HomeMy WebLinkAboutP-0107.01-16 Council Minutes 01-2010-
,
COUNCIL MEETING
January 6, 2010
The Council Meeting of the Council of the County of Kauai was called to
order by the Council Chair at the Council Chambers, Historic County
Building, 4396 Rice Street, Room 201, Lihu`e, Kauai, on Wednesday,
January 6, 2010 at 10:09 a.m., after which the following members answered the call
of the roll:
Honorable Tim Bynum
Honorable Dickie Chang a.
Honorable Jay Furfaro
Honorable Lani T. Kawahara
Honorable Bill "Kaipo" Asing, Council Chair
EXCUSED:
Honorable Daryl W. Kaneshiro
Honorable Derek S.K. Kawakami
PETER NAKAMURA, COUNTY CLERK: Five present, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Thank you and please note that Councilmember
Kaneshiro and Councilmember Kawakami is presently in Honolulu attending the
legislative briefing together with the Mayor and the administration at the
Legislature. With that, can we have the first item on the agenda, please?
Mr. Nakamura: First item is approval of the agenda.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the agenda as circulated, seconded by Mr. Chang,
and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter is approval of the Minutes of the
following Meeting of the Council.
MINUTES of the following meeting of the Council:
Special Council Meeting of December 16, 2009
Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the minutes as circulated, seconded by
Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, at this time we're on page 2 of the
council's agenda to take up communication C 2010-07.
4
COUNCIL MEETING - 2 - ~ January 6, 2010 w
COMMUNICATIONS:
C 2010-07 Communication (12/29/2009) from Jay Furfaro, Councilmember,
requesting the presence of Douglas Hinrichs, Vice President - Marketing
Transformation and Project Development, SENTECH Inc., to present the draft
Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan to the Council.
Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, can we have the Director
of...George Costa.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Furfaro: On that note, Mr. Chair, can...I just want to
remind everyone, this is a final draft and it's still a draft and there's lots of room for
public input going forward.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, good morning.
GEORGE COSTA, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:
Good morning.
Ms. Kawahara: Good morning,.
Mr. Costa: Aloha. Hau`oli Makahiki Hou. Happy new year to
everyone.
Mr. Furfaro: Bonne Annee!
Mr. Costa: Council Chair Asing, Councilman Furfaro and
fellow councilmembers, for the record George Costa, Director for the Office of
Economic Development, County of Kauai. Today we have the presentation of the
draft plan for the Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan. As an island community and
one of the most isolated land masses on planet earth, we have become very
dependent on fossil fuels for transportation and generation of electricity. With the
rising cost of fuel and supply of fossil fuel resources depleting rapidly, time is of the
essence to change our way of living so we can be a more self-sufficient community.
Before I introduce Diane Zachary of Kauai Planning and Action Alliance and
Doug Hinrichs of SENTECH Hawaii, I would like to acknowledge and take this
time to thank the Energy Plan Advisory Committee members, JoAnn Yukimura,
Walter Barnes, Rohit Mehta, Ed Nakaya and Jay Furfaro for their time and
guidance. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the many members of our
island community who attended the various stakeholder and community meetings,
to provide their input and their participation. At this time, I'd like to call upon
Diane Zachary and Doug Hinrichs to present the Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan
draft.
DOUGLAS HINRICHS, SENTECH INC.: Thank you, George. Chairman
Asing, we're honored to be here to present the final draft of the Kauai Energy
Sustainability Plan and I'd like to ask...and the rest of the Council of course, great
to see you all. I'd like to ask Diane Zachary to go over some basics of the plan and I
would like to turn it over to her.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 3 - January 6, 2010
DIANE ZACHARY, KAUAI PLANNING AND ACTION ALLIANCE: Thank
you, Doug, and it is a pleasure to be here. This plan was many months in the
making. We first gathered in February of last year, 2009, to do the rollout of the
planning process and here we are 11 months later with a draft plan to present to
you after considerable community input. As George mentioned, we had community
meetings; we had stakeholder meetings; we had a blog; we had a survey; we used all
kinds of means to get community input into this process. What we learned from the
community was many, many things.
First I'd like to mention some things that were...our Energy Plan Advisory
Committee has...had really focused on and that serves as the preface for this draft
plan. This is an energy sustainability plan for the island of Kauai. It's not an
energy sustainability plan for Kauai County government. It has specific
recommendations for actions to be taken by county government, but it's not just
their plan. It has specific recommendations for actions to be taken by Kauai Island
Utility Cooperative, but it is not an energy sustainability plan for KIUC. It has
specific recommendations for actions to be taken by state government, specific
recommendations for action to be taken by businesses and by individuals, that's all
of us. It will take specific directed actions by Kauai County government, by KIUC,
by state government, by local businesses, and all of us as individuals to achieve
energy sustainability for our island. Together we all have a role to play; we will all
have to pay part of the cost; and we will all have the opportunity to share the
benefits.
I want to talk a little bit about sustainability and what that means. This is
kind of the scientific part of the introduction to the plan, but it really forms an
important foundation to the plan. So, bear with me as I cover this. The first is the
first law of thermodynamics, which is the law of the conservation of energy. That
states that the total amount of energy in a closed system, like planet earth, remains
constant. A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created or destroyed,
and all the matter that will ever exist on earth is here now. I always find that a
profound statement. The second law of thermodynamics or the law of increasing
entropy is an expression of the universal principle of increasing entropy, which is
basically disorder. The implications of this second law are that matter and energy
tend to become disorganized over time or gain entropy. There's that word again.
So, there's four bullets under this. Bear with me as I read them to you, but it really
explains how...how this applies to the plan.
Disorder increases in all closed systems and the earth is a closed system,
except that the earth receives energy from the sun. Sunlight is responsible for
almost all increases in net material quality on earth through photosynthesis-we've
all heard about that-helps plants grow; so...solar heating effects such as the
warming of the planet, evaporation of ocean water for fresh water production, the
creation of ocean currents and winds, things like that. In the realm of sustainable
energy, sunlight can create electricity through PV or photovoltaics and solar heat
can be used to drive concentrating solar power, as well as solar thermal heating and
cooling systems. You'll hear more about those things in the plan. This flow of
energy into our ecosystem from the sun essentially creates order from disorder,
making an exception to the natural trend of entropy or disorder in a closed system.
So, all of that scientific information forms part of the plan and leads into
what is our definition of sustainability and it's one that's really used in the scientific
community worldwide and it's called the Natural Step and there are four bullets in
the Natural Step. In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically
increasing: first of all, the concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's
COUNCIL MEETING - 4 - • January 6, 2010 .
crust; second, the concentration of substances produced by society; third, the
degradation by physical means in that society; and fourth, the people are not
subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their
needs. So those are four very meaty definitions that together encompass what
sustainability is as the Natural Step states it.
In our community and stakeholder meetings, we had the opportunity of
establishing a vision for sustainable energy for Kauai looking ahead to the year ,
2030 and this is what we came up with. On Kauai in 2030, we've achieved 100%
local energy sustainability and we've maintained the beauty of our garden island
and our rural lifestyle; we've incorporated sustainability and smart growth
principles into our land use plans; we've built a strong sustainable green economy
with green job opportunities; we've utilized land efficiently for agriculture and
renewable energy production; we've educated our citizens on energy conservation
and efficiency, and for those green job opportunities; we've renewed our energy
demand, excuse me, we've reduced our energy demand through conservation and
efficiencies; we've determined the new and emerging technologies that are best
suited for our island, for Kauai; we've achieved energy self-reliance through
renewable energy and fuel production for electricity and for transportation while
protecting our endangered wildlife; we've considered social equity and cultural
impacts when we're siting our new energy facilities; we've established an effective
multi-modal transportation system that shifts use from cars to instead mass transit
and non-motorized modes; and we've followed existing and crafted new county, state
and federal legislation regulations to help meet our electricity and ground
transportation needs.
From the vision and from the input and the analysis that's been done, there
are some very essential goals and objectives that have been created. Kauai, in both
the ground transportation and electricity sectors, will reduce demand through
energy conservation and efficiency, will increase sustainable energy supply, will
make energy delivery more efficient, and all of this will help us meet the goal of
100% local energy sustainability by the year 2030. ,
So I'm going to turn this over to Doug, who has done the analysis for this
plan and let him explain the recommendations of the plan to you.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Mr. Hinrichs: Thank you, Diane. We've done quite a bit of, you
know, objective analysis in addition to the stakeholder and public meetings, and
together we think they give us a robust and comprehensive view of what will work
on Kauai. And on the KPAA website are several pages and many, many
documents. You can drill down and learn more about each of these issues as much
as you like, I believe.
I want to focus on .some scenarios that we looked at, including for the ground
transportation sector and their liquid fuel use. If you look at the baseline scenario
of how much gas and diesel we're using on-island now, we used information from
either 2007 or 2009, depending on which data set was most available and most
applicable. For gasoline, we're using 35.7 million gallons per year, diese14.8 million
gallons per year. If we look at the 2030 projected scenario as a business as usual,
BAU scenario, and we calculate that by using a 1.1% annual average growth rate,
and we got that increase by looking at Kaua`i's population growth over the last, I
believe, eight years. So, if we look at that 1.1% growth rate and we do nothing
COUNCIL MEETING • - 5 - January 6, 2010
except what we're doing now, business as usual, that gasoline demand will grow to
45.8 gallon...million gallons per year and diesel will grow to 6.2 million gallons per
year.
For the electricity sector, we looked at the same two different...same
scenarios and business as usual would go from currently 515 gigawatt hours (GWh)
per year and that's looking at the actual megawatts of power generated over time,
so it includes the energy instead of just the power in metric. We go from 515 to over
650, I believe, is the endpoint by 2030. If, as I explain through this presentation, if
we adopt the KESP recommendations, we'll take our baseline of 515 and keep it
under 600 GWh by 2030.
Another real important piece of our analysis and we looked at some studies
from Black & Veatch, which is where this chart came from, we have a lot of
potential to meet our demand currently and probably in the future as well. If you
look at solar photovoltaics or PV, we have over 500 GWh of potential; same for solar
thermal which is also known as concentrating solar power; wind, that almost also
meet that demand by itself; biomass gasifica...gas...gasification can meet it as well;
biofuels, ethanol/biodiesel can contribute to that total demand; ocean energy, either
wave or OTEC, which is ocean thermal energy conversion systems, they also have
plenty of potential to meet demand. So, the bottom line is we have the potential
and it's just how do we tap into it and make that happen.
So let's switch gears and go right into our...our recommendations for the
ground transportation sector. And this one might be the one that elicits some
heartburn (inaudible), but it's a...it's to pass a 50 cents per gallon county fuel tax.
And currently the fuel tax is, I believe, at 13 cents. So we're recommending an
additional 50 cents per gallon. And the county has authority to levy a fuel tax.
They might need to work with the state, I would imagine, on increasing the cap, so
that would need to be done. But that tax would disincentivize, we believe, the
consumption of gas and diesel over time and would have its biggest effect over the
first five years, we would estimate. In doing so, we would disincent gas and diesel;
we would also intent the use of ethanol and biodiesel as replacements. Over
20 years though, this would build a $186 million sustainable ground transportation
fund, which we'd put in a separate, you know, interest-bearing account, hopefully
managed by a professional company or entity who's done, you know, similar account
management in the past. And we would use that account to fund demand reduction
and sustainable energy supply initiatives over those 20 years. So again, that would
decrease demand and offer alternatives to how people, you know, get around on the
island.
Two key assumptions in this estimate of the $186 million, we're assuming a
linear adoption of the KESP recommendations. The second assumption is that
we're assuming gasoline and diesel are phased out by 2030 completely. So as...as
ethanol and biodiesel are phased in, we would not tax those. We'd only tax the gas
and diesel use over time and again, we want to phase them out by 2030 with these
recommendations.
This is a pie chart of the allocation of the tax proceeds. I won't go into details
on them, but a key to point out is a 3% fund management fee. Again, we want to
have this...this money is going to a separate interest-bearing account that will be
managed by a professional fund management company overseen by the county and
the largest chunk, 54%, would go toward an efficient vehicle incentive. So again, as
people are paying more for gas and diesel, the...they can also buy more efficient
COUNCIL MEETING. - 6 - • January 6, 2010 '
vehicles with incentives for especially hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in
hybrids, and there are also flex fuels that have been very successful in Brazil we
would recommend.
So, switching gears again to Recommendation 4.2, we would offer these
efficient vehicle incentives to reduce demand and I was really shocked by these
numbers as our analysis was...was ongoing. We can reduce demand by se...by
50-70% by offering these incentives for more eflicient vehicles. So our goal would be
to replace the current vehicle stock with more efficient vehicles to reduce demand
and we're assuming two-and-a-half life cycles. So if you look at the average use of a
car...of a vehicle on Kauai, eight years is the average life cycle and then it's sold or
moved off or no longer working. So an eight-year life cycle over 20 years, that'll be
two-and-a-half life cycles. So these incentives, we'd hope, would catch people in
their replacement two-and-a-half times. Again, the incentives would go toward
commercially available, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids. By the year 2015,
we think they'd become more commercially available and also KIUC would have
more renewables online-I'll talk more a bit about that a bit later-to charge up
those vehicles.
Then also a very cost-effective way is to just convert your HEV or hybrid
electric vehicle to PHEV, a plug-in, with conversion kits. It costs around $5,000 to
$7,000 per kit. If a...this...we have a very complicated program how we'd offer
these incentives over time as different vehicles became more available and as
adoption rates increase, we would decrease those incentives. But in general, the
incentives would range from a little less than $4,000 per vehicle all the way over to,
you know, ten-and-a-half thousand ($10,500) per vehicle. Again, that would change
over time as our goals are being met or not met, and they can be adjusted by this
sustainable ground transportation fund manager and the county. So by doing these
incentives we can greatly reduce demand as discussed.
And so if we look at our third scenario, the projected demand by 2030, if you
include the KESP recommendations on this, especially the efficient vehicle
incentives, and again using the 1.1% average annual growth rate for the population
on Kauai, we can reduce gasoline demand to 20.2 million gallons per year and we
hope that would be mainly ethanol, and by diesel we will reduce demand to
3.1 million gallons per year and we hope that would be biodiesel.
Switching to Recommendation 4.3, there are several long-term planning
initiatives that have started. JoAnn Yukimura was very helpful in getting us that
information. So we wanted to look at some more immediate initiatives which would
add value to those long-term plans. Land use patterns have a major impact on
energy demand by affecting how many vehicles you...sorry, how many miles you
drive from home to business. So, that's...the metric there or how you measure that
is in vehicle miles traveled or VMT. So we're proposing that three smart growth
demonstration projects are initiated on Kauai, probably Lihu`e. Lihu`e would be
the best. So, you know, the county and different folks can monitor those projects.
So the first would be a stronger town center; second, higher density housing
structure; and a skill center or business incubator, would be the three different
demo projects here in Lihu`e. And this is based on a lot of the recommendations
from the Sustainable Design Advisory Team (SDAT) and they did a study a few
years ago that gave a lot of great foundational information to these smart growth
initiatives.
. COUNCIL MEETING • - 7 - ~ Janu 6, 2010
ary
Continuing on the integrated ground transportation demand management
plan, quite a mouthful, is the county should cut bus fares in half to about a dollar,
those are...the main line fees are now at $2, to incentivize higher bus ridership.
Again, we're diversifying our ground transportation modes. And the final'one is we
as concerned citizens could set up and administer aslug-line ride share program for
Kauai. In the Washington D. C. area, there's aslug-line ridership, which is again
free there, and over a website people indicate where...peop...where drivers could
pick up other passengers to...so they could become part of this HOV, high occupancy
vehicle, program that'll allow people to drive more quickly to work. So, on Kauai,
there's not the HOV incentive, but I believe reducing their own out-of-pocket cost to
get to work and back would be a pretty good incentive to do this ride share program.
Recommendation 4.4, we need to form a biofuels integrated refinery
public/private partnership. So we're recommending with the sustainable ground
transportation fund that we help buy down the cost of an integrated biofuels
refinery. And with the PacWest deal that's been initiated recently, it's really
changed the landscape for ethanol. So I think your ethanol feedstock has been
determined. It is sugar. Sugar-to-ethanol refinery designs and processes are very
efficient, very well understood, and the most appropriate diesel, I'm sorry biodiesel
feedstock and refinery processes still need to be determined and supported.
Continuing on this recommendation, arefinery that can process both ethanol
and biodiesel has certain advantages, very technical advantages. One is the
thermal energy management so the waste heat, recoverable waste heat, from the
ethanol plants are around 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. That waste heat can be used to
run the biodiesel plant and they need heat around 240 degrees Fahrenheit. Second
advantage, fuel substitution; biodiesel production requires about 10% methanol, but
a biodiesel refinery, an integrated one, could use part of its ethanol in place of
methanol with no net loss. It would also have a smaller footprint if you had an
integrated refinery that did both ethanol and biodiesel.
So again, integrated biodiesel...biofuels and electricity pathway...pathways,
plural, would increase diversity as shown on this diagram. There's a lot of
information in this diagram, but the main point is you can use different feedstocks
to do...to get different outputs and diversify those products and also reduce the risk
of a developer or investor who wants to do, you know, we'll say sugar cane plant so
with the cane juice they can make ethanol, the bagasse could go toward electricity
production like the PacWest deal. If someone was going to grow soy beans or
jatropha, whatever to make an oil, that oil can be used to make biodiesel or it can be
made...it can be used to create electricity. Over time, we think algae is going to
play a major role in producing both ethanol and biodiesel. I've got around 2020
pegged here in the diagram. So it's...those are for the two ground transportation
pathways.
Again, this is a very complex system. If you look at the sustainable electricity
pathways too, we could raise trees or grass. I would say leucaena trees or maybe
banagrass would be the prime candidates. And with those outputs you can make
ethanol and biodiesel, and you could also make electricity. With concentrating solar
power, you can make electricity and that would be most effective when the sun is
shining, obviously. In the rainier season when you have a lot of rain, you would
have higher output from the hydropower. So those two I'm calling
seasonable...seasonably complimentary and so we have to think about how those
natural resources could be tapped and used most efficiently considering the actual
climatic conditions on Kauai. And photovoltaics would obviously make electricity
COUNCIL MEETING - 8 - • January 6, 2010
very, very efficiently for...for Kauai. So, with all the electricity, it would, of course,
go to the vehicles and homes and buildings. And the vehicles would be...could be
charged by...through plug-in hybrid from...charging from the grid.
So again, this is a very complex system, but I think the diversity in these
inputs and outputs are...are a very key way to mitigate the risk to developers and
investors on Kauai.
When you're looking at different sustainable energy, you know, fuels and
energy selections, land is a huge issue. So we're suggesting in Recommendation 4.5
you look at land repurposing. So land purposes and zoning, we need...we believe
need to be addressed to ensure sufficient land for sustainable energy goal
achievement. We might want to look at updating what might be considered now an
outdated zoning system. We need to engage landowners, some state entities
including DLNR, DHHL, maybe the county, whoever is in charge of land and
ask...and come up with ways to use that land that can meet the goals for Kauai,
and that's considering the energy and also food requirements for Kauai. And if we
do that, if we commit more land to...to energy, I mean we have to look at trade-offs,
be ver...that are realistic. Do we want pristine land, do we want sustainable
energy, I think that's a huge community discussion that needs to be undertaken and
I know it has started and we need to continue that and be very realistic in how we
use the land, a very, very key asset, obviously, on Kauai. To...I mean part of that
land repurposing would be to match the land in acreage to the feedstocks. We
covered feedstocks a bit earlier. Sugar is the logical feedstock, we believe, for
ethanol. It's underway with the PacWest deal. Biodiesel feedstock is less clearer.
Four candidates jump out in our minds, jatropha, which could grow on marginal
lands, it's non-invasive, and a barrier in the past has been a lack of mechanical
harvesters. You know, labor use is not very cost effective, perhaps, on Kauai. We
need mechanical harvesters. They are being developed. There are at least two or
three companies that offer those mechanical harvesters now. Banagrass is a grass
that grows very well on Kauai. They have very high yields per acre. Leucaena
trees are nitrogen-fixing and we need far less fertilizer, especially nitrogen, for
those trees or any other crop. So, probably not well known is that fertilizers, most
of them require petroleum, and for the nitrogen, for example, in the form of urea, I
believe, it takes a lot of natural gas to make that nitrogen. So the fourth candidate
would be soy and it's another legume, it's another nitrogen-fixer, and if for some
reason the Biodiesel market is softened and that's what soy would go toward, there
are other products that you can make with the soy, including tofu for human
consumption or livestock feed alternatives, which you can make with the soy. It's
the major, by the way, it's the major crop for Biodiesel on the mainland.
We talked a bit about how PHEVs, plug-in hybrids, can be charged with
renewable energy and Recommendation 4.6 says we should offer incentives to make
that happen and mainly through buying down the cost of residential charging
stations for those PHEVs. So they're very efficient...the PHEVs are very efficient
and they cost probably half as much to operate as a liquid fuel vehicle. We're
recommending $1,000 incentives for residential charging stations in homes, so it'll
allow homeowners to use nighttime hydropower and biomass energy that otherwise
would be wasted. And KIUC has been very helpful in suggesting some of these
ideas including hydropower and biomass. Those cannot be just turned off at night.
So without some way to use that electricity, it could literally be wasted. So we
think it's a very, very, very solid idea of one way to use those resources at night. So
we went through lots of calculations and if we have 45 megs...megawatts (MW) of
hydro and 30 MW of biomass that are online, we calculate 20,000 cars could be
charged up at night and that...so we...we did a lot...in the calculations we used just
COUNCIL MEETING • - 9 - • January 6, 2010
one-third of the daytime hours, so 8/24 or 1/3 to come up with these numbers of
20,000 cars. We would phase in these PHEV incentives and the...I'm sorry, the
residential charging station incentives by 2015 as PHEV products are more
available, and the hydro and biomass power is online. So again we're taking away
the...we're reducing demand for the liquid fuels on Kauai with electricity,
renewable energy.
A similar project has been modeled and demonstrated on the mainland in a
municipally-owned utility called Austin Energy in Texas. They had a PHEV pilot
project. They used the Toyota Prius hybrids and they also did a conversion kit, and
they estimated that up to 100,000 PHEVs could be charged using nighttime
electricity for that electricity system. So that wraps up the major ground
transportation recommendations. Unless there's some questions, which we can
maybe take later.
Let's switch to the electricity sector. Recommendation 6.1 are to implement
energy efficiency retrofits on existing commercial and public buildings through
energy savings performance contracting. Performance contracting is a proven
method to enable energy efficiency and conservation in buildings. We estimate that
would reduce demand by 10.8% over 20 years. And to oversee and to manage this
process, we recommend that the county would need some additional capacity to
assess the technologies, to work with the ESCOs, energy service companies, and to
ensure the savings from those contracts. We believe three roles are needed in the
county: an energy efficiency manager, a facilities energy manager, and a policy
manager. And how that would work out in an org chart, I think the county would
need to assess for themselves. To pay for these positions, we're recommending that
we look at the 2.5% KIUC, Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, franchise tax which is
now assessed by the county on KIUC. We are suggesting we take 15% of that 2.5%
to pay for those three positions. So, the annual gross of KIUC, from their IRP,
innovative resource plan, is $137 million, you can see the full details on the
PowerPoint. The 2.5% KIUC franchise tax would be over $3 million...$3.4 million.
Fifteen percent of that franchise tax would be about $514,000, which would easily
pay for those three positions. And we...you know, just a side point is the energy
savings from these performance contracts could probably replace or at least reduce
that 15% franchise tax diversion over time.
Recommendation 6.2 is to adopt LEED and that's Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design standards for new commercial buildings. The LEED comes
from the U. S. Green Building Council. They're a...it's a non-profit...from their
programs. We can reduce, with LEED adoption, of 40% in new buildings.
Currently the Hawaii State Legislature required...requires LEED standards for
new public buildings. We're suggesting Kauai adopt these same LEED standards
for commercial buildings. We will reduce demand by 40% for a total reduction of
3.2% over 20 years.
Recommendation 6.3, the county's been active in pushing for the
International Energy Conservation Code for buildings. We're suggesting that we
adopt the 2009 IECC codes for new homes. Literature shows that IECC standards
can save 15% in new home construction over time. The impacts, which we estimate
is 3.2% over 20 years, is not huge, but there's some conditions on Kauai that are
fairly, fairly unique. One is that it''s a very small residential energy use. KIUC
indicates the average is about 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month. Air condition
use is also pretty low, about 2% of homes on Kauai have air conditioning currently.
KIUC has also done a really good job of incenting and in selling solar hot water
heating systems for home incentive with about 33% market adoption. We are also
COUNCIL MEETING. - 10 - • January 6, 2010
recommending the county should not support low-income housing and exemptions
to the IECC 2009 standards. I think over time...we think over time that would
penalize the folks, perhaps, who can most benefit from energy savings.
Recommendation 6.4, this is actually...it sounds kind of simple and it is, but
it will take some time to go through this, so bear with me. We are suggesting
recommending that Kauai legislate feed-in tariffs to incentivize large scale
renewable energy. Kauai has an excess of local, sustainable electricity generation
potential as shown in the previous Black & Veatch chart. Why aren't we using
more of it, why are we at less than 6% renewable energy? I would say that there's
some real reasons, verifiable reasons. There's...one, there's no way to pay for these
more expensive renewable energy systems and options. We've heard from
developers that power purchase agreements between the power generators and the
utility, they've been slower than expected sometimes. There's right now not a
mechanism to guarantee return on high-risk investments, including, you know, the
liquid fuels and renewable energy. And right now renewable energy generators do
not have access to the grid to distribute their energy. So some real (inaudible)
barriers we need to address. Feed-in tariffs could address all these barriers,
however. Feed-in tariffs are basically price support mechanisms that have proven
track records in incentivizing renewable energy in Europe, Canada, India, some in
the United States, U. S. states and cities, and it's been adopted by the HECO utility
on Hawaii. Utilities...this is kind of the process how it would work, utilities
basically put out an open solicitation for renewable energy generators. The amount
would be set by hopefully the KESP target goals for electricity and the access to the
grid would be guaranteed to these generators. So, it's again, it's really leveraging
and utilizing the private sector and their great ideas and great technologies to find
solutions for these problems and to take advantage of the opportunities, to be
honest. So the feed-in tariff rates would be calculated to pay for the higher cost
renewable energy in an open and transparent manner with a guaranteed return on
people's investments. In Europe I've talked to the folks who have done renewable
energy integration on grids there. From their experience, they're recommending a
15% internal rate of return, IRR, to mitigate the risk for investing what often is in
multi-millions or even billions of dollars for these large scale .projects. Oh, I just
turned this off. There we go...to see if people are still awake.
So to calculate how the feed-in rates would be calculated, we looked at the
generation costs in terms of levelized costs of energy or LCOEs. LCOEs take into
account all the different capital expenses and operating expenses that would be
required to keep the renewable systems online and operating. So that would be one
part of the rate. The second is the non-generation costs and that's basically what
utilities need to just manage the distribution of the energy, to make sure their lines
are up to date and working, and again to just manage the...how the energy is
delivered.
So we got a fairly complicated chart here of the different technologies we're
recommending, including CSP, concentrating solar power; photovoltaic farms in
larger scale; hydropower; and biomass or biodiesel and landfill gas. The sizes range
from 30 megs...30 MW for CSP, 15 on photovoltaics, 45 on hydropower-you...we'll
see that it's one of the more cost effective options in a second, 30 MW of biomass or
biodiesel, 1.6 MW of landfill gas. If we look at the chart and on the far right we see
this...the assumed levelized costs of energy and there's, you know, lots of ways to
calculate this. We looked at data from...that KIUC provided to us. We looked at
some reports that my company, SENTECH had generated, and we looked at some
data that was put out by the U. S. Department of Energy as well as the National
Renewable Energy Lab. So we tried to take the most appropriate, most relevant
- • •
COUNCIL MEETING - 11 - January 6, 2010
data and come up with these costs. So you can see that CSP is somewhere in the
lines of 26 cents per kilowatt hour...point, so that's the point two six one (0.261) on
the right. Photovoltaics are a little more expensive on the solar side at about
41 cents. Hydropower is a...runs 7 cents, very, very cost effective. Biomass is
something around 18 cents. Landfill gas is around 12 cents per kilowatt hour.
(Inaudible.) Thanks.
Continuing on with these actual targets, we're going to call them. The reason
we chose these targets...these megawatts in capacity, we have to think in terms of
capacity factor or how much that potential energy or power is available over time.
So the capacity factor looks at that as basically a percentage of what that power...of
how available that power is over a year. So we take a percentage times how many,
8766, hours per year to get a capacity factor. With CSP with thermal storage, that's
a very effective way to store energy in molten salts or hot oil, it's got a higher
capacity factor than photovoltaics and better cost, lower cost. And the storage
system, like I said, is more efficient and more cost effective than photovoltaics.
With photovoltaics I believe we have factored in asodium-sulfur battery to ensure
voltage regulation. It's not as much for storage of energy as much as just to
regulate the power that comes out of the photovoltaics. With the photovoltaics,
we're recommending the 15 MW in photovoltaics that are already kind of ongoing.
It's good to diversify the solar resources and technologies. And again, these are
kind of planned and ongoing projects that have been undertaken by developers and
the utility here. Because of the lower cost of hydropower, we wanted to, you know,
max out on that as quickly as possible. It's a very well known commodity on Kauai.
We're recommending we go up to 45 MW as soon as possible on hydropower. It's got
a high capacity factor and very cost effective. With biomass/biofuels, we're
recommending 30 MW, again high capacity factor, very cost effective. And with
biomass, we can combust that in a boiler and firm up or make higher capacity
factors for the concentrating solar power because they both have the common factor
of steam. So concentrating solar power has the output of steam, which you can run
into a steam generator to make electricity very, very efficiently. If the sun's not
shining, e.g. during the rainy season, we can use biomass to back that up to again to
make steam and to make that system a combined CSP/biomass system, very
effective, very high capacity factor, very cost effective as well.
We've seen this chart before, how we can diversify the pathways with
ethanol, biodiesel and electricity. I just want to reiterate that it's okay to talk about
the different pathways in a plan like this, but in fact, they can be converged to
be...to make the options more, more diverse, more cost effective and again to
mitigate the risk to developers and to utility.
What would this do to rates if we implemented these plans, we met the KESP
targets, and we did afeed-in tariff rate. If we took apart the generating and non-
generating parts of the...of what util...what homeowners pay now in their utility
bills, we're going to assume that 15 cents per kilowatt hour, about half of 30 cents
per kilowatt hour, take 15 cents of that to go toward the non-generation charge,
toward non-generation duties, and that's again at 30 cents on average, and we meet
the KESB targets, a typical homeowner would pay 34 cents per kilowatt hour to
achieve local sustainable energy production here on Kauai using resources we've
discussed. And again we need to work with KIUC, with the Public Utility
Commission, with the state, with DBEDT to enact feed-in tariffs. HECO has done
it. They've got the legislation passed. I think they're working on their rates right
now. It's a model that works. It's well proven in different countries in Europe. It's
happening in...on the mainland. It's a great model, I think, to address many of the
barriers here on Kauai and make sustainable energy a reality here on Kauai. And
COUNCIL MEETING. - 12 - • January 6, 2010
once I...at least to me once I see that 34 cents per kilowatt hour charge, that takes
away some of the fear of the unknown. I mean, it's a little higher than we're paying
now, perhaps, but it's...just by knowing that number, it takes away some of
that...the unknown.
Wind on Kauai. It's got a lot of attention in recent° months and years,
perhaps. It is now part of the KESP plan for several reasons. The endangered
Newell Shearwater, another endangered bird in the mammal species, there are
federal regulations addressing those species. I don't know that if the county, say
wants to do wind, if they could trump those federal regulations. I don't believe so in
talking with the Department of Fish and...Forestry and Wildlife here on Kauai and
also talking with U.S. Fish and Wildlife. So another barrier to wind is community
opposition centering on visual impacts or aesthetics, and also there's some problem
in the rem...the remoteness of the best potential sites and getting that wind energy
to the grid and distributed to where that needs...they need to do.
Another element...energy element on Kauai has been waste energy. It's not
part of our plan. Again, it's on hold mainly due to environmental health concerns.
The county is currently still assessing their options. If the county does decide to go
forward, I think it would be very informative to assess the costs and benefits of
waste-to-energy versus not doing anything with the waste versus shipping waste
off-shore, etc. I think more information needs to be gathered and assessed in...on
waste-to-energy. I think it would be very beneficial to Kauai to stay informed about
cleaner technologies coming out of other areas of the world with perhaps better
metrics including systems from Japan and Europe.
So we have these recommendations on the ground transportation and
electricity generation sectors. How would the plan...this plan be implemented? I'm
recommending...the team's recommending we form a sustainable energy
coordination team and that would keep the plan on track and I think this team
should include representatives of the county of Kauai, KIUC, the Kauai Economic
Development Board Renewable Energy Committee, DBEDT from the state,
investors perhaps represented by PICHTR, the environmental community and kind
of a last minute addition was the actual KESP Energy Plan Advisory Committee,
which has been just like a...George has indicated has been very helpful in getting
us to where we're at now. Some of the roles and duties, it could ensure open
communications between all the different, you know, stakeholders with their own
interests, adjust our ground transportation electricity targets, review the feed-in
tariff rates with the Public Utility Commission and KIUC, provide guidance to the
management of the sustainable ground transportation fund, ensure sufficient
funding for the county, and track progress towards the county's energy
sustainability goals.
If this plan is implemented, I think it's important to think about the future of
oil, imported oil, the cost of that oil, the risk taken by being dependent on an oil
versus a more assured plan of using renewable, local renewable energy. This is a
chart from the National Renewable Energy Lab, a guy named Terry Penny put this
together. He heads their transportation business on...at (inaudible). He pulled
together a group of industry experts in the oil industry who said, you know, peak oil
has been in the news for decades, as far as I can remember, and that is when the
world might be running out of oil. And even though the world might never really
run out of oil, it could become so expensive as to be prohibitive. So by these...by
gathering these industry experts, he wanted to take a look at when peak oil might
really be imminent. This chart shows at the bottom the year 2010. If you go
straight up, we see how again according to these oil industry experts, how we might
COUNCIL MEETING • - 13 - ~ Janu 6, 2010
~'Y
be very close to peak oil already. So if that does happen, we can assume production
will be decreased, cost will be increased and if you look at the risk of doing
something pretty innovative, like we're recommending here for Kauai, it really
might not be that much of a risk if you look at how oil can become far more
expensive over the fu...very, very future, very near future years.
Besides the energy benefits and how wise those investment right now would
be in clean energy, in sustainable energy on Kauai, some of the non-energy
benefits, I think we need to take into account. They're hard to monetize, but the
facts are jobs will be created, the green jobs we talked about earlier. The local...the
energy dollars we're spending would be kept local. We could revitalize the ag sector.
We could potentially, especially if algae turns out to be as promising as we believe
now. We could potentially export biofuels to nearby Oahu, for example. We could
become a model of sustainable living through sustainable energy.
And we've presented a lot of ideas here, made several, I believe,
10 recommendations. We have an open public comment, period until January 24.
Please let me know what you think of these recommendations. Have we missed
anything? Have we gone overboard on recommending certain...certain
recommendations? Contact me, Doug Hinrichs, 301-219-7647 is my personal cell
phone, call me. You can also email me, dinrichs@sentech.or~, with feedback, with
buy-in/lack of buy-in, positive/negative comments. We really do want to hear from
the community and from the local leaders. So again, January 24 is the cutoff on
that review period. We do recommend you contact me with recommendations. With
that, Diane has some follow-up.
Ms. Zachary: I just want to say that for those who would like to
see the complete draft plan, it is on the Kauai Planning and Action Alliance
website. You can get to it by going to www.kauaienerQVSUStainabilityplan.com and
there's a lot of information there in addition to that draft plan, but the plan is
available for you to review online or download, whatever works for you. It also
includes an executive summary at the beginning so that if you don't want to read
the entire plan, you can read the executive summary which covers really all of the
points that Doug has just made here today.
Mr. Hinrichs: I want to thank Chairman Asing, if I could again,
and the whole council as well as the county. They've been just tremendous to work
with. KIUC has been very, very helpful as well. And all the citizens of Kauai, it's
been...you've been very helpful in helping us devise these recommendations, so
thank you to all.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
BC, Videographer: Check your mike.
Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, what we'll do is we'll open it
up to questions from councilmembers, so. Before doing that, I want to thank you,
first of all for the presentation, but I...boy, it's almost like for me, it's science fiction.
I look and say, wow, this is, you know, I can't believe some of these things and you
know, I get the...is this for real? Anyway, maybe I don't fully understand it, you
know, in its entirety, but it's, you know, some of the recommendations and some of
the things that is in here, the gasoline tax, wow. I mean it just throws me all over
the place and I...you know, I must also tell you that Mr. Sato and I go way back,
you know, like 20 years back and I can remember that electric vehicle that sat here.
And we had for years and years and you know, it...it was supposed be 20 years ago
COUNCIL MEETING - 14 - • January 6, 2010
that it was the thing. It was going to happen and it was going to happen in a few
years and that's 20 years ago, you know. And about five years ago, I believe, and
Mr. Sato can correct me if I'm wrong, there was a turn on the opposite direction that
the electric vehicle was no longer something that was viable. I believe that was
about five years ago and then today it's going in the opposite direction now. So, I
just wonder, you know, what is for real. What is it for real? But with that, I'll open
it up to questions from councilmembers and thank you very much.
Councilmember...
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Chair, I'm spending additional time with them
tomorrow.. .
Chair Asing: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: ...as a committee member and in the afternoon,
Councilmember Kawakami and I have an opportunity to get an update on some
biofuels, so I have no comments. I'm very appreciative that the draft presentation
is here.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Other councilmembers, any questions?
If not, thank you very much. What I'd like to do now is we're going to end up
receiving the item, thank you, and then I'm going to open it up to the public for
anyone in the public who has any comments that they want to make. So again,
thank you very much, appreciate it.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you, thank you very much.
Mr. Hinrichs: Thank you all.
Chair Asing: With that I'd like to open it up to the public. Is
there anyone in the public who wants to speak on this item? Glenn Mickens. Glenn
please.
GLENN MICKENS: Good morning, thank you, Kaipo. I just have a...a
few comments. First, I want to thank Doug and Diane for the fine presentation.
That was long, a lot of good material and stuff they had in there. Let me just try
and address just a couple of things. Kaipo, you just brought it up. Raising fuel tax
by 50 cents a gallon, you know, basically that's going to really hurt the small
person. The people who can afford it, they don't care if it's a $10 tax on it. They can
afford what they want to, but that would be a huge burden on the public to be able
to do that. Mass transit, for me it's an unrealistic dream: (a) the cost would be
prohibitive as Oahu is finding out; (b) studies have shown that any new transits are
only getting about 5% of transporters out of their vehicles and by the time any of
these new transits are finished, the increased population in new vehicles on the
road is greater than the people who will use the mass transit; (c) increased miles
per gallon by hybrids or electric vehicles, those are good ideas, but I agree with
Kaipo. You know, I remember in California 20 or 30 years ago, the...they were
giving...General Motors was giving these electric vehicles to people experimentally.
It went nowhere. You know, in...in sound it...it's a great idea, but I still...I know
my great friend Ray Chuan always said it was taking more energy to put into those
things than you were getting out of them and I'm...you know, I know that the
battery...new batteries and things they're getting is going to be a factor that may do
it. I don't know. It would be a real good sol...solving problem here, especially on an
island like Kauai if..:if you did have these. But that, for me, has to be seen.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 15 - ~ January 6, 2010
The masses of people on the island will not vacate their vehicles for buses or
any other alternate transportation for convenience, for recreation, for emergency,
for getting from point A to point B, the private vehicle will remain the major means
of transportation, and I ask anyone in this chambers that denies that particular
thing. You got a vehicle, you're going to use it period. You saw what a disaster that
bike day was to transport...to get people to work. It was a disaster. It's not going to
happen. In the real world it won't happen. You're going to use that vehicle if it was
there. You migrated from the horse and buggy to your car, and that's going to be
your major means of transportation.
My recommendation would be find a way the hybrid vehicle, that Prius is still
the number one vehicle in the United States being used that people will go back and
buy again. I think it's a great idea. I think they keep increasing it. Toyota and
other car manufacturers are doing the same thing and I think that's an outstanding
idea if they could get...but I think you're going to still have to find subsidization by
the Governor or somebody to make them more affordable for people because, you
know, the price of a hybrid over (inaudible) like what $5,000 and $6,000 more per
vehicle I think and I think you're going to have to be able to address it, but I think
they are definitely the way to go. Their pollution factor, everything, people that
have had Priuses, I don't know how many people in this room have had a Prius or
have a Prius, but I think they're a great idea. I know that Ken Taylor has one and
you know, they get 50 miles and I think the new ones are getting even better than
that. So I...I think this is obviously the way that we...we should be...be going. Put
more roads on the island, increase the...the transportation part for the people to be
able to use their individual vehicles because that's the way you're going to go.
Thank you, Kaipo.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else? Yeah, go ahead,
come up.
Mr. Hinrichs: Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Thank
you for the opportunity to address those briefly, if I may. The...it was mentioned
that 50 cents per gallon county fuel tax would be a burden on folks. We really
thought about different options, different ways to really, you know, shift the
paradigm and we think that this tax would probably do that. And I point out that I
believe gas is now around $3.50?
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Hinrichs: Sorry. I believe now gasoline is around $3.50.
Adding 50 cents to that will bring it to $4. What if the point where in 2008 we saw
all conservation efforts being achieved. I believe on several islands of Hawaii back
in 2008, $5 per, gallon was not unheard of. We thought with the impact on all
different folks of this recommended fuel tax we wanted to make sure it was actually
as fair and equitable as possible. We did not want...we did not consider a
percentage. We wanted a flat 50 cents, so it's kind o£..it's an easy thing to kind of
get your hand on and handle. On...someone mentioned the poor folks might be
more affected by it. That is probably true in the very short term, but by using these
incentives that we'd raise money from the tax with...those incentives would in fact
buy down hybrid electric vehicles, not electric vehicle, very important distinction,
and make them more affordable for folks. So hopefully we could just shift the
transportation from cars as the kind we use now to plug-in hybrids and hybrid
electric vehicles. So the electric vehicle that was mentioned that sat around and
wasn't really cost effective or effective for awhile, that is different in that...different
COUNCIL MEETING - 16 - • January 6, 2010
today than from today's hybrid .electric vehicles like the Prius which uses larger
batteries and also has a gasoline engine. So it's...that's why it's a hybrid, to do
both, very important distinction.
The next step is to plug those same cars into the grid at night using
renewable energy. i just want to make those distinctions. EVs versus HEVs versus
PHEVs, a lot of acronyms, very important to keep those distinctions in mind.
We mentioned that someone...I'm sorry I forgot, (inaudible) your name, but
thank you, mentioned that people if they have cars available they will use them.
It's probably true. I don't know. I didn't want to prescribe people to give up their
cars at all and that's why we wanted to intent more efficient vehicles that people
want to use them. There are right now also bike ride...bike ride...bike ridership
improvement programs, bike path improvements, that's...that's ongoing. As far as
highways, we'll also mention there's a highway modernization plan that's also
underway. We didn't go into some of those because they're ongoing, kind of outside
this plan. So I just want to address those issues, so I hope that adds some clarity to
those issues raised.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Hinrichs: Hey, Tim.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, let's talk about this for a few minutes.
Mr. Hinrichs: Okay.
Mr. Bynum: Because I'm glad you came back because there was
two sides of that. The shocking part is 50 cents a gallon.
Mr. Hinrichs: Sticker shock, I...I...I know.
Mr. Bynum: And I remember Jimmy Carter proposing 50 cents
a gallon nationally when gas was like a buck and a quarter.
Mr. Hinrichs: Much higher percentage, right?
Mr. Bynum: And his argument was we will be paying this, but
are we going to use that revenue to meet our energy needs or are we going to ship it
somewhere else? So you can make a similar argument now.
Mr. Hinrichs: It's true.
Mr. Bynum: But to understand your plan clearly, the flip side of
that would be these incentives and I'm looking at your chart...
Mr. Hinrichs: Right.
Mr. Bynum: It's basically saying that if you bought a new
hybrid, there would be a $3800 roughly...that you'd get $3800 in order to do that,
right.
Mr. Hinrichs: Exactly.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 17 - • Janu 6 2010
~'y ,
Mr. Bynum: And if you're like me and you already have a Prius,
you could, according to this chart, do a conversion and basically that would be paid
for.
Mr. Hinrichs: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: And, you know, I know I used to get just 14,
15 miles per gallon. Right now my wife drives a pretty good commute and gets...is
averaging 50 real, 50 miles.
Mr. Hinrichs: Yeah, once we started...again once we looked at
these numbers, boy that's, in the gasoline sector, we think we can reduce demand by
70%. I mean it's amazing.
Mr. Bynum: So I just thought in all fairness you needed to say
that real simply. Yeah, it's...you look at that and go wow, 50 cents, can we really do
that and is it equitable. But if that meant that the next car you buy as a Kauai
citizen can be a plug-in hybrid that gets 75 or 80 miles on a gallon and these...so
you're paying the 50 cents here but you're getting the ability to actually purchase
that vehicle. Maybe you were going to purchase a vehicle anyway and the
difference of cost may be covered by this incentive in terms of currently those
hybrids are still a premium, right? They cost more.
Mr. Hinrichs: Yeah, they are, they are definitely. But I think you
raised some great points if I could address those quickly. You're right about what
do we do with those proceeds. Do we keep shipping those dollars off to, you know,
the Middle East or wherever for imported oil? Or do we keep them local and let
them grow different jobs and markets here on Kauai. I would recommend the
latter as a much better investment. So, thank you for that reference, that's a good
point. And
Mr. Bynum: I just wanted to say I understand what 'you're
proposing~here and it is pretty radical, but you're also saying that we need to have a
paradigm shift and...
Mr. Hinrichs: That's...that's...
Mr. Bynum: And that means...we need...you know, the world
has changed and we need to do some pretty bold leadership things to make a
difference and we do have an opportunity, being an island, maybe to do that. So, I
understand the propo...I just want to be clear. I understand the proposal and that
the public hear both sides of that. Did I get this right, Doug?
Mr. Hinrichs: Absolutely, Tim, thank you for...for clarifying those
and adding those comments. Yeah, a paradigm shift is what we need here. I mean,
business as usual, we can keep doing the same thing and not much will change.
You'll still be relying on imported oil which will cost, you know, I'm not a seer in the
future, but I would guarantee, almost guarantee that oil's going to increase over
20 years, over the next 20 years. So, it's a good investment besides all the
sustainable, you know, benefits as a community investing in clean energy now,
sustainable energy. But it's going to promote...it's going to give us dividends back.
It's going to be a good investment and will in fact over 20 years I think be cheaper
than relying on oil. Paradigm shifts don't come cheap, but they have upfront cost
then we get paid back later.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 18 - • January 6, 2010
Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. You have a question? Go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Chair. I'm glad you came back too
because I did have a question.
Mr. Hinrichs: Sure.
Ms. Kawahara: In your recommendations for the successful plan
implementation, was there a reason or why you didn't include the visitor industry,
which is, as everybody knows, such a large part of the island fabric? And hotels are,
you know, they generally take in a lot of energy, and I'm curious as to why they
wouldn't be part of a group of people that are going to help successfully implement
this...
Mr. Hinrichs: That's a great idea.
Mr. Furfaro: Could I answer that because...
Mr. Hinrichs: Sure. Thanks, Jay.
Mr. Furfaro: I just want to point out that I don't think they were
left out as much as Mr. Costa and myself, if you put your time together in the
visitor industry, both of us are regular conduits to issues for the hospitality group.
And in fact, many of the hotels here have found themselves implementing their own
internal programs that are complimentary at what is going in the project. I think
it's an excellent point that you made. There isn't someone outside of the group
participating, but I think Mr. Costa has been President of the Hotel Association. I
have been President of the Hotel Association twice, and so they do have some
representation in the participation, but they're not directly reflected there.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay.
Mr. Hinrichs: It's a good point.
Ms. Kawahara: Is there going...I under...I understand- that you're a
representative and appreciate that. I was just wondering if there would be an
official representative...
Mr. Furfaro: Good point.
Ms. Kawahara: ...from the hotel...
Mr. Hinrichs: It's a good idea.
Ms. Kawahara: ...the hotels here.
Mr. Hinrichs: Yeah, it's a good idea.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: I just wanted to point out that of the seven
standing members, two of us probably have 50 years of resort experience.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes, yes, and that's...
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 19 - ~ January 6, 2010
Mr. Hinrichs: And we have talked to several hotel folks and we
understand their needs. We believe and in the full report, which is, you know, I
don't know how many total pages, 200 pages, so we do talk about some conventional
technologies as well as emerging technologies that could be very applicable to
hotels, including...I think we mention briefly solar thermal cooling which could
reduce their air conditioning load, take it off the grid, take it off the electricity grid
by using solar thermal energy. So there's some different technologies, solar,
flooding tubes, KIUC was...
Mr. Furfaro: Air conditioning, circulating pumps...
Mr. Hinrichs: Right, right, besides HVAC and lighting. In the
full report we do mention some things, but I think it's a really good suggestion to
include them in the...in the...
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, okay, thank you, and...
Mr. Hinrichs: ...in the coordination team.
Ms. Kawahara: So I can find something in here...this report...
Mr. Hinrichs: Yes.
Ms. Kawahara: ...detailing a little bit o£..
Mr. Hinrichs: Yes, on those technologies I mentioned.
Ms. Kawahara: ...assistance. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Hinrichs: Sure.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Mr. Hinrichs: Okay, thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Jay.
Mr. Furfaro: Yeah, it's a very good point, but I just wanted to
make sure that there was not representation.
Chair. Asing: Okay, go ahead, Tim:
Mr. Bynum: I just have a process question.
Chair Asing: Okay.
Mr. Bynum: In terms of we just received this plan today.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: We...and there are public meetings coming up, and
so in terms of process, we may have an opportunity at the council level to speak
with Doug again in the future because I have questions that I'm not prepared to ask
now because I want to read it in its entirety.
COUNCIL MEETING - 20 - • January 6, 2010
Chair Asing: Okay. Yeah, I think it's going to take a little time,
Tim, to digest this anyway, (inaudible) so, kind of lengthy and we need to digest it
and then I'm sure we can ask questions after we digest everything. Yes, go ahead, .
Dickie.
Mr. Chang: Thank you, Chair. You know for the purposes of
digesting, when we have our speakers, can we make reference to the page that
we're talking about, please?
Ms. Kawahara: Oh, sure. "
Chair Asing: That's fine.
Mr. Chang: So we can follow along.
Mr. Bynum: Because his PowerPoint is...has page numbers.
Chair Asing: Okay.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes.
Chair Asing: Yeah, okay. The rules are suspended. Mr. Taylor.
KEN TAYLOR: Chair and members of the council, my name is
Ken Taylor. I also would like to thank Diane and Doug for a good report. There are
some issues in here that are very concerning to me and I hope that, as Tim
mentioned, that there'll be other opportunities to talk about this after we've had
more time to digest the whole thing. But a couple things that come to mind quickly
is a two-week comment period, closing on the 21St of January. I think that's way too
short. Tomorrow, as my understanding, is the public meeting to make this similar
presentation. The public is going to have to have time to read and digest the whole
se...the whole report as you will and I think that that timeframe should be put out
at least a couple more weeks. One of the things that was quite disappointing in
seeing the different options of electricity generation was wave energy. I know it's a
fairly new technology and there's still a long ways to go, but it...it's not a whole lot
different than the...the real technology needed in...in batteries to make electric cars
more efficient and more realistic. So I think wave ener...energy is...is...should be
added to the mix. It's a 24/7 option and it's not a real eyesore to the local landscape
and that's important. And the reality of whether we...what we agree or disagree
with in...in the whole plan, what it really boils down to, will we have the political
will to move forward with this and therein lies the whole issue and it's going to...I
mean reality is we've come to the end of cheap oil. Our lifestyles are going to
change. It's not ever going to go back to what it has been, and unfortunately, my
good friend Glenn, he wants to stay with the past and not realize that we're moving
into a future and...a very different future. And so, thi...this is. reality and on
page 14, the graph, I...I'm...I'm really concerned that 54% is again donated to
personal vehicle options and I really believe that the future is not going to be with
personal automobiles in that...in that kind of a mix and that number should be
much smaller and...
Mr. Nakamura: Three minutes, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Taylor: The smart growth option should be greater and
municipal transportation much greater than what's projected here. Thank you.
ary ,
COUNCIL MEETING • - 21 - • Janu 6 2010
Chair Asing: Thank you. Go ahead, Councilmember Furfaro.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes, I want to thank you, Ken, for your testimony.
Am I hearing that you feel that the public period should be extended by at least
another two weeks.
Mr. Taylor: At least.
Mr. Furfaro: At least, okay. And then I also want to share with
you that you know the final document is in fact the plan and the recommendations
that can be done. But the action, you're quite correct in...the action needs to be
taken by state...
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Furfaro: ...KIUC, and the county through ordinances. And
I, you know, I do have one part to one of the ones that I'm most concerned with is
the fact with the expansion of photovoltaic, there is a capital investment, but there
is land that needs to be acquired for the purpose of the development, the capital
investment that goes into it. So, we perhaps need to have legislation that frames
the tax that's associated with producing alternative energy. You know, if somebody
acquires open and ag space land, this is just an example, and they're going to invest
in photovoltaic.
Well, as soon as they make the investment, do we then
change...charge...change the land base to a commercial tax base, which might
actually prevent them from making the investment. So, you know, we have to...I
agree, we have to have the political will to look at those types of things, but I want
to also at the same time say that the county is not the only agency that needs to
have the...the political will, the financial investment and the strategic thinking that
goes along in possibly implementing what's in the plan, but very good point, Ken.
Mr. Taylor: Yes, it takes all...all the players, there's no
question about that and one of the things over the past few years that's been
troubling to me is that there's been a lot of discussion in the community
with...about alternative energies and how it's going to save money. My personal
belief that it's not going to save a lot of money upfront but down the road it's going
to save tremendously and there's the benefit in...of investing today. And how we
get there, the 50-cent tax on gasoline is certainly one of them. There may be some
others that are needed because we are faced with major, major investments to
change over. And therein lies the difficulty and the requirement for political will.
Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, is there anyone else in the
public who wants to speak on this item. If not, I'll call the meeting back to order
and can we have a motion to receive.
There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called
back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Chang moved to receive C 2010-07 for the record, seconded by Mr. Furfaro.
Chair Asing: Any discussion?
Mr. Furfaro: One further comment.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 22 - • January 6, 2010
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Furfaro: I think in just closing with Ken's last observation,
people do need to relate...for us to get to a point where we can manage the cost of
energy, the startup is not cheap. That's just something I wanted to concur with.
Chair Asing: Thank you, Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, just to repeat what I sa...I...there's a lot in
here. A lot of us have worked on it and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to have
a dialogue at the council level again. I'm sure we will because they're making
specific recommendations and we will have to decide if we want to implement those
or not, but just one short comment about the public transportation aspects. You
know, some behavior change happens by choice and some behavior change happens
by necessity. I'd love to have a big giant SUV, V-8, you know that may be my
choice, but the necessity of the reality is that's never going to be in my future again,
no, it's going to be small cars that are fuel efficient and...because out of necessity.
For an increasing percentage of our population, ownership of a private vehicle is not
a choice for them anymore. We have an increasing group of people who are
dependent upon public transportation because that's what their budget can allow
and those changes...and so improvements to public transportation are important as
a social justice issue in terms of having all of our citizens be equal participants in
their community and in their government. So, I appreciate this report. I'm going to
take time to digest the 200 pages here and then I hope we have dialogue again in
the future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further comments? If not, thank
you very much for the presentation. It is lengthy. I guess, my...my first science
fiction comment, yes, I think it's...there's a lot to it, let's put it this way. And I
guess, you know, Tim brought out maybe some choices will not be available out
there. You know, you got a whole range of people out there and the range is wide.
There are people that just cannot and will not be able to afford some of the
recommendations that I see here, and that's also real life too, you know, getting all
the breaks, but getting the money upfront to do it is what people cannot afford. Yes,
you get the break, but you spend the money first to get the break and that money is
not going to be available to some portions of the population and I'm going to guess
that it is going to be a major portion of the population is my take on it. So, we've got
some work ahead on trying to...trying to put the pieces together. So with that,
thank you very much.
The motion to receive C 2010-07 for the record was then put, and unanimously
carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, we're back on page 1 of the council's
agenda on communications for receipt, on page 1 communication C 2010-01,
C 2010-02, and C 2010-03 for receipt.
C 2010-O1 Communication (11/30/2009) from the Environmental Services
Management Engineer, Department of Public Works, transmitting for Council
consideration, a draft bill amending Chapter 21, Article 7 of the Kauai County Code
1987, that addresses conditions imposed by the Hawaii State Department of Health
COUNCIL MEETING. - 23 - • Janu 6 2010
~'Y ,
in the newly issued operating permit for the Kekaha Landfill: Mr. Furfaro moved to
receive C 2010-01 for the record, seconded by Ms. Kawahara, and unanimously
carried.
C 2010-02 Communication (12/Oll2009) from the Chief of the Building
Division, Department of Public Works, transmitting for Council information, the
Building Permit Information Reports for November 2009 that includes the
following:
1) Building Permit Processing Report
2) Building Permit Estimated Value of Plans Summary
3) Building Permits Tracking Report
4) Building Permits Status
Mr. Furfaro moved to receive C 2010-02 for the record, seconded by Ms. Kawahara,
and unanimously carried.
C 2010-03 Communication (12/10/2009) from the Director of Planning,
transmitting the Planning Commission's recommendation relating to Proposed
Draft Bill No. 2342 to implement the Lihu`e Town Core Urban Design Plan of 2009
and amend Chapter 10, Article 5 of the Kauai County Code 1987 to establish
special planning areas for the Lihu`e Town Core, and exceptions, modifications and
additions to Chapters 8 and 10 of the Kauai County Code: Mr. Furfaro moved to
receive C 2010-03 for the record, seconded by Ms. Kawahara, and unanimously
carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: We're on page 2 of the council's agenda on com...I'm
sorry...
(Loud talking in the gallery.)
Chair Asing: How about cut...
Mr. Furfaro: (Inaudible) in the audience.
Chair Asing: ...cut the discussion down, please.
Mr. Nakamura: On page 2 of the council's agenda, further
communications for receipt, communication C 2010-04, C 2010-05, and C 2010-06.
C 2010-04 Communication (12/23/2009) from the Mayor, requesting
Council consideration and confirmation of the following appointments and
reappointments to various Boards and Commissions for the County of Kauai:
(1) Building Board of Appeals
Lawrence J. Dill (Engineer) -Term ending 12/31/2012
(2) Cost Control Commission
Linda Faye Collins - Filling an unexpired term ending 12/31/2011
(3) Fire Commission
Jan C. Rudinoff -Term ending 12/3 U2012
Basilio Fuertes, Jr. -Term ending 12/31/2012
COUNCIL MEETING. - 24 - • January 6, 2010
(4) Police Commission
George Tiffany -Term ending 12/31/2012
(5)' Salary Commission
William Dahle -Term ending 12/31/2012
C 2010-05 Communication (12/24/2009) from the Director of Finance,
requesting Council consideration of a draft bill authorizing the issuance of general
obligation bonds of the County of Kauai for the purpose of financing certain public
improvements and refunding certain bonds of the county; fixing or authorizing the
fixing of the form, denominations, and certain other details of such bonds and
providing for the sale of such bonds to the public.
C 2010-06 Communication (12/24/2009) from the Director of Finance,
requesting Council consideration of a proposal to amend Ordinance No. B-2009-691,
relating to capital improvements and financing thereof for the Fiscal Year July 1,
2009 to June 30, 2010 within the Bond Fund and General Fund to address the
proposed issuance of the County's 2010 General Obligation Bonds.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Can I have a motion to receive.
Mr. Furfaro moved to receive C 2010-04, C 2010-05, and C2010-06 for the record,
seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: At the bottom of page 2 for approval,
communication C 2010-08.
C 2010-08 Communication (12/02/2009) from the Director of Housing,
requesting Council approval to decline repurchase of Unit No. 407, Hookena at
Puhi, located in Puhi at 2080 Manawalea Street, Lihu`e, Hawaii 96766, and
provide the owners aone-year waiver of the County's repurchase right effective the
date of the Council's decision: Mr. Chang moved to approve C 2010-08, seconded by
Mr. Furfaro, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: On page 3 of the council's agenda,
for...communication for approval, communication C 2010-09.
C 2010-09 Communication (12/09/2009) from the Chief of Wastewater,
Department of Public Works, requesting Council approval to replace two (2) Air
Flow and Temperature Instruments at the Wailua Wastewater Treatment Plant
(WWTP) at a cost of approximately $10,000.00, in which funding for the
replacements ($10,000.00) is available in the Wastewater Division Equipment
Repair and Maintenance account: Mr. Furfaro moved to approve C 2010-09,
seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter on page 3 is communication C 2010-10.
ry
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 25 - • Janua 6, 2010
C 2010-10 Communication (12/24/2009) from the Fire Chief, requesting
Council approval to fund the cost of the acquisition of a public use helicopter via a
10-year lease to be used to enhance and support search and rescue, firefighting,
ocean safety, training and other services of the Kauai Fire Department and other
departments in the County of Kauai.
Chair Asing: Can I have a motion to refer this to the Budget &
Finance Committee.
Ms. Kawahara moved to refer C 2010-10 to the Budget & Finance Committee,
seconded by Mr. Chang.
Chair Asing: Any discussion?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes, I have some discussion.
Chair Asing: Go ahead.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair...
Mr. Furfaro: I just want to point to the members here, there's
two parts to this. There is this communication asking us to actually enter into a
10-year agreement on a lease to enhance the support needs of rescue for the Fire
Department. But this communication indicates that we're giving approval to a
• 10-year lease purchase, the money bill coming later. So, therefore, I do support
referring this to Budget & Finance and I just want to make it clear.
Chair Asing: That's the one at...to...February 27 meeting.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Chair Asing: Any discussion? Further discussion?
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, if it will be to that date specific...the motion.
Chair Asing: Yeah.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: Yes.
Chair Asing: Okay, any further discussion.
Mr. Nakamura: I'm...I'm sorry, Council Chair. Just...just for
clarification. This would be for the January 27th Budget & Finance Committee
meeting that it's being referred to.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Nakamura: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Okay, any further discussion?
COUNCIL MEETING. - 26 - • January 6, 2010
Mr. Furfaro: Oh, I'm sorry, I have February. It is January.
Mr. Nakamura: January 27th.
Mr. Furfaro: Got it.
Chair Asing: Yeah, 1-27.
Mr. Bynum: But the bill's going to public hearing before it goes
to committee? So we're...we refer...
Chair Asing: No.
Mr. Bynum: ...this to the committee.
Chair Asing: No, this is not the...the bill.
Mr. Furfaro: This is the communication.
Mr. Bynum: Right.
Chair Asing: This is the communication. We're talking about the
communication right now.
Mr. Nakamura: Yeah, I think...I think ac...actually, Council Chair,
on the bill that was attached to this, Bill 2345, which will be on first reading later
on in the agenda, the public hearing will be after this committee meeting.
Chair Asing: Right.
Mr. Nakamura: So this will be before the public hearing.
Chair Asing: It'll be after. Okay. With that, any further
discussion.
Chair Asing: I...I'm sorry, can we recap what we...just for
clarification.
Mr. Furfaro: Why don't we let the clerk summarize this again.
Chair Asing: Go ahead, Peter.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, the motion was to refer communication
C 2010-10 to the January 27~ Budget & Finance Committee.
Chair Asing: Okay. With that, any further discussion?
The motion to refer C 2010-10 to the January 27, 2010 Budget & Finance
Committee meeting was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 27 - ~ January 6, 2010
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter for approval is a Legal Document
attached to communication C 2010-11.
LEGAL DOCUMENT:
C 2010-11 Communication (12/24/2009) from the Executive on
Transportation, requesting Council approval to indemnify the Kawailoa
Development LLP to establish a bus stop on their property at the Po`ipu Bay Golf
Course.
• Right-of--Entry Agreement by and between the County of Kauai and
Kawailoa Development LLP to establish a bus stop on their property
at the Po`ipu Bay Golf Course.
Mr. Furfaro moved to approve the legal document attached to C 2010-11, seconded
by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matters are claims, communication C 2010-12
which is a claim filed against the county by Kevin Carter, C 2010-13 which is a
claim filed against the county by Alex Soares, and communication C 2010-14 which
is a claim filed against the county by Curtis Lofstedt.
CLAIMS:
C 2010-12 Communication (12/09/2009) from the County Clerk,
transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by Kevin Carter,
representative for McDonald's Restaurant, for damages to the McDonald's
Restaurant in `Ele`ele, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kauai:
Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2010-12 to the County Attorney's Office for disposition
and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously
carried.
C 2010-13 Communication (12/10/2009) from the County Clerk,
transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by Alex Soares for damage
to his vehicle, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kauai:
Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2010-13 to the County Attorney's Office for disposition
and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously
carried.
C 2010-14 Communication (12/14/2009) from the County Clerk,
transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by Curtis Lofstedt, owner,
Island Helicopters Kauai, Inc., for damages to the business site at the Lihu`e
Airport, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kauai: Mr. Furfaro
moved to refer C 2010-14 to the County Attorney's Office for disposition and/or
report back to the Council, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, next matter starting at the bottom
of page 3 are resolutions for approval. First resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2009-75.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 28 - • January 6, 2010
RESOLUTIONS:
Resolution No. 2009-75, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE POLICE COMMISSION (Rowena Tachibana, Second
Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2009-75, seconded by
Mr. Chang.
Chair Asing: Any discussion? Yes, Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just as we start working on
these approvals, I just want to make a few comments and...regarding the Boards
and Commissions and some of the things that I've heard the community dialoguing
on, I just want to respond to. When I look at the list, the entire list of our current
Boards and Commissioners and the ones that we are adding today, I'm very
impressed with the diversity and the appropriateness of the vast majority of the
individuals that are serving as Boards and Commissions, and I want to recognize
and thank all of those citizens that are stepping up as volunteers to help make our
government and our community a better place. But the idea that the council
ha...because we've approved I think probably everyone that's come here, there's
been this sentiment in the community that we're not doing our due diligence and I
just want to publicly disagree with that. I think that all of us here at the table took
time to understand who the applicants were or who the commissioners were. We
knew a lot of them previously and...I'm sorry...and you know what, I think it's a
great group. I'm very impressed with the previous Mayor and the current Mayor,
the individuals they've selected, the people that they've put forward, that they meet
the needs of a diverse group of people in our community. And I don't think it's the
council's role to...at least speaking for myself, if the people are stepping up to
volunteer, they meet the criteria, they seem to have something to contribute, those
are the kind of analyses that I do when I'm going to make my vote, I'm going to
approve them. And so I think it's expected that the majority o£..that...in most
circumstances the vote would be to approve because people are stepping up to
volunteer, they've been screened, they've been interviewed here, we've had
opportunities to ask questions and it would kind of be an extraordinary situation
where I felt somebody wasn't qualified and then I would, you know, make an
appropriate vote. But I just want to really recognize the great group of individuals
and I'd encourage the public to look at the listing of these folks. You're going to
know some of them. You're going to know and the ones that I haven't known, I've
had an opportunity to speak with, see what their background's in and the sincerity
of their desire to contribute to the health and well-being of our community. So,
thank you for letting me make those comments.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further discussion? Go ahead,
Councilmember Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank...thank you, Chair. I was going to wait till
the end to make my comments, but I just want to echo Councilmember Bynum.
First of all, I do agree that all of the...those that were nominated are excellent
community members, but more importantly, I think the key here is that they are
volunteering. And I believe that many of them took this opportunity seriously.
They mentioned about wanting to give back and serve the community, and you
know, during the screening process, if somebody couldn't quite answer the question,
I think most importantly they were able to let us know that they were eager to
learn, they sat on various other Boards, and like many of us, things as such comes
as an on-the job training and many of them have the ability to adopt...adapt and
catch on very, very quickly. And another point that I just wanted to make was that
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 29 - • Janua 6, 2010
rY
of all of the nominees, there was one that reconsidered and decided to, you know,
politely withdraw his name from consideration. So, those that wanted to go through
the process gave it great, great thought about following through for their
responsibilities for the community. So, with that as we go through the list, I do
plan to support every one of them, but I just, in advance, wanted to thank them for
stepping up to the plate for our community. Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there any further discussion? If not,
I'd like to suspend the rules. You have a question? You want to speak on an item,
Ken?
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
KEN TAYLOR: Chair and members of the council, my name is Ken
Taylor. I don't think any of us in the public disagree with the individuals that have
stepped up and...to offer their services to the county, the community, in...in picking
these positions. I think the concern that's been raised is whether or not the process
is being followed according to the charter. And I think that's an issue that is very
important as well as these individuals stepping forward. Following the charter or
the rules and regulations set forth in the charter, it's your responsibility and as I
said yesterday, you took the oath of office to uphold the charter, and I believe that is
where the problem is falling apart in where you folks need to step up to the plate
and follow the charter recommendations and then move forward with the project at
hand. Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Can you...Ken, can you give me an example where
we haven't followed...stepped up and followed the charter?
Mr. Taylor: I don't particularly have the...the charter
information in front of me. I believe Rob raised some important issues yesterday.
Unfortunately he went off to...because he had some additional information that he
wanted to write up real quickly and was hoping to get back for this discussion. But
he's done a lot more due diligence on the charter issue than...than some of us have
and, but we believe that you have an obligation and...and if...if that is indeed so...I
mean the charter's the charter and it's...it's the constitution of the county and your
responsibility to uphold that issue. And it...it's nothing to do with the...the
individuals that have applied for or volunteered to fill these positions. Thank you.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: I appreciate those comments and I wanted...I know
I swore an oath to uphold the constitution and the charter, and I take that very
seriously. And so...and I very much appreciate your testimony, Glenn's,
Mr. Abrew's, who I spoke with today. I'm one that thinks it's wonderful that we
have concerned citizens that are holding us accountable. That's what democracy's
all about, I like it a lot. I don't always agree with the positions that people take and
it's very often the case that it's citizens like yourself or Bruce or Rob who point out
areas that we need to pay more attention to and I'm appreciative of that. Rob has
talked about provisions of the charter that say the Boards have to be balanced in
terms of party affiliation. And when he brought up those issues, I went out and
checked it out, and talked story with the Boards and Commissions people. They are
COUNCIL MEETING - 30 - • January 6, 2010
charting all of that. They are meeting all of the criteria. This morning he brought
up an issue about...in the charter that says that one of the criteria is to be eligible
elector... electorate.. .
Mr. Chang: Regis...registered voter.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, right, which turned out to be registered
voter. I just got handed a note that, you know, that has been screened and each
person there...the charter language is "each commissioner shall, at the time of
appointment, be a duly qualified resident elector of the county." And so, you know,
that question came up this morning. And I appreciate that because I want to...you
know, we're human beings and sometimes we miss something. But I feel confident
and I've been assured by this note here that that has been screened and that the
Boards and Commissions understand that part of the charter and have seen that
each of the people apply to that. In terms of...I appreciate you saying you're not
objecting to any individual and I'll just...you know, I like having open and blunt
dialogue, but you know there was stuff in the newspaper saying that well,
presumably all of the people have agreed to support the Mayor's position on issues,
and I don't believe that that's true at all. I've asked many of the applicants during
our interviews, were you asked to conform to any position and all of them were kind
of offended by that and did say, oh, of course not. You know, I know one applicant
said, if I were asked to take a position, I would not...you know, I would have been
offended and upset, and I wouldn't have accepted the thing, so...I wouldn't have
accepted the appointment if it was some kind of quid pro quo. But those things kind
of get said sometimes, right, in the newspaper and I can speak for those...some of
those individuals who I've spoken to and speak for myself. When I read that I
think, phew, that's just blatant allegation that has no basis in fact. So, it's all grist
for the mill and we can have this dialogue, but I wanted to take this opportunity as
we're approving these fine individuals who stepped up to volunteer and say that
I...you know the fact that the council has approved probably all of the applicants
that have been...that have come forward since I was here, it doesn't mean we didn't
do our due diligence, and I think that the Mayor's going to find those people, that
they're going to do aself-analysis and evaluation about are they willing to prepare
that role. If they do that job well, they're not going to g7ve us objectionable people
that we would say, no, we don't want you to volunteer to help our community. So, I
think it's perfectly understandable that we would pass virtually everyone that
comes up here. Because there's some that we never voted on because during that
process, they either took themselves out of the running or you know, there were
other circumstances. So by the time it comes to a vote, I think it would be an
extraordinary circumstance where we would have a contested vote on an application
for a volunteer to be involved in government. So I just wanted an opportunity to
say those things today.
Mr. Taylor: Yeah, I...I...I hear what you're saying and I don't
know who's indicated that these people are being...are picked to...to carry out the
Mayor's wishes, but I...I certainly don't believe that and I'd never, never believe
that. But it's...it's...it...one of the problems that comes along and maybe something
that needs to be considered for the future is that...that we have some workshops on
the consti...on the charter itself as it...section by section. What does it mean
and...and so that...that we all know...have a better understanding so that we don't
get off on tangents and so on and so forth. I think...I think where I came from on
the mainland, they did that every year and it was very helpful for...for people that
were interested in participating in the process to attend those workshops along with
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 31 - January 6, 2010
some staff and...and elected officials so that we all better understood the legalities
o£..of what's written in that document. And I would make a recommendation that
that be considered, but...
Mr. Bynum: I think that's an excellent idea and the more that
the people have an understanding about how we govern ourselves, then...you know,
certainly there are certain elements of the charter that have gotten intense scrutiny
over the last year, and that's a positive thing. That's a good thing. Hopefully, we
get through that and come to some consensus and agreement in the long run,
but...so. Thank you for your comments.
Mr. Taylor: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else? If not, I'd like to
call the meeting back to order.
There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called
back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: We have a motion on the floor now. With that, can
we have roll call, please.
The motion to adopt Resolution No. 2009-75 was then put, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you. We're overdue for the caption break, so
we'll take the caption break now. Thank you.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 11:47 a.m. The meeting was
called back to order at 12:02 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: The meeting is now called back to order. With that,
can we have the next item, please.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, we're on page 4 of the council's agenda
on Resolution 2009-76.
Resolution No. 2009-76, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION
(Camilla Chieko Matsumoto, Second Term, At-Large): Mr. Bynum moved to adopt
Resolution No. 2009-76, seconded by Mr. Furfaro.
Chair Asing: Hang on. What we'll do is we'll open it up.
Somebody in the public wants to speak on this item.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
ROB ABREW: Apologize, Kaip...apologize council. I had a...an
emergency I had to attend to. I wanted to do this before all the resolutions were
voted on, but I have some testimony here today. My name is Rob Abrew for the
record. On behalf of the public I must ask that the council defer the resolutions.
COUNCIL MEETING - 32 - ~ January 6, 2010
H.R.S. 92-F defines a government record as, it means information maintained by an
agency in written, auditory, visual, electronic or other physical forms. When the
mayor transmitted communications to the council with successful applicants'
applications attached, the application is considered a government record by
definition. At this point Section 92-F-19(a)(6) would be the law that takes
precedence, Limitations on Disclosures of Government Records to other Agencies:
No agency may disclose or authorize disclosure of government records to any other
agency unless the disclosure is to the legislature or a county council or any
committee or sub-committee thereof. Under sec...sect...under Section 92-F-19(a)(6),
in an OIP ruling from 91-8, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the mayor may disclose
information, including confidential information, about a nominee to the council that
will review the nomination. When the council receives confidential information
about a nominee, the mayor and the council must observe applicable restrictions on
disclosures. However, the council will be required to publicly disclose certain
nominee information under its review when the public interest and disclosure of the
information outweighs the nominee's privacy interest. There are many, many,
many OIP opinions that state what the difference between public interest and
private...the nominee's privacy. This OIP decision was in reference to the
governor's application for appointments to boards and commissions to be reviewed
by the state senate. Since the OIP decision above directly referenced this next
decision, I took the liberty to add mayor for the word governor and council had...in
place of the senate. In the county...
Mr. Furfaro: Excuse me, excuse me. Just want to clarify. You
took the liberty to replace positions.
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Abrew: Since the count...since this next decision referred...
Mr. Furfaro: I understand. I just want to hear that you took the
liberty.
Mr. Abrew: Okay, yes. In a letter dated January 1, 2005
addressed to former Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura concerning executive session
interviews, the issue of public disclosure of a successful applicant's information was
discussed at great length. This letter was responsible for the interviews of
successful applicants moving from executive session to a public meeting. This letter
was also copied and sent to Chair Asing, former County Attorney Nakazara (sic)
(Nakazawa) and County Clerk Peter Nakamura.
Mr. Nakamura: Three minutes, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: That was three minutes. Go ahead.
Mr. Abrew: I...I...my mouth's so dry I can't talk. It started...it
stated, the council provides all members of boards and commissions shall be
appointed and removed by the mayor with the approval of the council. It is our
understanding that in accordance with the charter, the mayor transmits to the
council the names of the appointees for the council's approval. A copy of each
appointee's application for appointment to the board or commission is also
transmitted to the council. The application includes, among other things, the
appointee's name, employer, a summary of the appointee's major work experience
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 33 - ~ Janu 6 2010
~'3'
and a statement of the applicant's understanding of the primary duties of the
appointment. Although the UIPA recognizes individuals have a significant private
interest in applications and nominations for appointment to government positions,
the OIP has previously opinioned (sic) that this significant privacy interest is
outweighed by the public interest in the application information concerning
successful applicants, which we're deciding today, because it sheds light upon the
composition, conduct and potential conflicts of interest of government board and
commission members. Therefore, the UIP would require the disclosure of
appointees' application information.
This is straightforward. This has been ruled on that these ap...these
successful applications must be made available to the public before the review can
be complete. So, this information was not taken to the public and it's not available
to the public before the review can be complete. So, I'm asking you guys to put on
hold for a week or two weeks, ask the county clerk to make the documents available
with redacted information as per the letter in June addressed to JoAnn Yukimura
that this council has received and make that public information before the issue is
decided on.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else in the public who
wants to speak?
Mr. Abrew: Thank you for letting me talk.
Chair Asing: If not, thank you very much. I'd like to call the
meeting back to order.
There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called
back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: We have a motion on the floor now. Any discussion
on the motion? If not, roll call please.
The motion to adopt Resolution No. 2009-76 was then put, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you, next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2009-77.
Resolution No. 2009-77, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE BOARD OF WATER SUPPLY (Roy Asao Oyama,
Second Term) J
Chair Asing: Motion to approve, please.
COUNCIL MEETING - 34 - ~ January 6, 2010
Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2009-77, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and
carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution is Resolution No. 2009-78.
Resolution No. 2009-78, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE LIQUOR CONTROL COMMISSION
(Gerald Shigemi Matsunaga, Second Term)
Chair Asing: Motion to approve, please.
Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution •No. 2009-78, seconded by Mr. Chang, and
carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Ms. Kawahara: Mr. Chair, could I have a quick recess?
Chair Asing: Sure.
Ms. Kawahara: (Inaudible) five-minute recess regarding the
testimony.
Chair Asing: Okay.
Ms. Kawahara: Just really quick.
Chair Asing: We'll have a short recess.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
There being no objections, the meeting was recessed at 12:09 p.m. The meeting was
called back to order at 12:15 p.m.
Chair Asing: With that, I believe we have a motion on the floor
now. Am I correct.
Mr. Nakamura: We're on 2010-01. We have no motion on
Resolution No. 2010-01.
Resolution No. 2010-01, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE BOARD OF REVIEW (Lisa Ann Wilson, First Term):
Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-01, seconded by Mr. Chang.
Chair Asing: Any discussion?
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 35 - ~ Janu 6 2010
m`Y ,
Ms. Kawahara: Ah, yes.
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Just really quickly. I just wanted...I appreciate the
Chair letting me ask for a recess and getting that. I spoke with our county attorney
and I will be, in response to Mr. Abrew's testimony here and the issues he's raised, I
will be sending a communication to the Boards and Commission to ask about the
transmission issues of these applicants. But...so that will be sent over at some
point, probably at the end of the day. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further discussion? If not roll call
please.
The motion to adopt Resolution No. 2010-O1 was then put, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-02.
Resolution No. 2010-02, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION
N0.2009-06 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A
MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE BOARD OF REVIEW (Russell S. Kyono, First
Term, replacing Richard Koenig, Jr.): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution
No. 2010-02, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution is Resolution No. 2010-03.
Resolution No. 2010-03, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE BOARD OF ETHICS (Warren C. R. Perry, First Term):
Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution 2010-03, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and
carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-04.
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 36 - ~ January 6, 2010
Resolution No. 2010-04, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE BOARD OF ETHICS (Brad R. Nagano, First Term):
Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-04, seconded by Mr. Chang, and
carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-05.
Resolution No. 2010-05, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION (Roy M. Morita,
First Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-05, seconded by
Mr. Chang, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you, next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-06.
Resolution No. 2010-06, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION
NO. 2007-111 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A
MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE COST CONTROL COMMISSION
(Lawrence Chaffin, Jr., First Term, replacing Nadine Nakamura): Mr. Furfaro
moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-06, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING:' Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval, Resolution
No. 2010-07.
Resolution No. 2010-07, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE COST CONTROL COMMISSION (Dirk Kapualani
Joseph Apao, First Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-07,
seconded by Mr. Chang, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 37 - • January 6, 2010
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-08.
Resolution No. 2010-08, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION
N0.2009-16 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A
MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE SALARY COMMISSION (Charles G. King, First
Term, replacing Tom Cooper): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-08,
seconded by Mr. Bynum, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you, next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: At the top of page 5, we have Resolution
No. 2010-09. Mr. Chair, if we can get a motion to defer this one pending interview.
Resolution No. 2010-09, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE BUILDING BOARD OF APPEALS (Dennis P. Aquino,
First Term, Fire): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution No. 2010-09 pending
interview, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, for Resolution No. 2010-10, for
Mr. Nakasone, if we could get the same deferral.
Resolution No. 2010-10, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE BUILDING BOARD OF APPEALS (Gerald T. Nakasone,
First Term, At-large): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution No. 2010-10 pending
interview, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, also for Resolution No. 2010-11.
Resolution No. 2010-11, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION
N0.2007-97 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A
MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE SALARY COMMISSION (Sheri S. Kunioka-Volt,
First Term, replacing Dawn Murata): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution
No. 2010-11 pending interview, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution is for approval, Resolution
No. 2010-12.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 38 - • January 6, 2010
Resolution No. 2010-12, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE BUILDING BOARD OF APPEALS (Lawrence J. Dill,
Engineer): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-12, seconded by
Mr. Bynum, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, if we could get a motion to defer also on
Resolution No. 2010-13.
Resolution No. 2010-13, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION
N0.2009-08 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A
MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE COST CONTROL COMMISSION (Linda Faye
Collins, replacing Lorna A. Nishimitsu): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution
No. 2010-13 pending interview, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-14.
Resolution No. 2010-14, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE FIRE COMMISSION (Jan C. Rudinoff): Mr. Furfaro
moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-14, seconded by Ms. Kawahara, and carried by
the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-15.
Resolution No. 2010-15, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
REAPPOINTMENT TO THE FIRE COMMISSION (Basilio Fuertes, Jr.):
Ms. Kawahara moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-15, seconded by Mr. Furfaro,
and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, if we could get a motion on...to receive
on Resolution 2010-16.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 39 - • Janu 6, 2010
ar3'
Resolution No. 2010-16, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE POLICE COMMISSION (George Tiffany): Mr. Furfaro
moved to receive Resolution No. 2010-16 for the record, seconded by Ms. Kawahara,
and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Last resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-17.
Resolution No. 2010-17, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE SALARY COMMISSION (William Dahle): Mr. Chang,
moved to adopt Resolution No. 2010-17, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matters are Bills for First Reading. First bill
for first reading is Proposed Draft Bill 2341.
BILLS FOR FIRST READING:
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2341 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND
CHAPTER 21, ARTICLE 7, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, RELATING TO
INTEGRATED SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT: Mr. Bynum moved for passage of
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2341 on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a
public hearing thereon be scheduled for February 3, 2010, and that it thereafter be
referred to the Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee, seconded by Mr. Furfaro.
Chair Asing: Any dis...any discussion?
Mr. Furfaro: (Inaudible) date specific, I mean referral?
Mr. Chang: February 3rd.
Mr. Nakamura: February 3rd would be the public hearing.
Chair Asing: Any further discussion? If not, roll call please.
The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill No. 2341 was then put, and carried by
the following vote:
FOR PASSAGE: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST PASSAGE: None - TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next bill for first reading is Proposed Draft Bill
No. 2342.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 40 - • January 6, 2010
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2342 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE
ESTABLISHING REGULATIONS, PROCEDURES, ZONING AND
DEVELOPMENT PLANS FOR THE LIHU`E TOWN CORE AREA AND
ESTABLISHING EXCEPTIONS, MODIFICATIONS AND ADDITIONS TO
CHAPTER 8 AND CHAPTER 10 OF THE KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987:
Mr. Bynum moved for passage of Proposed Draft Bill No. 2342 on first reading, that
it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for
February 3, 2010, and that it thereafter be referred to the Planning Committee,
seconded by Ms. Kawahara.
Chair Asing: Any discussion?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Furfaro: I...I just want to say after this public hearing,
because this is such a large item we might be considering a specific date to have a
presentation from Planning. It's...it's a very large document identifying certain
special areas. So I might be requesting that depending on what we hear from the
public hearing coming up first.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Any further discussion? If not, roll call please.
The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill No. 2342 was then put, and carried by
the following vote:
FOR PASSAGE: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you, next item.
Mr. Nakamura: Next bill for first reading at the top of page 6 is
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2343.
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2343 - AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE
ISSUANCE OF GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI
FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINANCING CERTAIN PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS
AND REFUNDING CERTAIN BONDS OF THE COUNTY; FIXING OR
AUTHORIZING THE FIXING OF THE FORM, DENOMINATIONS, AND
CERTAIN OTHER DETAILS OF SUCH BONDS AND PROVIDING FOR THE
SALE OF SUCH BONDS TO THE PUBLIC: Mr. Bynum moved for passage of
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2343 on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a
public hearing thereon be scheduled for February 3, 2010, and that it thereafter be
referred to the Budget & Finance Committee, seconded by Mr. Furfaro.
Chair Asing: Thank you. I believe we have an amendment. Can
we have a motion to move to amend as circulated and I believe the amendment is a
technical one.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 41 - • Janu 6, 2010
~'3'
Mr. Furfaro: It is and I believe it is being circulated right now,
introduced by myself, okay. It is just a technical and housekeeping item.
Chair Asing: Okay, can we have that motion to amend, please.
Ms. Kawahara moved to amend Proposed Draft Bill No. 2343, as shown in the Floor
Amendment attached hereto (see Attachment No. 1), seconded by Mr. Bynum, and
unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: We're back to the main motion as amended. Any
further discussion? If not all those...I'm sorry, roll call please.
The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill No. 2343 as amended was then put,
and carried by the following vote:
FOR PASSAGE: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Can we have the next item, please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next bill for first reading is Proposed Draft Bill
No. 2344.
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2344 - AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE
NO. B-2009-691, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE CAPITAL BUDGET OF
THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR
JULY 1, 2009 TO JUNE 30, 2010, BY REVISING THE REVENUES AND
APPROPRIATIONS IN THE BOND FUND AND THE GENERAL FUND (CIP):
Mr. Bynum moved for passage of Proposed Draft Bill No. 2344 on first reading, that
it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled on
February 3, 2010, and that it thereafter be referred to the Budget & Finance
Committee.
Mr. Bynum: I believe there's also an amendment.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Before we do that, I'd like to suspend
the rules. Glenn.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, I'm sorry, we just needed a second to
Councilmember Bynum's motion.
Ms. Kawahara seconded Mr. Bynum's motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill
No. 2344 on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon
be scheduled on February 3, 2010, and that it thereafter be referred to the Budget &
Finance Committee.
Mr. Nakamura: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Go ahead. Thank you.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 42 - • January 6, 2010
GLENN MICKENS: For the record Glenn Mickens. Just...just a
question on this Bill 2344. Do I understand it right? It...the...it's...it's being
increased from $58,831,800 to $111,119,800? Is that true? Is that...do I
understand it right?
Mr. Furfaro: That's correct, Glenn. You did. If you make a
footnote there, it's total all funds.
Mr. Mickens: All funds.
Mr. Furfaro: All funds.
Mr. Mickens: This is county and state, both?
Mr. Furfaro: No, this is only county. We can only act on county
(inaudible).
Mr. Mickens: Oh, but it...it has something in here, highways, but
that means county highways.
Mr. Furfaro: Yeah, our portion o£..the county's portion.
Mr. Mickens: Then...then...then what...
Chair Asing: Hang...hang on.
Mr. Mickens: Okay.
Chair Asing: Go ahead...
Mr. Mickens: I'm sorry.
Chair Asing: ...Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Glenn, the last two bills are kind of interrelated.
The first one is a bond that the county administration is proposing to finance capital
improvement projects. The second one is a revision of the current CIP Budget and
moving some of those from the General Fund into the Bond Fund. And so taken
together, this is the county...modifying the current CIP Budget and creating a bond
fund to do capital...a various list of capital improvement projects. This is first
reading, so that means we'll have public hearing and, you know, more discussion
coming up.
Mr. Mickens: Sure, sure, but...but then, as you're pointing out, it
does increase it by about double. Even taking it and putting it into the bond fund,
no matter how you want to juggle it around, right?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Mr, Bynum: It increases the Capital Improvement Projects.
Mr. Mickens: Right.
Mr. Bynum: Very much so.
_ • •
COUNCIL MEETING - 43 - January 6, 2010
Mr. Mickens: Oh, okay. I was going to ask about one item, but
you said it...there is going to be a public hearing on this, so I can wait about the one
thing. It was about the drug center and I just wanted to know more about...
Mr. Furfaro: That might best be held when we talk about this
piece specifically.
Mr. Mickens: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: And just so we understand, there are funds that
they have money in them that were from our earmarking certain taxes.
Mr. Mickens: Right.
Mr. Furfaro: And then the bond fund, as Mr. Bynum is
referencing, is actually the county's loan. So it's got taxes in it as well as borrowed
money.
Mr. Mickens: And you find it more advantageous putting it into
the bond fund to do rather than putting it like into the CIP fund?
Mr. Furfaro: This is...this is a kind of a strategic move, as
Mr. Bynum was sharing with you. If we have money that we've already put in
reserves with taxes, right, and we want to move them from the CIP money, this is
the motion that we make.
Mr. Mickens: I see.
Mr. Furfaro: There are some corrections on certain projects, but
this is also in antipita...anticipation of whatever the outcome might be from the
state legislature. So...
Mr. Mickens: But even in...putting it into the bond fund, that
doesn't mean that you're going to be able to get the money, right?
Mr. Furfaro: No. Let me explain. A bond is a loan that the
county applies for. .
Mr. Mickens: Right.
Mr. Furfaro: We're borrowing some money. The funds that we
have are moneys that were earmarked from taxes. For example, the 13 cents a
gallon we currently get for highway repair and so forth...
Mr. Mickens: Right.
Mr. Furfaro: That's tax money on the gas that goes into that
fund.
Mr. Mickens: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: The bond is a loan, so that's how you...you
(inaudible). And this is moving some CIP money, right, so that we strategically
have funds to prepare us for what might be the worst outcome.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 44 - • January 6, 2010
Mr. Mickens: Right.
Mr. Furfaro: There'll be more on this presentation from the
Finance Department when we actually have the public hearing.
Mr. Mickens And when you go...
Mr. Furfaro: I would encourage you to hold your comments until
then.
Mr. Mickens: Okay, okay. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Kaipo.
Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, I'd like...oh, Mr. Taylor.
KEN TAYLOR: Chair and members of the council, my name is Ken
Taylor. To...to follow up and I...I understand I think what you're trying to
accomplish here, but an...an example of the drug treatment $2 million issue,
acquisition and improvements of land, do we have a site identified for that or...I
mean, I don't...I don't remember seeing or hearing any discussion about...
Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: At this point, this is a proposal from the
administration and you know, they would be best to answer that question, but I
believe that the answer most likely, as far as I know, would be no, not at this time.
This would...this is a proposal to use part of the bond funding to have funds
available for that purpose, but it has to go through public hearing, get input from
the public and...and be authorized by the...
Mr. Taylor: Before this $2 million could be spent, there would
be public hearings on...on a...on a land site and...and that...is that what I'm
understanding?
Chair Asing and Mr. Bynum: Yes.
Mr. Taylor: Thank...thank you for that clarification.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: I can speak with you afterwards.
Chair Asing: With that, I'd like to call the meeting back to order
and we have a motion now. Can we have a motion to amend as circulated.
There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called
back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Bynum moved to amend Proposed Draft Bill No. 2344, as shown in the Floor
Amendment attached hereto (see Attachment No. 2), seconded by Mr. Chang, and
unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: We're back to the main motion as amended. Is
there any further discussion? If not, roll call please.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 45 - • Janu 6 2010
~'3' ,
The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill No. 2344 as amended was then put,
and carried by the following vote:
FOR PASSAGE: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you, next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter...last bill for first reading is
Bill No. 2345.
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2345 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING
ORDINANCE NO. B-2009-690, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE OPERATING
BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL
YEAR JULY 1, 2009 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2010, BY REVISING THE SURPLUS
AND APPROPRIATIONS ESTIMATED IN THE GENERAL FUND (Acquisition of
a Public Use Helicopter via a 10-year lease): Mr. Bynum moved for passage of
Proposed Draft Bill No. 2345 on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a
public hearing thereon be scheduled for February 3, 2010, and that it thereafter be
referred to the Budget & Finance Committee, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and carried
by the following vote:
FOR PASSAGE: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kaneshiro, Kawakami TOTAL - 2.
Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, that concludes the meeting
except for the executive sessions that we will be holding after the public hearing at
1:30 p.m. So we will resume at 1:30 p.m. for public hearing and after the public
hearing, we will be conducting the executive sessions. Thank you.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 12:32 p.m. The meeting was
called back to order at 1:49 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: The meeting is now called back to order. With that,
County Attorney. '
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
AMY ESAKI, DEPUTY COUNTY ATTORNEY: Okay, let's see...I'm going to
request to go into executive session and the executive session is for ES-413, 416,
417, and 418 and I'll read it verbatim.
EXECUTIVE SESSION:
ES-413 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4) and (8); and
Kauai County Charter §3.07(E), the purpose of this executive session is to consult
with the Council's legal counsel to receive legal updates, overviews, and
recommendations for purposes of obtaining Council approval of proposed
settlement of a workers' compensation claim, and evaluate employees' ability to
return to work. This deliberation and/or decision making involves matters that
require the consideration of information that must be kept confidential as, inter
alia, it concerns significant privacy interests. The significant privacy interests
COUNCIL MEETING. - 46 - • January 6, 2010
relate to a medical history, diagnosis, condition, treatment, or evaluation and
which, pursuant to state or federal law, including Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act, are protected from disclosure.
ES-416 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4), (6) and (8),
and Kauai County Charter section 3.07(E), the purpose of this executive session is
to provide the Council a briefing on Countv of Kauai vs. Ladv Ann Cruises, Inc., et
al., Civ. No. 09-1-0165 (Fifth Circuit Court), and related matters. This briefing and
consultation involves consideration of the powers, duties, privileges, immunities
and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate to this agenda item.
ES-417 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4) and (8), and
Kauai County Charter section 3.07(E), the Office of the County Attorney requests
an executive session with the Council to provide the Council a briefing, update, and
to request authority relating to the case of Jane Doe v. Countv of Kauai, EEOC
Charge no. 486-2009-00268 and related matters. This briefing and consultation
involves consideration of the powers, duties, privileges, immunities and/or liabilities
of the Council and the County as they relate to this agenda item.
ES-418 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4), (6) and (8),
and Kauai County Charter section 3.07(E), the purpose of this executive session is
to provide the Council a briefing on Planning Commission of the Countv of Kauai
vs. Patricia W. & Michael G. Sheehan, Sr. Permit Numbers: Special Management
Area Use; Permit SMA (U) 87-8; Use Permit U-87-32; Special Permit SP-87-9; Class
IV Zoning Permit Z-IV-87-40, (Order to Show Cause Hearings) and related matters.
This briefing and consultation involves consideration of the powers, duties,
privileges, immunities and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate
to this agenda item.
Chair Asing: Thank you, Amy. With that, I'd like to call the
meeting back to order and have a motion to move into executive session.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Chang moved to go into executive session, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and
unanimously carried.
There being no objection, the Chair recessed the meeting at 1:50 p.m. The meeting
reconvened at 3:50 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
ADJOURNMENT:
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at the end of the
executive session at 3:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
PETER A. NAKAMURA
County Clerk
/wa
•
(January 6, 2010)
FLOOR AMENDMENT
Bill No. 2343, Relating to the Issuance of
General Obligation Bonds
INTRODUCED BY: Jay Furfaro
Amend Exhibit "A" of Bill No. 2343 as follows:
EXHIBIT A
COUNTY PROJECTS
Piikoi Building Renovation
Waimea Police Sub-station
Lihue WWTP Chemical Lab Renovation
[Waimea] Wailua WWTP Improvements/Renovation
Islandwide SCADA System
Eleele WWTP Improvements/Renovation
Adolescent Drug Treatment Center Land Acquisition/Improvements
Civic Center ADA Improvements
Hanamaulu/Hanapepe ADA Improvements
ADA Access Barrier Removal
Hanapepe/Waimea Levies
Lighting Retrofits-Parks
Lydgate Campsite ADA Improvements
Park ADA Bleachers Replacement
Kapaa Baseyard Structural Renovation
IT Infrastructure Improvements
IT SOA Project
Aliomanu Road Erosion
Kokee Road (matching funds)
Wailua Emergency Bypass Improvements
Kilauea Ag Park (Design)
Auto Shop Facility/Storage
County-wide Storage Facility
Historic County Building and Lihue Civic Center
Site Improvements
Rice Street Crossing Improvements
Alternative Energy Projects
New Alternate Energy Projects
Composting Facility (Planning/Design)
Materials Recycling Facility (Feasibility/Plan/Engmeer/Design/Permit)
New Landfill Site Acquisition
Kekaha Landfill Lateral Expansion
Kekaha Landfill Phase II Closure
Kapaa Refuse Transfer Station Renovation*(Plan/Design)
Affordable Housing
ATTACHMENT No. 1
• • •
Kamalani Playground
Lydgate Pond
Kapaa Stadium Improvements
Park/Open Space Land Acquisition
Hanamaulu Beach Park Comfort Station/Pavilions
Veterans Cemetery Upgrade
Hanapepe Cliffside Basketball Court
(Material to be deleted is bracketed. New material is underscored.)
ATTACHMENT No. 1
~ •
(January 6, 2010)
FLOOR AMENDMENT
Bill No. 2344, Relating to the Capital Budget
of the County of Kauai
INTRODUCED BY: Jay Furfaro
Amend Bill No. 2344 to read as follows:
SECTION 1. That Section 1 of Ordinance No. B-2009-691, relating to the Capital
Budget of the County of Kauai, State of Hawaii, for the fiscal year July 1, 2009 to
June 30, 2010 (hereafter "Ordinance No. B-2009-691"), is hereby amended as follows:
Section 1. The several amounts of Revenue Fund Balances, Special Trust
Fund for Bikeway Fund, Special Trust Fund for Parks & Playgrounds, Bond Fund,
Development Fund, Highway Fund (CIP), Sewer Fund, General Fund (CIP), estimated
for the fiscal year July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, are hereby provided and appropriated to
the funds and for the purposes as set forth in Section 2.
BIKEWAY FUND $ 21,672
BOND FUND [30,581,667] 91,269,667
DEVELOPMENT FUND 533,100
GENERAL FUND (CIP) [19,150,730] 10,750,730
HIGHWAY FUND (CIP) 6,742,392
SEWER TRUST FUND 168,165
SPECIAL TRUST FUND FOR PARKS
PLAYGROUNDS 1,634,074
TOTAL ALL FUNDS [$58,831,800] $111,119,800
SECTION 2. That Section 2 of Ordinance No. B-2009-691 is hereby amended by
adding or increasing the following appropriation provisions and projects under the BOND FUND
category of projects listed in Section 2:
Piikoi Building Renovation _3,500,000
Waimea Police Sub-station 250,000
Lihue WWTP Chemical Lab Renovation 1,000,000
Wailua WWTP Improvements/Renovation 1,200,000
Islandwide SCADA System 4,200,000
Eleele WWTP Improvements/Renovation 2,400,000
Adolescent Drug Treatment Center Land Acquisition/Improvements 2,000,000
Civic Center ADA Improvements 960,000
Hanamaulu/Hanapepe ADA Improvements 400,000
ADA Access Barrier Removal 1,000,000
Hanapepe/Waimea Levies 1,200,000
1 ATTACHMENT No. 2
Lighting Retrofits [(Endangered Birds)]-Parks [270,000]4,070,000
Ludgate Campsite ADA Improvements 150,000
Park ADA Bleachers Replacement 800,000
Kapaa Baseyard Structural Renovation [ 199,100]2,799,100
IT Infrastructure Improvements 222,000
IT SOA Proiect 556,000
Aliomanu Road Erosion 3,000,000
Kokee Road (matching funds) 1,000,000
Wailua Emer enc~ypass Improvements 1,000,000
Kilauea A P~Design) 500,000
Auto Shop Facilit~Storage 1,000,000
County-wide Storage Facility 2,000,000
Historic County Building and Lihue Civic Center Site Improvements [4,697,362]5,197,362
Rice Street Crossing Improvements 300,000
Alternative Energy Projects 1,500,000
New Alternate Energy_Projects 500,000
Compostin F~ty~Plannin /g Designn) 700,000
Materials Recycling Facility
(Feasibility/Plan/Engineer/Desi ermit) 1,600,000
New Landfill Site Acquisition 4,500,000
Kekaha Landfill Lateral Expansion 3,900,000
Kekaha Landfill Phase II Closure 800,000
Kapaa Refuse Transfer Station Renovation(Plan/Design) 500,000
Affordable Housing [2,000,000]3,000,000
Kamalam Play~,round 150,000
Lydgate Pond 500,000
Kapaa Stadium Improvements 500,000
Park/Open Space Land Acquisition 8,000,000
Hanamaulu Beach Park Comfort Station/I'avilions 400,000
Veterans Cemetery Up rg ade 350,000
Hanapepe Cliffside Basketball Court 250,000
SECTION 3. That Section 2 of Ordinance No. B-2009-691 is hereby further amended
by adding or deleting the following appropriation provisions and projects under the GENERAL
FUND (CIP) category of projects listed in Section 2:
[Hanapepe/Waimea Levies 1,200,000]
[Rice Street Crossing Improvements 300,000]
[Alternative Energy Projects 1,500,000]
[Kekaha Landfill Lateral Expansion 3,900,000]
[Kapaa Refuse Transfer Station Renovation(Plan/Design) 500,000]
[Affordable Housing 1,000,000]
[Hanamaulu Beach Park Comfort Station/Pavilions 300,000]
[Veterans Cemetery Upgrade 350,000]
[Hanapepe Cliffside Basketball Court 250,000]
2 ATTACHMENT No. 2
. r
General Plan Update 900,000
SECTION 4. If any provision of this Ordinance or the application thereof to any person
or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions of applications of
the Ordinance which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this
end, the provisions of this Ordinance are severable.
SECTION 5. Material to be deleted is bracketed. New material is underlined.
SECTION 6. This Ordinance shall take effect upon rts approval. ~ ~
3 ATTACHMENT No. 2
•
COUNCIL MEETING
January 21, 2010
The Council Meeting of the Council of the County of Kauai was called to
order by the Council Chair at the Council Chambers, Historic County
Building, 4396 Rice Street, Room 201, Lihu`e, Kauai, on Thursday,
January 21, 2010 at 9:21 a.m., after which the following members answered the call
of the roll:
Honorable Tim Bynum
Honorable Dickie Chang
Honorable Jay Furfaro
Honorable Daryl W. Kaneshiro
Honorable Lani T. Kawahara
Honorable Derek S.K. Kawakami
Honorable Bill "Kaipo" Asing, Council Chair
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the agenda as circulated, seconded by Mr. Chang,
and unanimously carried.
MINUTES of the following meeting of the Council:
Public Hearing of December 16, 2009, re: Bill No. 2339
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the minutes as circulated, seconded by
Mr. Furfaro, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
PETER A. NAKAMURA, COUNTY CLERK: Next matter is a matter for
receipt, communication C 2010-15.
COMMUNICATIONS:
C 2010-15 Communication (01/07/2010) from the Director of Finance,
transmitting for Council information Period 5 Financial Reports -Statement of
Revenues as of November 30, 2009.
Chair Asing: Can we have a motion to receive?
Mr. Kaneshiro moved to receive C 2010-15 for the record, seconded by Mr. Furfaro.
Chair Asing: Any discussion?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 2 - ~ January 21, 2010
1VIr. Furfaro: May I ask that the Finance Department, as the
other fees and incomes come to us from the state, could I make a request that they
make certain...we're timely on getting our particular legislative portions that is
currently in place from the state. I notice sometimes they lag behind as much as
90 days on the TAT payments.
Chair Asing: Why don't we send a communication to that effect?
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: We want to make sure we get our share before
there's any changes.
Chair Asing: With that, any further discussion? If not all those
in favor say, aye.
The motion to receive C 2010-15 for the record was then put, and unanimously
carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter is a matter for approval,
communication C 2...2010-16.
C 2010-16 Communication (12/23/2009) from the Chief of Wastewater,
Department of Public Works, requesting Council approval to replace the influent
flow meter at the Lihu`e Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) at a cost of
approximately $25,000.00, provided by funds available in the Wastewater Division
Equipment Repair and Maintenance account: Mr. Furfaro moved to approve
C 2010-16, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter is communication C 2010-17 for
approval.
C 2010-17 Communication (12/23/2009) from the Chief of Wastewater,
Department of Public Works, requesting Council approval to replace the influent
flow meter at the `Ele`ele Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) at a cost of
approximately $6,500.00, provided by funds available in the Wastewater Division
Equipment Repair and Maintenance account: Mr. Furfaro moved to approve
C 2010-17, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro, and unanimously approved.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter for approval is communication
C 2010-18.
C 2010-18 Communication (12/30/2009) from the Director of Housing,
requesting Council approval for the Kauai County Housing Agency to provide site
control of the project site for Pa`anau Village -Phase 2 to the Kauai Housing
Development Corporation in order to secure financing to develop a 50-unit
affordable rental project in Koloa.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 3 - ~ January 21, 2010
Mr. Furfaro: Move to approve, but I do have some questions for
Housing.
Mr. Kaneshiro: I second the motion on that.
Mr. Furfaro moved to approve C 2010-18, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro.
Chair Asing: Okay, with that, can we have Eugene up, please,
or Gary. The rules are suspended.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Chair Asing: Good morning, Gary.
Mr. Furfaro: Good morning, Gary.
Mr. Chang: Hi, Gary.
GARY MACKLER, Housing Development Coordinator: Good morning,
councilmembers.
Ms. ~Kawahara: Hello.
Chair Asing: With that, go ahead...
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Chair Asing: ...Councilmember Mr. Furfaro.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. Gary, thank you
for being here this morning. Just because of the general financial positions across
the state right now and we have an excellent track record with the...with the
agency that we're talking to in regards to piggybacking on some financial
opportunities on this 50-unit project, it seems that they have revenue sources that
(inaudible)...help move this project forward. And I've read the material and the
amounts identified as well as the type of unit that we're talking about producing
here. Can you give us a quick snapshot on the overall financing of this project?
Mr. Mackler: Yes, I'd be happy to do so. The estimated total
development for the second phase of Pa`anau Village, which is a 50-unit multi-
family affordable rental project, is $13.7 million. The primary financing for this
development is going to come through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit
Program. The...that particular program is administered by the State of Hawaii,
the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation. Each year they make
a competitive application available. It is a statewide competition for developers to
seek that financing. It brings in typically about 75% to 80% of a project's equity
need to develop. That leaves a gap in the financing, which has to be filled from
other funding sources. And for this particular project, the County of Kauai has
already committed and the council has appropriated $1.95 million of federal HOME
Investment Partnership block grant funds. This is funding that we receive or is
made available to us, I should say, each year by the state, by the same organization,
to use for rental housing, for sale housing projects. We have been using this grant
since 1992. The...and we're looking at a third source of financing, which the
developer for this project, I should identify, is Kauai Housing Development
Corporation will be seeking from the Hawaii Community Reinvestment
a.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 4 - • January 21, 2010
Corporation. They are a...that organization is acommunity-based, non-profit
organization. It's a consortium of eight lenders throughout the state that includes
lenders such as First Hawaiian Bank, Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank,
HomeStreet, among others, and they are going to apply for a private loan to
basically fill the remaining gap of financing that's needed to develop this project.
Mr. Furfaro: What is that gap? Do you know the dollar amount?
Mr. Mackler: Well, we're looking at...we're looking at
about...based on their application that they're planning to submit before the end of
this month to the state, they're looking at $10 million approximately of tax credit
financing, that's both federal and state tax credit financing. We have, as I
mentioned, $1.95 million of HOME funds committed, but Kauai Housing
Development Corporation is also seeking the use of our 2010 allocation of HOME
funds, which they have applied for, which is $750,000, so, that...that would be
added to the $1.95 million. And the...the remaining gap, as I mentioned, would be
through a loan from Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corporation. The
developer's preference is to borrow as little pos...as possible through that private
loan because it...the less debt service you have on the project, the more
sustainability long-term you also have for the...for the project's operation. So
that's...that's essentially a summary of how they plan to finance. It's really no
different than...in fact, Kalepa Village Phase 2 was financed exactly with the same
sources that I have described.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay and we do have a... a good track record with
them. But Gary, your...your agency is...you're committed to the 2010 seven
hundred fifty thousand ($750,000), how...how do we do that...
Mr. Mackler: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: ...is my question since the council cannot approve
moneys for future projects?
Mr. Mackler: Okay. The way that works is we...in early
November we initiated our annual application for our Community Development
Block Grant program and our HOME Investment Partnerships program, inviting
the public and the organizations that provide services in the community to apply for
them...for those funding sources. The deadline was January 8. We are reviewing
applications now. We've started that process and in late February we will be
forwarding to this council a resolution listing the projects that have been selected by
the mayor to request funding appropriation for those projects. We, as part of that,
have to go out with a 30-day comment period to receive public comment before we
come back to the county council to seek their approval for the appropriation. But
the 2010 program year allocation of HOME funds, based on the application that we
have received from Kauai Housing Development Corporation, in all likelihood will
be part of that action plan that we submit by resolution to the council.
Mr. Furfaro: And we'll see that resolution in February?
Mr. Mackler: You should receive it around...right around the end
of February.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay, and...and that will...that will satisfy the
need for confirmation that 100% of the funding is present. That resolution will...
COUNCIL MEETING • - 5 - • Janua 21 2010
r'Y ,
Mr. Mackler: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: ...satisfy that. Okay.
Mr. Mackler: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: And...and that's what will give us the $13.7?
Mr. Mackler: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay, I have no further questions.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, Councilmember Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Gary.
Mr. Mackler: Good morning.
Mr. Chang: Sounds like great news, great, great project, great
location, the need for additional housing in the south shore area and 15, 20 minutes
from Lihu`e. So, if it was a perfect world, we got the funding going, you...do you
foresee maybe construction possibly happening end of the year, very soon?
Mr. Mackler: Yes. I think...in a typical year the state makes its
award for tax credit financing each year around May/June. I£..if Kauai Housing
Development Corporation's application is approved, they would be able to proceed
with their project. They are looking at a schedule that would start site work in
November and December of this year. There would be a course...construction that
would go throughout the...the fo...the year 2011 for the vertical construction. And
they're looking at occupancy in the early part of 2012. And this is a $10,000 plus
construction project. It will have...we...we know some good benefit for the
community, especially for those who work in the trades to have work. The land, I
also want to point out, is in the process of being subdivided by Kukui`ula
Development Corporation. It is a site that's being donated to the county at no cost
as part of an ordinance and an affordable housing condition in an ordinance.
So, as I've indicated in the communication that was sent over to you
requesting your authorization to give site control to the Kauai Housing
Development Corporation, this project will be provided to that organization through
a long-term ground lease doc...legal document which we will prepare and transmit
to the county council at a later date. So, it really is a good project from the
standpoint of its economic benefit, from the standpoint that it's along-term
basically permanently affordable housing project that will serve the long-term
needs of the community in Koloa.
Mr. Chang: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any other questions, councilmembers?
Yes.
Mr. Kawakami: Yeah, I want to send a question in writing, but
if...if you guys are ready to answer, you can answer now...
Mr. Mackler: Okay.
J.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 6 - • January 21, 2010
Mr. Kawakami: ...but if not, we can send it over in a
communication. But I'm just curious to know how many affordable gap housing
units are we striving to attain in our inventory to meet the needs of Kauai looking
forward? I don't know if we've done forecasts to see how many units would strike
that balance in not having too much and...and not having too little. Maybe there is
no such thing as having too much, but I'd kind of like to know what the end result is
looking like so that we have a target to shoot for if...if that's possible.
Mr. Mackler: Okay, that might be a better...a...a question better
sent over in writing. Our last housing policy update was conducted in 2006 and
much has changed since then. I can in...inform this council that the housing
directors statewide have been talking about going out later this year with another
housing policy study update to try to get a better read on where the market is at
this particular time. We're trying to time that in light of the new census data that
will be taken and available within a year or year-and-a-half from now. So, I can
give you some of our...some of the data that we do have from our former study, but I
can also tell you that we will be updating that...that information later this year.
Mr. Kawakami: And if the data that's going to come in is more
updated, I can wait for it. It's not something that I want tomorrow or next week.
I'm just thinking in the future because I know that these affordable housing
projects are not going to be coming up like this, I mean I'm assuming, but...so if
there's better data to work from, I can wait. It's no problem.
Mr. Mackler: Okay, okay.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any other questions?
Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, I just wanted to concur with
Councilmember Kawakami that he's asking a good and important question given
that the economic realities on the ground have changed dramatically since 2006.
And I appreciate your answer that you're on it and...and looking for updated data,
but I think it'd also be accurate to say that the study in 2006 showed tremendous
need at many income levels, primarily at the 100% of median income and below.
And that...that may have...that need may have been moderated some by recent
economic developments, but I think it's a safe assumption that there still is an
unmet inventory need. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Mackler: I would. One thing the studies tell us each time we
do that, is the strongest demand is really at the lowest income groups. This
particular project Pa`anau Village Phase 2 will be serving an income group that is
60% and below median income. That is a requirement of the Low Income Housing
Tax Credit program that all initial occupants must be at or below 60% of median
income. To give you an idea of what that means for...for a 4-person family, that
would be a maximum income of $46,000 approximately for that household. And
for...for an individual family, it would be $32,000 approximately. So, it...the one
constant we do see from study to study and...and really the strongest demand
for...for affordable housing is really at the lowest range of income groups.
And...and this project will...will...will target that...that group.
Mr. Bynum: Right and I think that is reflected by the most
recent workforce housing project that came online at Waipouli. The available units
in that income category were snapped up quickly.
COUNCIL MEETING • - 7 - • January 21, 2010
Mr. Mackler: Filling from the bottom up.
Mr. Bynum: Right and so, you know that's...you know, it's clear
that there's a need for...in this invent...for inventory in this income range. Okay,
thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any other questions?
Councilmember Furfaro.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Just as a follow up to Mr. Kawakami's, would
you send over copies...there's three or four of us that are familiar with the 2006
housing study, but we do have several new members and...
Mr. Mackler: I'd be happy to, yeah, sure.
Mr. Furfaro: And if you could send a copy to us...
Mr. Mackler: Sure.
Mr. Furfaro: for the 2006 study.
Mr. Mackler: Sure.
Mr. Furfaro: So when we get new material that's updated, we
can make a comparison as to what were the variables in the two years.
Mr. Mackler: Okay.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any other questions, councilmembers?
If not, Gary, I just want to...want to thank you for responding on this project so
early, so early meaning that, you know, I can remember the...the first Pa`anau
project that we had. We probably had the land available for at least 15 years before
we did anything at all. And...and also, you know, some of the comments by some of
the councilmembers on where we are, how much are we building, what's the
number that we're looking for, for those on the council that may not know and
understand the...the housing situation and problems, there was a time when, as an
example, when we first did the first Pa`anau project, the first 60 units, the public
just went berserk. What are you doing, county? Why are you building these units
and interfering with private industry? We have a tough time now trying to fill our
units in the private industry and you're building units, what are you doing? So, I...I
think, you know, you need to understand there's many, many things to it that needs
to be looked at and when we start to compete with the private industry, that also is
a problem and we did have, when we started that first project, many, many
inquiries and people were very upset on what the county was trying to do. So
it's...it's not that easy, it's not that black and white, and the Housing Agency has
always tried to stay on the...the right track and provide housing at the right and
opportune time. But it's not black and white; it is not simple and easy. So, I...I
want to thank you for, you know, all the work that you do in trying to strike a
balance between what the agency is doing. For those of you that might not also
know and understand, City & County of Honolulu is...is thinking of just getting out
of providing units. I mean, that's where they stand. So, it's a...you know, it's a...it's
a tough...tough case and it's not easy and simple. So I want to thank you for just
trying to stay in there and finding the right balance on when to do a project and
how to do it. So, thank you very much.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 8 - • January 21, 2010
Mr. Mackler: Thank you, Council Chair:
Chair Asing: Appreciate that.
Mr. Mackler: Thank you, councilmembers.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, Glenn?
GLENN MICKENS: Thank you, Kaipo, for the record Glenn Mickens. I
just want to compliment Gary and the Housing Agency for their...oh, tremendous
efficiency and the way they run these programs. It's really refreshing when these
people do their homework, they come up here and they have answers for everything.
But I just really want to compliment he (sic) and their people. Thank you, Kaipo.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else? Mr. Taylor.
KEN TAYLOR: Chair and members of the council, first I would
ditto Glenn's comments, but I also want to thank the Chair for the tidbit of
information of a little history of what's gone on, but the one thing that comes to my
mind, anyway, is that if private industry is not providing affordable units, then it is
the responsibility of the county to fulfill those needs. And I...I guess I have a little
bit of struggle with the problem of private industry versus what the Housing
Agency is doing, and it'd be interesting to have some feedback on that at some point
in time, but I...I...I do want to let you know that I appreciate the little bit of history.
It's always refreshing to know some of the background of what's...what has
happened and why certain things were done, and the more all of us know and
understand about the whole process, the better it is for everybody. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Kawakami: I have a question.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Go ahead.
Mr. Kawakami: If we want to promote this kind of affordable
housing, should we be...should we be mandating it or should we be providing
incentives for these kinds of projects? You know for a private developer? Like you
said, if we're not getting the inventory that we need, should we be mandating or
should we be incentivizing these type of behaviors?
Mr. Taylor: Well, in many communities that I'm familiar with,
when private industry comes in to build a development, they're required to provide
X number of affordable units. They can either put those affordable units within the
project itself or they can give money to the county to go into a fund to provide at
some other location. I personally think that affordable units should be intermixed
within development, not separated because I...I see affordable units for
young...younger...primarily younger people coming up that are struggling to...to
move and they want to...you want to have them in...in a setting where they have
examples of people that have reached a higher level. And by intermixing affordable
units in a...in a project like this, you give them that insight to...to strive for
something more where if you isolate all affordable units, then they're in
it...they're...you...you're sort of treating them like second-class citizens
and...anyway, that's just some of my thoughts. Thank you (inaudible).
Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 9 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Bynum: Thank you for your comments this morning.
Without taking too much time on this issue, this council in the previous term
worked for over a year, I'm sure, on an affordable housing policy. We do have that
policy in place that as, just as you stated, when developers do larger projects, there's
the requirement that a certain percentage be built as affordable housing. That's
common in many places and our bill has some...several innovative things, including
trying to address the mark...the integration of the units by offering incentives to
the, you know, using some of the tools that I think Councilmember Kawakami is
suggesting that, you know, here's the exemption, if you integrate it, you have
incentives to integrate, you have incentives to do green building, you have
incentives to do a number of things. So...but I think this discussion is good this
morning and I'm sure our housing committee chair will follow up at an appropriate
time because it's probably a really good time to revisit those issues and...and have a
discussion perhaps when the new statistics come out. Because we have lots
o£..there's still, even with the downturn in housing values, a big gap between what
a working class family can get a mortgage for and what sales levels are. So, a real
need for that affordable...and it's, you know, more workforce housing. This is not
just for people with low incomes. People with 100% of median income which is in
the $68,000 to $70,000 range right now have very few, if any, options to purchase
• homes at a mortgage level that they can receive. So, I just wanted to make those
comments and thank you for your testimony and I think in the coming months we'll
follow up with more discussion.
Mr. Taylor: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else in the public? If
not, I call the meeting back to order.
There being no one else wishing to speak, the meeting was called back to order, and
proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: I believe we have a motion on the floor. Is there
any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say, aye.
The motion to approve C 2010-18 was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura:. Next matters are Claims, communication
C 2010-19, which is a claim filed against the county by AIG Hawaii Insurance as
subrogee for Marvin Terada, and C 2010-20, which is a claim filed against the
county by Michael G. Koerte.
CLAIMS:
C 2010-19 Communication (12/29/2009) from the County Clerk,
transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by AIG Hawaii Insurance
as subrogee for Marvin Terada for damage to his vehicle, pursuant to Section 23.06,
Charter of the County of Kauai: Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2010-19 to the
County Attorney's Office for disposition and/or refer back to the Council, seconded
by Mr. Kaneshiro, and unanimously carried.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 10 - • Janua 21 2010
ry ,
C 2010-20 Communication (01/04/2010) from the County Clerk,
transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by Michael G. Koerte for
damage to his vehicle, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kauai:
Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2010-20 to the County Attorney's Office for disposition
and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro, and unanimously
carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter for approval are Committee Reports.
From your Committee on Budget & Finance, committee report CR-B&F 2010-01.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
BUDGET & FINANCE COMMITTEE:
A report (No. CR-B&F 2010-01) submitted by the Budget & Finance
Committee, recommending that the following be received for the record:
"C 2009-394 Statement of Condition of the County Treasury as of
September 10, 2009,"
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and
unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: From your Committee on Planning, committee
reports CR...CR-PL 2010-01, 2010-02, 2010-03, and on page 3, 2010-04.
PLANNING COMMITTEE:
A report (No. CR-PL 2010-01) submitted by the Planning Committee,
recommending that the following be received for the record:
"Bill No. 2317, Draft 3 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO
ESTABLISH A NEW ARTICLE 28, CHAPTER 8, KAUAI COUNTY CODE
1987, RELATING TO SMALL WIND ENERGY CONVERSION SYSTEMS,"
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and
unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2317, Draft 3)
A report (No. CR-PL 2010-02) submitted by the Planning Committee,
recommending that the following be approved as amended on second and final
reading:
"Bill No. 2329 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING
ORDINANCE NO. _ PM-228-91, RELATING TO GENERAL PLAN
DESIGNATION IN KILAUEA, KAUAI (County of Kauai, Applicant),"
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and
unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2329, Draft 1)
` • •
COUNCIL MEETING - 11- January 21, 2010
A report (No. CR-PL 2010-03) submitted by the Planning Committee,
recommending that the following be approved on second and final reading:
"Bill No. 2340 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO
ZONING DESIGNATIONS IN ORDINANCE NO. PM-229-91; HILAUEA,
KAUAI (County of Kauai, Applicant),"
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and
unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2340)
A report (No. CR-PL 2010-04) submitted by the Planning Committee,
recommending that the following be approved on second and final reading:
"Bill No. 2328 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING
ORDINANCE NO. PM-227-91, _RELATING TO STATE LAND USE
DISTRICT BOUNDARY IN KILAUEA, KAUAI (County of Kauai,
Applicant),"
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and
unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2328)
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: From your Committee on Public Works/Elderly
Affairs, committee report CR-PWE 2010-01.
PUBLIC WORKS/ELDERLY AFFAIRS COMMITTEE:
A report (No. CR-PWE 2010-01) submitted by the Public WorkslElderly
Affairs Committee, recommending that the following be approved as amended on
second and final reading:
"Bill No. 2332 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING
CHAPTER 12, ARTICLE 6, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987 RELATING TO
THE ENERGY CODE,"
Mr. Kaneshiro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Chang.
Chair Asing: Any discussion? All those in favor say, aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Excuse me.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: I did not realize that is the bill that I, you know,
recused from. So, please reflect it as this is the energy (inaudible)...
Chair Asing: Yeah.
Mr. Furfaro: So reflected, only as 6 votes.
Mr. Nakamura: So we have a...a motion and I think Vice Chair...
Mr. Furfaro: Dickie.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 12 - • Janua 21 2010
ry ,
Mr. Nakamura: Oh, okay, we have a motion and a second.
Chair Asing: Yeah, there's a motion and a second...
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Asing: ...already. Okay, with...with that, you...you're not
going to be voting?
Mr. Furfaro: I'm not going to be voting, right.
Chair Asing: Yeah, okay, with that councilmember...
Mr. Bynum: This is to receive the committee report, correct?
Mr. Kaneshiro: That's correct.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: I'm recused from (inaudible).
Mr. Bynum: I just want to make sure I'm...
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Nakamura: This is to approve the committee report, correct.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Chair Asing: Okay. All those in favor say, aye.
The motion for approval of the report was then put, and unanimously carried
(Mr. Furfaro recused). (See later for Bill No. 2332, Draft 1)
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: From your Committee on Public
Safety/Energy/Intergovernmental Relations, committee report CR-SEI 2010-01.
PUBLIC SAFETY/ENERGY/INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
COMMITTEE:
A report (No. CR-SEI 2010-01) submitted by the Public Safety/Energy/Inter-
governmental Relations Committee, recommending that the following be approved
as amended on second and final reading:
"Bill No. 2336, Draft 1 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND
CHAPTER 16, ARTICLE 20, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS
AMENDED, RELATING TO THE TRAFFIC CODE,"
Mr. Kawakami moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro, and
unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2336, Draft 2)
` . •
COUNCIL MEETING - 13 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter for approval are Resolutions.
Resolution No. 2010-09, which is a resolution confirming mayoral appointment to
the Building Board of Appeals, Dennis P. Aquino, first term, fire.
RESOLUTIONS:
Resolution No. 2010-09, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL
APPOINTMENT TO THE BUILDING BOARD OF APPEALS (Dennis P. Aquino,
First Term, Fire): Mr. Furfaro moved for adoption of Resolution 2010-09, seconded
by Mr. Kaneshiro.
Chair Asing: I'd like to suspend the rules. We have someone
from the public who wants to speak on this item.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
ROB ABREW: Mahalo, county council (inaudible). My name's Rob
Abrew for the record. I have some copies I'd like to pass out, here. In a democracy
the people are vested with the ultimate decision-making power. Government
agencies exist to aid the people in the formation and conduct of public policy.
Opening up the government process to public scrutiny and participation is the only
viable and reasonable method to protecting the public's interest. Therefore, the
legislature declares that is the policy of this State of Hawaii that the formation and
conduct of public policy, discussions, deliberation, decisions, and actions of
government agencies shall be conducted as openly as possible. '
On five...on 1/5/10 and 1/6/10 I presented detailed information about the
mayor's selectal...selected applicant for board and commission. I referenced laws of
the State of Hawaii and items in the County of Kauai Charter and numerous OIP
decisions and a letter sent to the county clerk in this office. All the information I
presented was factual. I asked this body to defer the resolutions to appoint these
applicants until the public has had a chance to research substance in resolutions so
the public could participate and bring testimony on the issue before the county
voted.
On 1/7/10 I contacted OIP to look into the issue of ap...the applications not
being made public and OIP responded on Friday, 1/8/10, with some guidance. I
have included this response in the request to the county clerk on Monday, the 11+x.
The letter I received from OIP is addressed Mr. Rob Abrew, Re: Successful
Applicants' Applications for Boards and Committees. Dear Mr. Abrew, we have
received your email dated January 7, 2010 asking that the Office of Information
Practices review whether or not the County of Kauai Council must disclose the
application of a successful applicant for a county board or commission prior to their
action on that applicant, i.e., where the Mayor has appointed the individual and
that individual's appointment is now before the council for confirmation. You stated
that you orally asked the county council...the county clerk's office for copies of the
applications and you were orally denied access to them.
OIP does not generally issue opinions based on informal request (i.e., oral
requests) made to agencies for records under the UIPA Act, Chapter 92F.
Therefore, we will not be opening a case file for your request. However...
Mr. Nakamura: Three minutes, Mr. Chair.
COUNCIL MEETING. - 14 - • January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead, finish up.
Mr. Abrew: However, we note that you are correct that OIP has
previously opinioned the council confirmation of boards and commission appointees
must be done in an open meeting and that the successful nomi...nominee
applications are generally public with respect to information such as names,
employment history, current occupation and education. See OIP letter 05-04
addressed to Councilmember JoAnn Yukimur...Yukimura and also to this county
clerk and to the chair of the council in OIP letter 91-8.
It is our understanding that at the meeting at which the mayor's nominees
were confirmed has passed. Given this fact, we presume that you are no longer
interested in getting the actual applications but are instead seeking to get
clarification for future confirmation. Given these facts, we suggest that you seek
clarification in writing from the county clerk's office or the county attorney's office
as to whether and to what extent applications of successful mayoral nominees for
boards and commissions will be made available. You may provide them with a copy
of this letter, and they may consult with OIP if desired. If you receive a response
that is inconsistent with the above-referenced OIP opinions, you may request an
opinion at that time, enclosing a copy of your request and any written agency
response.
My request to the county council was on 1/11 and basically it asked for
con£..written confirmation of...the mayor's successful applicants will be made to
the public. I would ask the county clerk to respond to this request for clarification
as soon as possible due to a letter I received from the State of Hawaii Office of
Information Practice. I also ask before any additional action is taken by the clerk's
office and by the county council on any appointment not already approved by the
clerk respond to this request. I've also included in this request for clarification the
testimony I presented to the county council on 1/5/10. This testimony described in
detail my concerns with information not available to the public as required by law
for the county council to review and act on the mayor's selected appointments to
various county boards and commissions. As this morning I have not received that
letter, so I have not received any clarification on how these rested...resolutions have
the information given to the public that can be voted on today because there is none
of that information on the application here for the public to testify on this
resolution. So I ask that these two be deferred until that letter is answered and
written and answered so the public understands when and how they can get...
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Is there anyone else who wants to speak on this
item? If not, I'm going to call the meeting back to order.
There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called
back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Ms. Kawahara: (Inaudible.)
Chair Asing: Do we have a motion on the floor? Go ahead...
Ms. Kawahara: Can we have this...
` • •
COUNCIL MEETING - 15 - January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: ...discussion?
Chair Asing: Go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you. I've been following this issue
since it came up in our previous interviews and I would like to request some
forbearance from my fellow councilmembers because I do believe that there is an
issue here with people being able to get the public information at the same time
that we post our agenda. We...we were able to do our interview with the applicants,
which is good. We do have two more applicants coming up and I know that we've
addressed it...the department of boards and commissions has worked with our office
to do future...in the future they will be handling it. For these last four, I was
wondering if we could do them together and also provide in the next...whenever
they do come up in front of us give that 7-day lead period. So if we could...my
question is for these councilmembers if we could defer the...these two resolutions
and go at the same time when we do the other two resolutions and at that time they
would be able to be provided all the information that would be public so they can
comment at the same time that we receive the information.
Chair Asing: Thank...thank you. Any further discussion?
I'm...I'm not going to be entertaining that. It is my opinion from the county
attorney's office, I believe we had the discussion this morning on the floor during
the interview process and there is a process that is going to be followed and we will
follow that process. I believe it was in answer to your inquiry from the boards &
commissions, so we have a process and I believe we should just follow that process.
So...
Ms. Kawahara: I guess...
Chair Asing: I just want to say that I will be asking for a motion
to approve and move forward with these two as we did the other two and then we'll
take care of the problem. With that, any further discussion? Go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: Um...I just...is it possible to have the county
attorney on record let us know that we're...we're legally secure in moving forward
with approval today?
Chair Asing: I...I don't believe that's...that's aproblem. County
Attorney, please.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
ALFRED B. CASTILLO, JR., County Attorney: Good morning, Al Castillo,
County Attorney.
Chair Asing: Good morning. Al, are you...do you see any
problems...or...
Mr. Castillo: You know...in terms of me seeing any problems
regarding what the process is right now, this council is, and in addition to what was
said earlier this morning, is following the proper procedure. Now, what I have
observed here is if there is any problem regarding the process, if there's anyone out
there that sees a problem, then the correct method in correcting the problem, or if
COUNCIL MEETING. - 16 - • Janua 21 2010
r'Y
there's a perceived violation, is to send that to the proper authority to say, this is
what occurred, this is my objection, and we will look at the objection. Now, the
balance here is we have fine people that have volunteered to help and to assist in
our boards and commissions. The applications or the volunteers have gone through
the process with boards and commissions and those names have been forwarded to
you. Now if there is anything that has been presented to you that suggests that
the...that they shouldn't be appointed, then that's for consideration. And if there
are any objections, then let the objection be in writing and...and if there's any
question for OIP, I would...I would prefer that the question to OIP be made in
writing so that we can look at exactly what question was posed because it makes a
very big difference as to what question was posed and what question was answered
and in what manner it was answered because we are in communications with OIP
constantly and we have all of their decisions, we review their decisions and we
review whether or not we...well, we do make the legal analysis of the decision
making by OIP also. And it's correct, they're not necessarily correct all the time as
we have won in the Supreme Court.
Chair Asing: Okay, go ahead, Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: So in terms of voting for approval today, you don't
see any legal encumbrance to doing that?
Mr. Castillo: There has been nothing presented to this board
that would give me cause to believe that anything that's been...that is going to
happen here today or what is being done is...is improper.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Mr. Castillo: You're welcome.
Chair Asing: Councilmember Kawahara.
Ms. Kawahara: I appreciate having this discussion. It does
seem...I know that all the people that are coming in front of us are fine people. I
don't think that's the contention. Some...my question is, so you cari help me clarify,
do you believe that we've done our due diligence in providing the pub...the
information that's supposed to be pub...made public in...within a reasonable
amount of time to do these appointments so the public can comment after receiving
the information. Because in general, yeah, we post our agendas at seven days
before we talk...
Mr. Castillo: There has nothing been...
Ms. Kawahara: (Inaudible) we have it.
Mr. Castillo: Yeah, there's nothing been presented...like Isaid,
again, there has nothing that has been presented here today that would give me
cause to believe that any violation has occurred, okay. And if there is a complaint,
that complaint should go to the proper authority that handles that specific
complaint.
Ms. Kawahara: So...
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 17 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Castillo: So, right now, my advice to this council is vote on
what has been pre...vote on these matters and decide on these matters with the
facts that have been presented to you.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay.
Mr. Castillo: Like I said...and if, you know, when you talk about
the Sunshine Law process and procedure, we can go all day, but before you today is
whether or not these fine people that have volunteered to the board and
commissions, is there anything there that should prevent you from voting yea or
nay? And the question to that is there has been nothing presented to you that could
give cause for you to question the process.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, okay. Again, again, I have no...if we're
gonna...I am approving all these fine people because they are coming forward to do
the volunteer work and stepping up for the community. It's...it's the deeper concept
o£ ..you were saying that we're voting on the people here and just going on the facts
and I have totally...not even considering Mr. Abrew's issue, but just going on the
facts I know that we...we receive these applications for these people as a body and
they were confidential. And I understand that anything that's on our agenda and in
our packet needs to be available to the public. So when these aren't made available
to the public because of confidentiality, that's the fact that I'm...I'm wondering
about and in addition too, I understand that we're voting on the people here in front
of us today based on their interview and we're supposed to determine on our own is
tk~ere anything that would...would help us vote yea or nay. And part of that would
be the public process, which I don't, just by the facts that we have here, and we
weren't able to get public information at the same time we posted the agenda...
Mr. Castillo: Well, well, I...
Ms. Kawahara: ...is my question.
Mr. Castillo: And this is where I think that you're going. It is a
real fine line that you walk as a legislator who has an agenda item before you and
as someone who is questioning the process on behalf of your constituents.
Ms. Kawahara: And myself.
Mr. Castillo: If you...i£..if you as a legislator have a problem
with the process, if there has been...if there is something there that you think was
not done correctly or if you have a question, I do suggest that you do the same.
Inquire into whether or not the process was handled correctly in this situation and
you have every right to do so. But, however, your task today, I believe, is to
consider the...these people before you with these...with...actually it's going to be
two agenda items, yeah?
Ms. Kawahara: Yes...
Mr. Castillo: One with Dennis and one with...so, you know, and
I think it...your...it seems to me that you're...there's two separate subjects that you
are talking about. And if you want to go into the area regarding process, then I
suggest you do the same, make the proper inquiry.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay.
ry
COUNCIL MEETING. - 18 - • Janua 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, Councilmember Kawakami.
Mr. Kawakami: I know in the private sector there are certain
questions we cannot ask in the interview process: how old you are, if you have any
physical disabilities, so on and so forth. The confidential information that are
enclosed in our packets, basically the applications, are we not allowed to ask the
applicant those questions? And...and if so, I mean, I could see the applicant
waiving their right to answer or not answer those questions. Say for example, are
you a member of a political party, what's your previous work experience. Those
questions we're allowed to ask them. Is that right?
Mr. Castillo: I...I...I don't want to...
Mr. Kawakami: Okay.
Mr. Castillo: ...go off the handle and answer. I know what the
requirements o£..what the charter said...says regarding that particular
requirement and say...and whether or not you can answer that question...you can
ask that question in public, I'm not sure. And I don't want to go...I don't want to
guess.
Mr. Kawakami: Okay, yeah, no...no problem.
Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Is there any other questions? If
not, thank you Al.
Mr. Castillo: You're welcome.
Mr. Kaneshiro: I have a discussion.
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead. We're back...back into session now.
There being no further questions, the meeting was called back to order, and
proceeded as follows:
Mr. Kaneshiro: I have a question for you.
Chair Asing: Al, thank you.
Mr. Kaneshiro: Al, thank you.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Al.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Al.
Chair Asing: The meeting is now called back to order.
Mr. Kaneshiro: We're back in discussion mode, aren't we...
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Kaneshiro: ...Mr. Chair?
Chair Asing: Yes.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 19 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you. I just want to go back and reference
this letter that...because I know it's on the record that Mr. Abrew put forth. If you
read the letter correctly, what OIP has stated is that appointees must be done in an
open meeting, which we do, and that successful nominee applications are generally
public with respect to information as names, employment history, current
occupation, and education. And to me, until we vote, you don't have a successful
application or candidate until we make the vote, then you call it a success. What if
three of us say...or four of us say, no, they don't have, you know, the vote. Is that a
successful application that went through the process? You know, so there's some
issues here, but as I'm just giving my own opinion, I think we should move on, I
would have the chair call for the vote so we can vote and if anybody else has some
challenges on this, go back and get, you know, the opinion for OIP and so forth. But
the way I read it, it says, and that successful nominee application, so, you know.
' Ms. Kawahara: I...can I just clarify the successful nominee
application?
Chair Asing: Go ahead. Look...
Ms. Kawahara: Successful nominee application...
Chair Asing: Hang on, hang on. Here's what we're going to do.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Listen to me, okay.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes.
Chair Asing: I'm going to give you one more opportunity to
speak. I'm also going to give Councilmember Bynum one more opportunity to speak
and then we will call for the question. Fair?
Ms. Kawahara: Yes.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Very fair, thank you, Chair. Just in response, I
believe...I have been looking into this and the...a successful applicant is the
applicant that comes forward and is submitted from the mayor, that is a successful
applicant, not whether they get affirmed or confirmed here.
Chair Asing: Okay, thank you, with that...
Ms. Kawahara: And then what I want to say...
Chair Asing: Okay.
Ms. Kawahara: ...is it looks like we're not going to be able to do this
with the...
Chair Asing: Okay, thank, thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: I still have the floor, I thought?
COUNCIL MEETING. - 20 - • January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you. It looks like we are going to go on
and do this, but I do have...I just want it for the record to show that I don't...I don't
have any confidence that the public was able to get information as they would have
needed to make comment on these...on these nominees. I have no problem with the
nominees and I also know that I have already worked with the offices involved that
this procedure is going to be much, much cleaner and very clarified in the...in the
future. It's just...we have these last four people that are coming through and I was
requesting that we would just honor what will be happening in the future because
that is...that is what is help...with...it's the give and take between the public and
how we make our decisions, not in a vacuum without a public. Thank you very
much, Chair, for that.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Mr. Chair. What's before us today are
these nominees, but in the process, you know, I really value the community's input
on these issues and questioning us about process and I want to thank Mr. Abrew for
posing those questions and I want to thank Councilmember Kawahara for following
up with those questions by engaging, you know, in writing with a dialogue with the
board and commission and I have every confidence in Mr. Isobe, who has already
responded, you know. So it was a good question, how does this process go because
when applicants come, they're volunteers, we're happy that they're involved in the
community, but under the law apparently some elements of what they provide are
public record and some are, by law, confidential. And I think it was a good question
to raise and I appreciate our Councilmember following up. And I think a resolution
and clarification for future ls...ls invol...is in the works and I have every
expectation that it'll be resolved, you know, in due course within a couple of weeks
or so. You know, that...what was important to me was to get the county attorney's
read on are we okay to move on these nominees today. I heard that answer, so I'm
prepared to vote. But I...but I think there will be appropriate follow-up and going
forward in the future, we'll have a clarified process about these applications and
releasing what information is available under the law to the public. So I think it's
all good.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that...Peter.
Mr. Nakamura: We have a motion and a second.
Chair Asing: Yes, I'm calling for the vote now. So, roll call
please.
The motion for adoption of Resolution No. 2010-09 was then put, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro,
Kawahara, Kawakami, Asing TOTAL - 7,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL - 0.
Chair Asing: Thank you, next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution
No. 2010-13.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 21 - January 21, 2010
Resolution No. 2010-13, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION
N0.2009-08 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A
MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE COST CONTROL COMMISSION (Linda Faye
Collins, replacing Lorna A. Nishimitsu)
Chair Asing: Can I have a mo...
Mr. Nakamura: Oh, I'm sorry.
Chair Asing: I'm sorry...
Mr. Furfaro moved for adoption of Resolution No. 2010-13, seconded by Mr. Bynum.
Chair Asing: Any discussion? Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: Sorry to...I...I just...for the last two nominees,
there were interviews held earlier this morning in a public session. Some of the
information, I think, that was public was shared by the nominees. Both nominees
are appropriately qualified for these positions and I'm very thankful that they're
willing to step up as volunteers and so I just wanted to make that comment. Thank
you.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes, and again, we're having a great batch of people
coming in to do this volunteer work. And I...it's good to see people that are so
integral in their communities coming up. So, I...I think their being able to
represent their whole...the whole island is excellent and I want to thank them on
public record for all of their commitment to the public and their continued work in
working with the communities. Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Furfaro.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes and I agree with both Councilman Kawahara
and Mr. Bynum about the candidates, their presence in front of this council today,
and I also wanted to publicly thank Kawahara and Mr. Isobe for answering
potentially what we will be looking at as a new application form going forward.
• Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any further discussion? If not, roll call
please.
The motion for adoption of Resolution No. 2010-13 was then put, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro,
Kawahara, Kawakami, Asing TOTAL - 7,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL - 0.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Next item please.
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 22 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter are Bills for Second Reading. First bill
for second reading is Bill No. 2317, Draft 3, a bill for an ordinance to establish a
new Article 28, Chapter 8, Kauai County Code 1987, relating to small wind energy
conversion systems. The Planning Committee recommended receipt of this bill.
BILLS FOR SECOND READING:
Bill No. 2317, Draft 3 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO ESTABLISH A
NEW ARTICLE 28, CHAPTER 8, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, RELATING TO
SMALL WIND ENERGY CONVERSION SYSTEMS: Mr. Furfaro moved for receipt
of Bill No. 2317, Draft 3 for the record, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro.
Chair Asing: Any discussion? Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Oh, I'm sorry. Let me first have the public.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Chair Asing: I didn't know anyone who wanted to speak on this.
The rules are suspended.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
CARL IMPARATO: Good morning, Chair Asing, good morning,
councilmembers. I'm here today to...first to thank the members of the Planning
Committee who voted to receive this bill and to urge the remaining councilmembers
to do the same. As you know, the proposed bill was extreme and unbalanced when
it was introduced a year ago, and it remains extreme and unbalanced today. First
of all, a year ago the bill had no credible noise standards to protect neighbors and
that hasn't changed one iota over the past year. Despite the fact that the council
has received much data from the literature that indicates that not all SWECS are
quiet and that many of these require at least 100-foot setbacks to not create noise
impacts on neighbors, but the bill remains unchanged. A year ago the bill offered
no recourse to neighbors who would be hit with severe visual impacts and that
hasn't changed one iota. The bill would still allow 25-foot towers on roofs on even
the smallest residential lots just 10 feet from the lot line. The bill would allow
10 kilowatt SWECS with 22-foot diameter blades in residential areas. A year ago
the bill proposed to override the standards of the North Shore Development Plan
ordinance. That's the law that protects one of Kaua`i's most precious scenic and
economic resources. The bill still contains that override. A year ago the bill
included a loophole to allow SWECS to do an end run around state and federal
environmental regulations related to protection for endangered avian species. The
bill hasn't changed one iota there. So the bill continues to threaten the
environment and create a major liability for the county, which is no different than if
the county turned a blind eye to bad driving records when it gave out driver's
licenses. A year ago the bill intentionally eliminated the possibility of public
hearings at which neighbors could raise concerns about proposals to locate
potentially noisy roof-mounted generators next door. That hasn't changed a bit. So
in summary, the bill started out bad and it stayed bad.
So, I do want to thank the three members of the Planning Committee who
voted to receive the bill. They are absolutely correct that we need to start over. I
want to thank the councilmembers who voted in support of sound planning, Kaua`i's
i •
COUNCIL MEETING - 23 - January 21, 2010
residents and neighborhoods, and Kaua`i's overall environment. I want to thank
the councilmembers who understand that public input, noise protections,
protention...protection of sensitive view planes, protection of endangered species
are not obstacles, but they're the hallmarks and essentials of sound planning. I
want to thank those councilmembers who had the courage to not take the easy way
out and for not jumping on the "all renewable energy is good" bandwagon regardless
of the negative impacts of poorly drafted legislation. I want to thank those
councilmembers for understanding that environmental leadership means rejecting
this bad bill, not supporting this bad bill. I want to thank them for understanding
that passing a bill that would create foreseeable harm to neighbors and to the
environment, a bill that would create foreseeable conflicts between neighbors would
not be good public policy and so I also want to, in closing, urge the remaining two
councilmembers who were not on the Planning Committee to support that wise
decision to finally put this bill to rest so that we can move forward with better ways
to address the issue of reducing energy demand by first starting from the premise of
do no harm to thy neighbor and the premise of having balance. So thank you very
much.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Kawakami.
Mr. Kawakami: Thank you for your testimony. I just want to make
a statement. I don't think the bill...yeah, I voted to receive...I made a motion to
receive, but I don't think the bill itself was a bad bill. I think it was a good bill with
good intentions with some very, very hard to overcome challenges at this time. But
I think the intent behind the bill was good. I know that the planner, Ka`aina Hull,
worked diligently in addressing a lot of my concerns on the bill. So for me to say
that I received it because it was a bad bill that would be far from the truth. I think
it was a good bill with good intentions, but it did have some challenges, and so
that's why I recommended that we receive the bill at this time. And part of my
decision to receive the bill is because I was under the understanding that some bill
would come up at a later time addressing the needs of the ag...the ag zoning sector.
So, thank you.
Mr. Imparato: Thank you, and if I could clarify as well. You know,
I agree with the intentions of the bill, agree that there are very appropriate places
for small wind energy systems, particularly on ag lots, so I wanted to make that
clear as well. Thank you.
Mr. Kawakami: Did you just say that you find it appropriate for ag
lots?
Mr. Imparato: Right, I think there are very appropriate places for
agricultural SWECS. Of course, in a...hopefully in a new bill that hopefully will
come forward, it will include the necessary protections for people who still live near
those ag lots, the next door neighbors to the ag lots who need to still have protection
from noise and visual impacts and such.
Mr. Kawakami: Can you correct me if I'm wrong? Earlier, when
this bill first hit the floor, I posed a question to both the Sierra Club, yourself, and
Apollo Kauai, and how they would feel if we pulled the SWECS bill out of
residential and kept it in commercial and ag, and if my memory serves me right,
you were opposed to that. Is that true or is that not true?
Mr. Imparato: No, I think...
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 24 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Kawakami: You're in support?
Mr. Imparato: Yeah.
Mr. Kawakami: Okay.
Mr. Imparato: To...to be very, very clear about it, and I believe I
did send in a follow-up email...
Mr. Kawakami: Yeah.
Mr. Imparato: The issue wa...that I was making at the time was
just pulling the residential out, pulling the open out of the bill would be inadequate
to deal with the problems because then you'd still have ag lots where the next door
neighbors to those ag lots or industrial lots still needed protection. So, it wasn't
that we could just pull out the residential pieces. The point was it's good to have
them on ag lots, but you still need to deal with the other concerns about avian
impacts, noise, etc.
Mr. Kawakami: Okay.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, any... Go ahead,
Councilmember Kawahara.
Ms. Kawahara: May I see? Is that a written testimony?
Mr. Imparato: It's just my notes at this point.
Ms. Kawahara: May I...may I see it really quick?
Mr. Imparato: Sure.
Ms. Kawahara: Because I...I...
Mr. Imparato: (Inaudible) I can go down to the end, but that's
okay.
Mr. Furfaro: Carl, can we make copies for the council?
Chair Asing: Are you...
Ms. Kawahara: I just wanted to say I take offense to what you said
about...
Chair Asing: Why...why don't we do this then, staff, make a copy
of that so that everyone has the same opportunity to look at a copy that is being
questioned by a councilmember.
Mr. Imparato: It's a...by the way it's only the front sides of those
pages.
Ms. Kawahara: Huh?
Mr. Imparato: It's only the front sides of those few pages.
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 25 - January 21, 2010
Ms. Kawahara: Oh, the front side only, but um, the part where he
was talking about...
Mr. Imparato: Correct...yeah...just the front, no the front sides of
those two pages, not the reverse sides.
Chair Asing: We'll take a short recess, thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 10:23 a.m. The meeting
reconvened at 10:33 a.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: The meeting is now called back to order. With that,
Councilmember Kawahara.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Chair Asing.
Mr. Furfaro: Excuse me, I think...I don't know if Carl was done
with his testimony.
Mr. Kaneshiro: She had a question.
Ms. Kawahara: I had a question for Carl, yeah.
Chair Asing: Okay, go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you again, Chair Asing. Thank you
for your testimony and I...I know from your testimony that you're glad that we're
receiving this bill. I guess I just had taken a bit...a bit aback by the fact that you
were stating that the people...the councilmembers that were trying to get this bill
done and trying to have it function and workable, that we weren't into this whole
list of sound planning, understanding public input, noise protection, sensitive view
planes, endangered species, obstacles, and sound planning. I just want to say on
the record, in response to what you just put on the record, that personally as a-
councilmember those are all things that I do take seriously and I...I'm saddened
that you'd think that because we were working on this bill to make it successful
that you think it wasn't...that we were not following those types of values. So,
again, I think I believe in sound planning, I understand public input, noise
protection, sensitive view planes, those are all considerations that go into
evaluating the bill for myself. So I wanted to assure you and say that
that.:.that...that was a little harsh because I've been supportive of all kinds of...all
kinds of initiatives that support green energy, sustainability. So, I just wanted to
address that and assure you that all the things that you raised in here as...as being
things we might not...that we might be against because we're trying to do a bill like
this needs to be considered. Thank you.
Mr. Imparato: If I could say...
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Mr. Imparato: I do appreciate...
Chair Asing: I...I'm sorry, are you through with your testimony?
• .
COUNCIL MEETING - 26 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Imparato: Oh, I didn't know if I was going to respond to that,
but...
Chair Asing: Yeah, go ahead. Well, you can respond to that and
if you're through, fine. I just have a couple of questions from some councilmembers,
yeah. Go ahead.
Mr. Imparato: May I?
Chair Asing: Sure.
Mr.Imparato: Thank you. I just do want to clarify that I
appreciate the many positive initiatives that you and Councilmember Bynum and
others have taken over the years. My view on this bill is somewhat colored by the
fact that there've been either nine or ten meetings of this council while this bill has
been discussed. And while this bill has been discussed, there have been a number
of proposals put forward to deal with the noise issue, the avian impacts issue and
all of those other issues, visual issues, and the bill has not been amended to address
any of those. So, given the length of time, the number of times it's been discussed,
it seemed clear to me that the best thing to do is to receive the bill and therefore
voting to receive the bill is voting to address those concerns. Having said that,
again I do appreciate what you said about your sensitivity to those issues.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you. I...just one comment, Councilmember
Kawahara, welcome to the world of opinions, welcome. You now...
Ms. Kawahara: Yes and I hope I was...I responded graciously.
Chair Asing: You now understand a little bit about process and
how things happen, why things happen, so welcome to the world.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes, and now I'm playing with you.
Chair Asing: With that, Councilmember Furfaro.
Mr. Furfaro: I just wanted to make...make it clear that my...my
perception of the committee that I chaired that brought this up as a
recommendation to receive, part of that dialogue also included, so that we know,
possibility of a new bill being introduced jointly by Councilman Kaneshiro and
Mr. Bynum, jointly dealing with the ag and open areas. And I will be suggesting at
that time that that new bill actually comes up in the Energy Committee, not
Planning. When it was first Planning, it was dealing with the fact that, you know,
it was intended to cover all areas residential and there could have been a number of
conflicts with those kind of neighborhood plans. But the one that I'm still concerned
with is the neighborhood plan on the North Shore that has the 25-foot
height...height limitation. So, I did want to address that comment in...in your bill,
but hopefully I'm correct in that assumption and how the committee left it. There'll
be a new bill going through the Energy Committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further... Gb, go ahead, go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Point of personal priv...
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 27 - ~ January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Go, go ahead...
Ms. Kawahara: ...privilege...
Chair Asing: Go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: ...in response to your personal comment.
Chair Asing: Yeah, go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. I wanted to thank you for
welcome...you welcoming me into this environment, but I wanted to let you know
I've been here for a year and I have been working in this environment. So I don't
really need the welcome and I have been working with a lot of people and a lot of
conflicts and things too. So I can handle it, but I appreciate it. Thank you.
Chair Asing: Well, welcome to the world of opinions. You have
an opinion, the speaker has an opinion, you happen to differ from that opinion, and
I think you now understand a little more, so thank you. With that, can we...do we
have a motion on the floor?
WILMA AKIONA, Council Services Secretary: Yes.
Chair Asing: Oh, Carl, are you through? I'm sorry. You...you're
done?
Mr. Imparato: You tell me.
Chair Asing: Yeah.
Mr. Imparato: Am I through?
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Carl.
Chair Asing: Okay, is there anyone else in the public who wants
to speak on this item? I'm sorry. Go ahead, Glenn.
GLENN MICKENS: Thank you, Kaipo, for the record Glenn Mickens.
I...I just want to sincerely thank the gentleman for...Carl, for his testimony, for his
expertise and his...he did not...he's not just shooting from the hip. I think he's
being very concerned about what's going on here. I don't hear one word of him
being against wind energy, the same as me. I am...have...have no qualms about
any kind of energy, whether it's hydro, wind, solar or whatever it happens to be. I
think you had a gentleman sit here before that installs these things, and he said at
this stage of the game, he said wind is miniscule besides high...besides solar, and
he would...would...would recommend probably going more to home heaters, solar
and etc. But again, I think wind is great if it's in the right place as I think Carl is
pointing out and I think he has the expertise to do this. He's just trying to look at
things from the total picture before you go ahead and say let's go ahead and do it.
So, anyway I just want to thank Carl and...and thank you guys for receiving this
and probably working on it to a better degree and...and putting the problems in
place. Thank you.
COUNCIL MEETING - 28 - January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to
speak? Mr. Taylor.
KEN TAYLOR: Chair and members of the council, my name is
Ken Taylor. I too want to agree with comments that Carl has raised and thank you
for receiving this issue. I...I have no problem with alternative energy activities, but
there has to be some really good thought out process as to how we move forward
with them and there's a place for wind and there's a place for solar, and I don't
think that small neighborhood lots are a place that should be potentially cluttered
with wind mach...wind mach...windmills and we had testimony from an individual
before you...some meetings back that indicated that she had gone forward with
putting a windmill in place, never anticipated that it would ever pay for itself and
that it was more of an environmental issue with her than anything else. And so
under those circumstances, I think revisiting this...this process and...and us all
working together to move forward with a good or better bill, I think is...is hopefully
what will come out of this in the future. So thank you very much.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to
speak on this item? If not, I'll call the meeting back to order and further discussion?
Coun...Councilmember Bynum.
There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called
back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to say that...that
this bill has been contemplated and was first introduced at this council on
October 22, 2008. In that timeframe, there were a number of people who were
applying for permits from the county for small wind energy systems. It was
consistent with the national policy and the state policy as demonstrated by there
being tax credits available. So at one level government is encouraging people to
invest in alternative energy because we've moved into the energy climate era where
energy will be a huge issue for all of us going forward for some period of time. We
are currently more than 90% dependent on fossil fuels for energy and it leaves us
vulnerable. But in the county level, people were applying for permits and the
planning department didn't really know how to respond, didn't understand what the
current state law was, and our citizens were confused about what they needed to do.
And so it was in that climate that I first introduced this bill to say it's important for
us to dialogue about all of these issues, alternative energy, oil dependency, the bird "
issue that I knew would be part of it, I had concerns about the county's potential
liability given that we are the host of endangered species and we have a
responsibility to them, and I thought it was important to have public dialogue.
Since that time...in...the bill went through planning, had several public hearings.
There have been, I can't count them all up but probably 15 to 20 public meetings
where this dialogue has occurred, either at planning or at the county council. We've
had a lot of excellent testimony from Mr. Imparato and many others about this bill
and I think that our understanding about. some of these issues is better.
The first bill that I sent to planning kind of increased the height limits pretty
substantially because of testimony that says that the...that's where we can capture
the wind and where we can do it. Through the public process and through the
planning department's good work, as Mr. Kawakami indicated from Mr. Hull, the
planning department recommended substantial changes to the bill, all of which I
was accepting o£ And they also put restrictions on wind that currently aren't in the
ordinances. And so, I think what came out of planning in the long run was a pretty
modest bill that was, you know, thoughtful and gave clarity to citizens who would
COUNCIL MEETING ~ - 29 - ~ January 21, 2010
want to follow the government's incentive through tax credits to do alternative
energy to clarify how you can do that process without it being cumbersome and an
obstacle to doing that.
As we went on, as the bill came to council...excuse me, on June 3, 2009 we
had a public hearing, we had...planning committee meeting was deferred one, two,
three, four, five, six times, and it was amended...the bill was amended three times.
As we came to this point, the last deferral was after an energy sustainability plan
was presented, which has been presented, so it came back on the agenda.
In that interim period as was suggested by testimony, there was discussion
about amending the bill to have it only apply to ag and commercial and larger lots,
where wind energy systems have been an outright permitted thing on agricultural
land in state law for many years. In the interim also, some of our friends and
neighbors have gone through the current permitting process, have erected wind
energy systems which are, you know, and we've had testimony that it's helping
them with the sustainability of their business in ag, reducing their costs after the
initial investment, and I believe that wind does have a future in our mix.
The...regarding the bird issues, that was one of the goals that I had at the
beginning was to clarify those issues. And I took my guidance from the county
attorney, who testified here that the...that the bill didn't have significant liability
issues for the county. I don't agree that it's a loophole, the provisions that the
planning department put in, but are consistent with current state...you know, I
never saw any testimony that wind systems below 60 feet, which is what this bill
would have allowed, are a significant impact to endangered species or anywhere
near the impact...of many other items which we as a community have not fully
addressed as of yet. I still feel like small wind has a...a place and I appreciate the
comments from members that they want to reintroduce the bill.
Last week I sent testimony...I sent questions to the county attorney
requesting whether it was necessary to reintroduce a bill. I think we've done a lot
of work here through...beginning in October 2008 and there were amendments
poised to be introduced that would further seek that balance. I don't think it's
necessary to put forth...that forward in a new bill which will have to go back to
planning and go through what, another year and a half of public process, and so I
was seeking clarification on some of the concerns that got raised at committee last
week that led to a recommendation to receive. I would like to...the members to
consider that we defer this bill again until we get response from the county attorney
about whether it's necessary to do an entirely new bill or if we can take the work we
had and amend and build on it, to find that balance, so. I'd like to...my colleagues
to consider, you know, there were many deferrals, we've been patient, we've worked
on this. I'm asking for the courtesy of another deferral to get answers from the
county attorney so we can make a wise decision about whether we should receive
the bill and start over or amend it and avoid the...the difficulty of having to go
through all those processes, including sending it back to planning again. So I'm
going to make that request of my colleagues. Would...my colleagues allow the
courtesy of another deferral until I can get these answers from the county attorney?
Chair Asing: Thank, thank you, with that, any further
discussion?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes, I have.
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead.
COUNCIL MEETING - 30 - ~ January 21, 2010
Mr. Furfaro: First of all, extending courtesies, I think one of the
courtesies that I would like is not to be portrayed as perhaps someone who doesn't
support wind. In fact, I support a number of energy alternatives, experiencing
electric bills, in my business, over a quarter of a million dollars. Being implied that
this was not a wise decision, I'm a pretty smart guy and I would like to say that
when you send over a communication to the county attorney, then you have to send
all of the proposed amendments which will define whether the bill needs to be
reintroduced or not, giving the county attorney all the facts that you believe that
are necessary. In one statement we're saying the state has certain rules and in the
next statement we're saying that the state is very unclear. We're saying that we
understand the avian, the bird issue, but yet the federal government is changing
rules as we speak. There is nothing that addresses the decibel reading, there is
nothing in the bill that deals with, you know, the neighborly courtesies about sound.
It also doesn't address the North Shore's height limitations, which members in my
family fought for over many generations in public service. But I would like to say
that the courtesy that I would like to extend is to move it to another committee. If
...if that committee's intention is truly and was created for the purpose of
understanding what we need to strategically do about energy, we created our own
energy committee. It started out in planning because like I said, the many issues
that deal with residential rules and the challenges we might get from various
citizens. So I'm encouraged that we would receive this bill and focus on some of the
items that need amending and focus on what we know the state do...excuse me,
does support in the way of agricultural activity. I think that's the good way to go,
the best way to go, and putting it .in the energy committee is also very effective. So,
I would like to encourage the move to receipt, look for the new bill being created
that I thought we agreed on, and have it put into Mr. Kawakami's committee. So, I
would vote to receive.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any further discussion? If not...I'm
sorry, go ahead.
Mr: Kaneshiro: Just, just really short, Mr. Chair. I want the public
to understand that currently they can still apply. They can apply, you know, to get
windmills, whether in ag lands or residential lands. This bill...what this bill would
have allowed them is to go above the height limit of what, you know, certain areas
have. And instead of going through the process of a use permit, instead of going
through the process of a public hearing, this would be where it would allow you to
go a little bit above the height limit requirements. So I want people to understand
that in no way that this bill at any way stops you from moving ahead, to move
ahead and look for doing windmills. And I think, you know, with this...a lot of
discussion we've had, I think it's clear also to the planning department that if we do
have applications that come forth that don't need a use permit, I'm certain that they
can deal with it. They can deal with it because we've had a lot of discussions here
and you know, I don't want to discourage the general public from saying that
because we didn't vote on this bill that means we're not supporting energy.
Basically we're not voting on a bill that allows over the height limit until we come
out with a bill that we feel that would allow this in appropriate places and that's the
point I want to make. So...so with that, I'm ready to vote to receive this bill,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Furfaro: I'd like to call for the vote.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, roll call please.
Mr. Furfaro: The motion is to receive.
COUNCIL MEETING - 31 - January 21, 2010
The motion to receive Bill No. 2317, Draft 3 for the record was then put, and carried
by the following vote:
FOR RECEIPT: Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro, Kawakami,
Asing TOTAL - 5,
AGAINST RECEIPT: Bynum, Kawahara TOTAL - 2,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL - 0.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next bill for second reading is Bill No. 2328, a bill
.for an ordinance amending ordinance no. PM-227-91, relating to the state land use
district boundary in Kilauea, Kauai (County of Kauai, Applicant). Planning
Committee recommended approval of this bill.
Bill No. 2328 - A BILL FOR, AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE
NO. PM-227-91, RELATING TO STATE LAND USE DISTRICT
BOUNDARY IN KILAUEA, KAUAI (County of Kauai, Applicant):
Mr. Furfaro moved for adoption of Bill No. 2328 on second and final reading, and
that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro,
and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro,
Kawahara, Kawakami, Asing TOTAL - 7,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL - 0.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: On page 4 of the council's agenda, next bill for
second reading is Bill No. 2329, which is a bill for an ordinance amending ordinance
no. PM-228-91, relating to general plan designation in Kilauea, Kauai (County of
Kauai, Applicant). Planning Committee recommended approval.
Bill No. 2329, Draft 1 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING
ORDINANCE NO. PM-228-91, RELATING TO GENERAL PLAN DESIGNATION
IN KILAUEA, KAUAI (County of Kauai, Applicant): Mr. Kaneshiro moved for
adoption of Bill No. 2329, Draft 1 on second and final reading, and that it be
transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and carried by
the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro,
Kawahara, Kawakami, Asing TOTAL - 7,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL - 0.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: Next bill for second reading is Bill No. 2332,
Draft 1, a bill for an ordinance amending Chapter 12, Article 6, Kauai County Code
1987, relating to the energy code. Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee
recommended approval.
• s
COUNCIL MEETING - 32 - January 21, 2010
Bill No. 2332, Draft 1 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING
CHAPTER 12, ARTICLE 6, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987 RELATING TO THE
ENERGY CODE
Ms. Kawahara: Mr. Chair?
Mr. Kaneshiro: Move to approve.
Ms. Kawahara: Mr. Chair?
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: I...
Chair Asing: I believe we have some amendments?
Mr. Kaneshiro: I needed to make a motion first before we can
discuss any (inaudible).
Ms. Kawahara: Oh, okay.
Chair Asing: Okay, go ahead.
Mr. Kaneshiro: So my motion would be to approve this bill.
Chair Asing: Can I have a second please?
Mr. Kawakami: Second.
Mr. Kaneshiro moved to adopt Bill No. 2332, Draft 1 on second and final reading,
and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by
Mr. Kawakami.
Mr. Furfaro: I'm going to recuse myself since there's going to be
amendments.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: I'll step out.
(Mr. Furfaro was noted recused from the meeting on Bill No. 2329, Draft 1.)
Chair Asing: Okay.
Ms. Kawahara: Sorry about that, Daryl.
Chair Asing: Yeah, we have a motion to approve, we have a
second, and I believe we have an amendment.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes.
Chair Asing: Yes.
Ms. Kawahara: And they're going to pass it out.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 33 - January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Okay, why...why don't we do this first, take public
testimony first. Is there anyone in the public who wants to testify on this?
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Chair Asing: If not, thank you. I call the meeting back to order
and we're going to entertain some amendments, I believe.
There being no one in the public wishing to testify on this matter, the meeting was
called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead, Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I have an amendment. It's just a housekeeping
amendment. The staff picked up a misspelling of one word in Section 405.3, so I'd
like to move to amend as circulated.
Mr. Kawakami: Second.
Mr. Bynum moved to amend Bill No. 2332, Draft 1, as shown in the Floor
Amendment attached hereto (Attachment No. 1), seconded by Mr. Kawakami, and
unanimously carried (Mr. Furfaro recused).
Chair Asing: That amendment passes. We have another
amendment.
Ms. Kawahara: Chair?
Chair Asing: Go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Yes, thank you, Chair. This is an amendment
that...that I wanted to introduce. I'm introducing it at the council because I wasn't
in the...I'm not in the committee, so that's why it's coming through the council. It's
a recognition of the amendment that was made previous to this with Derek
Kawa...Councilmember Kawakami, who amended it to...amended the code so that
the wall insulation would be exempt from the code for every unconditioned
habitable space. And one of the main concerns that mister...that Councilmember
Kawakami had was for the private sector and the people that would be buying in
the private sector and the cost that may...it may entail to require them to do wall
insulation. I...we do have numbers on the cost of wall insulation that we'll be
showing later, but the fact that he was concerned with the private sector and not
putting a cost up front whe...and that amendment was made. This amendment is
dealing with a carveout for affordable housing and gap housing, which says that
anything that's developed by us, the county, should be required to do wall insulation
based on the best practices that we've received in reports that we're going to have a
PowerPoint on also. So, that's the basis of that. It was recognizing the private
sector, people would be having choices, but in the affordable housing market, what
they get is what we build. It is not that they get a choice of what they want to put
in or any kind of comfort level that they might want as an extra. This is something
that they're going to get as affordable housing people that are at the poverty line or
very close to it. So this will allow that we follow a best practice in our
county...county buildings for affordable housing, where it has shown that wall
insulation makes the home more comfortable, more livable and therefore, the people
that are living there are living in affordable housing that is comparable or as
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 34 - January 21, 2010
comfortable as anything that would be in the private sector. So I wanted the
council to consider that and I'm not sure how it works after this, if you guys want to
look at it or have any questions.
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Bynum: I'm going to take the floor.
Chair Asing: Oh, you're going to do the presentation?
Mr. Bynum: I'm going to do the presentation.
Chair Asing: Oh, okay. Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Just one clarification. This amendment would
apply to county built housing and also housing that's built as a result of our housing
policy, which requires affordable housing to be built when market housing, we
discussed that earlier, so.
And before we have the lights off, I don't need the lights off to begin this, this
is a bill that came through the public works committee and is something that I've
been tracking for three years or more and it comes from our efforts to conserve
energy. And there's a really fascinating and interesting story behind this and so I
want to share that because it will possibly impact the outcome of the vote for this
amendment.
The...whenever you go to energy sustainability conferences, one of the first
things that comes up is the...the first line is conservation. It's better to conserve
energy and not have to generate it in the first place. That has the b...is the most
cost effective. And whenever you ask questions about what is...what's the most
important thing. to do at the county level, often the answer is to look at the building
codes. And there's a movement around the world to change buildings to make more
green built energy efficient buildings to begin with because if you build a building
that's energy efficient to begin with, you save for the life of that building, which is
anywhere between 75 and 100 years. So, when...so there's been efforts to examine
the building codes in Hawaii that have been underway for several years that result
in us and the bill that's before us, the...which is adopting the International Energy
Conservation Code. You know, that's a code that's used internationally obviously
from its name. But there was concerns that the bill meet the culture, meet the
climate and deal specifically with Hawaii. And so those efforts have been
underway for some time. So, our Building Code Council which includes our county's
building code people have been meeting for over a year and a half with leadership
from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to take the
International Energy Code and to make mod...whatever modifications would be
necessary for the coun...for the climate and culture of Hawaii. And I want to
commend those folks for their diligence and for working on that issue. The...and as
a result, we have an International Co...the...this code has been adopted by the
other three counties and this is our opportunity. I'm sure we'll adopt it in some
form today.
The issue that's really before us is about wall insulation, and I want to
explain the history of that and present some outcomes of some studies that DBEDT
have done because I think it's important that we honor the recommendations, from
my point of view, that our building code professionals are giving us and that our
Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism's energy expert is
. •
COUNCIL MEETING - 35 - January 21, 2010
recommending. So, the bill that initially came over from the administration had all
of the elements as recommended by the Building Code Council with one exception
and as a result of communication that came from the Contractors Association of
Kauai, dated September 23, 2009 to the Mayor, who expressed some concerns about
the insulation mandates or the heat gain that buildings experience in particular.
And so there's kind of an old school thought on this that for many years Kauai
didn't require any envelope for heat gain or for insulation and the thought was that
we live in a moderate climate, we don't have extremes of heat and cold, and so why
do we need to insulate the buildings. And indeed most of our homes are built
without any central air or heating studies. And so that kind of has face validity. It
makes sense on the face that...on the face of it that, you know, why insulate? In
fact, a letter that came from the contractors association as part of the county
council's thing makes just that argument. It says, the Contractors Association of
Kauai does not believe that mandating roof insulation is in the best interest of
Kauai citizens. Insulation is used to protect against extreme seasonal
temperatures, both heat and cold. Kauai, as a tropical climate zone, is not prone to
these extreme temperatures and insulation does not become necessary to protect
the public health and safety. So they go on to say that they're concerned that this
mandate would increase the costs needlessly and...so and I, you know, I've heard
the argument for a number of years and as I tracked this and talked to the building
code professionals and the energy specialists, you know, I posed the same question,
well why do we need to insulate in Hawaii. And so they've been dialoguing and
studying this for some time, and their answer was pretty compelling and I want to
share that answer, but also the history of this bill.
It came over to us initially following all the recommendations that came from
our Building Code Council and DBEDT with this one exception that it exempted
housing that was built affordable as a result of either our affordable housing policy
that we passed last term or that the county build. So...and I think we spent some
time dialoguing about that. We had testimony from Habitat for Humanity that
basically said they did not want that exemption, they already were meeting these
building and insulation codes because they understood that it was the...in the best
interest of the people who would end up living in the homes, both in terms of energy
savings and in terms of comfort and livability of the homes that are built. And so,
you know, last time the council entertained an amendment to eliminate that ,
exemption for affordable housing and it passed. It didn't make sense, in my view, to
exempt affordable housing, and our housing department, you know, gave testimony
to that extent and so initially the mayor put that provision in, but as he looked at it
further, he didn't object to us not exempting affordable housing. So...but then there
was an amendment to exempt wall insulation for everyone. So, and that's what
happened at our committee last time, that despite the recommendations that we do
this and I want to introduce this...the idea of a heat gain, that you use roof
insulation and barrier...radiant barriers and wall insulation and other mechanisms
to keep the temperature in the home at a moderate level. The concern is, and we
had testimony from Howard Wiig, that, you know, Hawaii homes were generally
built with that in mind. I know I built my home and my architect and contractor
said, why you want to insulate these walls, you want to have good breeze through
your home, you want to situate it properly on the lot to catch the trades so you can
have a comfortable home, but you want to make sure you do this insulation, and so I
- did and others did. Many contractors know that and understand that and have
done that in Hawaii. But on Oahu a lot of hou...a lot more kind of urban housing
has been built than here by larger companies who kind of didn't take all of those
considerations into mind, and used kind of mainland style, but the building codes
didn't require insulation. So if you're in business and you're building homes, you're
probably not going to put elements in there that are not required. And...and so
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 36 - January 21, 2010
Howard Wiig was here saying that many homes that were built in the `Ewa plains
that they received lots of complaints from people who said, I come home from work
and the house is just boiling, I cannot stay in it, it's too hot, you know, we go into
the back yard. So we put air conditioning in. We went out and bought air
conditioning because it's too hot. And that got DBEDT and others looking at this
issue of insulation. Why would you want to do that in Hawaii and why...how does
that pertain to sustainability. So, we started with an exemption for affordable
housing, we agreed that we shouldn't treat affordable housing differently, but then
the council exempted everyone from the wall insulation component.
So with that as a backdrop, now Councilmember Kawahara is suggesting,
hey, let's make sure affordable housing built for the citizens of Kauai, and it's not
just affordable, it's gap group housing that because as we said earlier today, even
people making 120% or 130% of median income, the affordability gap is so great
that we haven't...that there isn't housing readily available. As a result of that, we
have a housing policy that requires affordable housing being built. So this
amendment says, when that housing is built as that requirement, it should include
the heat envelope, including wall insulation that's been recommended by these
people. So with that as a backdrop, I'll start the presentation and I'll try to be
quick.
The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism sponsored
a study in 2001, I believe, and reported in 2002 to just address just this issue. It's
called the Hawaii BuiltGreen Home and so what they did is they built two homes in
Waianae, same square footage, same orientation on the lot, everything the same
except one had the roof and wall insulation and the other did not. And I'm...not
seeing these slides.
(Inaudible. )
Mr. Bynum: Okay, so this is a...I know you can't see this, but
it's a...it's a 64-page study which I've read, but there's a 2-page synopsis and this is
what the coversheet looks like. What it says is that an analysis by the Honolulu
Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for DBEDT shows how well the
cooling technologies of radiant barrier and natural ventilation is in the Hawaii
BuiltGreen Home to work to make the home comfortable without air conditioning.
In the chart below, temperatures on the Hawaii BuiltGreen were with wind...are
within close of the comfort zone of 73 degrees to 85 degrees. So the idea is that a
comfort zone, and we all can climatize in Hawaii, 85 might sound hot to somebody
in California who says turn the temperature down to 72 on the thermostat, but we
all climatize and we catch those trades and we want to save energy and so that
comfort range is 85. So this chart is from the study. It shows the Hawaii
BuiltGreen Home, the control home, and the difference. So, when the exterior
temperature is in the mid-80s, okay, in the Hawaii BuiltGreen Home the attic top
position with...that's insulated, that has this radiant barrier, is 88 degrees. In the
control house, the attic top position is 105 degrees or a 17-degree difference. Now
that's up in the attic, that's not where we live, but you know, the old thought was
well we don't have those extreme temperatures. But when the temperature is in
the 80s and with...you know, in these confined spaces, it can get up to 105 degrees.
But what's more important is where we live, in our bedroom, in our living
room, in our dining room. So the second column here has a bedroom and we all
know that west-facing gets more sun than east-facing. And so another thing I've
heard from people is well make sure you insulate the west-facing .walls, that that's
more important. But in this study, the bedroom in the Hawaii BuiltGreen Home
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 37 - January 21, 2010
and it was at 5:15 p.m. was 84 degrees or in that livable range. The temperature in
the control home without the insulation was 102 degrees and I think that's a very
substantial difference. I can handle 85 degrees, maybe even 90, but 102, I don't
want to stay in that room.
But let's look at the next column has the dining room on the east-facing side
of the house that we consider to be the cooler side. In the Hawaii BuiltGreen Home
again it was 84 degrees, but in the control house it was 94 degrees. So we're talking
about temperature differences between 10 and 18 degrees in terms of the livability
of the home.
What Mr. Wiig said was those folks couldn't handle living in 102-degree room
and they were either camping outside in the evening or they were going out and
purchasing window air conditioning and then putting that window air conditioning
or retrofitting central air into a home that's not insulated. So it will use a lot more
energy as we attempt to keep it there.
So the reasons for doing this insulation are livability, the comfort and
livability of individuals. I don't think it was a good decision for us to exempt any
homes from this radiant barrier. And we had testimony here from the architect
saying that one of the things they liked about the International Energy
Conservation Code is it doesn't just say you have to put this insulation in. It says
put this insulation or meet the heat gain goals, and there are many other ways to
meet those heat gain goals, by the way you position the home, by what kind of paint
you use, by what kind of barriers. Insulation is a known and cost effective way to
do it, but there are other areas so that the...you know, based on that testimony, our
building division went back and met with DBEDT, met with the architects and said,
you know, and we put clarifying language that was in a...an amendment that you
can meet that heat gain in other ways and if you certify that, you don't have to be
this rigid kind of only one way to do it. So I appreciate that flexibility and we have
testimony from Palmer Hafdahl, an architect, who spoke on behalf of the
architects, and he said and I'm quoting, as a longtime advocate of radiant barriers
applied with good ventilation, I'm pleased to find that this particularly Hawaiian
form of passive thermal control clarified and promoted and is an acceptable
alternative to bulk insulation to exclude this low-cost, effective and healthy practice
in much needed affordable and gap group housing, is to put a further burden on the
interim occupants who are our friends and neighbors.
So, this bill started out saying we're going to exempt affordable housing from
this comfort level and from this requirement for the radiant gain and the council
amended it to say we're going to exempt everyone from it. And so in our dialogue
last week at council, you know, we debated this back and forth. You know, one of
the...the argument was well we want to preserve...we want to keep cost low and we
want to preserve choice for individuals, okay, so. This project, by the way, was
participated in to...by the U.S. Department of Energy, the State Department of
Business, Economic Development and Tourism, State of Hawaii Department of
Home and Land...Hawaiian Home Lands, Building Industry Association of Hawaii,
the Honolulu Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Hawaiian Electric
Company, and Honsador Lumber Corporation. And they're not...these lists are not
necessarily endorsing, you know, requiring envelopes, but they were participants in
the study that showed those heat differences in homes.
You know, the other concern we had was about the additional cost and
contractors said the additional cost was anywhere between $2500 or $4,000. We
had other testimony saying, no, it wasn't that high, but what we're focused on today
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 38 - January 21, 2010
is the wall insulation requirement because that's what we are attempting to
exempt. And so on a 1600-square foot home, you would need 1280 square feet of
wall coverage. This chart shows from the Contractors Pricing Guide of 2009 that
materials and installation of the required installation in walls for a typical
1600-square foot home is $832, and so the cost savings...there clearly is cost savings
of $832, yet the Energy Sustainability Plan says that an unairconditioned home can
save $1,320 per year in lower energy cost to keep from using air conditioning. So,
that's the end of the visuals, but basically, the cost savings is $830 up front. If you
don't do that, you're going to live in a home that is much hotter. That's what
our...the study shows. I believe if you live in a home that's very hot, you're going to
have an incentive to go out and purchase a window air conditioner, and then there
will be substantial energy drain.
Although I heard the argument about choice, obviously if someone builds
their own home, they can choose. If we, you know, if we require the insulation as
recommended, people have to do it. But if we exempt it, then they can make a
choice. I asked last week, what about housing that's built for market, for sale, and
the response, as I recall, was well the customer...you know the contractor who
builds those homes is...is accountable to their customers. So, you know, in
that...we saw that experience on Oahu where people bought new homes and said I
can't live in them. And again, I think that Oahu has amended to require that
insulation to avoid those businesses from having the problem. But housing that's
built as...and this amendment is to say we're not going to exempt housing built for
affordable and gap group housing as a result of our housing policy. Who's
accountable there? And who's accountable there is the County of Kauai through
our building codes. You know, we're...in a typical scenario, a contractor would be
building housing for market which may be sold, you know, over a million dollars
and our housing policy says if you're going to build housing on Kauai at market
level, a percentage of that has to be affordable for working families. That's our
workforce...that's a very brief overview of our workforce housing. But the
standards that we set for that affordable housing is set by the County of Kauai. We
are the responsible parties. And I as a councilmember who is responsible for that
want to make sure that homes that are built as a result of our affordable housing
meet the radiant gar...barrier gain and it can either be doing that by meeting the
insulation or under the building code having alternative methods certified by an
architect. I want to make sure when we are responsible to build affordable housing,
it's livable, it's comfortable, and it doesn't incentivize people to install air
conditioning into an uninsulated home. That's why I think it's a responsible
decision to vote for this amendment because we are accountable for the housing
built for affordable and workforce housing. Thank you for your patience and...
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, any...go ahead,
councilmember Kawakami.
Mr. Kawakami: Just a question on the data you gave us. The two
test projects, one house was green built and the other was not green built. Did both
of them have roof insulation, which we are mandating?
Mr. Bynum: No, the roof...
Mr. Kawakami: Well, then, if it...
Mr. Bynum: May I answer?
Mr. Kawakami: Okay, sure.
• • •
COUNCIL MEETING - 39 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Bynum: The one house had no roof or wall insulation. The
other house had roof and wall insulation.
Mr. Kawakami: So one house didn't have any insulation at all?
Mr. Bynum: That's correct.
Mr. Kawakami: But we're mandating roof insulation, which your
consultant, DBEDT's consultant, said is the number one way to cool a house. So
you're giving the people data that to me is not necessarily accurate when we're
discussing this matter because we're requiring the number one way to cool a house
is to cool the roof. We're requiring that. So if you're going to make a comparison
between test pilot projects, it should be one house with roof insulation and wall
insulation and another test with roof insulation without the wall insulation, and
then measure the attic.
You know, and then, you know, we pull out quotes from the Contractors
Pricing Guide, where...is that a Hawaii based Contractors Pricing Guide?
Ms. Kawahara: It's what...
Mr. Kawakami: Is that a....
Ms. Kawahara: Yeah.
Mr. Kawakami: Is that a mainland...
Ms. Kawahara: It's used here.
Mr. Kawakami: It's used here?
Ms. Kawahara: I worked with a carpenter, professional carpenter.
Mr. Kawakami: Okay, I work with a carpenter too. And...I mean,
so it's just, you know, it's just different quotes, yeah, but I mean, and that's where
it's at and I mean, for me, we just had a presentation and it said the strongest
demand for affordable housing is at the lowest income group, the lowest income
group that makes $46,000 for a family of four, $46,000 for a family of four. I want
to put roofs over their heads without having to raise the cost. And a mandate, yeah,
it does exactly that. It raises the upfront cost and you can make the argument that
oh, over the course of the mortgage or over the pay...over the course of 10 years, you
know, it pays itself off, but the upfront cost is the struggle and that's the reality,
you know. So we take into account the data that was presented to the public saying
that oh, a house with no roof insulation has a what, 103-degree temperature. Of
course, but that's not the question at hand. We're requiring the number one way to
cool a house to insulate the roof, we're requiring that.
Everything else, I've talked to architects too, you know, you bring in quotes
that AIA has stated this. Well, I've talked to architects that are in AIA and they
said the number one way to cool the wall of the house is to shade it, to shade the
walls. They're not saying that it's not going to be necessarily be effective to insulate
the walls, but they also said it's not necessarily the number one factor in cooling a
house.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 40 - January 21, 2010
We talk about energy conservation, when you take a look at Hawaii, we're
the only state that has a solar water heater mandate. According to a lot of electric
companies, that's the number one way to conserve energy. So, we already have
mandate number one, which adds to the cost. We're going to mandate roof
insulation, which adds to the cost, which I'm not against because like Mr. Wiig said
that's the number one way to cool your house down, okay. We even have, I believe,
in this energy code and correct me if I'm wrong, we have requirements for windows,
we have requirements for lights, and these all serve a purpose to conserve energy,
but the number one is the solar water heater mandate and also insulating the roof.
And...I mean...so I understand where you're coming from. There's value, but
where I'm coming from is man, the biggest demand for affordable housing, yeah, is
in that group that can...that makes $46,000 for a family of four.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Mr. Kawakami: Um, so sorry.
Chair Asing: Go ahead, finish up, I'm sorry.
Mr. Kawakami: I have a couple questions. How many affordable
housing projects, yeah, have not been insulated? So, is Pa`anau not insulated? Is
Kalepa not insulated? How about the Waipouli project, is that not insulated right
now or have they chosen to insulate their walls on their own? I'm not sure.
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Kawakami: You're not sure either.
Ms. Kawahara: Why?
Mr. Kawakami: Why? Because my point is...I mean if they're doing
it on their own, why mandate it? Because a mandate will drive the cost of goods up.
It will drive the cost of goods up.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that...
Mr. Kawakami: Hold on, I still got some more.
Chair Asing: I'm sorry, go ahead.
Mr. Kawakami: Actually, I'll turn the floor over because I can't find
my notes, so go ahead.
Chair Asing: With that, Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: You know, I appreciate this debate and
Councilmember Kawakami is correct. The cons...the ener...the study included roof
and wall insulation and I agree that the roof insulation is probably more important
than the wall insulation. But the recommendation of our Building Code Council
that has been accepted by all three counties is for roof and wall insulation. The
study says in another section, this result of this analysis shows how homeowners
can save money and live in comfort without air conditioning if they use the three big
bang technologies as demonstrated in this Hawaii BuiltGreen Home: utility
approved solar water heating, that's one of the cost...biggest cost savings; radiant
s •
COUNCIL MEETING - 41 - January 21, 2010
barrier or insulation in the ceiling and walls; and natural ventilation. The
amendments that our Building Code Council made to the Energy Sus...Code
addresses that ventilation issue very clearly. You know, if we applied mainland
standards, you couldn't have jalousies for instance. But we know jalousies are
efficient at bringing air in and so they've made amendments for Hawaii to allow
jalousies to meet this, one of those three big issues, but they felt...but they
recommended wall and roof insulation, that's the radiant barrier, and they agree
with you that there are other ways to accomplish that goal. You know, you can
have larger overhanging eaves that shade the walls; you can put in paint that
reflects radiant bax~x-~ers. What the Energy Code...what they recommend is you
meet that code, but it allows flexibility about how you meet it. It doesn't require
wall insulation. It says if you have designed this in a way that you meet that
envelope code, show us and you're free to build that way.
You know, to me, I don't think it was a wise decision to not go with the
recommendations that constitute the three big bang technologies. And I
particularly am uncomfortable with allowing affordable housing that's built as a
provision of our county ordinances that doesn't meet the recommendations of the
energy folks and the Building Code Council. The...in terms of our affordable
housing that we build, I feel confident that we did building insulation and solar
water heating because if the county's building it, then we are accountable for what
we build, say at Pa`anau or at Kalepa Village, and I'm sure that we will put those
provisions in there to meet the recommendations of our building division. It's those
houses...homes that are built as part of an affordable housing policy that
unless...the place where we can be held accountable for that is in our ordinances, in
this ordinance. So, this is a good amendment that says if you build affordable
housing as a result of the ordinance that the county has, you have to meet the
recommendations of the Building Code Council for comfort, livability and energy
efficiency.
Chair Asing: Thank you, any further discussion?
Mr. Kawakami: You know and I just want to say too then, you know
the...for the people that watch the presentation, that description between the two
pilot projects is not accurate. It's not comparing apples to apples. It's comparing
apples to oranges. It doesn't give a true test or true temperature of what the
scenario would actually be with our requirements, so keep that in mind.
And you know, I think you know, if the housing agency wants to negotiate
with the developer that's creating these affordable housing projects, eh, let them
negotiate. If they want to require it, you know, they can require it. If a big
affordable housing project comes through, it's got to go through planning
commission anyway. If they want to be responsible for mandating higher cost to the
affordable housing project, let the burden be on them. They can go ahead and do it.
They can condition it in. It goes in front of planning, housing can negotiate with the
builder, but I, personally for me, one person, don't want to mandate higher cost at
this time. I mean, we get data that $46,000 for a family of four. I want to keep the
cost as low as possible for them. You know and if they're telling me, yeah, if they're
telling me that, eh, most of these housing projects are insulating the walls anyway,
yeah, why would I mandate something that's already being done? Why would I do
that? That would just unnecessarily raise the cost. I mean because now it's a
requirement and you know...and that's where the bottom line is. It's just two
schools of thought, you know. I appreciate your school of thought.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay.
COUNCIL MEETING - 42 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Kawakami: But you know, let's give the people the real data. I
mean, we're comparing apples to oranges with that study. I mean it's really, really
not giving us a true picture. You quote 103 degrees, you know, absolutely. If it was
a matter of health and safety and if people were dying from heat stroke...if we were
in an area that people were dying from heat stroke or dying because of the harsh
winters, absolutely. Let's require it, let's mandate it. But in Hawaii, on Kauai,
nobody's dying from heat, it's a matter of comfort, okay. It's a matter of comfort and
now it's a matter of dollars and cents. That's where I'm coming from.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay.
Chair Asing: Thank you.
Ms. Kawahara: So.
Chair Asing: Go ahead, Councilmember Kawahara.
Ms. Kawahara: I...so I did the introduction to this and now I want
to do my discussion...introduction.
Chair Asing: (Inaudible.)
Ms. Kawahara: I did an introduction to the amendment, but now I
want to do my discussion.
Chair Asing: Yeah, go ahead.
Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you, Chair. I've been listening and I
also had spoken with Kaw...Councilmember Kawakami and I think that is the crux
of the issue and why there's two different philosophies here. In the past, I believe
that affordable housing has been stigmatized and that we want to...people want it
to have the least, you know, basic minimum standard. So when you're talking
about safety and people dying of heat, to me that means well, affordable housing as
long as they're not dying of heat, then it's okay. I might be wrong, but to make our
housing less than minimum best practices as affordable housing that we build as a
government agency to help people at a po...at an economic level that is close to
poverty or 100%...120%, it really speaks to the responsibility of a government to
have along-term responsibility for the people that are going to be living for 30 years
in that building. To be able to live in your home comfortably, to have a house...have
a roof over your head is to provide dignity. To do any less than that is something
that I think the government is actually...does its checks and balances. Because
when we talk about the private industry, yes, and the amendment we made,
anybody that can afford to do it on their own they have the option of opting in to
buy the insulation or not doing the insulation. But when we have affordable
housing and people applying for affordable housing, they don't have an option.
What they get is what we provide. And as a government agency, I would provide
what is commonly accepted and I do accept this study as a good indication of what it
would be without wall insulation. So, what I really do want to say is that there's
always going to be tension between the private sector and the public sector and
that's...I think where we're at. Whether or not the costs are going to be up front,
taken up front or at the back end, it depends who that is. If you're going to save the
cost up front, that'll save the cost to the contractor and builder and the developer,
but who is paying it in the back end in discomfort, having to put out extra money to
get a fan or maybe even having to buy an air conditioner. So, my balance was that
okay, we'll give the public...the private sector that ability to do the option as the
. •
COUNCIL MEETING - 43 - January 21, 2010
amendment is that we passed, but for affordable housing where people don't have
that option, where they are applying to get housing because of their economic level
and their social standing in economics or wherever, they have to apply and they
have to meet standards. And these are people that are at low income levels. They
do deserve dignified housing, comfortable housing that they can be proud to live in.
And in...as a county, it is, I think...and a government, it is our responsibility to see
affordable housing as not just affordable housing for this carveout group, but
affordable housing is public...is a public realm that affects the whole public because
we drive by it, our friends live in it, and it's a visible public facility. So, in that
sense it's a public utility that we need to be able to show that we are going to be
running efficiently and that the people that are living in it are deserving and get
the actual comfort that they deserve to be living in those homes. And the costs up
front, again, is where we're having this discussion. I would like to require that the
government follow the best efficiency rules that we have in the study because I
choose to accept that study. What else do I want to say? So, so again, this constant
tension between what the private sector wants to do and what the government
should be able to provide. It's a...to me it would be responsible social housing policy
to do that, to endorse a study that says, wall and roof housing are the top...one of
the top three technologies that make living comfortable. So when people are
required...have to go into a living situation in affordable housing, they don't get
that choice, but our bill does allow for other people that don't need to do affordable
housing to have that choice. Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that...(inaudible). You want to
respond first.
Mr. Kawakami: Yeah, yes.
Chair Asing: Yeah, go ahead.
Mr. Kawakami: Are you implying that I'm saying that affordable
housing residents...that I'm implying that oh, as long as they're not dying from heat
it's okay.
> Ms. Kawahara: No, no, no, I just was saying...
Mr. Kawakami: Okay, I want to make it clear...
Ms. Kawahara: Yeah.
Mr. Kawakami: ...because it sounded like you were implying that
and it can go both ways. I mean I can imply things that I don't necessarily want to
do, but I just want to make it clear to the public...
Ms. Kawahara: Yeah.
Mr. Kawakami: ...yeah, if you're implying that or not.
Ms. Kawahara: No, no.
Mr. Kawakami: Yeah. You know, I mean...that's fine. Your belief
is great. For me, getting housing over somebody's head is the greatest thing we can
do to restore their dignity, bottom line, getting roofs over their heads. We got a
housing policy that, in my opinion, restricts any kind of affordable housing
development from coming into Kauai from here on out. I mean, it's...it's...it's...I
COUNCIL MEETING - 44 - • January 21, 2010
don't know of any developer willing to come into Kauai when there's other places
they can go to stimulate other places' economies that are not as restrictive as ours.
So why at this time am I going to make it more restrictive? The bottom line is we're
in a time...an economic time where we should be looking at creating opportunity,
not placing mandates on it to further restrict opportunity. And...and...and that's
my school of thought. It comes down to cost. To me the greatest dignity we can do
is gYVe people of all income brackets the opportunity, yeah, to achieve the American
Dream. You ask people what the American Dream is, is to one day own their own
home, to have a roof over their head. That's the biggest dignity we can do to restore
their spirit. Opportunity knocks, are we going to be the ones willing to create
opportunity or are we going to be putting on mandates to restrict opportunity? I
think the economic times call for a different school of thought. And that's my
philosophy and I respect your philosophy, but at the end of the day, we'll let the
chips land on the table and see who has the votes.
Chair Asing: With that...
BC, Videographer: Check your mike.
Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum and then
Councilmember Kaneshiro.
Mr. Bynum: Just a couple points before we get to the vote. One
is just to clarify, this is about workforce housing. We have a housing policy that we
voted in last year that requires somewhere between 15% and 30% of new housing
development to be affordable to the working class, all the way up to 140% of median
income. We're talking about families, you know, on the very low end, and we
(inaudible) heard today $32,000 for asingle-pa...that's 60% of median income. But
at 100% of median income, and I may not have these number exactly correct, but
Eugene could give us a chart right now, it's just not before me, that at 100% of
median income, which I think this year this is 2009, 100% of median income with a
family of four is $70,000, and that those folks could afford...I'm sorry, I don't want
to get this too confusing with all these numbers. The bottom line is this is for
families on Kauai that make up to $93,000 for a family of four that we require
affordable housing be built. And that's not new. That's not a new policy. In the
past the state had a requirement of 60% of the housing be built affordable. `Ele`ele
Nani, Hanapepe Heights, Healani (sic) Village are just a few that come to my mind
that were...those homes were built as a requirement of affordable housing. You
know, we're continuing that. Maui currently has a bill that requires 50%. The bill
that we passed has a baseline of 30% but with the incentives to integrate housing
and other incentives, it can be as low as 15%. So...the...but when those homes are
made available for purchase to Kauai citizens, the cost is set by ordinance and so if
they have to spend 832 additional dollars to insulate the walls or even a thousand
or two thousand dollars, that cost...it won't impact the cost to the end user because
that's set by ordinance. The people who will realize those cost savings are the
contractors who built the housing in the first place. So affordable housing's not a
new thing. We need it because even if you have a family say, you know, a fireman
and a teacher, they're still...we're not generating...the market is not generating
housing that's affordable to our working middle class here. So we'll only have
homes on Kauai that are for people who don't live here that have to spend a million
dollars or more. So, I know we're not here to debate affordable housing, but we
have an affordable housing policy. This is about having those homes built to the
recommendations of our Building Code Council and having them be livable, so.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 45 - January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Okay, with that, councilmembers, each
councilmember will have one more time to make anything or say anything that they
want to and then we're going to call for the vote. I think we've had a lot of
discussion. I must tell you, councilmembers, or let me put it this way, rather than
tell you, remind you that most of this discussion that is happening today happened
last week in the committee meeting. So, it's nothing new. We are rehashing
information that was presented last week. So, you know, I don't want to go on and
on and on. So with that, councilmember Kaneshiro.
Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. Basically, you
know, I'm ready to support the bill as is that has been passed on from committee.
And you know, I don't like the thoughts of government mandating. If you look at
the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism's report, it says
radiant barrier. So we don't need to necessarily have to have, even the affordable
housing projects, be insulated. They can use some sort of a radiant barrier. And
what I heard from Doug last week when I questioned him about radiant barrier,
what is radiant barrier. He said it can be some sort of white painting; it can be
some sort of paintings that, you know, reflects the sun off the walls. So, what we're
talking about here is mandating insulation. That's what we're talking about here
on any of the...this amendment that they're proposing passes.
And the other thought is this too. Whenever we have government housing,
whenever government housings are proposed, it comes before the council usually for
zoning requirements. What are the zoning requirements? We tell you you need to
provide this X amount of housing. Now if it's in the Kekaha area, we can also tell
them that I think you either have to put some radiant barriers or some
installations...insulations. We can do that. So, we have that opportunity to do that
at those times and issues when these affordable housing projects come before us.
But to just mandate it right off, you know, as proposed through this amendment,
I'm not able to support this at this time, Mr. Chair.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, any further discussion?
councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Last time.
Chair Asing: Your last shot.
Mr. Bynum: Last time.
Ms. Kawahara: Oh, is it the last ones? Okay.
Mr. Bynum: What we're talking about is the radiant barrier,
right. The code allows flexibility about how to meet that standard. If we don't have
this amendment, we've exempted that and people can build homes that do not meet
that standard. Now there are many things our building code mandates. It
mandates low volume showerheads because of the public need to conserve water. It
mandates hurricane clips because of the public need to not have roofs blow off. This
has become the standard of practice all over the country. All of our colleagues in
the other counties have passed this after they had their dialogue and I just can't see
us exempting anybody. We've already done that, but certainly not the housing
that's built affordable as a...for Kauai middle class. So, that's my last time.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Go ahead.
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 46 - January 21, 2010
Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Thank you for the one last time. I just
wanted to put up one slide and say we were just discussing it with Gary Mackler
about 50 units coming up that the county will be building. To be able to have the
full envelope included in our affordable housing building of 50 units, the whole idea
is that our affordable housing be something that embraces energy efficiency home
quality, prevents heat gain, and increases the value of resale. So, I think what
we're talking about here, this insulation for the walls for affordable housing, is
something that we really need to...I would hope that councilmembers would
approve because it is something that the government is responsible for and
responsible to people to provide it. And housing is not merely shelter and this is
from Architecture for Affordable Housing where...by Sam Davis, I believe he's a UC
Berkeley professor. He goes into detail about all the tensions between private
sector and public affordable housing. But in the end it comes down to housing is not
merely shelter or basic protection from the elements. It must also bestow on its
inhabitants a sense of dignity, one's home is one's castle. Do you take pride in your
dwelling? Does it make you feel safe, secure, and satisfied when you are there? To
ignore this aspect of housing which is specifically what we're talking about, how
people live in their houses and how long they will be living there and living their
lives in such a place, to ignore that aspect of housing or to consider it a prerequisite
only for those who can afford market-rate housing, is to invite social and financial
disaster-I wouldn't say that, that's kind of strong. But it...it...it does, you have to
think about that. Moreover housing is a key ingredient to community building. So,
I would like fellow councilmembers to consider that because yes, we all agree that
we want housing. How we want housing built here is, I think, the contention that
we're having. We all want roofs over everybody's head and be able to provide
affordable housing that is comfortable. When it comes down to whether or not
private sector is going to allow and put that housing in, that's where the
government, I think, has leverage to say, well we believe that this is energy
efficient, this is good for energy, this is good for people living there. Therefore,
that's why I'm suggesting that affordable housing be required to do the insulation,
and for all those reasons, I hope the...my councilmembers can support the
amendment. Thank you.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, Councilmember Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank you, Chair. I enjoyed listening to this
conversation and I'm glad Councilmember Kaneshiro used Kekaha as an example
because I think we used `Ewa Beach and Wai`anae as examples about those areas
being hot also. I see our housing director Eugene Jimenez is here, so I'm going to
say what I want to say and perhaps he might want to say something if he wants to
say anything. But, you know, I listened to the conversation and I'm...I...I am at the
point as the Chair discussed, I think we discussed this in committee last week. But
I'm at the point at this time to give one the opportunity what they want to do with
their housing and I'm going to give an example. Most of you folks know that I live
in the Puali subdivision. The roofs are insulated. I don't get much heat because I
live right in the path of the trade winds and the western side of my house is blocked
by the duplex. So, I basically shade them, they basically shade me, and that's the
way that it was strategically planned. And I am very, very familiar with Pa`anau
and as I look at the map of Pa`anau Division here, you can see the area of the
trades, you can see a lot of the trees in this area. And I was chatting with
Mr. Jimenez earlier and you mentioned you're not sure whether the walls are
insulated or not. But one of things that we had chatted about was sometimes
somebody sacrificed their garage because they couldn't build one and they wanted
to put a solar heater or there were other different options. When I had to buy and
move into my home, it was whether you want carpet or whether you want tile,
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 47 - January 21, 2010
whether you want linoleum or you want marble, and those were the decisions. But
one of the decisions that I made and I was strongly asked to do it was I was heavily
recommended if you're going to buy anything, buy a whole house fan. And I'm not
sure if people know what a whole house fan is, but a whole house fan...you open up
your windows a crack of about 2 to 3 or 4 inches and you turn on the switch and it's
supposed to suck up all the hot air. That was the biggest cost of my options for my
home and I have honestly turned the whole house fan on maybe 10 times in five
years and maybe the only time I use it was just to make the noise and show people I
had a whole house fan that's supposed to suck out the heat, but more so I actually
used that to spray Lysol. You know, like to go spray and spray the house and make
it smell good and then circulate the ventilation. And that's what I use my big
investment of a whole house fan. So I'm really at this point right now that many
homes are built within the trade wind norm and you know, I cannot tell you when I
can even tell you the last time my home ever heated up and I think my biggest
failure was I listened to somebody that told me you need a whole house fan. And at
that point, you know, as we had mentioned earlier, I think we should give the
people the option, what they want to use their money for and you know, if we're
looking at people that make money, if they can afford to do what they want to do,
they can afford to do what they want to do. But with that being said, I'm not sure if
we can ask if Mr. Jimenez wants to say anything, but other than that I think I'm
ready to vote.
Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Kawakami.
Mr. Kawakami: Thank you. And you know, like I said it's just two
different schools of thoughts.
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Kawakami: I just lost my train of thought.
Mr. Kaneshiro: Sorry about that, Mr. Kawakami.
Mr. Kawakami: But you know we talk about dignity...you know we
talk about dignity and how it's important and I agree. You know, it's just...my
feeling is giving somebody the opportunity to own a house or even to have housing
is the biggest dignity we can bestow upon them. You know, you look at the
Waipouli Project is a good example, Waipouli Project that the Showe's have done.
They, on their own, blew up the room sizes bigger, on their own made it bigger.
They got laminate flooring, they got great appliances, nice countertops, and that's
the kind of things that bestow dignity amongst homeowners, especially in
affordable, the gap housing group. If we can give them that kind of dignity, I'd feel
much more...much more better about it. I mean I've yet to see somebody come up to
me and say, brah, check up my house, get wall insulation, and have them be just
extraordinarily proud about that fact. I mean, comfort is great. There's many ways
we can utilize and attain comfort living levels. I mean there's studies on ceiling
fans and how a simple ceiling fan is a great way to cool your environment. And it's
a great way to conserve energy too because it doesn't drain that much energy.
Ceiling fans, I think, there's some comparisons that it runs roughly about the same
amount as a regular light bulb to cool a room. And so, you know, we talk about
dignity, I think just being able to give people the opportunity to have homes and
housing is the greatest dignity we can bestow upon them. Thank you.
• •
COUNCIL MEETING - 48 - January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, let me close with just a few
comments. I guess there's a...there's been a lot of discussion, a lot of so-called facts
presented. I do question some of the so-called facts. I'm not sure about the $832 for
the wall insulation. That figure is awfully, awfully low. Where that came from,
how it was obtained is very, very questionable to me. I do know something about
building houses. I've built a few myself. Now, I can tell you that one of the things
that concerns me is more mandate. When the county starts to mandate things, I
think in some cases I will agree as an example as brought up by
Councilmember Bynum about the hurricane clips. I agree. I mean, there's a
history and a good reason for the hurricane clips. And so mandating that is
something I can agree with. But mandating is a real problem to me, we need to be
very, very careful of what we mandate and tell the public or anyone else this is what
you must do. You have no choice. No choice? It's my money you're talking about.
It's money that you're talking about. I should have a choice on what I do. I will also
tell you that as an example I don't agree with the state legislature when they went
into mandating the solar heating system. I don't believe in mandate. It is my
choice. I have X number of dollars to put the house up. I have choices. Now, I will
also tell you that seeing Mr. Jimenez here, you know, we go back, Gene,
Brydeswood Terrace has been in operation probably 20 years? Close to?
Mr. Jimenez: About 30.
Chair Asing: 30? Okay. Wow, that long? Time flies. Anyway,
that project was mandated to be solar. So all of that...those units there were solar.
At that time the council made a decision that solar was going to be the issue and so
we looked at that because of energy and cost and so you will see that. But we had
choices though. We could have said no. We could have said yes. And what we're
trying to decide now is choices. So, I will agree with the bill as it is. It gives you a
choice and that's why I will support the bill as it is written today because you have
a choice and that's really where I'm coming from. So, with that, roll call please.
Ms. Kawahara: What is on the floor? Is it the amendment or the
bill?
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Kaneshiro: Hold on one second. Just for procedural-wise, there
is no floor amendment on the floor. No one made the motion to have it on the floor,
neither was it seconded. So we can vote on the bill. There was one amendment that
Mr. Bynum did. The one amendment was a word correction. So basically that's
where we're at right now. Amend the bill as...
Ms. Kawahara: Move to amend.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Ms. Kawahara moved to amend Bill No. 2332, Draft 1, as amended, as shown in the
Floor Amendment attached hereto (Attachment No. 2), seconded by Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Kaneshiro: We're not even there.
Chair Asing: Okay. Let me just do it...
(Inaudible.)
' • •
COUNCIL MEETING - 49 - January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: Let me do it this way. There has been another
amendment that was just made, which is the amendment that was under
discussion, and there was a second. Let's vote on that amendment. All those in
favor, say aye.
Mr. Bynum & Ms. Kawahara: Aye.
Chair Asing: Opposed say no.
Chair Asing, Mr. Kawakami, Mr. Chang, Mr. Kaneshiro: No.
Chair Asing: The noes have it.
Ms. Kawahara: Can we get a vote?
Chair Asing: The noes have it. There is no amendment now.
That's done.
Mr. Bynum: Wa...wait...wait.
Chair Asing: We're back to the main motion as amended. We're
back to the main motion as amended. Go ahead, councilmember.
Mr. Bynum: Can the clerk tell me who voted how?
Ms. Kawahara: Yes, please or do a roll call.
Chair Asing: We had two votes...
Ms. Kawahara: I wanted to know who the...
Mr. Bynum: I...
Ms. Kawahara: I couldn't hear.
Chair Asing: You didn't hear it, okay. Voice call. Voice vote.
Mr. Nakamura: This is on the amendment...
Ms. Kawahara: For the amendment.
Mr. Nakamura: Sorry, Council Chair. This is on the amendment
introduced by...
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Nakamura: ...councilmember Kawahara?
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Nakamura: councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Aye.
Mr. Nakamura: Councilmembers Chang.
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 50 - • January 21, 2010
Mr. Chang: No.
Mr. Nakamura: Kaneshiro.
Mr. Kaneshiro: No.
Mr. Nakamura: Kawahara.
Ms. Kawahara: Aye.
Mr. Nakamura: Kawakami.
Mr. Kawakami: No.
Mr. Nakamura: Chair Asing.
Chair Asing: No.
Mr. Nakamura: Four to two, Mr. Chair.
The Floor Amendment (Attachment No. 2) introduced by Ms. Kawahara failed
passage by a vote of 2-4-1 (Mr. Furfaro recused).
Chair Asing: Thank you. We're back to the main motion as
amended. Roll call please.
The motion to adopt Bill No. 2332, Draft 1, as amended to Bill No. 2332, Draft 2
was then put, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Kaneshiro, Kawahara,
Kawakami, Asing TOTAL - 6,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: TOTAL - 0,
RECUSED & NOT VOTING: Furfaro TOTAL - 1.
Chair Asing: Next item please.
(Vice Chair Furfaro was noted present in the meeting.)
Mr. Nakamura: Next bill for second reading is proposed draft bi11...I
mean I'm sorry, Bill, No. 2336, Draft 2, a bill for an ordinance to amend Chapter 16,
Article 20, Kauai County Code 1987, as amended, relating to the traffic code.
Public Safety/Energy/Intergovernmental Relations Committee recommended
approval.
Bill No. 2336, Draft 2 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND
CHAPTER 16, ARTICLE 20, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED,
RELATING TO THE TRAFFIC CODE: Mr. Bynum moved for adoption of Bill
No. 2336, Draft 2 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the
Mayor for his approval.
Chair Asing: Hang on. Well, you want to (inaudible)? Go ahead.
Mr. Kawakami: With all due respect, Councilmember Bynum...
COUNCIL MEETING - 51 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Bynum: Yeah.
Mr. Kawakami: I was going to ask for a deferral...
Mr. Bynum: I'm sorry.
Mr. Kawakami: just because there are some details we're trying
to work out with some county agencies that are on the two-way radio system
including the transportation, the bus system, some employees of public works, so if I
could ask for a deferral while we get that information.
Mr. Bynum: I apologize, I wasn't aware of that.
Chair Asing: Hang on, yeah, I don't think you, you know,
understood that, but you want to withdraw your motion?
Mr. Bynum: I'll withdraw my motion.
Mr. Kawakami: Thank you.
Mr. Bynum withdrew his motion for adoption of Bill No. 2336, Draft 2.
Chair Asing: Okay, with that information, we're back to...
Mr. Kawakami: Move to defer.
Chair Asing: Move to defer.
Ms. Kawahara: Second.
Chair Asing: Can I have a second.
Ms. Kawahara: Second.
Chair Asing: There's a second.
Mr. Kawakami moved to defer Bill No. 2336, Draft 2, seconded by Ms. Kawahara.
Chair Asing: Hang on, we have someone here who wants to
speak before we vote on this. Let me have the public up, please.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
STANLEY DOTARIO: I was going to say good morning, but I have to say
good afternoon (inaudible). Councilman Kawakami, I...for seven years I worked for
this company and...
(Inaudible. )
Mr. Dotario: Mr. Kaneshiro knows who I work for and his office
was his car. And when we used to drive through the Wailua corridor, I used to be
on needles and pins and by the time we would reach our jobsite, my neck would be
sore because he was with his cell phone, his knees would be controlling the steer
and he would be writing the names and the address of the jobsite. So as far as this
bill here and I'm glad it's being deferred because I think there's little bit more time
~ s
COUNCIL MEETING - 52 - January 21, 2010
to be...you know think about it, but it's very dear to me. Because I've been driving
for 50 years and in 50 years I had only one accident. That was 40 years ago and I
was going to one baseball practice right in front of Fish Express, and this young
man of 16 years old, who never had no cell phone in that days, and had rear end me.
Now, we all have heard, whether it was our parents, our teachers, or if you play
sports, to pay attention. So I really believe in paying attention, especially in my
case. You gotta pay attention when you drive. So I like this bill. What I'm
concerned about is, maybe you can explain to me, Councilman Kawakami, the
deferral...the people that going get exempt, can you...can you ex...refresh me on the
people that going be exempt?
Mr. Kawakami: The exemption is for CDL drivers that use two-way
radios.
Mr. Dotario: Okay, CDL drivers. Now I consider myself a
professional because I drive for 50 years. I was one haul cane truck driver for
10 years for Lihu`e Plantation. There's nothing worse than driving 2 o'clock in the
morning in the rain coming down some muddy road in one cane field. I want you to
tell me why is it the CDL driver who drives one haul...on one highway better than
me to concentrate and drive. I want to know the difference there. What makes him
exempt and makes me a second-class driver?
Mr. Kawakami: From my understanding, two-way radios are not
as...how do you say...there's no phone numbers, yeah, to dial when you're driving.
From what we understand, CDL drivers also get trained a lot more often than the
regular driver, and it's...it's from meeting with the Hawaii Transportation
Authority and some of the commercial truck drivers down here. It is...it is a key
component to their business.
Mr. Dotario: Okay, now as a...as a haul cane truck driver, we go
through a lot of training too, you know what I mean. And yes, maybe dialing the
numbers, but it still takes concentration.
Mr. Kawakami: Yeah.
Mr. Dotario: The thing is to pay attention. Now, if I cannot pay
attention while I'm talking on a cell, how can a CDL driver, who driving where
there's traffic all over the place, can do it and I cannot. And that's where I'm
confused, yeah.
Mr. Kawakami: Would like us to remove the exemption for
companies like Kauai Freight...
Mr. Dotario: (Inaudible.)
Mr. Kawakami: ...and Polynesian Adventure Tourism. That can
still be done if you...
Mr. Dotario: You know, I can see Police Department, emergency
vehicles, right? Because most emergency vehicles, you...you get the passenger that
can handle the phone, right? But one commercial which are...your company's
involved, right? And you know how long it takes for one commercial vehicle to stop,
right? And I...I confused, they alike, you know what I mean. If, which I approve of
this bill, I think everybody who drive one scooter to one...to one 16-wheeler should
abide by this law. Thank you very much.
•
COUNCIL MEETING - 53 - January 21, 2010
Mr. Kawakami: Thank you, that's some good points.
Ms. Kawahara: Thank you.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair.
Mr. Kaneshiro: For the record, your name? Please state your
name.
Mr. Dotario: Oh, Stanley Dotario.
Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you.
Mr. Dotario: Thank you.
Chair Asing: The meeting is called back to order now. With that,
we have a motion to defer. All those in favor say, aye.
The motion to defer Bill 2336, Draft 2, was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: That is the...
Mr. Nakamura: Next...last bill for second and final reading is
proposed...is Bill No. 2340, a bill for an ordinance relating to zoning designations in
Ordinance No. PM-229-91 Kilauea, Kauai (County of Kauai, Applicant). Planning
Committee recommended approval of this bill.
Bill No. 2340 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO ZONING
DESIGNATIONS IN ORDINANCE NO. PM-229-91; KILAUEA, KAUAI (County of
Kauai, Applicant): Mr. Furfaro moved for adoption of Bill No. 2340 on second and
final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by
Mr. Chang, and carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro,
Kawahara, Kawakami, Asing TOTAL - 7,
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL - 0.
Chair Asing: Thank you. This being the end of the agenda we
have, except for the Executive Session that we have, so we're going to move into
executive session. Thank you, everybody. So...
Mr. Furfaro: We need to call up the county attorney.
Chair Asing: Yes, County Attorney?
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Chair...
Chair Asing: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: We still have the public hearing at 1:30 p.m.
(inaudible)?
COUNCIL MEETING - 54 - ~ January 21, 2010
Chair Asing: At 1:30 p.m., yes.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you.
MICHAEL DAHILIG, Deputy County Attorney: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair,
members of the council, Mike Dahilig, Deputy County Attorney. Pursuant to
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 92-4, 92-5(a)(4) and (8), and Kauai County
Charter section 3.07(E), the Office of the County Attorney requests an executive
session with the Council to provide a briefing regarding legal issues relating to the
proposed adoption of Bill 2298 and certain provisions of ordinances 864 and 876.
This briefing and consultation involves the consideration of the powers, duties,
privileges, immunities and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate
to this agenda item.
Chair Asing: Thank you, with that, I'd like to call the meeting
back to order and have a motion to move into executive session.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Furfaro moved to convene in executive session, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and
unanimously carried.
Chair Asing: We're going to move into executive session. Thank
you.
There being no objection, the Chair recessed the meeting at 12:11 p.m. The meeting
reconvened at 4:08 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
ADJOURNMENT.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:08 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
--~
PETER A. NAKAMURA
County Clerk
/wa
January 21, 2010
FLOOR AMENDMENT
BILL NO. 2332, Draft 1, Relating to the Energy Code
Introduced by: Tlm Bynum
Amend Section 405.3 to read as follows:
"(25) Amending Sectlon 405.3. Sectlon 405.3 is amended to add the
following Exception:
For- unconditioned habitable spaces compliance may be based on
resistance to heat gain. Compliance based on heat gain requires that the
proposed design be [show] shown to have an annual heat gain that is less
than or equal to the annual heat gain of the standard reference design."
(New material to be added is underscored. Material to be deleted is bracketed.)
ATTACHMENT No. 1
(V \CSOfficeFiles\Amendments\2010Amendments\Bi112332d1-fa-tb for 1-21-2010 cncl mtg)
I
January 21, 2010
FLOOR AMENDMENT
BILL NO. 2332, Draft 1, Relating to the Energy Code
Introduced by: Lana T. Kawahara
Amend Section 101.5.2 to read as follows:
"101.5.2 Low energy buildings. The following buildings, or portions
thereof, separated from the remainder of the building by building thermal
envelope assemblies complying with this code shall be exempt from the
building thermal envelope provisions of this code:
1. Conditioned spaces with a peak design rate of energy usage less
than 3.4 Btu/h •ft2 (10.7 W/m2) or 1.0 watt/ft2 (10.7 W/m2) of floor area for
space conditioning purposes.
2. Unconditioned spaces that are non-habitable spaces.
3. Unconditioned habitable spaces are exempt from wall insulation
requirements of the building thermal envelope provisions, except for
unconditioned habitable spaces that are developed to be affordable to ~ap-
~roup households as determined by the Housing Director of the County
Housing Agency"
(New material to be added is underscored. Material to be deleted is bracketed.)
(V \CSOfficeFiles\Amendments\2010Amendments\Bi112332d1-fa-lk for 1-21-2010cnclmtg) ATTACHMENT ~No. 2