HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-11-17 Cost of Government Commission MinutesCOST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSION
c/o Office of the Corporation Counsel, 101 Aupuni Street,
Suite 325, Hilo, Hawaii 96720
MINUTES
November 17, 20101
Hawaii County Building
25 Aupuni Street (Puna Conference Room)
Hilo, Hawaii 96720
10:10 a.m. to 1:37 p.m.
Members and staff present: Marilyn Nicholson, Chair
Gloria Wong, Vice Chair
Glen Matsuda, Commissioner
Eileen O'Hara, Commissioner
Patricia Provalenko, Commissioner
Kathleen A. Garson, Deputy Corporation Counsel
Mary E. Crosson, Legal Clerk
Shanell Sarsuelo, Legal Clerk
Guest: Scott Leonard
1. CALL TO ORDER
The Chair called the meeting to order at 10:10 a.m.
2. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC
There were no statements from the public.
3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (October 22 and November 3, 2010)
The Chair asked whether there were any corrections or additions to make to the minutes
of October 22, 2010.
Mr. Matsuda said that on page 27, at the bottom, his name was misspelled as M- A -S -U-
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Motion and vote: Ms. O'Hara moved to accept the minutes as amended with the
correction on page 27. Ms. Provalenko seconded the motion, and all members present voted aye.
1 Minutes in italics are verbatim. Blanks indicate indecipherable or inaudible speech.
The Chair asked whether there were any corrections, additions, or changes to make to the
minutes of November 3, 2010.
Ms. Garson said the minutes had multiple incorrect references to "laser fiche." She
explained that Laserfiche is one word and is the name of a company, so should be capitalized.
She suggested an overall correction be made.
Mr. Matsuda pointed out that Laserfiche was also incorrectly referenced in the October
22, 2010, minutes. However, Ms. Garson explained that on the table now were the November 3
minutes.
Motion and vote: Ms. O'Hara moved to amend the November 3 minutes to correct
Laserfiche to one word with a capital "L" throughout. Mr. Matsuda seconded the motion, and all
members present voted aye.
Motion and vote: Mr. Matsuda moved to accept the minutes as amended, Ms. Wong
seconded the motion, and all members present voted aye.
4. CORRESPONDENCE
A. Comm. 2010 -143: Letter Sent to Council Member Yagong.
The Chair reported that there was no response so far to their November 4, 2010, letter to
Mr. Yagong. She said she would follow up with a phone call and report back to the
Commission, hopefully by the next meeting, with the results of her phone call or a report from
Mr. Yagong.
Ms. Wong asked whether their letter had also been sent out to the various County boards
and commissions, as she did not see any responses from them included on the list. Ms. Garson
said they were sent the letter and that a number of boards had no comment. Those responses
were listed, but she would have Ms. Sarsuelo follow up.
Ms. Wong said she wanted to see what the Workforce Investment Board had to say. Ms.
Garson said she believed no response was received from the WIB but would check.
5. DISCUSSION, AND QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH SCOTT
LEONARD REGARDING HIS COMMUNICATION
CHAIR: Thank you for your communication. It was most interesting and enlightening.
GARSON.- If you're looking for the communication, it was 2010 -105.
CHAIR: I understand, Mr. Leonard, that you met with your committee, which is the
what's the name of your committee, Gloria?
WONG: Operations, Budget, and Consolidation Committee.
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CHAIR: All right. And that committee said that it would be most interesting if you would
come and address all of us, so here you are, and we're ready to hear what you have to
say.
LEONARD: All right. Well, thank you very much. It's great to have the opportunity to
be here before you and to share with you some recommendations to the committee. I've
been with the county for three years. I am a zoning inspector with the Planning
Department. As a zoning inspector, that takes me out into the community for a wide
variety of complaints that are generated by community members. And the
recommendations that I have proposed are basically a result of my three years of
experience of being what I typically tell people is that I'm an adult playground
supervisor. So what I would like to do, if it is your wish, is to go through each of the
eight suggestions. And then if there are any questions that you have, please go ahead as
we go through each one, and ask them.
The first one is in regards to having the county consolidate its enforcement process.
Currently the Building Department has building inspectors that handle complaints. The
Planning Department has individuals that handle complaints with regards to land use.
Environmental Management has issues, but currently they have no one that handles their
complaints. The Department of Health has people that handles issues with regards to
vector control, but currently they have no one that is going out there and addressing
those issues because of budgetary restraints. So the recommendation here is to take all
our enforcement responsibilities and consolidate it into one office. And there are a lot of
benefits to that. Number one, with respect to the community. If I go out and do an
inspection and I find that it's an illegal structure, I will then forward that information on
to the Building Department and then they will send out an inspector and then address the
issues with regards to an illegal structure. If there are issues that are environmental,
then we contact the Environmental Department of Environmental Management. If there
are health issues, we contact the so you can see for the public out there, they could
suddenly be faced with several different representatives from government coming out
there and saying here's where you're wrong, this is the problem that you need to correct.
They'll end up with different letters from every different department. They'll end up with
different schedules. They may end up with different sets of fines. If we consolidate that
under one department, then it's one -stop shopping. The County only issues one letter,
does one inspection. The person out in the community only has to deal with one
representative. So it streamlines the process significantly. Before I came to work for the
county, I owned a company called Pali Uh Home Inspection, and I used to do inspections
as a business for people that wanted to determine what was the condition of their home.
So as an inspector, I understood foundation work, I understood framing, I understood
plumbing, I understood electrical. So I was able to look at the whole structure and give
you an evaluation on that. And I was certified nationally to be able to do that work. So it
is possible to take our inspectors, who are right now compartmentalized I only deal
with building, I only deal with land use, I only deal with health and bring them to a
point in which they're able to address all these issues. Now with regards to the
Department of Health, that's a state organization, but we probably could work under
some sort of contractual agreement to be able to do some of the issues with respect to the
state, meaning that we could be their eyes the first eyes on sight to be able to look at
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issues. Do we have problems with rats what what other issues? Cesspools, septic
systems, maybe a problem with the property. So consolidated enforcement would be a
streamlining of the way in which we interface with the community as to the many
problems that they maybe faced with, with all those different areas, as well as one of
the other things I had listed here was real property tax. Are we really actually taxing
that property properly? So Igo out there, we show it as vacant land, but it's got six
structures on it. Are we taxing that property correctly? And so we would be able to
make that evaluation and pass that on to Real Property Tax. So that was the idea behind
consolidated enforcement, is that make it easier for the public dealing with one
individual. When Igo out there, when I comeback, I don't have to write a letter to
several different organizations as well, or carbon copy them, and saying here now, you
have to go out and inspect this as well. We're able to do it all in one shot. So streamline
the process significantly. So that's the idea behind consolidated enforcement.
O'HARA: Can I ask one question there?
LEONARD: Yes, ma'am.
O'HARA: Under what department would this consolidated enforcement division reside?
LEONARD: Yeah, I think it'd probably be best to put it under the Police Department.
Now there's a couple reasons for that. Because we already interface with the Police
Department, when Igo out and do inspections, sometimes because of the area and maybe
the type of issue that I'm faced with, I will contact the Police Department to find out what
am I stepping into, do you have any issues with this particular property. And then if I
find like junkyards, chop shops, I'll take that information and may pass it back to the
Police Department and see if any of those vehicles that I found are stolen vehicles. So we
have a degree of interface already. The other thing that is beneficial is that when we're
looking at monetary constraints on the county right now, limited funds, working with the
Police Department in the area of enforcement may allow us to be able to get some grant
money, because the Police Department is a little easier to get grants and to do things for
enforcement than, let's say, if the consolidated enforcement was under Planning
Department or Building Division or such. Grant money is generally not available. So
politically, I think that moving it over to the Police Department might be a good idea.
O 'HARA: Thank you.
CHAIR: Are there other jurisdictions that do it this way?
LEONARD: In the state of Hawai `i, no. In other communities on the mainland, yes,
there are people that consolidate their enforcement.
MATSUDA:
the Police Department jurisdiction, as far as -
LEONARD: I don't know. I think the other ones that I'm thinking of, which are in
California, I don't think they're in with the police department. But a lot of these other
jurisdictions do things significantly differently than the way we do. For instance, like the
building responsibilities are also under the planning department, and so you have
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already a consolidation that takes place in that kind of environment. So as we are broken
out into different departments, we've also broken out the enforcement responsibilities,
whereas when you look at other counties on the mainland, they may have a lot of those
responsibilities already under one department.
WONG: Within this concept, would that require a different kind of IT software so that
you can link to all these departments, or it's a matter of paperwork?
LEONARD: Well, currently the enforcement process is all manual, and we do draw upon
Real Property Tax, the GIS system, and the data base that's over in the Building
Department. So before we go out as a zoning inspector, we find out what's on the
property, is it properly permitted, what's the information from Real Property Tax? And
then we go into our own land use files and look at the information that we have. And
then we go out and inspect and then we can make a determination whether or not they're
in violation of the Zoning Code. And if there's other issues taxes, environmental issues
and such then we just simply identify that and then forward that onto the appropriate
department. Whether they follow upon it, we have no idea. With respect to IT, as I just
mentioned, this is something that is strictly manual. Three years ago, I wrote a software
solution to totally automate that process. So for me there are four zoning inspectors for
the island I do my work in a dual mode. I manually do everything that the county has
set up over the years, but I also have a computerized program that does it all
automatically. And so what would be best in the future is to move to a software solution
that totally automates the process, because then trackability - -it gives the community
opportunity to come on and like you setup a kiosk or internet site where people can find
out, hey, I just issued a complaint, I want to know whether or not - -what you're doing with
it. There would be some limited information on the internet for them to be able to go to
and take a look at. Or, as most generally what happens now, people call me and I just
open up the program and I can tell exactly where I'm at with it, and they're generally
happy, knowing that at least something's being done. So that's something that needs to
be looked at in the future. Exactly how do we want to go to —what what sort of software
solution do we want? One of the recommendations that I made in the past was that we
also need to look at our processes. For instance, I go and I find a violation. I come
back. I write a notice of violation and order. That letter gets through the process, signed
out by the director, goes to the individual. Most people, when they see a certified,
restricted mail waiting for them from the County of Hawai `i, they don't pick it up. So
then that comes back to me. Then I write another notice of violation and order, and that
one is now civil deputy serviced to them, and either posted or they actually get it and
typically people that ignored the first one will ignore the second one. Then the third
thing that I do, after another 30 days, is send out a daily fines letter. And that just goes
to a regular mail box, and they suddenly see they owe thousands of dollars and they
typically will call me and start talking tome. Now contrast that with the idea that if I was
an inspector that had an automated system, that I went out there and I did the inspection.
And I had some sort of device, like a PDA, that generated the tickets, if you want to call it
that -- notice of violation and order. And I said well, they're in violation. They've got
roosters in a residential area. And it prints out, cites the code, and I hand it to the person
right there. Notice of violation and order is delivered on the spot. The person I got
pictures of the chicken on the ticket, and so they know they've got to do something about
it, and it says in 30 days. So already you're trimming down the process from 60, 90 days
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to a one -day service, and they got 30 days to correct it. So it cleans up that process a
little bit. So there's a lot of nice ways of streamlining the way we're doing code
enforcement right now.
O'HARA: Another question. To do this, have you investigated what changes we would
have to make to our County Code in order for something like this to be brought forward?
LEONARD: Well, there's a lot of changes to the County Code and to the Charter that we
would have to make, yes. And I have not delved into that, because we need the political
will behind it before we'll really start moving towards that. And I think that's kind of
where we're at right now, is do we really want to improve the process and make
changes?
O 'HARA: Thank you.
CHAIR: For this you're talking about both commercial and residential use?
LEONARD: Yes.
CHAIR: And soI notice you didn't say anything about liquor, and Liquor Control does
their own enforcement inspections. Is that also sort of part of this, or - ?
LEONARD: Well you know, that's never crossed my mind liquor enforcement. But
once you create an enforcement agency, you may find that it takes on additional
responsibilities. Give you another example. Right now we have a situation in the
Planning Department where we issue special permits. And on those special permits are
conditions for those people to comply with. There is no real tracking system on those
conditions. The tracking system is some neighbor who is opposed to the project in the
first place watching them and what they're doing, and then suddenly they're doing
something that they shouldn't be doing, based on a condition, and they file a complaint.
And then we look at the complaint, and that basically goes back to the planners in the
Planning Commission division, and then they have to take it up with the Planning
Commission. But in the future we may say, when we establish these conditions, then that
falls once the special permit is issued, then that responsibility falls over into the
enforcement department. And then and if it's automated, then it's just a matter of when
I'm out in the field, Igo someplace and I say, do they have illegal parking, do they have
the proper landscaping, all the other different kinds of conditions we put on, and if so
then fine. Then we come back and note it. If there is a problem, then we can address it
right on site. We can say I'm going to give you a ticket because you are violating
condition number 6
O'HARA: So at this point we don't maintain a data base of those special permits in a
manner that you could look on line and say, oh, there 's five or six sites that I can check
while I'm out that way.
LEONARD. No, it's all hard -copy paper that's put in the TvIK files. And once the
permit is issued, there's no one that really tracks it.
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CHAIR: So you're seeing this as both a money- saving -- cost - savings, because you
wouldn't have all these divisions in different departments, but also revenue - generating,
because fines would be issued and things would be tracked on?
LEONARD: That's correct, that's correct. But then I mean, this has a domino effect,
because when we're already we're talking about changing codes, changing the Charter.
We're looking at changing some processes, implementing technology, and then we look
at well, are our fines reasonable? Is it reasonable to charge somebody a hundred dollars
a day and then for the next, 30 days, 90 days later, it goes up to two hundred? And
before you know it, you've got some fines up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That all needs to be looked at as well, to find out where is the reasonable threshold of
where fines should go, and how should we start out with our fines. Just to give you an
example with regards to fines. There was a gentleman who built a fence in Hawaiian
Paradise Park, and it was seven feet tall. The code is six feet. He's got to cut it down.
He's in a setback, so we sent him a letter. So he removes the fence material, which is
satisfactory, but he still has a post and some metal framing in the setback. That's got to
be removed. He currently has $17, 000 in fines, okay, for a stupid fence post and metal
framing, okay. And I sent him another letter, and I said, you know, this is just take this
down and then let's resolve this issue with the fines and we'll reduce them. Let's just
close this case. But I have a choice. Now I either can send it to Corporation Counsel to
follow up on, or I can wait a year and place a lien on the property, because the Code
says I have to wait for one year while his fine accumulates before I can place a lien on it.
Well, that means when I place the lien when I'm allowed to place a lien on that
property, his fine is $127, 000. So we should probably change the Code, that once we get
into fines, then we can place a lien on the property. And do we really want to place a
lien, or is there a better method of tacking that fine, perhaps as a fee, onto the tax bill? Is
that a better way? So there's a whole gamut of things that we need to look at here as to
how we do business. But I think the first thing to do that's within our immediate control
is we can consolidate the enforcement process and then start addressing all these other
little issues. If we consolidate the enforcement process, we find a way to automate that,
then these high fines that we get into can be avoided, because we've streamlined the
process and we're dealing better with the public. Yes?
O'HARA: In most cases, when you have a fine like that, is it not the practice to negotiate
that fine?
LEONARD: Yes, it is. Because I have an automated tracking system, I have issued
$487,000 in fines. I've collected $3,800. If the fines were more reasonable, maybe I
would have collected more. And then I think last time I talked to Glen and Gloria, was
we have on the books a requirement that if you do not have a street number on your
house, it's a $25 fine. I'm responsible zoning inspectors are responsible for enforcing
that. You know how much it costs to get a letter out of our office? I figured it, because
we're pretty streamlined. We have our letters pretty automated, and it's easy to get a
letter out. But I still figure that it's about $47 just simply to get a letter outright away.
So here's a $25 fine, and here's a $47 letter that's going to go out. Now how's that letter
have to go out? Notice of Violation and Order, restricted, certified mail. That's going to
cost us 8 bucks in postage to get it out. What happens if they don't answer that letter or
pick it up? Then now I have to send a civil deputy. For 25 bucks, we don't enforce it.
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But if we had the ticketing system and I was driving by and I looked oh, you don't have
house numbers. You got a little $25 ticket, and now you got it. Now we're much more
efficient at doing enforcement. And then the emergency side of the house is much more
appreciative of us, because now when they've got to go out and respond to an emergency,
there's street numbers. Okay, any other questions in regards to consolidated
enforcement?
Okay, the second item that I recommended was to increase property tax for unpermitted
dwellings. As Igo out and inspect properties, we go out there and suddenly we see a
house. And this house is not on the property records. Or it may be on the property
records, but it's unpermitted. So there again, I determine whether or not there's a zoning
violation. Is the house in the setback? Are they doing something illegal? Are they
running a business? Do they have chickens in a residential neighborhood? So if I
determine that there's no zoning violation, I'll comeback butt still have to write a
letter to the Building Division, let them know that there's an unpermitted structure. If
there's environmental issues, same thing. PropertyTax, they for the buildings that are
there, they may not have the right information, so I need to tell them. This probably
would be better off rephrased. Instead of increasing property tax for unpermitted
dwellings, to change it to eliminate homeowner exemptions on illegal structures, because
then that would encourage people tooh, if I have an illegal structure and they come, I
get a homeowner's exemption, and now I'm paying less than this guy over here that went
through the permit process. So the idea is to try to get people to come into compliance
with our law. And so I would recommend that we look at the way in which we tax people.
And if it's an illegal structure, they're not allowed a homeowner exemption. Because the
minute they get that, they'll end up paying less taxes. So we're basically encouraging
poor behavior. So that's number two. Any questions on that?
O'HARA: No, not a question well, I guess it is a question. Given that the tax records
show the dwellings that they're recognizing, and Building has its own tax records, I mean
its own records on those same TMKS, would it be a rather simple affair to write some
software to compare those data bases so that you could pull out all of those unpermitted
buildings?
LEONARD: I'm going to say no, it wouldn't be easy. And one of the reasons is because
right now, everybody seems to have their own system of software. So you would have to
perhaps export if you're able to export it into a common program, each of these into a
common program, and then compare, then yes, you could do that. But the level of effort
to do that, I'm not sure what that would be. But Building Department tells you whether
or not it's permitted. Property Tax tells you whether or not it's taxed. So I go to
Building Department. There's no permits, so I don't expect to see a house. Igo to Real
Property Tax, and here's a floor plan. And what we should do is, when Real Property
Tax assesses these people, their specific code should say they do not get a homeowner's
exemption if it's an illegal structure. It's got to be legal. Any other questions?
Okay, number 3, mandatory bus trade -in program. This really is I mean, this is kind of
a Building Department issue, people living in buses. It's a dwelling. For me, if the bus is
out of the setbacks and it's on the property, that's not a real issue for zoning, unless you
have two buses, three buses or more. And you're only entitled to one dwelling, based on
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code. So then that becomes an issue. The most interesting experience I had with this,
was that we had a lady buy 13 buses from Robert's Tours and from I think the county got
some school buses. She bought 13 of them. She did this based on the idea there was a
big article in the paper. Governor Lingle was working with a group over on Oahu to
outfit a bus for homeless folks. And so the government was an active player in this, and
she thought, oh, this is great. So she bought 13 buses, cleared her land. She bought the
buses at $500 apiece. Robert's Tours was happy to get rid of all their buses, because
they had no place to take them. We don't take them at the landfill. There's noway to get
rid of these things except just to store them somewhere. So they were happy to get rid of
them. So she spent several thousand dollars to set up all these buses. Complaint comes
in. We investigate. You can't do this. You have to get rid of these buses. There's no
place for her to get rid of them except to sell them to another person, and then that other
person now takes it to another piece of property and does something illegal with it. So
now we can take 13 buses, or one complaint, and multiply that by 13 times. So it again,
a domino effect. So the recommendation here is that if I'm Robert's Tours, or if I'm the
county, and I'm going to buy a bus, I'm going to take a it should be a requirement that I
have a trade -in. I'm going to buy a bus from a mainland company. I'm going to bring
your bus in, but you're going to take my old bus. And what you do with it is your
business. They have more resources on the mainland to do something with a trade -in. So
that gets these buses off of this island that are no longer useful for us and eliminates a lot
of violations with regards to building and zoning.
CHAIR: How can you require a private company to do a trade -in? I can see that for
county buses, but the county can tell a private person that they have to do a trade -in
when they buy something?
LEONARD: That's what I'm suggesting, and how exactly you do that, I'm not sure. So
that's something that you know, we create these problems for ourselves, but we don't
necessarily the solution is not clearly at hand how to do it, particularly from the legal
aspect. I mean, is it legal to do that? And that's something that we need to explore and
determine. Now I know when I was talking to Environmental Management a couple of
years ago, and I'm sorry, I forget his name. But he was even saying that this is
something that we need to do, because the landfill can't take the buses. And so we just
kind of push them off in the remote areas. And you know what's happening over the last
several years, is our remote areas aren't so remote any more. People are coming in,
they're grading, they're building nice houses. And then they look out and they go oh, I
don't want that bus next door to me anymore.
MATSUDA: Make it as a condition of the purchase.
O'HARA: Then it gets traded in. But you're saying that the scrap metal program does
not take buses any more? They have in the past.
LEONARD: No. One of the when we first had this lady with her 13 buses, we tried to
get the metal recyclers to do something. There was a company that was trying to come in
and set up business here on the Big Island for recycling. Their name was Co Part. And I
talked to Co-Part, and they were willing to go to her property and tear down all the buses
and clear her property. So I thought we had a win -win situation for the county. But they
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were also looking to get a contract to do recycling. They didn't get the contract with the
county. Therefore, when they didn't get the contract with the county, they didn't do the
job.
O'HARA: Well, why not make it a condition of the contract for DEM, the
contract, that the scrap metal recycler has to accept large vehicles like buses?
LEONARD: Well, that's certainly an avenue. But the value of these buses is almost nil.
The recycling value is when they sell the buses to these folks, they already take out
generally the motor, which is the heaviest component to it and the most steel. And then
they'll recycle that. But the rest of the bus is made out of plastics and aluminum, and the
scrap value of those buses is almost nil. So the cost of transporting the bus, to break it
down the labor to break it down, it's going to be a cost to us for doing that. So that's
the reason probably it hasn't been approached at this point. Okay, going along with that,
when we talk about scrap buses and such, we have a real serious problem with
automobiles. We have lots of derelict automobiles just thrown on peoples' property, left
alongside the road, and such. And we have an abandoned vehicle program, and we
collect some money for that every time somebody registers, but there's not enough money
to take care of all the derelict vehicles out there. And again, that's one of the things
that's probably one of the highest complaints that I get is junkyards. So we go out and
cite people and they have to clean up all these derelict vehicles. So the recommendation
here is to charge $ISO salvage fee for every automobile that somebody buys, somebody
if you haven't had this fee on the car paid before, the next time you register you would
pay for it, meaning that that car always has an intrinsic value of $150. It costs about
$100 to take it over to the salvage folks and such, and so it has value. Right now, when
somebody decides to just leave their car somewhere or dump it somewhere, it's just a
piece of trash. But if it had a $150 value, then anybody would before they throw it
away, go jeez, you know, if we just take this down to the salvage yard we get 150 bucks.
CHAIR: It's like a HI -5 for a car.
LEONARD: Perfect example, that's right. So it's a big HI -5. But it's a value there I
think that would encourage people to take cars. It would also mean that if there's a
bunch of derelict cars on somebody's property, and then we institute this program, that
between what we charge now with the abandoned vehicle program and the derelict
salvage fee, that eventually somebody would say, there's ten cars there. That's $1,500.
Let me take those in and trade them in. So anyway, that's the idea between on the auto
salvage fees, is to get these cars out of these communities. And remember, when people
take a junk car and they don't want it anymore and they throw it on somebody's property,
there's still oil, there's still gasoline, and it eventually deteriorates out of those holding
containers and gets into the ecosystem.
O'HARA: A logistics question on that one. If we were to implement this, say 2011 we
decide to start doing this, and every automobile that gets registered has to put the
salvage fee down, but the junk cars that are out in the fields have not been paid down.
They have not paid this salvage fee.
LEONARD: Correct.
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O'HARA: So how do you if people start bringing those in and you're paying more out
than you're collecting
LEONARD: - -Well, the only way you get paid ISO bucks is if there's a salvage value on
that car.
O'HARA: So this is for the future --
LEONARD: For the future.
O'HARA: It's still doesn't
LEONARD: --But what we could do is on that salvage fee, is just as in the abandoned
vehicle program, right now when you register I forget how many dollars, 15, 20
O 'HARA: --16
LEONARD: $16? Sixteen goes into this fund for abandoned vehicles. So people we
still could have that in play for a period of years until we feel that we have almost all the
cars covered with their HI-5 value.
O'HARA: Okay. That's a approach. Just so it doesn't cost the county much
more.
CHAIR: Do you think this would result in a lot more unregistered vehicles, though? I
mean, that's a big hit for someone to pay all of a sudden when they're doing their re-
doing their car registration.
MATSUDA: Is it only once one time?
LEONARD: It's only one time.
CHAIR: Once. Yeah, it's once.
LEONARD: Yeah, it's just onetime.
MATSUDA: On new cars or whatever.
LEONARD: Yeah, once you pay your fee, your fee's done. Well, I mean - -and you're
right. For some folks at very low income, maybe we would set up a program where
there 's a you could pay I was going to say you could spread out the payment for over
three years, but the car may not last three years.
O'HARA: But it has to be on a new car. It wouldn't be every time the car is sold.
LEONARD: No, it would be
11
O'HARA: - -only on a new car.
LEONARD: Well, I'm suggesting new cars and even if you have an old I have a
thirteen year old Previa. The next time Igo and register, I don't have a salvage fee on it.
I would pay an additional 150 bucks on that.
O'HARA: That would be hard to track. And that would be a discouragement, I think.
CHAIR: Well, it would be like
LEONARD: - -Well, no
CHAIR: - -be like a vehicle identification number, so
LEONARD: - -Yeah, right
CHAIR: - -it would be once.
LEONARD: So the VINnumber the VINwould be tied- - the salvage fee would be tied
to the VIN number, and so when that car's brought in then you have other issues, that
is, where's my Previa? And some guy's taken my Previa and he's trying to get the ISO
bucks. So we tie in to county records or police records to say is that car stolen?
PROVALENKO: Or prove the ownership or something like that at the time.
LEONARD. Yeah. So we'll have to look at how it can be gained, because there's a lot of
people out there that like to get into situations.
O'HARA: Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily want to pay that on an old vehicle. It may be
an age thing, or vehicles that are less than five years or something.
LEONARD: Well, the reason why a ISO is because it takes about 100 bucks to move a
car. So if I call out Ken's Towing to pull out a car, it's about $100.
O'HARA: And that doesn't cover I mean, that doesn't count all the costs of
going out and ticketing it, and the police going out at first and putting their sticker on it,
and all these
LEONARD: Well, and I see these suggestions eventually being looked at by some work
group, and some work group that gets into the more nitty - gritty details and saying okay,
well ISO may be too high. Maybe it should be 110. Or maybe it should be 100, or
whatever. But I mean, these are just rough estimates that I threw out.
O'HARA: Yeah, other jurisdictions do this, and I've looked into this before. I used to be
the recycling coordinator for the county, but anyway and that's a pretty common fee
amount.
12
LEONARD: Okay. Okay, my fifth suggestion is to County Code review /update schedule.
Currently we have no process that is clearly established to review code changes. When I
go into the Planning Department and I say okay, we have some changes that we need to
make to the code, is there a specific schedule in which we have within the Planning
Department that by this date, we are to make our recommended changes to the council
for consideration? And the council has this specific time period schedule to review,
schedule those recommended changes, and either give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down
on it, and then it gets implemented into the County Charter or County Code. We don't
have any process like that. When Igo in - -we have a folder in the Planning Department
when I go in that folder to see recommended changes, it goes back ten years. We have
changes that people have been making for decades that we should be they should be
done. But we have no process to encourage people to make those changes. If we did
that, there's a long -term cost benefit, because we're not dealing with archaic codes, or
people are doing things that they think are correct, but the code is ambiguous. So we
have a lot of lessons learned in our community. Let's apply those to the appropriate code
changes and then have a schedule where we make our recommendations by a specific
date, get it to the council, and have them review those changes and either approve or
disapprove. If they disapprove some of my changes, I get their comments back, and I get
into the cycle the following year, and then in two or three years we've got some pretty
cleaned up codes. Right now, the only time it happens is if something seriously occurs
and then somebody says well, we've got to change that code. So it's one at a time. It's
kind of a penny ante approach. We don't want to do that. So I recommend that the
county look at seriously setting up some sort of schedule demanding that the departments
implement write their recommended code changes, submit them to the council for
review, and then the council has a period of time to review those and either pass or fail
them.
CHAIR: Do most current changes to the County Code, are those instigated by County
Council members?
LEONARD: Sometimes they are, butt mean there have been changes in which we've
made out of the Planning Department, again, piecemeal, that we work through
Corporation Counsel and then they present it to the council members and then council
will rule on it.
Okay, recommendation 6 is in regards to changing the way in which we right now we
appoint deputy directors as well as our director positions. I think we lose a tremendous
amount of continuity in the county by having the two top positions in our departments
appointed. My recommendation is that the deputy director position should be a
permanent, civil service position to ensure continuity, but more importantly to put
somebody in the position of being responsible for the organization, and directing the
affairs of the organization. My personal observation is that I see some of these positions,
because they are political, not really doing the work at hand of directing the departments
towards their mission, their vision, their goals we don't even have that in our
department so deputy directors are valuable from that standpoint of putting somebody
at the helm and controlling what's going on in the departments. So that's kind of a
political hot potato that I think could be juggled, but I think there's tremendous value
there to consider. Any questions?
13
Okay, number 7. Create Type -II housing. This is just Type II housing is just a title. It
could be Type K, it could be Type B, it could be whatever you want to call it. But I just
call it Typell because we have one type out there, and that's a permitted house. Typell
housing would also be a permitted house, but it's for all those people that live out there
in Rubbermaid sheds, tents, lean -tos, carports, buses. I mean, there are a lot of folks out
there that live in shacks and such. Several years ago I had found out that there was an
effort by Building Division folks as well as I think we have one of our zoning inspectors
involved in it to build a very minimum structure. And this structure would be easily
built, very cheap, and so they came up with a couple designs. And at that time, the
Department of Health came along and says well no, you can build that but you still have
to have a cesspool or a septic system. And that's very costly. And if you look how these
people live already, they don't have any cesspools or septic systems. They don't they
may have a basic water catchment system. But they live really off the land. They're very
basic in their lifestyle. And I would say that the way to approach this is to not try to
make people conform to our established building standards, to find an alternative for
people that want to live a little bit off the grid, a little more simply - -to be able to have a
home that still meets health and safety issues but are not restricted to our building
standards. Typell housing is similar to Type K in Mendocino, Sonoma counties in
California, where they allow people to build basically the structure they want to build in
rural developments. And I made some recommendations here as to what some of the
parameters would be. Minimum square footage, 120 square foot. If you think of that and
go wow, that's not very big. But that's a 10 -by -12 foot tent. And there's a lot ofpeople
that are living in tents smaller than that. A Rubbermaid shed, in which I've found people
living in, is 7 -by -7. And when you find people living in buses, they're not living in the
whole bus. Half that bus is full of stuff. And so they're living in just a small,
compartmentaled portion of that bus. So if we found away in which people are able to
live in a structure that is permitted by the county, that is cheap to build, that can be
expanded upon, I think that we would find more people willing to do that. When you
eliminate the high -cost items such as cesspool, septic system, and replace that with a
Hawai `i approved composting toilet, when you use rain water rather than hooking up to
the county water system, if you happen to be in an area like that, you can reduce the cost
of housing significantly. And you'll also find community groups and organizations that
are involved in helping people building homes who might be able to help a lot more
people if the cost is significantly reduced. We also increase costs by saying okay, when
you come into the Building Department, you now have to have it architecturally stamped,
and that costs $700 or more. If we have architecturally approved already homes, in
which people can go, that's what I'm going to build and this is where I'm going to place
it, then you've already got the architect approval for that structure. So then all we need
to do is just make sure that it was built accordingly. So I think there's a better way of
handling our problems with housing than ignoring it, which is basically what we're
doing right now. We find somebody that's in an illegal structure, we got a complaint,
we're forced by law to follow through with that, and they have to move. So where do they
move? They find another lot somewhere and they set up their illegal structure there until
somebody complains about it. So I think we need to take a pro- active approach towards
this.
14
PROVALENKO: We have something like that currently in Kawaihae-- Kawaihae
transitional housing, which is something similar to 120 or 150 square feet, which was
started with the county and through private development. When Nansay Hawai `i was
here, they partnered up with them. And so we do have a section of that that's already
been established, but it never went any further. And part of the problem was the cesspool
situation.
LEONARD: Yeah, let me tell you a little bit of what my experience with that is. When we
go out and we get a complaint, and the complaint is generally a whole list of things, and
one of them is they're defecating in the forest. And so we go out there and we look for
the obvious health signs, you see stuff on the ground, what's it smell like, and that sort of
stuff. And so then you ask the people, well, where do you go to the bathroom? And then
they say well, there's a five gallon bucket over there. That's where we go. Oh, okay.
Well, if you call Department of Health and say well, you know they don't have a port -a-
toilet or anything and they're going over there in that bucket, they'll come out and they'll
confirm that and they'll say well, you're going in the bucket. What do you do with that?
Well, we take it down to the transfer station. Okay, they throw it in the transfer station.
Is that allowed? Yes, it's allowed. And then I think- -well, wait a minute. If we're talking
about Type -II housing - -and years ago that was not approved because you had to have a
septic system or a cesspool but then here the Department of Health allows you to go to
the restroom in a fivegallon bucket and throw it into a transfer station. Why on the one
hand are you telling people you have to have cesspools and septic systems, and then on
the other hand allow people to use a fivegallon bucket? There's a disconnect there.
And then when you know, or find out that in the state of Hawai `i composting toilets are
approved for use, then why don't we promote that? Why don't we allow that? So there's
certainly I think there's a lot of things that are allowed, we just need to coordinate
better and work towards some clear solutions to these problems.
CHAIR: You said that this was allowed in some rural areas of California?
LEONARD: Right -- Sonoma, Mendocino County, Humboldt County I think as well. It's
called Type K housing.
CHAIR: So it's restricted to certain rural areas within the county, or the entire county?
LEONARD: No, it's to rural areas. So I don't think you can come into city limits and
build the Type K housing. But this is kind of for people that live out in the remote
regions, kind of, and to give them
CHAIR: - -So how do you envision that working here? What do you call a rural area
versus a city, since our zoning's a little different than it is in California?
LEONARD: Right, right. Well, typically what's happening right now I mean, you
would say okay, places like Hawaiian Paradise Park or Hawaiian Shores, Hawaiian
Acres would you allow that sort of thing to take place? Is it going to be a function of
because those lots are fairly small - -is it going to be something that you'd allow on large
acreage, agriculturally zoned properties? Those are things that we'll have to work out.
It's not clear. But I can say this, is that what I have seen on several occasions is a person
15
from the mainland will see a lot, and he says oh, I want to buy that lot. And they may buy
that lot from a picture on a real estate site. Okay, so then they grub it, and then they
contract out to somebody and they build a house on it. And then they sell their property
in Florida and they come here, they move into their home, and they're sitting on the back
veranda, and they're looking out and they see some guy living in a tent. Or they see some
house that's close to their property and they go, well, that looks like an illegal structure.
And then they file a complaint, all right. So then we have now where we have this
established ohana for 15, 20 years because some of these people have lived in tents for
a long time. Some of these people have lived in these illegal structures for a long time.
And now we have a newcomer coming in, and they set up their place, but they don't like
their environment anymore. And now they want the environment changed to what they
find suitable. So it's like we're allowing outside influence to come in and to change our
ohana, and so is one of the solutions to that to establish Type -II housing, where now
there's this architecturally approved structure? It may not look like this house over here,
but at least it's a permitted structure and the individual could still live on his land and be
within the county permits. So I would it may not be what this person wants to see next
door, but it may be something that is more acceptable to them when they find out that oh,
okay, well, it's not exactly what I wanted. I guess I'll have to plant some podocarpus
there or something so I don't see it. I think those issues we'll just have to hammer them
out a little more in detail, because people may disagree with 120 square feet, because
right now the Building Code says 500 square feet.
MATSUDA: What happens say you have a permitted structure at 120 square feet and
they want to extend it another 40 square feet? Now, do you have to apply for another
building permit for that additional 40 square feet?
LEONARD: Yes, you would. Yeah. But you wouldn't do 40 square feet. So the idea
here that I had in design possibilities is that you would design these homes 120 square
foot, that's Module A. 100 square feet, another 120, that's Module B. Maybe a 200
square foot module is C.
MATSUDA: Right, right.
LEONARD: So a person who's very limited on income could at least get into a structure,
and then later on when he says let's build a bedroom now, let's add some more. And
then these come together and are connected very economically, right. So it's easy to put
them together. Okay.
And I'm already on my last one? Wow, okay. Number 8, beneficial suggestion program.
I come from the federal government. I worked for the federal government for 32 years,
and we had a beneficial suggestion program. And I loved it, because I came up with lots
of ideas and implemented things. And I actually got some nice paychecks from that. But
what it does, it really instills people to look at their processes, their environment, and say
is there a way of doing things better? And the example I gave in here is that you go out,
the county is going to buy a bunch of SUVs, and so they go buy these big Ford Explorers
and they're $24,000. And let's say we're going to buy ten of them. But geez, here's this
other SUV over here, four -wheel drive. It's $16, 000, and it basically accomplishes the
same purpose. So why don't we buy those? That saves the county $160,000 or
16
$80, 000, the difference between 24 and 16 So if a person actually made that suggestion,
the beneficial suggestion committee would then implement it. We would save $80, 000
and then that individual gets a bonus check of $4, 000 let's say the benefit is 5 %. But
maybe I have a way of saving the electrical use in the county. Maybe it'll cost $50, 000 to
implement this change, but the cost to the county is to save them $1, 000, 000 in electrical
costs. Is that something worth pursuing? So a beneficial suggestion program allows
people to look at their environment, the way in which they do business, and is there a way
to cut costs. That's basically what your Cost of Government Committee is looking at. Is
there a way to reduce costs within the government and improve what we're doing? So
the beneficial suggestion program would be an ongoing program where people could
submit their suggestion and find ways of cutting costs. So just like I have to enforce a
$25 no street number regulation, but it costs us a minimum of $50, if there's a way to
correct that then we should consider that. So that's what the beneficial suggestion
program is, it's just a process established to allow individuals to make their
recommendations. And if they're implemented, then they get a bonus from that. And then
you would set up it would be set up that whoever the committee is, they have no idea
who the beneficial suggestion who is making that beneficial suggestion, so that you
keep the politics kind of out of it. You look at the beneficial suggestion strictly on its own
merits. Okay, with that, I invite any more questions, and I've gone through my list. Yes,
Gloria?
WONG: Can you it's three parts. Can you talk a little bit about what you did in your
federal positions before you came to Hawaii? Second, you copied several other people
in this letter to us. Did you get any responses or any discussion from any of those people
that you discussed? And of all the employee responses that we've received, yours was
very thought out, a lot more than in your own particular function. I'm always curious as
to why people do things. What was your motivation in looking at the bigger picture
rather than the specific questions?
LEONARD: Okay, I'll answer the third one first. It's because of my nature. I'm a very
broad- scoped individual. I always look at the big picture, rather than just being locked
into my little job, and you'll find out why when I answer number one. Number two, with
regards to all the people that I carbon copied on this no, I didn't hear back from
anyone. But each of these individuals are somewhat familiar with the number one
recommendation with regard to consolidating code enforcement, because I've been
pushing that for sometime along with Mitch Roth, a prosecuting attorney. So we 've
worked collectively on this concept, and I've made recommendations or presentations,
excuse me to the mayor and to others in regards to consolidated enforcement. So that's
the reason why those individuals are on this letter. With regards to my background, 32
years of working for the Department of Defense, my last function was I was chairman of
an international steering committee with five nations for a $2 billion major weapons
systems for the Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines. My responsibility was to identify all the
requirements from cradle to death from the time the program is born to the time that we
take it out of service. Basically I'm responsible for everything to keep it alive, serviced
and maintained, people - trained, parts in the supply system. And I worked with five
nations in regards on that project. So as being a professional logistician for the
Department of Defense, logistics has a broad umbrella concept of what's going on. So as
things are being engineered and designed, I look at the design and say, somebody's going
17
to have to maintain this. Is it maintainable? Somebody's going to be using it. Is it
reliable? So if they suddenly are in a battlefield situation and they need to use this
system, when they turn it on, is it going to work? So I look at reliability. I look at the
maintainability. I look at the availability of the systems and everything that's out there. I
look at people are they properly trained on it, and such. So from that background,
when I came here and became a zoning inspector you know, I retired. I didn't thinkl'd
be working, but you get bored after awhile when you're doing lots of different things, and
this job came up and I said wow, this sounds very, very interesting. I think I want to get
involved with the Planning Department, because I think I have a lot that I can contribute.
But then I have found that there's also a lot ofpeople set in their ways, and so getting
things changed is not as easy to do. And I actually have found it a little more difficult on
the county level than I did in the federal level, so. But anyway, I'm a broad- scoped
thinking type person, and I look at things from a cradle to grave situation, and so that's
the reason why I looked at all these different components. Now when I look back, I go
oh, there's so many other things I should have added to my list. But I think eight's fine,
so I'll stay with that. Yes?
PROVALENKO: I have a question going back to the real property tax. Now, my
understanding is that a dwelling doesn't get taxed until it comes over with the certificate
of occupancy from the Building Department. It's got to be a closed permit to then get
taxed.
LEONARD: No. That's not the way it works. If they find out there's a structure on the
property, Property Tax is required to go out there and do an assessment on it. And when
they do an assessment on it, and if the people come in for a homeowner's exemption, they
get it.
PROVALENKO: So the chances are that there'd be the chance is more likely that the
Real Property Tax Division would have dwellings on the property versus the Building
Division.
LEONARD: Absolutely. That's what I find all the time.
PROVALENKO: Okay, that's I agree with you on that
LEONARD: --'Cause I'll go to the Building Department before I do an inspection. No
permits, so I'm expecting a vacant land. So I get there, and I'll find a house. Or I may
find six dwellings.
O'HARA: We had that question. I think maybe you were not at the last meeting?
PROVALENKO: No, I wasn't.
O'HARA: The tax director the director of the Real Property Division was here, and we
had that question. And they still allow a homeowner's exemption for unpermitted
dwellings.
IV
LEONARD: One of the things with the consolidated enforcement I want to emphasize, is
that I think what I have recommended, when this is done, if it is ever pursued, is that it's
called Code Compliance Office. I really like the terminology compliance vice
enforcement- -even though we're with the Police, if we went to that department. Code
Compliance Office. Our focus is to bring people into compliance. When I go out and do
an inspection, you may end up with a fine. But if you're there trying to come into
compliance, then you can avoid the fines. The fines get kicked in when people ignore us,
when they don't respond to the letters, when they don't pickup the letters. When they
want to fight us, that's when fines start developing. And so if people are working with us,
we'll give them the time that they need. As you know, in our own community we have a
lot of Micronesians who are coming and living in our community. And some of the
places that they live are not permitted structures. So when we go and we get a complaint
on these people, we try to work with them to get into a permitted structure. Now I have a
case now that's going on two years. But these people have got their cesspool in, they got
their foundation going. They're slow, but at least they're heading the right direction. So
code compliance is to help people that are not in compliance with the code to come into
compliance, very simply stated. So our goal is not to make money for the county. Our
goal is to try to maintain harmonious communities and keep everybody happy.
CHAIR: Any other questions? Well thank you so much. You said you could have
suggested more things, and we are still open to additional suggestions, so feel free to
and we may talk to you again if you do that but feel free to give us any additional
thoughts, suggestions you may have had since you submitted this one, or other things
you've been stewing on, and we'd be happy to take a look at it.
LEONARD: Well I have one right at the moment, if you want to take it.
CHAIR: Certainly. Well, can we?
GARSON: Sure.
CHAIR: Because we actually Gloria has been the one who usually asks is there
anything else you would like to add, so this is
LEONARD: We have a unique community, our island, our island way of life, and stuff,
and we always refer to it as the ohana. And then what happens sometimes, and I already
mentioned this people will come in and they'll build and they don't like what's around
them. I've seen situations where people will come here, they don't like something, they'll
file a complaint, and they'll go back to the mainland and we never see them again. When
it comes to the enforcement process, I think that people that come here cannot complain
until they've lived here, until they become here —a resident here, excuse me until they
become a resident and lived here one year. You betcha. If we did that, a good
percentage of our complaints would go away. I try to encourage people to work with
their neighbors. I went to one family. These two neighbors had been going at it for some
time. And so finally and I've been, like I said, adult playground supervisor. I try to find
reconciliation with folks. How long have you guys been feuding? Nineteen years they've
been going at it. And it's like, don't you think it's time to lay the hatchet down and try to
find a way to get along here? So it's a difficult situation, when you have people coming
19
to the island not understanding the community in which they're moving into, suddenly
moving into it and then expecting it to change to their way of life. A lot of our
communities are farming communities. We have a lot of people that live in a residential
area, but they do a lot of farming, and at night time they'll come in and they'll clean their
vegetables in their carport. They've been doing this for 15 years. You get a person that
comes into the neighborhood, buys a house, looks across and he doesn't like that. This is
not an agricultural lot. This is residential. It's supposed to be quiet at night. And so
they file a complaint. And then the complaint is bounced against the code. The code says
it's residential, you can't be doing that. But they've been doing it for 15 years. So
there's a lot of things that go on in our communities that are not necessarily reflective of
what we have in our codes, but we've allowed those to go on because we're not really
strong enforcement of our codes. And so things develop in the ohana that's somewhat
contrary to our code. So if we have somebody moving in to these unique communities, I
think they should understand what they're moving into first, before they start
complaining. So that's the one suggestion that I have. There's a cost benefit down the
road on that one. The other ones I'll write up, if you're still open to some.
CHAIR: We're definitely open to more input.
LEONARD: Okay. And also just to let you know, if you need more detailed information
on any of these from me, just please don't hesitate to call me or send me an email and let
me know. Because one of the questions I was expecting with regards to consolidation of
enforcement is that, is that a cost savings or is there an expense to that? And it all
depends on how it's set up, of course, because is there a transfer of assets from the
existing departments such as vehicles over to the new office that is created? Are you
going to have a new division head that runs that, so there's going to be a new layer of
management that may be an expense? If you cost that out, I mean, the savings there's
going to be a savings realized in years ahead, and if you automate it up front and you
streamline the process where you're ticketing people right at the front end, there's a
tremendous savings of costs with regards to administration. So I don't know I
anticipate some day to get into that discussion. And you're one heck of a typist.
CROSSON: I don't have it all. This is rough.
LEONARD: Well thank you very much for listening to me.
The members thanked Mr. Leonard for his presentation, and he wished them luck on the
job ahead of them.
Mr. Leonard left the meeting at 11:27 a.m.
The Chair called for a five - minute break.
The meeting was called back to order at 11:35 a.m.
The commissioners discussed Mr. Leonard's presentation and ideas, as follows:
20
Consolidation of enforcement/compliance into one department.
Ms. O'Hara thought it was an excellent idea and would cut many costly steps. It would
also cost the county to implement or create the new department and may require a change in the
County Charter or going through the election process.
Ms. Garson suggested that the commissioners focus on the suggestions themselves but
not get bogged down in the details of how to implement them, as that could be left to the
administration and council.
Ms. O'Hara stated she felt it is important for them to think of the process, because when
the Environmental Management Department was created, there was no budgeting for it or
allocation of employees to be transferred from the Public Works Department. As a consequence,
the DEM had a hard start and has taken years to develop the capacity to function properly.
Certain details of the process should be worked out up front.
Ms. Wong suggested it be done as a pilot project within another department, in order to
be tested out. Both she and Ms. O'Hara said they liked this suggestion of Mr. Leonard the most.
The Chair said they could maintain this recommendation in their draft as is for now, and
then add other recommendations to it, such as where the personnel would come from. She
agreed with Ms. Garson that they shouldn't get too involved in the nitty - gritty details. However,
Ms. O'Hara's observations about what happened with DEM could be included.
Ms. O'Hara said that as they proceed in their task, they may discover other consolidations
to recommend, and a task force to look at them may be more efficient.
Mr. Matsuda said the Code Compliance Office could be made a part of an existing
department, rather than created as a new department in itself.
The Chair asked the commissioners how they wanted to handle the recommendation
did they want it carried forward in its current form, or did they want to add to it? Did they want
a section on potential consolidations in their report?
Ms. Wong suggested that real property tax delinquencies could also possibly be a part of
the Compliance Office.
After further discussion, it was decided to put Mr. Leonard's recommendation into their
report as is for the time being, and not get into the mechanics of where it belonged and staffing.
2. Elimination of homeowner's exemption for unpermitted dwellings.
Ms. O'Hara said she would not vote to carry this forward, as it would be a huge issue for
revenues.
Ms. Wong said she wanted more information on the consequences and wanted someone
from the real estate industry to speak to them about it. She did not feel comfortable
recommending it at this time.
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Ms. Garson suggested that for each recommendation, they take a vote on whether to
include it in the draft report, which needed to be started.
Ms. Wong said she wanted to "highlight" the recommendation but not yet vote on it.
The Chair said that to her, highlighting a recommendation meant including it in their
draft. It could be removed later on. In the meantime, they could pursue getting more
information on the recommendation, which meant it would become an agenda item. Or, they
could just vote to include it in the draft, where it would be discussed later.
Ms. Wong said she did not want her property tax increased and that she has a real estate
background. People could be resistant to the recommendation without looking at the benefits of
it.
Ms. Provalenko said the dwellings are unpermitted and should not be there anyway.
Ms. O'Hara said she has studied this issue and could not see why they wouldn't want to
promote this recommendation.
The Chair said that they should retitle Mr. Leonard's recommendation, which was to
increase property tax for unpermitted dwellings, to eliminate homeowners' exemptions for
unpermitted dwellings. She moved to Mr. Leonard's next recommendation.
3. Mandatory bus trade -in program.
Mr. Matsuda said he had no comment on this.
The Chair asked whether it was a viable recommendation they'd feel proud to include in
their report, and Ms. O'Hara said she could not see how it would directly reduce costs to the
government.
Ms. Wong suggested contacting the departments that would be affected by the
recommendations, to get their response.
The Chair said they could decide later whether to send a draft of their report to
department heads for their comments before finalization.
Ms. Wong was concerned that the departments involved would have no say if they
weren't informed of the recommendations, but the Chair said they would have plenty of
opportunity to respond. If a department responds persuasively that a recommendation is not
workable, elimination of that recommendation could be discussed.
Ms. Provalenko agreed with the Chair.
The Chair asked if they wanted this recommendation in the draft for now, and the general
consensus was yes.
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4. Auto salvage fee.
The Chair asked if they wanted this recommendation in the draft, and the general
consensus was yes.
County Code review /update schedule.
Ms. O'Hara said she absolutely wanted this recommendation in their report.
6. Permanent deputy director positions.
Ms. O'Hara said that although this would have a positive impact on overall performance,
it would be hard to make a direct case for cost savings or revenue enhancement with it, and
would be getting into the political arena.
Ms. Provalenko said she liked the idea of continuity, and there could be a cost savings in
the sense that when a director and deputy are appointed, they have to deal with a learning curve.
Ms. Wong said that at an earlier meeting they talked about union involvement, and
Human Resources had answered no at that point.
The Chair wondered whether someone from Human Resources could talk to them about
union issues. She was concerned about the suggestion, because they did not know enough, and
asked whether it should be included in their draft.
Ms. O'Hara said she was opposed to it but that it could be left in the draft.
7. Create Type -II housing.
The Chair commented that this was a huge issue and seemed a good idea. She asked if
they should include it in their draft.
Ms. Wong said she wanted more information. She favored the idea, but wanted to know
what the Board of Realtors had to say about it.
The Chair suggested they include it on their draft, and they could later invite people to
discuss it further. She wanted to have it on paper so it would not be forgotten about. The others
agreed.
Beneficial suggestion program.
Mr. Matsuda did not want to recommend this.
Ms. Wong said she liked it least of all Mr. Leonard's suggestions.
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6. DISCUSSION OF SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT PRESENTED AT OCTOBER 22,
2010, AND NOVEMBER 3, 2010, MEETINGS
A. Operations, Budget, and Consolidation Report.
Ms. Wong had distributed a handout. She and Bill Takaba had met with Ron Takahashi,
Warren Lee, BJ Leithead Todd, and Nancy Crawford. She had tried to make her report more
factual than interpretive.
Ms. Wong basically read her report to the commissioners. See her report on "meeting
summaries" dated October 12, 2010.
The Chair asked Ms. Wong if there was anything in her report she wanted to include in
their draft recommendations. Ms. Wong said some of the items were already noted. Ms.
Leithead Todd felt very strongly about eliminating action committees.
Ms. O'Hara said she agreed with eliminating action committees, having been on one
herself, and that it should be up to Planning to move CDP guidelines forward. Planning is
developing the expertise internally, and the action committees are just an added expense.
Ms. Wong said her gut feeling was to agree.
The Chair said she also was involved in an action committee, which had been specifically
requested because it was felt the county would ignore the things in the CDP. The action
committee tried to ensure that things in the CDP came to fruition, because previously they had
not. She felt action committees were needed.
Ms. O'Hara said that the last CDP which came out of Puna was never adopted. It sat on a
shelf at Planning and was ignored. If a CDP is adopted by ordinance, it is a requirement of
Planning to implement it. Otherwise, a community's recourse would be to voice its concerns to
the Council. Ms. Leithead Todd's point may be that action committees are redundant because a
community can get involved instead. She believes the community can now trust Planning to
implement a CDP.
The Chair said they could specifically talk about what Ms. Leithead Todd brought up and
see if they could come to a resolution, or they could talk about the boards and commissions
brought up by her one at a time and try to get a handle on them. It could be a future agenda item.
The latter was agreed upon.
The Chair said she wanted to start moving towards drafting a report and listing
recommendations, to make sure none were lost.
Ms. O'Hara brought up Nancy Crawford's section of Ms. Wong's report, where she had
discussed the high cost of video broadcasting council meetings. She noted that Lincoln Ashida
had also submitted input on the high cost of videotaping meetings, stating that the council is not
required to videotape as many proceedings as they do.
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Ms. O'Hara said she would like to add the Real Property Tax Division to the list of
departments on which to focus.
B. Revenue Enhancement and Collections.
Ms. Provalenko reported that she was awaiting information on fines and revenue
collections from Bill Takaba and was at a standstill until that information was received.
C. Technology Recommendations and Adoption.
Ms. O'Hara said a report had been submitted at the October meeting which consisted of a
log of information. A summary of their efforts was also submitted, which is a graphic that ties in
with the subcommittees and some of the over - arching themes they decided to look at.
The Chair said that at the November 3 meeting they did not have a printed report but
rather talked about the meeting they'd had, which was incorporated into the minutes. So their
report was in the minutes. They had not received back a communication from Data Systems, but
it could be agendized when it is received. In their discussion with Data Systems, and reported in
the last minutes, was a county -wide technology plan. She asked whether they wanted to put that
forward as a recommendation.
Ms. O'Hara suggested they do a follow -up letter to Burt Tsuchiya of Data Systems,
asking for their recommendations in writing. This was discussed, and Ms. O'Hara said she
would email Data Systems and give them a deadline.
Ms. O'Hara provided a few samples of county -wide technology plans and said they're
easily available on the internet.
The Chair asked if they wanted to put forth a county technology plan as a
recommendation now, or wait until they receive Data System's communication. Ms. O'Hara
said they should wait.
The Chair wanted to make sure a county -wide technology plan is agendized, in case it is
not actually in the communication from Data systems.
7. REPORTS FROM SUBCOMMITTEES
A. Operations, Budget, and Consolidation.
Ms. Wong said she wanted thank you letters sent to all the people that had met with the
subcommittee members or had spoken at one of their meetings, as a courtesy and recognition for
their participation.
Ms. Garson said she could provide their email addresses and suggested that those who
met with the COGC could be sent a thank you from the Chair, and those who met with
subcommittees could receive a thank you from the subcommittees. However, Ms. Wong felt all
the thank you letters should come from the Chair.
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The Chair asked Ms. Wong to draft up a thank you letter and said she also needed all of
the email addresses.
The Chair asked whether there was any report from the Operations, Budget, and
Consolidation Subcommittee since their last meeting. Ms. Wong said no.
B. Revenue Enhancement and Collections.
There was no new report from this subcommittee.
C. Technology Recommendations and Adoption.
There was no new report from this subcommittee.
8. DISCUSSION REGARDING APPROACH TO TAKE TO TIMELY
ACCOMPLISH MANDATE OF THE COST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSION
The Chair said that now that they were actually looking at some recommendations, they
needed to figure out how to keep track of all the input. How could they make sure not to lose
things?
Ms. O'Hara felt the subcommittees should keep track of all the responses relevant to their
area and that using a log to keep responses could help.
The Chair was concerned that a subcommittee could miss something, but Ms. O'Hara felt
there was enough overlap between them that nothing would be accidentally eliminated.
The Chair said she would also like to explore some of the potential union or personnel
issues. There was a recent newspaper article about county employees being paid time and a half
or double pay for working over eight hours in a day, even if they only work one day that week.
Those types of issue should be looked at. They may want to recommend that some departments
go to a four -day, ten - hour - per -day week. There are a lot of personnel issues, and if there are
recommendations to make, it may be stronger coming from the COGC.
Ms. Garson said the Human Resources Department is the appropriate department to
contact on personnel matters.
9. DISCUSSION ON SENDING LETTER TO MAYOR BY THE END OF THE
YEAR WITH QUESTIONS FROM ALL OF THE SUBCOMMITTEES
Ms. Garson suggested that when the COGC has a tentative draft report, it be sent to all
council members, the mayor, and department heads so that their tentative recommendations will
be seen, and they can invite comment. It may be easier for the recipients to respond to particular
recommendations. In addition, if they're informed that the recommendations will be on the draft
if no response is received, they are more likely to get responses.
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The Chair asked whether they still wanted to send a letter to the mayor. They had
previously thought to inform him about issues they felt were more pressing because the county
was in the budget process.
Ms. O'Hara felt they should take a more long -range approach. Their report may not go in
until June and would not impact the budget process until the following year. They had been
concerned initially about videoconferencing and Laserfiche, but are waiting for a report from
Data Systems. The county has the capabilities and equipment, but more employee training is
needed. She did not want to recommend anything while they were still gathering information.
They need to be clear in their recommendations—define barriers and what needs to happen, such
as training programs for employees or software programs.
Mr. Matsuda liked Ms. Garson's suggestion. It would allow them to receive responses
early enough that they could follow -up and have good information for their final report.
Ms. Wong said that from the first meeting with Bill Takaba, he had said that the COGC
should identify the essential county functions. She would like to touch bases with Mr. Takaba on
this. She would prefer sending a letter out without making recommendations at this point, but
just asking for input. She felt they should still send a letter to the mayor, just to give him an
update.
Motion and vote: Ms. O'Hara moved, in order to settle the matter, to send a letter to the
mayor by the end of the year with questions from subcommittees. Mr. Matsuda seconded the
motion. Ms. Wong voted aye, and the other commissioners present voted nay.
Motion: Ms. O'Hara moved to set a goal to develop a draft report by the first meeting of
March and to have it disseminated to the department heads and other relevant staff so that they
could review the COGC's proposed recommendations and provide feedback before the report is
finalized. Ms. Provalenko seconded the motion.
Ms. Wong said she had heard Ms. Garson, after the last meeting, suggest that a draft be
started. Ms. Garson explained that she had instructed the COGC's secretary to keep a Word
document where she could insert all of the suggestions and recommendations as she typed the
minutes so she wouldn't have to go back later and look for them. It was basically a list of all the
things that they had already discussed and wanted carried forward.
The Chair said she would like to see that list for the next meeting, so they could start
organizing for their draft.
Ms. Garson said the next agenda could include "summary of proposed recommendations
for the draft."
The Chair asked if there was any further discussion on the motion on the floor, and Ms.
O'Hara said that Ms. Wong had wanted the public to be more involved in the process of drafting
the report. She asked if the draft could be made available to the public so they could receive
more comment.
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Ms. Garson said the draft could be posted on the county website.
Mr. Matsuda asked, if their first draft is done by the first meeting in March, whether they
would have enough time to come up with a final draft by June. The others felt there would be
enough time.
Vote: All ayes.
Ms. Wong commented that she saw former mayor Harry Kim at the recent veterans'
parade, and she asked him what his intent was in creating the Cost of Government Commission.
He said it was so that the public has the opportunity to have a say on the way the government
spends money.
10. DISCUSSION ON SENDING LETTER TO COUNTY COUNCIL MEMBERS
The Chair explained that this agenda item was because of the county council's lack of
response to the COGC's letter seeking input. Only Council Member Greenwell had responded.
She asked whether their letter should be re -sent to the council members.
The commissioners discussed whether they would send the letter again to the current
council, or wait until the new council members were inaugurated. The Chair suggested they
delay sending the letter until December 7 and give the council members a response date of early
January so that responses could be agendized for the first January 2011 meeting.
Ms. O'Hara suggested setting January 6, 2011, as the deadline for them to respond. That
should leave enough time for the responses to be agendized for the COGC's first meeting in
January of January 14, 2011.
They discussed whether the wording of their letter needed to be changed. They decided
just to change the reference to how long they have to submit their report and the timeline, since
several months have passed since they first sent the letter.
Ms. Garson was instructed to work on the letter, which is to be reviewed and signed by
the Chair at the December meeting.
11. DISCUSSION REGARDING FUTURE MEETING DATES
The Chair clarified that their meetings were confirmed through February but that some
dates after that needed adjusting because of holidays. The following dates were discussed and
changed, with all commissioners present being able to keep the new dates:
March 25, 2011, reset to March 23, 2011
April 22, 2011, reset to April 20, 2011
12. ITEMS TO BE PLACED ON NEXT AGENDA
The Chair tossed out the following possibilities:
- Getting input from the Board of Realtors (Ms. Wong had mentioned it).
- Invite someone from Human Resources to speak on personnel matters, such as
restraints in dealing with the unions; negotiation of union contracts; the ability to
implement flex hours; how overtime works; combining personnel or moving positions
from one department to another; who is covered by union contracts; how contracts are
negotiated and their time periods.
report.
- Review the secretary's summary of proposed recommendations for the draft
- Consolidating certain boards and commissions.
Ms. Wong was interested in the audits of various departments. She wanted to know how
the departments are addressing that. Ms. Garson explained that once an audit is done,
recommendations to the subject department are made. The department has a time in which to
respond to the draft audit. Once the final comes out, the department has a year to respond as to
what they've done with the recommendations.
Regarding boards and commissions, Ms. O'Hara suggested that Bill Takaba would be the
best to speak on them, so the Chair asked to make sure that he is present.
They discussed whether they should solicit input from the Police Department on having
the proposed Compliance Office come under it. It was decided that when their first draft report
comes out and is sent to all departments, the Police Department will be invited to respond, along
with the other departments receiving recommendations.
If any of the COGC members think of other items they want on the agenda, they need to
contact the secretary to have them agendized. Ms. Garson explained that agendas need to be
specific enough for the public to know what is being discussed. Proposed recommendations
need to be specifically agendized before they can be discussed.
Ms. Garson said it would be helpful to clearly articulate during a meeting what
recommendations they want to put forward, rather than just discussing and suggesting.
Ms. O'Hara said she would like an agenda item to discuss what recommendations to
move forward.
The Chair summarized the items for the next agenda:
- review summary of recommendations compiled by the secretary
- discussion of recommendations to move forward
- interview someone from Human Resources
- boards and commissions
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13. ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Chair announced the next meeting, set for December 10, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. at the
Liquor Control Conference Room at 101 Aupuni Street, Suite 230, Hilo, Hawaii 96720.
14. ADJOURNMENT
The Chair adjourned the meeting at 1:37 p.m.
Respectfully submitted:
Mary E. rosson, Legal Clerk III
Office of the Corporation Counsel
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