HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-12-18 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
December 18, 2014 – 1:00 p.m.
Hawai‘i County Council Room
25 Aupuni Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720
Commission Members present:
Susan Maddox, Chair
Ashley Kierkiewicz, Vice Chair
Douglas Espejo
Delan Perry
Glen Matsuda
(via videoconference from Kona Council Room, Conference Room A)
Linda Kelly
John Mitchell
Also present:
Katherine A. Garson, Deputy Corporation Counsel
Jennifer M. Kualii, Secretary
Shanell Sarsuelo (assisting/observing)
1. CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by Chair Maddox at 1:03 p.m.
2. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC
No statements from the public.
Ms. Garson relayed a message from Mr. Wally Lau: He extends his apologies
for not being able to attend this meeting, due to an important medical
appointment. He extends his sincere appreciation for the Commission’s work and
wishes you and your families a safe and happy holiday.
Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer
3. DISCUSSION, QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH WILL ROLSTON,
ENERGY COORDINATOR FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I
Ms. Maddox: So Will, you’re next on our agenda. Thank you very much for
joining us.
Mr. Rolston: Thank you for inviting me.
Ms. Maddox: So we have the handout. Do they have it there in Kona? So we
have your handout. Do you want to walk us through that and then allow us the
opportunity to ask questions?
Mr. Rolston: Certainly.
Ms. Maddox: Great, thank you.
Mr. Rolston: Thank you for having me. Thank you very much Council for all the
good works that you’re doing. I’m the Energy Coordinator. I am part of Research and
Development under Director Laverne Omori and Deputy Director Donn Mende; and, as
far as the Energy Program for the County of Hawai‘i, I am the coordinator for the entire
Energy Program for the County. Every County either has one energy coordinator or
commissioner and a coordinator or a sustainability manager and coordinator. We have
one, so we have the energy coordinator and that is William Rolston, me. So the
presentation today is about what we’re doing with energy past, current and future. So
the title is Transforming Energy in the County of Hawai‘i and on the second slide, it’s
just an overview of where we are and how we’re separated from the nearest land mass
and our total population. The third slide is a detail of the island wide, that we are the
largest island, about twice all the other islands combined. We have a population of
190,000 and growing. Our peak electricity and compared to other grids I’ve worked on
the mainland, I’ve worked (inaudible), we are a very small grid; you would say 200
megawatts is a rather small grid if you will. We do have, what’s significant about us is
we’re not connected to any another grid. It’s like on the mainland, we were connected
to New Jersey and Pennsylvania and other places like California are connected to
Oregon and Washington. So, fundamentally, we’re on our own, you know, if a Civil
Defense event occurs or we want to get lower energy prices from say big hydro in
Oregon we can’t do that, or Washington. We’re on our own and that’s why we have a
system, we deal with an enormous amount of redundancy if something happens to go
down. So we do carry a lot of capital cost in the, because we need to be a little bit more
redundant and resilient. Next slide, and interrupt me please at any time for questions if
you would like. The next slide goes over what our system comprises, so it’s slide four.
It’s a 200 megawatt electric system; the base load power comes from geothermal at 38
megawatts. Our south wind is 20 megawatts and our north wind is 10.5 megawatts.
What’s significant about the south and north wind is they’re the best wind farms you can
possibly have in the United States area. They’re the highest, we say capacity factor,
meaning the wind blows more than 60% of the time. So we don’t just have wind farms,
we have world class wind farms, so the best in the world and the County of Hawai‘i is
actually looking at another wind farm in the Lālāmilo area which is just mauka from the
Puakō area and it is determined that it is the best wind farm site in the State of Hawai‘i
which makes it the best wind farm site in the United States. So next slide is the,
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basically some nice pictures on our geothermal farm, some pictures on our wind farms,
our run of the river hydroelectric which is 100 years old. So one thing people may not
know about hydroelectric is once you put the power plant, putting it in, it lasts for up to
100 years. So like Nikola Tesla who did the Niagara Falls power plant (inaudible) for
100 years and this particular run of the river plant is running for a 100 years with a
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couple of refurbishments in between. We are 5, the next slide, slide eight. We are 5
in the United States in solar, in the amount of photovoltaics we have; and that’s
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significant, because we aren’t very large compared to other states, but we are 5 in the
United States in solar electricity.
Ms. Kelly: Who’s first?
Mr. Rolston: I believe it would be California and then, believe it or not, in the
world, Germany because of their green regulations wanting to integrate a lot of solar
and they are having problems with that at this point. So the next slide, slide nine, shows
our renewable energy future. We are the one island that could get to be 100%
renewable energy so we are targeted to lead not only Hawai‘i, but the United States for
the next 10, 20, 50 years in renewable energy anywhere in the United States. So
what’s significant is the leadership and most things that we’ll have and that are cutting
edge in renewable energy integration will happen here. So that’s also significant
because a lot of stuff we’re trying now has not been proven and a lot of stuff we’re trying
now, you know frankly, cutting edge kind of like (inaudible) type stuff. So in the future
you’ll see electric vehicles hooking up to a residence and going completely off grid with
the car being able to power the house for like three days with electric vehicle battery.
You’ll see things like micro grids where a whole community goes off grid and they will
supply its own power. These things will happen on our island first. A couple projects
that we’re working on that will be not just cutting edge, but kind of what of booted the
whole renewable energy movement in Hawai‘i is OTEC. We started with OTEC down at
NELHA, some refer it as OTEC, but we started in ‘73 the Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion. What’s significant about Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is, when you
think about solar, so what’s significant about the ocean is it’s really the world largest
solar collector, so if you will, the top of the surface of the ocean in Hawai‘i is 80 degrees
and the, our ability to get down to the deep water at 3,000 feet, which is at 40 degrees,
allows you to create an enormous amounts of energy. So we’re back in the OTEC
game and County of Hawai‘i, island of Hawai‘i is in partnership with Japanese
government to build the next OTEC at the Natural Energy Laboratory, which once again
will put us on the map as far as cutting edge technology.
Ms. Maddox: Will, is there a timeline for that plant?
Mr. Rolston: We’ve been working on that for the last four years. Makai Ocean
Engineering who has the (inaudible) tower already up is putting a 100 kilowatt OTEC as
we speak, so that’s already on site. So 100 kilowatt OTEC in operation will be the
largest in the world and then we are moving into a 1 megawatt OTEC which we’re
negotiating currently. To build an OTEC of that size would require two to four years.
Ms. Maddox: Thank you.
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Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. We have the best biodiesel for transportation fuel;
we have the best biodiesel in the world. So the plant that’s just outside of Hilo in
Kea‘au, is the best rated biodiesel in the world and Robert King who runs that plant and
County of Hawai‘i are working towards a partnership to use biodiesel for our Mass
Transit and our fleet. So this is going to move us into renewable energy for our
transportation, which no one could ever do in Hawai‘i. So we plan on leading that as
well. So not only are we the renewable energy leaders at 50% going to 90% or above,
but we’ll also lead in transportation transition.
Mr. Matsuda: Will, what…
Mr. Rolston: The next slide.
Ms. Maddox: Hang on one second Will, there’s a question coming your way.
Mr. Rolston: No problem.
Mr. Matsuda: Will, what makes it the best biodiesel energy plant?
Mr. Rolston: It’s the best biodiesel because you can drop it in an engine that’s
created for diesel without any problems. So this is the purest biodiesel, it wasn’t always
as such, it’s been worked on over the past 20 or 30 years with plants in Oregon, Asia
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and Maui and now this plant which is the 7 generation plant built on our island is the
best manufacturing facility which takes used waste grease and combines it with plant
material to make the purest diesel you can possible have from bio products. So it is
basically a drop in for most every engine, in other words, no modifications to the engine
and no fouling with the engine, which has been the concern with biodiesel. Is that
sufficient?
Mr. Matsuda: Thank you.
Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. So slide ten, County of Hawai‘i Leadership. A
good example of how we try to engage the community is there was a project, if there’s a
project in the community say whether it’s a micro grid or a biodiesel manufacturing plant
like the one that was looked at in Pāhala, Ka‘ū. We go out to the community and we do
it endlessly, we’ll do it for a period of a year as we did in the case of the Aina Ko‘a Pono
project which was a docket before the Public Utilities Commission twice. So County is
an intervenor on behalf of community interests and we go and we find out what their
concerns are, what the plant can do from a technology standpoint, from an economic
development stand point and then we analyze all that and we present our findings
before the Public Utilities Commission which has final say over whether the project goes
through or not. So County of Hawai‘i does do the number crunching, the social impact
crunching and has much engagement with the community as we can. Next slide
please. The hard thing to do is, if you can do energy efficiency first. So like this
building as LEED silver and you can go up to LEED platinum and LEED platinum plus,
which means that you’re facility should be as energy efficient as possible so it uses the
least amount of energy. That’s the place you’d want to put your money first, like buying
an energy efficient car. So we try to do energy efficient for, efficiency for sending on-
site renewable power that low energy intensive facilities. So like on this facility we have
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LEED silver, we have on-site renewable which is photovoltaic array, a storage system of
electric vehicles. So we’ll also try to do beyond on-site renewables like the photovoltaic
array, we’ll try to combine electric vehicles or in the future we’re getting three hydrogen
buses. So we try to do that all on site. The more stuff you do that you can wrap into
one system, the more efficient you become. Our fourth thing that we’re trying to do is
utility grid initiatives. The grid is 100 years old and that technology needs to change to
integrate either more solar, integrate more wind, integrate more of the things that will
drive our energy cost down for County of Hawai‘i where we’ve said since I started with
this Administration which was five years ago, is we don’t just want renewable energy we
want cost effective renewable energy. We’re at a price point at forty cents a kilowatt
hour, where we can compete with this utility pricing at a lower rate. So we can drive
cost down to the twenty cents per kilowatt hour rating is what we believe. The next one
is energy demonstration projects. That’s just an exciting cutting edge economic engine
that we feel our island is well suited for. So the Natural Energy Lab is a place you can
take people within two-by-two miles and show them algae to biodiesel, photovoltaic,
OTEC, storage so we believe in energy demonstration sites just like we believe in our
astronomy sector that it drives economic development, people visiting, eco-tourism and
things like that. So we believe we’re in the place to test things like hydrogen and we
believe that will be an economic development engine for our County with a low footprint.
And then finally on that chart is economics, effectiveness and education. So we always
try to analyze from economic standpoint, we don’t just do things. So everything we do,
we do with economic trigger. Next slide please, and that is kind of our portfolio what
we’ve done since 2012 to 2014. We’ve replaced 1,000 of these lamps and maybe
you’ve seen them. We’ve replaced 1,000 lamps with a 50% more efficient bulb, which
provides better lighting. It also darkens the skies for our astronomical community.
We’ve intervened in so many PUC dockets that it’s hard to count. We started our
electric vehicle fleet and we’ve done efficiency retro fits and no cost initiatives like at the
West Hawai‘i Civic Center we have a solar photovoltaic array where we paid no money
for it, but the power we receive is half the utility rate. So that’s how the developer
makes their money and that’s how we save. What we’ve done, what we’re doing in
2014, 15 and 16, we’re doing a master solar photovoltaic RFP for all of our facilities that
can take solar that is a good play on and also adding storage in sites that are critical
where we can micro grid off the system if need be, if there’s a hurricane or civil defense
event or we need a critical facility to have its own power. We are making the transition
to biodiesel. We are going to put that in our Mass Transit and County fleet and we’re
going to do the total island street lamp. So that will be 9,000 additional street lamps so
that people can see, distinguish between caution lights and street lamps; and we can
darken the night skies and also save 50% on our $2 million energy expenditure for a
year, which would, so we have a million dollar savings from doing that. Our long term
vision is to be leader in the renewable energy; we already are and we’re going to
continue that leadership. We’re looking at cost effective renewable energy in the 50%-
100% range and then storage is the big technology play for everybody who’s doing
renewable energy in the United States and around the world. So we’re going to do
storage data tests at places like the Natural Energy Lab. We have a Memorandum of
Understanding with HELCO and the Natural Energy Lab in storage technologies that will
be a big economic play in the future, who can get best storage options and then sell that
around the world. We’re looking at storing our excess geothermal, hydro and PV to
things like hydrogen to power our buses. There will be two buses at the Volcanoes
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National Park and one at the Hilo or the Kona side in the Hele On type bus. Continue to
support NELHA and figure out what we want to do with our waste in the future.
Ms. Kelly: I got a question on the hydrogen business. Is hydrogen manufactured
here on the island and they’re able to store? Is it in a liquid or gas format?
Mr. Rolston: Yes, you can take wind or photovoltaic or geothermal to make
hydrogen as a gas.
Ms. Kelly: A gas.
Mr. Rolston: You use that gas in a transportation vehicle, a bus.
Ms. Kelly: So it’s a tank?
Mr. Rolston: Yes, so you have a pressurized tank in a bus. So like at Volcanoes
National Park, they’ll have a hydrogen bus that will use hydrogen.
Ms. Kelly: What is the difference in cost?
Mr. Rolston: It’s very high cost right now. So hydrogen is where photovoltaic
was in 20 or 30 years ago. So we expect that hydrogen is going to be research and
development project for the next 10-20 years and after 20 years then it will be cost
effective. We’re not going to (inaudible), hydrogen is not our big play, it’s really a
research and development effort. Iceland is leading in the hydrogen R&D and they’re
an isolated place; we feel like we have a specific island that can do hydrogen. So two
places in the world where really make sense are places like Iceland and here. So we
want to use it as a research and development economic play, not as a cost effective
play right away.
Ms. Kelly: Thank you.
Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. Next slide just shows what you can see from on
top of Mauna Kea at night, the glare in background is Oahu, the lighting in Oahu. The
next slide just describes in the title, that’s slide fourteen, High Efficiency LED Lamps to
darken our night skies and we hope other islands follow our lead in doing that. We’ll be
the first island, the first County to do a total LED lamp retro fit. So we’ll darken the skies
by 50% with our new LED technologies.
Ms. Kelly: I got a question.
Mr. Rolston: Sure
Ms. Kelly: Is the astronomy center dedicated to that, those people they’re
participating in the cost of the changing those lamps?
Mr. Rolston: They don’t participate in the cost, but we need their approval
because they’re very specific about how they want their dark skies to be. They’re very
specific about how they want their skies to look.
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Ms. Kelly: So who pays for that?
Mr. Rolston: County pays for it, but the return on investments is two years. So
anytime you get a return on investment in two to three years or even six months, you
can get a return on investment by doing certain things within a year like…
Ms. Kelly: And how long is the lamp last?
Mr. Rolston: This lamp lasts longer than the low pressure sodium that’s currently
being used and the good thing about LED technology will keep getting better and there
will be more manufacturers. There’s only one supplier of the low pressure sodium lamp
right now and the prices are very high for replacements of them; and they are not a very
good lamp. They actually cause, we think they cause, traffic accidents because the light
is the same color as the caution light. So when you come over a hill and see these low
pressure sodium bulbs blaring yellow, they’re about the same color as the yellow that’s
on a traffic light. So it’s hard to distinguish you’re coming into traffic. Another thing it
helps with is distinguishing objects that, that glare does not give you full light spectrum.
So you can actually see what an object is, if there’s a police situation that can
distinguish what’s happening at that light versus the glare, it just doesn’t let you
distinguish what’s what.
Ms. Kelly: So tell me, I understand you correctly. So you install those lights, you
recapturing investment within two years are saving costs, but then the lamp don’t last
that long?
Mr. Rolston: No, the lamps last longer.
Ms. Kelly: Longer, five years?
Mr. Rolston: We believe the low pressure sodium so, I’m not the lighting expert,
but I’ll say it lasts 1.5 times longer. I think it’s like more like two times longer than the
low pressure sodium. So less replacement, less manpower for replacing, so it’s a better
investment all around.
Ms. Kelly: Can you say that the traffic light, it may be an issue with traffic lights
or intersection with light signal and traffic lights, is there any study on that?
Mr. Rolston: Absolutely. There’s lots of accidents that have occurred due to the
non-distinguishment of the low pressure sodium and the traffic light.
Ms. Kelly: Thank you.
Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. The next slide discusses why the dark skies are
important. Basically, Nobel Peace prizes are being won because of our astronomical
center that we have the world’s leading telescopes currently and now with the 30 meter,
near 10-20 years we’ll be the leaders in astronomy looking into the night sky. So in
2011, an astronomer proved Einstein’s theory that he worked on for about 30-50 years
of his life that he thought was a huge failure basically discovering that 70% of the matter
out there is dark matter and a fascinating lecture I went to in Hilo. So that’s a pretty cool
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sector that spins off a $100 million in economic development benefit for this island.
Research and Development is kind of the economic development department of the
County so also try to wear my economic development hat when I’m doing projects like
how to darken the night skies. Again, we’re at the West Hawai‘i Civic Center today, it’s
a LEED silver with a 250 photovoltaic array, it’s also got a storage battery which powers
us at night and we are 100% renewable right now, the PV is cranking so we’re over
100% sending electricity to the grid and getting paid on it. So right now we’re 100%
renewable with HELCO paying us in a monthly check. It’s about $2,000-$3,000 that we
get from HELCO for photovoltaic array. We have five electric vehicles. We’re testing
them to see if they’re efficient, we already paid back the cost of them with our PV array
and our battery and driving those back and forth to Hilo. I was in one car yesterday that
had 45,000 miles on it; we had it for two years and people are using them. We got them
in full usage and it saves about, in all electric mode, it’s equivalent of $2.00 a gallon of
gas and now the gas prices are down, it’s not as much savings as we had when gas
was near $5, but still we’re saving on every drive in electric mode. So we intend to do
more with things like that in the future. The next shot is a 250 photovoltaic array from a
higher view plain and the next shot, which is slide 19, shows you how the energy is
produced in green and the photovoltaic array in beige color or orange color is what the
building is using, the building usage has a photovoltaic production (inaudible), so we’re
basically producing from 9 am to 4 pm and we’re putting more electricity on the facility
than it needs so that, that area above the beige is what we’re getting paid on by
HELCO. The next project we’re working on currently is a wind farm at the site I
discussed earlier, Lālāmilo, the best wind site in America. The winds over there blow 70
mph or 20 mph constant. We’re going to put up a 3 MW wind farm, we’ve already
awarded it to the same people who did the North Wind project. It will be the same
turbines that are at the North Wind project, so we’re happy it’s going to be a redundancy
in parts that can be changed out; and the projection in savings is up to $2 million to the
water rate payer because the water rate payer gets an energy surcharge that we’re
passing on in their energy bill. So if we’re using HELCO energy to power water pumps,
we have to pass on that charge; if we’re able to power our own sites like with the wind
farm, we can pass on savings.
Ms. Kelly: I got a question for you.
Mr. Rolston: Sure.
Ms. Kelly: There was a previous wind farm right above Mauna Kea hotel,
Wai’ula’ula project subdivision part of Mauna Kea. Why was it torn down?
Mr. Rolston: I think, are you talking about Lālāmilo or may be Monty Richards or,
was it very old like 20 years old?
Ms. Kelly: I don’t think it was that old. It could be, but there was some wind
turbines there and they were taken down.
Mr. Rolston: Yeah. This island has done the first wind projects in the United
States, so those probably were very old Jacobs wind turbines, which were made of
plywood and basically that technology was so old and maybe had, wind farms do have
problems mechanical failures. There engines burn out; and the Jacobs wind turbines,
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although they were projected to save a lot of money because they, you know strong
winds can break the plywood a lot of these machines especially even Lālāmilo had 100
Jacobs wind turbines and if you went to that site before they tore down the whole thing
and sold the metal to China, you would see mangled metal. The winds were so
powerful there it just twisted these 100 foot structures into pretzels and the plywood
turbine blades would be flying to who knows where. Even at the HPA facility, I guess
they call it the living laboratory at Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy, their turbines
destructed; and you know, thank God, there were no children there because one of
those blades just like went into the tree like a hatchet. So it just went into a real hard
tree and it just buried itself. So these old wind farms, you know, are subject to very,
when you have the best wind in the world, they’re subject to various (inaudible).
Ms. Kelly: The new wind farm, the one that’s on the Kohala, North Kohala.
Mr. Rolston: Oh yeah, the Hāwī.
Ms. Kelly: Hāwī one. You know, how long is the longevity of these turbines?
Mr. Rolston: Well the good news is you don’t have to worry about it because you
do a power purchase agreement and the developer takes care of any damage and so
they can last for 10 years or 20 years. So average projection is about 10 years, but we
don’t have to worry about it because the developer is owning it and selling us the
energy.
Ms. Kelly: When you say selling us the energy, my understanding is they’re
selling HELCO the energy. Where do we come, County people or County to benefit
that?
Mr. Rolston: Great, so at the West Hawai‘i Civic Center we have the developer
that’s selling us energy and we pay them. At the Lālāmilo site, we’ll have developers
selling us directly.
Ms. Kelly: Direct?
Mr. Rolston: Yeah. At the Hāwī wind site, they sell directly to HELCO.
Ms. Kelly: Yeah, I know that. I was trying to figure out where does it come that
the County benefit, but selling directly to the County is…
Mr. Rolston: Yeah, through a power purchase agreement and some people call
it public private partnerships.
Mr. Mitchell: P3.
Mr. Rolston: Yeah. When you have very high electricity rates like forty cents,
forty-five cents, you know, you can strike deals at twenty cents where the developer
makes very good money and we cut our electric bill in half. I believe that we should be
getting much lower prices on our renewable cost. I don’t just believe in twenty cents per
kilowatt hour, I believe in 10 cents.
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Ms. Kelly: So how many of those are direct sell to the County, presently, is wind
farm?
Mr. Rolston: This will be the only wind farm that we’re putting up probably in the
next five years; it’s the best wind site.
Ms. Kelly: So it’s the one, it’s the first in Lālāmilo?
Mr. Rolston: Yeah. County uses approximately 10-12 megawatts total. So this
will be about 25-30% of our total energy use.
Ms. Kelly: 10-12 megawatts per day?
Mr. Rolston: If you take County as a total, you have to factor some facilities have
lights at night, like our Parks and Recreation and our street lamps only go at night, so if
you figure the whole aggregate, we’re about 12 megawatts on a 24/7 basis. So we are
HELCO’s largest customer which makes us the market power and which makes us,
that’s why we are, I believe, we’re effective in the Public Utilities Commission docket
because as your largest customer, like the Department of Defense is HECO’s largest
customer on Oahu, they have a lot to say about how that utility is run. So we have a lot
to say about how our utility is run because not only we’re the largest customer, we hold
the franchise agreement.
Ms. Kelly: Yeah, but I’m particularly interested to know and I’m glad to hear that it
will be sold directly to the County, I tell you why, as I was looking at the electric bill this
morning from my husband’s business and on a $4,500.00 electric bill monthly,
$2,000.00 were surcharges of taxes, administration fee and all the other garbage fee.
His real true use of electric was about $2,200.00, but his total bill was $4,500.00 a
month. So that means that all these additional cost of whatever you call them, I call
them garbage cost, would be saved, in addition to the cost of power.
Mr. Rolston: Overall that’s a correct statement, so I agree to your comment
about garbage cost and all those surcharges. The utility business is the most complex
business second to the Department of Defense businesses. So these surcharges and
things, we try to help explain to the public what exactly needs to, people have the same
reaction that you do, what is all this stuff.
Ms. Kelly: It’s ridiculous.
Mr. Rolston: Yeah, and that’s why we intervene so much in the Public Utilities
Commission dockets because there’s so much subtlety to electric utility business and
the accounting systems are not the same as a private business. As a matter of fact, the
more metal, the more infrastructures they can put in the ground or anywhere, they earn
a 10% return on, so it’s an incentive to build as much stuff as possible so they can earn
10%, its run differently than any other business that I know of.
Ms. Kelly: I can see that. I’m realizing that and it’s quite upsetting when you
realize it.
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Mr. Rolston: Yeah, so that’s why we try to move the dockets.
Ms. Kelly: Well thank you for answering that.
Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. Just a nice picture on slide twenty-one. Our
transportation initiatives, we should be, we’re ramping this up right now. So we’ve gone
from electric vehicles to hydrogen buses to biodiesel for Mass Transit and charging
networks for people who do want to own electric vehicles which they do work out
cheaper per mile, per gallon, especially in some of the new plans with the leases.
When you’re leasing a Nissan Leaf or a Chevy Volt, I think you’re savings, if you’re
driving a lot, are significant over the cost of the vehicle so there’s some good programs
out there. I don’t recommend an electric vehicle for everyone on this island because
they only go 70-mile range and if you get stuck somewhere. I do recommend things like
the Chevy Volt so that you have an internal combustion engine plus an electric battery
and that’s why we picked the Chevy Volt. We’re building hydrogen fueling stations and
like I mentioned before, we have the best biodiesel in the world, that’s a 5.5 million
gallon per year facility. The island uses 11 million gallons per year so if we built another
facility, we covered all our usable needs with an on island biodiesel refinery which is
very handy to have in a civil defense event, where barges can’t get to the, so if we have
our own indigenes fuel and hopefully at lower prices which I think we’re going to get
lower prices, we have fuel on island. The next…
Ms. Kelly: I got a question for you.
Mr. Rolston: Sure.
Ms. Kelly: The charging station for electric vehicle, how much does it cost a
charging station?
Mr. Rolston: Not very much. So if you were to just go to one of the big stores
like Lowe’s or, and pick up a charger, I think you can get one for $500, Level 2, which is
240 volts. So that will charge a Chevy Volt in three hours. So if you have Nissan Leaf,
it takes eight hours. The Level 3 charger, which there’s only one on island, is called a
fast charger is at, there’s one at the Mauna Lani, that will charge in 20 minutes. So a
Tesla pulling up can get a charge in 20 minutes and …
Ms. Kelly: How much does that cost?
Mr. Rolston: The Tesla?
Ms. Kelly: No, I know a Tesla car, it’s on my Christmas list, but how much is the
charger cost?
Mr. Rolston: About $50,000 and it uses as much power as this facility uses at
night. So it’s not a decision that County would make and buy a $50,000 charger, it’s
kind of we’re waiting for the price to come down; but there is a location, maybe the
Mauna Kea rest stop would be a good location for fast chargers, so we’re working with a
couple companies, ‘cause if you can get up the hill on electric vehicles and get a fast
11
charge there then you could continue on your way to Hilo and use the fast charger on
the way back, that might be a strategic location.
Ms. Kelly: Sounds to me that there’s some on the west side, there’s some in
east side, but what’s missing is the south and the north so that’s why you can’t,
shouldn’t be running, yeah. Is that a correct statement?
Mr. Rolston: Yeah. There’s a couple ways to do it. There’s a grant that was
issued to a couple people where they will go and charge your vehicle if you call their
number, they have mobile charger but what we’re looking at is strategic locations for
electric vehicle chargers. So right now we’re building three at the Aupuni Center and
three at the Hilo County building and then we’re going to replace the three we have here
with new chargers. So that will happen in January to March timeframe. So we’ll have
chargers on the Hilo side at the Aupuni Center and the County building, so total of four
chargers.
Ms. Kelly: The fast one?
Mr. Rolston: No, just Level 2.
Ms. Kelly: Over night?
Mr. Rolston: If you have a Volt, it will take three hours. So if you have business,
Council business over there for three hours, you can get a full charge. The chances are
you’ll already have a little charge so after two hours you should be full.
Ms. Kelly: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. Next slide, which slide is that?
Ms. Kelly: Electric vehicle, transportation transit.
Mr. Rolston: Okay, so we basically talked about this. We’re going to try to just
like, very good question, we’re going to try to do an EV charger network in strategic
locations so people can get around the island if they want to use an electric vehicle.
The next slide shows a hydrogen bus, I believe that’s in Iceland. We’ll have two buses
of similar size, may be a little smaller at Volcanoes National Park and we’ll have one
Hele-On size at either the Hilo side or the Kona side. Next slide talks about the
biodiesel we have, we’ve already talked about that, best biodiesel in the world and it’s
good for the environment; and if there is a spill, there probably won’t be. The next slide
shows you the Kea‘au plant. It’s the next generation biodiesel farm, best in the world.
So it’s worth a visit if you guys want to take a tour, it’s fascinating. The next slide shows
that the farmers are involved in the biodiesel transition, that farmers can use their waste
crop and bring it to the biodiesel refinery and it can be chopped up and mixed with the
waste grease. So it is a, also pays the farmer for their waste, so it’s a good
sustainability model. The next slide talks about PUC commission dockets, which are
kind of like a very long, legal proceedings about projects or different policies. So
County of Hawai‘i has been in all these dockets and we continue to do so. Right before
I came to this meeting, I just filed another filing in the decoupling docket and if you’re
12
familiar with decoupling, it’s basically a mechanism whereby as the utility loses revenue
from decrease in kilowatt hour sales, which everyone believes is going to be up, it’s
happening now with energy efficiency; and also the fact that people are putting
photovoltaics on their residences, as well as the County is doing photovoltaics,
everybody’s trying to do their own way to save money. The utility’s losing kilowatt hour
sales, the decoupling law, to get the same revenues every year without chasing kilowatt
hour sales. So this is a new way of compensating the utility in a decreasing market. My
view on the decoupling, County of Hawai‘i’s view on decoupling, is it’s wrong; it
shouldn’t be there and we’re trying to remove it. As a matter of fact, we are the only
party that’s trying to remove it because the other parties in the docket, it’s good that the
utility has decoupling for Hawai‘i Renewable Energy Alliance or Hawai‘i Solar Energy
Alliance ‘cause each solar photovoltaic system they put up, the utilities are ambivalent
because it will just repeat their revenues in decoupling. We’re of the mind that no, that’s
not fair, they can’t make the same money year after year, servicing less people, that’s
not unfair to the low income that can’t afford photovoltaic. It’s just not fair in general, so
we’re the only party who’s arguing for new decoupling; and I think we’re winning. So
we’ll see. We already reduced the amount that the State pays for decoupling charges
by reducing the interest rate. We’ve saved the State rate payers approximately $20
million per year on decoupling charges and on my other docket, the Aina Ko‘a Pono
docket, we did get rid of a plant that was going in Ka‘ū that we didn’t think penciled out
so that’s saving the rate payers, you know, that was going to be $2 billion project over
20 years so we hope that we saved the utility customers that $2 billion. So you can be
very effective in the docket, but it takes a lot of time. Next one is, talks about our energy
demonstration site, you know all about Natural Energy Lab, County of Hawai‘i supports
it; I’m on the Board of the Natural Energy Lab. I used to work there; and we try to drive
innovation there because nobody — Maui, Oahu, Kauai — do not have this economic
driver. This is unique in the state, it’s unique in the world; and you’ll see why in the next
slide. Geologically, our island is young, 800,000 years old; that means you can get
access to deep water faster than anyone, you don’t have to build a very large pipeline
and you get this pristine water that can grow fish and aquaculture, 1.2 pounds for every
pound of food you give it because of all these compounds and nutrients in unpolluted
water. We have it; we have developed the Natural Energy Lab and significant, it drives
about a $100 million to our economy every year. The next slide shows you just how
unique it is, we also have a 2 mile offshore corridor where we can lay more pipes and
more OTECs and do more aquaculture. This is a significant area for not only the
County, but total island of Hawai‘i has this unique economic driver just like our unique
astronomy sector. So both of those spend about a $100 million in benefit and employ
local people. The next slide is what the future NELHA Energy Park will look like. I did
this map when I worked there in 2008 to 2010 period and basically a series of micro
grids, off grid. Off grid from the utility with the OTECs and algae to biodiesel and just
what NELHA will look like in the future. Again, people are coming to see
demonstrations of energy of the future and sustainability of the future, and we always
bring them to NELHA that’s why it’s so important. Slide, I guess is thirty-four. We only
have two more slides, so thanks for bearing with me. What we’ve done in the energy
program is analyze and look at the technical value of the projects and do financial
analysis. We develop frameworks for analyzing things like people talk a good game
about biofuel, but very few deliver. We’ve done power purchase agreements. We’re
the island that Maui will come to, to see what we do in our power purchase agreement.
We’ve loaned our RFP to Maui, we’ve loaned our RFP to Kauai, we’re the leader in
13
these types of arrangements and public private partnerships it’s the same thing. It’s
using the developer and County to get energy savings directly from the developer, just
like we have at the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, and we will have at Lālāmilo, and we look
at how fast we can return our investment, like the LED lights, two to three years, that’s a
great investment; and I tell the Mayor that’s the best place to put our money in energy
efficiency. An ultimate slide, just shows you what a sustainable island could look like
with sustainable energy, sustainable education, food, water and health. It’s the slide
that I bring when I talked to Asia about partnerships. It’s the slide I bring when I talk to
different universities about just what we’re doing on this island. It kind of encompasses
what our vision is from our R&D department and then that’s it. Thank you for listening.
Ms. Maddox: Will, can you talk a little bit about any developing relationships with
Arizona State as it relates to energy.
Mr. Rolston: Absolutely. Yeah, they visit quite a bit. We started, we kicked off a
meeting with them, I believe it was March. They are partnering with the island of
Hawai‘i in food sustainability; well that slide, really, the last slide or the second slide,
that’s the partnership. They’re looking at our island specifically as an island that can
actually be a sustainable island. Now, what’s interesting about them is, they you know
they got some pretty heavy hitters like former petroleum Asia chief that heads their
school utility in the future and also Lightworks which wants to power things by using
solar photovoltaic. Obviously, Arizona is a place that you can do lots of photovoltaics,
but also Hawai‘i is a place that has the same solar intensity as Arizona. They believe in
a lot of things in the future that I’ve never even conceived of, like people will have a
tough time finding quality work, that people will mostly live in cities that communities
outside of cities should not be hampered by the demands of the city and that people
supply change should be evaluated heavily for where things are coming from and how
they affect the interdependent relationships of city versus rural and how the city does
not, should not, dominate a rural community sustainability. They’re looking at our island
with very high interest because they don’t see a model like us anywhere. So they come
to partner both in, well not both, but in the five areas that I’ve listed, education, food,
water, health and energy. So very, I guess the right word is, they have the largest U.S.
University, and they have significant resources, and they’ve committed to us as a
partner. And Julie Wrigley, who has a house in the Four Seasons, has given $50 million
so I guess what she says will mean something if she wants it to happen.
Ms. Maddox: Thank you very much.
Mr. Rolston: Welcome.
Ms. Kelly: One question on that, to follow up on the same subject; are they
intending to actually have a facility, educational facility or a campus here?
Mr. Rolston: We gotten their partner with them as UH Hilo. So UH Hilo…
Ms. Kelly: Hilo? UH Hilo?
Mr. Rolston: Yeah UH Hilo is who they would empower for educational facilities.
14
Ms. Kelly: And how about the West Hawai‘i university that is getting built right
now?
Mr. Rolston: Yes.
Ms. Kelly: That, too?
Mr. Rolston: Yes. Both of those, as well as NELHA and Kamehameha Schools,
is doing a virtual pool with them because the Arizona State University they’re all about
doing universities virtually so they want the Kamehameha high school, I guess it’s K-12
they’re doing, they’re working with Arizona State University for learning in what Arizona
University can bring to Kamehameha Schools.
Ms. Kelly: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome.
Mr. Mitchell: A couple things here. First of all, when talking the streetlights, I
believe we’re talking 10,169 street lights, so that significant, that’s a huge savings. One
of the things that I’ve been reading about in regards to, you mentioned the buses.
There’s some municipalities are out there and I think one is in Mississippi, Hattiesburg
area. So they’re taking the school buses, which there are 60-80 in a community that
size. So they’re taking the school buses, they got all the school buses where they have
large batteries; and they’re charging up the school buses on off hours. So they’re
charging up those batteries off hours, and then they roll those buses out to various
community areas or businesses and selling electricity and these school buses are
literally mobile power centers and power sources. And they’re finding out that there’s
actually a way to make a lot of money because these buses, once they drop off all the
little kids, those buses are sitting there. Well, they’re realizing those buses sitting there
is an enormous amount of money wasted. Is that something we could do here?
Mr. Rolston: Yes. So what we partnered with HELCO on is transportation, so
that’s totally outside of their electric utility business. So HELCO, surprisingly, has one of
the top 50 greenest fleets in the United States. So the person who manages that is
Kelvin Kohatsu, which is an out of the box thinker; and they’ve left him alone to do
transportation so he’s actually created the top 50 greenest fleets in the nation. So
Kelvin is not like your normal electric utility guy; we’re partnering with him on doing
telemetrics which is following our bus routes to do best bus routes, but in the future,
we’ll be doing things like battery, hydrogen storage and the potential to power
communities is there.
Mr. Mitchell: In case there’s an emergency, we can roll in a bus and that bus can
charge up an area like Palisades, so those folks at Palisades will be able to have
access to power in case a hurricane hits or other problems in such or that nature. One
of the things that you were talking about in Research and Development, I noticed in
going through in transportation — I found the study from the University of Michigan and
you were listed as one of the people that they interviewed on this. So I have a lot of
love for Arizona State University, but you know the folks in Big Ten say they’re the
largest universities around. In fact, University of Michigan had some really strong
15
recommendations. Do you remember the conversation with them or do you remember
that kind of where it was going, what the talk was about? Can you share please?
Mr. Rolston: Yeah, University of Michigan came and, actually the principal
investigator did one of the original sustainability plans for the State of Hawai‘i, and I’m
trying to think of his name, but he’ll be listed, yeah, Jeremiah Johnson. So he was, you
know, he kind of kicked off the Hawai‘i clean energy initiative to the island of Hawai‘i
was the first to get sustainability plan out of all the islands and then people were reading
this, especially people at the State and they said, “ We need to do this”. So we were
first and so Jeremiah Johnson, who’s a brilliant man, led that effort; and he since gotten
a job at, in Michigan; and so we contacted him because Michigan’s all about
transportation. So they’re good source; there’s no better place to talk about
transportation. So the Kohala Center contracted with him and the initiatives are there.
One of the biggest recommendations is to do telemetrics. Now what you mentioned with
the batteries is kind of further outside the box, but it’s a place that, you know I think,
needs to be looked at really closely. I mean we are, the one thing that we forget (and I
don’t know if we forgotten it so much with Hurricane Iselle and the Puna, Pāhoa lava
flows) is that we are subject to a lot more, you know, nastiness in the civil defense
arena than most places. So we need to be thinking like that.
Mr. Mitchell: That will do it for me.
Ms. Maddox: Questions from any of the other Commissioners?
Ms. Kierkiewicz: I have a question. Hey, Will, I have a question about the future
of the NELHA energy park, the map that you showcased in your presentation. There’s
a little dot here about waste to energy and then further up there’s a plot for bioenergy
Hawai‘i. Are those two connected or no; are you able to explain?
Mr. Rolston: Sure. I know the Hawai‘i Bioenergy came when I was there.
Ms. Kierkiewicz: Sorry, it’s Bioenergy Hawai‘i.
Mr. Rolston: Yeah, that one.
Ms. Kierkiewicz: Because Hawai‘i Bioenergy, the opposite of those two words, I
believe is on Kauai and involves like grow farms and (inaudible).
Mr. Rolston: Yeah, you got it. I usually get them flipped so, they came when I
was at NELHA, and they were proposing a waste to energy project which there was a
debate about whether it would require an EIS, and I think in Hawai‘i, I don’t think there’s
a debate, I think you should do that especially with the waste to energy project. I
believe that project; and I’m not in the intimate circles that the NELHA people are, but I
believe that project died and so I don’t think that there will be a waste to energy project
at NELHA. That’s my belief. Now I’m on the NELHA Board so I would have heard
about whether it got resurrected and I have not. When you mentioned the other waste
to energy is that the final bullet point on our long term vision, is that?
16
Ms. Kierkiewicz: No, I’m not sure. I’m looking at a map and it’s a purple dot next
to the Lockheed-Makai OTEC Research facility, more toward the shoreline.
Mr. Rolston: Yeah, I think that was a wind wing and I think, that was just to
capture the very low steep winds. It wasn’t a waste to energy project to capture and I’ll
look at the map now. Let me just look at the second, one of those previous. I believe
that was a wind wing, but let me make sure real quick; and they’ve moved that to the
Greenwell property. It’s kind of a wing that oscillates up and down like a bird’s wing.
That was, oh, W2 Energy. Yeah, so that was a wind wing. So a very, I guess you call
it, it’s the same guy who invented the rumble strip so when you fall asleep in your car
and you start driving towards the guardrail, the rumble strip wakes you up, but he’s also
a pilot. He invented a wing that could capture the low speed wind that are on this side
of the island and oscillates up and down. They actually use them in water, the same
motion to pump. So he was trying to do a wind wing there; and I just never took it off
the chart because I did that chart when I was at NELHA like five years ago, so that
wasn’t a waste to energy project, that was a wind wing, which is at the Greenwell Farms
currently if you want to see it.
Ms. Kierkiewicz: Cool, thanks for clarifying; I just have one more question. I’m
sure you’re aware that Nextera has indicated that they would like to acquire Hawaiian
Electric Industries and so I’m wondering if there’s any synergies between the County
and Nextera to possible leverage County resources to create more energy and possible
export through cable to other islands.
Mr. Rolston: Yes, so that’s a really, that’s kind of a question that I was working
on in my docket file. What does Nextera and the State you know, basically what will
Nextera and the HECO companies do that is either good or bad for the islands? So we
don’t know yet, we do know a couple things. Nextera is a $46 billion company and our
utility is basically a $3 billion utility. So Nextera merger will be more like a Nextera
absorption. Nextera also wants to do interisland cables; and that was very well noted
that, if you know Nextera’s history, they want to do cables from at least Maui to Oahu.
So they believe that they can develop resources on Maui, specifically wind and
photovoltaics and send it on a cable to Oahu. Now there’s a debate on Oahu that Oahu
can do its own power. So the utility has even said so, that they don’t need an
interisland cable so there’s even a debate at the utility; and they put it in writing so it’s all
in the docket that they don’t need an interisland cable, but what’s interesting about the
Nextera play is each of those cables, and there will be one or two of them, each of
those cable cost $1 billion; and if you know how utilities earn their money, if you put a
billion dollars in the ground or in the sea or in the air, you earn 10% on that, 10% of a
billion is something like 10 million. So, or is a 100 million?
Mr. Mitchell: See I think there’s a conflict of interest here, I think that’s why
(inaudible) taken so, they want to bill us. Basically, they want to increase their numbers
and revenues on the backs of Hawai‘i and it’s not going, to me, I don’t know how it’s
going to work if we can’t sell that to Oahu.
Mr. Rolston: Well.
Mr. Mitchell: It’s going to be unique fit.
17
Mr. Rolston: So what County would do and, specifically in the dockets, is we
would ask those questions. So we have to get on record just what the intentions are,
that’s our role. So just at, you know, with her question, is a very appropriate, one
because we would ask, “Are you planning to build interisland cables?”, because it’s,
once you understand utility accounting, you understand that two cables at $2 billion
pretty much covers the merger price. So, you know, is this an option to build cables by
absorbing a utility you no longer have a debate about cables, you can just, you can put
them in. So that’s why County is poised; and I contacted the Mayor and forewarned him
of this, if the merger docket opens which is posed to in the next 30-60 days, that County
of Hawai‘i should intervene; and we would ask those specific questions. So are there
synergies? That’s where we would so call make our statement about what, if we
approve, if County of Hawai‘i supports the merger, this is what we would like to see; and
County of Hawai‘i has been 100% successful on the dockets so we would make a point
of making our island of Hawai‘i interest known. What we’d like to see from the merger,
conversely, if we don’t think the merger’s heading where we want, we would weigh in on
that.
Ms. Kierkiewicz: Thank you, Will.
Ms. Maddox: Any other questions? Then thank you very much, Will, it’s very
informative we appreciate you taking the time.
Mr. Rolston: Thank you for having me here, really appreciate it.
Mr. Mitchell: Very well done.
Ms. Kelly: Thank you, thank you very much.
Ms. Garson: Thanks, Will.
Mr. Rolston: Welcome.
4. DISCUSSION, QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH DIRECTOR
WARREN LEE OR HIS DESIGNEE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
WORKS
Ms. Maddox noted the Commission will continue on with the agenda until the
arrival of Mr. Warren Lee.
5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (12-04-14)
Motion and Vote:
Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to approve the minutes of
December 4, 2014. The motion was seconded by Mr. Espejo and all
commissioners present voted aye.
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6. DISCUSSION REGARDING SUBCOMMITTEE MEETINGS WITH VARIOUS
DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES FOR THE PURPOSE OF GATHERING
INFORMATION FOR THE FINAL REPORT
A. Department of Water Supply
Mr. Perry reported the following on vehicles:
Division heads, District supervisors and standby personnel are assigned
vehicles.
The department has its own Safety Committee that meets quarterly.
The Department has its own gasoline fill station at base yards in Hilo, Kona
and Waimea.
Still have many older vehicles from recession; moratorium on new purchases
being lifted.
Mr. Perry reported the following on overtime:
Very little. Mostly when emergencies arise, such as water main breaks,
electrical control malfunctions, tsunami, hurricane, lava flow and earthquakes.
Mr. Perry reported the following on energy:
The department is installing windmills that will lead to at least $1 million
savings per year. Contracted out two windmills at Lalamilo.
Ms. Kelly asked how the windmills are going to improve the Water Department.
Mr. Perry replied the department will take advantage of the benefits of renewable
energy. He stated the department has the land from DLNR but has to lease it out to a
contractor who in turns provides the service. The department will get about $1 million of
electricity out of that per year.
Ms. Kelly asked if the energy windmill will help the department subsidize overall
costs, or directly, for water. Mr. Perry replied the Department of Water Supply uses
more electricity than anyone else on this island because their wells use a lot of
electricity to get the water out of the ground; this is going to supply the electricity to run
the pumps. Ms. Kelly stated this will cut down on the cost of electrical usage so
consumers will see a relief in the cost of electricity portion on their bills.
Exploring ways to use the windmill over capacity.
Reroofed main offices; photovoltaic is probable for potential savings of
$250,000 per year.
GPS has been tried for vehicle reporting but with little savings.
Mr. Perry reported the following on finance:
Department piggybacks on County bonds as a separate entity.
Works off five-year rate studies.
Annual budget is approved by the Water Board.
19
Mr. Perry reported the following on technology:
More drive by meter reading, especially in hard to get places.
Mr. Perry reported the following on staffing:
On-line billing is possible.
Credit card payment system in place about a year now.
Willing to experiment 4-day work week if approved by the unions.
Ms. Maddox asked if there was more discussion related to the GPS tracking on
vehicles, which were not successful for the department. Mr. Perry replied the
department had higher expectations on how much more they were going to save.
Ms. Kelly asked how many vehicles the department has to read meters. Mr.
Perry replied he’s not sure how many but thinks there are only three meter readers.
Mr. Mitchell asked how often the department looks at fees and when was the last
time the fees were raised. Mr. Perry replied their fees are basically divided into two
pieces: one is electrical, which is the cost of pumping water, and the second is the cost
of water. When HELCO changes prices, there is always a public hearing but there is
very little interest from the department because they don’t have control over the cost of
electricity. The rates are set every five years.
Mr. Mitchell stated the Department of Water Supply’s electricity bill is $20 million
a year and hopes the department raises their fees. Mr. Perry stated that when he was a
Water Board member, the biggest change was in the cost of ag water.
Mr. Matsuda mentioned the department has three meter readers. Ms. Garson
stated she does not know. The department does bi-monthly readings and, with the
automatic meter reading, the meter readers drive by and the automatic meter reader
picks up the reading so it’s done a lot faster. It’s made for areas that are hard to
access, particularly winding or narrow roads and quite a bit have been installed.
Mr. Matsuda asked if it comes at a cost to the owner to have the ability to read
the meter. Ms. Garson replied no. Mr. Matsuda clarified that it is only in select places
that are hard to access. Ms. Garson replied yes, or places with lots of traffic. She
stated the department has looked at the option of having monthly meter readings but
that would require more staffing and getting more bills out. Ms. Garson said the
department wanted more automatic drive by meter reading possibilities; it comes at a
cost so the department was phasing it for a while. Mr. Perry noted the department has
been adding a certain number every year. Mr. Matsuda asked about the older
residences with older meters. Ms. Garson replied she thinks it’s a different meter and
the department replaces it. Mr. Matsuda asked if it’s on-going replacement. Ms. Garson
replied that she thought yes. Mr. Perry noted the automatic readers are significantly
more expensive so it’s not a casual decision to put in the automatic readers; sometimes
humans can do more economically. Mr. Matsuda stated it saves on labor.
20
Mr. Mitchell noted the department has 157 employees, 41,000 customers with
over 1,500 meters to read in addition to performing over 1,200 repairs; those three
meters are pretty busy.
4. DISCUSSION, QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH DIRECTOR
WARREN LEE OR HIS DESIGNEE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
WORKS
At 2:31 p.m., Mr. Warren Lee arrives.
Ms. Maddox: Thank you very much for joining us. In the Kona meeting room is
two of our commissioners. So behind you on the screen are two of our commissioners
in Kona, Mr. John Mitchell and Linda Kelly.
Mr. Mitchell: Good Afternoon and thank you for being here.
Ms. Kelly: Aloha, thank you for being here.
Mr. Lee: Love to be here, thank you for inviting me.
Ms. Maddox: John, this was you and Glen, the team for Public Works, so I’ll turn
the floor over to you gentlemen to be able to begin the conversation.
Mr. Mitchell: Mr. Lee, thank you very, very for being here, this Commission
meets only once every four years and we certainly take this work very seriously so
thank you for your appearance. Sir, I want to thank you because you got back to us
st
post haste in regards to our letter out to you, you responded on the 21 of April; and I
really want to thank you for your time with the response and I thought you handled the
letter so very well, so thank you very much. One of the first items within your letter in
which we can begin the response, we’re not going to start out with vehicles right off the
bat. I want to go right to your letter, it’s the first thing that we look at in regards to our
relationship with you, is enhancing revenue and revenue collections. I just want to touch
bases with this for a moment, sir. Says photovoltaic and pre-approval systems for
installation has saved an enormous amount of time of expense; that is something we’ve
come across in different departments. After this issue, I’ll move into vehicles but I
wanted to touch bases. It seemed to be a pretty important item, I wanted to give you a
chance to share, is there additional savings, additional work that we’re doing to make it
easier for folks to install these pre-approved photovoltaic programs?
Mr. Lee: I believe your question is, well thank you for liking my letter, I
appreciate it. Warren Lee, Director of Public Works. We continue to streamline the
process. The photovoltaic industry, PV industry, is really, how do you say, matured over
the last 30 years; at one point, and I’m kind of giving you the background if you don’t
mind, at one point the installation or the cost of installing photovoltaic system using a
watt basis as a unit cost. Thirty years ago it was about $15 - $20 a watt, fast forward
with technology advances in the manufacturing of the solar panels, the installation cost
is probably now down to about $2 - $3 a watt, so you can see that it significantly
decreased over the last 30 years; and this $2 - $3 a watt unit cost was probably realized
only within the last, maybe 3 – 5 years and the reason for that is that there was some
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breakthrough in the solar technology, I think the manufacturers made a decision either
they are going to try to develop the best, most efficient solar panel or they are going to
go with something that’s proven and start to mass produce it; and they started to mass
produce these panels. And fortunately or unfortunately, most of these panels come from
the Republic of China and that’s where you have an over supply now of panels and
that’s why the cost is down, so being in the last 10, 20, 30 years, the price of electricity
from your local utility was increasing primarily due to the high cost of doing business to
include the increasing cost of fuel oil and fuel oil is about 50% of the expenditures for a
utility company in the State of Hawai‘i, so you had an increase in price on the electricity
from the power company and you had a decrease in price in the photovoltaic
installations. So we were deluged with photovoltaic applications, it was almost like, and
I’m not trying to date myself, but back in the mid ‘60s and early ‘70s when everybody
was selling aluminum siding, so you had a lot of, the marketing went from technology
marketing to incentive marketing for salesmen, basically. What we were seeing at the
Building Division was that we’re getting all kinds of different designs in a PV system so
we said, basically, you need to meet the code and if you’re not to meet the code, the
next best thing to do, I mean if you’re going to meet the code, but give us something
that’s, something that we’re not familiar with or you got some installation or panels or
rails that come from, not made in America, maybe that’s the easiest way to say it, not
made in America, hard to track down what that strength of that bolt or that rail is, much
less the panel, so we asked them to standardize it; and I think that started to happen,
we were able to process these permits in a much quicker manner. So again, we are still
looking at what we call, as much as possible, working with the solar industry, working
with the contractors on what we call prescriptive methods where they meet the design
requirements rather than customizing every design, so I think that has helped quite a
bit. And our plan reviewers, electrical plan reviewers and our building people because
there is a structural component to this, they’ve become more familiar with the product
that the local, I would say local PV installers are installing, and then the non-local,
meaning those that come from the spin off companies or the branches from the
mainland, they know what the process is, so yes, we are starting to improve this, I
guess what’s happening also is that even though the PV panels unit cost may be low, I
think the market is getting saturated because the electric utility can only take so much
PV or what we call, as available power, where it fluctuates depending on the amount of
sunlight, they only can take so much of that power per circuit because otherwise you
would have what we call, power quality issues; but not trying to deviate from the
discussion, yes, we continue to look at ways of improving our fast tracking, streamlining
photovoltaic installations.
Mr. Mitchell: Thank you, very well done; it’s obviously a huge area and we just
come up with Mr. Will Rolston, this is kind of a nice segue, so thank you very much. On
our agenda for Cost of Government Commission, we tend to start out talking with
vehicles. You’re obviously a very, very large department with an enormous amount of
vehicles, we don’t expect that you’ll be able to pull off the exact number of vehicles you
have in your department. Can you give us a general idea and can you give us a general
idea how much it cost to operate, maintain these vehicles and I guess the last thing and
probably the most important, to store them?
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Mr. Lee: That’s a compound question there; I should have read the minutes.
Ms. Maddox: He’ll break it back down for you.
Mr. Lee: You’re right, we have a lot of vehicles.
Mr. Mitchell: Are we talking 150, we talking 250, just a general ballpark?
Mr. Lee: I think we probably talking about, for speaking purposes, let’s say we’re
talking about 200 vehicles. You realize that, not realize, but I think you got the data that
Public Works covers the Highway Division, which maintains all roads and highways. We
got 941 miles, almost 1,000 miles of local roads and within the Highway Division; we got
trucks and we got, which run on gasoline, we also got passenger vehicles and we got
heavy equipment that runs on diesel. Within the Building Division, we have inspectors
that go out every day; and we have project coordinators that coordinate all County
projects, not only for us but also for Fire, Police and the DPW, so that’s where the bulk
of the vehicles are. They are with the inspectors and they are with the Highway Division;
and they’re also with our engineering group which does inspections of private projects
where there is, let’s say a subdivision being built, they need to inspect that subdivision
so that’s it’s built according to the approved plans because it involves grading, it
involves drainage, includes how the roadway is built because eventually these
roadways get, if they are built to a dedicatable standard, they get dedicated or given to
the County of Hawai‘i for us to maintain forever after, so that’s where the bulk of the
vehicles are, in the engineering inspectors, the engineering project engineers, the
Building Division inspectors and the Highways Division. And also, when I say highways,
I’m talking about, not only the Highway Division, but the Traffic Division, the people that
take care all the street lights, they take care all the traffic signals, they take care of the
signs, they take care of the striping on the streets whether it be a crosswalk or a
centerline, so yes, we have a lot of vehicles.
Mr. Mitchell: Mr. Lee, I was running out of ink trying to make notes of all the
things your department does, it’s just huge. In regards to vehicles still, and this is
probably dating me, sir, just a little bit, if I recall, there is an issue with some bulldozers;
and I don’t know if we bought a bulldozer and we had it, then we sold it back and then
we rented it out from another company, this is probably going back a couple years, we
don’t need to re-trace something back 5 – 6 years ago, do we still have four bulldozers
and do we own these or do we rent these, sir?
Mr. Lee: Well I think, I like to go back in history because just for the record, that
bulldozer that I believe you’re talking about, or referring to, belonged to the Department
of Environmental Management and was used at the landfill; and I understand Bobby
Jean had her day in court, but that was before Bobby Jean’s time. We have one
bulldozer in the Department of Public Works and that prior to the Iselle, Hurricane Iselle,
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and prior to the lava flow of June 27, the bulldozer was primarily used for cutting fire
breaks for the Fire Department; and that is, generally what we do is, we locate that
where the projects are located, sometimes we do road grading, sometimes we do
reservoir building for the Mayor’s office relative to the Kapulena Ag lots what was being
developed up in the Hāmākua area. We also use the dozer as necessary for re-grading
roads that get washed out but primarily the dozer, purpose for that size dozer, which is
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a D8 by the way, Caterpillar, is used for fire breaks on-call and during the dry months,
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primarily in the June/July time frame. 4 of July, we pre-position that dozer in the
Waikoloa/Waimea area based on history, historical events, I should say. We would like
to have more, by the way.
Mr. Mitchell: One of the issues is take home policies and after this question,
maybe we can turn it over to Glen for a moment or two, just in regards to the take home
policies, I know Hawai‘i has a Revised Statutes; but does your department have a
specific policy and do you check these, the records or the mileage reports, is there a
regular basis in which you check their mileage reports or auto use reports?
Mr. Lee: Yes, we do have a policy of take home vehicles and basically that
comes out of, we make the recommendation and it goes through the Finance
Department; then it also, I believe, may end up with final review with the Mayor, but I
think Nancy, the Director of Finance, usually signs off on who takes home a vehicle.
Right now, the vehicles that I have approved, and which also had been approved, is the
vehicles are assigned, the take home vehicles, are assigned to supervisors of first
responders. In other words, if we have a, in Highways, if we have an overseer and we
have five overseers, I believe, in each district, Kona, Hāmākua, South Hilo, North
Kohala, Puna, those overseers who basically run the base yard as first responders are
the senior leader of that base yard, so when they get calls from the Police Department
or the Fire Department or Police Dispatch, there is a tree down across the road, the
highway is blocked, can you come out and remove it. The overseers are the first ones
to respond. He’ll take that vehicle from his home, he’ll drive out and assess the situation
and decide to call in one crew, two crews or he may tell the police, I shouldn’t say that,
he should tell somebody why don’t you just move the branch yourself, you know, that
does happen or it could be a rock slide, so you need to assess what the situation is
before you start calling out crews at 2 o’clock in the morning or 12 midnight. So the first
responders have vehicles in Highways; the first responders also we have on standby
from the Traffic Division, if a traffic signal goes out or a critical, you know, red, yellow,
green, if it doesn’t work, you might have everybody trying to cross the intersection at the
same time and law of physics, two pieces of mass cannot occupy the same space at the
same time, that’s what you call an accident waiting to happen. So first responders will
also respond to, if someone hits a critical sign, like a stop sign at a critical intersection, it
cannot wait till the next work day or it cannot wait till Monday, they will go out and
replace that sign, so these are the type of first responders that have vehicles. We have
some of my direct reports which are division heads, they are first responders because in
the event there is an alert such as a tsunami alert, a hurricane alert, we need to man,
get the briefing and report immediately to the Emergency Operations Center, Civil
Defense, so those are the type of people that have take home vehicles based on their
position as first responders. I have another set of people that are authorized to take
their vehicles home and these are primarily building, electrical or plumbing inspectors;
and the reason they get to take their work home, not their work but their car home is
that, a building inspector may be assigned his work base as let’s say Hilo, he may live in
Honoka‘a, but where he inspects could be between Hilo and Honoka‘a or could be
beyond Honoka‘a, could be in the Waimea area, so rather have him drive in every day,
pick up the vehicle, drive back out to the job site and then at the end of the work day or
to get back in time for the end of the work day, he would need to leave probably maybe
at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, let’s say he gets out there at maybe 9, he comes back at 2,
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so basically he’s got a 4 hour or 4 ½ hour workday. If he gets to take the car home, his
net effectiveness increases, so we have instituted that policy; and let me also say, our
building inspectors, our goal is to perform an inspection within 48 hours of the
contractor’s request, 48 hours, so in order to facilitate that, we’ve instituted this, allowing
certain people to take their vehicles home, so if your work area is closer to your home
than the work base, that is one of the, that’s the condition that we generally allow that,
take home vehicle.
Mr. Mitchell: Sir, just to make sure, and these vehicles all have like a County
sticker, I mean they’re identified as County vehicles, is that correct?
Mr. Lee: All the vehicles that we have, I would say are marked, they have a
license place that starts out with COH and they also have the seal on the driver’s side
door and the passenger door, the County seal.
Mr. Mitchell: Thank you. Glen, do you have something there? I’ll turn it over to
you for a minute.
Mr. Matsuda: Mr. Lee, you stated, you started off in regards to the PV panels
and the permitting process. I understand it’s going to make everything faster and much
quicker and easier but my question has to do, you mention in your letter here that in
time, applications and requests would be made from computers or could be made from
computers. When do you expect this application and request process will be able to be
made from computers and smart phones, speeding up the response time; is there any
kind of timeframe or anything on that or has it been looked into already?
Mr. Lee: Yes and no. We have implemented a program about two years ago
and this is to, on the overarching goal, to expedite or speed up the approval of a
building, electrical, plumbing permit application. And to answer your question, let me
just outline the basic steps that goes through when someone comes in for an
application. What happens is that, if I was to apply to build a new home or renovate my
home, I would bring in an application, that’s what we call the intake process, that
application basically says, what is my tax map key, identify the property; once the
property is identified, they can determine if what I am doing is an appropriate use for the
zoning so that’s part of the process. It also says, it also identifies what I plan to do, I
plan to renovate my home and make it a three story home in a residential district with
RS zoning and they may say, this looks like, we may say this looks like a bed and
breakfast and is that allowed so this is part of the process, so what I’m getting at is there
is an application process to make sure that at least the basic information on your
application is correct. Once the application is taken in, then they come in with the plans,
usually what happens is they will give us a hard copy, a paper copy of the plans, or they
will give us a disk with the plans on the disk. That is the, then that plan is reviewed and
if there are corrections to be made or questions, it goes back to the applicant or his or
her representative, which in most cases is an architect, a plan expediter, or could be an
engineer. So when I refer to the e-plan review, the e-plan is, if you want to apply you
can apply on line, you don’t have to bring in this application, we will accept that on line.
And when I say yes and no to your answer, not to be smart, but we do that now, we
take the applications in; but we don’t have the capacity to do the e-plan or to take the
plan by way of the internet to us, we don’t have that capacity and that’s what we want to
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work on as probably a future step. So once the plan gets reviewed, and if there are no
comments, then we call the applicant to come pick up his plans, and the permit fee is so
much; and they can pull their permit or they can have the contractor pull their permit,
whoever they deem appropriate. So after that, the plans, the permits are issued, they
start construction; then we do the inspection, that’s the next phase, after the plans are
approved. They start work; they call us when they are ready for us to have it inspected.
For example, before you pour the slab, let’s say it’s a slab on grade house, before they
pour the slab, they need to call the plumbing inspector to see if the lines, the plumbing
lines, are done correctly, might be sloping the wrong way, there might not be enough
slope, everything is basically gravity flow for septic systems. Before they close up a
wall, if it’s a double wall construction, they will call the inspector and say, “Electrical
inspector please come and check the conduits that are installed in the wall to make sure
that they are done properly, they are at the right location, they are not in the flood zone,
about three feet above the floor, is it close to an opening”, so that’s the inspection
process. So once the building is, the structure is completed, they will get a final
approval and, in certain cases, a certificate of occupancy depending if it’s a commercial
or residential project. That is the steps of the process that we go through in the building
permit review, plan review and approval, so yes, e-plan is a critical part of this. We are
watching very carefully what the City and County of Honolulu, what their results are;
they started e-plan review maybe about 6–9 months ago, maybe 9–12 months ago and
we understand that, of course we only hear the bad side, you don’t necessarily hear the
good side. The bad side, the not so good side, is that the e-plan review is so exact that
it will note any discrepancy on the drawing; in other words, if the drawing that was
originally submitted is like this, and they say, and I’m using this as an example,
something is, the date is wrong, so they would change the date but if they touch that
plan and even underline something else, the scanning machine of the e-plan will pick it
up and calling that an unauthorized change, so it gets kicked back. So e-plan review,
the way it’s implemented right now, the way it’s designed, is that for whatever reason,
you cannot change anything other than what the plan reviewer commented on; and if
you do something else, like they think of something else, maybe I want to do another
room or I want to make this room one foot wider or one foot longer, that’s another
review process. So this e-plan review is something we’re looking at but the question is,
“Is it ready for prime time?” and it’s not inexpensive.
Mr. Matsuda: So the obstacle you see is that it’s really not ready right now but
it’s more just for a matter to get the ball rolling, am I correct?
Mr. Lee: Well that would be; e-plan is module or a process that we would like to
implement when we are ready. I think there’s other things we are working on right now
to process a building permit quicker, electrical permit quicker, a plumber permit quicker;
and our goal is to reduce the time from, let’s say a residential construction, five years
ago was, for very many reasons, lots of reasons, was maybe six months, now we’ve cut
it down to about, if the drawing is correct first time, three weeks, so we continue to
improve with what we have and add new tools as appropriate.
Mr. Matsuda: So this, with this e-plan scenario, the most frequent, not
necessarily the most frequent infraction; but like you say, if you just underline it, it’s
going to kick it out or it’s going to recognize it as an unauthorized change or scratch on
the paper.
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Mr. Lee: E-plan is not the only, it’s not universal. If we did implement e-plan that
would primarily be used I would say, we cannot say you have to submit something on
e-plan. This is what Honolulu is saying, you have to submit e-plan only, so in other
words, if I wanted to extend my garage, I would take my old drawing and I would sketch
on my drawing, hand sketch it and say I want to extend my garage two more feet,
without getting an architect or having someone who has the e-plan software, it doesn’t
address, what I’m saying, e-plan is not for the little guy, for the owner builder, it is for the
guy that’s building a commercial establishment, a person that maybe has hired and
architect to build a multi-million dollar home or maybe someone that sells package
homes like a 1056 Honsador, HPM, that’s where the e-plan is very helpful.
Mr. Matsuda: Because it’s pretty much a stated as to what they want ‘cause it’s
already planned out or the commercial, you want a building and that’s it, usually there’s
not many changes in a commercial building and the e-plan, I think, because you’re in
the infancy stages of the e-plan, right now you just taking the e-plan request and going
with it from there and seeing what kind of results you can get out of it and where
obstacles are and working from it from there.
Mr. Lee: For clarification, we don’t have e-plan software. We do not have e-
plan; that would be a future step. Right now, the closest thing we got to e-plan would be
if XYZ Consulting comes in and says, “I’m the representative for this”; the new First
Hawaiian Bank that was built by Prince Kuhio Plaza, they could bring in sets of big
drawings or they can here’s a disk and that’s where we are.
Mr. Mitchell: I would imagine that would save on a lot of time, sort of take us to
the next item on our agenda, our questions, is overtime. Could you share with us your
overtime policy and your budget for overtime if you have one?
Mr. Lee: We have a budget for overtime and we also have a budget for regular
time. I would say most of the time, we don’t have full staffing, so when you don’t have
full staffing because of turn over, transfers, promotions, we use that money to have
some people work extra time to make up because our goal is to return drawings,
residential, at least with the first comment, our goal is 14 days, 14 working days and as I
mentioned before, generally our average right now is about 21, so we’re working
towards that. So if I need overtime to keep the work flowing, then we will work the
overtime whether it be in the intake process, the review process or the issuing of the
permit process, so it’s three distinct steps done by three distinct work categories, in
other words, the building clerk is the one that will be taking in, the intake, the electrical
inspector or the buildings plans managing reviewer will look at the plans, that’s a
different person, and then you got the building clerk, a separate building clerk who only
calls contractors to come pick it up. I’m trying to give you order of magnitude; we’ve got
one plans review manager and two plan reviewers for building; we got one electrical in
Kona, one in Hilo, one plumbing in Hilo and one in Kona, and you know what, we got on
average, about 4,000 permits a year that we process or issue, we issue, so there’s a
backlog and question is, how do you want to reduce the backlog and what we found
handy at this time is to use the overtime, work extra time as appropriate.
Mr. Mitchell: What we’re dealing with in this Commission is perceptions of the
community; and I got a lot of respect, my impression is you were HELCO, the leader
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there for 27 years or so and you certainly understand both sides of the fence, private
business and government business. Again, there’s a perception that sometimes
overtime is maybe not clear to maybe all the employees or staff in which, of course,
leads us to folks in our community who aren’t clear with that. Would you have a
suggestion for this Commission in which we can help the perceptions that exists that
somehow people think that overtime is abused, would you have a suggestion for this
Commission to clarify this?
Mr. Lee: Well first of all, I was in charge of HELCO for 18 years, not 27. The
perception on overtime, I can tell you, when someone gets their permit within 14 days,
they’re jumping for joy, they don’t care if it was overtime or straight time or any time; but
I think and I don’t know why the perception is that overtime is a bad thing because
overtime could be a good thing especially if you realize you put it into the right context.
We are, at Public Works, and many of the departments, we are still working with less
than the authorized positions because of the adjustment that were made with the down
turn in economy, furlough was part of the answer and not filling vacancies, of being
selective on which vacancies you’re going to fill, was part of the solution so that the
County could remain economically viable without having to raise money for the general
fund or even for the highway fund. So the perception, I don’t know how you fight that
perception other than this Commission could put out a great ad saying that overtime is
good.
Mr. Matsuda: In your department, can one say that overtime is more likely to be
granted to those first responders as you mentioned?
Mr. Lee: Yes. First responders, almost automatic, they go out. I tell the police
dispatcher, “Don’t call me, call the highway division chief if you got something on the
highway., Don’t waste the time calling me and I got to call him and he got to call
somebody else.” Get quickly as possible to who’s going to be your first responder and
that is, again, if you got a big tree, a 12 inch diameter or bigger across the highway,
across a road, that’s an immediate call out unless this is a road that goes to nowhere.
That’s why the overseer, they know which roads are in their district and they know what
the impact is, they’ll make that call sometimes, the decision over the phone or after they
find out more information, who can wait until tomorrow or no, we cannot wait because if
we don’t get to it by 5 o’clock in the morning, the school buses are not going to be able
to pass this point to pick up the children, so yes, overtime in that kind of case from
police dispatch or fire dispatch is almost automatic. The other type of overtime whether
we should be working overtime in our Automotive Division, for example, Public Works
has an Automotive Division, we take care of the fleet for the County with the exception
of the buses, they have their own mechanics. I think Police and Fire have their own
mechanics, but we basically service the rest of the County, whether it be heavy
equipment, passenger vehicles, could be a weed eater or a blower, small equipment,
we take care of that. So, in the event of that type of overtime, if there is a need for let’s
say a bulldozer, let’s say at the landfill that needs to be repaired otherwise they cannot
cover the trash and that could be a public health and safety, we will go out and service
or repair that machine for them, so yes, everything basically in the department, a
response, most of the overtime that we have is, other overtime, is in the Building
Division whether it be to process plans or to issue permits. We have overtime for the
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inspectors; but generally, if the overtime work is being, the inspection is being requested
by a developer or a contractor, they will reimburse us for that overtime expense.
Mr. Mitchell: Thank you very much. One of the next items on our agenda is
dealing with energy and Mr. Rolston was here and just one of the things he was
discussing was street lights. I had a little extra time on my hands so I counted, looks
like we got about 10,169 street lights out there and you’ve made a conversion, it’s says
an annual savings of $200,000, this project was funded $500,000 from the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, very nice of our federal government. In your belief,
what is the biggest expense that we could address in bringing down our energy costs,
sir?
Mr. Lee: Well, I think we’re doing that right now with the conversion of the lights,
the street lights that we have through the LED. This hasn’t been that easy, on the
conversion, feasible, easy to talk about taking one light out and putting another lamp in;
but I tell you we have a, the LEDs are being developed, they are past the beta stage.
But we have something unique on this island and we have something unique in the
State of Hawai‘i and that sits at the top of Mauna Kea, they call it an observatory and
the viewing, from what I understand, is compromised if you have certain types of light
waves or certain blue, certain color waves, they will distort or effect the image, the
reading from the observatory. So we developed, or Ron Thiel from Traffic, in working
with the consultants developed a, and with the observatory people, their representative
developed a LED light that would minimize the bad stray lights that could affect the
viewing. We have a customized type light on the Big Island; and when you customize
something, just like a car, you buy something off the shelf or you buy something from
the showroom, or if you want a special red color or a tint or you want certain type of
accessories, you got to pay a little bit more and that’s where we are. So now we’re into
production, we have the vendor or the manufacturer and we expect that conversion to
be done in maybe about two years.
Mr. Mitchell: That’s great news. Thank you.
Ms. Kelly: This is Linda Kelly. Do you know if the costs for this extra custom
light is being picked up by the observatory center because that’s a demand from them;
is anybody chipping in for the extra custom?
Mr. Lee; No, they’re not. What we’re doing is, we initially started this project
funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that first grant-in-aid and then
what we’re doing is we’re financing the rest of the changing in the street lights to the
$9,000 or $10,000 through savings incurred on an annual basis.
Ms. Kelly: Thank you.
Mr. Mitchell: Glen, do you have anything else on energy?
Mr. Matsuda: Yeah, not necessarily on energy but I’m referring, again, I’m
referring to your letter, your response to your letter, I realize that the minimum housing
standards for health and safety were not well addressed as you stated in your letter,
now for the International Building Code, it’s a specific code that I guess everybody has
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to follow and you mentioned, please clarify what you meant by what needs to better
addressed in the previous recommendation that was given to you in the previous
direction from the Cost of Government Commission.
Mr. Lee: What paragraph was that, I have it with me.
Mr. Matsuda: The last paragraph, I think, DPW response.
Mr. Lee: Oh, okay, the minimum, what I responded with is that the minimum
housing standards for health and safety were not well addressed with the current code
adoption of the International Building Code. The International Residential Code is well
written, prescriptive-based method of addressing, so prior to 2011, let me go back first
of all, by statute, HRS, state law, there is a building code committee, a state building
code committee which has a responsibility for approving and developing a state building
code, statewide. Then from a process-wise, then the counties have, Kauai County,
Maui County, Honolulu City and County and Hawai‘i Island County, have building
codes. Generally what happens is that the building code is a standard coming out of a
national organization or it could be in international organization depending on what
you’re looking at. Building code, electrical code, plumbing code, fire code, there’s all
kind of codes, and in some cases what had happened in the past, is that you may have
had two associations doing a building code, so the question would be which code do
you accept, so we’re passed that when the state through a legislative action formed a
state building code. So the process is the state building code committee, of which we
have a representative, each county has a representative, the construction industry has
a representative and the supply industry like the people that make the lumber, the steel
people, the air conditioning people, they all have representatives on the committee, so
what they’ll do is, in this case, the International Building Code, they looked at it; and
they said, “We need to adopt this because it has energy standards, it has up-to-date
standards based on what is really happening”, and let me say that this is what I was
referring too, the code is developed for application as the minimum standard for public
health and safety and generally a code is written or modified or amended based on
some disaster happening some place whether it be a hurricane, a tsunami, an
earthquake, then they find out how did this building, why did this building fail and x
number of people were killed. Then they’ll say the design was not adequate because
the seismic zone was not defined for this reason, properly. So what came out of this
building code, International Building Code, was that they looked at the scientists, the
meteorologists, the structural engineers, looked at everything on this island particularly,
versus saying Hawai‘i Island, Oahu should be under the same wind load, earthquake
load, whatever load, structural load that Florida, Tampa is under or Carlsbad, California,
it was that, too general, so they started to be more localized. The International Building
Code the way it was designed, was that it is more designed for application with
commercial structures. Also, what was being done concurrently was that the state
building code committee was reviewing the International Residential Code, which is
designed for more residential construction by definition. The committee, state
committee, approved it but based on administrative rules, the Governor needs to
release it for application; and it was not released. So we’re dealing now with how do we
deal with people that want to use alternate materials for their homes, residential. The
IRC basically provides the mechanism, the process to do that, so without it being
released, we basically got our hands tied; but in application what we’re doing is on a
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case by case basis, we are looking at requests for alternate building material and
applying the principles that would be incorporated from the IRC into what we do. So
yes, what I’m saying here is that we have by County Code, we acknowledge the
International Building Code, but we don’t legally acknowledge the IRC because it has
not been released.
Mr. Matsuda: And where is that? You said you waiting for the Governor’s
signature; so do you know at what point or where they’re at or even if it’s being
considered or tabled or? I don’t know if you even know that answer.
Mr. Lee: All we know it’s on the Governor’s desk, new Governor now so maybe it
will be released. But you know what happened, that was done three years ago, so
these codes change every three years, that’s about the cycle they go through.
Mr. Mitchell: We good?
Mr. Matsuda: I’m good. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mitchell: Mr. Lee, the next item that we tend to discuss on this agenda is in
finance and in looking at your $40 million operating budget, looks like half of it is simply
on highway maintenance and that’s seems to be certainly a large amount of money,
there’s certainly a lot of important things you’ve already touched upon it. Are we writing
grants for both federal and state government, does that help and assist in paying for the
maintenance of our highways or when we’re writing our grants is that mostly to build the
roads or highways?
Mr. Lee: First of all, the highway fund and the franchise tax funds basically the
highway work. We have 900, almost 1,000, miles of road that we acknowledge, there’s
another 120 miles between the State of Hawai‘i and the County of Hawai‘i of roads in
limbo; but yes, most of these monies are raised through fuel tax but we do have
programs where we get grants and aid, or we get stipends as you refer to it but basically
it comes out of the federal government and it is administered by the State Department
of Transportation; but it’s administered by the State Department State via way of the
State Department of Transportation and this is called the State Transportation
Improvement Program. Basically, if we have a qualified project—and a qualified project
means that the road has to be a certain classification, there’s different classifications of
roads, you take a dirt road, you take a local road where you got driveways, that’s a local
road, you take a heavily used local road based on its age, how it was designed maybe
30, 40, 50, 60 years ago like Kīlauea Avenue, that would be typically a local road but it
is out grown its use as a functioning classified local road, it is considered a major
collector road in other words, one level up. So you got local roads, you got minor
collector roads, you got major collector roads and you got arterials. Let’s say the last
major road that we built was Ane Keohokalole Highway in Kona, that is classified as a
major collector road that is not arterial; so if we are a collector road, we qualify for use of
the State Transportation Improvement Program funds. If we are building a new, or if we
are doing what we call reconstruction, but if you’re just simply maintaining it, you do not
qualify for these State Transportation Improvement funds, so being that the question is
from a Kona representative, in all your familiarity with the Kona area, let’s say that
Kaiminani Drive is classified as a collector road; but you got driveways coming out all
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over the place, right, so it is a major mauka/makai connector road between all
Māmalahoa Highway and Queen K. We qualified for State Transportation Improvement
funds, grants-in-aid because we were reconstructing the road, what we found is that the
road was being damaged severely because of the heavy load, trucks and the volume so
we reconstructed the road by changing the thickness of the sub-base, changing the
thickness of the AC pavement, putting in more drainage structures on the side to better
control the run offs and that qualified under the STIP program so that the County of
Hawai‘i pays for 20% of the project and we are, the State through the federal
government, picks up 80% of the costs. But if I were to say, let’s say, re-pave Aupuni
Road right outside of the County Building, that is a County road and even if it was a
State road and I just re-surfaced it, we would not qualify for federal funds.
Mr. Mitchell: Kaiminani sort of Palisades Road cost $10 million and 80% by the
federal government.
Mr. Mitchell: I’m just going to throw this out there in regards to finance, and we’re
talking roads and I know in Orange County on the mainland, toll roads are very, very
common. Would we have a minor riot if we made a toll road there on the Saddle Road,
is that possible or feasible, sir?
Mr. Lee: Possible, yes. Feasible, yes. Riot, yes. But by the way, that’s a State
highway. The only part of Saddle Road that we still control is the Hilo side after the
improvement from Pohakuloa stop, where the lane narrows that comes under the
County and then the Old Māmalahoa Saddle Road by Waikii Ranch that comes under
the County, the rest is all State.
Mr. Mitchell: I want to thank you very much. One of the next items we have is
technology, and one of the things that I always tend to do is I go up your departments,
and I click on your indicators or your little sign post traveled and your website; and I
traveled through your website and I discovered this really great pamphlet called the
“Day in the Life of the Department of Public Works.” Mr. Lee I got to tell you, it’s so well
done and I want thank you, you got your mission statement, you got your vision
statement, one of the things I do is I check for when it was revised, you know, looks
great but it was revised back in 1963, well that’s not the case in your guys department,
this thing was revised October 13, 2014 and it was very, very well done. I really want to
give you a compliment, and one of the things is it was really easy to use was as if I saw
a dead animal on the road; and now I understand if the dead animal is 50 pounds or
more I call somebody else, if it’s under 50 pounds I call someone else to remove the
animal. But also in the tree, you’ve made it very user friendly, I think you’ve used
technology very well to make it easy for a citizen to call and report a down tree or a
down power line or a signal light that’s not working. If there is something you could do
to make this maybe even more efficient or a reflection of that pamphlet or booklet, is
there anything you would add or change or improve on this, sir?
Mr. Lee: Well, continuous improvement is a process; and when we come up with
new things that we want to share with the public or when we review the types of
complaints that we receive, then we can find out what is the solution, what is the
remedy, and also sharing that information through the website is important; and if you
folks, if anyone has complaints, not complaints but suggestions, we really would
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appreciate it. I think we have a lot of good, great people at Public Works that make this
happen, you know, I don’t do but they do it and they know the direction that we’re
heading in and trying to be, get as much information as possible. Initially I would say,
maybe a while ago, people would say, “Why is all these people always calling me about
complaints about pot holes in the street? Pot holes, pot holes, as all we hear about.”
Well, you know, our outlook has been, hey, it’s better to have people identify where the
pot holes are because you can’t drive every street, every day, and they are doing us
service by telling us where the repair needs to be done; and we just got to schedule it
based on our available manpower and availability of the co-mix, the asphalt, to do the
pot hole repair, so consider these, the public, as allies not adversaries. And I think
taking that approach, like any other approach, whether it be picking up a dead animal,
let’s find out where the service from government is going to come from, people
generally say if it’s on the road it must belong to Public Works and I agree that, I say
this to my colleagues sometimes, whatever nobody wants to do they send to Public
Works, and we figure out how to get it done.
Mr. Matsuda: Very good analogy. Lastly, in relationship to the expenditures and
keeping up of the essential services or I guess the different, the many different areas,
how often is a paved road scheduled, just for my information, very briefly, how often is a
paved road scheduled to be re-paved? And I guess in situations of gravel roads, I guess
it’s better to re-pave, to pave the gravel roads that to have it, I say gravel because I’m
assuming it takes more maintenance, the maintenance cost is higher but you know, how
often is the paved roads scheduled to be re-paved.
Mr. Lee: Let me answer the question this way. For an asphalt concrete road,
generally the industry standard in a tropical environment that we have, and one thing
that many people don’t understand is that we got deserts, we got rain forests, we got
the four different climatic zones in which our roads fall under, so 30 years is just a rule
of thumb based on the asphalt industry. So 30 years, a road should be re-surfaced
approximately every 30 years, asphalt concrete. If it’s concrete concrete, the white stuff
not the black stuff, that has a service life of approximately 50 years; but what’s been
happening is that we have not been able to re-surface, so let’s say it’s 30 years and I
got 900, 941 miles but lets say 900 for convenience purposes, so we should be paving
or re-surfacing 30 miles a year of road, we’re lucky right now if we can re-pave 15 miles
a year. The reason about that is the funding for the re-surfacing program is through the
fuel tax. The fuel tax in the County of Hawai‘i is 8.8 cents per gallon and of that 8.8
cents, 3.8 cents goes towards re-surfacing, the 5 cents goes towards the operation, you
know, the manpower, the labor, the equipment, the maintenance of the equipment. Just
3.8 cents goes towards purchasing the asphalt and that comes out to about, for
Highways Division, comes out to about $3.5 million a year depending how much
gasoline is sold, so 8.8 cents that was passed back in the, who knows, the ‘90s maybe,
quite awhile ago, 8.8 cents, 3.8 cents sorry, and up to until last week, with the price of
fuel or the price of petroleum steadily climbing, you could buy less asphalt for the
amount of, same money that we’re collecting based on the fuel tax which is based on
gallons of gasoline and diesel sold in the County of Hawai‘i, so that’s why you see the
diminishing returns of amount of miles we can pave every year. Before, let’s say 10, 20
years ago looking at the records, they used to pave about 20 miles a year so to answer
you question, 30 years is the rule of thumb, are we at 30 years, no.
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Mr. Matsuda: You answered one of my questions; the last question was going to
be what is the fuel tax. Is it only federal, or is it federal and state or this is only state, the
8.8 cents fuel tax?
Mr. Lee: The 8.8 cents is County, there’s three fuel taxes: there’s the federal tax,
state tax, state fuel tax and a County fuel tax.
Mr. Matsuda: Thank you very much.
Mr. Lee: So the fuel tax for the County in the State of Hawai‘i, the fuel tax rate
for the County of Hawai‘i is 8.8 cents per gallon. The fuel tax for Honolulu, City and
County of Honolulu, is 16 cents per gallon. For Maui, it’s above 16 cents and Kauai, it’s
above that.
Mr. Mitchell: That’s significant, thank you for that information. Mr. Lee, we seem
to be having a major issue in regards to traffic; and I’ve, for a combination of reasons, I
found some various reports and it seems like there’s a federal guideline for every
organization that is getting federal monies for transportation, you have to have a plan;
and right now looks like our plan we’re part of, looks like progress or moving ahead in
century 21, it looks like the next one is going to this report that has just come out in
regards to federal highways or statewide highways aid 2035. And I guess it’s another 20
year plan they’re looking at in regards to how we sustain the traffic on our highways.
West Hawai‘i Today had an article on this and, again, literally called Traffic Jams
Ahead, this is West Hawai‘i Today on 11-18-14 and it’s stating that in Federal Aid
Highways Report for 2035 that our population is going to go from about 186,000 or
190,000 now to 280,000 in 20 years, that we’re going to move up from 1.2 or 1.3 million
visitors to 2 million visitors. This is a 393 page report that I guess came out not too long
ago, but for this Commission we’re just getting a chance to sink our teeth into this. This
is obviously a report that has a huge impact on this County. Are you familiar with this
report or is there any information you help provide to this Commission to maybe help us
read 393 pages of this?
Mr. Lee: I don’t think I can help you. What happens is, there are projections,
when you look at long-range planning versus mid-range planning, versus short-range
planning; everything should follow the plan, I mean that’s what plans are for. If you don’t
have a plan, that’s a failure, you know, failure to plan is a plan to fail as they say; but
when you look at a long range, I think it’s really important to look at what the projections
are and what are they based on. Twenty years ago, 30 years ago everyone was saying
land of opportunity not go west but go to the Big Island, and, you know, that
economically has not really materialized. But everybody, the planners, they need to
make their projections; and I tell you what, it is going to be more, I think more of a
problem. We are unique relative to highways and I’m talking in this case most of the
highways that they are referring to would be the state routes, which come under the
State of Hawai‘i jurisdiction; and what is unique about us is that we are large, we’re a
big island, the communities are spread apart, hundreds of miles, major community
centers unless Puna merges into Hilo soon. But it’s tied in with one highway, one belt
and the roads, the mountain, it’s a mountain, it’s a cliff basically when you look at the
slope along Hāmākua, you look at the slope in Kona, you look at the slopes in South
Kona, HOV, it’s tough to navigate a road. So the roads that are being built, have been
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built, you know they were built just enough to get two lanes in and a shoulder. Now, if
you were to expand that route, that’s going to be a major enterprise, a major cost factor
by doing more excavation on the hillside or you got to fill, build retaining walls on the
other side; and at the same time you got to accommodate the traffic. So yes, I mean this
is serious and I think, but you need to look at what the assumptions are and maybe it’s
not as, I think the need is going to be there at some point in the future, it’s not a matter
of if, it’s a matter of when. But, I think, what I would take out of the report is that you got
to start soon because we have unique geographical features; and I think we have
unique culture issues that we would need to deal with in the right manner.
Mr. Mitchell: So looks like the program is called Moving Ahead for Progress and
it’s called Map 21, and this is the statewide federal aid highways transportation plan that
is current or just being exhausted; and now we’re going to move into this new program,
the 2035 statewide transportation plan. You know, one of the issues that we sort of
discussed a little bit in this Commission, just trying to find ways of hubs; and, when
Mr. Rolston was here, he was talking about these electrical stations where people with
electric cars, like the Chevy Volts, so they can get to one of these locations and charge
up their batteries. Well, in addition in these reports, and this report from the University of
Michigan via the Kohala Center, is talking about van pools, ride shares and that we
really could have this sort of a regional transportation plan that is again unique to this
County. Is the hub concept, as I know there is gentleman named John Olson who is
sort of good on this kind of stuff and Ed Kobinski, is a hub concept something you folks
have talked about, discussed or in your personal opinion, something we should sort of
investigate?
Mr. Lee: I think it bears more investigation; it makes sense. The point is, how do
you get people out of their cars onto the bus? That’s the point, I mean, it’s coming down
to a cultural point of privilege—Do I want to wait and ride the bus? Do I have the time,
especially if I’m riding the bus? Well, some people got to ride the bus from Puna or
Pāhoa or Hilo to Waikoloa because it’s just pure economics, so I think it’s a combination
of personal preference. So you want to share a ride? Do you want to be on mass
transit? Do want to live in a certain area where you have to commute two hours a day or
do you want to live closer to your place, where you live or where you work? I mean, it’s
more than just saying we can do the infrastructure, this will work; it’s a matter people
saying, “I will use it”, or “I have to use it”. It depends on what degree you want to
legislate this, too; and you know, there’s many ways to legislate things; if you want
people to ride the bus, raise the fuel tax, as an example.
Ms. Maddox: The comment about sort of looking at assumptions, an interesting
one to me because we always keep talking about we’re going to have more people,
we’re going to have more people, we’re going to have more people. But the opposite
side of that statement is there is a certain carrying capacity that’s available in any
particular geographic area, so offsetting that notion of the construction costs and
carrying capacity with our ability to assume more people, doesn’t ever seem to be a part
of those long range plans. The plans seem to always be built on being able to
accommodate how ever many more want to come, how ever many more roads.
35
Mr. Lee: And I think the assumptions, you know, a lot of it is based on people
that are not looking at it in depth, it’s based on wow, the island is 4,000 square miles,
there’s more room for people. But you got to ask yourself what is the economic driver
and what’s going to bring the people? Are they people that don’t need jobs, retirees, or
are there people that need jobs? And you can have the land but you may not have the
ability to sustain your life; I mean you got to go where, you know, most of us got to go
where we can work so that we can qualify for social security at some point in time. And,
you know, all this and that so I think there is a lot of things that need to go into a study;
but if you just, so it depends on the assumptions that they were using for the 2035 plan.
Because part of the 2035 right now, what they’re looking at is starting, the State DOT, is
how do you improve the capacity from let’s say Kailua village down to where most of the
highest, second highest population growth is in the County of Hawai‘i; first is in Puna,
the second is in South Kona, HOVE. I mean, then they look at the road and say, “Oh,
you got a two lane road here, we need to do something. Right, yes, you need to do
something; but, you know, does that make sense, what capacity does it have to get to in
HOVE, let’s say South Kona development before you start to trigger a road? And then
the other part is when you start to do a road beyond the study phase, it could be 10
years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years; but somehow it’s got to be into the plan at least
recognized; and then you adjust the operation date as needed and all the factors like
funding.
Ms. Kelly: Mr. Lee, I have a question. This is Linda Kelly. Like, for example, I’m
going to take an HOA, a Homeowners Association, they make reserve study for the
longevity or what they need to do on certain items, re-pavement, whatever, gate
maintenance stuff like that, now taking this example knowing that West Hawai‘i has the
West Hawai‘i University being constructed right now and that will bring a flow of traffic
and a hub area from the airport to Palisades to the civic center here. Have there been
any study, or knowing the traffic will be here in 18 months, has there been any study to
ease the problem on a short term, the next three to five years? Are we ready? Are we
prepared? Are we, what are we doing for that?
Mr. Lee: I think the short term is, the long term has turned into the short term
solution and the short term has turned into a long term implementation and that is the
widening of Queen Ka‘ahumanu Highway, which would take it from where it ends right
now at four lanes, two lanes each way, at Kealakehe Parkway. And that is scheduled,
planned to go all the way to the airport, Kona International Airport, which is where the
Palamanui campus sits; but what we’ve done is that, that’s one of the plans, the
remedies to reduce, improve, increase the capacity of the north/south, I call it the
north/south, Kohala to Kailua-Kona traffic. The other part of the plan was to build more
connectivity and that’s why we’re doing Kaiminani, improving that as a mauka/makai
connector; also in the plan is Ane Keohokalole. Ane Keohokalole Highway right now
goes from Palani and Henry all the way to Hinalani so to get it to the community college
we need to from Hinalani to Kaiminani, and then part of the re-zoning for the Palamanui
project is that they were to take the Ane K through the Palamanui development up to,
further north up to tie into Māmalahoa Highway; but that segment is based on the re-
zoning conditions. It’s based on the economic triggers of them developing, getting to
about stage 4, stage 5, where they start to develop, they move from the commercial
development to the residential development. So, yes, it has been looked at.
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Ms. Kelly: Is some of that economic burden has been pushed on to the
developer to help to subsidize the funds or which level is that going to be?
Mr. Lee: That’s handled on a case-by-case basis; and, in the case of Palamanui,
that was, the building of, the construction of that roadway up to Māmalahoa was a
condition of their re-zoning which they agreed to do to re-zone the land from ag to
commercial, mixed use, residential so that is normal in the re-zoning process. It
depends on what the Planning Commission recommends, what the developer is willing
to do based on how they see their project and then this goes to the County Council for
approval and then ultimately to the Mayor for approval.
Ms. Kelly: Thank you.
Mr. Mitchell: Mr. Lee I know we are taking a lot of your time and we’re trying
maybe get close to wrapping this up. One of the most important issues for sure is
certainly the people. Lot of us been asking these department heads and directors is,
what would be your management style, how would you describe it and so that is what
we would ask to you, how would you describe your management style, sir?
Mr. Lee: My management style, give them direction, give them the goals, let
them do the job. They don’t do the job, there’s consequences; they are all adults.
Mr. Mitchell: Do you have some sort of an open door policy for some of the
employees, complaints, or constructive criticism, how about that?
Mr Lee: Yes, I do, an open door policy.
Ms. Kelly: How many employees total?
Mr. Lee: We have about 440, a little over 400, some vacant positions.
Mr. Mitchell: Glen, I’m going to check with you but I’m getting about done, how
are you doing on your end?
Mr. Matsuda: I’m good on my side.
Mr. Lee: So let me say, I’m sorry, let me make one correction. I have 440 on
paper; but in reality with positions not being filled, some being unfunded, I got about 370
average basis.
Mr. Mitchell: I just have one last item. That’s going back, Pacific Business News
going back August 22, 2010, they were talking about some level of criticism at any time
we’re in a job, we’re going to get some level of criticism, I’m a high school teacher, I get
some levels of criticism, it happens to the best of us, but it looks like they conducted an
on-line survey back in ’09 or 2010, is that something the Public Works is going to look at
to continue or maybe was that sort of a one shot thing or? And it looks like they were
just getting so folks can just share some, again, some constructive criticism or thoughts
or comments on this on-line survey.
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Mr. Lee: I think you’re referring to the survey we did for the permitting process, is
that correct, is that the one?
Mr. Mitchell: Yes.
Mr. Lee: What we asked in the survey was, “What is important to you? and
“What kind of services you’re looking at?” And most of the responses back was, you
know, we like to be, depending, and that’s why in a way I’m glad I mentioned the three
or four steps we go through. They mentioned that, “We would like to know how you can
reduce the permitting time”, “Can your clerks be more courteous at the counter?” “Can
the building inspectors, when they come out to inspect the site, explain to us, or you
know, what deficiencies are?” So it was more community interaction. Then one of the
questions we had in the survey was, “Would you be willing to pay more for your permit?”
Some said yes; some said they would be willing to pay more if they were given special
treatment, you know, expedite it, you know, put you in the fast lane, you know if you pay
first class you get into the short line, if you get coach you stand in the regular line to get
on the airplane, you know that type of thing, privilege. We did; we took the survey
results and that’s pretty much how we formulated the, what we wanted to do in the
department, the division, and how we put together the components that we were going
to prioritize on in our software that we implemented about three years ago. And e-plan
was one of them and e-plan wasn’t high on their list, most people’s lists, it was just
something that we thought would be more convenient because maybe it’s not
understood fully well. But you know, it’s called the building permit, but it is not a permit
that only my people look at or review; the Fire Department reviews it; the Department of
Environmental Management also reviews the plans for the building permit; the State
Department of Health will review it for solid waste, liquid waste. So we get the
recognition because it’s called the building permit, and we can say, “Well, you didn’t
pass the Department of Health, is still reviewing it or they have some questions”; but we
are the, put it in the form of transportation, we are the hub of the building permit and it’s
a multi-agency and multi-governmental level plan, review of plans and approval of plans
that is called a building permit. So, that survey, going back to it, it gave us an indication
of where we should focus our efforts at that time and the financial resources that were
available to us. So, yes, we plan to do surveys; but you know, sometimes you don’t
need a survey, you get enough feedback, constructive.
Mr. Mitchell: Thank you very much. We’ve covered a whole lot of materials; and
your department does an amazing amount of stuff. Couple times, sometimes, we sit
here as Commission members, and we hear the incredible volume that County
employees handle; and I think one of the recommendations this Commission is going to
have is to declare to the public is we really get a lot of value out of a lot of really, very
hard working employees and directors. I really, really want to thank you for your time.
Mr. Lee: Thank you for inviting me.
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7. DISCUSSION/ACTION REGARDING PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS AND
FORMAT AND CONTENTS OF FINAL REPORT
Ms. Garson informed the Commission the meeting needed to be done by 4:15 as
the staff needs to close up the conference room and leave by 4:30. Ms. Maddox
indicated the Commission is almost half way through the agenda and asked Ms. Garson
what options they have. Mr. Matsuda asked to defer the discussion on the Department
of Environmental Management to the next meeting. Ms. Maddox noted there are ten
recommendations to discuss and asked if those should be deferred to the next meeting
or move through what they can. Ms. Garson replied it is the call of the Chair but
suggested to consider a longer meeting on January 8. Ms. Maddox said she is not able
to attend the January 8 meeting, but the meeting could go on without her if everyone
else is able to attend or look at a different day that week and a longer time; there are
only two more meetings before the report is due. Ms. Garson said if the Commission
decides on another meeting, Ms. Kualii can find available dates and location. She
suggested packing the agenda for January 8, the meeting can then be recessed if not
all agenda items are covered and reconvene on another day. Ms. Maddox agreed.
Ms. Garson suggested all recommendations be submitted to Ms. Kualii by the
end of the year to be placed on the next agenda.
Mr. Perry asked what the date for the next meeting is. Ms. Maddox replied
between January 8 and 15 if everyone will commit to meeting one additional time; that
will give the Commission three opportunities to move through the rest of the
recommendations and get to the final report. All Commissioners agreed.
8. ITEMS TO BE PLACED ON NEXT AGENDA
Ms. Maddox said they have 15 minutes left to finish their meeting.
Ms. Kelly said she and Mr. Matsuda have two departments to interview, Liquor
Department and Fire Department. She asked Mr. Matsuda if he is willing to take Fire
Department and she would take the Liquor Department, do the interviews and put it on
the next agenda for discussion. Mr. Matsuda agreed. Mr. Matsuda asked if the Fire
Department could come to their next meeting like Mr. Warren Lee did. Ms. Garson said
at this point, make a call to the Chief for an interview. Ms. Kelly said she would be
calling the Liquor Department to schedule a time for an interview.
Ms. Maddox clarified that any agenda items be sent to Ms. Kualii, the next
agenda will be packed and Ms. Kualii will look for a second date to be able to reconvene
the January 8 meeting. Ms. Garson suggested deferring all agenda items under
number 7 to the next meeting. Ms. Maddox said if there are any other
recommendations to add to the agenda it needed to be submitted to Ms. Kualii. She
also clarified everything under item 7 on the agenda will be carried forward to the next
meeting. All Commissioners agreed.
Ms. Kelly said she would like to add the Department of Liquor on the next
agenda. Mr. Matsuda would like to add the Fire Department. Ms. Maddox confirmed
the Department of Environmental Management will also be on the next agenda.
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Ms. Maddox asked all Commissioners if they have anything else to discuss at the
next meeting either from meeting minutes or heard from the presentations. Ms. Kelly
said she read through the list of recommendations that were already approved and
didn’t see any recommendations from the departments she worked on. Ms. Maddox
clarified the recommendations Ms. Kelly is looking at are the ones that were from
previous agendas and were already voted on to move into the draft report. Ms. Maddox
said if there are any more recommendations for the Commission to consider, forward it
to Ms. Kualii to be placed on the next agenda for discussion. Ms. Kelly said she would
confer with Mr. Espejo on what they want to propose to adopt as recommendations and
add it to the next agenda.
Ms. Maddox asked Ms. Kualii what the deadline to submit agenda items is. Ms.
Kualii replied December 30.
Mr. Mitchell said Ms. Leithead Todd did a great job in her interview. She made a
comparison that the Environmental Management Commission might be a better
commission to use to set fees. She noted the Department of Water Supply has a board
and the board receives feedback on setting fees and research on setting fees. Ms.
Leithead Todd preferred another process to address the issue of fees rather than
waiting for the County Council. Mr. Mitchell noted that in the minutes, the
Environmental Management Commission has monthly meetings with the department
and is familiar with what is going on in the department. Mr. Mitchell felt the
Environmental Management Commission should be the ones that help or advise on
setting fees and get it out of the Council’s hands.
Ms. Garson suggested the recommendation to explore granting of authority to
the Environmental Management Commission to set fees will be placed on the next
agenda.
Mr. Mitchell stated he will be ready to present what he has left on the County
Council.
9. DISCUSSION REGARDING LOCATIONS/DATES/TIMES OF FUTURE
MEETINGS/VIDEO CONFERENCING
10. ANNOUNCEMENTS
The next meeting of the Cost of Government Commission will be held on
January 8, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. at the Puna Conference Room in Hilo, 25 Aupuni Street,
Suite 1501, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720.
Ms. Maddox asked the Commissioners to plan to meet for a longer period of time
than their normal two hours.
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11. ADJOURNMENT
Motion and Vote:
Ms. Kelly moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was
seconded by Mr. Matsuda and all commissioners present voted aye.
Meeting adjourned at 4:11 p.m.
Respectfully submitted:
Jennifer M. Kualii
Jennifer M. Kualii, Secretary
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