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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-02-14 (draft) Cost of Government Commission minutes COST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSION c/o Office of the Mayor, 25 Aupuni Street, Suite 2603 Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 COST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES (INCOMPLETE DRAFT) FEBRUARY 14, 2019 HAWAI‘I COUNTY BUILDING, PUNA CONFERENCE ROOM – HILO 25 AUPUNI STREET, SUITE 1501, HILO, HAWAI‘I CALL TO ORDER Chairperson Jones called the meeting to order at 9:24 a.m. ATTENDANCE Present: Jenipher A. Jones, Chairperson Margarita “Dayday” L. Hopkins, Vice-Chairperson Lenard Allen, Commissioner Barbara Ann Bongo Arthurs, Commissioner Ross E. Birch, Commissioner David A. Buehler, Commissioner Gregory Dale Larson, Commissioner Harry Lee McIntosh III, Commissioner Genevieve Puanani Woo, Commissioner ____ Also present: Dennis Kauka, Jr., Office of the Mayor Malia Hall, Deputy Corporation Counsel STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC (none) Jones: Come to order, is there a motion to accept the agenda? Motion to accept by Margartia. Second by Ross Birch. Motion carried. Is there any statements from the public? I see no public, no statements. It says on my notes that we tabled the January thth 10. Yes it is the January 10 minutes that we are supposed to be going over now to th approve and accept. Okay so is everybody on the same page? January 10. Do we have it? I have one that Ross gave to me from his last week’s folder and I will share. (6:10): Jennifer are you waiting for a motion? (Crosstalk) Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes (6:48): You can use any mp4 format is what you are talking about instead of using something specific? (6:52): Yeah any recording you can play your recording and it will McIntosh: I was just saying if you were recording yourself, you could get better sound audio thank trying to record a room of people. People are using a microphone. (7:11): It would probably make more mistakes but it still allows you to correct it. (7:21): Someone has to transcribe everything you just said. (7:22): Wonderful. Jones: We are being recorded every word we say. Do you have an extra copy of the th 14 because I would like to let Ross be able to look at it so he can state his approval. I th am sorry January 10. (Crosstalk) (8:43): Are these like 4 pages long or 5? (Crosstalk) (Flipping Through Pages with Crosstalk) th Jones: Are we ready to review and accept the agenda from January 10? (14:24): The minutes? th Jones: Okay let’s work on the January 10 real quick to get that off of the agenda. So I believe Mr. Allen has one correction and if anybody else does not would be the time that way we can move to accept these minutes. (14:43): Do we have to have a motion and a second? Jones: Yes, so would someone please (14:50): So moved. Jones: Second? Margarita seconds the motion, discussion? (15:02): Okay, the bottom of page 4. There is a sentence that says “that’s been since the last meeting. And has lunch there looked at the room.” Had would be the word instead of has in that particular spot. 2 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: Any other correction that you know? (15:31): I didn’t see any other corrections Jones: If there is no further discussion with corrections all in favor of accepting these th minutes from January 10? (All): I Jones: Motion carried. (Crosstalk) Jones: Shall we move on to subcommittee reports? And unless there is an objection I would like to start with the vehicle report which is very extensive. Mr. Buehler that would be you. Buehler: Okay, I think she forwarded the email which was then updated and I did pass out a, this is based on a news article that was in the West Hawaii today Tuesday and th the 11 whatever day that was. There was some interesting information revealed in that article so I passed out an updated spreadsheet first of all, I changed the spreadsheet to become a little bit more realistic by assuming a 5 year limitation period so we have numbers for each year could be a little bit of savings could be a little bit of expenses, assumptions, benefits. And I imputed the monthly subsidy amount I changed it from 488 to 562 that’s the second line on the spreadsheet and the impact on that to decrease the potential savings significantly I believe on the estimated average fleet cost per vehicle that I used does not include all the hardware and the radio and all that other stuff the lights. I am assuming that that all comes with the vehicle but in any event that cost the county already has because they put it into the private vehicles so whether it is on a fleet vehicle or private that cost is already there so. That shouldn’t necessarily come into this analysis but I could be wrong. (18:26): At least a good portion of it because some of the cost is built into the vehicle when they are manufactured vehicles. I would say probably most would. Buehler: So I think for unless the committee my fellow committee members want to make some adjustments which I don’t have any problems with, we can proceed to submit this as an overall high altitude view of implementing the fleet suggestion. The other component which is not in here which was in the news article was the office receives a gallon of gas free for every 10 miles on duty. I assume that’s what that means, for personal use. I just did a quick rough estimate that is probably another 360,000 a year that would not necessarily. I did 400 officers times 100 miles average 100 miles a shift times 3 shifts times 3$ a gallon. There is a lot of more money in this savings and I don’t really want to put it in there unless you want to. 3 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: It is like hitting a moving target because the information keeps coming in in spits and splatters, then when we asked for information we got information we could make some decent recommendations now that we are at the end of the commission all kinds of new information is available in the newspaper. So I am questioning how are we able to come up with decent recommendations when we can’t even get a simple answer to a simple question for example what are the costs and who would of thought that the costs associated with giving stipend to the police would have anything to do with rank at all. It is a cost, it’s a vehicle, you use your vehicle. McIntosh: Rank always plays even military it’s a big difference Jones: So when you are talking you are replacing a fleet of vehicles with people and compensating them to use their vehicle it doesn’t cost a sergeant any more than a private to drive their own vehicle. It should be a fair compensation to compensate them for using their vehicle. I mean even the basis of all this is getting a little bit nuts Buehler: Unless it becomes part of the salary package Jones: Then when we take all of these vehicles away are considering that a cut to the salary to the police of this county. It is supposed to be the use of their vehicle it is not supposed to be part of compensation because it is a vehicle exchange situation. So then is it based on their performance? Buehler: My preference is to just keep it at 100,000 foot level here and promote the concept to say we need to move forward on this because there is potential savings for the tax payer but we want to first put out the fact that a vehicle that offers the officer more safety and get the savings to boot. But 61,502 per vehicle, based on my discussions with the manufacturer representative, that’s wild. (22:07): It appears to have some premium in there, that’s a whole lot of bells and whistles Buehler: Well I know about that but there are rebate programs and I don’t think that number includes that rebate this one guy told me, you go to the local dealer for chevy, chrystler you make your deal and then the dealer gets this huge like 10 grand kick back per vehicle. So I do not know if that is included in that number or not unless the dealer is keeping it. (22:35): So this is the only comment I want to make on it is that your estimate is extremely conservative on multiple levels. So if there is truly a decision against this. There has to be something involved with the decision that doesn’t include financial savings. And police officer safety and you know all of the other benefits that come with having a police fleet. McIntosh: I am reading the news article and it is almost sounding like they chose to go with a hybrid program because they didn’t have enough money to a complete fleet of 4 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes police vehicles. I mean it has taken them 10 years to save enough money to buy 10 vehicles and that is going to replace 9 vehicles that are out of service now. Buehler: I don’t know if we want to go into any more detail of grant funding. But based on my experience in the pacific islands America, Samoa, Guam, Japan, they all get big money from the feds to support the financing of their fleets and they don’t use personal vehicles in those places. (23:48): Again extremely conservative on the estimate excluding the grants that could be brought in. There is a tremendous amount of cash available there to the county if they want to pursue that. You know county employees there is plenty of grant writers. So there is no reason they could acquire some of that funding. Buehler: I suspect they have to commit to a complete diversion I don’t think they can do 10 here and 12 here. I think they have to say our 5 year plan is to have the whole fleet. Here is your money each year and that is that subsidize some of that but I don’t know, we can put more research into it included in our report McIntosh: You could just put a fine line that says there are federal grants available for this (24:34): They did it’s in there McIntosh: Well that’s okay, you sort of just have to put it out there. They are the ones going to do all of the detailed research to find out hey I can’t and can do this. (24:46): Is there a restriction on the county that it has to be a full purchase or is there leasing option or? Buehler: When I talked to the Chevy guy they prefer not to lease because the vehicles get such rough treatment when they take it back. rd (25:08): I am also talking about 3 party leases so you are actually making the purchase of the vehicle but you are making monthly payments so you don’t have to have the entire out light (25:20): Do you know if the County has a leasing arm where they purchase equipment and lease it to the County? (25:28): I don’t think we do, I know there has been talk about that for buses for mass trans but I don’t know if they have actually started doing that Buehler: I expect that a value is so low that the payments but at least it gives them time with cash flow to pay them off rather than having to come up with a big chunk of change (25:51): You could do a full conversion at a lower cost initially to get to that point 5 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: Do you go through a lease to do leases so we are looking at alright, first I wanted to ask You did this Mr Buehler? This is your record or is this from Dennis because it seems to include all of us Buehler: I collaborated all of everything that she put in and that he put in Jones: And that we put in and everybody Buehler: And his suggestions and I actually haven’t gotten written stuff from you guys that I could add in there yet, I just kind of put it all together and shot it back out Jones: Right, I appreciate it very much because it is nice to have it all in one place so we can go over each one. Right now what we are looking at is the section on police that at this point I don’t know how we accept it as a group other than to make a motion. At this point with this verdict, this sounds great to me. It is concise it is to the point are you going to add a footnote on lease vs buy which I think is more appropriate for money statements Buehler: Is everybody good with adding that footnote suggesting that we could look into leasing (All) Yeah (27:09): My preference is get the final draft report before the whole report. Buehler: Exactly, so tweak it up now and put into it what we want to put as additions then find a first draft of a overall report and then we review the report and then make touches as we go from there. (27:30): Is the police department influenced by any union Jones: It is a state wide contract, but I remember you have mentioned that there was room for wiggle Buehler: I asked the chief, what’s his name the mayor’s assistant? (All): Takemoto Buehler: For the information in the contract and I was referred to HR and I never got back to them. So I figured they don’t want to tell us. (28:11): There is one more angel that we can look at this as well. I have had recent conversations with the energy representative with the county, different things. So if there is a carbon offset burning from individual vehicles from fleet vehicles. That would ring a lot of bells 6 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: So it is like a carbon offset credit? (28:38): Not a credit but if they are reducing the carbon footprint I am just saying you are pointing out another thing that would be in the positive favor for the budget converting to a fleet because now you are cutting down on the number of vehicles on the road. (28:56): But not only making it look good but it is affects climate change, that is a positive. (Crosstalk (29:34): One of the websites and I don’t know if I passed it on last time does a pretty thorough analysis of the admissions and the savings on fuel efficiency and all that on the newer vehicles. In a standardized new vehicle you know what those are going to be. Leasing, financing, carbon footprint efficiency Jones: Would anyone else like to share any thoughts on this particular section, just the police section right now. Okay, so we will look forward which should be close to the final draft at the next meeting. (30:25): I will just add it to the paragraph and keep it in red so we can see what changed and then whoever is the final gate keeper for all that erase all of the red. Jones: Okay, how about the planning? Who is handing planning? (30:41): I just added the red there at the top I don’t know if you can it’s all in black. So the full mark under planning the second sentence where it says aggressively approved for the already planned staff increase. Reinstate add staff and applicant meetings, we suggested that they reinstate the staff meetings and I in the past have suggested that the planning department should meet with the applicants because that brings a far faster resolution to planning issues. Below that there is like 2 or 3 sentences and the new part says reinstate monthly meetings for planning personal approval of responsibility and supporting information. Schedule initial meetings, I suggest 1-2 weeks because I have experience with that in other (?). The planning department schedules a quick initial meeting, sends the applicant back with a bunch of (?) before they even have to a full review and approval on the application it a makes things happen far faster there isn’t a 30 day way or however long wait for a response from the planning department and then no surprise to the developer or the engineer or the architect, here is what you have to change. Then they have to get that into their schedule if you put the whole group together in the beginning, it cuts many many steps out of the process and what that will do is free up a tremendous amount of time for the whole completely overwhelmed planning department personal from what I understand, we only have 2 people that do final approval for planning for building permits 7 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes st (33:08): So, I think as of January 1 permits are now being accepted by DPW and not by planning. The Department of Public Works is basically taking it back. (33:26): Can you say that louder, I can’t hear you. st (33:28): Oh sorry, so as of January 1 I believe is what the date was that I saw on the door of the planning department. The Department of Public Words, the building division is now accepting permits so they used to accept them but then I think when Billy was in office he decided to give it to planning and then I believe DPW wanted it back so now it has been given back is what is my understanding. You might want to double check just give them a call and see but I am pretty sure that is what I saw on the door as I walked by so planning basically is just accepting the special permits. (34:09): So a couple quick questions for you, does that mean DPW is now approving permits (34:15): Yeah, so basically it should all be running through them. (34:20): Planning is then reviewing them also? (34:23): I think they would just be commenting yes (34:37): So many changes since we actually started this committee. So the first thing that comes to mind is okay now there is another set of hands for this to go through because you are still having to go through the planning department (Crosstalk) Jones: Is the goal though that DPW is going to reduce on those 2 people reduce the load in terms of viewing and basic errors and taking it back before it even goes into planning. That’s the thing the fact is there is no more people with a builder. It seems to be a mystery (?) but it is a mystery, you don’t even know what is going on so I am wondering if DPW will have a more concise and quicker response to the person spinning the plans saying this isn’t going to fly, you know don’t bother to put it on to the planning department. (35:33): We will have to see but in all honesty with this group the only thing that we that I can do is we can change the words a little bit to include department of public works. But with this group we still have a serious problem with this is really about the planning department really about permit approvals. We have a severe problem with permit approvals and we have been reviewed nationally and we are not only the worst we are the worst by many magnitudes across the United States we are number 1 the worst not by you know 5% or 10% or 50% it is magnitudes of order Ross: So we are missing out on business opportunities we are also missing out on taxation because those buildings aren’t being built those taxes aren’t being paid 8 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Larson: That is why I also have the general suggestions where number 2 for general recommendations on page 2 where it says many financial difficulties with Hawaii County have been solved by other (?) who may be very willing to share their successful programs with Hawaii. Hawaii County should be open minded when looking for solutions to financial issues research implemented by other media (?) and other counties and states, should be the first step at solving the issues with Hawaii County not the last one after we have made mistakes and we are so buried. The planning department is horribly buried with reports of over a year in the planning department. That is dysfunctional that is completely dysfunctional and I don’t think there is very many people other than just the past year ones that say I got to get a plumbing permit to put in a sink, those things pop right through pretty quick they show up in a couple 3 weeks but comparatively that is pretty difficult for a construction, improvements modifications, tax rolls to move forward at any type of pace whatsoever to recover. What did the mayor say? 5 million in tax rolls we lost so recovering that what the current rate is, is probably going to be an extremely painful and long task and I hope that we would take some aggressive moves. On the mayors and councils part to alleviate that because we had a difficult enough time putting together this last budget. And that includes the 5 million dollar fall and the huge decrease in visitor ship and GT tax and so on and so forth this should ne the #1 and that is sort of why I put it as the number 1 best financial aid to the county on the report so I guess that is all I have to say on that. (39:22): I have a question, does the planning department put out some kind of criteria for what they would consider permitable. I mean it is like if I want to build something I go in there and I have my ID I have my plans but I haven’t maybe taken into consideration what the county will not approve. Ross: Yes there is all sorts of zoning rules and regulations those are well known by the people in the construction trade mostly their responsibility for that is with the their required architect the architect is required to plea an approvable drawing for the process and that is one thing that Hawaii county requires over and above a lot of other county’s in the united states that require a Hawaii county architect to approve those Hawaii architect to approve those (40:46): Who approves the variance is it planning or DPW? (40:53): If it is a zoning variance then the Planning director but Jones: Any other comments or questions for the Planning bullet (41:07): So what is the bottom line? For revenue enhancement expense, reduction Ross: It is revenue enhancement. I have no idea how to quantify it my statement was the result in county budget belief is only limited by the extent of the planning department and I guess the department of public works can allow the tax rolls to regrow and that is what it is they are allowing it to. Property tax rolls 9 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes (41:41): So that would be a revenue which would offset he expense of more taxations so lets say the Ross: Yes, because how it is right now they are already talking about increasing the GET tax increasing the property tax this would heavily help prevent that McIntosh: Well provide housing and provide more money for the county to work with. I mean there is thousands of lots already zoned for housing they are just waiting to put a house on it Allen: Are they open to giving you a list of the current open permits in process Ross: I haven’t required the several enquiries that I attempted to make were kind of rebuffed so Larson: You could pull a record though. How do you dig it out though, that is the question. Jones: Okay, thank you Mr. Larson (42:48): I think that is a key point, that that committee has presented that the planning department is not only there to make sure standards are met whatever the common criteria may be but that it is a source of revenue it is a big machine to create revenue but I am not so sure they are seeing that so somehow I am in a very clear but gentle way to remind them they are not just checking things off to see if criteria is met but to streamline the process so that you can be more pushy and generate the revenue. Ross: I like that idea to try and steer the planning and public works to away from more of a leasing environment to more of an economy. Jones: That is a bizarre suggestion. Birch: I agree with exactly that I like how you said soft but it means be a little bit harsher there is 2 things we need to I think we should look at adding as well on top of that with the new legislations and vacation rentals and everything like that I think these departments will be taxed with the leasing of those as well, so that is a whole another thing that is going to be added to their plate. (44:22): Which department? Birch: Now Planning DPW is so part of this is I think in the notation as well is because of the switch back and forth inconstancies and the quite lack of leadership in planning and in the process we need to have more consistency their needs to be a line out of how the process is done. Have leadership pick a roll that they need to in order to do this businesses also lost we are losing businesses that are moving to the island because of how much of a headache it is to establish your businesses on this island. Companies 10 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes are losing money in the process of the timing of getting permits even on renovation hotels are now running into 25% increases in cost based off of the timing of getting permits and that is both construction cost and it has actually lost its potential of renting those rooms out in a timely manner all those things are amplified so that creates less revenue coming into the islands so the sense of urgency and leadership has to be nodded in their as well. I have direct experience with that my building that I just recently vacated I have been trying to lease that or sell it and numerous businesses have gone in there I am familiar with a number of them but a tremendous amount of the residents to moving in there is the difficulty of getting anything approved. And through for changing the facility to meet their requirements Buehler: I don’t know if you want to add to maybe a footnote but there is an issue with water that I have come across and oh yeah it is a great place to put a commercial lot or a business or whatever but you only get x gallons per day or you get no meter at all because the supply is not there I don’t really understand that to me that is the larger problem which is (?) It should be stepping up to the plate here and get it distributed Birch: I do have a little bit of information on that I do know that a lot of golf courses in large installations have installed their own wells and purification because they can do that for insignificantly less money than the county provides. Just the dollar amount. So that said partner with private entities to add wells and add stuff because add supply because those private entities are able to readily provide for large installations across the island. McIntosh: Then you are starting to enter the state law. Birch: They are already doing it (47:52): I don’t disagree with you all that I am saying is in your report saying that there is a negative issue that also involves with water supply and that needs to be recognized to make all of the plans more obtainable. McIntosh: Maybe a separate suggestion. (48:12): Well there is the whole impact of water you get through the whole process of all the water department and then they say sorry we don’t have any water for you. Jones: See I think something like that would come off first I am going to build here oh there is no water. (48:24): That is the first thing that the developer should check first before and if they experience water first because if you don’t have water you cant build. (48:36): I thought of the process of building and it never goes through the water department they are not on the check list so if you don’t have an architect or engineer that is hard to find well they shouldn’t have their license if they don’t know 11 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Birch: What we were talking about earlier is the resort to have their own sub contained water system through that they police it exactly the same way so their new developments that they bring on to sell new properties to they are in control of the water, they tell them how much water they get so they have the ability then to negotiate past that and that is how those things cant get developed beyond that within a resort area. Well now you are in a public property area there is just not that option there is a lack of communication on that side. (49:27): (?) is an example of 2 vacant lots there they had 2 meters 4 gallons a day 400 gallons a day and a potential buyer wanted more water because they wanted to sub and that requires a lot more water called water department and the response was dig your own well. And I checked on that and it was at least a million bucks so a small development like that doesn’t have those resources. (49:51): So you are talking like water features. (49:56): The owner wanted to do water features and other resort kind of stuff. With more rooms you need more water for the laundry and stuff and showers and all that. But the response was sorry there is no more meters available for that area the only advice I can give you is dig your own well get it going and then we will take it over later if you want us to and manage it quote end quote. Jones: Any other comments on the planning section? Okay let’s take a look at we are going to skip over culture rec for right now. How about sanitation? (50:38): Okay so, (?) was very good to send out a long list of suggestions based on observations that are attached here. I took those suggestions, recommendations and bullet pointed those under sanitation after the first sentence there was we reviewed this before land fill fees were at net 0 budget then promote home composting promote partnering with private industry waste crews basically pick farming. Promote waste water recycling for ag use and simplify the process to utilize a landfill. The associated documents are going to be behind were (?) has gone through all of the results and suggestions which should substantiate those recommendations the only thing that I didn’t support in there is simplify application process to utilize landfill the reason why I put that on there is because I recently had to do an application to utilize landfill and it was horrible and I dedicated basically 2 and a half full days of my time to get those documents correct and through waste management and the County so I would of imagined that that sort of thing tends to somewhat consideration for puna and ocean view are well known as the place where you go to dump your appliances or cars or other junk. If they were to simplify that the result would be that there is no big deal that it is a time consuming process to go through and I don’t think the average person is going to say hey I am going to take this stuff to the dump when they should just be able to go over there and dump it off. It should be 5 minute form at the dump where you fill it out tell them what you are putting in and they have categories which you can mark and off it goes. My direct experience with utilizing land fills in Oregon were just that way very simple takes minutes you drive across the scale just like you do here then you drive 12 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes across the scale and you pay the interesting thing that I found is the land fill cost here was pretty much equivalent of what I experienced here than with a private company that manages all of the landfill and garbage collection on the mainland I am not sure why in Hawaii the cost would be significantly higher but those corporations on the mainland post a pretty darn nice profit and we are posting a loss because we are not covering because there is still budget money that has to go into supporting the landfill and all of the associated transfer stations. I haven’t looked into that very closely but there has to be some room for improvement for savings there (55:15): I want to add something waste management it seems that it is the responsibility of our County to do the waste management receipt and what it does with it. I would love to see the county partner with the universities and (?) department because I see so much waste when I go to the dump and I say oh my gosh this is food stuff this is home stuff we buy from Walmart or Target we use for one and we throw it away and I am talking about the food stuff the plastic containers of food that we throw away all of that. That is improduct of agriculture and we talk so much about need of food security in the state of Hawaii and what we do about it and so much of your report is about ag and food security. (56:23): This is (?) report and I want to give her all the kudos because she put it all together. And the part that says promote partnering with private industries to utilize waste food. That is very good. There is other places that do that (56:52): They should partner with ag at the UH not only to teach how to grow the food to harvest the food to eat the food but what do you do with the waste it should be part of the teaching curriculum in part of ag to show how to deal with the waste because it is (?) to work with the county. I am beginning to see that all over the U.S. (Crosstalk) (57:38): Pulling in seniors so we will get to that in a little bit but I agree with you completely (57:49): I see the start of agriculture and I am beginning to see that. Which I am a homemade major so I am into that kind of stuff. And I get info from national and I am saying goodness the County of agriculture needs to expand and close a circle a circle of production of waste. (58:09): I think the County should support the dissemination information on that I don’t know that they have the responsibility of controlling that process but they should support the dissemination of information. There is all sorts of public benefit information that comes out of the county that I think could be included (58:35): I see composting is very important and that’s what it is so what do you do with the waste? 13 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes (58:45): Composting is a critical part of environmental management area composting from the agricultural standpoint will actually cut back on pesticides so you take your food waste your green waste and start making the compost you start using that and you have the compost that you have because you have to make the cycle to get to that point there are other companies (?) that are already using this technology. So again it is going back to the statement that Larson made about utilizing other entities information and experiences (59:32): I would like to see that on a university level so when you get a degree in ag it is because you have gone through that it is not just jump smelly dirty hands but it is part of saving planet earth. I would like to see that as part of the university curriculum instead of waste for the poor Hawaiians or the poor guys that handle (?). (1:00:00): The 2 full benefit if you have a good compost system is you are keeping your food waste and green waste out of the landfills and you are then reutilizing and recycling. (1:00:09): and I am aware of many community owners that are doing that. I see that but I am thinking my goodness it should be at the university level. You got a degree in ag. You have taken that course. It is a high level thinking process (1:00:26): Teaching our kids how to compost properly and how to do it like that is definitely what part of the ag should be (1:00:33): Anyway I am moving to that and talking about it because that is how it is Jones: Thank you Mrs. Woo. I would like to recognize the investigation operating principle under A for sanitation it is very well written by I believe this is Hawkins very well written and I believe that is what Mr. Takemoto has mentioned is that we are trying to bring our recommendations back to an overall operating principle of what we are trying to do to help this county. And I think this is very well written and I hate to see it as part of the indent I wish there was room for an actual recommendation but truly this is where it belongs. The addendum that we create should be supportive of a simple worded recommendation that just takes up a few lines so going into detail or justifying or whatever you want to say it really does belong in the addendum so I assume that all of us are going to create some agendas to go along with our recommendations and they will be at the back they will be the whole report will be you know this to me is the right way which is what we have been heading towards the recommendations are clear and concise at the beginning of the report and the addendum to support those recommendations are in the back. So if you are wondering how to write that that is a really good example of where we want to go so I appreciate that. (1:02:22): Not only do we have good information from (?) we have a great outline. 14 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: Yeah it is very well done. Okay so now we are moving on to health education and welfare is that correct? Did anyone have any other comments or questions? So lets just review it before we move on. McIntosh: I guess my only question is are we going to put everything together and then examine it later or are we going to examine it as we go along how are we going to do it. Jones: Well certainly if it is prepared and it is in front of us I would like to go along make notes and move forward so that to tackle a final draft in one sitting is going to be nearly impossible we need to look at these things in detail piece by piece and there may be even a moment where we need some time to just sit and read this stuff to understand it but I think we should try to go through it piece by piece I assume that why we are discussing this and putting your opinions and questions and comments in that the people in the sub committees are taking those and adding them like you discussed well we can go ahead and add this now that the DPW is now involved you know what I mean. So if you each every section as it becomes available we need to at some point say okay at this date we would want the final. This is it we are done. If since this is already exists as a template from Mrs. Hopkins we need to almost discuss is there anything we need to do with this template as well. I think we should get through this as it is one more section and then general recommendations that we should try to get through today. Then we can see what else we can fit in because we haven’t seen the other minutes to review so one more thing we have to get to. Rogers: okay, for the health education welfare, I am so amazed how Jenny was able to reduce 2 pages into 1 line. For health education and welfare the one liner she put for it is update federal grants streamline planning approval for housing mentor our seniors to university classrooms increase public information sharing from the office of aging. So Pua and I have been working to put this together, did our research to put our report together and I kept saying how do we get this to be shorter and when I saw this this morning I said, “Oh my God she really shortened it.” But to clarify I think we need to when I talked about this that one liner update federal grants I am not so sure they update that but continue to obtain federal grants so rather than to use the word update is to say continue to obtain federal grants and (?) The second part instead of streamline planning but to streamline permitting approval and that goes back to Planning for senior what I am looking at is health education welfare it misses the fact that Pua and I have really been focusing on the senior populations, so somehow we need to put that in there. So approval for senior housing including construction and retrofitting so it has to do with the construction and retrofitting and Pua and I looked at what they call universal design and accommodating changes to the facility that would meet the needs of seniors as they meet different kinds of accommodations particular to accommodate the fact that seniors become physically more frail and then work to mentor our seniors because we are not mentoring our seniors so what we wanted to say was introducing our seniors as mentors into the k to university classroom and then the last part is increase public information sharing from the office of aging. So that is a bullet that I think captures what Pua and I have worked together in 2 pages. So Jenny has mentioned some of the stuff that we elaborated on would be in the (?) 15 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: Just so we are clear, this was written by Hopkins? You put this whole thing together. So What I would say is there is room for more than this certainly. In the front section. I want to read it with your corrections. So what we have right now is continue to apply for federal grants, streamline permit approval process for senior housing introducing our seniors as mentors into K university classrooms increase public sharing information from the office of aging. Is that sort of your final on that one um I certainly think there is room but all support for that statement. (1:08:14): No, I don’t think it (?) The way I vision this is that you have your bullet points and then you have an explanation of your bullet points like a paragraph saying here is why we have these bullet points. Then all of the supporting documentation points drops into the addendum Jones: So kind of when you look at the planning one it is the bullet to say this is our recommendation and then there is a concise paragraph saying why but then the addendum really has to work that’s why I am saying there is more room than just the one bullet and though I like this sentence I believe there is a little bit of room for expanding there. (1:09:04): Okay so what we have for each of the recommendations because we had 5 recommendations for the department of housing and community development and 5 recommendations for the office of aging and disability so what you did in 1 sentence was really capture all of these points but we also have the rational for each of the recommendations is a rational and the result basically the result is to reduce any future cost to the county and we are looking at money right so that will be it so what you are asking from Pua and me is to present it in that format where we have the bullet and then just select some of the pieces here so many have to come out with a paragraph. Jones: But please feel free to elaborate any indents because I assume whoever bothers to look at our report is going to be interested enough to go back and find where we got the supporting information to help those recommendations so it is not just our opinion Greg: First thing we want to do is take some very busy people and capture their interest thus the bullet point and if they don’t want to if that bullet point doesn’t catch their interest I don’t really care they can’t move on to the next bullet point but somebody might capture their interested and go on and say why do they recommend why are they saying this and they can get a little extra of that instead of having to go through the whole extreme and if they see the Y and they feels okay and say okay I need to look at this more then they can go on but we are dealing with people who are I had a good example I had a when I was applying for a permit to dump at the county dump I had the gal on the phone tell me that I needed to get 1 of 3 people she has the (?) listing for our company for (?) I need to get 1 of 3 people to send a letter saying that I had approval to make decisions for their company okay? So one of 3 people were the CEO the chief of financial officer and I don’t remember who the other one was but they were all the 3 top people in our company our company is 60,000 employees worldwide there is no possible way that CEO is going to write a letter to the county to approve me making 16 Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes decisions I have decisions based on my position in the company plus I have a credit card that I can charge a certain amount of money on that also has shown that approval but there lies the difficulty that I came across with getting this permit so I had to find a way around that so she said I could look at my bylaws and find where it says is the bylaws where you have this responsibility so I was going this is crazy this is nuts there is no reason for this to happen. So I spent hours and hours doing this anyhow yeah. McIntosh: Do you feel better now? (1:13:01): A Side comment we might be very (?) here I think that is a check on (?) which I think would have happened but when you say that you come from a worldwide company. Greg: If you pay for the dump, you are cleaning up the place, God. (1:13:24): I agree, it is nuts. Jones: okay, any further comments or questions on health education welfare. Alen: I just wanted to remind you all so I am a (?) member for (?) health care and this (?) in Hilo is considered the worst one financially in the state because it has so many senior advantage members those senior advantage members the increase in the population has taken place because a lot of aging people on Oahu and Kauai and other islands who have bought homes 40 years ago and now their homes are worth 7 or 800 thousand dollars can buy a home on the big island free and clear and put 250 or 400 thousand dollars in the bank so there is a migration of people from urban areas who are selling and migrating here and taxing this particular health care system so I have talked to their administrators so they don’t seem to have an understanding on Oahu so they will no build more exam rooms and those kind of things like local facilities but there is a migration of seniors here because of the cost of living for housing is something they can pay off and put some money in the bank for themselves and I see now on my own street I have a senior who just bought a brand new home they sold a 1000 sq foot in Waikiki condo and they bought a 1000sq feet and a 2000sq foot home in HPP with a yard first time they have ever had a yard. For them they paid a lot of money and paid for one of their grandchildren’s holiday vacation by the sale of that so just as a FYI in your report we are not just seeing our we are not just getting an aging population from here but we are also the recipient of a state wide migration to a lower cost housing which we provide. Jones: Thank you Mr. Allen 17