HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-06-08 Cost of Government Commission Minutes
COST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSION
c/o Office of the Corporation Counsel, 101 Aupuni Street,
Suite 325, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720
MINUTES AS AMENDED
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 – 10:00 a.m.
Hawai‘i County Building, Puna Conference Room
25 Aupuni Street, Suite 1501
Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720
CALL TO ORDER
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. We have a quorum. I’d like to call the meeting to order.
We’ll wait for Patricia to come in. She’ll be getting here eventually. It’s 10:10 a.m.
Present: Absent:
Marilyn Nicholson, Chair Patricia Provalenko
Gloria Wong, Vice Chair
Kenneth Armour
Glen Matsuda
Eileen O’Hara
Bill Takaba, ex-officio
Kathy Garson, Assistant Corporation Counsel
Shanell Sarsuelo
Sandra Arriola
STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. We do have a member of the public here. We would like to
now accept Statements to the public. This is Shelly Stevens Mahi.
MS. STEVENS MAHI
: My name is Shelly Stevens Mahi. I was told about this meeting.
And I just wanted to commend the county on their services and work that they provide
for the public. I’m not here to actually represent all Hawaiians or anything like that. I
just want to make a statement that from what I’ve been told that the county is very vital
for services. I just talked with Mr. Oshiro to the effect that in the preservation of
services, we do want to preserve the county but in a fashion that needs to be retrofitted
to actually start following certain laws and statutes that are already on the books so far
as there is actually a long list of categories of things that are not being followed. Can I
have that pink piece of paper. First of all, I wanted to discuss the issue of the tax
consolidating and tax enforcement. There’s been some things that have come about
that have actually violated the law. And that is forced removal of native tenants, and
Hawaiians, from their lands who have not paid so called taxes. I’m personally in favor
of taxes for services and what not. But so far as if it’s legal or illegal so far as that
Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer
particular parcel of land has never been fully investigated. I just wanted to make sure
that in the issue of forced removal, there has been the use of even SWAT teams and
what not, to remove Hawaiians from their land. And I just wanted to let you know, I
have this letter from the Department of Justice from Washington. So they want a full
report on any native tenants who have been forcibly removed either by tasering or
excessive force from their native tenant property. Because in Hawai‘i’s own statutes
like HRS 17211, even if the land was alienated, the rights of the native tenants still
adhered. So I’m just pleading so far as the consolidation of tax efforts and enforcement
that they really need to review the laws, all laws that have to do with native tenants and
Hawaiians who have the right of those properties, but they may or may not be taxable. I
wasn’t aware that the Hawai‘i Revised Statute is actually based on Hawai‘i Statutes.
And according to Judge Ezra, that the law of the land even the law of the land what the
police are supposed to enforce actually has to do with Kingdom law. So that those
particular laws are still on the books and have been revised. They actually are all
based, if you look at your HRS’s which the county is akin to the state. They’re actually a
corporation, municipal corporation of the state.
Now, the next one is general government activities and what not. You may have heard
that in other counties that the Hawaiians are actually bringing forth an effort to serve
their determination. And in other counties, they have actually extended an effort to
meet with the Hawaiians and to work something out. And so I’m pleading with you here
today to look at the issue that was brought forth, actually from the White House under
Title VI, that the Hawaiians do have the right to self determination. But as I mentioned
before they’re very interested in the county services. But as I mentioned to Mr. Oshiro
the county need to be retrofitted and the people informed of actual laws that would bind
the county to allow for self determination, maintain services and in a nonchaotic
manner. And just to let you know, I have been appointed by a federal agent. Actually I
have a badge and what not, but to protect the native tenants along the trails particularly
in the County of Hawai‘i. So, I’m here to, I have training in culture resource
management. So, a lot of these issues, it’s a matter of Memorandum of Agreement that
you can make. I was informed that the mayor has the right to put stuff forward to do
that so that the county, in particular, can save itself a lot of grief and lawsuits and all
these other things that might be coming down even so far as Geneva IV and human
rights violations and other things. In particular that the county and the state are both
bound to what’s called the Statehood Admission Act. And especially in the judicial
system that they must uphold the rights and protect the Hawaiian culture and their
religion. They must not cause them to diminish. And if they do Congress could sue the
State of Hawai‘i and remove their statehood. And as we speak right now, there have
actually been a lot of violations that have already occurred. That doesn’t mean to say
that the county cannot start asserting itself into proper ethical, moral function and try to
work out these efforts in an internal way, to reach out to the Hawaiians and make a
better working arrangement even from within the county works and what not.
The other thing, public safety, that in particular does happen to do with this letter from
Washington. And so that they want dates of assaults, sequence of events, names of
police officers, reports involving what you call federal criminal civil rights violations. So,
basically they’re not supposed to be under Title 42 that the Hawaiians have rights under
customs and usage. And I know that they made the defendant to be called citizens
because the apology geared to overturn all that. They don’t want to be called citizens.
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They would call them nationals, Hawaiian nationals of the belligerent occupied legal
nation state which was independent. But what I would say to them and to you today is
that the United States constitution does protect persons. And it protects persons from
excessive force. And what I was alarmed, that I’ve seen, which I don’t know if you’ve
heard of it, but on April 5, there was a highly, what the Hilo police called a highly
irregular procedure where police from Kona and Naalehu were called in and they had a
native tenant right in front of my face, slammed on the ground. And even though I
informed them I was volunteer for Federal agent Eric Arakaki, to protect these people’s
native tenant right. And that I was seeking a Memorandum of Agreement which would
actually save the county $6 million and all they have to do is go down and talk with the
native tenant, work out something. And I’m speaking in particular of Kawa in Ka‘u. And
in that incident, basically that the whole thing could have been avoided. One of the
police officers was willing to work with the native tenant and was willing to call the U.S.
marshal, SHIPPO, DLNR, all the people that should have been called sheriffs. But that
wasn’t done. And then the county actually had a charge filed against them for
constitutional right violations of the native tenant. So we want to make sure that, you
know, I recommended to the Hilo police station. I’ve not given them a copy of the letter,
but I’ve informed them of the letter and the report that was supposed to be going in. But
I think it would do a lot to try to foresee and look at the type of protocol we have. And I
was informed that the, which was a real shock to me, that the police, in particular, the
Big Island, is not accredited and they have not been accredited this entire time. And
they themselves stated that they were subnational standards. They do not know
constitutional rights of native tenants. I’ve informed Office of Hawaiian Affairs about
these issues so they are interested in maybe doing funding or looking at some sort of
symposium or workshop or whatever to inform the police, the county, whoever is
involved in this issue that there is no excessive force, what are the rights of the native
tenant? And in this case of Kawa, and I have seen the documents myself just by going
over the native tenant rights, that I believe is page 3 or page 4 of this quiet title action,
native tenant rights were preserved. And so that even if you made Kawa into a park,
the native tenant rights are still preserved. So, right now is a very adversarial situation
which could be alleviated through proper consultation under Ordinance 0842, because I
know that the County of Hawai‘i is seeking to be a certified local government. And then
you would get a lot of funds coming in for historic preservation. Basically any building
that is 50 years or older, you could receive funding. The whole Hilo, I don’t know how
much funds are available. Like all Hilo bayfront, the Akebono theater in Pahoa, but also
all of our cultural sites. But this includes, number one is consultation. And right now
nobody knows how to do proper consultation.And they say, well, we talked to the
Hawaiians. No, talking at them or telling them what to do is not the same as
consultation. And so, I work also with Washington with NAPTHA, National Association
of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers which are operated in this fashion to SHIPO,
Theresa Donham in particular, who is trying to look at stopping encroachment on
cultural landscapes. But the issue is that consultation is severely lacking and
apparently nobody seems to know how to do that. So what we’re looking at as possible
funding to come in and do the consultation protocol training. So, even if we don’t have
funding coming in, I still suggest that we make an effort to preserve the integrity of this
county. It would go a long way to alleviate a lot of issues under Genova IV human right
violations. And then also under UNESCO, it’s illegal to sell or transfer cultural
properties. In this case it has to do with allodial title. So, in that respect, it’s not so far
off and it’s not impossible to do that. We just need to take a few positive steps and to at
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least show good faith that we will preserve the rights of these people who are in our
trust.
And then also under Civil Defense and I’ll combine it with the health issue. I just wanted
to let you know that Puna Geothermal Venture, I have gone over, I was involved with
Civil Defense, Harry Kim, some time ago. Basically that PGV did have criminal
infractions. They lied to Harry Kim. They didn’t tell him there was a blow out for 31
hours and said was all clear, but basically what happened was the criminal infraction of
180 pounds of H2S per hour. As we speak right now, the county is supposed to have
done six years ago plus an emergency response plan. I work directly with EPA. They
sent me what’s called the worst case scenario. All those pages were blank. PGV did
not provide them because actually they would be fined more than they were. And as we
speak right now, what’s being dumped into the wells is what’s called catalyzed sulfite.
So that actually has lead and arsenic in it which we don’t want in the water. And so
what’s happening is that it’s basically a rust corrosion preventative. It’s what’s called
the royal purple list. There was a copy in Emily Naeole’s old office. I did ask them for
some time to provide it to us. They wouldn’t. I have training in OSHA, what not, so I
went over the MSDS reports and it’s pretty horrible what they’re dumping down those
wells. And so, the problem is, is those people out there in Puna, they’re all on
catchment tanks. And they have to go and get their water. So if you look at inaudible
W3 Malamalama Key, all these different well test sites – well, it looks pretty good so far,
but there have been some very high numbers on other things that I found that the
Department of Health Hydrological, there’s like a four year report. So, some of the
numbers are very high and were not reported. Now the issue is PGV informed me, well
as soon as it tests positive, we’ll shut it down. But by then it’s too late. We want to
preserve the water now. I’ve complained, complained, complained to the County
Council at many meetings and what not. Somebody has got to do something to protect
the water. And even thought it’s not on the water grid right now, someday maybe it
would be and should be, but we have to protect it now. They’re drilling more. There’s
no emergency response plan and they’re dumping all this stuff down the wells in the
royal purple list. So the county is actually being made responsible. They have not
heard of this. Many people are totally unaware when I mention this. But the county is
responsible for the emergency response plan, and I was appointed by Civil Defense to
get together an emergency response plant to me in the communities. So even the
community has realized that, how can we evacuate in a timely manner cause the road
situation is only one road in, one road out. The highways, can we look at different areas
like the Old Railroad. Can we get people out that way? Where are our options to get
people out? Now the issue is, is that because they’re drilling at the well heads, thirteen
hundred parts per million of H2S is possible, which could be lethal in one to two breaths.
So the issue is, is that you cannot get the people out safely. The other thing is to go in
and put the people at the Pahoa High School in the band room. But the problem is, is
that, that in particular, there is no back up generator. If the electricity goes off, those
people are stuck, and you can’t fit all of Pahoa into that band room. And so we’re
looking at early evacuation, we need better response. The PGV has stated they are
willing to work with the county as Civil Defense on this issue. But we need a
coordinated effort. And so I’ve spoken with Department of Education about this issue.
They are very scared, very concerned about it. And so they’re looking to the county for
help. There’s not anybody within the county, save Civil Defense who is actively working
on the issue to protect the community for this emergency response plan that’s never
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been initiated. And frankly, I don’t know if it’s even possible to get people out. So we
really have to take a good hard look at what’s going on at PGV. And I know that they
are providing 16% of the electricity right now, but is that worth the health and integrity of
our water and our people?
The last thing on my agenda is the education.I myself am partially dyslexic. I have a
daughter who basically writes everything backwards and upside down. In the No Child
Left Behind, there is no issue that addresses dyslexia, dysgrafia or any of these other
issues. So according to my teacher at college, 15 to 20% of the entire population in the
County of Hawai‘i has some form of dyslexia. When I asked KHON Channel 2 to do a
news story, I said choose any school anywhere in the state. Basically they estimated
that there is about 28,000 children at risk every year for dyslexia. So the issue is the
worst case scenario is usually prison because these children cannot read, they can’t
write properly. They go out they might steal, anything to avoid going to school cause
they don’t want to feel stupid. And nobody is helping them. They treat them as if they
have a hearing problem or they’ll move them to the front of the classroom. But they
have no proper program that addresses all these 28,000 children. Now I don’t know,
out of our particular schools and what not, how many children we have at risk. But I
basically had to go in and shadow my daughter. She just hated being in school. She
felt stupid and nobody was helping her. So you have issues of low self esteem,
teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, all these things that they just don’t want to be in
school. They’re not getting help. So I’m pleading for you now to do something for all
these kids. Thank you. Are there any questions that you have about anything?
And my address is P.O. Box 711498, Mt. View, HI 96771. If possible, I would like some
kind of written response on any agenda item under anything that you might – I would
like very much to even be able to go back, I’m what they call the talking chief for
Kamehameha III people. I’d like to go back and report to them that there is a positive
change, that we can retrofit the county, we can address these issues, we can protect
the water, we can protect the native tenants. And that we can do something which
would actually bring out the integrity of the county and increase moral and ethical
behavior. Just basically we follow our own laws. Thank you.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES (MAY 27, 2011)
MS. NICHOLSON:
Let’s move on with Agenda item 3, Approval of minutes from the
May 27, 2011 meeting. Do I hear a motion to approve?
MOTION:MR. MATSUDA:
So moved.
MR. ARMOUR:
Second.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any discussion on the minutes from the last meeting? If so, I’d like
to move to a vote.In favor of approving the minutes from the last meeting, please say
aye.
ALL IN FAVOR:ALL: Aye.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any opposed? None. The minutes are passed as presented.
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CORRESPONDENCE:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Agenda item 4, correspondence, Comm. 2011-009. Do I have a
motion to accept and file this communication? This was the testimony that was handed
out at the last meeting from Mr. Fred Housel and it has to do with – he’s saying
elimination. We’re talking about consolidation of community development plan steering
and action committees in the draft report. Is there a motion to accept and file?
MOTION:MR. O’HARA:
So moved.
MR. ARMOUR:
Second.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any discussion? We will accept and file communication 2011-009.
DISCUSSION REGARDING ITEMS PREVIOUSLY RECOMMENDED TO BE PLACED
IN DRAFT REPORT/FORMAT OF DRAFT REPORT/REVISION OF DRAFT REPORT:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Now to the hard part. Discussion of our report. We can take this
one in order. A says see attached draft report. We can go ahead and talk about
Gloria’s draft conclusion, which thank you so much for taking that on. Gloria, go ahead.
MS. WONG:
I just wanted to go over a comment that I, we hadn’t finished the
10 primary recommendations but the conclusion that I drafted was to, if our audience is
the Mayor and the County Council, I put in quotes from the Mayor and from Pete
Hoffmann. And it’s a call to action thanking the people that participated and the last
paragraph is basically a call to action. And this is your draft, the last paragraph, for the
County Council and the Mayor to act on whatever we said. And I await for them
whatever else that we want to do based on finishing the 10 point, primary points that we
wanted to promote.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, are you recommending that we move into our 10 points first and
then come back to your conclusion? Would that be helpful?
MS. WONG:
Whatever you choose. I just wanted to explain how I wrote this.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Since we’re on this, I’d rather just go ahead and talk about the
conclusion, which I found very good. Thank you so much. I just have a couple of
grammatical things to correct but that’s it. Any other substantive discussion on the
conclusion? It was really superb. It really wraps things up very well. My only
grammatical things were in the fourth line – there should be a comma after if any.
MR. MATSUDA:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Changes comma, if any comma.And then, in the third paragraph,
we’re quoting from Pete Hoffmann, fifth line down, I think there’s an apostrophe in aint.
MS. O’HARA:
Yes, there is.
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MS. NICHOLSON:
Any other grammatical or other kinds of corrections? Eileen?
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, I had a few just language changes. The first sentence, where it
says, The essence of the work of this Cost of Government Commission has been to
serve as a conduit for public and private perspectives. In the second paragraph,
Mayor Kenoi spoke to, and I just substituted COGC. It doesn’t have to be though, but
just because we’ve introduced the acronym. Just so it’s clear.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So we’re replacing the word Commission with COGC. Does that
work for everybody? Okay.
MS. O’HARA:
And then the third paragraph, just so we don’t use the words both twice
in a row, perhaps we could say Councilman Pete Hoffmann addressedthe COGC on
January 14, 2011.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Doest that work for everyone?
MS. O’HARA:
And I think the Council should have a small c just to be in sync with the
rest of the references to council and the administration.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, you’re on the second line of the third paragraph.
MS. O’HARA:
The last paragraph, We, the members of the 2010-2011 Cost of
Government Commission, fully appreciate that there are changes that not only should
be made, but need to be made in order for the County to provide the essential services
in a cost effective manner that the county populace will require in the years ahead. I
just relocated the words.
MS. GARSON:
In a cost effective manner, what’s the last part?
MS. O’HARA:
In a cost effective manner that the county populace will require in the
years ahead.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. Does that work for everyone? Any other changes?
MR. MATSUDA:
I only have a suggestion and that’s all it is. The commission can
decide. Where it says on the first paragraph, Mahalo to all the elected officials, my
suggestion is just to put that maybe towards the ending or at the end of the conclusion.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So you would switch the last sentence in the first paragraph to the
last sentence in the document, in the conclusion?
MR. MATSUDA:
Yes. It’s to the commission’s desire. I only looked at it from the point
of view where we’re thanking everybody, so rather than thanking them at the beginning,
which is thanking them overall at the end of the conclusion.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any discussion on that?
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MS. O’HARA:
My comment would be that I like the last paragraph. It has a punch to it.
And maybe end with basically an action statement. I kind of like that.
MR. MATSUDA:
Okay. How about the second to the last paragraph.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Other discussion on that? So, after, you’re talking about now has
been the intention of the work of this COGC and the leadership of the Hawai‘i County
government system. And then do the Mahalo?
MR. MATSUDA:
Yes.
MS. O’HARA:
I’m sorry, I kind of like it where it is at the beginning.Otherwise that first
paragraph becomes a very long sentence, and it just kind of wraps up that first
paragraph.
MR. MATSUDA:
Just because we were talking about the commissions and boards.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, and all the departments and stuff. I think it has more relevance in
that paragraph.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Other feelings about that? Gloria?
MS. WONG:
I wrote it. I like it.
MR. MATSUDA:
Let’s go with however you say. Let’s go with that.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. Very nice Gloria, thank you.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Thank you.
MR. MATSUDA:
Thank you, Gloria.
MR. ARMOUR:
Thank you.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Anything else on the conclusion?
MS. GARSON:
So this is the old conclusion. So I’m taking this entire thing out and just
putting that in so that whole thing is being replaced by Gloria’s conclusion.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We started on last time and didn’t get finished, which was the
further elaborations in the Executive Summary and just to be clear, we have in front of
us three different versions. And for those of you that didn’t submit, you probably have
your own notes on this. So if you will flip to the Executive Summary part and we will I
think, take it one by one. So, for the Executive Summary, you’ve got three versions in
front of you and maybe you have four if you have one to submit. So, for the first
paragraph, Eileen has some suggested changes for the first paragraph. Would you like
to discuss that Eileen?
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MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. You do have a copy of this and you can track changes so
everything that I’m recommending is underlined. The 2010-2011 COGC commissioners
are pleased to provide an extensive list of recommendations on measures that County
may consider adopting to save costs and enhance revenues. In this executive
summary, we are – and then that’s the additional language.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. Discussion on that change. That work for everyone? Rather
than taking votes on all these things, as long as no one objects, I think that’s a good
change. Any other discussion on that? How do you want to handle this?
MS. GARSON:
No. I’m just trying to keep up.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So let’s look at item no. 1 which was the Consolidation of the
enforcement. I see that in the main statement before the justification, Eileen has just
madeCounty with a capital C. I’m glad you’re picking up on those little things.
MS. O’HARA:
Just for reference about the document when you say the county, it
should be capital C.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Is there a way we can just do a check throughout the whole
document and make sure where it says the county it’s always capital C?
MS. GARSON:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Justification. We have some suggested changes or additions in my
version and in Eileen’s version. I was just trying to beef up the justifications on all these
little bits so they’re more, they have more to them. But why don’t we just take a minute
to read both of those suggested changes. Okay, I guess the main change that I put in is
I wanted to reflect that discussion we had which was timely service to the public. So I
added that into my justification because that was part of it that a person is waiting for
this inspector, then waiting for that inspector, and when we can put timely service to the
public or service to the public in our document if that’s helpful. So,
MS. WONG:
It seems like we could do both of these changes.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. I like your last sentence.
MR. MATSUDA:
Put it together.
MS. WONG:
Cause you changed the last sentence and you changed the second.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, right. I put in new language that wasn’t in there before. If we did
that, it would read,Consolidating enforcement efforts under one department will allow
for a more effective and timely response on regulatory violations that are under the
county’s jurisdiction. It would also allow for better interaction with State and Federal
agencies that may also have jurisdiction over a regulatory violation such that the public
is better served in resolving the issue(s). Consolidation may not require creation of new
positions, and may be achieved by transferring existing personnel. Consolidation of
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these functions under one division would result in cost savings as well as provide for
more timely service to the public.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. Does that work for everyone?
MR. MATSUDA:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Did you get that Kathy?
MS. O’HARA:
Bill, in your draft that you submitted, do you have specific changes,
cause there’s nothing on your copy.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Oh yeah. It’s not highlighted so we can’t tell what you did.
MR. TAKABA:
I’m not sure how come this is my draft. I don’t know if I did a draft. Did
I do a draft?
MS. GARSON:
You did make a few comments. It was limited to a few comments. It
should be highlighted. There were highlights. It probably didn’t show up on your
copies.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So we’re going to have to rely on you to tell us where you had
something.
MR. TAKABA:
I thought this was my copy.
MS. O’HARA:
But we all got one that says Takaba on it.
MR. TAKABA:
It could have been like during the interchange between Gloria and I on
essential services provided by the county and I just incorporated what I thought were
the essentials based on what our budget looks like.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, let’s continue then with the Executive Summary and if you
had something, well actually if anybody had something.
MR. TAKABA:
I have a question – the Executive Summary on the first one talks about
enforcement, I’m not sure if, if I recall when Scott was giving a presentation, was it just
enforcement of violations and complaints or was it also initial inspections of properties.
You know like – I thought I recalled him saying when the inspector goes out for
construction, to inspect the construction project or house, he may also find that they
may be in violation of something else. It wasn’t like go there on a complaint or when
somebody calls you about a problem, but more like in the normal course of inspectors’
duty they can inspect other things as well.
MS. O’HARA:
I think that that means the building inspectors are going to remain
building inspectors for the Building Department. But when they find the violation, how
they handle it? Do they come back and then call up somebody in Planning and say
MR. TAKABA:
No, right now they don’t.
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MS. O’HARA:
Right. Well this would have an enforcement division that they could turn
that issue over to. That’s what I see as creating
MR. TAKABA:
Because how we saw it working was you have an enforcement division
with all the inspectors cross trained. So when it has to be an inspection for a building, a
building inspector can inspect several other items as well. So you won’t be sending
three different inspectors out.
MS. O’HARA:
That’s a possibility.
MR. TAKABA:
I thought that’s what he said.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And you’re right. I do remember that it did have something to do
with inspections as well as enforcement. And we’ve managed to drop that out. It’s
whether we feel we want to incorporate that inspection and enforcement responsibilities
in this and then look at our justification again or do we want to drop it totally or do we
want to add it back in as one of our items on our larger list. Those are our options, I
think, is ignore it, fold it into this or don’t try to fold it into this but add it into our longer
laundry list of items. So, I guess the first question is, does it really fit in with
enforcement, inspection and enforcement? Do they go together?
MR. MATSUDA:
Is enforcement both?
MR. TAKABA:
Well, I’m just trying to recall what he was saying.
MS. O’HARA:
I’m thinking in terms of, well my knowledge of different inspections that
are called for, for instance in Planning, all the different sections in Planning. Planning
doesn’t do plumbing and electrical, but they’ve got long range.
MS. NICHOLSON:
But I think he was talking about it.
MS. O’HARA:
Right, but for instance if you have an applicant coming in for a B&B,
Planning Department has to go out and do an inspection. Now, do you want that to be
under the
MR. TAKABA:
I think he was talking about moving all the inspectors into one division
one unit.
MS. O’HARA:
But what I’m saying is they don’t have inspectors in the Planning
Department. They have planners who work on these cases and they’ll go out in the
field and do that inspection for a rezoning, they’ll go for all kinds of different request that
come in. There has to be a site visit, make sure that there is line of sight study on the
driveway, all this other stuff that gets done.And that’s just kind of standard inspections.
And they don’t have inspectors that go out and do that and report back to the section.
The section planners actually go out and do the inspections. I don’t know quite how it
all works at the Building Department. I think that inspection is just a very big, big thing.
MR. TAKABA:
He was talking about Tax Office.
11
MS. O’HARA:
I got called out as the recycling coordinator to do inspections. People
who were applying for, participating in different recycling programs and things like that.
I’m not really sure that we want to incorporate all inspections. But we do want the
enforcement side. When there is a violation or complaint, when that building inspector
goes out for that new house inspection and realizes oh, there’s already an existing
structure on this property and it has this violation. Where do they go? Where do they
take it? Right now it kind of gets dropped. So I think it would be more of an
enforcement.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So what I’m hearing is we don’t want to try to integrate anything
with inspection into this particular item.
MS. O’HARA:
I think that’s going to have to happen when if the county implements
this. They’re going to have to hash all that out then.
MS. WONG:
So you’re saying that it does.
MS. O’HARA:
It could.
MS. WONG:
And I think it’s a preventative measure to the enforcement.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. It is. It could include all that, but I think that’s something for the
county to debate. We could put the word inspection in there if we feel more comfortable
with it.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Or would you rather address inspection in a separate one that we
might add to our longer list. And we might refer back to this one and say that this might
be done in coordination with the proposed new enforcement responsibilities or
assignments. Feelings about this so we can move ahead?
MR. TAKABA:
I was just looking for, was it just a verbal presentation?
MS. NICHOLSON:
It was verbal but we have it in the minutes.
MS. O’HARA:
No, he submitted a written letter, communication.
MR. TAKABA:
You don’t have to take what he recommended. We can do whatever
we want with it.
MS. NICHOLSON:
But you are right. We did talk about inspections.
MR. TAKABA:
Because he made a presentation to the Mayor’s Office too. So, it was
consistent to what he presented at our meeting.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Shall we move on for now and leave enforcement as just
enforcement, but try to keep it at the back of our heads that we may want to do
something with inspections when we get to the department specific recommendation or
to the countywide recommendations.
12
MS. GARSON:
Before we move on, the second sentence, Consolidating enforcement
efforts under one department will allow for a (you did add Marilyn’s for a) more effective
and timely response on regulatory violations.
MS. WONG:
And I was curious on the number one, the way it’s worded, it’s Planning
Department, Building Department, Real Property, and it would be Department of
Environmental Management. I was looking at why Management had squiggles under it.
I noticed that, why does Management have squiggles under it? I was curious as to why
some had department and some didn’t have department.
MS. O’HARA:
Real Property Tax.
MS. GARSON:
Property Tax is a division of Finance.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, it is a division.
MR. TAKABA:
It’s actually the Building Division and Real Property Tax Division.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, that’s true. Planning is the only department. Do we want to put
state before Department of Health?
MS. GARSON:
And Environmental Management.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Actually it probably should say the State Department of Health.
Okay. On to 2. Propose a resolution. Eileen has some minor changes in the basic
statement, contracts with the unionson behalf of the County, with a capital c.
MS. O’HARA:
And I realize state should be capital too. Propose a resolution to the
State.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, are those changes acceptable to everyone? So let’s take a
minute to read the two different versions of the justification. Eileen you have the longer
change. Although I would say, I really thought many of the recommendations should be
a note at the end of it and we shouldn’t start with justification by saying, getting that
sentence we should start the justification with the justification.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. I’m good with that.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Let’s look at Eileen’s. What do we think of her suggested changes?
In your addition, where it starts, Private enterprise has, cost saving measures
recommended in Part 2A. At this point no one would know what Part 2A is, so I have a
little problem referencing that there. So, I like it better as a note.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So it would be Private enterprise has already adopted many cost
and take out, of the many cost saving measures, yet the County is unable to curb costs
etc.
13
MS. O’HARA:
That sounds good.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Tell me why you added, Population growth and the increased size
of government in the State’s three rural counties, tell me about that.
MS. O’HARA:
Because historically I think the reason that we have the collective
bargaining process that we have is because originally the counties were a very small
portion of the government workforce, statewide, the three rural counties. The State was
given the weighted votes in the bargaining process. So I think that situation has begun
to change. The latest census says that and it shows that there is quite a bit of growth in
other counties, rural counties.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Do you think people will understand that from reading that? I guess
I didn’t get it, the part about the weighted votes, because we don’t state that.
MS. O’HARA:
Well, if our target is the administration and the council, I think they’re
very familiar with collective bargaining process and I think the State has 50% of the
votes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Bill, do you have any comments on that?
MR. TAKABA:
I don’t know. I felt the first part is really enough and ending with areas
served, pretty much says it all.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any other comment? I like Eileen’s sentence that ends in, more
efficient operations due to the restrictions on the current negotiating process. I think
that’s a good addition. Comment? We need to come to a resolution here. I would go
with keeping her sentence, that next sentence in which we changed slightly, but in
current negotiating process.
MS. O’HARA:
And taking out the last sentence of mine.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yeah. I guess I would just because unless we explain it further, I
don’t know what it adds. But then closing with the note that the recommendations found
under 2A relate to this item. So switching that to the end of this justification.
MS. O’HARA:
Now do we want to include your sentence, Allowing the County to
negotiate its employee contracts and consolidate that with your next sentence? Which
would you prefer?
MS GARSON:
Have you agreed to take the Population growth part out?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes, the last sentence is removed. So if we were to say, Allowing the
County to negotiate its employee contracts separately from other counties in the state
(capital s) would allow Hawai‘i County to negotiate terms that are more responsive to
the economic conditions, regional disparities in cost of living, differences in county
operations and demographics of the areas served. Private enterprise has already
adopted many of the cost saving measures, if the County is unable to curb costs or
14
move towards more efficient operations due to the restrictions on the current negotiating
process. Is that what you all want to say? And then the note.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Work for everybody? I think so. Yes.
MR. MATSUDA:
Yes.
MS. O’HARA:
You okay, Kathy?
MS GARSON:
I don’t want to ask you to repeat it but.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So it starting with
MS GARSON:
Allowing the County
MS. O’HARA:
My sentence starting with, Private enterprise has changed.
MS GARSON:
Allowing the County to be responsive to negotiate
MS. NICHOLSON:
Its employee contracts separately from other counties in the State
MS. WONG:
Kathy, do you have their versions?
MS GARSON:
I have them. They’re right here.
MS. WONG:
Put one on top, one on the bottom.
MS. O’HARA:
The base document that she’s popping it all into.
MS GARSON:
I see. It’s your middle.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Starting with, Allowing the County and through demographics of the
area served.
MS. O’HARA:
And then my sentence, Private enterprise and then the note.
MS GARSON:
Okay. One more time. Allowing the County to negotiate its employee
contracts separately from other counties in the State would allow Hawai‘i County to
negotiate terms that are more responsive to the economic conditions, regional
disparities in cost of living, differences in county operations and demographics of the
areas served. Private enterprise has already adopted many of the cost saving
measures if the County is unable to curb costs or move towards more efficient
operations due to the restrictions on the current negotiating process. Note: Many of the
recommendations found under Part 2A relating to employee benefits and compensation
are related to this item.
MS. NICHOLSON:
You got relating and related twice there. Concerning employee
benefits and compensation. Part 2A concerning employee benefits and compensation
are related to this item.
15
MS GARSON:
Note: Many of the recommendations found under Part 2A concerning
employee benefits and compensation are related to this item.
MS. NICHOLSON:
You probably need to say Part 2A of this report.
MS. O’HARA:
Yes, that would help.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Number 3. We’re not even on the new part yet. Centralize grant
writing efforts. So Eileen corrected this with county and County. And I think both of us
sort of added in part of what Gloria had said last time. We’re probably thinking the
same thing that thought. So we just came out with it differently. I like Eileen’s version
better than mine. Other discussion? Can we just go with Eileen’s version?
MS. O’HARA:
Okay.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Number 4, Develop and implement a county-wide technology
management plan. So the only suggested changes are on mine.
MS. WONG:
Just an aside. I heard over the weekend a comment about the governor
appointing an information, and it really sounded like this, information position.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. It was in the paper today.
MS. WONG:
But wouldn’t we want to amend this to say that it’s an information position
rather than an IT position? Or not?
MS. O’HARA:
Information Technology is what IT stands for. That’s actually what
MS GARSON:
IT head, Burt Tsuchiya.
MS. O’HARA:
No, the other guy.
MS GARSON:
James Kiley?
MS. O’HARA:
James, yeah. James was actually recommending the appointment of a
CIO, Chief Information Officer to head up the division.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Let’s work with what we have in front of us.
MS. O’HARA:
I like the change.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I thought the County website was a little different from the rest, so
shall we go with mine?
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. We could.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Number 5. Okay, we’re looking at sort of the statement before the
16
MS. O’HARA:
I like your changes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Are we okay with the changes I proposed for the statement? Okay,
let’s look at the justification. So you have actually brought in one of our other
recommendations.
MS. O’HARA:
I kind of felt they were tied at the hip, but its up to you guys.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Discussion on Eileen’s proposed changes?
MS. WONG:
How would it invite unnecessary legal challenges?
MS. O’HARA:
The reason contract processing, not getting a response out to
contractors.
MS. WONG:
Has it been being doing that?
MS. O’HARA:
I don’t know. You ask Bill.
MR. TAKABA:
Well, an example of legal challenge, if you do a change order, it
changes the scope of the project. Somebody who bid and lost the bid may claim that if
the bid was like that from the beginning, might be able to have been cheaper.
MS. O’HARA:
If there’s a substantive change.
MS. GARSON:
However, in my tenure, we haven’t had any of those situations.
MR. TAKABA:
There are people who complain but they didn’t take it to court. We get
complaints.
MS. O’HARA:
They challenged, I mean they say their going to but they never do move
on it.
MR. TAKABA:
It could happen. I guess I just assumed that that was one of the
reasons.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Does this make sense? Will people understand what we’re saying
if we say invite unnecessary legal challenges. Does it help clarify anything? Does it
add force to the statement?
MS. WONG:
I prefer the simpler justification.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any other comments?
MR. ARMOUR:
I agree cause if it’s another recommendation we should put it up in the
recommendations and not part of the justification.
17
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’re talking about the unnecessary legal challenges at the
moment. Gloria, is that what you addressed or you’re talking about the whole thing?
MS. WONG:
I’m talking about the whole thing. Yeah. I prefer your version.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I didn’t actually change the justification except processes and would
instead of could.
MS. WONG:
Yeah.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It’s sounding like we’re going with sort of the minor things that I did
on justification. Yes? Okay, we’re on to number 6. And this actually has to incorporate
some of the new information that Bill found out about the permit fee.
MS. O’HARA:
We both went with the same language – increase.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes, it is actually the same. I had put from the current $25 just
because I thought it sounded like such a paltry amount, made it a little bit stronger to
say how much that was.
MS. O’HARA:
No, it’s good to put that in.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, are we okay with the initial statement as I had revised it?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes. I’m good with it.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Let’s look at the justification now. Are we combining two thoughts
here?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes. I am. If you can just come in a pay a renewal fee and had
$1 million in arrears and all you had to do is put down $25 and keep doing business, I
just see something wrong with that system.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Seems like a good addition to me. Yes? Other discussion on it?
MR. ARMOUR:
I like her change.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Let’s except the justification under 6 as Eileen has written it.
Number 7, Justification. Let’s take a minute to read both of these. This is something
we had nothing for before.
MS. GARSON:
I think Bill had a recommendation.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Not in the justification?
MS. GARSON:
No.
MS. O’HARA:
Fine and/or revoke exemptions for violators.
18
MS. GARSON:
No. It’s, Review the process for qualifying agricultural property tax
benefits through the agriculture use and dedication programs, and require financial
documentation to verify and substantiate agricultural activity.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. I see what you’re doing. It does describe it more precisely.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. So in the statement, are we okay with Bill’s suggested
rewording?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I like Eileen’s way better than mine because it’s more
comprehensive. Ken, because this is one of yours, what do you think of this
justification? I’m looking at Eileen’s.
MR. ARMOUR:
Yes, I like hers.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Do you see that it’s continued on to the next page.
MR. ARMOUR:
Well, if Bill changed it from exemption to benefit, then we’d want to
change it all.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We did that on the
MR. ARMOUR:
The last sentence is benefits?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes, this benefit.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Use of this benefit.
MR. ARMOUR:
There’s several times when you use exemption.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Oh. Okay. So in Eileen’s description, we like her description, we
just want to replace the word exemption with tax benefit, benefits actually.
MS. GARSON:
Then it’s these tax benefits.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Justification. There are widespread abuses to these tax benefits
which cost the County significant lost revenues. Inspections of properties claiming
agricultural – is exemptions the right word in that sentence, or should that – it should be
exemptions and not tax benefits there, right?
MS. O’HARA:
Agricultural use programs.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Is exemption not the right word here though?
MS. O’HARA:
It is an exemption. If you go online and you hit the tab, that’s where
these all are.
19
MS. NICHOLSON:
So in that sentence, we’ll
MR. TAKABA:
It’s not an exemption. You get a special tax rate.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So what should it be? Claiming agricultural tax breaks? Is it tax
rates?
MR. TAKABA:
Actually the way it works is that if you were grazing cattle, and no
matter how valuable the land is, it’s just taxed at so much per acre. The accessed value
is so much, like $200 an acre or something like that. So your assessed value is lower.
There is no exemption involved. It’s just that your assessed value is lower. And so your
property tax automatically gets lower when they apply the tax rate to it. So, it’s actually
a lower assessed value. They go on productivity value rather than market value.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. So understanding that and this is a good catch, could we say,
there are widespread abuses to
MS. NICHOLSON:
Did we not already fix that one?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes. I’m just starting anew – these tax benefits which cost the County
significant lost revenues. Inspections of properties claiming agricultural use are not
occurring on a regular basis and there is a wide interpretation with regard to what
constitutes agricultural activity. In order to qualify for an agricultural use program,
property owners should be required to provide financial documentation that at least
some portion of their income is derived, or will be derived, from the agricultural
production and/or processing activities on that parcel. Granting agricultural tax benefits
for casual agricultural activities such as growing a few fruit trees for personal
consumption and/or tethering a goat to keep down the grass should not qualify for
agricultural tax benefits. This tax benefit should be used to encourage an increase in
agricultural production in the county and not be used for undocumented purposes.
County property taxes are the largest source of revenue for County government and
revenues could increase (without a d) if abuse of this agricultural use program is ended.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Does that work for everybody?
MS. WONG:
On the screen the places where there’s squiggles which means
something is wrong there, - it should be that versus which. So we want to change which
to that.
MS. O’HARA:
Oh yeah.
MS. WONG:
Should be used, what’s wrong with should be used?
MS. NICHOLSON:
It’s just a passive voice. It’s acceptable, it’s just passive.
MS. WONG:
Could we change this tax benefit may be used?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes.
20
MS. NICHOLSON:
I like should better because it’s much stronger than may.
MS. WONG:
Okay.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. Seven’s done.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Number 8.
MS. WONG:
The more you wrote the longer the paragraphs got.
MS. O’HARA:
No, these didn’t have anything. Eliminate the homeowner’s Real
Property Tax exemption for unpermitted dwellings.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So we want to insert tax in the main statement.
MR. TAKABA:
This is one that I submitted too.
MS. WONG:
Madam Chair, can we take a break?
MS. NICHOLSON:
While we’re breaking we can also be pondering these three
different versions.
BREAK – 11:25-11:30
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’re back in session and we’re looking at the justification for
number 8. I would like to use Eileen’s as the base.
MS. O’HARA:
I like yours, the first part. I like the way yours is stated and what I would
do is use yours as is and then parts in Bill’s minus the first sentence. And I would only
change Bill’s last sentence to say, the property owner is likely to pay less rather than
sometimes ends up.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So let me get this. We’ve got
MS. O’HARA:
Unpermitted living structures are illegal and potentially pose health and
safety issues for the County. By providing a Homeowner’s Real Property Tax
Exemption for these properties, the County is tacitly supporting the continuation and
spread of unpermitted structures. Elimination of this exemption would encourage
homeowner’s to bring their living structures up to minimum County Building Code
standards in a reasonable period of time and generate additional revenues to help
support this effort. If the owner of an unpermitted dwelling receives a homeowner’s
exemption, this property is currently placed in the Homeowners Class. The tax rate on
the homeowner's class is 56 – 66% less than properties in other classes. So with the
benefit of the homeowner’s exemption(s) and the lower tax rate, the property owner’s
likely to pay less in property taxes than if no dwelling existed. I wouldn’t mind adding in,
Other widespread abuses of this exemption include owners claiming a homeowner
exemption on multiple properties and on rental properties. The County has the
technological resources to prevent these abuses from continuing. Aggressively
pursuing the appropriate application of this exemption would result in significant
21
increases in property tax revenues without any increase in rates. Both items #7 and #8
in this summary are important actions that the County can take to increase its revenues
and should be considered in combination with efforts to ensure that property tax
revenues are expended in an equitable fashion. The last statement is what they’re very
concerned about, the East/West.
MS. GARSON:
Eileen, did you say the county or other widespread abuses?
MS. O’HARA:
Other widespread abuses. So just that second half of mine and starting
with all of Marilyn’s, most of Bill’s and the second half mine.
MS. WONG:
I think it’s too long.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I don’t know. I think it’s an important issue.
MS. O’HARA:
I do.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And I really like in Bill’s where he actually puts the 56 to 66% less. I
think numbers are really powerful. Gloria, do you find something that’s redundant? Is
there something that we can take out because we said it twice?
MS. WONG:
I think if we’re saying this 10 are our 10 that we want to push, and 8 and 9
are going to be long explanations, just visually it says to the reader pay attention to
these above all the rest.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I don’t think 9 is going to be particularly longer than the others.
MS. WONG:
And I think we tried. I like the illegal and potentially closed health and
safety issues in that one. I like the simplicity of Bill’s. Yours gives a visual, to me, a
visual example. To me, it just seems too long. The readers are going to pay attention
to that one.
MS. O’HARA:
Do we have it all parched together?
MS. GARSON:
Yes.
MS. WONG:
That’s my opinion. If you folks want to stay with the way it is, that’s okay.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We cut the sentence with the County has the technological
resources to prevent these abuses from continuing. What does that add to our
justification?
MS. O’HARA:
It doesn’t.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I would think we could take that line out. I think we’ve already said
aggressively pursuing the appropriate application of this exemption, in another way
we’ve said it. So we’ve got some redundancy.
22
MS. O’HARA:
Well, let’s pop that one out then.I just wanted to get across the point
that if we were to crack down on this abuse, we could probably increase the size of the
pie without increasing our tax rates.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Well, I like the both items 7 and 8 in the summary report are
important actions that the county can take
MS. O’HARA:
To increase its revenues. Okay.
MS. WONG:
That’s fine. Is currently placed, is that just another passive?
MS. O’HARA:
It may not recognize the verb, placed.
MS. GARSON:
It’s passive.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’ve got three paragraphs in the justification, I’d just like to make
it not so much space in between. Let’s move on to number 9.
MR. TAKABA:
Before we move on, I just have a question. Did we leave in other
widespread abuses of this exemption include owners claiming a homeowner
exemption?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes.
MR. TAKABA:
Does that have anything to do with unpermitted dwellings?
MS. O’HARA:
It just has to do with abuses of the homeowner’s real property
exemption. It doesn’t have anything to do with unpermitted dwellings. It is a little
MS. GARSON:
Is it a reference to 7?
MR. TAKABA:
Because I don’t know, if we leave that in there, you’re talking about
unpermitted dwellings. If you want to take out a sentence
MS. O’HARA:
That would be the one to take out. You’re right. That’s right.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It actually isn’t part of this one.
MS. GARSON:
Do you want combine these into
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. You could combine those last two into one paragraph.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Good catch, Bill. Thank you. Okay. Number 9.
MR. TAKABA:
Just as an example of how this relates to the other issue we were
talking about, consolidating enforcement. The tax assessor will go out and they don’t
care if, right now anyway, they don’t care if the property has a building permit or not.
They come back and they just either issue an exemption or they don’t issue an
23
exemption. But they don’t report to Public Works that there is an unpermitted dwelling
because that’s not in their realm of responsibility. And I think, going back to what Scott
was saying, he said, why not make that report if you suspect that it’s not a permitted
dwelling.
MS. O’HARA:
He doesn’t even have to suspect, he will know just by looking on the
computer before he even leaves the building.
MR. TAKABA:
So if we don’t do that first part, the consolidation of the inspectors, then
it’s going to continue this way.
MS. O’HARA:
Not if Real Property Tax quits doing this behavior.
MR. TAKABA:
It’s not that they’re not, all they’re responsible to do is this right now. I
mean that’s what their job is.
MS. O’HARA:
I’ve read this very thoroughly, Bill, and I’m very concerned that we are
not following the regulations that we have for real property.
MR. TAKABA:
They don’t report on unpermitted because they
MS. O’HARA:
Well, no, they don’t have to report on unpermitted, but they don’t have to
issue a homeowner’s exemption on unpermitted.All they have tot do is look on the
computer before hey even leave to see if there’s a permit on the building.
MR. TAKABA:
There’s no law that requires them not to issue.
MS. O’HARA:
Well, that’s circumventing the intent of the law in my opinion. It’s not
written specifically, like we’re not supposed
MS. NICHOLSON:
It seems to me we may be coming up with another recommendation
we want to add to our longer list of recommendations having to do with inspections.
MS. O’HARA:
I don’t know. I was contacted this past week by an owner of a property
next to mine. The property is a vacant residential property. And to my knowledge, they
don’t have a permitted building. So I go online. I was just doing some comparisons on
the taxes. I looked up the neighbor’s lot and I went, oh, they have a homeowner’s
exemption. I just by there six months ago and there is no completed building. So then I
look, cause now you can look at the permits online from the real property tax. I open
them all and yeah, they pulled out a permit, but no inspection, no inspection, no
inspection. But they’re getting this huge
MR. TAKABA:
Someone can live in a bus and the bus can be a dwelling.
MS. O’HARA:
I could put up a utility shed on my lot next door and be there when the
tax guy comes and I drop my property taxes by $800 a year. I have a great incentive to
do this.
24
MR. TAKABA:
I think this recommendation is good. That will hopefully allow us to
make some law changes, changes in the law. The way it is right now, the law doesn’t
address that.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. Well there is a puka in the law and we’re letting it happen. And I
don’t think we should be.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So do we, and I don’t want to stop and draft something now while
we’re working on this, but do we want to think about adding something about
inspections to our other list and it may seem logical to cross reference this to this or not
when we get there.
MS. O’HARA:
We should consider it, yeah.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Or am I hearing that we think this is an important issue that should
be on this list of executive summary so we would add it on both places. I’d rather just
add it in the other and see if there’s anything else we might want to move forward.
MS. O’HARA:
To me, it’s how the County sets, if they go for enforcement division, its
how they set it up. And it’s that real property tax inspector who goes out is required to
file a report with that new division. That’s how I would see it getting formulated. It’s
when you’re developing a new office or division, you have to have procedural steps
outlined for what their jurisdiction is. I’d see that as something that the County has to
deal with when they shape this up.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, I’m still not clear. Are we thinking we might want to add
something to the other list of recommendations on this issue which is not there now?
MS. WONG:
I think yes. That would be in the next agenda item.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. I actually think we should add it in to number 1, consolidate and
coordinate the enforcement of inspections responsibilities, that’s how I would deal with
it. So there is some coordination there.
MS. NICHOLSON:
What’s your pleasure? You want to go back to 1 and fine tune 1
before we move on to number 9 and see if we can work this one in with number 1? I
think we’re going to do that. Okay, back to number 1, hearing nothing else. Is there a
way so it’s
MR. TAKABA:
All you have to do is add inspection and enforcement responsibilities.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Inspection and enforcement responsibilities.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah and I would add the word coordinate. Consolidate, coordinate the
enforcement and inspection responsibilities.
MS. GARSON:
Is it into
25
MS. O’HARA:
Consolidate and coordinate the enforcement and inspection
responsibilities of Planning Department, Building Department, Real Property Tax,
Department of Environmental Management and the State of Hawai‘i Department of
Health (as contracted to the County) under an enforcement division.
MS. WONG:
Is that correct? Seems like what you folks said and what she wrote is
consolidate inspection or consolidate and coordinate?
MS. O’HARA:
Consolidate and coordinate
MS. NICHOLSON:
the enforcement and inspection responsibilities. And it’s under an
enforcement division. So we need to look at the justification.
MS. GARSON:
Consolidate and coordinate the inspection and enforcement
responsibilities of Planning Department, Building Division, Real Property Tax Division,
Department of Environmental Management and the State of Hawai‘i Department of
Health (as contracted to the County) under an enforcement division.
MS. WONG:
On the first line, we don’t have the. Responsibilities of the Planning.
MS. NICHOLSON:
You’re right. It should have of the Planning Department.
Justification. It looks like we’re going to change this justification.Eileen, we’re counting
on you.
MS. O’HARA:
Currently when there is a complaint or enforcement violation from the
public or as a result of the standard inspections.
MS. NICHOLSON:
That’s not a complaint. That’s an observation.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. So, for observations from inspectors.
MS. NICHOLSON:
The second half of that doesn’t go with it.
MS. O’HARA:
No, no, no. That doesn’t sound right at all. Okay, so, currently when an
inspector or member of the public observes an enforcement violation and submits
personnel from several departments or divisions are required to respond.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I’m not sure that’s really getting to what Bill was saying. Okay, let’s
start with the second sentence. Consolidating enforcement and inspection efforts under
one department will allow …. Let’s make that the first sentence of the justification.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. Enforcement and inspection effort, is that what you said?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes.
MS. O’HARA:
That’s good.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, we’re dropping the part about the complaint and the multiple
responses. That was very much part of Mr. Leonard’s talk, was multiple inspectors go
26
out and then there’s this dysfunction or lack of communication between the inspectors
and enforcement. I’m not sure we captured that.
MS. O’HARA:
Well we can put that in as the second sentence just as it was written
before. It should fit in. If we have consolidating enforcement and inspection efforts
under one department, and I think we’re saying divisions, so maybe that should be
division, not department.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’re calling it division up above, yes.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. Will allow for a more effective and timely response on regulatory
violations that are under the County’s jurisdiction. Currently when there is a complaint
or enforcement violation, personnel from several departments or divisions are required
to respond.
MS. NICHOLSON:
But then we’re still missing the, and this lack of dialogue between
the inspectors and enforcement part. Currently they’re required to respond and there is
a lack of communication between, or coordination between
MS. O’HARA:
Inspectors and
MS. NICHOLSON:
Potential violations?
MS. O’HARA:
I don’t know how to say it. There’s a lack of coordination between Real
Property Tax inspectors.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I don’t want to get too hung up on this.
MS. O’HARA:
There seems to be a lack of coordination between what inspectors
observe on site and enforcement actions.
MS. GARSON:
Is it a site inspection? Currently if there’s site inspection and as a
result of an enforcement violation.
MS. O’HARA:
No, we’re talking about just the inspector that goes out on the standard
inspection.
MS. GARSON:
Right. You’re talking about somebody who goes out to the site.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. Site inspection.
MS. GARSON:
It doesn’t matter why they’re there, they’re just there.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, we’re talking about the coordination between the inspection and
the legal status of the property? Or the tax status of the property. What status?
Something about the state of the property, but I don’t know quite what the words would
be.
27
MS. O’HARA:
If an inspector from Real Property Tax Office goes out there, they’re just
there to inspect whether someone is living in a structure. That’s the only thing they do,
Bill?
MR. TAKABA:
To make sure there is a structure and that it’s occupied by the owner.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So do we want to use it as an example. So, currently when Real
Property Tax inspectors visit the property they do not report any violations they see
therefore short changing the County of potential revenue.
MS. O’HARA:
We’re trying to tie this into number 8 and it really isn’t. It’s a standard
MS. NICHOLSON:
No, we’re on number 1 though.We’re not trying to tie it to
number 8.
MS. O’HARA:
That’s why there’s other types of violation and enforcement issues
besides just the unpermitted buildings. That’s why I’m trying to keep the language
general and not give a specific example
MS. NICHOLSON:
So we want to say currently there is no coordination between
property inspections and enforcement of violations.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. We could say that.
MS. WONG:
And the other justifications generally we know, we don’t say what is
current as compared to what was suggested. We don’t say what, for example, yet we’re
doing that in this one and number 8.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I think we have on some others that, currently this, currently that.
MS. WONG:
Well, I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think we need to say what is
current as to make a comparison, just the justification of the benefit.
MS. O’HARA:
I just want to say there is an apparent lack of coordination between
inspectors’ observations and enforcement activities. And just leave it general. I’m
cutting out here a sentence. There is an apparent lack of coordination between
inspectors’ observations and enforcement activities.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Now we’ve totally gotten rid of the part about many different
inspectors going to check the property.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, I didn’t want to. I wanted to start that second paragraph with,
currently when there is a complaint or enforcement violation personnel from several
departments or divisions are required to respond. There is an apparent lack of
coordination between inspector’s observation and enforcement activities. Just leave it
at that.
MR. MATSUDA:
Don’t put it on the bottom of the paragraph.
28
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. The second to last paragraph you have there currently, cut that
to respond all the way to required to respond, and plop that in front of the sentence
above.
MS. GARSON:
You’re still stuck with this complaint or enforcement violation.
MS. O’HARA:
Well, that’s okay. And then we add in the inspector’s observations. I
think there was a final sentence originally.
MS. NICHOLSON:
By consolidating the function under one division cost savings as
well as
MS. GARSON:
That’s still there. That’s up here. That should be
MS. O’HARA:
The final sentence.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’re back to number 9. The first one, I added residential, each
residential parcels. I believe we’re all talking about residential.
MR. ARMOUR:
I thought we were talking about all.
MS. O’HARA:
That was me who that.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Was that you? Okay, you put.So, Ken you said something about
all. So we shouldn’t have residential?
MR. ARMOUR:
When we talked about this, we talked about a low fee like I’ll just throw
in a number, $25 for every TMK. And just because you don’t have a residential building
on it doesn’t mean you’re not using the transfer facilities. If somebody comes and
fertilizes your property they bag up all the bags and take it to the transfer station and
dump it. So people are using it and also the clean up, the illegal dumping if my envision
if somebody dumps a whole bunch of trash on your property and just because it’s not
residential doesn’t mean that you’re not going to call the County and ask them to come
in and help clean it up. So I think it should be all TMKs and that way the cost for
everybody is lower.
MS. O’HARA:
I think the response you’ll get from properties that are zoned commercial
and industrial is that they are required to pay a tip fee for dumping the trash.
MR. TAKABA:
I think in the law, there’ll probably be some credits. Even homeowners
when they hire Leo’s, right now they get a credit for, they don’t enforce that, but they’re
supposed to.
MS. O’HARA:
No, they do. They get it. But I just think that’s the most absurd policy
we’ve implemented.
MR. TAKABA:
There will be adjustments. And even, I mentioned apartment
complexes, it’s not fair to charge them the same as a single family dwelling.
29
MS. O’HARA:
Well, Ken did address that.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yeah. I think it’s in here. And I don’t think we’re going to lay out
the program. I think we want to suggest it and then it would have to be studied on how
to implement it. But I’m hearing that we’re not talking about just residential. So we
won’t use the word residential. And I see that Eileen and I were going for sort of the
same thing, talking about how it works here versus other places. So let’s look at
Eileen’s. It’s the longer one. Any comments on Eileen’s?
MR. ARMOUR:
Just that each residential properties on all property tax bills.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. I would take that out. Each property’s tax bill.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Are we okay with Eileen’s? We’re just taking out the word
residential in the justification.
MR. ARMOUR:
Maybe instead of, in the last sentence, should maybe change it to
could.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Could rather than should, alright.
MS. O’HARA:
Could be adjusted for again take out residential for TMKs that have
multiple structures or are zoned as multiple family dwellings.
MS. GARSON:
Would you want to continue reference the commission or did you
decide to go with COGC?
MS. WONG/O’HARA:
COGC.
MS. O’HARA:
So that sentence would be, the COGC felt that instituting a solid waste
disposal fee.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. Number 10. Eileen had some clarifications or additions in
the statement.
MS. O’HARA:
I wanted to be sure that we differentiate between conferences and
meetings, or at least say that, speak to the two separately. A conference, often the
advantage of going to a conference is all the networking that you do at a conference.
Whereas meetings are things that occur on your schedule, day to day, week to week.
We often refer to a telephone conference but we’re not really saying the same thing as
a physical conference where you go to meet with your other members of your industry
or members of your division.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Are we alright with adding slash meetings in the main statement?
So let’s look at the justification. I think Eileen’s sounds good. What do the others think?
Any discussion? If so we’ll just go with Eileen’s.
MS. WONG:
The first sentence which I agree with, Too much time and expense is
wasted traveling to meetings that are on other islands and/or on the other side of this
30
island. Although I agree with that, that’s been what happens for decades. So if we
st
could add to that sentence maybe saying something in this day and age or in the 21
century, something that instead of starting out with a negative, to say that we’re
transitioning, we’re making this recommendation to transition from what it was to save
time.
MS. NICHOLSON:
How about the first sentence with mine replacing the first sentence
of hers.
MR. MATSUDA:
Yeah.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, I like that sentence and replace my first sentence. That’s a good
switch.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Any other? Are we okay with that? So I see Eileen has added a
whole new thing here.
MS. O’HARA:
This was previously in the conclusion. We took it out of the conclusion
and I didn’t want to lose it because I thought it was a value piece.
MS. WONG:
And that’s where I wanted it to be, in the front.
MS. O’HARA:
In the front, at the end of the Executive Summary seems to be the place
for it.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Oh we have lost and we haven’t replaced it anywhere? Glad you
spotted it. So is this lifted totally from what we had before?
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. I don’t think I made any changes. Let’s quickly read through this
and decide if this is the place it ought to be. We’re all right with this? I like actually
closing with this section with something other than just a list of 10 things.
MS. O’HARA:
Since we’re discussing the Executive Summary now, I would also
consider adding another short paragraph after this if we decide to endorse the Green
Teams recommendations.
MS. WONG:
We didn’t get to it yet.
MS. O’HARA:
We haven’t gotten to it yet. It’s not on our agenda, but if we decide to
endorse it, this might be the place to slap that in. Just a thought.I was trying to find
somewhere to put that if we decide to go with it.
MS. GARSON:
For now, you’re going to add that in after 10?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes. So, that would conclude at the moment, the Executive
Summary.
MR. MATSUDA:
So we are deleting conclusion part 3?
31
MS. O’HARA:
The conclusion is now the one we just adopted.
MR. MATSUDA:
So it’s now in the front, right?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yeah. And the conclusion is what Gloria had done.
MS. WONG:
The beginning of that paragraph, as part of their fact finding efforts, I’m
wondering if that wording should be either as part of the fact finding or our fact finding,
or is their the appropriate word? Seems like their puts out of our hands.
MS. NICHOLSON:
You are looking at Eileen’s version draft.
MS. O’HARA:
As part of their, she’s asking about the word their.
MS. WONG:
Their, the or our.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Well the first line is, 2010 – 11 COG commissioners are pleased to
provide, so it would be our so it’s in line with our first line of this Executive Summary.
Okay. So we made more progress than we think cause we really don’t have to start at
the beginning cause we’ve already done two sections. So,
MR. TAKABA:
If you have duplicates, is that something that’s okay? I notice you have
the property tax fee, recycling and e-waste disposal.
MS. O’HARA:
We decided to keep that. A couple of meetings ago, we decided to
duplicate if it was department specific, in another department, or tied to more than one
department.
MR. TAKABA:
You already decided.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It sort of adds some emphasis.
MR. TAKABA:
It seems redundant.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Well, I think what we also added in a couple of meeting ago some
reference, see also such and such, and I’m suggesting some more cross references in
the report. I think at this point we decided to go ahead and have some redundancies in
it.
MS. O’HARA:
Also because department heads might just look at their department and
if it’s not specifically in their department and it appears somewhere else in the report,
that reason.
MS. NICHOLSON:
That’s where we started.
MR. TAKABA:
You know, talking about Real Property
MS. NICHOLSON:
Are you still on the Executive Summary?
32
MS. O’HARA:
No, he’s moved.
MR. TAKABA:
I’m just looking at what
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’re not on the recommendations yet. I think we’re going to start
with the Introduction and go through and just check and see where people have made
some changes. I’m not expecting a whole lot of changes. So we’re looking now at the
Introduction, page 2. The only change I made was inserting the 2010-2011 Cost of
Government Commission after we’ve listed the four items, just because there have
been other Cost of Government Commissions. I think it just clarifies it. Are we all on
the Introduction? And so you should have before you, because Bill, I don’t think you
made any changes here. You’re looking at the one that I did and the one that Eileen did
and if you did your own personal copy you’re looking at the one you marked up.
MS. GARSON:
May I just say, as to the date though, it says that the commission was
just mandated by the Charter to be convened every four years. It’s not the 2010-2011
that was mandated.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay so you’re right. So this actually we shouldn’t put 2010-2011
there but it should be whose term is for a one year period, then the 2010-2011 met for
the first time on July 30, 2010.
MS. GARSON:
The Cost of Government Commission (COGC), is mandated
MS. NICHOLSON:
Is mandated by the County of Hawai‘i to be convened every four
years and whose term is for one year period. The 2010-2011 Cost of Government
Commission met for the first time on July 30, 2010. And so Eileen’s just changed
capitals to lowers on c’s and then
MS. O’HARA:
Then I added the organizational information because I didn’t really feel
we had laid this out. The report is three main parts and what part 1 is and what part 2 is
and what part 3 is. I’m assuming we’re not going to have a table of contents.
MS. GARSON:
We are going to make a table of contents.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay. Good, good. But I just thought it would be helpful to describe
how the report is organized.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Everyone okay with it?
MS. WONG:
Still reading.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Do we like this addition? Fine with it? Any changes to the specific
language that Eileen has drafted?
MS. GARSON:
Let me ask you a question. You did want a table of contents?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes.
33
MS. NICHOLSON:
I think it’s going to be helpful.
MS. GARSON:
So, it’s my assumption
MS. NICHOLSON:
After the title page.
MS. GARSON:
Right. It’s going to proceed the introduction. And then I have the
general layout.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So do we want this in addition to a table of contents?
MS. O’HARA:
I would.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I think it’s fine.
MS. O’HARA:
It’s just the title page, table of contents, the introduction and then we
bounce into the Executive Summary. I do see a typo here in the middle of the
paragraph, which ends with a discussion of what essential services our County should
and does provide to the public.
MS. WONG:
Which is the one that is current, the top line or the one behind it?
MS. GARSON:
This is the current. I’ll change all the commissions to COGC.
MS. O’HARA:
I didn’t know if we wanted to name the mayor, Billy Kenoi or Kenoi.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Should we give his first name? Bill?
MR. TAKABA:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We fine with the introduction as it is? Okay. We can just flip right
through the Executive Summary. We are now on Part 1.
MS. GARSON:
I’m sorry. Did you say you wanted to add Billy?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes. Go with whatever he goes by. Does he go by Billy or does he
go by William?
MR. TAKABA:
Billy.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, we’re on Part 1 just formatting wise I made these headings
larger just because it’s a little easier to read. And then I bolded A, B, C. Just visually I
thought it was better. So if that works for everyone.
MS. O’HARA:
Speaking of visuals, I put a box around the title page.
MS. NICHOLSON:
But will it have the County seal on it or not?
MS. GARSON:
It can.
34
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. We are on Part 1 the first paragraph in A. Eileen has a typo,
citizen’s desire. No changes at to the second paragraph, unless someone has
something. Third paragraph we are fine. Fourth paragraph. Mine was simple. I just
took out this, Lastly we addressed changes because we actually don’t do it in that order
so I would say we just take that out.
MS. O’HARA:
Well, I had changed it in mine, Lastly we provide our concluding remarks
and reflections on the process we undertook and its potential outcomes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
What do we think of Eileen’s rewrite which incorporates my change
also? Looks good to everybody? Okay. On to B. What do we have in B? We
changed COG to COGC, not s.You made it COGS. So we just changed the next page
we changed COG to COGC. Any other changes on that?We’re now at the Summary
of COGC efforts.
MS. O’HARA:
I just did some formatting to make those things line up on the page.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, I’m looking at your formatting and I’m not quite getting, under
Overarching Policy Issues, what is the
MS. O’HARA:
It’s just separating by tabbing it so that they’re not all run together –
contracting, collection & fees, so it spreads across the page equally. It just looks better.
MS. NICHOLSON:
But the underlining is not there?
MS. O’HARA:
Well the underlining depicts a tab in track changes. So I had tabbed so
it spreads that line across the page.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I can’t quite visualize what’s over there so it doesn’t look like some
weird spacing thing.
MS. O’HARA:
This is what it would look like.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Oh okay. So there’s an asterisk between the three.
MS. O’HARA:
And they’re spaced across the line. Visually, it’s more appealing.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Does that work for everybody?So we did somewhat the same for
the focus areas, you just spread them across the page. Actions Taken by the
Commission – I just wanted to add on mine, that when Dominic Yagong’s survey was
conducted, so it’s a small c, and then conducted in the Spring of 2009. And then Eileen
you have, Received presentations, everybody fine with, including a member from the
Council and the Mayor? And then why did you remove Received and Incorporated
Feedback on Draft COGC 2011 Report. We actually did include one of their
recommendations. The one about the CDL license in the landfills.
MS. O’HARA:
We got feedback on our draft report?
35
MS. NICHOLSON:
We asked for it? We sent out a letter asking for their, not on our
draft report, on, you’re right.
MS. O’HARA:
I don’t think we actually got this draft out for feedback.
MS. NICHOLSON:
You’re right. Okay, so we’re taking that out. We’re now on to
Essential Services Provided by the County. I changed the font size and making the sub
heading bold. And so Eileen had added,
MS. NICHOLSON:
Wait, I’m still on the heading – Identification of the, right under
Essential Services you added some
MS. O’HARA:
And discussion of relevance to the Hawai‘i County Government - I just
changed the language a little bit. Yeah, I didn’t see the tie in between those two
sentences. Identification of the Essential Services of County Government, Specifically
the Hawai‘i County Government, without explaining it a little bit further. Identification of
the Essential Services of County Government, and Discussion of Relevance to the
Hawai‘i County Government.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, Gloria you sort of were in charge of this section.
MS. WONG:
That seems okay, it clarifies a little bit more.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So now we’re looking at that first paragraph starting at, At one.
MS. O’HARA:
This is just a little word snipping. It was determined that a guiding
principle required to study and investigate the organizations and methods of operations
of all departments, commissions, boards, offices and, blah, blah, blah would be to
identify the essential services of Hawai‘i County government.
MS. WONG:
Yes.
MS. O’HARA:
Therefore a narrowly scoped online survey ofcity/county essential
services was conducted for discussion among the Commissioners. Is that correct?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes, it is.
MS. O’HARA:
Local government functions were summarized as.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, we’re fine with all that as changed. So, Gloria, was it
municipalities rather than cities? I’m looking at the next sentence. Does that work for
the research you did?
MS. O’HARA:
This is a direct quote, isn’t it?
MS. WONG:
I’m pretty sure. All of it that, is the part changed, is copy and paste.
MS. O’HARA:
It’s a direct quote so I don’t know if you want to change it.
36
MS. GARSON:
The problem Gloria, Emarie said you gave her a number of websites.
So she wasn’t clear
MS. WONG:
Which one went to which one.
MS. GARSON:
Or if you took quotes from various different websites.
MS. WONG:
And I don’t remember exactly which ones were which but I marked this
one as from Wikipedia so this quote came from Wikipedia.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Just the quote starting Hawai‘i is the only? Or this whole section?
MS. WONG:
No, from the top, Those cities.
MS. O’HARA:
Those cities differ in the division of responsibility. Everything that’s in
italics.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So I think we should stick with cities and not change it
municipalities. Are we going to have any cite on this one or will it just say Wikipedia
cite.
MS. GARSON:
There should be a cite. It’s just that, she’s trying to explain to me what
you sent her and it wasn’t just a cite that you got it from. So she’ didn’t understand.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Could you work with her to try to get the cite?
MS. WONG:
What I did was when I research, whatever I was researching I just put it
into a folder and didn’t quite connect. I figure if I needed to look it up, I could look it up.
That’s why I didn’t want to use references to these things but I could, but it would be
very cumbersome.
MS. O’HARA:
Do you have a printout? Cause it would show the url on the printout.
MS. WONG:
Yeah. I sent her the links.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Could you just try to sort that out with her as best you can.
MS. SARSUELO:
I think she hit on it, it didn’t give her
MS. WONG:
At the last meeting, I brought her a disk of the web pages.
MS. GARSON:
Maybe you need to talk to her.
MS. WONG:
Okay.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Why don’t you two just try to get it.
MS. O’HARA:
Sometimes if it’s embedded if you give a link you go to a head page, you
don’t go to embedded page.
37
MS. WONG:
I opened it up and it did.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, on the following line, In other online sources,
MS. O’HARA:
The consensus was that there are ten general service categories that
counties are responsible for providing which are listed below. Ten general services
categories. I don’t know that there’s service facilities.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Does that work for you Gloria? It seems to make more sense.
MS. WONG:
Yeah.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And that’s not a direct quote anyway and accept what Eileen has
given us there. We have the list of 10 and then we have the paragraph starting – what
did you do here?
MS. O’HARA:
I reshaped this cause I had a hard time reading through it as it was. It
said in other online sources there were these 10 categories.It is evident that Hawai‘i
County is dissimilar for several seasons. But if you’re going to reference the
10 categories, they should come right there. So I just did that lead sentence, listed the
10 categories and then jumped down to It is evident that Hawai‘i County is dissimilar for
several reasons. In Hawai‘i the areas of Health and Education are largely overseen by
the State. However, in the future, the County may want to take a more active role in
these areas.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, so you basically you reordered and I also changed the in the
future part on that one too.Are we okay with that? And then, For budgetary purposes,
the County of Hawai‘i is organized as follows, makes more sense I think.
MS. O’HARA:
So, Kathy, I guess primarily mine is what we’re following.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And the rest fits the same.
MS. WONG:
The wording of the last sentence that you just said was different from up
there.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Which sentence?
MS. WONG:
For budgetary purposes. Before it was
MS. GARSON:
Just one moment. These are the two things – the top one is the one
that was in Eileen’s.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. It is reshaped. You had the County of Hawai‘i is organized as
follows for budgetary purposes. And I put, For budgetary purposes first.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Nothing else here?
38
MS. GARSON:
Is there any reason why this is coming out blue? I think it’s because it
looks copied.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We don’t want it in blue.
MS. O’HARA:
No, that’s hyper text.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We are now onto Part 2 – Specific Recommendations. Is everyone
still
MS. O’HARA:
Oh sorry. There was one typo in the last sentence of Part 1. To
promote the economy in Hawai‘i County. Or do we want to say to promote economy in
Hawai‘i County?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Wouldn’t it be of Hawai‘i County?
MS. O’HARA:
To promote the economy of Hawai‘i County. Okay.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Now we’re onto Part 2 – Specific Recommendations. The heading
would now be 14 point and A would be in bold. Oh boy, this is going to be tedious.
First of all in mine, I took out all of the references to the minutes, the dates and the
pages. Is that what we want to do? Just throughout. So we won’t even discuss all
those.
MS. GARSON:
We’ll leave in the reference if it’s a duplicate of something.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Right. If it’s a cross reference. And then the other thing, just
general before we plunge in here, I thought we might want to make a reference in this
list if something has more explanation in our top ten list, our Executive Summary list.
Do we want to say, See also Executive Summary for those items? What’s your feeling
about that? Yes, no? So, right now we have them cross referenced within the ones.
MS. O’HARA:
We could bold them.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I think that’s actually making it a little too much, but just to say
because we ended up changing a wording even on a couple of them. So if someone is
reading through say a department recommendations, we want to make sure that they
go back and read what it says under Executive Summary.
MR. MATSUDA:
I think that’s a good idea.
MS. O’HARA:
But can we do it just through it like an asterisk at the end of it and then
put note that says asterisk See Executive Summary.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Anyway we want. I just thought we should maybe do it See also
Public Works or whatever we put for some, we should also See also Executive
Summary.
MS. O’HARA:
We could do it that way, sure.
39
MS. NICHOLSON:
Does that work for people? I don’t want to give it too much
emphasis, but none the less, if someone from a department is reading say the
department specific recommendations, I want to make sure they read sort of the
expanded part.
MS. WONG:
Do we want to do anything with the public’s discussion today? I mean,
she came here and gave a presentation to us and we didn’t discuss it at all. Are we
going to do anything with that? Or add anything?
MS. NICHOLSON:
I think it’s adding, just like we might add the Green Team.
MS. O’HARA:
That sounds good.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I’m thinking where that belongs on the agenda. Okay, it’s under 6.
If we’re going to do something with the Green Team and what she said, it would be
under discussion regarding Items to be added.
MR. ARMOUR:
We need to look at the time so if we’re going to work through, then
allow a lunch or.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It’s twenty to one.
MS. GARSON:
Well, it depends on how long your meeting goes, but I would suggest
we have a short lunch break soon.
MS. O’HARA:
I can’t stay all day if there is an intention to go on past 1:30.
MR. ARMOUR:
It sounds like we can quit at 1:30, right?
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, I can’t stay that long. So we’ve only got an hour or less. I was
just going to make a recommendation unless anyone else has word snips for Part 2.
Has anyone else word snips for Part 2?
MS. NICHOLSON:
I have done a lot of it.
MS. O’HARA:
Anyone else? No? Glen?
MR. MATSUDA:
No.
MS. O’HARA:
Ken?
MR. ARMOUR:
Minor.
MS. O’HARA:
I vote just accept the word snipping and see what it shapes up into in
the next rendition cause if none of us have done so. And I appreciate that you did all
that, Marilyn. I looked at Part 2 and I just went, I can’t.
40
MS. NICHOLSON:
I have a couple of things I do want to sort of quickly talk about. One
is I identified which ones were in the Executive Summary and I think we should all agree
which ones those are because we made a change or two. So the ones that we picked
up that we want to add a line to say, See also Executive Summary would be under
Travel policy, c1. And then Staff consolidations, d1. So we’ve got c1, d1, d9, e2.
Under Technology adoption, we’ve got 2b, Contracting is 3b. Under the Department
specific recommendations, we’ve got 2a, b, c, and e. And that’s because we did some
combining. Under 2 Environmental Management, 2a, b, c, and e. And then under Real
Property, which is 10, we’ve got a, b, and d. I think that’s all of them. What I would like
to do is go through the ones that I felt was a little bit of a change because I want
everybody to tell me if that’s appropriate rather than, there’s sort of some minor ones.
Under Travel Policies which is c2, Restrict the use of county take home vehicles – I
added – to those employees who are required to respond to off-hour emergencies. Is
that right?
MS. O’HARA:
We could make that recommendation. I don’t see a problem with that.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So the off-hour emergencies is the right word in there? Under d4,
we had, Pool clerical staff, but I added andaccounting. Is that appropriate? It says
where possible but
MS. O’HARA:
I don’t know.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I don’t know either so.
MS. O’HARA:
Is that going to fly, Bill?
MR. TAKABA:
Well, I could see within the department, like a large department, but cut
across departmental lines might be difficult.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It would work for clerical but not for accounting?
MR. TAKABA:
It’s real specific to the department. There’s already enough work to do
within the department. Small departments is less people.Right now with all the cut
backs, I don’t think there’s much time they can spare to be part of this consolidation.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Right now we have pooled clerical staff among departments where
possible. Is it appropriate to add and accounting or should we just drop accounting? Or
to put among smaller departments?
MS. O’HARA:
I wouldn’t put accounting. I would just stick with clerical pool.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, not do that one.
MS. WONG:
Where possible, well, might be appropriate a better word.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Pool clerical staff among departments where appropriate?
MR. MATSUDA:
When.
41
MS. NICHOLSON:
When appropriate?
MS. NICHOLSON:
When appropriate. Under Contracting Process, a, I just felt like
there’s still something missing here. There should be, somehow this will allow each
department to commence with drafting bid documents.
MS. O’HARA:
To properly define their scope.
MS. NICHOLSON:
That at least will close up the sentence. To properly define their
scope. You’ll notice throughout here, I gave a little space between each one of these.
So formatting wise if that works?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Under Environmental Management we did put increase the annual
fees. Okay, those were the only sort of other than just cleaning up some language.
MR. ARMOUR:
Some of the recommendations we’re made on our top 10, are we
going to change the wording on these individually?
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah, that’s what I’m looking at. The proposed, the resolution that’s
under d, Staff consolidations/eliminations and overtime reduction, d9, didn’t we include
the word union?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Well, actually I think it’s true for all these. We changed the wording
in our Executive Summary and some of them in the Executive Summary was combined,
more than one so if we start to do that, then we got a lot of work on our hands. So
that’s why I kind of think it’s important to cross reference that there’s a larger
explanation elsewhere.
MR. ARMOUR:
I had a couple of changes. It’s just a word on a5, you’re saying
acquiring additional man hours. Wouldn’t it be requiring?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
What else?
MR. ARMOUR:
Under 6d, its’ more of a question, Manager may require reduction to
minimum (one day per month) or deny. I guess I’m just, I don’t understand what that
sentence means.
MS. NICHOLSON:
On 6d. Yeah. I changed that one too to, Department heads or
supervisors may reduce the time off requested or may deny voluntary furlough time,
based on personal needs.
MR. ARMOUR:
That’s fine. I didn’t look at yours. Bill brought up in his email that
something had already been done by the city council with
42
MS. O’HARA:
That was increase the Environmental Management fee.
MR. ARMOUR:
He had another one about the meal reimbursements or something. I’m
going off memory.
MS. GARSON:
I think we talked about it.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It was if you travel to a different district you got a meal
reimbursement. That one the County Council already eliminated that?
MR. TAKABA:
Yeah. It went through already. The time we talked about it, that’s when
it was on the second reading.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Is it still in there? Did we take it out?
MS. O’HARA:
We have it. Reimbursement for expenses one, eliminate on island meal
reimbursement.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So that’s all on island. But that was just one district over. Did you
eliminate all on island?
MR. TAKABA:
That’s how you qualify. You have to be two districts out.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Ours is different from that because we’re not two districts out, we’re
all.
MS. O’HARA:
Okay.
MR. TAKABA:
The way it passed is like that. It eliminated all on island meals.
MS. GARSON:
I believe they eliminated all.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Well, I think it’s okay if we leave it in here. Somebody can look at it
and say, we already did that.
MR. MATSUDA:
So eliminate all on island?
MS. O’HARA:
No, I think we’re going to just leave it in as is.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. Ken what else did you have?
MR. ARMOUR:
I’ve read this either way so it doesn’t matter, but d2, Review and
streamline the procedures for disciplining and terminating employees. I’ve just stuck in
non-performing. I could go either way on that.
MS. NICHOLSON:
It’s could be not just non-performing. It could be other issues I
guess. I’m not sure.
MR. ARMOUR:
That’s why I said I can go either way.
43
MS. NICHOLSON:
How do you feel about it?
MS. O’HARA:
I’m okay with it as it reads.
MR. MATSUDA:
I think the way it is, is fine.
MS. NICHOLSON:
What else?
MR. ARMOUR:
That was it.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I have a whole lot of little ones on mine. And if you’re ready to just
accept them till we get our final, final, final one two weeks from now. Except for the little
fine things, we just made a couple of them.
MS. WONG:
Could we get an emailed copy of what you’ve done.
MS. GARSON:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We’re now on agenda, no we’re still on discussion regarding what
to include in the appendices. Can we quickly go through the appendices? I guess we
had put something about matrix responses. But the matrix response that I did was only
for employee issues and the one you did was only for technology, so I think we should
not have that in there. So what else do we have under appendices?
MS. O’HARA:
I think the only thing we should include are the letters that we’ve sent
out, copies of each letter that we sent out requesting information. And we sent out all of
the letters to multiple department heads. So it’s just one example of each request for
information that we sent out.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay so we’ll have those, the request for information. Then the
other thing on the current appendices list is other than the matrix that we’re taking out,
is Charter provisions. Did we not talk about the Charter in our introduction already or
somewhere else? So we don’t need that either. So the only thing in the appendices is
going to be the samples of letters, request for information. That works for everybody?
MS. WONG:
You’re not going to put in the responses that we received?
MS. NICHOLSON:
No. It would be huge. Aren’t they available to the public to see if
somebody wants to look at something?
MS. GARSON:
Somebody can make a request.The communications are listed on the
agenda but they’re not online. But we have those as a government record.
MS. O’HARA:
Basically it’s our job to sift through all of those and come up with our
recommendations. So, I don’t think we need to provide them all.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Do we have a responsibility to tell people that they can get the
minutes, all this stuff.
44
MS. GARSON:
All that is online. The minutes and the agendas are all online. It’s just
that the communications themselves are referenced but they’re not online.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Talk about wasting paper. You okay with that, Gloria, that we’re not
listing all that.?
MS. WONG:
Yes.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. So the only thing in appendices are the request for
information.
DISCUSSION REGARDING ITEMS TO BE ADDEDTO THE LIST OF
RECOMMENDATIONS TO BE PLACED IN DRAFT REPORT INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Now we’re on agenda item 6, which is we’re going to talk about the
Green Team and but we also might want to talk about two other things. This whole
inspection item if we didn’t resolve it.
MS. O’HARA:
I thought we did.
MS. NICHOLSON:
We resolved that. Okay. And what our speaker said today. First
let’s talk about the Green Team’s cost savings. Do we still have a line on our report
somewhere that says something about support the, I don’t remember what it used to
say.
MS. O’HARA:
I think we took it out.
MS. WONG:
That was online and then we took it out.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. We took it out. And I was suggesting that if we’re gong to
support these recommendations and we got the two pages from the draft report, that we
include a statement at the end of the Executive Summary.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay, because I don’t think we can or should actually list any of
these because it’s still a draft for them and it could change. So I think it is better just if
we want to cross reference somewhere.So you’re suggesting the very end of the
Executive Summary?
MS. O’HARA:
Yes and I made up some language. Also as part of its investigative
efforts the COGC received a presentation from the County’s Green Team. The COGC
supports the efforts of the Green Team to identify reduction in resource use that will
lead to cost savings and meet sustainability objectives in county operations. In
particular, the COGC supports the recommendations the Green Team has put forth in
its draft report Chapter 6, Priorities for Action.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Comments on that? Does that address sufficiently? Gloria, did you
draft something or?
45
MS. WONG:
No, no. I remember that I highlighted some things but
MS. NICHOLSON:
I just don’t think we should quote from it because it’s a draft so they
could change the language and we would be quoting something that maybe they
haven’t all agreed on.
MS. WONG:
Yeah, yeah. The part that I’d really like, caught my eye in their, the things
what we have been working on and it says delivering essential local government
services requires significant use of energy and resources. So, they’re addressing that,
and our job is to look at the lower costs of delivering the services. So, I don’t know if we
can incorporate that, but that was the part that
MS. O’HARA:
Was sent to you?
MS. WONG:
Yeah. And maybe I’m just trying to also cover that in my conclusion.
MS. O’HARA:
Or we could just add a line that says, as identified by the Green Team
delivering essential local services requires significant use of energy and resources.
MS. WONG:
Within you paragraph?
MS. WONG:
Yeah, yeah, within that paragraph somewhere.
MS. NICHOLSON:
You’ll have to say where in the paragraph.
MS. O’HARA:
Maybe the second sentence. As identified by the Green Team
delivering essential local government services requires significant use of energy and
resources.
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, the second sentence would be – could you read it.
MS. O’HARA:
As identified by the Green Team delivering essential local government
services requires significant use of energy and resources.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Now we’re talking about anything else? We’re still on agenda
item 6.
MS. GARSON:
I have a question for Eileen. The Chapter 6, this is the title of their
report, Chapter 6: Priorities for Action.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. This is what we got sent.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Other things to include in the report? Was there anything from what
she said today that will change our report or add to our report? I guess I didn’t really
necessarily see it as Cost of Government Commission except issues avoiding the
lawsuits part.
46
MS. O’HARA:
Well, I think two of the main points that I took away were protecting the
island’s aquifer water resources and providing appropriate education services. We
batted the educational piece around already as a commission since it’s more of a state
function here than a county function. So, I don’t really know how to incorporate that to
the report.
MS. WONG:
I was intrigued by what she talked about, but I don’t think it fits into what
we’re doing. But I at least wanted to discuss it. We so rarely have anyone come here.
And what caught my attention was of course the water, but that she was concerned
about culture resource.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And especially having a dialogue.
MS. WONG:
And that may be saving money over the long term, but I don’t know that
we can pop that in here.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I don’t know quite where it belongs. Anyone else feel like there’s
something that we should include from what she said this morning that’s appropriate to
include in our report from what she said this morning.
MS. WONG:
And what do we do with the dyslexia, 28,000 children?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Good issues, but I just don’t see where they fit in with what we’ve
been doing. And of course she doesn’t really know what this looks like when she read
all that.
MR. MATSUDA:
Didn’t she mention something about non payment of taxes at the
very, very beginning about the parcel of land?
MS. NICHOLSON:
She’s really talking about the rights guaranteed to Native Hawaiians
in Hawai‘i Revise Statutes.
MS. WONG:
She didn’t look too Hawaiian.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And I just don’t know that we’ve gone that direction to even look
into it, and so I don’t know that we can address something we haven’t looked at.
MR. MATSUDA:
I agree.
MS. O’HARA:
The connection that I came up with and this may be wrong, was there
was an article after our last meeting that appeared in the paper. And it didn’t state it
exactly right, but it said that we were moving toward eliminating tax exemptions. And
then it described it better further on in the article, but I think that might have gotten some
concern, she was speaking about evictions of Hawaiians from Hawaiian lands. That
isn’t our intent, so maybe it was misunderstood in the news article. That would be my
guess.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Okay. So, I’m hearing that we have nothing else to add for our
report.
47
MS. GARSON:
The appendices has the request for information, what exactly, was that
MS. NICHOLSON:
Copies of the letters that we sent to, probably what we included in
the employee, to the departments
MS. GARSON:
Okay. One generic one.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Yes. Generics. But there’s several different versions. What about
the letter we sent out to each department saying this is what was in the last report?
MS. O’HARA:
What follow up have you done from the recommendations of the
previous commission?
MS. NICHOLSON:
Right. So there was that letter.
MS. GARSON:
And those also have communication numbers. We gave all of those
communications numbers. So they’re part of the agenda. Just so you know.
MS. O’HARA:
I think it would be good though if somebody thumbs through to see what
we actually did in the way of fact finding in the letters that we sent out requesting
information I think was kind of basic. About four or five.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I remember a total of, I’m thinking four. I want to make sure we
include the request to the employees, the one to the departments, we sent one to
boards and commissions,
MS. O’HARA:
But wasn’t that the same as the ones we sent to the departments, same
text?
MR. TAKABA:
The Council too.
MS. NICHOLSON:
The Council, and the ones that went saying these were the
recommendations from last time and what actions have you taken. Those are the ones
I can think of right away.
MS. O’HARA:
So, it’s not that many.
MR. MATSUDA:
So we don’t need to put the follow ups, right? Just the basic letter.
MS. O’HARA:
Yeah. It doesn’t even have to have the name of the department head or
anything.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And in the case of the ones that were all customized for the
departments but lifted out parts of the report, we can’t really include that. It’s just going
to be the generic part that we inserted recommendations from the last report.
MS. O’HARA:
It can just be inserted recommendations from the last report in brackets.
It would be helpful to the next commission to see how we went about our process.
48
MS. NICHOLSON:
So, is that clear?
MS. GARSON:
Yeah. Actually the letters to the departments following up on last years
suggestions, I don’t think there were very many. So I’m going to just include those as
specific ones.
DISCUSSION REGARDING APPROACH TO TAKE TO TIMELY ACCOMPLISH
MANDATE OF THE COST OF GOVERNMENTCOMMISSION:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Agenda item 7. Discussion regarding approach to take to timely
accomplish mandate. I assume that we are going to get, after today’s meeting, we’re
going to get this, so we all have one more chance to look through it again. And that’s it.
So, you’ll send that out to us sooner rather than later. So, that’s it. We’re not adding
anything at this point. We are only fine tuning. Yes. Gloria.
MS. WONG:
Maybe you’re answering my question already. Now that we’ve got the 10
and we have all the justification, do you want me to try and add a paragraph to
summarize the 10 and the justifications in the conclusion or just leave it.
MS. O’HARA:
I like it that way it is.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I would just leave it.
MS. WONG:
Okay.
MS. NICHOLSON:
I think when we read through the whole thing and we read through
that conclusion one more time, we may decide that there’s something that we need to
add. So at the next meeting, we’ll be having our very last discussion on this report
before it goes to bed.
ITEMS TO BE PLACED ON THE NEXT AGENDA:
MS. NICHOLSON:
So we’re now on to Items to be placed on the next agenda, which is
really just our final review of the report and approvaland that’s it, right? We have
nothing left to talk about.
MR. TAKABA:
You think it will run to 1:00?
MS. NICHOLSON:
I don’t think so. The next meeting, no.
MR. TAKABA:
Do you want to move the lunch up to 12:00?
MS. NICHOLSON:
I would definitely move it up to 12:00. Especially if everybody will,
and we know that Patricia won’t be there at the last meeting. If everyone will just take a
moment to go through it one more time, it’s the last time you ever have to do it, and
bring it so we can just quickly run through the whole thing, item by item, paragraph or
whatever. And then we’re through. I think we can move our lunch up to 12:00.
49
MS. O’HARA:
Madam Chair, in this discussion of items to bring up, I just want to reveal
that I got a voice mail from Jason Armstrong of the Tribune Herald trying to get some
information about whether the commission had investigated whether there are actual
cost savings from the marked police cars versus using the private cars. This isn’t
something that we have dealt with, and I didn’t return the message.
MS. WONG:
My caller ID says Tribune Herald and I thought I paid my bill. But they’re
not leaving a message but it keeps popping up.
MS. NICHOLSON:
Can’t we just refer them to the draft report that’s posted with the
report to date?
MS. O’HARA:
I just had a voice mail and I didn’t return the call. I’m just letting you
know that there was an inquiry. We didn’t look to that particular issue.
MS. NICHOLSON:
And the answer is no. Any other items for the next agenda? If not,
our announcements.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Our final meeting of the Cost of Government Commission will be
held on Friday, June 24, 2011, at 10:00 a.m.
MS. WONG:
Weren’t we supposed to receive something from the Ag Commission?
MS. NICHOLSON:
We were and it never came and it’s too late.
MS. NICHOLSON:
June 24, 2011, at 10:00 a.m., at the Liquor Control Conference
Room, Hilo Lagoon Centre, 101 Aupuni Street, Suite 230, Hilo, HI 96720
ADJOURNMENT:
MS. NICHOLSON:
Meeting is adjourned.
Meeting adjourned at 1:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sandra Arriola
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