have yet to finalize our outreach plans on that front
but we will keep you guys updated.
Hoping this helps.. I know you guys will need to be posting your agenda fairly soon. Please feel free
to get in touch if we can support you further!
Mahalo,
Heather Bartlett
From: tawn@
Communication Number 2022-21
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2022 11:15 AM
To: Bartlett, Heather <Heather.Bartlett@hawaiicounty.gov>
Subject: Upcoming Hamakua CDP AC meeting
Hi Heather,
It looks like I will serve as Chair of the HCDP Action Committee over the next year. Let me express to
you some of my aspirations for this Committee. In concert with the Planning Department, I, like all of the
AC members feel the priority of increasing the interaction between our District Communities and the
County Government through the medium of the Community Development Plan and its Action
Committees. To this end I would like to explore the possibility of resuming the Zoom mechanism and to
have our Committee meetings uploaded to our site on Facebook. As these were functions previously
handled by Planning, I need to discuss with you how this might be now facilitated. This should be priority
#1. There may be a gulf between my imagination and the real world.
Second, it seems that we need to find a meeting place for the next meeting which I believe will be on
Tuesday, November 15. This should ideally be in the Papaikou/Pepeekeo area. The People's Theatre in
Honokaa is available any Tuesday incidentally. Do you have thoughts on a Papaikou/Pepeekeo facility
for this? I can make inquiries if you have suggestions.
I will try to have an agenda for you by this Friday.
I was told once before that the Planning Department has email addresses of over 400 persons in
Hamakua who have previously interacted with the CDP process. I the agenda sent to all 400 of those
email addresses.
Will you send to those addresses any communications that the Action Committee would wish to make.
Does the Action Committee have a budget? For instance if we would wish to send US Postal mail to
each Box holder in Hamakua, could we do that with Planning covering the postage? If any of the
subcommittees wished to send postal mail to a particular mailing area, for instance Honokaa, Kukuihaele,
Haina for communication about the Waipio discussions could that postage be covered by Planning?
Has Planning previously entertained having a section in the Island newspapers available for
communications from the ACs.
Do you have recommendation for Agenda Items for the meeting on the 15th.
I suspect that Planning has discussed continuing to hold Combined Action Committee meetings twice
a year. What was the outcome and input on that discussion. As a casual observer, it seems that that
should be within the means of the Planning Dept. The question has, of course, arisen whether Planning
would make a presentation to the Combined ACs on the rationale driving the need for reconsideration of
the County Code and what preliminary thoughts or general perspectives might be in play.
My phone is . I think we should have an open channel via the phone. My schedule is
open and I am always available to take a call if I have my phone with me. If I don't hear from you today, I
will call you tomorrow.
Who should I talk to to develop and understanding of how we can implement Zoom meetings?
Mahalo for your help.
Communication Number 2022-21