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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02/15/2012 Public Hearing Transcript re: BILL#2427PUBLIC HEARING FEBRUARY 15, 2012 A public hearing of the Council of the County of Kaua`i was called to order by JoAnn A. Yukimura, Chair, Housing /Transportation /Energy Conservation & Efficiency Committee, on Wednesday, February 15, 2012, at 1:49 p.m. at the Council Chambers, Historic County Building, 4396 Rice Street, Suite 201, Lihu`e, Kaua`i, and the presence of the following was noted: Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Dickie Chang Honorable KipuKai Kuali`i Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura Honorable Mel Rapozo Honorable Joann A. Yukimura Honorable Jay Furfaro, Council Chair The Clerk read the notice of the public hearing on the following: Bill No. 2427 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 17A, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO BUS FARES, which was passed on first reading and ordered to print by the Council of the County of Kaua`i on January 25, 2012, and published in The Garden Island newspaper on February 3, 2012. The following communications were received for the record: �1. Jin -Wah Lau & Atsushi Sawada email, dated 2/13/2012 2. Laura Haack, Ph.D., email, dated 2/13/2012 3. Joseph Turner email, dated 2/14/2012 4. Leah Sausen email, dated 2/14/2012 5. Alexandra Mink - Flacco email, dated 2/15/2012 The hearing proceeded as follows: IAN ROSS: Thank you. Chair Furfaro, Members of the Council, I come here today in support of the bill which would allow for... Ms. Yukimura: Ian, excuse me, can you state your name first for the record? Mr. Ross: Oh, sorry, I apologize. Ian Ross is my name and I'm here today in support of the bill which would allow for a longer duration of special fare rates. The practical effect, of course, being that I specifically support allowing the Transportation Agency and the Mayor to extend the KCC Bus Pass Pilot Project for the remainder of the semester. Now, I'm sort of getting the echoes of my communication /speech teachers in my head and they always say set up the ethos or set up the reason why people should take your credibility seriously. So I'm currently in my sixth semester as a senator -at -large with ASUH KCC student government. It means that in fact I represent all the students, but specifically non - traditional ones and long- distance units as well would be the main focus. I'm also the current coordinator of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Committee, the Youth PH re: Bill No. 2427 2 February 15, 2012 Advisory Committee to the Mayor and as we affectionately call it YACOM, and I currently sit on the Transportation Advisory Committee. Now, of course, it probably goes without saying that I do not speak or represent any of these groups directly today, though, of course, I'm somewhat speaking like a (inaudible) as a student government member. Now there are three main topics relating to the KCC Bus Pass Pilot that I want to speak on. The first one being the sustainability and traffic. The second being the necessity and overwhelming support, and the third being the need for more information. Now the first, sustainability and traffic, of course anyone riding the bus, that's a car not currently being on the road. This would mean less gas usage meaning more money that can be spent in our community. I don't think I need to go over too much of sustainability, but I feel generally as a community we here on Kaua`i are feeling now the need to go towards more sustainability and I feel like this is an important step in that direction. Second, the necessity and overwhelming support, I actually have a few graphs that I'll be emailing to you all later. But essentially we did a survey of students relating to the pilot project. Many of you might have heard from us recently on these exact numbers, but we asked about 20% of the students, of 292 students, how often they use the free bus pass. Twenty percent got back to us of those replying to the survey saying they use it for every class day. Another 17% said several times per week or once per week. This breaks down to 37% of students responding saying they at least use it on a somewhat weekly basis. Asking again how much support they have, 89% said they thought it was great. Now nice was an option and I believe one person was against it out of the almost 300, but basically this breaks down to a huge amount of support. And my favorite statistic here is when we talked to the students who said, 54% replied, they never rode it. We have 81% support from them saying they think it's great. Again, nice was an option. Now I was able to finish another survey of just the students in the Wai`aleale Project. These are students who would not probably traditionally be students, people who decided to have a kid and didn't go to college right away; some people, I believe, are right out of being imprisoned; and people who...they target and look for the people who probably wouldn't be going to college and get them scholarships and tear down the barriers. Thanks to Jonathan Kalk and the KCC Institutional Research, I was able to get some statistics from them. Forty -one percent of those responding (22 students) out of the 85% said they use it every class day. For them it breaks down to about 50% using at least some point during the week where another large percent said they have used it at some other point with 36% saying they never used it. And all 21 of those respondents for this particular program said they thought it was great. So that's breaking down too some of the general necessity and the overwhelming support. Now the final part I wanted to touch on was the need for more information. If we're going to set this up as a sort of payment system in which the students pay through student fees or some other system, institutionalizing this to keep this going, I feel like we need a lot more information. We've covered the entire Fall semester where, for example, in November where there were about a little over 51,000 total riders from the public use, not the para- transit, 3,888 were students using their ID. This is a pretty decent amount and that's just for November alone. We have a general breakdown of the number of riders for the Fall and now into some of the Spring semester. There are a few changes that happened. We have a 110 less students this semester from the current counts. We don't know if every...that just all comes out from people riding the bus or none of them comes out from riding the bus, if some of those are new students. We don't know if there's PH re: Bill No. 2427 3 February 15, 2012 more people signed to ride this semester (inaudible) and I feel there's a need for more information. If we want to be able to figure out how we're going to institutionalize this and the different payment systems we're...to be able to look at, we need more facts and figures to figure out how the payment would go. And that would be generally the three reasons why I feel this should be continued and why it's a very good project. Thank you very much. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Ian. Before you leave, there may be some questions. Mr. Ross: Ms. Yukimura: allowed. Council Chair Furfaro: will be referred to a committee, for public testimony, to receive committee. Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Ross: Ms. Yukimura: Council Chair Furfaro: Mr. Ross: Council Chair Furfaro: Mr. Ross: Sure, by all means. Are there any questions? I believe questions are Questions are allowed, but at this point because it I would like to make, again, a statement that this is it so people can formulate questions when it goes to Okay. I'd be willing to take a question, though. Yes, all right. I'm sorry, what did you say? I'd be willing to take a question if that's... I know you're willing. I'm going over the rules. Sure, I'm sorry. Council Chair Furfaro: Okay. You know, we're going to be here until 9 o'clock tonight at this rate, but we are here to accept your pieces and then we can prep them for the committee meeting. Thank you. Ms. Yukimura: So, Ian, I want to thank you for your leadership. I understand this free bus for KCC students came from student leadership and it's wonderful to see students participating in the political process. I also want to acknowledge Kaulana Donovan, who was also part of the initial group that asked for and shepherded this process. Mr. Ross: Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Ross: And a member of the Wai`ale`ale Project as well. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. ARDE L. LONG - YAMASHITA: Aloha, Councilmembers. I'm sitting here giggling because I didn't know I was going to be sitting here and testifying. I only came to advocate for the Kaua`i Community College. My name is Arde L. Long- Yamashita. I am a student, my second year at the Kauai Community College. I am trying to continue to succeed and at least earn my AA degree in Business Technology, but it won't be done until the next two years. But in the meantime, I PH re: Bill No. 2427 4 February 15, 2012 would really like to show my appreciation and gratitude to our student body government and it is John Constantino and those that are under him also that have helped us to be able to make it to school. I don't have a car since my husband passed in November. For 2009 I've caught the bus and I'm grateful that there are buses here on Kaua`i. And when we were allowed to have our bus passes by the school, I was so shocked and amazed and they said on the bus, go up to the student body government office and get your free bus pass, and I did. And when I got there, John was there to help me and I'm really grateful for that. I was paying $40 a month for my bus pass, not even bus pass, just to go to school. Every time I jumped off the bus to make a stop in town and got back on it, I would have to pay another dollar or two, and so it really became hard. Having the bus pass helps all of us as students. I see many students riding the bus between, I'd say, the school and Kekaha, and also the school and Hanalei. I've even taken the bus ride to Hanalei just to see how it was. Wrong timing, it was a cold rainy day, but it was really awesome. The only thing is that the buses are still too small to accommodate all of us on the bus. But the bus has been a great asset and benefit for all of us that are students. Many of us are on fixed income and we don't have much to put on the side for transportation. It was getting to a point where I didn't know how I was going to get to school. Maybe get a moped and ride to school, but at my age I don't think so. I'd probably crack up on the way with all the construction going on over here, really. But as a senior, a kupuna, I am really grateful to be able to go to school again. I didn't realize that I could still think and do things. I didn't think I had the knowledge to continue doing what I'm doing. It is a challenge being in school, but it is a learning process, and we never, ever stop learning. We continue to learn even up until we're 90 years old. And I don't want to not be able to go to school. I want to continue even after I graduate to do medical terminology and business law if I can, and help others on the outside to be able to do the things that we are doing. The students that are in school now, even though they are not able to have all the acquired financial assistance that they have, the bus pass will play heavy, heavy benefit for all of us to go to school, especially me. I have no car, so I have to catch the bus for the next few years. So I hope that you'll take this into consideration and I thank you for listening to my testimony. Thank you and aloha. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Mrs. Yamashita. You are an inspiration to all of us. Ms. Long- Yamashita: Thank you. Ms. Yukimura: An inspiration of lifelong learning. Ms. Long- Yamashita: It's fun. This is where you learn. This is where you meet all the people and more importantly, maybe all of you should try riding the bus. I'll tell you why, you meet all kinds of people. You meet the prominent lawyers, you meet the homeless, you meet all of those, but you learn. You try not to be judgmental, sometimes it's hard, but it's really an asset. So thank you so much. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Council Chair Furfaro: Thank you. DASHA DACOSTA: Excuse my attire. Ms. Yukimura: You're fine. PH re: Bill No. 2427 5 February 15, 2012 Ms. Dacosta: Okay, so my name is Dasha Dacosta and I'm a student at KCC, also part of the student government. I've been riding the bus for four years since I moved here to high school and for the past two semesters to Kaua`i Community College. Since the Fall semester when I found out about the bus pass, that was even more of an inspiration for me to go to school. I took more classes actually because of that. It was pretty exciting. I'm one of the only people in my household that works, so a monthly bus pass or six months is really not part of my budget any more. And for that having to be added into my budget is kind of a snag, a little. So I would rather it not be added into my budget. So I fully support the pilot being extended until the end of the semester, end of the school year. And thank you for your time. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Now, if it's part of a student fee that would work into your budget? Ms. Dacosta: Yeah, it would. Ms. Yukimura: Okay, thank you very much. There are no more registered speakers. Is there anyone who would like to testify even though you haven't signed up? No one? Well, I see a lot of students in the audience and I want to thank you for just coming out because your presence does show support for this issue and the testimony of those of you who have testified really helps us understand how the present pass is working and gives us information and support for additional time. So thank you for being here. If there is no further testimony, then this public hearing is adjourned. Mahalo. Council Chair Furfaro: Just maybe for general information, do you have an idea when it might be referred to your committee meeting? Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. This will be in committee next Wednesday, the 22nd. So at that time, the committee will deliberate and consider. It is also a time for additional testimony if people wish to testify. Thank you, Chair. This public hearing is adjourned. There being no further testimony on this matter, the public hearing adjourned at 2:07 p.m. /wa Respectfully submitted, RICKY WATANABE County Clerk