HomeMy WebLinkAbout 05/09/2011-5/10/2011 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Deliberation and Preliminary Decision-Making, FY 2011-12 Annual BudgetCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
DELIBERATION AND PRELIMINARY DECISION - MAKING
FY 2011 -2012 ANNUAL BUDGET
MAY 9, 2011
A Deliberation and Decision Making Meeting on the FY 2011 -2012 Annual Budget of the
County of Kauai was called to order by Jay Furfaro, Chair, Committee of the Whole, on Monday,
May 9, 2011, at 9:17 a.m. at the Council Chambers, 3371 -A Wilcox Road, Lihu`e, Kauai, Hawaii and
the presence of the following was noted:
Honorable Tim Bynum
Honorable Dickie Chang (present at 9:30 a.m.)
Honorable Jay Furfaro, Council Chair
Honorable KipuKai Kuali`i
Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura
Honorable Mel Rapozo
Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura
The meeting proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Aloha, good morning, everyone. I would like to call back from
recess the budget review committee. Thank you for that brief moment. We are actually going to call
our decision - making process to order for today, the 9th of May, as well as the fact that the IT
Department did not have an opportunity in the actual review, so there may be a little more Q &A for
them as we extended them the additional time. But before I do, I wanted to make sure for those of
you in the audience it will probably be closer to about 10 o'clock before we open for testimony today
as I do want to extend the courtesy to our state senator to visit with us and give us an overview of
the last legislative session. Then we will go to the IT Department. After the IT Department, I will
then allow public testimony before we actually get into deliberation. So just to share with those in
the audience, it might be closer to 10:15 a.m. or so. So thank you very much for that courtesy. And
on that note, I'd like to suspend the rules and ask Senator Kouchi if he would like to join us and give
us an overview of this recent session. Welcome Senator Kouchi.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
RONALD KOUCHI, State Senator: Thank you, Chair and Members of the Council, for the
record, Ron Kouchi. We're actually hoping to get the representatives and myself to possibly come
next week Wednesday, but I ran into Councilmember Rapozo at church yesterday and he was saying
that you were about to do your budget deliberations and decision - making today and tomorrow, and I
thought that perhaps at least on the fiscal side that it might have been helpful to give you a quick
recap of some of the events during the past session.
The first is with the most recent downward revision of the revenue forecast from the Council
of Revenues. I know that you had the deputy director of B &F here to present to the council so you
are aware that they will be getting close to zero on the Hurricane Relief Fund, as well as the Rainy
Day Fund, and sweeping some fund balances in some special fund accounts to make, up the budget
shortfall for this current fiscal year, which winds up leaving the state going forward on July 1st
without any fund balance for any unanticipated emergencies or to deal with any further downward
forecast from the Council of Revenues. Toward that end in the budget we adopted, we did adopt a
budget that does have about $120 million fund balance, but immediately after we adjourned on
Thursday in reading the newspaper articles, starting on Friday and going through yesterday, the
Governor is still speculating, as are some of the reporters who cover the legislature, that when the
Council of Revenues meets later this month, there may be a further downward forecast of revenue
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.2
and if it exceeds the $120 million that is budgeted as the fund balance, then we will probably have to
go back next month to have a special session to deal with that negative revenue impact. So while
most of us thought that our work was done on Thursday of last week, we may still not be completed
with our budget work for the upcoming fiscal year and felt it was important to let you know that
whatever decisions were made may not actually be the final decisions relative to the state budget for
the next biennium depending on what the Council of Revenues say later this month.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Senator. Senator, let me ask you, in the event
things are not finalized and you are called back into session, as you pointed out, we will not hear
from the Council of Revenues until the end of May, what might be revisited or what might be on the
table?
Mr. Kouchi: I think that there are some measures that would allow us to
raise revenues. There was some discussion about the 10 -cent fee on plastic bags and /or paper bags.
That is an item that would generate funds. I've certainly received some communication that raises
concerns for county home rule and here on Kauai, as well as Maui County, there are county plastic
bag bans that are already in place. So it's a difficult decision to look at that. One of the measures we
passed was to increase the rental car fee by $3 but to only take that new revenue for the first year of
the biennium, and in the second year it would go back towards paying for construction of new rental
car facilities at the Honolulu Airport, that would be an opportunity for $60 million. There was
discussion about using some of the tobacco funds, but there was a strong lobby to continue to keep
that money in for the intended purpose and so that fund was not raided and quite frankly the only
other area where cash is sitting is the $93 million that was sitting in for the counties on their TAT,
and then the $69 million that was set aside in TAT funds for HTA.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Senator. Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you very much for being here, Senator. On the 10 -cent
fee on the bags, I appreciate your understanding of home rule and its importance. It looked like the
legislature was headed for a hybrid system where they would allow the ban to stand, but they would
put a fee on the bags here. And that could work except that under our bill or our law, merchants are
already allowed to recapture the cost of the bags and the state's proposal was going to restrict that.
And so that's, you know, that would put our merchants in a real corner, so I hope that that doesn't
happen.
Mr. Kouchi: Yeah, and I think what may be misleading for people who
would just read the title when it says plastic bag ban or 10 -cent fee for Kauai because the plastic
bags are already banned, if you use the paper bag then the customer would be charged that 10 -cent
fee for a paper bag and then all of the money generated here was going to a state fund, and none of
the moneys were dedicated to the counties who actually operate the landfills. And so this was
supposed to be a landfill mitigation plan and yet none of the money would be committed to the
landfills.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, under our law, we didn't have any money going to
anyplace except for allowing the merchants to recoup their costs.
Mr. Kouchi: Well, again, the counties' big payback was the avoidance into
the landfill, which you operate, so it certainly was an incentive - driven bill.
Ms. Yukimura: That's correct.
Mr. Kouchi: This bill, on some level, certainly would be considered
punitive in trying to get the action.
Ms. Yukimura: That's correct.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.3
Mr. Kouchi: And again, for those who were here on Kauai thinking well,
this wasn't going to affect us, I think this is just a good opportunity to let them know that what was
contained in the legislation was a 10 -cent fee on the paper bags if plastic bags were banned and the
fees go back to the state. At least on the senate side, Senators Baker and English from Maui County
and myself were three of the six conferees. So we do have the two counties that have plastic bag
bans in place represented on the conference committee, if that were to be an item that would be
brought back into consideration.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, I'm glad you are there. My understanding of the
10 cents was that 2 cents would go to the merchant and the rest would go to the —and I'm sure there
are many different configurations —the rest would go to the state. But as you know, the paper bags
cost our merchants 5 cents. So if they were to be able to recoup only 2 cents that would be very
unfair to them.
Mr. Kouchi: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And then what about, you talked about revenue raising
possibilities. What about the soda tax that the Governor first proposed, which I understood was
going to raise $25 million?
Mr. Kouchi: The house has never scheduled a hearing for that, so it would
be, would the house have a different position.
Ms. Yukimura: The house has a different position at this time?
Mr. Kouchi: No, would they take a different position. Currently the house
has not been willing to hear the bill, and if we're going back into session, the plastic bag ban is
something that is currently in conference and could be revived and discussed quickly. There are
other bills that would fall into that category where we could have some faster discussions, but the
soda tax was never heard so there would have to be readings that would have to go on in both houses
that would have to move the bill cleanly to something that would be agreeable. So that would take a
lot of change.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum, did you have a question for the Senator? Go
right ahead.
Mr. Bynum: Thanks, Ron, for being here, really appreciate it, and I just
want to, I mean we could talk all day, but I just want to focus on two things. One, the first things
you said was keep the funding for the intended purpose. What a novel idea, keep the funding for the
intended purpose, whether it's tobacco tax money or TAT money or. So I want to start with the
plastic bag and just some ideas. Obviously our concern was what JoAnn said that our retailers, the
only disposable option is a paper bag and its expense is much greater. Two cents, I would think it
would take two cents just to cover the administration of collecting the fee probably and so it puts our
retailers at a disadvantage to those on Oahu. So perhaps there's an amendment there that on
Kauai and Maui the 10 cents stay with the retailer to recognize their increased cost.
(Mr. Chang was noted to be present.)
The other thing is the home rule issue. The legislation allowed our bans to stay in place,
thank you, but it said no other county can do anything if we pass this law. So Oahu and the Big
Island, who are contemplating a law similar, would be exempted. It would be overridden by the
legislature and I think any county councilmember would be concerned about the home rule issue
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.4
there. Maybe we want to make adjustments in the future, because of fairness or finances and it
would preclude us from doing that. And so if that's still on the table, and it sounds like it is, at least
we have some time to write some testimony. But it kind of seals the fate that plastic will be part of
Hawaii forever if that bill passed. I was thankful that unlike legislation the previous year which
would have overturned our act, it didn't do that, but it did have significant home rule issues and
fairness issues, and so I appreciate you doing your best on that.
And then the other thing I wanted to ask about was TAT. The legislature capped TAT at
$93 million for the counties, correct? So that means next year it will cost us about $2 million we
would have received. I suppose it could have been worse, they could have taken it all or taken half.
In my opinion that would be irresponsible because for 15 years we had a formula that said if visitor
numbers increase and the burden on county services increased, you will get some increased revenue.
Correct?
Mr. Kouchi: Correct.
Mr. Bynum: And now they're saying if visitor industry figures increase
and you have an increased burden on county services, go get that money from your taxpayers. So
15 years of an agreement that I think worked has been changed. What is the time period for that
bill that passed?
Mr. Kouchi: Two years.
Mr. Bynum: Two years. Okay, so we're all hoping that we'll see an
increase in visitor arrivals during those two years, but the state legislature will take the money that
would have been to the counties, correct?
Mr. Kouchi: Correct.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.5
Mr. Bynum: So obviously we're not real happy about that. Some people
are like, whew, at least it wasn't a huge cut. But in terms of keeping funding for the intended
purpose, it's one of several areas where the legislature went away from that idea. So we'll all be
watching that really close and so thank you for the updates that you gave us during the session and
for representing Kauai, thank you.
Mr. Kouchi: You're welcome. I think the other fact of the matter is that
the state budget has been reduced by $3 billion over the last three years and they've cut out close to
1400 positions. And I have received numerous emails saying, how dare you consider raising taxes
when you've not done any reducing of the size of government. And so I want to let people here know
that there have been some significant reductions that have occurred. In reading the Sunday Star
Advertiser, Alex Santiago, who represents the human services area, gave us a poor grade because of
cuts that were made in human service areas. And so we get back to what is the core mission for the
State of Hawaii, who are the people that we're trying to provide services for, how big is the safety
net that we provide to our community, what kind of education do we want for our children, education
is the biggest cost item in the state budget, and do we continue to ensure that we don't have furlough
days, that they have enough instructional time so that we can continue to produce young people who
are going to be competitive in this job market and that they have the necessary skills to go forward
in life, that we have a university system that our residents can afford to utilize. As the senator from
Kauai, I could tell you in reviewing the budget one of the first things that should be cut is the
hospitals because they don't make money. But I can't advocate for that because we're a rural county
and we would never justify our need and I would never go to west Kauai to say we're going to
terminate the services for your community. But even in the TAT, having negotiated the formula, at
the time when the deal was made 15 years ago, we generated 7 or 8 percent of all room collection
money in the State of Hawaii. We currently enjoy 14 -1/2 percent of the revenue collected. So Kauai
has been fortunate to get more than its fair share of the money that has come from the room tax
collection. So if we go on fairness, because there are a lot of Honolulu legislators that are advocating
fairness in these tough economic times, we need to be very careful that we don't see almost half of
our revenue cut because they come up with a more equitable formula that more accurately reflects
what is collected. And so these are all the kind of challenges that we have as we negotiate among
our caucuses and try to advance the position for Kauai and so I feel like by being able to maintain
the 14 -1/2 percent of $93 million, given the level of debate and discourse that occurred in both the
senate caucus and the house caucus, that the Kauai delegation did a tremendous job for the people
of Kauai during this past session. And on just this biennium budget, we have cut $650 million and
we've raised taxes to the tune of $63 million to close the $1.3 billion shortfall. So there have been
some very difficult choices to make, hard decisions, nobody wants to vote for a tax increase of any
type, certainly not a politician. And yet we were faced with making those kind of decisions and
coming to a place where we felt that we were supporting the kind of services that still needed to get
our support and to ensure that there would be no furlough days for our students in elementary and
high school.
Mr. Bynum: So I'd like to respond to that.
Chair Furfaro: He was...
Mr. Bynum: Responding to my question.
Chair Furfaro: And I had earlier recognized Mr. Rapozo. So I will give you
the floor right after (inaudible). Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. Senator, thanks for being here today and I guess
I wanted to expound more on the TAT, not in a comment but in a question. I'll reserve my comments
for later, but what I heard you say earlier is there may be a possibility that you would reconvene in a
session special and that, in fact, the TAT funds could be renegotiated.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.6
Mr. Kouchi: Well, everything would be back, if we go back into session.
Mr. Rapozo: Right and which means, and, again, just focusing on the TAT,
that, No. 1, the $93 million could be revisited. More importantly, because I don't know if they'd cut
93, we don't know, but the allocation, the 14 percent allocation could also be reallocated or revisited.
Mr. Kouchi: Well, all of those things could happen at any time that we go
back, and there has been much discussion about, the fair share, more so on the house side where you
have a lot more Oahu representatives that are in there. It's not so much of a discussion on the
senate side.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, well, let me just say thank you for fighting for Kauai
because I am very lucky to be the HSAC President. So I've had the occasion to meet or discuss with
several legislators that are not in our delegation here. And I guess I want to make sure that you
understand that we all have different opinions and I'm only speaking for myself and that, in fact, I
want to thank you for fighting so hard to keep Kaua`i's allocation because I don't know if I was
sitting on that legislature, if I could actually ... I mean I don't know how you folks were so successful,
I guess, is what I'm trying to say, and I just want to say thank you because it does mean a lot to us
and at a time when we should all be looking at cutting, it's not an easy thing to do, but we got to
appreciate what our Kauai delegation has done and I'm sure you have a lot to do with it because of
your experience. So from me, thank you for what you have done for us. Appreciate it.
Mr. Kouchi: And in a real ... I don't know how it happened but anyway
we're fortunate it did, but all three of our house members also have seats on finance. Each one of our
house members have come from a county background, so that has been important. As I say, there is
much livelier debate on the house side about how the TAT should be allocated out because of the
amount of Oahu representatives that are there and are trying to get money for their districts. So
the house members have done a great job.
Mr. Bynum: Thanks, Ron. I want to respond in two ways. One is to say
I'm not being critical of the Kauai delegation at all. There was a very difficult time in the legislature
that you've outlined really well and overall, I think the legislature did a pretty good job of balancing
cuts and tax increases. But the portion that impacts the County of Kauai is our kuleana and so
regarding the TAT, the other part of that fairness equation is the percentage of our de facto
population that is residents or that are visitors at any time, it's the highest in the state. It's like
20 percent of our people that are out there using the roads and the lifeguards and the helicopter are
visitors and that percentage is much lower on Oahu in terms of its impact on the economy. So the
TAT is highly critical for Kauai. I don't need to tell you. But part of that fairness equation and I
think what came out 15 years ago was not okay, you collect X, so this is what you get, but what is the
burden on this small community of that number of visitors. So I think that's part of the whole
equation too, but...
Mr. Kouchi: As the one who negotiated it, I can tell you that was not, but
anyway it sounds very good.
Mr. Bynum: Well, it should be because if do you that analysis, you walk
around Kauai and two to three out of 10 people are visitors. You walk all around Oahu, that's not
the case. Anyway, I just want to be clear that I'm not being critical of the Kauai delegation. I know
you all get it and are representing us to the best of your ability in difficult times, so thank you.
Chair Furfaro: (Inaudible.)
Ms. Nakamura: Senator Kouchi, I just wanted to thank you so much for
providing this perspective as we try to finalize the county's budget, and I think there are a lot of
uncertainties out there and we need to be aware of those as we make our final decisions. And I also
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.7
just want to thank you for your aggressive advocacy for Kauai. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Aloha, Senator Kouchi. I, too, want to thank you for bringing
this information to us today. I think this warning, if you will, kind of really hits home for me and it
makes me realize that we need to be perhaps even more conservative. I think the talk from the
administration is that we're being conservative and maybe we're being conservative enough for now,
but we need to be thinking about the future as well. And if the future looks especially dim for the
state, then it's going to impact us in big ways. When you talk about the core mission of the state and
who we are to serve, how big is the safety net, what kind of education for our children, those
assurances that the furloughs don't happen at DOE, those are all so important to our people, not just
as people in the state but as people in our county as well. And I think that we, in our budget
deliberations, have to think about how ... what we ... the decisions we make in the budget
complements what the state is able to do, but even more importantly, how we can look at trying to
fill the gaps on the things that the state can't do. And that's, to me, what is important for our people.
I just wanted to thank you for opening my eyes a little bit more in realizing how important our job
over the next couple days are with the budget and all. Thank you.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.8
Mr. Kouchi: Thank you, Councilmember Kuali`i and let me congratulate
you on your appointment.
Mr. Kuali`i: Thank you so much.
Mr. Kouchi: It's such an interesting time.
Chair Furfaro: Senator Kouchi, I wanted to say thank you for being here this
morning before we fade into our budget deliberation over the next two days and also for the general
overview of what's happening with the possible call back. Obviously the thing that we need to look
at is this May meeting of the Council of Revenues. I do understand that the eastbound visitor traffic,
although it was forecasted to drop 40 percent, may have only dropped 18 percent, but that's yet to be
seen and at the same time congratulations to everyone who works on the eastbound visitor. This
allocation perspective on the actual legislative proportion that we get, I sometimes think that yes, we
have to account for both overnight and day visitors to Kauai and hopefully that is something that we
can continue to present. But do you know the date when the Council of Revenues is possibly getting
back together?
Mr. Kouchi: It's either the 19th or the 26th of May. I think it's the 19th.
Chair Furfaro: And again, thank you very much for all you do for us, and we
look forward to having your, the legislative group from Kauai maybe next week Wednesday or this
Wednesday?
Mr. Kouchi: Next week.
Chair Furfaro: Next week Wednesday. Thank you very much. Oh, hold on
just a second. Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: Chairman, thank you. Senator Kouchi, just to echo what the
other councilmembers had to say, thank you very much for being here this morning but thank you
for reminding the island of Kauai that our legislative delegation, house members Tokioka,
Morikawa and of course Kawakami, they all have county background, as does you, and I really want
to thank you personally because you definitely hit the ground running there in Honolulu. And I
know you've made many, many, many positive relationships with your fellow senators and house
representatives in the best interest of Kauai. So thank you very much for everything that you do
and thank you for understanding not only the state issues but certainly right in your own backyard,
here and our county issues of Kauai, so thank you and thank you again too to the delegation.
Mr. Kouchi: Thank you. I think two quick things in parting I'd say
working with representatives Tokioka and Kawakami and DOT Highways, we're happy that we were
able to get enough money starting July 1st to run the contraflow through Saturdays in Kapa`a.
Although I did joke with Ron Wiley that means come July 1st we'll hear how come you don't do it on
Sundays, but we've made progress. We've added Saturday, so that's going to be starting in the next
fiscal year.
The other thing is wearing my county hat, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that in reading
Mayor Carvalho's testimony in front of the joint money committees back in January, you know, in
your 40 -plus million dollar fund balance, 8 -1/2 million dollars of that fund balance came from a one-
time bond refinancing that may not be available, 2 -1/2 million came from furlough savings for
6 months, which won't be available because you don't have furloughs. Because you don't have
furloughs you need to add another $2 -1/2 million in expense going into the next year. When you look
at what your health fund contribution and your retirement system contributions are going to be and
the prudent decision to create the fund balance and call it a fund balance, what is really, you know
what really should be in the budget, you've just about used up all of the surplus. And so, well, you
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.9
are going to be close through getting into this fiscal year, I just see that I think we're all going to
have some big challenges next year unless we turn the economy around. Well, if the planning
commission thinks green energy, there's a good project that's before them tomorrow. You know how
do we wind up getting permits for some of those projects, are there other renewable projects that
KIUC is pushing forward, and how do we as a county and state work together to continue to help
these projects come to fruition and have job creation. The headline almost insinuated the county
wasn't being energy efficient because there was a 15 percent rise in the energy bill, but energy was
tracking back in September or October at about $50, $60, maybe $60 a barrel and it got up to $115.
There's been a significant rise. Glenn Sato and the office of economic development has done a great
job dating back to when JoAnn was the mayor in trying to get us retrofitted and the buildings as
energy efficient as possible, but we have no control over the price. So it's continuing on monitoring
consumption, getting efficient, and I think that there are some areas where we'll jointly agree and
see how to go forward and where we have some capital improvement projects that are going to
improve our community that we're able to process permits in a timely fashion that would generate
that job creation so we're not here talking about tax increases or restricting the money and would be
a positive way for us to go forward, hopefully.
Chair Furfaro: I have one more question for you, Senator. Council Vice
Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Thanks for that comprehensive overview that's
helpful as well. I'm just curious, how much does the contra flow cost?
Mr. Kouchi: For the six days it's $500,000.00.
Ms. Yukimura: For a year?
Mr. Kouchi: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: $500,000 for six days. Okay, thank you very much.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Senator, again, we'll see you a week from this
Wednesday along with your other colleagues, and all I can say is thank you very much for stopping
and visiting with us this morning as we go into budget deliberations. Your comments are well
received and thank you for all your hard work.
Mr. Kouchi: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Now, for the general public that's here, I am going to ask that
we open the budget discussions here with taking some testimony at this one time from those of you
in the public and then we will go to our IT discussion. So ... yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Just a procedural question, Chair. I agree with your idea
that we would allow the public to speak now, but may I understand that once we get into decision
making we won't be taking any more public testimony, at least for today, I don't know about
tomorrow.
Chair Furfaro: It was my plan, as we've done things different, over the entire
budget hearing process I allowed citizens to testify at every department hearing if they so chose.
Ms. Yukimura:
Right.
Chair Furfaro: So before we go into deliberation, I am allowing them to
testify now as we have the supplemental piece. I am going to say this will be the one time that they
can discuss once we get into deliberation.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.10
Ms. Yukimura: All right. Thank you very much for the clarification.
Chair Furfaro: You're quite welcome. On that note, are there members in
the public that would like to speak on the supplemental budget that's been submitted?
MARY PIGAO: Good morning.
Chair Furfaro: Aloha, good morning.
Ms. Pigao: Good morning, Council Chair Furfaro, and Councilmembers.
My name is Mary Pigao and I live in the Isenberg Subdivision and we're here today to submit
additional petitions that we did circulate in the community. We tried to get back as much from
papers that we submitted out from our last meeting that we were here, last week Wednesday. We
originally did turn in 379 signatures on March 3rd to the county's second informational meeting
regarding the proposed sites 1 and 2, and today we are bringing forward 329 additional signatures
and I'd like to turn that in.
Chair Furfaro: If we can take that, would you allow us to make a copy and
return the original to you?
Ms. Pigao: This is the original. We've already made copies of it so we
could submit this as well.
Chair Furfaro: Ashley,.can you take that from them then? Thank you, Mary.
Ms. Pigao: Also, I just wanted to add another quick comment in addition
to last week's testimony. One thing that we are looking at is other youth facilities in the State of
Hawaii. We're still finding out some more information on other centers that are still open. I believe
there's only one facility in the State of Hawaii open right now and that's the Bobby Benson Center
on Oahu. The Maui youth facility that was in the conversation back in 2006 for the proposed site
down in Hanap6p6 has closed. I haven't gotten confirmation on the Big Island facility, but I heard
that one is no longer up and running, either. If the county is going to fund such a building like it has
been stated that once the county builds a building, it's permanent, and as far as who's going to come
in to run the program I would like you folks to consider the sustainability of such a program. I know
Hale `Opio has been rumored to run the facility here, especially with the state funding cuts to mental
health, which does fund a big portion of the kids that go to these programs. Where is the county
going to sustain that in the long run? And what's going to happen to such a building if the facility
does close? Now the thing is we were told at the informational meetings that last year only six kids
were sent off island. Maybe funding those six kids to go off island and continue, treatment might be
better for us in the long run than entering into something where a program may not be able to
sustain funding to have this open. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mary, let me see if there's any questions for you. Any
questions? If not, I want to thank you for ... oh, go ahead, councilmember.
Mr. Kuali`i: I'm just curious. Aloha, Mary, mahalo, yeah.
Ms. Pigao: Good morning.
Mr. Kuali`i: Where did you get the figure of six kids only last year?
Ms. Pigao: I believe it was Theresa Koki that told us and there is
minutes out, so I'm not ... I think it was six that they informed us that went off island.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.11
Mr. Kuali`i: Okay, thank you.
Ms. Pigao: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mary, I do want you to know in the supplemental budget that
the mayor submitted to us, the actual $2 million amount has been reduced only to $500,000 and let
me read that narrative. "The adolescent residential drug treatment facility development has been
reduced by $1.5 million in funding for this project as adjustments were made to reflect just the cost
of pre- design and conceptual planning, which is expected to be spent during the window of the next
year as identified." So with this adjustment, there is only more discussion, design, and concept. It
does not sound like they committed all the way to the actual other components other than design and
planning.
Ms. Pigao: Correct, that is our understanding, but we still want to go
back to with that in mind hoping that you folks do consider that a center, no matter where it is, is
not in a residential area.
Chair Furfaro: Yes, your testimony was well received and I think the
administration at this point has put in funding only for conceptual design at this point, rather than
earmarking or plotting it out in a particular area. So your testimony was received by this council
and I think we have some additional time here.
Ms. Pigao: Thank you very much.
Chair Furfaro: Does anyone else have anything for Mary? Go right ahead.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.12
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you for your testimony as well as others in the
community. I think further in the discussion today, I will be seeking to amend this section to also
include that the $500,000 set aside for the studies include a feasibility study for the operation of the
facility, as well as potential site selection studies. That's what I will be bringing before the body.
Ms. Pigao: So will somebody be looking into the annual budgets from the
other facilities to see why they closed and their funding?
center.
Ms. Nakamura: I would see that as part of a feasibility study for such a
Ms. Pigao: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, no other questions, Mary, thank you again and thank
you for the collection of the signatures.
Ms. Pigao: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Is there anyone else that would like to speak before we go into
our deliberation?
JOE ROSA: Good morning, Members of the Council.
Councilmembers: Good morning.
Mr. Rosa: For the record Joe Rosa. Well, I've seen you make such
drastic changes as far as the allocation of funding under the CIP from $2 million to $500,000. Now
there was money that was appropriated, like $2 million, I would like to see some of that funding go
to the PAL or Kauai Police Activities League. It was something that was really emphasized by the
police chief. I think it's something that they could work within our school system where they would
kind of be dealing with these troubled children in the schools already and every high school, from
what I understand, there is a police officer to work with those troublesome children. So $500,000
just to do whatever you intend to do with that there, the rest I can see they should look into cost of
providing infrastructure to a proposed site, namely like the Mpu area opposite the Kauai Humane
Society. Look into that because from last week's hearing that we had, it seemed that the voice of the
general people that testified referred to the lUpu Humane Society area and it's something that's well
outside any residential district, at least 2 to 2 -1/2 miles from Puhi, not like what they have in the
Lihu`e proposed area in the (inaudible) Isenberg tract. For myself, it's a measly 250 feet from the
nearest corner from one of the proposed sections. That's close. In the lower section near the
(inaudible) station where there's a lot of concern about pollution in the ground there because of the
facility that was there where the ... where as a baseyard for those big cane haul trucks where they
were serviced and everything else, the neighbors down in that section, they've been looking right
over the hedge into the backyard, that's how close they'd be. So a lot of these things here should be
looked into. I would strongly like to see a police activities league started. Like as I say, the police
can work with those kids within the schools, the high schools, where a lot of the trouble starts. High
schools and the intermediate schools also, they could go from wherever the closest officers are
associated with, and I'm pretty sure that some of the schools or parents can refer to the PAL and
have them look after their kids. The county has a lot of playgrounds. They have neighborhood
centers, which is truly to me it's not going to be used fully.
Mr. Nakamura: Three minutes, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Rosa: And I always hear the county say we are for the youth, but a
lot of the things, there's nothing for the youth to participate in the parks. I pass Isenberg Park, I
pass Puhi Park. In Puhi they have two parks, one on the main highway and one in the back. There
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.13
are hardly any kids playing in it. There are some boards or sliding boards in the parks, but that's
about it. But like at Isenberg Tract, fortunately they use it for Pop Warner practicing and soccer
practicing. It's kind of being used, but a lot of the other parks, there's nothing. They could have
weekend programs by parks and recreation to keep those kids from being idle. Idleness causes
problems and causes trouble. Keep them active and their minds will be productive. So those are the
kinds of things I'd like to see the county go ahead and spend some money. You talk about helping
the youth, go ahead, help the youth, provide more funding for those youth because when I was
growing up, we used to have what you called the county recreation, and I can name the two that
were working with us. It was the late (inaudible) and Larry Ferreiro. They were people that were
active with kids as far as utilizing county programs of everything from softball to basketball. So use
the money efficiently and like as I say, look into funding if they need any for the Kipu area. Get the
infrastructure in, the roadways, or any more if you need any more water systems, electrical, they
have power up there so I don't see too much, as far as expenses, for any more infrastructure. So
that's about all I have to say. Like as I say, help the youth, go for it, just don't let it be talk. Talk is
easy but to execute is something else. So take care of the youth like you always say you want to help
the youth like from the late Bryan Baptiste and up to now Bernard Carvalho, they say they want to
help the youth and I guess that goes for the council here. I thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Mr. Rosa. Is there anyone else that would like to
speak on this item before council goes into deliberation? If not, members, I am going to ask the IT
department to come up referencing their budget presentation. I am also going to ask that Vice Chair
Yukimura take the meeting from here on the IT portion. I'm very sorry. I'm going to ask Mr. Rapozo
to take the meeting from here as I need to step out and make a conference call, but what we did not
have an opportunity to do is to have a complete presentation from IT from Brandon Raines. And
then when I come back I will call the meeting to order and review the process for committee decision -
making, so Mr. Rapozo, the meeting is yours.
(Chair Furfaro was noted excused at 10:08 a.m.)
IT Departmental Review
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. I will suspend the rules and go ahead, sir.
BRANDON RAINES, IT Manager: Good morning, everybody, glad to be here finally, it's
been a while. What I want to do this morning is kind of do a combined report. I'm sorry, Brandon
Raines, IT Manager for the County, for the record. What I'd like to do this morning is present a
combined operational budget report along with the CIP presentation, and try to get through both of
those this morning. So the first part of my presentation will cover the Information Technology
section of our finance budget report as submitted on April 14th. After this, I'd like to go through a
high level comparison chart illustrating our proposed operating budget and variances with the
current fiscal year, and then after that move on to the CIP review, addressing the projects that are
relevant to our division. An overview of the CIP projects was previously provided by a memo on
April 14th and that document's at the back of the packet that I gave to you. But we'll be going
through all those in detail as we go through.
So I'm starting off with the operational budget review. Within the information technology
division, or IT, our mission is to provide the mayor's office, county agencies, and county council with
information technology services which enable them to serve the public in a cost effective manner and
efficient manner. The primary goal of our division is to provide quality customer service and expert
technical services that empower county employees through their availability of accessible and useful
information as well as the automated systems that improve their productivity. This goal is
complemented by several key objectives: (1) to provide the county employees with easily accessible
technical support and timely responses by our centralized helpdesk function; (2) we maintain and
enhance the county's technical infrastructure to ensure reliable, efficient and secure operations; and
(3) we assist county agencies with the procurement and implementation of new systems that will
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.14
increase operational efficiencies as well as improve the services available to our citizens. (4) Finally,
we recommend solutions and strategies that leverage the power of technology to address countywide
needs.
Several IT accomplishments were mentioned back on the 14th presentation, but I wanted to
highlight some of our more recent successes. We implemented the Granicus webcasting solution to
provide live county meeting coverage over the internet as well as on- demand access to the meeting
archives. This provides a great service to our citizens by increasing their access and promoting
transparency. We upgraded the internet band width for our primary county offices in order to
increase productivity and prepare for future initiatives. In addition to making it easier to get our
jobs done every day, this improvement lays the foundation for additional band width expansion as
may be needed to serve the county operations in the future. We coordinated with senior IT staff
across the state to facilitate relationships and exchange knowledge that can be utilized to improve
county operations. This involved establishment of regular "summit meetings" and is already
yielding valuable assets as we work together to share information and collaborate. This is a new
one, we were recently selected to receive a special achievement in GIS or SAG Award at the 2011
Esri International User Conference. This award is given to user organizations around the world to
recognize outstanding work in GIS technology. So in addition to achieving much here on Kauai with
limited resources, the County of Kauai was recognized for our unique initiative to provide
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.15
pictometry and GIS data on mobile device, and that was done by an IT partnership with Fire when
working on their MDT rollouts. So that's something to be proud of, putting Kauai on the map there.
To be sure, we face some serious challenges as we move ahead. The most significant I'd like
to outline here. Our staff to work ratio makes it difficult to provide quality customer service while
concurrently maintaining infrastructure and pursuing critical new projects. This is an issue that we
continue to face along with other county agencies, and in the face of this reality, we are working
closely with personnel to redescribe our open positions and ensure that we hire the most appropriate
staff to move county projects and priorities forward.
The county has many aging systems and paper intensive processes that need to be
addressed, but resource constraints will limit our ability to act quickly. While we cannot expect
things to change overnight, with proper planning and prioritization we should be able to realize some
short -term gains while we continue to strive towards long -term goals.
The current infrastructure and systems that we have in place are resource intensive
requiring a transition to alternative solutions that leverage non - county assets. We must evaluate
our current environment from top to bottom and implement strategies that allow us to do more with
less. This will require closer relationships with our existing technology partners, as well as the
adoption of new partners.
From a purely operational perspective there are several key improvements that we will work
on within IT during the coming year. We will evaluate current practices and develop a
comprehensive set of standard operating procedures for the department to optimize how IT does
business within the county. This will promote efficiency and consistency in all that we do. We will
review and improve vendor contracts and relationships to ensure appropriate service level
agreements. This will ensure that we have the necessary external resources available when they are
needed and that we leverage our vendor relationships to the fullest. We will implement a new
methodology for internal project planning and tracking as well as a new system to streamline
helpdesk activities. his will assist management and staff in maintain focus on deadlines and
deliverables.
Perhaps the most exciting part of being IT is the opportunity to work on upcoming initiatives
that will have a major positive impact. The following is a quick overview of the initiatives we'll be
focusing on in the coming year. Most of these I'm going to discuss as part of the CIP, but I wanted to
give you a quick overview here as well.
Infrastructure Improvements — We will address critical hardware and software maintenance
issues and improve performance of network applications and create key systems integration where
needed. While not glamorous, this work will improve efficiencies in our daily operations and have an
immediate impact. We will also prepare underlying architecture foundation for the next generation
of applications, proper testing environments, and deployment of cloud -based services. Cloud -based
services also referred to as hosted environments or software as a service utilize third -party
infrastructure and expertise to deliver key applications functions without requiring internal
hardware, software, maintenance and monitoring. By off - loading this function to a third party, we
will help to free up our limited resources, allowing them to focus on providing services to move other
critical projects forward.
Countywide Document Imaging and Scanning, also known as back -log conversion — We will
complete phase I, that will happen here in the next couple months and evaluate results of a
countywide needs assessment for imaging requirements beyond this phase. This will allow us to
implement the next phases of the project based upon documented priorities that account for all
agencies. Scanning our records will provide a more secure storage solution, optimize document
retrieval, and eliminate the need for huge storage areas that are currently bursting at the seams.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.16
Electronic Plan Intake /Review — And this is one I'm kind of excited about. We will procure
and implement a new system to enable electronic plan intake /review and processing. This will
deliver an online repository of plans, allow our citizens to submit plans electronically via the
internet, and automate internal and external workflows associated with plan review and approval.
It will also provide efficient email communications and notifications between plan reviewers and our
citizens. Additionally, electronic plans will provide a significant green advantage in eliminating our
citizen miles driven back and forth to get plans approved. Finally, the project, electronic plan
intake /review, will enable down the road options to improve public safety by having building plans
available to public safety staff in the field.
Purchasing Automation — There are several initiatives that I've been working on with my
friend who's here in the audience, Ernie from purchasing, that we've targeted for purchasing to help
move them forward. We will implement the automated solution to enable solicitation and bid
processing awards over the internet to realize huge internal savings in time and paper printing as
well as vendor partner efficiencies and convenience. Also, we will create a centralized electronic
repository for tracking contract details and documents improving contract management, storage, and
retrieval. Finally, we will support the P -card initiative through implementation of an integrated
module and reports in the Sungard financial system, as well as a direct bank interface to
automatically download transactions.
And this last one is kind of a future. Forms Management & Workflow — As time allows, we
will plan to research, select, and implement a feature rich forms management system that includes
configurable electronic forms, workflow driven document routing, managed work queues, and
electronic signatures. Such as system could potentially save thousands of dollars per day once fully
implemented by eliminating the paper that we chase around the county every day.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, Brandon, appreciate that. Any questions for
Brandon? Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Brandon, for this presentation. It was worth the
wait and so I just have a couple of questions. Electronic plan intake and review, right now there are
several places you can go to in the county and there are mountains of paper, rolled -up paper. If you
go to the building division, for instance, on any given day you might see a truck pull up with giant
reams of ... rolls of paper, literally, I'm not joking. This initiative could eliminate all of that. Is that
correct?
Mr. Raines: Thank you, this initiative will, as I would say, stop the
bleeding. It'll stop the paper coming into the county. It won't address necessarily the paper that we
already have accumulated over the years, all the historical plans, that type of thing, that will be
addressed separately by our document imaging process.
Mr. Bynum: Right.
Mr. Raines: But yes, one part is to stop the inflow of paper and the next
part is scan the existing paper to get it online. But they will be integrated. The back history of plans
will be scanned and part of this E -plan review system so that new plans coming in and old plans will
be accessible in a standard way going forward.
Mr. Bynum: As will the purchasing automation initiative do the same
thing, correct?
Mr. Raines: Yes, purch... sorry, go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: Go ahead.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.17
Mr. Raines: You're exactly right. The scanning capability, and I'll get into
this before... but obviously we'd like to do the backlog of scanning for the entire county but we have to
pick and choose and set priorities based upon the funding allowed to go to the next set or phase of
that project.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, and then the other benefit of these kinds of initiatives
is increased productivity of our county workers. Is that correct?
Mr. Raines: Absolutely. You can look around the county and every minute
of every day people are looking for documents, whether they are trying to do their job or they're
trying to respond to a public inquiry, countless hours are spent on that type of activity and by having
those documents online, scanned into a repository with searchable fields and indexes, it allows us to
be much more efficient in the way that we respond to those inquiries.
Mr. Bynum: I see Mr. Barreira in the audience today because he gave an
excellent presentation about his plans and I know you guys are working in concert with that.
Mr. Raines: Absolutely. We spend a lot of time together.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.18
Mr. Bynum: And then the other benefit that you're mentioning is
increased customer service to our citizens.
Mr. Raines: Absolutely.
Mr. Bynum: So they can access this information more readily without
having to drive to Lihu`e or contact staff members who have to drop what they're doing to go find the
paper not only for their own work but requests from the public, right?
Mr. Raines: That's correct. Once it's scanned we can, where appropriate,
make it available to the public via website.
Mr. Bynum: So I told you when I met you, when I started with the county I
was running a computer with windows 95 that hadn't been serviced for years by Microsoft and every
time someone in my office would print, the computer would stop working for about two minutes
because it was the print server for the entire office. We've come a long ways since then, but we're
kind of at this position where we've done investment in GIS and in document imaging, kind of
dealing with the backlog, and we're really ready to take the next step to really realize those
productivity and customer service gains. Have I got this right?
Mr. Raines: You've got it.
Mr. Bynum: Okay and so ... this is an outstanding investment of our
resources in terms of improving worker productivity and service and saving money in the long run,
so please keep us informed if money becomes an obstacle for us realizing the investments that we've
already done and congratulate Garrett for the award that you received. In your budget this year
there are no dollar- funded positions that you intend to fill?
Mr. Raines: There are no dollar- funded positions. We actually have two
open positions that we are looking to fill. However, I've been working closely with personnel. As you
know, I came on board only in December and I felt it was important to understand our resources that
we have, understand our challenges, and do a full evaluation. So I'm working closely with personnel
to redescribe the open boxes, if you will, to make sure that we fill those with the most appropriate
individuals to take us forward with these priorities. Sometimes we have skill sets that we'd like to
fill that we don't have. In other cases, it would be nice to have some redundancies so that we have
more than one GIS expert and more than one network expert. Having single points of failure is not
really a good idea in any organization.
Mr. Bynum: Single points of failure, that's an interesting term. So we're
really at the margin in terms of people that when somebody gets ill or leaves or there's a vacancy, we
don't have that redundancy built in to try to fill that.
Mr. Raines: We do the best that we can.
Mr. Bynum: Last question. The broad band improvements for the county,
we will realize when we move back to our original building?
Mr. Raines: Absolutely.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Any other questions? Councilmember Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Wow, this is a really excellent report, thank you, really clear
and good mission goals and objectives. So my question is you talked as one of your successes and
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.19
achievements about implementing the Granicus webcasting solution to provide live county meetings.
We're still working on that for council, are we not? Or is that accomplished?
Mr. Raines: Well, we are actually doing it today. This is actually being
broadcast and published on the website. The next phase of that is —I think this is what you're
getting at— publishing additional documentation onto the website.
Ms. Yukimura: Well on- demand access to meeting archives.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.20
Mr. Raines: No, that's available today. Basically every council meeting,
planning commission meeting, those meetings are being taped live and streamed live out over the
internet so people can watch as we're speaking today. We're also out there on the website for future
reference. So instead of waiting for them to appear on television at an hour, you have on- demand
access on the website of the county's just to go back and reference.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, so what we're working on is what citizens have been
asking about, having access to current agenda documents in a timely way. That is not covered here
and that's one of the initiatives that we're working on.
Mr. Raines: It's not covered here. It is definitely one of the initiatives that
we're working on in the background. I've been working closely with Jay, Peter, etcetera on the
council. I've worked with all of you guys to kind of show you where we're going, but the next stage of
this and we've come a long way. We're streaming meetings and we've got the agenda out there. But
the next stage is to provide linked easy access to all the supporting documents that are referenced by
the agenda.
Ms. Yukimura: And what kind of time frame are we looking at for that?
Mr. Raines: That is going to be dependent on IT working with council
services. I will tell you that there was a purchase of a new multi- function device to allow scanning of
searchable PDFs in one pass so that we can be as efficient as possible. That bid was awarded and
went out, so we're within 60 days of having that device here in -house and after that, I made the
personal offer for IT to work with council on best practices in terms of how we want to organize those
documents, how that scanning might happen, and the work that would be entailed to make that
happen on a week by week basis.
Ms. Yukimura: So maybe by the end of the year?
Mr. Raines: I certainly hope so.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, and then congratulations on the award for GIS. I have
to say I'm really surprised and that may be because I haven't kept updated on our GIS plan. I'm not
even aware of it. And maybe that is something that you can brief us or me on in the future because
I've seen that ... when I was mayor, we hired the first GIS planner with FEMA moneys post -
hurricane, but that didn't seem to last very long. And so I've always known the importance of a
GIS system and very excited that we might be approaching a system that is going to really create
great gains for our county workers but also for the public. So do we have a GIS plan?
Mr. Raines: The GIS plan, basically GIS is used by many agencies
already. We have one primary resource within IT that does GIS, but we also have super users in the
different agencies that are talented with GIS as well, for instance Sean Smith in Fire, that's who
Garrett partnered with, and their work is basically the crux of this award. So we do have super
users around. As far as the plan, you'll see that kind of in my CIP presentation.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Mr. Raines: I've lumped quite a bit under what I call IT infrastructure,
but one of those elements is GIS and how that integrates with our existing systems and where we go
from here forward. But the main thing about GIS is making it more accessible to the people that
need it and looking for ways to integrate it with our applications so that our users can access it.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, and there must be some need for standardization
amongst the different departments.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.21
Mr. Raines: There definitely will be standardization in terms of how we
publish the information, what kind of servers we use to serve out that information. The interesting
thing about GIS is that you can develop these layers that can do just about anything. So the layers
that support fire would be very different from the layers that might support let's say a roads division
when we bring that on, and they're looking at GIS maps of work that they're doing out there,
etcetera.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. So my last question is about your electronic plan
intake /review, your upcoming initiative. There's been a huge hue and cry about our permitting
system and how long it takes to get permits. Will this facilitate a streamlining of our permit system?
Mr. Raines: It's actually going to integrate out -of- the -box with our
building permit system that we have in place today. So that will contribute to streamlining the
permitting process and the plan review process as it goes through the workflow of the various bodies
that touch those plans before they get approved.
Ms. Yukimura: Will this include planning permits as well as building
permits?
Mr. Raines: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, great, thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, any other questions? Mr. Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Aloha and mahalo. I just have a quick question following up
on what Councilmember Yukimura was saying in talking about the website and the council
meetings. I've actually been trying to look at it and it sort of works, but... and I don't know if it's my
own computer. But I'm curious as far as going forward, are you going to follow up with the people
and see that it's serving them well and maybe ironing out the bugs and making sure it works? It
would be helpful, I know it's probably your intent, to have sort of like a search function because for
now all I see is that you click on the meeting and then you start it and you watch it and you can drag
the bars to move to another place, but how do you pick a place or pick an issue? I've actually seen
the documents sitting beside it with the agenda and what have you, but if there is a way to pick the
issue or pick the person giving the testimony, to search it and then to watch that particularly, I
think it would be really valuable to all of our citizens.
Mr. Raines: I totally agree with you and there is actually online a search
function where you can ... our meetings, there's a little bit of a lag so it's not the most current ones,
but we're doing the teletype where people can see the words onscreen. So that transcript of the
meeting is actually attached there so that you can search. Right now online you can type in a key
word and search and it will show you all the references to the previous meetings that contain that
word, whether it be fire or police or what have you, and it will bring up a list of all the items that
match just like you would do a Google search and then you can click that and it will take you to that
meeting and that part of the meeting where that key word was referenced.
Mr. Kuali`i: So the other thing is that this software or what have you or
the way that it's put together is meant to be like your average user at home with their average
computer, they should be able to get through that? I mean you know how sometimes it's
downloading.
Mr. Raines: Oh, you're talking about band width and lag time.
Mr. Kuali`i: The ability that it's user friendly, that people don't get
frustrated when they try to use it and then... and it might be because of the capabilities of their own
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.22
computer, but I'm just wondering if you're designing it in a way to satisfy the average user out there
as opposed to a super user who has a great computer that a lot of people don't have, you know? And
then the other thought along those lines is, say, if there's an average type computer in the library
that people go to because they don't have a computer at home, would this work on that computer?
Mr. Raines: There are two things. - When you work across the internet
there's band width and what kind of speed to you have access and then there's the user interface
piece, how user friendly is it. The Granicus system and the user interface that we use is pretty
standard. It comes with Granicus and you'll look at other sites that are running Granicus, whether
they be —I think one of their clients is San Diego or even maybe Oahu is using Granicus —but the
user interface is largely the same and considered pretty user friendly. One of the things that I can
talk about later as part of my, again, CIP pieces and the infrastructure pieces, we are going to be
reaching out to the community to ask about how we can better service them from a technology
perspective. And I would hope that if there are issues in the community with that type of capability
that that type of survey would identify those as well as suggestions from the community for how we
can improve.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.23
Mr. Kuali`i: So then the only last thing is that for those people who don't
have computers, I'm just assuming that there's a computer in the library that the public can use.
But would the county work with the library to make sure that that is happening or make it available
themselves somewhere. I mean you're putting all this out there and you'll reach the people who have
computers, but there's still a lot of people that don't.
Mr. Raines: Absolutely. That's a good point.
Mr. Kuali`i: Thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Bynum?
Mr. Bynum: Just to follow up. Thank you again for a good presentation,
but regarding this Granicus, your document says we've completed this initiative and I believe on
your side that's accurate. The template is there, the capabilities are available, and it's up to the
departments about what ... you can't dictate what the departments choose to use, how they choose to
use that capability. Is that correct?
Mr. Raines: That's correct. Obviously IT stands ready to assist agencies,
whether it be council or the other agencies that are using the streaming in terms of getting from
point A to point B. But yes, the technology is in place. There's nothing keeping us from... other than
our own internal operations and our own internal agencies from publishing these documents with
links out there today.
Mr. Bynum: Right and so just to clarify that, I'm hopeful that the planning
department, for instance, will choose to put their supporting documents on that page when you see
their agenda with hot links that you can see the report that they're discussing because those are all
public documents. I hope they choose to do that and council services with the current chair has a
commitment to do that with council documents. So as soon as we work out the bugs, because we
have the capability, right, we can put hot links on our agenda to the supporting documents. So last
week, for instance, I got several calls from people saying I'm trying to find a copy of that vendor bill
on the county's website and I can't find it anywhere. In the future we would have that and I would
hope that we choose at council service, especially for bills, to also have that listed on our web page,
not just through the Granicus interface, that'd be one way to get it, but here's pending bills that
somebody can go right to it and all of those capabilities are in place now.
Mr. Raines: That's correct.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, any other questions? Councilmember Nakamura?
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you for your presentation. I have one question. One of
the challenges that you mentioned in your report is that the staff to work ratio makes it difficult to
provide quality customer service while concurrently maintaining infrastructure and pursuing critical
new projects. And I wanted to ask you, is there a best practice staff to work ratio or do we have any
comparable IT staffing levels from other counties?
Mr. Raines: I'll tell you this. I don't know if there's a best practice within
governments and counties, I'm new to government. There are 150 people on City & County of
Honolulu's IT team, compared to our 11. There are 30 or thereabouts on Maui. I think the Big
Island is kind of in our same boat. The definitely have more than us, but they have a huge
geographic area to cover so that present challenges to them. In addition there are IT people in
police, fire and council services on the other islands. So if you add it all together, I'd say we are
definitely understaffed in terms of trying to deliver service to the county when compared to other
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.24
folks. Obviously their tax base is a lot bigger so they can afford to staff a little bit differently. My
goal over the next year is to try and work more intelligently, recognizing the fiscal realities that we
all face. There are opportunities to work smarter, leverage our vendor relationships, perhaps push
some software out into the cloud so that we're not in kind of a maintenance heavy lifting mode and
more in a hey, can we deliver more services to the folks that are out there mode.
Ms. Nakamura: And just to follow up, I think that the more productive we can
be by using technology, the better it is for this county. And I know you're new to this job, so it would
be interesting to see if we did have additional staff, what further could be accomplished in a given
year. So these are opportunities that we are missing out if we don't have the bodies to carry and
implement these important projects that we know will ... they'll cut down costs, cut down paperwork,
improve our efficiency. So I'd be interested in looking at that and we'll be asking staff to include that
in a follow -up question.
Mr. Raines: Okay.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, any other questions? Go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: (Inaudible.) I'm just very interested in these topics. Just for
what it's worth, for users that are using the streaming video, I am hearing some concerns that it's
difficult to access, that they can't back up. It's like, oh, I want to back up. It should have the
capability, right?
Mr. Raines: Yeah, my experience in using it is if it's a matter of backing
up it's just sliding the slider bar. Again, that's more for archives. When it's streaming, live
streaming, it's live streaming. In terms of accessing an archive, it should be as easy as sliding the
bar and waiting for it to buffer and catch up and go.
Mr. Bynum: And then current turnaround time for that indexing for
archive is just a couple days, yeah? And so within a couple days there are links on the left -hand side
that allows you to go to the portion of the meeting that you're interested in, right?
Mr. Raines: And those links will get even better as we move forward with
the changes that we talked about in the agenda to put it in a more outline format so that's a little bit
tightly coupled, so you can just click the agenda and it will just go to that section of the...
Mr. Bynum: And council services is being responsive to those suggestions,
I assume, yeah.
Mr. Raines: We've presented it to everybody and we're going to be circling
back around now that the multi- function device is here.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, great, thanks.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. Any more questions? I have one question. Do we
have the ability to track the unique visitors that come to the Granicus site?
Mr. Raines: No. We can track numbers but not unique IP addresses or
anything to that nature. So I can't tell you what computer or IP address it's coming from. But the
standard reports... maybe Granicus can do that, but the standards that I have seen to date are more
about number of people accessing it over the time period of the meeting.
Mr. Rapozo: Right, but it could be the same person logging on, watching,
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.25
logging off, logging back on, they'll count twice.
Mr. Raines: They would count only once for each period that
they're... again, it's kind of over the time period of the meeting where it's saying this many people are
watching at this particular moment.
Mr. Rapozo: Yeah, if I want to know...
Mr. Raines: Unique users, is that what you're looking for?
Mr. Rapozo: Well, I'm trying to figure out how many people are actually
watching, unique visitors. I know there are a ton of county workers who watch it at work while
they're at their desks. But I want to know how many unique people outside, unique meaning if
there's a way to track the individual users, not IPs. At last week's council meeting, how many
different people logged in to watch the meeting. Is that...
Mr. Raines: I'll check on that. I have not seen that report from Granicus
Mr. Rapozo: Typically when you put a segment on the stream, how many
users are actually watching?
Mr. Raines: It varies for the meeting. Obviously sometimes people turn in
more for budget pieces, but on average it's probably, and again I haven't looked at the information
awhile, so I'm guessing somewhat between 30 and 50 during peak periods.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, so 30 to 50 during the peak times.
Mr. Raines: Yeah.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, thank you, appreciate your comment about being
considerate of the fiscal position of the county and trying to go do more with less. I wish everyone
had that philosophy, we would be in much better shape today, but appreciate that. Okay, CIP. We
have to take a caption break at 11 o'clock. So I don't know if we can wrap this up in 20 minutes, but
if we could, I'd appreciate it. Cannot? Is it too long? You're going to need more time?
Mr. Raines; It depends on how long you guys want to take. I can
definitely spend more than 20 minutes.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, you know what? Let's do the caption break. Is it okay
to take it early or did she have something to do at 11?
KAINOA, videographer: Yeah, we're switching captioners at 11.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, okay, proceed, thank you.
Mr. Raines: I'll move into the second section, which is the CIP now, and I
will attempt to get through it as quickly as possible.
Mr. Rapozo: No, no, take your time, take your time. We're not going to do
it before 11:00, so just take your time.
Mr. Raines: Okay, first page of the CIP, I talk a little bit about project
summary. There are right now five capital improvement projects listed in the CIP budget that have
been assigned to IT and each of these projects, I'm going to review in detail for you, but I wanted to
note that the funds for the IT SOA Project or service - oriented architecture project have been
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.26
reallocated to the IT infrastructure improvements project so that in effect that reduces the total
project count to four and below, right here is a summary of the projects with a high level status,
funding amount, and funding source. We have planning, zoning and engineering for $189,000 out of
the general fund; document imaging for $570,000 out of the general fund; IT infrastructure
improvements for $644,000 out of the bond fund; and payroll personnel for $395,000 out of the bond
fund.
Project Review Methodology — With the exception of the document imaging project, all of
these projects have limited project activities to date. Of the three remaining projects, only two are
being initiated in 2011 and one is actually being assigned a new expanded scope. So given the
transition, the following review methodology will be utilized to present these projects in hopefully a
standard and comprehensive manner. Each project will be reviewed in the four major section
headings. I'll go over those really quickly here. History and Background: This section is going to
provide a general overview of the project including conceptual definition, origination, past activities
and current status /plans. Scope and Benefits: High level definition of project deliverables and
benefits to be realized by the project's implementation. Return On Investment: Look at the costs
and benefits, and illustrate how the project will pay for itself. And finally Implementation Logistics'
and Estimated Timelines: Looking at a high level description of the implementation milestones as
well as our estimated timeline for achieving them.
So I'll start off with planning, zoning, engineering system. History and Background: Based
upon IT department research in 2011, this project was never previously defined at a detailed level.
The original high -level scope involved Sungard ERP (that's our financial system), functionality for
planning and GIS integration but was never seriously pursued.
As of early 2011, IT partnered with planning and public works to consider solutions for
electronic plan intake and review in order to address critical inefficiencies and obstacles associated
with the current paper -based processes. These included electronic submission and elimination of
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.27
incoming paper, streamlining our plan review process so we can get the job done quicker, integrate
with existing systems, for instance building permits, and improving our internal and external
communications with these email type of alerts.
IT determined that our existing ERP vendor, Sungard, was offering the ePlan Review
solution as a modular integrated add -on to the core system. Further research indicated that this
would offering meet our needs and actually be a best -of -breed product implemented successfully
across the country. A few examples, I won't read them here, but you can see them for yourselves.
It's all over the country and doing some pretty amazing things.
The ePlan Review solution from Sungard is actually a re- branded version of a product called
ProjectDox from Avolve Software, and is available to us for discounted pricing through the
Sungard / Avolve relationship. It's something that we can really take advantage of to get from
Point A to Point B a lot more efficiently than some other folks. Following multiple demos with the
vendors, planning and public works is in agreement that the solution would provide great benefits
not only to our internal operations but also improve service to our citizens.
IT is proposing that we utilize these CIP funds in this project to procure and implement the
ePlan Review solution from Sungard. And the preliminary quotes that we've received from the
vendor indicate that these CIP funds are sufficient to make this happen, including hardware,
software, and services to implement the project.
Scope and Benefits: I read quite a bit about the ePlan Intake Review system already when I
was going through my overview under operation, so I won't spend too much time on that. But the
features and functions provided by ePlan Review will create many benefits for our county staff and
citizens. These include increased productivity for plan intake and review, permit issuance, and
inspection processing, accelerated plan review process with reduced errors, reduced counter
submissions improving staff efficiencies, and online access to approved plans.
In addition the features and benefits for the ePlan Review system support our overall Holo
Holo 2020 goals to promote green and sustainable solutions. We're talking about reducing paper and
saving trees, reducing the amount of miles driven and therefore our carbon footprint, and
eliminating the need for additional storage.
In terms of Return On Investment: The ePlan Review solution improves staff efficiencies by
an estimated 20 percent, significantly reducing the amount of hours required to review each plan,
and that estimate is based upon client surveys who have already adopted this technology.
For the citizen applicant there are also significant cost savings in printing and miles driven,
not to mention we're helping the environment. Due to time, there is a ROI kind of green calculator
towards the end of the presentation. I won't go through it in detail here, but it is available for you to
go ahead and look at that ROI in a more detailed fashion.
Going over the Implementation Logistics and Estimated Timeline: May 2011 (this month)
try to secure the CIP funding for this project as part of this presentation. From June to November of
this year, try to procure the ePlan Review solution and assemble the project team. December of this
year through June of next year, what I call Phase I of implementation and that's internal
communications, planning and education because we have some homework to do internally, and then
also work on the site installation, initial testing, and developing application champions to help move
the project forward. Phase 2 of the implementation would be July through December of next year.
This includes public communications, user training, initial pilots and a staged go -live. We probably
wouldn't do it all at once, but I'm hoping by the end of next year we would be putting this online.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, Mr. Chair.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.28
(Chair Furfaro was noted to be present at 10:47 a.m.)
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. You ended on page 4 of your CIP
section?
Mr. Raines: That's it.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, could we ask questions about this section before
we go on?
Chair Furfaro: Yes. We have questions on this section. Vice Chair
Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I'm kind of overwhelmed. This is really incredible that ... I'm
very impressed with the research that was done. I like the term best -of -breed and you know that
should be our motto throughout the county. So I looked at your Return On Investment, which is, I
guess this green thing, Sungard.
Mr. Raines: Yes, Sungard. There's two pieces. There's an input page and
then an estimated return on investment page.
Ms. Yukimura: This is an actual possibility that we would save $355,000.00
every year?
Mr. Raines: Yes, if you agree with the assumptions on the input page, it's
just simple math.
Ms. Yukimura: Well, are the assumptions accurate to your knowledge?
Mr. Raines: They're accurate to my knowledge, yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, and then...
Mr. Raines: I have not... excuse me, I have not validated it to the best of
my ability with planning, but obviously they're very busy, so it is the best guesstimate at this time.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah, an estimate is all we need. So that's like the county is
saving $355,000 and then the applicants are saving $1.2 million a year, that's an annual savings.
Mr. Raines: In printing costs and miles driven.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah, well, I mean, councilmember ... well, I think a lot of
people mentioned it, but Councilmember Nakamura was talking about the increase in efficiencies
translated into savings, and I'm not even mentioning the carbon release reduction in it, but that's
quite extraordinary and very exciting, and really helpful in terms of us knowing the value of this CIP
expenditure. So thank you very much.
Chair Furfaro: Any more questions? Everything that we discussed over
lunch is current because I missed this presentation, I had to go to a ... so there are no changes from
what you and I spoke about at lunch?
Mr. Raines: That's correct, there are no changes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, thank you. Mr. Bynum?
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.29
Mr. Bynum: Thank you for an outstanding report and I particularly like
this community outreach initiative that you've included here to actually talk with our users about
what their perceptions are and what their needs are and so I said what I said earlier, this increases
productivity for everyone. You've also underlined something that I've come to understand that the
County of Kauai never, in my opinion, went out and got a whole bunch of unnecessary employees
and loaded up. Even during the good times we kept things lean, and so when we're having dollar -
funded positions or no new IT positions, it's because we've never had a bloated government. And so
when you start with a kind of a lean operation and then you need to make cuts, it makes it...it
impacts productivity even more. So if we put some initiative into this and all of our employees are
more efficient, it relieves some of that pressure to add positions, right? So thank you for a great
presentation.
Mr. Raines:
You're welcome.
Chair Furfaro:
Anything else?
Ms. Yukimura:
Let's go on.
Mr. Raines:
You want to go to the next?
Chair Furfaro:
Okay, let's go on.
Mr. Raines: Okay, next CIP project, Document Imaging, start off with the
History and Background: This is a previously existing project that has been defined as a countywide
initiative requiring multiple phases and spanning several years. Phase I is currently scheduled for
completion in June, but we will be slipping into July and August due to extended work efforts down
here at the council and also an additional MVR scanning phase. In terms of background, here are
some additional details about Phase I itself just to bring everybody up to speed. Phase I included the
following agencies: county attorney's office, elections office, county council and finance motor vehicle
registration. Phase I was originally scheduled for completion in November 2010 but was extended to
June by contract amendments in order to accommodate additional pages. As noted it will be
extended again in order to make best use of the contractors who are already here deployed on Kauai,
again, so we can get that second part of the MVR or motor vehicle registration. The Phase I budget
was $730,000, which is currently holding. This includes the additional $80,000 that was recently
encumbered for additional MVR scanning because that was originally underestimated.
Previous planning documents included a number of agencies spread over additional phases
and years. However, not all agencies were accounted for and some page estimates were very rough.
In order to develop a comprehensive plan incorporating all county agencies, we initiated a needs
assessment project to include the remaining areas of the county operations. This information will be
used to scope Phase II as well as other phases until the project is completed. Here are some
additional details for Phase II as it sits today. The general fund CIP budget shows $570,000.
However, as I just mentioned, $80,000 of that has been allotted to finish off our first phase of motor
vehicle registration scanning. That leaves us with about $490,000 for Phase 2. Based upon our
currently available funding and our countywide needs assessment, Phase 2 will be defined to
incorporate planning for $280,000 and personnel for $210,000. There are obviously other
departments with critical scanning needs and they will be considered as part of Phase II should
additional funds become available. It will be important to coordinate with planning related work for
document imaging with our concurrent efforts to push the ePlan Review initiative forward.
Scope and Benefits: I don't know how ... there's a lot of scope and benefits here for document
imaging. I'll try to go through them quickly. Basically the document imaging project provides online
access to documents including key word indexing for optimized searches and automated retrieval.
Once those documents are scanned, it is possible to eliminate large storage areas required for storing
historical paper documents. The technology strategy for this project involves several key areas:
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.30
continued use of our existing investment in the Laserfiche scanning solution; contracted consultant
services to complete the scanning work while not adversely affecting our day -to -day operations;
agency specified document templates to categorize scanned documents for easy access; and
implementation of scanning devices allowing agency staff to scan their own documents going forward
and keep current once the contractors have addressed the backlog accumulated over many years. So
basically we take over after they catch us up.
In addition to automated retrieval capabilities and save storage space, there are other
benefits realized with the document imaging project. Public access, Councilman Bynum talked about
this before. Public documents in electronic form could be made possible on the website enabling self -
service to our citizens. Efficiency, when documents are made available electronically over the
internet, it saves our county staff time in answering document requests over the telephone and
making photocopies. Customer service, having automated search capabilities to access electronic
documents increases our accessibility speed for document access by our agencies and citizens. Every
second of every day we can see county workers searching for paper documents, which in most cases
would require significantly less time through key word indexing searches in an electronic repository.
Finally durability, with best practices applied where data is saved daily in a secure fashion (that's
what we do), paper documents won't be exposed to being lost, stolen, damaged by flood, hurricane,
insects or aging.
Return on Investment.
Chair Furfaro: Before you go to the ROI, hold on just a second. Are you
changing your recorders?
KAINOA, Videographer: Yeah, like in five minutes.
Chair Furfaro: In five minutes? Okay, we're going to have to take a break
because they're going to...
Kainoa, videographer: Okay, you can stop now if you want to.
Chair Furfaro: We can take our 10 minutes now?
Kainoa, videographer: Yup.
Chair Furfaro: And you'll change recorders?
Kainoa, videographer: Yeah.
Chair Furfaro: We're going to take a break at this ROI item. We're in recess
for 10 minutes.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 10:56 a.m.
The meeting was called back to order at 11:13 a.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: We're back in session, yes. Members?
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Raines: All right, I'm going to pick up where I left off here on Return On Investment
for document imaging, the CIP project. Document imaging improves staff efficiencies by reducing
the time it takes for them to find documents needed for internal operations as well as those
documents needed to respond to public inquiries. Citizens are able to access more information more
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.31
quickly when it is available in electronic form over the internet. In addition to providing better
customer service, the public access component allows citizens to opt for self service thereby reducing
our overhead on information requests. Eliminating paper reduces our current and future storage
costs while providing greater durability for our documents as discussed. Durability is clearly a great
value, but it's hard to quantify in terms of historical records, preservation, and loss costing a specific
amount of dollars. I do have a detailed ROI breakdown for that Phase II of the document imaging,
but I'm going to go to the next project if that's okay and you guys can look at that at your
convenience.
The last thing on document imaging is actually the Implementation Logistics and Estimated
Timeline: Securing funds again for the project Phase II in May, that's right now. June to November
we'll be contracting further services. We'll be creating the invitation for a bid, select a vendor, and
make an award to start the contract scanning. We also document the scanning methodology for each
department included with this phase. It's about defining those templates for retrieval that we talked
about earlier and then also determine the overlap /integration with the ePlan Review initiative as we
move forward so that by the time we get the services booked, we're ready to rock and roll. And then
finally December 2011 through December 2012, we will complete the actual scanning itself.
On to IT Infrastructure Improvements, this is a big one, so bear with me. It's also more the
technical side, so I'll try to keep it light. This is a previously existing project that was defined as a
series of specific infrastructure improvements that were subsequently reevaluated and modified to
better address current needs. The original project was funded at approximately $222,000.00. It
included the following items: replacement of obsolete servers. We actually modified this to purchase
some interim server warranty extensions and the support of a virtualization project that will replace
with obsolete servers with a more manageable robust server infrastructure in lieu of a traditional
server - for - server replacement. It's more value for our money, it helps our IT people work more
efficiently and it actually allows us to do more with less in terms of server horse power.
Installation of WebSense content filtering: This particular deliverable was cancelled
following additional research indicating that there was no significant benefit beyond what is already
in place. We use a barracuda setup to control web content filtering and so we shifted those dollars to
help support the virtualization project that I just talked about.
Rollout of a Persystent PC Repair Utility: This deliverable was replaced with rollout of the
Altiris solution that will address this need plus it will consolidate several other of our helpdesk
functions. So we're going to kind of get more bang for our buck by doing it all at once. Installation of
1 GB LAN with 5 core switches and 20 blades, that was actually completed per the original plan and
we've realized tangible benefits in increased network performance already. Again, that's a daily
operational benefit in everybody's lives.
As of this budget cycle, the project has been expanded to address the full breadth of
infrastructure priorities based upon a full review of existing systems, processes, automation
needs /requirements all across the county. The county has many paper- intensive processes that must
be addressed in the near term if we're going to optimize operations. The county's infrastructure and
systems are resource intensive requiring a gradual transition to alternative solutions that simplify
tasks, reduce overhead, and leverage non - county assets. For instance, increasing managed services
through our vendors, asking them to do more for us and adopting cloud -based services or software as
service solutions. We have some critical hardware and software maintenance issues that have to be
addressed to ensure that we have continued operations that are reliable and secure. We have
network and application performance must be improved where possible to increase efficiencies
including the creation of key systems integration, for instance, integrating GIS into applications,
looking at document attachments that can be attached to various application functions and linking
our ERP in real property systems.
The existing architecture foundation needs to upgraded for this next generation of
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.32
applications, including the creation of proper test environments. In many cases we don't have
environments that allow us to test things before we put them into production and that's just not a
good way to do business. Our technology -based interfaces with the public need to be reviewed and
upgraded to improve associated services and communication, thereby realizing internal/external
efficiencies through automation.
History and Background: In order to better support the above infrastructure projects, a
decision was taken to merge the IT SOA project into the IT Infrastructure project. This will allow us
to apply funds where most needed and provide the flexibility required to realign our efforts based
upon current needs. I'll just talk a little bit about SOA. The initial plans for Service Oriented
Architecture or SOA Project were reviewed and industry contacts were surveyed. Rewards from a
full/formal SOA approach can be significant, but the analysis and development demands required for
such a transition are substantial, both for initial implementation as well as ongoing maintenance.
Implementing this leading (or bleeding) edge technology successfully can be difficult, and many have
failed despite large investments. Our limited IT staff and position funding are not sufficient to make
this successful while concurrently supporting other county needs. Additionally our current skills
sets are not a good match with this development environment. We are simply not staffed to be a
development shop as well as a service shop, and in this reality we need to focus on delivering service
instead of developing code. Given resource constraints and other priorities, IT will be leveraging the
various infrastructure investments to help realize these SOA goals of achieving an integrated
environment optimized for each agency, as well as require communications and information flow
between them. We will continue to keep an eye on the industry to see where SOA goes, the
challenges it presents and the rewards it brings. There may come a future time to move in this
direction, but that time is not now.
Scope and Benefits: The IT Infrastructure project will address several key deliverables in
many areas. In all cases, these will incorporate hardware, software and services that are required in
order to address critical maintenance issues while improving data accessibility and operational
efficiencies. The following is a high level listing of infrastructure areas, deliverables and costs that
are associated with each project. First off, there's critical maintenance. I've allocated $190,000.00 to
that. We will be replacing and upgrading our domain controllers. These are servers that control
network access in terms of security and just routing of communications. When those go down, the
network goes down and nobody's happy. Server virtualization, we have talked about this before.
Again, this is about replacing end -of -life servers before they go bad and have serious effects on our
ability to maintain operations. And we're going with server virtualization because that's the wave of
the future, industry indicates that and it's a better use for our dollars. Finally, increased storage
capacity and archival: We have growing demands for audio and video storage across several
agencies, everything from recording meetings, like Boards and Commissions, to a video that is taken
out there in the field with police, etcetera. So we definitely need to address these additional storage
capacity issues as well as the ability to archive that information.
The next major heading is Improved Access to Information and Services: I've got that
labeled for $140,000. Here I'm talking about... the two big things that I see for integration that we
need to look at is our GIS services and application integration across the board, again making that
plan that we have talked about earlier and looking at how best to move forward and make those
interfaces available. The website, posting and redesign, there's a lot of good stuff that's out on the
website. It's not always the easiest stuff to find. We've got a lot of different departments who are
participating in the content editing and that's great, not something that we want to cut off, but I
think we can do a better job with that and we need to look with that along with that band width in
services. We need to make sure that as we use it for more services that people can get to it
efficiently and realize the benefit of those additional functions that we bring online. And then
finally, key systems interfaces. This is about the glue that moves information between our very
disparate systems and we need to kind of pick and choose what's going to get our most bang for our
buck. I mentioned some of those earlier, but a couple key interfaces can make a world of difference
in our day -to -day operations.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.33
Architecture Foundation for $160,000.00, I have listed here a couple of third -party reviews.
Given our limited staff, I would like to bring in some outside folks to review our network
infrastructure and also our disaster recovery capabilities. I think those speak for themselves, but we
want to take this information and plan effectively as we go forward to respond to findings from those
reports. New systems infrastructure to support the next generation of applications, we need to build
out that infrastructure if we're going to take the county forward and put these new systems in place.
Also, this will provide the staging environment for testing and increase redundancy so we minimize
our points of failure so that we experience maximum uptime.
Scanning Capabilities and Paper Elimination $110,000, I've got some moneys in here for
departmental scanners and multi- function devices. We do have some agencies out there that are
not ... while we have Laserfiche available to them, they don't have the proper scanning equipment to
take advantage of it and we want them to be able to take advantage of it. And then here you see also
the initiative that I mentioned in my overview, electronic forms with automated workflow and
e- signature capability. If we can find the right tool to lace in with our existing systems, we can stop
chasing paper around and these little manila envelopes all over the place waiting for everybody to
sign it. It'd be a huge win in many ways. A big example of that, by the way, is purchasing where we
chase around requisitions and signatures at various levels before we buy anything.
Ms. Yukimura: A big example is what?
Mr. Raines: Purchasing and the requisition process because there are multiple levels of
approval, as there should be, but when we chase paper around, it's very inefficient.
Finally here Community Outreach initiative for Holo Holo 2020, I've got $40,000.00 here, but
let me tell you what I'm talking about here. And we kind of talked about it a little bit before it's the
whole survey of the public idea. Determining how we best serve Kauai through technology is a non-
trivial exercise that can be greatly simplified by understanding the public's perception of our
priorities and needs. Rather than assuming that we know what they want, we plan to gather public
input on technology -based services that are most important to our residents, including how they
interact with county government, as well as other opportunities to serve the community at- large.
This information will be collected over a fixed period of time, analyzed internally and then published
back into the community along with our plans to address some of the key items identified.
Publishing the results and the action plan in a timely fashion will create a positive feedback with
those who've participated while helping to promote overall transparency. The methodology used to
gather this data will be a simple survey published and submitted via the county website and made
available in hard copy for pick -up delivery at county premises and possibly public libraries. We will
work with the mayor's office to promote awareness and participation because what's a survey
without people participating? And the cost for the survey itself will be minimal because we're
leveraging the website and some printing costs, very minimal. The resulting projects will be
considered part of our public phasing infrastructure and thereby applicable to the CIP fund. That's
where the $40,000.00 comes in as responding to the public's input.
As a quick recap, the proposed deliverables in the IT Infrastructure project will have several
key benefits: address critical maintenance issues, require to ensure continued reliable access to
information and services, improve access to key data and enhance online services through increased
productivity, evaluate current architecture, and establish a foundation for the future, leverage
technology to realize staff efficiencies through elimination of paper processing, and finally identify
community priorities for technology and take appropriate actions where necessary.
Return On Investment: The IT Infrastructure project will improve staff efficiencies by
providing better access to key business information, as well as citizen access to additional services
that enable self- service. Additionally, providing staff with access to the next generation applications
and electric forms processing will increase productivity while eliminating time wasted on chasing
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.34
paper throughout the operations. Addressing critical maintenance issues will prevent costly down
time by ensuring a robust and reliable environment as we move forward. Each area targeted in the
project will provide its own ROI based upon efficiencies and preventive measures noted above, and
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.35
for more detail, again, I'm not going to drill down into it, but there is an attachment at the end of the
report that lays out the ROI that we would see by avoiding downtime and staff efficiencies
anticipated.
Implementation and Logistics and Estimated Timeline for Infrastructure Improvements:
This is actually those major headings that I talked about I'm going to go through each one of those.
Obviously May 2011, that's now, we're talking about securing these funds so that we can get this
work done. For critical maintenance, between June and August, we are going to purchase the
required hardware /software /service components that we need to address the critical maintenance
issues. And then from September through December, we're going to actually implement and bring
on those new components online. So by the end of the year we should be in a much better position
than we are today.
Improved Access to Information and Services: We're going to establish priorities for GIS
integration, identify partners for website hosting /redesign and create specifications for key system
interfaces between June and the end of the year. Starting at the beginning of next year and
hopefully to next June, we will purchase the required vendor services and start the implementations,
get that stuff kicked out.
Architecture Foundation: Between June and August of this year, we'll research third -party
reviewers and identify a short list. In September through December, we will actually purchase those
review services and infrastructure components. And then starting next year, over the first six
months of next year, we'll complete the third party reviews, establish detailed plans for new systems
infrastructure and start to bring that infrastructure online.
Staff Efficiency and Paper Elimination: Again, June through August of this year, complete a
countywide evaluation of scanning device needs and requirements not yet addressed. Research an
electronic form solution. Starting in September of this year and going through March of next year,
purchase and install equipment and establish timeline to purchase electronic form solution. April
2012 initiate purchase activities for the electronic form solution.
Finally Community Outreach Initiative for Holo Holo 2020: And again, I'd like to pull this in
as far as possible, but this is a nice conservative estimate. Between June and the end of the year,
we'll complete the first phase of the community outreach initiative including a survey distribution,
results publication, and identification of the resulting projects. Starting in January of next year,
depending on what those projects are, we're going to initiate plans to implement those survey- driven
deliverables.
And that's all under Infrastructure.
Chair Furfaro: Brandon, Holo Holo programs that are identified in the CIP,
do you know the ratio of those CIP projects?
Mr. Raines: Right now I've got $40,000 dedicated to Holo Holo of the total
$640,000, so it's not a huge amount. But again, we can talk later and shift that as ... again, this is
going to be more about gathering input from our public and understanding what their priorities are.
Chair Furfaro: You've answered my question.
Mr. Raines: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: We have a $60,000,000 CIP Plan of which $31,000,000 have
been identified as Holo Holo projects. So I just wanted to get a comparison of the ratio.
Mr. Raines: Okay.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.36
Chair Furfaro: Council Vice Chair, yes.
Ms. Yukimura: This part, as you mentioned, is a really big part, big projects,
big money, and seems like big payoff. I want to say I really appreciate your analysis of the SOA that
we were moving toward and there were a lot of risks to it. And I think you've helped us pull back
and start to move toward the same goals but in a much better way, so thank you. I mean because so
much money is involved as well as staff time, it's really important that we proceed with very clear
vision and information, and that's what it looks to me like we're doing now, so thank you. My
question is on the return... oh, in all of this...
Chair Furfaro: What page are you on, councilwoman, so we can all follow
you.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah, it's basically page 9 and 11 is what I was looking at. In
all of this the proper use of consultants and contractors is important, and how not to get too
dependent on them so that for basic, our basic essentials our staff knows how to do it.
Mr. Raines:
Absolutely.
Ms. Yukimura: Something like that. So we're doing this here. I mean we're
doing enough cross training or having consultants come in and set up things, but we're training them
then to take over and know how to function and maintain?
Mr. Raines: Yeah, every time you contract with a consultant, one of the
major goals needs to be skills transfer to the degree possible.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, right.
Mr. Raines: So you want to, whether that's with a vendor in a new
implementation or kind of these third -party reviews that I'm proposing, one of the primary goals of
that is to actually transfer the skills from that report or from that analysis to the folks that we have
in -house so that we gain not only from having the third -party review and getting that done sooner
and we can react faster, but we also gain by bringing that expertise in -house so that we don't have to
go out again.
Ms. Yukimura: So that's always integrated wherever you are using
contractors or consultants.
Mr. Raines: That's always been the way I do business. I intend that to be
the way we do it.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, very good. And then in looking at your justification
that's your ROI, so that's your attachment in the back which is the third last page, I think, in your
report, taking the first item, critical maintenance, it's $190,000 cost and year one ROI is $22,000.
Mr. Raines: Actually it's negative.
Ms. Yukimura: Oh, it's negative $22,000.
Mr. Raines: And then it starts paying for itself.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, that's where I got off track. So, it's a negative $22,000,
we're still paying for the system, and then $146,000 the second ROI, so by the third year, we've paid
it off.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.37
Mr. Raines: Actually by year two. So somewhere between year one and
year two it will have paid for itself, and after that it becomes a profit because you're not losing
money for a system downtime because again, this is critical maintenance so we're talking about
avoiding system downtime, which costs us untold dollars when people can't have access to their
systems.
Ms. Yukimura: So, excuse my ignorance, but how do you get to the year three
ROI?
Mr. Raines: The assumption, if you look at critical maintenance, under
downtime due to equipment failure, the assumptions are listed here: three incidents per year
affecting approximately 400 users, losing about 4 hours of lost productivity, and an average wage of
$35. Obviously some real rough figures there, but when we do have system outages, half of the users
is definitely a realistic thing that happens and we've already had two system outages since I've
started work.
Ms. Yukimura: So you're still being conservative in calculating the ROI, but
okay.
Mr. Raines: So if you see three per year right, so you get $168,000 each
year because you're not having system downtime every year. So obviously the more years that go,
the more return on investment you get.
Ms. Yukimura: I see. Thank you very much.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum has a question for you.
Mr. Bynum: Regarding the scanning of documents, I have a concern and I
want to see if you share it. The reason to do that is so people can access that information more
efficiently through their computers as opposed to running around paper as you said. But isn't there
a training requirement here. I mean I asked earlier in the year on those agencies that were
scanning these files. It's like okay so we scan these, we put them in the computer and then the
paper goes away. Well, in some places they said yes, in other places they said no, we're going to
hang onto those paper files. And so if we don't work with the staff to actually use the capabilities
and they keep going back to the paper files and using the storage space and then we really haven't
realized a return on investment. So has that been looked at about how do you train and...
Mr. Raines: We do train agency staff on using Laserfiche, which is the tool
that we have in place, both during the initial implementation where we build these templates that
allow for key words searches and then we also train them on how to do those searches using the
Laserfiche application. We cannot force them to get rid of their paper or do the searches using the
tool. I wish we could.
Mr. Bynum: So it becomes a management issue in each department.
Ms. Yukimura: Exactly.
Mr. Raines: I would say yes.
Mr. Bynum: And I think that's really important for us to look at. But am I
correct in assuming that safe and secure storage of these documents should allow us to get rid of the
paper and recapture the space.
Mr. Raines: Absolutely.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.38
Mr. Bynum: Because I know just here in council services we have these
huge racks of paper. They're all moving off the racks into this area where they're being scanned by
our consultant. I think they're going to end up going all back on those huge racks and taking up
space in our new building and it's really not...
Chair Furfaro: That's his belief.
Mr. Bynum: Well, my fear.
Chair Furfaro: That's his fear.
Mr. Bynum: That's my fear. Is that a legitimate concern?
Mr. Raines: I think that you've failed to realize the benefit of doing all the
scanning if you don't get rid of the paper and use the tool that'll allow you to benefit from doing all
the scanning. Did I answer your question?
Mr. Bynum: Okay, so that's something at a departmental level we need to
make sure people get oriented to the use of these applications.
Mr. Raines: I'd say there are some departments doing it very well and
there are probably some that aren't doing it as well thus far.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah and I like the chair's reframing, that's just my concern.
We actually and I'm just using our operation as an example, but I've heard that from other
departments, like no, we're not going to get rid of that paper and others it's like, we can't wait to get
rid of that paper. So there's a real difference out there.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.39
Chair Furfaro: Before I recognize Councilwoman Yukimura, are you going to
be able to finish up with us by noon?
Mr. Raines: Yup, I have one more project following these questions.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, Councilwoman Yukimura, you have the floor.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Related to scanning, there is quality control or
some checks to make sure that the scanning is done properly so that the documents are accurate
representations and the paper can be thrown away? I mean I would hate to throw the paper away
and then have some issues come up regarding the authenticity or the availability of those scanned
electronic documents.
Mr. Raines: Understood. Again, that's kind of best practices responsibility
on the IT side to ensure that we are maintaining the storage facility, backing it up...
Ms. Yukimura: And the quality of the scan too...
Mr. Raines: And the quality of the scan as well.
Ms. Yukimura: ...is accurate and good and readable and all of that.
Mr. Raines: Mm -hm.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, great.
Chair Furfaro: Yeah, on that note, Mr. Bynum and I were just having a side
discussion, it's like the president's birth certificate. We want to have the original.
Ms. Yukimura: So last question on this area. So actually if there is a
management problem with getting rid of the paper, it may become an issue for the mayor to issue a
countywide directive about this, huh?
Mr. Raines: We need some scanning evangelists to ensure that this
happens properly in some cases. In other cases, it's not the case. Agencies are completely ready to
embrace and move forward and get rid of that paper.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes and actually having a few agencies model it and show
how it works could be very useful too.
Chair Furfaro: We hope to be that model here.
Mr. Raines: I want you to be that model as well.
Ms. Yukimura: Great.
Mr. Bynum: Hallelujah.
Chair Furfaro: So, we need to move on because those are operating issues
that are not directly reflected to your CIP and IT policy making, so.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Let's go on.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.40
Mr. Raines: Okay, next project is Payroll/Personnel and this one is
probably the, unfortunately, the least defined of everything that I have to share with you, but I'll
share with you what I have. The History and Background on the Payroll/Personnel: Based upon IT
department research in early 2011, this project was never fully defined at a detailed level. The
original project dates back to 2005 and it was originally scoped to include human resources along
with time and attendance. CIP funding was reinstated in 2009, and that's the current amount that
we're looking at right now, with the thought of leveraging an HR /Personnel functionality provided in
the existing Sungard financial system. Other than sporadic efforts to develop an RFP, there has
been really no significant efforts to move the project forward.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah.
Mr. Raines: Since 2008, the county has...
Chair Furfaro: We're good, Eddie? Excuse me, they were having a technical
problem.
Mr. Raines: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead.
Mr. Raines: Since 2008, the county has expended significant resources in
order to ensure that the existing Sungard system is FLSA compliant. Leveraging this investment
through continued use would be ideal, although not necessarily required. Payroll continues to be a
labor intensive process for the agencies, Finance /Payroll and IT. Paper -based timesheets result in
delays and errors, complicated compensation rules are managed without central controls and often
outside our primary financial system, and many hours are required to collect, input and verify
timesheet data in order to pay our employees correctly. This time is a recurring expense every
payroll cycle.
On the personnel side, the department is using NeoGov to automate recruitment activities
along with some basic level of personnel related functions in the Sungard payroll system. However,
most other personnel processes continue to be paper driven for the entire life of the employee. By
making personnel part of the scanning initiative next phase, that will start to alleviate some of that,
but it's not really a system solution.
As of early 2011 IT began working with Finance to revitalize this project through the
evaluation and /or reevaluation of several options: purchasing new Sungard modules for
HR /Personnel, and Time and Attendance, implementing third -party solutions interfaced with our
Sungard solution, or outsourcing payroll processing to an external party.
IT efforts to research HR /Personnel and Time and Attendance solutions were basically
halted when we decided to look at this payroll outsourcing option. The option to outsource payrolls is
really a game changer and we need to fully explore that before pursuing these other portions of the
project. This is required due to the integration between these areas. Payroll is tightly integrated
with personnel in terms of shared HR transactions. Payroll is obviously driven by time and
attendance data.
The project is currently in a research mode while IT works with finance to determine
available options for outsourcing payroll and whether or not the county wishes to pursue such an
option based upon our needs and requirements going forward. Along with this IT is working to
address long -term planning consideration for whether or not we decide to stay with our current ERP
solution Sungard or transition to a new vendor offering. Moving to our current vendor's next
generation solutions would be the less expensive option, but we must ensure that such a move
addresses our requirements for the future. If not, we need to look elsewhere.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.41
Chair Furfaro: Before you go any further on the particular payroll items,
there are systems ... I mean are there other counties using a system that covers all of the FLS
systems and...
Mr. Raines: Maui County is actually, interestingly enough from my
discussions with them, they've outsourced payroll, brought it back in- house, and are now outsourced
again. And I believe their vendor is ADP, if I'm not mistaken.
Chair Furfaro: Did you say ADP?
Mr. Raines: Yeah, I believe it's ADP.
Chair Furfaro: And they're capable of all of these premium conditions that
are negotiated at federal, state...
Mr. Raines: I'm still drilling down, but my assumption is yes, they have a
very similar union set up to what we have here on Kauai.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, that's all the information I need for now, thank you.
Mr. Raines: Okay. Scope and Benefits: I'll just take the different
functions as we went through. Outsourcing the payroll function could potentially have huge benefits
in terms of limiting the internal workload associated with every payroll cycle. However, we will need
to be careful about how this arrangement would affect our ability to report information internally,
integrate with in -house systems, and automate other portions of the project.
. Automating the time and attendance process and moving away from paper -based timesheets
would increase operational efficiencies across the county, help to enforce input standards, and
provide additional management information. The direction of our core payroll function must be
decided before moving forward.
Implementing a Personnel /HR system would improve staff efficiencies, provide better
integration with agency personnel staff, and enhance the information available to a core financial
system by linking personnel data and transactions to payroll. As above, the direction of our core
payroll function must be decided before we move forward on this one.
A little bit about Return On Investment: There are clear ROI implications for all areas of the
payroll /personnel project, most of which are associated with gains in staff efficiencies and the
elimination of paper -based processing. Again, there are clear ROI implications. Additionally,
increased automation integration between the payroll and personnel systems will provide an
additional layer of management information for guiding and analyzing our staff related decisions.
While hard to quantify, the information has obvious value in the ongoing management of our staff
and operations.
Detailed ROI documentation was not produced for this payroll/personnel review due to the
project being in flux. Since all areas of the project are interdependent, it is important that we
complete further research on the payroll outsourcing piece and its associated effects on time and
attendance and personnel/HR before determining steps going forward.
Additionally, the decision of whether or not we stay with Sungard is critical. Much like
outsourcing payroll, this is a true game changer. Staying with our current vendor and moving to the
next generation of solutions would be ideal since the cost and disruption would be far less than
selecting and implementing a new vendor solutions. However, staying with Sungard requires that
we are confident they can continue to be our ERP partner for the future and effectively address our
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.42
requirements going forward. If that's not the case, we will need to go the difficult route knowing that
effort is required in order to invest in our future and realize longer term goals.
Here's a little timeline that I put together. It's a little bit more complicated than the other
one because there's an if we do this, then this type of scenario going on. Again, May 1, secure the
CIP funding for this, make sure that we still have dollars to pursue. Sungard next generation
product research, this is again the Sungard decision piece. Between May of this year and October of
this year, determine if we should continue with Sungard as our ERP vendor. That's kind of
aggressive, but I thing we need to figure that out sooner than later. From November of this year
through March of next year, if we decide to stay with Sungard, proceed as planned below and start to
explore additional projects /implications of moving toward the next generation product.
Again, November to March of next year, if we decide not to stay with Sungard, reevaluate the
plans below and determine best use of funds going forward while initiating research efforts to
identify a new partner for the future.
from?
Chair Furfaro: Brandon, do we have that critical path that you're reading
Mr. Raines: It's in the presentation.
Chair Furfaro: What page?
Mr. Raines: It's not a Microsoft project.
Chair Furfaro: What page?
Mr. Raines: Page 14, it's the last page.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Raines: Before the ROI attachments.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I see it, thank you.
Mr. Raines: Payroll outsourcing, another kind of the game changer.
Between May and August complete research and decide whether or not we want to pursue this. No
further action is required if we decide not to pursue it. September of this year through February of
next year, assuming that we decide to pursue payroll outsourcing, purchase the services. Then
starting in March of next year, moving through March of 2013, again if we decide to pursue payroll
outsourcing, implement the solution. A lot of ifs there, but that's the best we can do at this time. I'm
sorry.
Time and attendance, May of this year through August of this year, research Sungard
offerings and partner solutions to interface with the existing payroll module as well as the next
generation product offering. Again, this is assuming this we stay with Sungard. So a lot of
assumptions as we go down here. September 2011 through February of next year, if we decide to
outsource payroll, determine the best way to pursue time and attendance, this functionality, in the
environment and /or procure it as part of that. Basically, if we outsource payroll, the time and
attendance component might be part of that outsourcing as opposed to something else we have to
buy separately. Again, assuming that we outsource payroll, implement that solution as part of the
payroll outsourcing solution. Kind of the B scenario, December of this year through April next year,
if we decide not to outsource payroll, purchase Sungard related solution. And then March of next
year through May of 2013, implement that solution for time and attendance within the Sungard
framework.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.43
Finally, personnel /HR, similar to time and attendance, research the Sungard offerings and
partner solutions to interface with existing payroll module as well as the next generation product
offering that's from May to August of this year. September of this year through February of next
year, again if we decide to outsource payroll, determine the best way to pursue this functioning in
that environment and /or procure as part of it. Again, it's tightly linked to the outsourcing of the
payroll. Again, if we decide to outsource payroll, March 2012 and beyond, it's kind of a TBD, to be
determined, based upon further greater research because there are so many unknowns at this time.
Kind of the B scenario if you will, if we decide not to outsource payroll, evaluate the
feasibility of implementing Sungard related solution concurrently to the time /attendance solution.
Basically if that we stay ... if we don't outsource the payroll and we're going to stay with Sungard, can
we do HR /Personnel at the same time we do time and attendance? Does that make sense? Is it
possible? Still figuring that out. And then based upon that obviously May 2012 and beyond as a
TBD based upon further research.
Chair Furfaro: First of all, I want to thank you for an excellent report. I'm
very impressed. I do also want to share with you that one of the things that I think is extremely
important for us, whether we end up with someone like Altres or ADP or whoever we look at for a
payroll system, one of the things that is extremely important to have for the county is to be able to
measure and store information about payroll liabilities. What I mean by that is we have a pretty
consistent policy about earning vacation. We don't have a very clear understanding from a finance
standpoint on how we accrue that liability by keeping track of individual employees. I would even go
as far as to say that at times we state our productive payroll, but really we don't have a formula to
forecast the liability that pulls out vacation and banks it as a payable on another liability line. And
to me that's one of the most important things that we should be looking at for a payroll system so
that we don't overstate productive payroll against what might be actually a future liability,
especially as we have long -term employees who must be mandated to take their vacation because
they have a cap on how much they can bank, so I just want to say that would be very high on my list.
I want to thank you again for meeting with me privately before this session session and I have to
excuse myself because I have a conference call at 12 o'clock and we're planning to go to lunch at 12.
So I'm going to turn over the rest of the questioning on your presentation to Mr. Rapozo and the
other members. Brandon, thank you very much.
Mr. Raines: You're welcome.
Chair Furfaro: Okay and I'll be back for the 1 o'clock start up.
(Chair Furfaro was noted excused at 11:53 a.m.)
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.44
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. Any questions for Brandon regarding the CIP?
Ms. Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. I just want to thank you for this
payroll /personnel system. As your research indicates, this thing has been languishing and pending
for so long. There are so many things that hinge on it, our employees' complete and accurate record
being one of them. So I know you're not yet finished in your analysis and your decisions on how to
proceed, but I like that the analysis is going on and is integrating all the different pieces. So thank
you and we'll look forward to seeing what the proposal is as you complete this.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, any other questions? If not, thank you very much.
Brandon, appreciate it.
Mr. Raines: Thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Anybody in the audience wishing to testify before we go to
lunch break on IT's presentation? If not, thank you very much. Oh, go ahead, Lonnie.
LONNIE SYKOS: Good morning (inaudible), for the record Lonnie Sykos. First,
thank you for doing such a good job in public going over the county's budget. But some of the things
that we look at here in these troubling financial times make us wonder how fast it is we're adapting
to the changing world. I question why it is we're going to give a company in Washington D.C.
$50,000.00 to be our lobbyist when for $50,000.00 they will do nothing for us. That's like giving an
attorney your initial fee and then when they actually do something, you have to replace that money.
And so what are we going to get for $50,000.00 other than our name up on a plaque that says, they
represent us?
Secondly, why are we hiring a lobbyist when we already have paid representatives in
Washington. And so what is a lobbyist going to be able to do that our paid representatives won't?
Lobbyists are also uncontrollable. They're drug dealers in that the drug is the opportunity to get
stuff accomplished, then just keep giving me more money and it'll finally happen.
I listened to the discussions about the technology changes, which I'm all for. And one of the
questions that was brought up was what happens if the staff members cannot or chooses not to
either learn or actually use the new system? And so unless there's a countywide directive and push
to actually change from the current system to the new system it's pointless. And it is going to be
hugely destructive to us financially if you end up with individuals that are being resistant inside of
the departments and you end up trying to work on two separate systems, the old paper system and
the new electronic system. And so we need some executive leadership from somewhere to ensure
that this is going to occur on a timeline. And so that is difficult to figure out exactly what the
timeline is, but the more objective it is versus subjective, the more likely we'll get the benefit from it
sooner rather than later.
And finally, one of the things that I'd never heard was the cost analysis that we should be
getting regarding purchasing a helicopter versus the previous practices of contracting and leasing
helicopter services. The previous county council told us...
EDDIE TOPENIO, Deputy County Clerk: Three minutes, Vice Chair.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. Hang on real quick. Anyone else wishing to
testify before ... if not, thank you, you can continue.
Mr. Sykos: Okay and just as a matter of not just this issue, we were told
by the administration and the previous county council that the expenses of leasing and contracting
and renting helicopters services was more than what it was going to cost us to purchase a helicopter
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.45
and operate it ourselves. And so all I'm asking for is where is the cost analysis, who's doing the cost
analysis since we've just started with it? Now is the time to set it up and do it. What did it cost to
lease training services in the past? And so that you all understand, under FAA regulations, you
have to have a contract or the ownership or control of the helicopter to train underneath it. You can
go out and rent a helicopter day -by -day to do actually rescue services. And so within the county's old
budget, somehow you should be able to track down what was training expenses versus what were the
actual operational and all the costs in the purchase of equipment and all that. So it's kind of
complex, but it's also kind of simple, having to do with how good your accounting system is. And so
anyway, we would like to see that because that was a huge purchase and at the county council
meeting that it appeared the decision was made to do this, it was all done in executive session. We
were told there was an emergency, that the FAA was involved, that there was a go -to pilot and a
preferred company and that this decision was made to go through the route that we did, but there
was really no rational explanation of why we went the route that we did. And so I'd just like to see
the numbers.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, any questions for Lonnie, not comments but
questions? Okay, thank you very much. Lonnie if you would, if you can leave your contact
information here with our staff member, I'll send over a communication with that question and we
can respond directly to you with the answer.
Mr. Sykos: Thank you very much.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, anybody else? If not, thank you very much. With that
we will recess the meeting for lunch. Please be back at 1 o'clock so we can continue and start
actually the decision making process. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Mr. Chang: Mr. Chair, when we come back from lunch, will you allow us a
few minutes to comment on Mr. Sykos' commentary regarding the lobbyist and the helicopter?
Mr. Rapozo: We can do that now because I don't know if he'll be back if
you want to do that.
Mr. Chang: I'll just be very quick. You know one of the questions was on
the line item for the lobbyist, the D.C. lobbyist. I just have to say from my own personal short three
years of experience I've had an opportunity to be escorted with our lobbyist of the past in D.C. and
the relationships that they have not only with our congressional delegation, but especially the staff is
very huge because they're very respected up on the hill and when you're talking about funding or
you're talking about grants or you're talking about grant writing, there's a lot of things as far as
sewage is concerned, levees are concerned, highways are concerned, and there is money out there,
not a lot, but they have access to what's available, how to get what we need to get what, and to give a
little heads up to the administration and give a heads up to councilmembers what is out there and
they've been very, very, very proactive. And you know, again, the short times that I had the
privilege of being up there at capitol hill, they work really, really, really hard and I believe they're
very important for Kauai, our Kauai County, because I don't know how the other counties are
working, but I'm sure that they have lobbyists themselves and we're competing in many ways for the
same money. So that's what I would like to just say.
In regards to the helicopter, when they came ... they were one of the first people that came
during the budget. But I saw training videos that the rescue and the personnel, it's all about
cohesiveness. It's all about the pilots getting used to the fire crew, which the rescue crew is getting
familiar with the pilots. And affords us the training, I mean the amount of training, and we'll get
that on an agenda item and we can break that down for you, but the training that the rescuers, along
with the pilots, is basically priceless because you have to remember whenever there was a rescue it
was on- the -job training. There were a lot of times that the rescuers didn't know the pilots, pilots
didn't know the rescuers, and the job that they were asked to do they never did. They never
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.46
practiced for these kinds of situations. So we'll get that in an agenda item because I had asked them
earlier in the budget process. But I think that will reveal a lot of information as to how important
the helicopter has been and will continue to be as far as rescue operations are on Kauai. Thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Lonnie, I'm not going to let you get
into that debate on the floor. The question was a cost analysis. I think that was his question. That's
what we're going to ask. I don't think he was asking for a justification. I think it's more of really the
cost base versus ownership, versus rental versus leasing, and we'll secure those numbers for you,
Lonnie. Mr. Bynum?
Mr. Bynum: I just briefly want to concur with Councilmember Chang. You
know we had a federal lobbyist last year. The administration cut it from the budget. I tried to
restore it. And now it's back again and haven't had a talk with them about why they had a change of
heart. But the federal bureaucracy is huge and we have our representatives, Senator Inouye and
Akaka that are looking out after our best interests. But it's such a huge thing to have this group of
people who have expertise with municipalities to be able to ... because decisions get made that move
huge sums of money and if you're in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge, it can
pay big dividends for Kauai and even if it's one thing like that, it could more than cover it. But even
not, it's just that our normal interface with the federal government is enhanced by having those
representatives on the ground. So I totally support that.
Regarding the helicopter, you hit on some of the key things. We can't use it. We had
inadequate training, which caused safety concerns for our firefighters, and an emergency means the
equipment needs to be available right now, not oh, let's take those visitors back and drop them off at
the airport, retrofit the helicopter, and send it up for our emergency. I think that can impact
response time. So it was a difficult decision. It is a big expense for a small county, but public safety
concerns, I think, outweighed it for the council. So thanks for letting me make those comments.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you very much. With that, the meeting will be
recessed until 1 o'clock. Thank you.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 12:06 p.m.
The meeting was called back to order at 1:19 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Aloha everybody, I'm calling back to order the council meeting
for the process on the decision - making session of the operating budget. Before I go any further I
want to visit on a couple particular rules for the members who may or may not be aware of certain
operating budget and CIP items that we will be reviewing. Again, I want to thank Brandon for a
nice presentation today as follow -up for IT questions that we may have had. I also want to remind
members that all actions on items related to the budget and the operating CIP will have to have five
votes when needed to either add them or exclude them and the five votes will be sufficient to solidify
the council's mutual agreement on those positions. As other items arise regarding certain recusal
letters that I have received on possible conflicts of interest, I would like the individual members to
state their conflict up front as it is reflected in the memos that they have submitted to me and when
those items come up for discussion, that you remove yourself from the chambers, and then you will
be able to return when the particular line item vote has been taken. All members need to be present
to vote on the overall budget operation, but the particular line items, I would like those disclosures to
be made. Mr. Chang, I have received your letters regarding solid waste items as it relates to the
recycling program. I have also received your letter as it relates to the Kauai Marathon. For
Mr. Kuali`i, I have received your letter as it relates to two OED grants for the YWCA Family
Violence Shelter and the YWCA Sexual Treatment Programs. There are other items, I want to
remind us, that are not in this budget that we are voting on, but there are pre- existing plans that are
reflected that will not require action and that is on the two YMCA underage drinking prevention
grants that came from the mayor's office and also contracts from the office of the prosecuting
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.47
attorney. They are pre- existing contracts and they are not new items in the budget. Also, that is for
Mr. Kuali`i and Mr. Rapozo. And then Vice Chair Yukimura, I have received your letter on the one
CIP line item regarding the Kapa`a- Lihu`e Boys and Girls Club facility upgrades and that we will
take that one separately and you may step out and we'll take a vote on that. But out of necessity, we
will all find ourselves participating in the summary of the total budget that is referenced as the rule
of necessity. So on that note, to the county clerk, I would like to take the items that we are going to
review in the order that they have been submitted in the summary from the mayor's office. And
before we start there, I would ask the mayor if he would like to have an opportunity to speak to us as
a group before we start decision making. You're more than welcome.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Chair Furfaro: Aloha, good afternoon, mayor.
BERNARD P. CARVALHO, JR., Mayor: Good afternoon, Council Chair Furfaro.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for being here.
Mr. Mayor: I'm happy to be here. First of all I just wanted to say a lot of
hard work has gone into preparation for our budget, a lot of time spent. And I know there was good,
good, healthy conversations going back and forth as we looked into each of the different departments,
each of the parts of the budget that we felt that is a conservative budget overall and I wanted to
make sure that the council understood our efforts in trying to find a balance between what we need
to take care of on a daily basis, how we need to better manage our bigger projects overall and at the
same time looking how we can support some of the great projects that happen and programs in the
community. Many departments have great responsibilities and have requested items, initiatives
within their individual budgets that we thoroughly looked at overall as an administration, as a team,
and I truly feel that this is a budget that I'm hoping that we can together collectively embrace. I
know there are questions in certain areas, but overall as we come together to make decisions today
and tomorrow, and so I just wanted to be present to hear the process and be here to support the
efforts from our county council. Not everybody's happy, not everybody is happy with some of the
results in different areas, but I truly believe with the efforts between administration and our county
council and our administrators and team members, we did a thorough overview of the budget and I
feel that this is the opportunity for all of us to come to some kind of understanding and move
forward. And so with that, I look forward to hearing the discussions and I want to also put on the
floor that we continue to respect each other's comments and decisions on how we move forward, but
in the spirit of aloha and trying to make sure that whatever the result is that we can truly move
forward for the best interest of the people. So thank you for the opportunity to say a few words.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you and Mr. Mayor, while you are there, I do want to
pose this question to you since Mr. Rezentes is in the audience and something that has not come up
in the narrative, but it is worth surfacing at this time, and that deals with my own tracking of three
departments that may find themselves having overruns for this year's operating plan. And that
might trigger the fact that the administration could see themselves coming back in future months
unless some action is taken now. Golf funds may come up short about $195,000; solid waste is
currently trending at about $782,000 negative to the plan; and the fire department which has
encumbered a number of project funds which I think contributes to that could at the current trend
come up short about $613,000. I know you have time in the next four months to revisit some of those
possible contracts or expenditures that have been identified or encumbered, but it would not be
appropriate for me not to at least raise the concern at this part on that possible shortfall for this
year. Unless action is taken in the next 120 days, we could be looking at some money bills before the
year closes. I just wanted to surface that with you unless Mr. Rezentes has any comments at this
point. Let's just make sure that we make a note of it as a footnote that there is some need to control
those three departments before we get to June 30th.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.48
Mr. Mayor: Will do.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much.
Mr. Mayor: Thank you.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: And Mayor, we are going to start in a sequence of
expenditures that follow the previous reviews by department starting with the mayor's office. To
members, you do have the summary sheets that have been passed out and I'm going to plan to go
right on down through that process. This is the memo submitted to the council on the budget
comparisons dated May 7th from our staff to you.
Ms. Yukimura: Chair, are we starting our decision making then?
Chair Furfaro: Yes, we're going to have discussions by these units as we go
down. Does everyone have this document? If you don't, I can have Jade make copies for you.
Ms. Yukimura: What is it?
Chair Furfaro: This is our staff writing the comparisons from the March 15th
submittal comparing the May 6th, showing the variances. Very good, members. So the first area,
the expenditures for the mayor's office dealing with some percentage changes on line items in the
mayor's department, are there any queries or discussions? Mr. Bynum..
Mr. Bynum: We're starting at the beginning, wouldn't we start with
revenue?
Chair Furfaro: We're going to start with these particular parts, but I tell you
what. If you want to start with revenue, I'll be more than glad to do that.
Mr. Bynum: Well that's part of our budget review, correct?
Chair Furfaro: Absolutely it's part of it. It's just, you want it up front, we'll
do it up front. So members, hold your summary that I wanted to start with, we're going to do the
revenue summaries and if Rick, if somebody could roll in the blackboard, I'd appreciate it. We're
going to do revenues first. But I'll recognize you, Mr. Bynum, if you wanted to go ahead and speak.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.49
Mr. Bynum: Well overall to balance a budget you look at revenues and
expenditures, and we received this document today from the administration, which I read as saying
that they're proposing no changes in the tax rate in terms of how it impacts our revenues. The
estimate for real property taxes was up $2,687,000 when we certified the rolls. So first I want to
clarify that's correct. The administration's proposing no changes in the tax rates for next year. Is
that correct? And so I have... and my understanding is that we will finalize those rates on May 25th
and that ... and I'm trying to get clarification on this, but the notice says the public may submit
written testimony to council on rates prior to May 25, 2011 council meeting in the council chambers
or soon thereafter, at which time final rates subject to further adjustments will be fixed. I know I
would like to see an adjustment in the property tax rates as it relates to hotel and resort. And the
reason for that is because when you look at a five -year analysis of who has paid what share of the tax
burden under real property, the people in the homestead class have paid an increasing percentage of
the real property tax burden by percentage and by dollars while other classes have paid a decreasing
percentage of the real property tax burden and it's a lot of numbers on this page, but basically the
homestead class is paying an increasing share, this year projected at 11.29 percent of the revenue
burden when in 2007 it was 7.38 percent. And so if you look at the spreadsheet, the homeowners on
Kauai are paying an increased cost and share of the burden while other categories are not. I would
like to adjust the hotel tax and resort rate to generate an additional approximately million dollars of
revenue, which...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: ...would not be a dollar increase for hotel and resort, but it
would just reflect that the rate needs to increase because the assessed value has gone down.
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, Mr. Bynum, I just want to pose a question to you.
If we are talking about making changes to revenues as it relates to the tax rates now, you do realize
that we would need to post a change, hold a public hearing, and this is actually budget decision -
making time. So I heard from the administration that they were prepared to come back to us with
some tax bills. In the meantime I'm asking Jade to pass out to everyone the variance in revenues as
they deal with the March 15th submittal and the May 6th submittal. But we could not initiate new
tax bills, new tax rates without triggering a public hearing.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, question?
Mr. Bynum: Our rates are set finally soon and if we don't adjust them
now, we won't have time to adjust them at all.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so let's you and I agree that we disagree to do the rates.
We would have to post a new hearing because we had one earlier. And if the Vice Chair could wait
for me to explain again, is that my question posed to you, are you wanting to change tax rates now,
then I'll be glad to call the clerk up and see what are the appropriate steps for us to take.
Mr. Bynum: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, Mr. Clerk or Ricky, could you please come up to the
mike. So gentlemen, you may have heard since now we've started with revenues, Mr. Bynum is
querying the possibility during this posted session of decision making as it relates to the potential of
changing rates on the assessed values. I indicated that this is a decision process of which we've had
some discussion with the public on rates and what is procedurally correct at this time. Could you
answer that?
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
RICKY WATANABE, Council Services Administrator: Rick Watanabe, Council Services
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.50
Administrator. Per the County Code, as far as establishing tax rates, there are several
requirements. The first one is that the council shall hold a public hearing on tax rates and the public
hearing shall be held after 10 days of publication notice as compared to just regular Sunshine 7 days.
The next requirement is that the council has to pass tax rates by June 20 per the Code and the last
thing is if after the public hearing is conducted, which we had the public hearing on May 4th on that
evening, you have to wait three weeks once you have the public hearing to reconvene and adopt the
tax rate within three weeks. So that's the three basic criteria. However, in all practical and logical
purposes, when you make decisions on the budget you have to consider your tax rates because that's
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.51
how you derive your real property tax revenues based on the tax rate. So for all purposes and intent,
the tax rates that you are going to use sets the amount of real property tax revenues that you show
in the budget. That's the starting point.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so from the three weeks...
Mr. Watanabe: So we're talking about, Chair, we're talking about 10 days to
re- advertise and after 10 days, you conduct a public hearing, then three weeks you have to wait until
you hold the final reading. But the urgency of decision making in decision making on the budget
actually makes it a little moot to go back that far because then how can you make decisions on the
budget without establishing the tax rate?
Chair Furfaro: Okay, Mr. Watanabe, I'll complete my question to you. So
when we had a posted public hearing during this budget process on the rates, which was
approximately two weeks ago?
Mr. Watanabe: May 4th.
Chair Furfaro: It was a week ago. So before we could go any further, we now
need to look at May 25th based on what you just read to me.
Mr. Watanabe: Yeah, post for 10 days, hold a public hearing, reconvene
three weeks thereafter, so yeah, about that date.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, thank you for that answer. Please stay there
gentlemen. Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So based on what you say it would be
appropriate to discuss the rates at this time because it's hard for us to make decisions about the
overall budget without kind of knowing what direction we're moving in with the rates.
Mr. Watanabe: You have to consider all sources of revenues.
Ms. Yukimura: Right and we do have a special meeting posted that is three
weeks after the public hearing, which was last week, right? We have a special council meeting
scheduled for the 25th.
Mr. Watanabe: Is that a special committee? I believe it's a special committee
meeting. But you see the whole process of the budget involves... it's more in -depth than that. We are
required per our decision making process to post amendments that this decision making concludes,
by, I believe it's Wednesday. Jade, correct me, Wednesday or Thursday to post the amendments, the
12th which is Thursday. And that's why the decision making is so condensed. So, there's not only
one factor that drives the process.
Ms. Yukimura: So are you saying we have to pass tax rates by the 12th. I
don't think so.
Mr. Watanabe: Well, per the requirements of the code, there is a process;
however, if you look at the budget as in all practicality, you have to determine your real property tax
revenues otherwise you cannot do decision making. That's what I'm saying. And revenues are
determined by rates.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.52
Mr. Rapozo: So what I'm hearing is that it's really too late at this point to
revisit tax rates because of the decision making that has to be done in this existing budget. And we
can ... I guess we could hypothetically talk rates, but the reality is in order for us to meet the process
deadlines, we have to address the property rates as it stands today.
Mr. Watanabe: Correct.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.53
Mr. Rapozo: So we can go through this process. Otherwise, there are too
many moving parts and we're not going to be able to do it. I know the timeframe and it's not a
"may," it's a "shall." We have to meet these deadlines and I think we've got a lot of work to do on the
existing budget submittal with the existing tax rates and I don't know what process we would use to
reconsider the tax rates knowing that we have to go through public hearing and all of those
processes. That can be visited after we pass the budget.
Mr. Watanabe: Correct, correct.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you.
Mr. Watanabe: In the past those deadlines...
Chair Furfaro: Rick, I think at this point we're fine. We have the 25th.
You've answered that question as it relates to what we read on the 4th. We have a compressed time
of June 20th. We have heard from the mayor in two narratives that they are proposing new tax
initiatives in the near future. Those are the questions that we wanted to answer. Please stay where
you're at because Mr. Bynum has another question, followed by Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Mr. Bynum: So Rick, I agree with you that we need to have a sense of
what the revenues are to make informed decisions about the budget. We have a process in place.
We had a public hearing on May 4th. Let me read the posting, "The public may submit written
testimony to the council on rates prior to the May 25, 2011 council meeting in council chambers at
9 a.m. or soon thereafter, at which time final rates subject to further adjustments will be fixed." So
we have had the public hearing. We are going to have decision making on the rates on the 25th and
they're subject to adjustments. And so in order to fulfill what you said, for us to have an idea, it's
time to discuss revenues now. The revenues in this budget are based on the mayor's projections
based on the rates staying the same. But the decision about the rates is the council's, right?
Mr. Watanabe: One correction. You mentioned that the council shall meet on
the 25th, you said?
Mr. Bynum: That's what the posting says.
Mr. Watanabe: Okay and the thing about that is if you don't enact the tax
rate by then, then to me you've lost your window of opportunity and they'll be technical flaws, and
the budget submitted on March 15th will take effect. And that's the scary part on the back end
because you don't want to get ... if you're pushing the limit to the very end of the calendar and there's
one technical error for some reason, the charter says that the mayor's budget submitted on
March 15th will take effect. And then come July 1st, you'll be doing the budget all again.
Mr. Bynum: What you're saying in essence is we have to accept the
mayor's rates and we have no power to change them.
Mr. Watanabe: I did not say that.
Mr. Bynum: Well, that's what it sounds like.
Mr. Watanabe: That wasn't my answer. That wasn't my answer.
Mr. Bynum: So my understanding is according to this, we will set the rates
on the 25th and it can be amended from the recommendation.
Mr. Watanabe: Yeah, okay, to get amended, again, Chapter 5A 6.3, Kauai
County Code No. 2, the last paragraph, "If the resolution fixing the tax rates is not adopted within
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.54
three weeks on the public hearing required by paragraph 1, the council shall again advertise and
meet as required by paragraph 1." Paragraph 1 says that you have to post a notice 10 days prior to
the public hearing and wait three weeks before you adopt the real property tax rates, which pushes
you to the end of the calendar and then it doesn't leave you any room to make any technical error.
Mr. Bynum: But we have posted 10 days in advance and we are waiting
three weeks.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.55
Mr. Watanabe: I'm just saying that if there is an error and the reason why we
stick to the calendar that we map out and work from the end back is because we allow if there is an
error that we have time to correct it. And the other thing that has changed drastically is we are held
to post the amendments that come out of decision making and those amendments are posted for the
public and that's what we follow. The rest is process. This session is the main session right here.
Mr. Bynum: Does the council have the responsibility to set the tax rates?
Mr. Watanabe: The council sets the tax rates.
Mr. Bynum: And can those tax rates be changed when we convene on the
25th?
Mr. Watanabe: If you allow the time and you're not ready to make a decision,
then I don't know what to do then. I really don't have the answer to that. I would have to go and
research it.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Rick. We have a question from Vice Chair
Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: So the budget is done in two parts. You're talking about the
amendments that have to be posted by the 12th is it? And those are the amendments that we will
decide today, right?
Mr. Watanabe: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: So we could decide and leave a line item for tax relief in the
budget with the amount of tax relief projected and then we could pass the tax rates accordingly on
the 25th and be part of the process that began with the 10 days' posting, public hearing on the 4th.
Mr. Watanabe: Vice Chair, I'm not real sure. I would have to go and look at
that more carefully. Because I don't know if you can do a reduction of real property tax revenues...
Ms. Yukimura: No, no, we wouldn't do a reduction of property tax revenues.
We'd just do a line item expenditure.
Mr. Watanabe: Yeah, that's like a reduction.
Ms. Yukimura: Called tax relief.
Mr. Watanabe: Yeah, that would be like a reduction and I don't know about
the technical...
Ms. Yukimura: It would be a line item expenditure in our operating budget.
So we could do that and then... assuming we agree and then we would pass the rates accordingly on
the 25th. So I think that's the only way that the council... because I think it's very clear in the
charter that it is the council's responsibility to set the tax rates. And it would seem that we're doing
it in two parts and we could do it in that way.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: You know, Mr. Chair, we've been through weeks of budget
hearings and I appreciate the discussion regarding changing the tax rates now, but I think
Mr. Watanabe has made it pretty clear that to go this route is going to be very close to some issues. I
mean we're having problems discussing the minor line items of this budget. We have had no
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.56
discussion at all regarding the tax rates. The public has had no opportunity to review discussions on
the tax rates and I'm assuming you're going to treat the revenue side of the budget decision making
as you will the expense?
Chair Furfaro: Actually, Mr. Rapozo, to answer your question, I planned as
chairman and the driving force of this body to go through expenses first. I have no idea how you
would reconsider raising taxes if you didn't know what the bottom line of your expenses would be.
But it was brought to my attention we wanted to review revenues now. So we are reviewing
revenues. I have now disclosed to you my process of thinking. Let's go through the expense cycle
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.57
and if we go through pluses and minuses that indicate there will be major cost changes in the line
items submitted by the mayor, then yes, we may have to consider changes to the tax code. That was
my strategy.
Mr. Rapozo: Well, I have a different strategy. It's in fact...
Chair Furfaro: We might as well go for them all since we're at this point.
Mr. Rapozo: Well, what I'm saying is that I am not interested in changing
the tax rate during this budget decision making process. I think that's a process that should be done
at a later time when we can have discussion and presentations and things like that. We have a ton
of work to do. And I would assume that if we're going to deviate from the mayor's proposed budget
that was just submitted it would require a five -vote. So I would propose that we call for the
question. My position is that we leave the real property tax revenues as is and we move on. If
someone wants to change that and go and amend that it would require a five - person vote.
Chair Furfaro: I appreciate your comments. Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I don't think we have a chance... according to the charter,
maybe I should ask that of Mr. Watanabe, I thought you read that in the charter that our chance to
change the tax rates is now after a certain date we don't have that for the rest of the year?
Mr. Watanabe: My answer, when asked that question, was that there are
requirements in the code that's...
Ms. Yukimura: Well, I remember a specific line item...
Mr. Watanabe: I read from the code. This is the code. I don't have the
charter.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, can you find that language that says it had to
be ... because you read it.
Mr. Watanabe: Okay, it's ... what it says is the council may increase or
decrease the tax rates for real property exclusive of buildings for net taxable ends and net taxable
buildings. A resolution setting the tax rates shall be adopted on or before June 20...
Ms. Yukimura:
On or before June 20.
Mr. Watanabe: ...preceding the tax year. The council shall advertise it's
intention to increase or decrease tax rates.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, I think that's the line.
Mr. Watanabe: Which we have done and the date of the public hearing shall
not be less than 10 days after the advertisement is published, which we've done.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Mr. Watanabe, that's enough because you said on
or by June 20 preceding the tax year. So that's pretty clear.
Mr. Watanabe: Vice Chair, but I think...
Ms. Yukimura: We can't go and change the tax rate after June 20.
Mr. Watanabe: Yeah, but Vice Chair, my main concern was that while it says
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.58
this here I did say that practically and logically, it brings you to a place of...
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, I understand. I understand what you're saying and I
agreed with you that if we pass it we have to target the 25th and I think that's what the special
council meeting was scheduled for. But I just wanted to talk about Councilmember Rapozo seemed
to suggest that we could change tax rates later on this year in this calendar year, but I don't believe
the charter amendment allows that.
Mr. Watanabe: Not charter, not charter. But I believe...
Ms. Yukimura: Oh, excuse me, the county code doesn't allow that because it
says by June 20th of the preceding year. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Watanabe: Please consider my concern about the technical errors and...
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for voicing your concerns, Mr. Watanabe. We have
another question from Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: The council is responsible to set tax rates and thus impact
revenue. The council is responsible to pass a budget that's balanced. We had the public hearing.
We did the 10 days. It's on the schedule for the 25th. Our posting says it's subject to amendment,
further adjustment, subject to further adjustment. I'm saying we discuss that further adjustment
now so we know what our revenue base is because I'm going to say later, hey, I want to cut this or I
want to add this and somebody's going to say, well, where do you get the funds for that. You know,
any budget process is you address revenue, you address expenditures. It's our responsibility to do
both. If our process doesn't allow us to make changes from the mayor's proposals, then our process is
fatally flawed. And maybe that's one of the reasons the auditor wants to do an audit of the budget
process because we just got the real property tax recorded last week. We just had the data that we
need in order to make this decision that by charter we're supposed to make. So if you have to go
through a budget process and not be able to address the revenue side, that doesn't make any sense.
PETER A. NAKAMURA, County Clerk: Council Chair? Peter Nakamura, County Clerk for
the record.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Clerk?
Mr. Nakamura: I don't think we're in a discussion with Councilmember
Bynum, but I think that's a discussion that needs to be had with the council as a body actually.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Bynum: So...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me. Mr. Clerk, I appreciate your comments about the
discussion being with the body. You know there are some misgivings here that I wanted to make
sure that we visited. For example, do we or do we not get a certified tax roll prior to getting to the
point we're at right now?
Mr. Nakamura: Yes, we...
Chair Furfaro: Does that certified tax roll forecast what our revenues are
from the Section called Real Property Taxes?
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.59
Chair Furfaro: And that number right now is $79,368,000.00. That is
certified.
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: So we do know what our forecasted revenues are and that is
the process that we do that with.
Mr. Nakamura: Yes. That was received on April 29th.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so thank you for the clarification. Any further
discussion will be held amongst members. Mr. Rapozo.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Rapozo: That May 6th supplemental number, the $79.2 that you
talked about, that is a $2.6, almost $2.7 million increase since the March 15th.
Chair Furfaro: That's correct and that I circulated to you from Chair Furfaro
the talking points about the revenue cycle as it is right now. You should have that in front of you.
Mr. Rapozo: And there's also some other significant increases from the
March 15th submittal. I guess I'm going to go back to my process question because if a change is
going to be made as you stated it requires five votes and if it doesn't have the five votes, then we're
moving on. I mean if we're going to be able to debate every issue that comes up, then we're never
going to finish decision making. And I'm calling for that question that we continue the budget
decision making process utilizing the real property tax revenue as submitted in the March 15th and
the May 6th updated supplemental budget. That would be and I'm calling for that question because,
sir, we have until tomorrow to finish this up and we'll never finish if we debate the issues on every
issue.
Chair Furfaro: I understand and I will recognize Council Vice Chair
Yukimura and Councilmember Bynum one more time. I do not want people to confuse this
discussion with not living aloha. Somebody wanted to talk about revenue. I have my theory. My
theory is we first need to know the total expenses before we can get to May 25th. But do not confuse
my willingness to discuss this in extending some aloha to members as my willingness to say who is
right and who is wrong. Councilmember Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can agree with your process that we
go over the expenditures first. I think the revenue area deserves a lot of discussion also as well, but
I'm fine with going through expenditures first.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Ms. Yukimura: And if we are going to address the revenues now, then I would
hope that we'd have some time to actually have some discussion about it.
Chair Furfaro: I don't disagree with you and I'm back to the same thing. I
started on expenses. Councilman Bynum asked to talk about revenues.
Ms. Yukimura: I know that.
Chair Furfaro: I live aloha. I extended him that courtesy. I have my own
flipcharts up there that show this summary of revenues that are here, but I think a good business
practice is always knowing how much you are planning to spend before you decide how you are going
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.60
to raise a room rate, raise a tax base, raise fees. You need to know what your expenses are, so thank
you for that comment. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I have no problem with looking at expenditures prior. All I'm
saying is that part of a budget process is you look at expenditures and revenues, and we have a
mechanism. The mayor has proposed certain rates. We have a responsibility under the charter to
set those rates and I believe that the homestead homeowners are paying an ... it's a fact. They're
paying an increased percentage of the revenue base while other sectors are paying less.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for that statement. Let me finish. I want to give
you a comment. And thank you for now recognizing that from the very beginning I understood there
was an expense cycle and a revenue cycle. I'm just asking that we get to the revenue cycle at the
end.
Mr. Bynum: That's fine.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Now on that note, we have a conclusion on this
particular piece. I would like to say you have a summary of the changes in the certified tax rate that
I circulated that we can hold on until we get to those concerns about revenue.
I would like to now talk in terms of the memorandum delivered by the staff dated May 7th
and it shows the variances from the percentage differences from the original submittal by the mayor
and the supplemental report. And for the mayor's office, I'm going to start the discussion. Is there
any items within the mayor's office that is reflected in this submittal and the one item I do want to
bring your attention to, of course, is the lobbyist and the American Red Cross. You can still see those
variances there. Is there any discussion on those items?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, Mr. Chair. I would love to be enlightened by those of you
who have been on the council the last two years about the use of the D.C. lobbyist and what results
we have actually gotten out of it, if you could share that with me?
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: It actually goes back a number of years where the county
funded a lobbyist. The council felt like that it wasn't a collaborate effort at one point several years
back. And then we went through a collaborative process that in my memory was shepherded by then
Councilmember Ron Kouchi. We came to an agreement to hire Ferguson and Associates. They
presented here at council a number of times. A number of us met with them in D.C. They identified
the projects that were of interest in the federal government. They tracked them for us. They made
us aware of opportunities in the federal budget that we weren't aware of, represented us; I thought
did an outstanding job.
Last year in the budget and at the time it was $100,000. I thought it was well worth it,
that's my opinion. I think we were all happy with the Ferguson Group. I was surprised last year
when the mayor's budget took that D.C. lobbyist out completely. I lobbied at the time. I believe I
made a motion to fund it and wasn't successful. Now it's back in there for $50,000. I don't know if
they intend to use the Ferguson Group because we should go back to what we did to hire the
Ferguson Group in the first place, which is to do a collaborative dialogue because that person
represents the entire county. So I was surprised to see this $50,000. It wasn't in the budget until
the mayor's submittal. I can say for myself I support the concept of having a D.C. lobbyist, but I also
support that collaborative process we went together, where we agreed on the selection of that
individual and then engaged that individual collaboratively during the time they were involved.
Ms. Yukimura: So I don't ... what concrete results and benefits did we get from
this? Did we get extra money? What projects did we focus on that we lobbied for that we achieved or
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.61
at least got some measure of understanding out there in congress?
Chair Furfaro: Wally, would you care to make any comments? The rules are
suspended and Wally, just a heads up, if we're going to do this for every line item, we have 221 line
items, so keep your response summary...
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
WALLACE G. REZENTES, JR., Director of Finance: I apologize. I was not managing the
contract. It was basically a countywide collaborative effort and I know that probably various
departments can provide the assistance that was afforded by our lobbyist. I can't point to anything.
I'm not prepared right now to give you verbatim what concrete data they provided us to ... as far as
assistance and guidance. We could get something put together for this body, but it's going to take a
little bit of time.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: I do recall some substantial reporting to the body during that
time especially on critical legislation that was going through congress. How it might pose itself to
us, what opportunities were there, but I'm not looking for a list of successes. I do know that in this
critical time where there are deeper cuts, there is probably more need to have a lobbyist there.
Councilwoman Yukimura, did you want to have any further discussion? If not I'm going to ask...
Mr. Chang: Thank you, thank you, Chairman. As I mentioned a little
earlier before we took the lunch break, being on the council for three short years, I do have to say
that I was extremely enlightened if you're talking about the Ferguson Group. I can say probably
hundreds of thousands of dollars if not upwards to maybe a million or more. You know different
projects that we were lobbying for was the levees, for wastewater. There was a whole different
approach up there, but I especially liked the relationships because for myself relationships are huge.
And as we entered the delegation and the congressional ... you know our constituents up on capitol
hill, I was very, very impressed that their relationships with the staff is very good, that the staff of
our delegation gives, in this case the Ferguson Group, a little heads up as to how we can pursue
money because at this time there are changes in various policies that will allow us to go after certain
moneys. So I would just have to say on a (inaudible), if you are talking about the Ferguson Group,
this company has a lot of love for Kauai. And they're not lobbying for the Big Island. They're not
lobbying for Honolulu. They're not lobbying for Maui. I'm glad that they're lobbying for us because I
would hate to lose. They were lobbying for us, so I want to support this because money is harder and
harder to get, but they're up there right in people's faces that when there are opportunities, I think
they're quick to jump at the opportunities and I do believe that there is a very, very good... there was
a very, very good working relationship with, in this case, the Ferguson Group. So I can tell you, Vice
Chair, that if there was any kind of concern as to what we got back, it's just a matter of making a
phone call and I think they can list all the projects that they brought here to Kauai and the money,
and that won't be a problem.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman?
Ms. Yukimura: Then I ... if we could just hold that piece just in limbo for
24 hours and get that list that would be helpful.
Mr. Chang: I'll get that, I'll get that for you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.62
Mr. Rapozo: Yeah, I just want to say the times are different today from
four years, six and eight years ago. And what's becoming more and more difficult is the county's
ability to identify that low hanging fruit up in Washington D.C. We send letters. Our department
heads send letters and they're trying to secure all these funds, and oftentimes we're chasing
something that we cannot catch. This lobbyist, what it does, it provides to us a realistic target that
in fact some funds are available. To have somebody in Washington D.C. and I'm speaking as a
member of HSAC and NACo that oftentimes the window of opportunity opens and closes. We need
to have somebody in Washington D.C. to be able to call us up and say, hey Mayor Carvalho, you
know what, right now there's some funds available, this is what you need to do. That's what the
lobbyist does. And the list will be welcome, but I cannot imagine that the lobbyist, whether it's
Ferguson or not, I don't know if we can even discuss Ferguson, but whoever that lobbyist is, having
that opportunity to have someone in D.C. that's focusing on Kauai, it's harder and harder to get now
without earmarks from our congressional delegation. It's tough now to go out and get any kind of
money from the federal government. So I'll be supporting that. I don't need the list, but I respect
the request and whatever you can provide, I guess, would be appreciated, but I'm prepared to leave
that in and make that... actually I had come to the administration, I'd asked Gary for $100,000.00 so
we could get a fulltime lobbyist, but I'm satisfied with the $50,000 and I'm ready to go. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, we're going to take a caption break. They're
changing captioners. We're going to make this 10 minutes. Thank you.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 2:10 p.m.
The meeting was called back to order at 2:18 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Okay, members, again, moving forward, I understand the
courtesy extended by Mr. Rapozo on this D.C. lobbyist, the request for a follow -up, and I've
requested from the administration if they can put some notes together while we were on break. We
will probably look at that item on another day. But in all fairness here, this is decision making.
This is not discussion time, this is not to be calling departments and getting answers, and so forth.
You have had a long period of time and a subsequent copying on most questions. I do understand if
there's a new item there will be some queries along those lines, but the discussion needs to happen
here at the table, not out with the audience and the department heads, and so forth and that's Q & A
only.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, I have no objection to taking a vote on the rest of the
mayor's budget at this point to finalize that and just hold off. I'm very inclined to the lobbyist, I
think he can be useful, but just hold that off until we get...
Chair Furfaro: I've already agreed.. We're going to put the lobbyist on for
tomorrow.
Ms. Yukimura: So I just wanted, though, to also agree with your point that
we need to make decisions and so if we can do the rest of the mayor's budget so that's not left
hanging and then go on.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much for that confirmation because obviously
if we can't get to a decision point, we're just going to accept the March 15th submital as the budget
and go from there. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, I'll try to just say this once now and then get into this
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.63
decision making, but this is a great example of our process where I found out about this expenditure
of the lobbyist on Friday afternoon and here we are Monday morning. We don't know why the mayor
decided to put it in, what his intentions are. I support this one, but if we're going to have a process
like this, we need to do due diligence. We need time to understand it. So we desperately, in my
opinion, need to look at our budget process because we just had a dialogue before that that says well,
if we're going to ... we have to either just accept the mayor's provisions on tax rates or we're going to
have a difficult time addressing the revenue side of the budget because of time constraints.
That's... yeah...
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for your comments. I think we have to remember,
we're not here to amend the charter. The reality is we've got to get to some of these dates, but your
point is well taken. Okay on that note, is there any more questions dealing with the mayor's office
on items that have been so noted, changes since March 15th, and it should be noted that in areas of
health fund contributions there has been a slight reduction since the March 15th submital. Any
more questions regarding the mayor's office? Yes, Mr. Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Mr. Chair, I have questions regarding some new positions
that seem to have been created between the budget years without council involvement. So a grant
coordinator position with a salary of $57,708 was reallocated, I guess, to an executive assistant to the
mayor for $96,000; and then another position, I guess a dollar- funded position, commission support
clerk that was reallocated to the mayor's administrative aide, $73,044. While I am not necessarily
proposing to do that as a minus at this time, I am concerned that ... the council should be involved so
that the public is aware. I think it's our duty to the public to make decisions or to confirm or deny
the mayor's decisions in the county's largest expenditure. The county's largest expenditure and our
biggest responsibility as councilmembers is staff salaries, and if decisions are made without the
council's knowledge or approval, then I think we have a problem. So my proposal will be language
within the proviso to ensure that the council is involved with those decision making. (Inaudible.)
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Mr. Kuali`i. Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: You know I have to agree with Mr. Kuali`i. It was quite
disturbing to see the amount of positions. At my last count there were 12 positions that were either
new positions or reallocated positions or positions that were dollar funded in the last budget, but this
year fully funded. But the unfortunate thing is it occurs in between budget years and it's a legal
thing to do. The mayor can do that and department heads can fill a dollar- funded position, but
there's no assurance that in fact that funding will be available in the following year. Therefore you
end up in a situation like we are in today. And the 12 positions that I'm talking about equal
$669,000, just under $700,000.00 and that's just salary, that's not benefits, that's not the post -
retirement benefits and all of that, so it's substantial. The problem we face today is those positions
are all filled with warm bodies. If we decide to cut any of those positions or not fund it, then
somebody will lose their job. So it's difficult to do that and I agree that if in fact that process is going
to be used by the administration where they're going to take a dollar- funded position that this
council in the last session chose not to fund, then my proposal is we remove the dollar- funded
positions so that there is no opportunity for that to happen because it is very difficult to bring an
employee in and then have to tell them, no, we can't afford you anymore. And I think the council has
to be part of that dialogue. I'm not sure if a proviso is ... I know we used to put provisos in there. I've
been told now that there's an opinion saying we cannot. I'd like to explore that if possible that in fact
the proviso is any time a position is going to be filled, a dollar- funded position is going to be filled,
because it's going to affect future budgeting decisions that the council be informed or get approval
from the council. If in fact that's not possible or legal, a proviso of that sort is not legal, then I would
propose that we remove any dollar- funded positions outside of public safety that has the year long —
what do you call that ? — application process or year long recruiting, that we take away that
opportunity because this year if you look, it's a substantial amount. Like I said, almost seven, just
under, $670,000 in salaries that last year's council did not approve of that funding for salaries, so I
guess I'm in agreement with Mr. Kuali`i, thank you.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.64
Mr. Kuali`i: Mr. Chair? So now that I understand it a little bit clearer,
yes, I agree with Councilmember Rapozo on the dollar- funded position, but I also want to make it
clear that I'm concerned about a total re- allocation of an existing position, perhaps that it might be
vacant, but to take a grant coordinator position from $57,708.00 to make it an executive assistant to
the mayor, $96,000, it's nearly double salary and it's less opportunity for the county to be getting
grant funds. I think grant coordinator positions are incredibly important to our county, especially
now when times are tough and we need to get grants for different programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any further discussion? Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I wondered when these positions were going to come up. Like
the one that Mr. Kuali`i just said, changing a grant coordinator, I know Councilmember Rapozo and
I both asked these questions early in the budget session. The administration gave us a spread sheet,
it's in my notes about what changes they were reallocating or positioning and then I think there are
other dollar- funded positions that are not filled with warm bodies they're proposing hiring them in
the budget. So like the grant coordinator, we asked a lot of questions about that during the budget
process, we got answers, both verbally and in writing. And some of these moves I personally think
are really good ones, others ones I'm not real comfortable with. But for me they fall in the category
of the mayor's running the government. He has the right to make these changes under our current
laws and regulations. It may not be the way I would do it, but I didn't win the mayor's election, he
did, and he gets to run the government. I'm satisfied with him being held accountable, as he has, to
explain these positions and these changes and then just vote on each one. But I think when we come
up to the department, like I think this one is in civil defense, if I understand the process correctly,
Mr. Chair, a councilmember would have to make a motion to remove it, right? I'm not disagreeing
with you, Mel, that once the ... because some of these changes have been made, there's people we
know that are in them, it would be difficult to retroactively do it, but the mayor has that latitude
under our current laws and regulations.
Mr. Kuali`i: Mr. Chair, I just would like to say that I think we as
councilmembers cannot shirk our responsibility to set the budget with the citizens in mind. So it's
our responsibility to set the budget and it's the mayor's responsibility to implement the budget. And
with the salaries being the largest expense of our county, it's our biggest responsibility. And I'm not
saying that I agree or disagree with any specific items or positions, I'm just saying that we have to
have a say. So Councilmember Bynum said some are good, some are not, so he's expressing his
(inaudible) now, but we should deliberate that as a seven - member body and we should vote on that
and some of it will pass and some of it will not. But it's our responsibility to the people to do this
budget and that should be part of the budget. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I just want to say I agree with everything you said.
Mr. Kuali`i: Thank you.
Mr. Bynum: It is our responsibility under the charter, but we have been
informed what these positions are, what the changes were. We addressed some of them in the
budget process and so anyone on this table, if they are uncomfortable enough, can make a motion to
remove it, right? So I don't think we're shirking our responsibility at all because you are right, we
should, but this was all disclosed and some of it's been discussed. My own judgment on this list of
positions I got from the mayor is I'm going to support the changes he made, even though it may not
be the ones I would do, but he's running this government.
Chair Furfaro: Any further discussion about the proposal? Mr. Rapozo.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.65
Mr. Rapozo: Yeah, he's running the government with a certain expectation
that in fact this council provides the necessary budget for him to run the government with. And if
there are some substantial changes, then I think it's ... because it's not just for the seven of us. It's an
opportunity for it to go to the public so the public can hear. There are some positions here that were
moved that I'm not so sure the public would have been satisfied, I'm not so sure if the council would
have been satisfied. Yes, he's given certain authorities, but at the end of the day, it's the council's
responsibility to make sure that the budget is a fair and accurate budget. As I look through some of
these positions, the commission support clerk went to an administrative aide. It was a dollar- funded
commission support clerk, it's a support staff. I guess for me as we go through tough times and we're
looking at the shortages of manpower throughout the county, I would much rather have seen a lot of
focus put on the line personnel, on parks, and where in fact the people of Kauai are going to benefit.
What I'm talking about, the provisos or the removal of dollar- funded positions is simply so that the
council can have a better grasp on what's happening, so that in fact when we're presented with a
budget in May of 2011 we are pretty assured that in fact at the end of the fiscal year that budget is
the same budget that we passed when we started. That's all I'm saying is that we have to make sure
that when we say okay, the justifications were made, we were given the justifications, and this
council decides to fund the budget as proposed. But there should be a certain level of expectation
that that is the budget that's going to be used and not as soon as the budget passes we start
manipulating positions, changing actual titles, taking an employee number off of a dollar- funded
position, creating another position, and then using up funds that are supposedly surplus funds.
That's a concern of mine and it's been a concern of mine for a long time and I know we've set provisos
in the past and all I'm saying is that we need to either put in the proviso or take away the ability for
the administration to do that until they come here and let the public know. That's all I'm saying.
Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to collect this body back together here. I do want to
say that there are some things that I've been informed of being practiced and I do want you to know,
especially Councilmember Kuali`i, that that is something that I'm having some dialogue with the
county attorney. We're boiling down to some issues here about interpretations. For example, this
mention about the provisos, us not having... quite frankly we have more right to enter a proviso into
a budget because it's a condition of us approving funds. So wherever that comes from, that is
incorrect, and I will even battle that challenge and I think I also, at the same time, want to honor the
mayor who has acknowledged when we put provisos in there such as the December 15th review of
furloughs that was put in by us, there was no question asked, that does exist.
Now, when it comes to dollar- budgeted positions, I want you to know that they do and
should, out of courtesy, come to us and say, there's a dollar- funded position for an engineer. Now, we
funded a position for an engineer and it should be appropriate and the courtesy given to us when
they want to trigger that, they ask for the money to fill that, but there is conditions in the charter
that I am getting interpretations of that won't be resolved today that indicates if they move and
consolidate a position, the reality is they need to come to the council and I am not prepared to
discuss that with you right now. I want to say that there are provisos that allow us to put controls
no different than you would do a grant, and there are staffing guidelines that require us to have
justified positions. So on that note I'll just say to you, I am pursuing it, but if you could in fact help
me, I'm trying to get approval of the mayor's department. Is there any further discussion?
Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: So we can have a proviso that says if a dollar- funded position
is going to be filled that the council will be informed, shall be informed, shall be asked or more
importantly perhaps, Mel, is if they're going to take a dollar- funded position and change it to a
different position that that requires council approval?
Chair Furfaro: I want to make sure you clearly ... when we put a dollar in for
a position, and the position is described, it is understood that they would come to us when they fill
that because the money is not in the budget. The interpretation of provisos, this perception that we
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.66
can't put a proviso in the budget is not acceptable to me. I don't know where that's coming from. We
can put conditions there. If you file for a grant and you get a grant, the grant is very much specific
for the services that you applied for. That's a proviso.
MONA CLARK, Deputy County Attorney (in the gallery): Can I make this one comment?
Chair Furfaro:
Yes. The rules are suspended.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Ms. Clark: Thank you, Mona Clark, Deputy County Attorney. I think
the provision that's giving rise to the discussion is in Section 19.08 Administration and Enforcement
of the Annual Budget Ordinance. And subsection (f) says the mayor may, at any time, transfer an
unencumbered appropriation balance or portion thereof within a division or within divisions in the
same department. So that's the provision that you do not want to run awry of.
Chair Furfaro: Yes, and the answer was within the same department.
Ms. Clark: That's correct.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Ms. Clark: I just wanted to make that clarification.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much.
Ms. Yukimura: Excuse me, can I just ask Ms. Clark.
Chair Furfaro: We have another question.
Ms. Yukimura: You were just reading the charter, right?
Ms. Clark; That's correct.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, so that's charter language that allows the mayor to
transfer funds within the departments.
Ms. Clark: That's correct.
Ms. Yukimura:
Within the department.
Ms. Clark:
Within the department.
Ms. Yukimura:
But interdepartment is not...
Ms. Clark:
That's correct. It's different.
Ms. Yukimura:
It's not a charter requirement.
Ms. Clark: Yes, transfers between departments, boards or commissions
shall be made only by council by ordinance adopted.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, you've just reconfirmed what I had summarized,
and I think we should also note that even the council chairman, I practice the same thing. I just
signed off two transfers in the council department for other council matters, but I'm not looking for
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.67
funds from other departments such as elections or the auditor.
Ms. Clark: Right.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Bynum: Can I ask?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: So if a position goes from civil defense to the mayor's office,
that's not okay under the charter?
Ms. Clark: I would think civil defense is going to be a separate
department.
Chair Furfaro: Mona, I will say to the other members as I started this out, I
referenced those two sections, I thought I did it pretty clear, and I do have other legal interpretations
that are actually over in your office on those same questions, and I will share them with the rest of
the council. But in the department, for the department is his authority.
Ms. Clark: That's correct.
Chair Furfaro: Across departments requires council approval.
Ms. Clark: And if there's a pending opinion, it's probably going to be
much more thorough than anything I'm going to say off the top of my head. So it's probably wise to
wait on those.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. Councilmember Rapozo.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.68
Mr. Rapozo: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify what I was talking about the
provisos. If the council approves a dollar- funded position for a firefighter, that approval is saying
that we're approving that position, that firefighter position is vacant today, we intend to fill it and so
we dollar -fund that position. So if the department wants to hire a Firefighter I, that position has
already been approved. If they have the funds in their department, they can definitely fill it. I'm not
concerned about those. I'm concerned about when they take a position that this council approved
and then changing it in any shape or form.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo, we just had that discussion and I would like
there to be further discussion but at a time where I've had the interpretation and the county
attorney's office has had the appropriate time to digest it, but I concur with you as well.
Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: I just want to add that for me again I see it posted up there as
dollar - funded position, but I would also like to see a separate line item proviso language related to a
reallocated position from one that already exists with a whole budget, a grant coordinator $57,708.00
exists, I guess it's vacant, it was vacant at one time and then it was reallocated /changed to executive
assistant to the mayor, $96,000. So that wouldn't come under a dollar- funded position. I would
want to see that included, that we pursue that.
Chair Furfaro: And what I'm saying is I think some of that is already in the
charter and I'm going to get the appropriate discussion going with Mr. Castillo. But I want to
remind us that we're here to acknowledge and take some votes on this department. There will be
further dialogue about what is the difference between a dollar- funded position in a department.
Quite frankly, if we dollar- funded a position and we had money in other places of the council, I, as
the authority in the council, could transfer that to fill that position. And Mr. Rapozo is correct on
that. When it comes in the department, for the department, those transactions can occur. When it's
crossing departments, that's when we get into some gray areas and I want to give the appropriate
legal authority some time to digest that. So we're back to the approvals on the mayor's budget for
the mayor's office and the two exceptions are, of course, the changes in the health fund but also,
which were reductions, and the fact that we're going to defer the request for follow -up questions on
the D.C. lobbyist. Is there any more discussion on the mayor's office? Councilmember Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: So it's not just these supplemental changes but also all the
unchanged changes in the March 15th budget.
Chair Furfaro: All of the changes that occurred from March 15th to May 6th
are reflected in this worksheet.
Ms. Yukimura: Right, but we're not just approving those changes, we're
approving the whole budget.
Chair Furfaro: That's correct, we're approving the mayor's office.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Question, Chair. I mean move for the question.
It's a straw vote right now.
Chair Furfaro: I just want to reaffirm with you folks. We have a wonderful
document prepared by our department. It compared the March 15th to the May 6th and the
variances. If there was a variance, it appeared in the department. It was part of the March 15th
piece and you had specific questions, the mayor and other department heads acknowledged what our
questions were and sent answers over. So I'm looking for, at this particular time, the approval of
issues within the mayor's department so that we can move on.
Ms. Yukimura: Question, Mr. Chair. I call for the question, the vote.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.69
Chair Furfaro: Okay, there's been a call for the question and all those in
favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? None. Thank you very much.
We will now move on, I'm going to skip election, I'm going to skip the county auditor. I'm
going to go to the prosecuting attorney's office since they are here with us. We'll come back to the
other offices. The changes that occur in the prosecuting attorney's office indicate there was one
deputy prosecuting attorney added. There was a dollar- funded position for a special investigator and
a dollar- funded position for a new receptionist. There was a credit of $18,000.00 being reduced from
the health fund contribution. So we are now discussing the prosecuting attorney's office. A
reminder, if there were specific line items that I read earlier and there were any members that had
to recuse themselves, this is the time to do it. But seeing many of these questions that are raised
were dealing with previous grants that are not part of this budget, so therefore are there discussions
about the changes in the prosecuting attorney's office? Members? I'm looking for members, if not,
I'm going to call for the vote on as submitted.
Mr. Rapozo: I believe there was a request for an additional prosecutor.
Chair Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Bynum: The mayor added one, yeah?
Mr. Rapozo: The mayor added one and I understand there was a request
for an additional prosecuting attorney, deputy prosecuting attorney.
Chair Furfaro: Shay, may I ask you to come up for a second? I just got a
quick question for you. The rules are suspended.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, shay. Shay, I just want to make sure before we go
to this next piece, the vacancies that you had carried over from last year, are they filled now?
SHAYLENE ISERI- CARVALHO, Prosecuting Attorney: Yes, yes, and I had indicated earlier
when I had spoken with councilmembers that when we have attorney positions, it takes a while for
us to fill those positions because they currently have usually other clients and so they need to go
back to court to have those clients retain other counsel. And so there's usually like a lag in time. I
mean we have people that we have already scheduled to fill, we have a vacant position, but that is
actually filled already. It's just that we need to set that person up in a couple months. I believe
their hire date is, like, in June. But, yeah, all of our positions are basically filled, I mean have people
already assigned to those positions who are clearing up their caseload or otherwise
taking /completing their graduation and will be already hired at our office.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I want you to know I did distribute the answers to the
earlier questions to the members from your office, so they do have that. That's the only question I
have of you right now. Are there anymore questions of the prosecutor's office? We're good, Shay.
Ms. Yukimura: Just thank you for the supplemental info.
Ms. Iseri - Carvalho: Okay.
Mr. Rapozo: I have just one question. I'm looking at the ... the mayor's
supplemental adds one more deputy attorney?
Ms. Iseri - Carvalho: The mayor's was the one that was promised to us back in
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.70
March and so he provided the position he promised back in March. We made a plea to have two
deputy prosecuting attorney positions. We were given one. And so we're asking the county council
to support our request so that we are able to become on parity with other counties. We will still be a
huge amount of caseloads below other counties ... I guess I would say over other counties. Other
counties still have a lot more attorneys than we do. However, even with this attorney we still will
not be exactly on parity, we are still going to be operating at a much higher caseload but not as high
of a caseload as we have been the past two years.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, thank you. Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank you. Shay, hi. So just for the clarification, your wish
list back when was to have two deputy attorneys?
Ms. Iseri - Carvalho: That's correct.
Mr. Chang: Okay, but you had one and you were requesting for an
additional...
Ms.Iseri- Carvalho: Deputy.
Mr. Chang: When you came before us.
Ms. Iseri - Carvalho: Yes, yes.
Mr. Chang: Okay, because we've had discussions and I've looked over the
numbers, I looked with the correspondence, and I understand the caseload and back when in, when
we first started the process I was hoping that another position would be given to you because public
safety and the caseload and the crime and the backlog is a big concern for myself. And I had asked
the question, which I need to apologize because I think I was going on the personnel side of your
office, but I have since, believe, done my due diligence in response to morale and the team - building
and the teamwork not only with your office, which is obviously overworked, but the police
department itself. I think you mentioned that to us and in chatting with the rank and file I think for
myself I'm comfortable with the fact that I believe the working relationship is better than it's been...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, Mr. Chang, I hate to say that, but personnel
matters are not the subject of this body.
Mr. Chang: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: I understand where your questions were, but you want to
focus it on caseload and so forth.
Mr. Chang: Okay, okay, and that's kind of what got me in trouble the first
time around, so what I would just say is that back then, I had every intention and every interest of
supporting you with an additional deputy and my position is to be supportive of her request.
Chair Furfaro: When we have the discussion here that's like earlier, those in
the audience don't have a vote. We have a vote. Shay, I'm going to let you return to your seat and
we'll have this discussion here. Thank you.
Ms. Iseri - Carvalho: Thank you.
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Members, is there discussion here on this request? I heard
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.71
from Mr. Chang. It was his intention to ... this question, was it your intention to support this
additional position?
Mr. Chang: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: Okay.
Ms. Yukimura: Is that a motion?
Chair Furfaro: Do we have a motion? Do we have a second?
Mr. Rapozo: Second.
Chair Furfaro: There's a second by Mr. Rapozo, so we should have some
discussion on this. Mr. Kuali'i.
Mr. Chang moved to add a deputy prosecuting attorney position to the budget, seconded by
Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I remember the prosecutor's very thorough
presentation to us during budget presentation and, again, in this submittal of answering the
questions, the glaring numbers of the caseload and the funded attorneys to cover that caseload for
Kauai 6.5, their average caseload is 5,615; for Maui 29, their average caseload is 2301 and for the
Big Island 27, theirs is 3,617. So, public safety is of prime importance and I think that we need to
support the prosecutor with another deputy position.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, is there any more discussion? Mr. Bynum.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.72
Mr. Bynum: I also heard the presentation. I asked the mayor and the
finance director to look at this office and make recommendations in the supplemental. They added a
position, I assume, as a result of that and I'm going to support the mayor's budget. I'm not going to
support increasing it beyond that.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any further discussion? Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, Mr. Chair, I, too, I know there's a great need but there's
a great need also we heard today at IT and there's a lot of areas where we need support. So I am
very much in favor of the new deputy prosecuting attorney that is in the mayor's supplemental
budget, but I think I would like to stay there at this time for this year.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, is there any further discussion before I call the vote on
adding this one additional... Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank you, Chairman. Yeah, I just want to say for myself
public safety is huge here on the island of Kauai and there's a lot of crime out there that sometimes
we don't want to talk about, but just when Councilmember Kuali`i was saying 6.5 or 29 or 27, just for
the public, what we're talking about is county funded attorneys, Kauai having 6 -1/2 and the average
caseload is over 5600. Maui has 29 attorneys, the Big Island has 27 and their caseloads are far less
than what Kauai has to deal with. So for myself I just feel it's very important that we can get the
felons or what have you prosecuted and justice can move ahead. So I believe that there are other
departments that are coming to us and it's very tough budget decisions, but I believe first and
foremost that public safety should certainly be up there as far as urgency is concerned and that's
why I'm supporting the prosecuting attorney's office. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any further discussion? Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I think we have to understand a couple of things. No. 1 is
several of these positions were once grant- funded, converted over to now county- funded. So we're
basically trying to catch up and fulfill our end of the bargain back when these positions, some of
these positions were grant funded. The other thing is if you look at the funding of our county
attorney's office, we not only fund them with attorneys, we also fund them to the tune of a million
dollars for special counsel. The prosecutor doesn't have that ability to go out and hire. So in other
words, they have to handle everything in- house. If you look at the caseload as Mr. Kuali`i as well as
Mr. Chang have discussed, it's unfair. I think the caseload that is handled by the prosecutor's office
is very high and with the recent increase in crime here on Kauai, whether we want to talk about it
or not, it's a reality. I want to be sure that when we're done with this budget that we've made the
proper guarantees and assurances to the people of Kauai that we've covered public safety. This is a
request for an additional position of $101,000.00. I believe that if you look through our budget
there's quite a bit of expenditures, non - public safety expenditures that we can actually do without
this year. But I'm going to support the position because of public safety and the fact that we need to
make sure that the prosecutors and the police have the resources available so they can go out and
actively investigate and prosecute the crimes that's going on on Kauai. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, any further discussion? Mr. Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Mr. Chair, just one last point. Also from the presentation
with regards to the conviction rates, I think the prosecutors have been incredibly successful despite
being overworked, long hours, and I think in order to continue this success rate, property crimes
cases closed 2010, conviction rate 99 percent; meth cases closed 2010, 98 percent conviction rate;
sexual assault 2010, conviction rate 93 percent. I think we potentially could suffer from that
conviction rate going down if we don't address burnout... potential burnout and the need to properly
fund our public safety needs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.73
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. I have to tell you, I've been debating this myself,
but I'm going to support it and I'm going to support it based on the following: To the prosecutor's
office, I have to say, I understand your approach to staffing and building people on, but it also led to
a surplus in your department of $264,000.00. And I worry about the surplus because we end up
carrying that over as something that gets converted to a reserve fund or so forth. But based on some
of the comparisons that I've made with the other counties, I feel I can justify this second deputy
prosecuting attorney. But I want you to know that I do not feel if we do not see valid controls on the
surplus as well as the increases for future results, I may have to revisit that next year because I'm
still on the council next year. So I will be supporting this under those conditions. Any further
discussion? Mr. Bynum?
Mr. Bynum: Is it possible to ask the finance director a question regarding
this matter?
Chair Furfaro: Do you need some information before you make a decision or
if you've already stated your position, you've already stated your position, will it change your
position?
Mr. Bynum: It could.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Could I have the finance director up? The rules are
suspended.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
WALLACE G. REZENTES, JR., Finance Director: Good afternoon, Wally Rezentes, Jr.,
Director of Finance.
Mr. Bynum: I'm acting under an assumption and I've learned I shouldn't
do that sometimes. After the budget presentations from the prosecutor, you looked at the budget
and the grant- funded positions and the county- funded positions to make your recommendations?
Mr. Rezentes: I believe the prosecutor may have come up to this body after
they came up and talked to us administratively. There was a second shorter review after the March
submittal with each department and so we had our separate discussions with that office like we did
the other departments.
Mr. Bynum: So if the council approves this, that's two new positions in the
prosecutor's office (inaudible). You agreed to one new position, correct?
Mr. Rezentes: Correct.
Mr. Bynum: That's not a dollar- funded position. That's a new position.
Mr. Rezentes: A new deputy prosecuting attorney.
Mr. Bynum: So when you came to that decision because it's a complex
department because it has grant funding and county funding, and did you look at the grant funding
portion to look at the overall mix before making that recommendation?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes, I mean if you look at, if you look at the current fiscal year
2011 budget, look at what was submitted in March and what was submitted in May, there are quite
a bit of changes on the county side beyond the new positions where positions were grant funded in
part or in whole in the past and we're now picking them up 100 percent, or like 100 percent on the
county side. So besides the dollar- funded positions, there was a lot of additional funding for
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.74
positions that were warm bodied already with grant funds.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, so you're comfortable that what you've given us in your
supplemental is the appropriate level of staffing for the prosecutor's office?
Mr. Rezentes: Well, that's... the budget is what we had proposed. I mean the
question, I think, you should better be asked by the prosecuting attorney or from the prosecuting
attorney.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, Wally, before you sit down, I do want to say as I
evaluated the positions there were several grants that are inclusive today, but the fact of the matter
is they're in their third year which has been reduced to 75 percent, some of them in their second year
which was reduced to 50 percent of the funding. Did you look at those as well?
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.75
Mr. Rezentes: Yes, some of the decisions may be forthcoming. I'm not sure.
In the end where the legislature's budget is going to be as far as getting the final stamp of approval
after going through the executive process of getting signed off by the governor or if like Senator
Kouchi said if there's going to be another special session as a result of the council of revenue's rate
amendments, we're not sure exactly where all the various state funding sources will end up.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, thank you, I'll call the meeting back to order.
There being no further questions, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Any further discussion before I call for the vote? Mr. Clerk,
who's going to be calling roll call when I ask for the vote, is that you? Okay, Mr. Bynum, you had
another question?
Mr. Bynum: It's just that I want the prosecutor's office to be funded
adequately and staffed adequately, but it's a complex department. It has grant funding and state
funding, and it appears that we don't know what the outcome of that is going to be. So there's
nothing that would preclude the prosecutor from coming back and requesting a position if those
grant funds are cut or the state does additional cuts.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so you're close to my situation. I'm saying I probably
am supporting this for the year, to make an evaluation at the end of the year. I don't want to make
any evaluations, but next year's budget as well. So, on that note, I'm going to call for the vote, let's
get a roll call vote here.
The motion to add a deputy prosecuting attorney position to the budget was then put, and
carried by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura, Rapozo, Furfaro TOTAL — 5,
AGAINST ADOPTION: Bynum, Yukimura TOTAL — 2,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura: Five for, two against.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. On that note, is there any additional
discussion within the prosecuting attorney's office? If not, I'd like to move on to finance since
Mr. Rezentes is here. Mr. Rezentes, can I ask you a question? It's affecting a lot of other
departments, but I'm going to suspend the rules.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Chair Furfaro: Tell me a little about ... I know it's under finance
administration, but I see this reduction on the health fair contribution pretty much across the board.
Can you tell us what's happening there?
WALLACE G. REZENTES, JR., Director of Finance: That's the different ratio from going
from a 60/40 to a 50/50.
Chair Furfaro: Got it, understood. I was just wondering why it's coming
across the whole.
Mr. Rezentes: So it's going to be consistent across all departments.
Chair Furfaro: I see and then you broke it down by department.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.76
Mr. Rezentes: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: So I'm good. Are there any other questions about finance
administration while we have Mr. Rezentes here? If not, I think we're going to be moving along.
There's nothing more to discuss there. Peter, how are we going to handle this when we go to the
clerk's office? Are you going to be ... Peter, I'm going to chat with you not only about the council
services but I don't see the auditor here and if I'm correct it does not look like there were any
changes since his first submittal.
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, and for council services there seems to be a small
savings with the health fund again, but we had no other changes submitted?
Mr. Nakamura: Not for the council services office, Mr. Chair. I think the
main change was the one that we discussed at the departmental review, which was to move the two
temporary clerks from 4 months to 6 months, which adds two months to each of the temporary
clerks, and this is a result of the date changes in the election, the primary election moving up one
month and all deadlines moving up a month, except for the filing deadline, which I believe still is the
first working day of February.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any discussion on those changes? Those are primary
election dates that we changed, am I correct, Peter?
Mr. Nakamura: Correct, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Any questions of the county clerk? Go right ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: Just related to the overall budget of the clerk. I know that in
our hearings we had asked for some clarification of the goals of the division and I don't think we got
any supplemental information related to elections, goals, for example, for registering, aiming for a
higher registration of voters, etcetera. And so I just wanted to make that known for the record and
maybe even after the budget if we could get some of those. I don't mean goals, personnel goals for
yourself, but goals for the whole council services and it's possibly something that the council can get
involved in too.
Mr. Nakamura: I think, Vice Chair and Council Chair, one of the things on
the election side, we're waiting for some legislation to pass because I believe there's legislation
related to voter registration that was pending and I haven't had the chance to go back and check
since the legislature. I think there was a bill pending for election day registration and also for online
registration. My apologies, I haven't had the time to check on what happened after the legislature
closed.
Ms. Yukimura: No, I know it's been busy.
Mr. Nakamura: I think that may affect the voter registration question also if
they've changed those types of deadlines or processes.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, but I'm also thinking about customer servicing, staff
well -being goals, those kinds of things.
Chair Furfaro: Peter, these are many items that I've met with you about and
we should fulfill the Vice Chair's request, but I would hope to have them by the end of May.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, that'll be fine. Thank you.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.77
Chair Furfaro: Hold on one moment, Peter. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: So we had a memo dated 4 -21, you haven't had an
opportunity to respond to that yet?
Mr. Nakamura: No, we've been kind of tied up with some other things, I
believe.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, thank you, I can relate. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Peter, you're fine with the end of May, though, on this
discussion?
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Okay, Wally, we're back to you again. It's
finance and accounting now. Can we ask you to come up? Suspend, yes.
(Inaudible.)
Chair Furfaro: No, I can call him back but you had your opportunity. You
want to call him back?
(Inaudible).
Chair Furfaro: We can get through with Wally and then we can have that
discussion. How's that? So I see there are some items on finance and accounting that, Wally, do you
have this plus and minus...
WALLACE G. REZENTES, JR., Director of Finance: No, I don't, but I think the major
change in finance /accounting is the result of the cost allocation plan changes. As you know we are in
the midst of working with our consultant and...
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so we have a...
Mr. Rezentes: I believe basically this is accurate information as to how much
the county general fund should be recouping from the other funds.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so those are the items under the indirect cost central
services?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. And those are general adjustments downward?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes. So basically in the past the analysis was done, the cost
allocation was done in a way that was at the time we budgeted, we budgeted in the past with some of
the costs being borne by the general fund and at one time it was within the county finance
department. We have since pushed out to the different funds these costs. So now since they're
paying for it already, we're going to be recouping less in the general fund. So that was the
appropriate adjustment that was made for the May submittal.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. Wally, I'm going to jump over to
finance IT. You were here when we had the presentation by Brandon, a very excellent presentation,
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.78
if I may add. Do you have any further comments other than the health fund here on IT? All of those
items he presented to us I assume are in the CIP now?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, treasury department, anything to add?
Mr. Rezentes: No, it's straight with the health fund changes with the 60/40
to 50/50.
Chair Furfaro: In the drivers license area, I presume as it was explained to
us by Mr. Spanski, we might be looking for some changes there in next year's budget as it relates to
some of these federal ID requirements?
Mr. Rezentes: The Real ID System, yes. I think we will have a better idea
next year as to what the cost burden is going to be, the unfunded cost burden is going to be on the
county side as we progress through the implementation of the Real ID System.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, and no other changes in vehicle motor registration?
Mr. Rezentes: No, for the rest in finance it's just the health fund
adjustments.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I'm going to pose this question to you since it came up
earlier when we got diverted to the revenue cycle. Was I correct in dealing with real property
finance and assessments that you are working to present something to this body in the future?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes, a number of different initiatives, yes.
Chair Furfaro: Do you have an idea when we might be seeing that?
Mr. Rezentes: Some of them should come within a few weeks, within a
month, definitely. Others may take a little bit more time, but some of them are a little bit more
housekeeping in nature that we want to propose and others I think are going to take a lot more time
with us and this body to deliberate and discuss.
Chair Furfaro: So if we see these in the next 30 to 60 days, the intent of the
finance department is for them to be implemented when? Let's say they're successful, when would
they be implemented?
Mr. Rezentes: It would be for the ensuing fiscal year 2013.
Chair Furfaro: Ensuing fiscal year, okay. Okay, are there any questions on
finance while Mr. Rezentes is here? Go right ahead.
Mr. Bynum: I just see that there are no changes in pretty much all of
finance from your initial submittal...
Mr. Rezentes: Right. The most substantive was already discussed within
finance /accounting.
Mr. Bynum: Right and then IT, just remind me, and IT in your initial
proposal, was there any additional resources for IT?
Mr. Rezentes: People resources?
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.79
Mr. Bynum: Yeah.
Mr. Rezentes: No, there are vacancies there; there are a couple vacancies as
Mr. Raines had mentioned, and he's in the process of recruiting. I think he reanalyzed what the
needs are and I think he wants to make some changes in the scope of the positions and then move
forward through personnel and get the positions hired. But it is funded right now and vacant.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Wally. I don't think there are any more questions
at this point, but thank you, and I do want to say, I know IT is a sub - department of yours, but that
was an excellent presentation. And everything that we saw this morning is in fact in the CIP.
Thank you. Okay? Mr. Bynum, you wanted me to call back the county clerk?
Mr. Bynum: No, I don't need to talk to the clerk, but have we voted on the
council services budget?
Chair Furfaro: Okay, there was really ... I'm only going to ask to take a vote if
there's a physical change. There was no change on some of these, so when we vote on the overall
budget. But if you're proposing a change for council services, now would be the time to talk about it.
Mr. Bynum: Okay. I'd be happy to do that. I'm just going to take a shot at
this because I think it's important for our county. Five years ago I came on council services, we
debated at the time adding positions as personal staff for councilmembers because we're the only
county that doesn't have those positions at all. Our human resource subcommittee this year did an
analysis with help from our staff of the legislative body staffing in the other counties in the State of
Hawaii. In every other county, councilmembers have personal staff to respond to their constituents,
to work on their proposals, to organize themselves in order to be a legislative body. In Maui, each
person has two fulltime people, in the Big Island each councilmember has two fulltime people, in the
City and County of Honolulu they have a budget of about $280,000.00 and most of them hire 4 to
6 people. In terms of the total staff in Maui, it's like 49 people in the legislative body including the
personal staff and the line staff. In the Big Island it's like 48; City and County is probably around
60, they have a much bigger operation, and there are reasons and we discussed that during the
human resource subcommittee. But on Kauai we have 18. We haven't really grown and I think we
have an outstanding staff and nothing I'm about to say should be considered criticism of the staff
people we have because they put out an incredible amount of work and do it with real competence to
a person
However, there are many serious legislative initiatives that need to be taken. I'm trying to
take some initiative on taxes because in two years we have had no legislation come from the
administration. They say there's some coming. On the planning department, the legislation that
was envisioned in our charter 11 years ago has not been completed and that was the short term. I
think we're on track for those things, which is great, given good leadership on the council and some
changes in planning, but we have a difficult time fulfilling our responsibility as a legislative body to
the county at our current level of staffing and being responsive to our constituents and being
effective.
So five years ago during this same discussion we put a position in the council services budget
that was not filled for five years. So I'm going to go back to the proposal that was made five years
ago. Also we're going to move in September or October back to our new old home at the historic
county building. That building has workstations for council's personal staff, to have an
administrative assistant or a secretary type of person to support your councilmembers. I know it's
not a popular thing to ask for staff for yourself, but I'm going to say it anyway because I believe if we,
as councilmembers, I am absolutely convinced of this from discussion with councilmembers in the
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.80
other islands and staff people, that if we had someone to organize our office and seek information,
keep ourselves organized so we as councilmembers are not spending a lot of our personal time doing
what is in essence clerical kind of work, that we would be more effective and, more importantly, that
our staff would be interrupted less by those kind of routine requests that come routinely from us,
and so the remaining staff would be more productive because they'd be shielded at some level from
being distracted from the projects and the day -to -day business of the council.
The day -to -day business of the council is, I think, keeps our staff pretty much hopping all of
the time. We don't have enough redundancy and we get a stack of paper this much just on things
that we have to act on. That's not something that we're taking new initiative on and trying to keep
up with this complicated world we live in. So having said all of that, I know the council chair has put
a position in to help organize councilmembers, I believe that's the intention. What I'm going to
propose is that we set up a budget line item of $350,000 which would be sufficient for each
councilmember to hire a halftime administrative assistant. I'd like to frame that as "dipping our toe
into the water" of this concept of having personal staff and establishing our own offices so we are
more productive and in lieu of that one staff position which would be shared by seven people. So I'm
going to make that proposal, I think we have the revenue to do that. I think the timing is right in
that we're moving into new offices and I believe we need that level of support to be effective in our
role.
Ms. Yukimura: Are you making a motion?
Mr. Bynum: I'm making a motion, it's actually two parts: one is to
eliminate a position from our current, which is unfilled, and a recognition that that has some dollars
attached to it, but also putting in $350,000 which would be sufficient funding, according to our staff,
to hire a halftime administrative assistant for each councilmember.
Ms. Yukimura: I'll second it.
Mr. Bynum moved to eliminate a funded unfilled secretarial position currently in the budget
and to add $350,000.00 to the council services budget for seven (7) halftime personal
administrative assistants (one per councilmember @$50,000 each), seconded by
Ms. Yukimura.
Chair Furfaro: So we have a motion and a second for approximately $50,000
for each councilmember. Is that correct?
Mr. Bynum: Which is sufficient, according to ... when I asked our
administrator what that figure should be if we were hiring an administrative assistant type
individual at halftime salary, plus the OPEB and all the other benefits.
Chair Furfaro: So there's a second and discussion, Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank you. Councilmember Bynum, can you explain to me
this halftime, what does that mean, halftime position?
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.81
Mr. Bynum: Halftime means you'd hire somebody for 20 hours a week,
that it's not a fulltime position, it's sufficient for halftime, and that is a position that would include
benefits. Frankly, I would see in the future that that be increased to a fulltime position. But this is
like to get established, to get this precedent going. The amount comes from asking our current
administrator what would be the appropriate amount for that level.
Mr. Chang: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Any additional discussion?
(Inaudible.)
Chair Furfaro: Before I recognize you, so there's some clarity here, there is a
position in for secretarial assistance, actually which we have people coming in for interviews
tomorrow, which is in the budget, okay?
So first we're talking about adding halftime staff for each councilmember as proposed by
Mr. Bynum. Do not focus your attention on eliminating what's already in the budget at this point.
Let's have the discussion of adding the halftime. Okay, Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, if you can help me, Mr. Chair. We have a secretary
position, 2710, is that the one we're trying to fill?
Chair Furfaro: That's the one we have candidates for.
Mr. Rapozo: And then there's a new one. That's not the one you're trying
to fill?
Chair Furfaro: We have that too.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, okay. Then I guess I'll just make my comments now. I
will not be supporting the $350,000.00. I think after the Senator Kouchi's discussion this morning, I
think it really should force us to be even more conservative as far as the budget. I'm not convinced
that the legislature is going to leave the TAT alone. I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be okay, but
I think what I heard from Senator Kouchi today is that they have no other pots to raid and the only
one left, the only two left is the TAT to the counties and the TAT to the HTA, and I'm concerned
about that and I think except for public safety, I think we need to be very, very careful with our
expenditures. I don't want to send the wrong message to the legislature as well. I did ask from our
management or our supervisory positions here if there was a need for new personnel. Yes, everybody
can use more personnel, but I think this is not the time to do it. I think this council needs to set the
example to at least to the public saying, hey, we are going to tighten the belt. We are. And whatever
it takes and if we have to suffer another year, we'll do so. I am so proud of our staff and would love
to give them some assistance, but I think right now as the future is so uncertain that we need to be
very careful. We need to be very careful. And I will be supporting the positions that are in the
budget, the existing positions that are in the budget, but I think we, as a council, need to set that
example and there's always time to revisit as we move forward, but I think right now because the
unknown future of the state situation that we need to be really careful. So I'm not going to be
supporting the $350,000 for council services. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any additional discussion? Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, Mr. Chair, actually the statistics that Councilmember
Bynum gave are kind of like the prosecuting attorney's statistics in terms of how far behind we are
compared to the other counties. And I think our positions and the decisions we make are very
important. We're overseeing a $180 million operating budget, an $83 -plus capital budget, making
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.82
decisions on major legislation affecting permitting, land use, transportation, etcetera, so it really
behooves us to make sure that we do this work in a really productive and information -based way and
we can all use some help, we know that. I've had reservations about it because I've been concerned
about the interface of a new system with our existing system. And I have such respect and desire to
support our existing staff. I think it could be, if we have the proper management and the bringing in
of this new system, it could work well to actually support everybody where everybody wins. But I'm
concerned that maybe we haven't laid enough groundwork. At this point I think I'll vote for it today
because I think this is the way of the future. I'm not sure it's going to get the votes today, but I think
it's a signal that we need to be doing that. It will increase our professionalism, our decision - making,
and hopefully that will have a great return on investment.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, any additional discussion? Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that there might have
been this thought or decision or conversation, I should say, a while back that we were going to ... I
might be wrong, but we were going to have one fulltime secretary for three members, one full -time
secretary for the other three members. Was that a discussion that may have come out a while back?
Chair Furfaro: No, let me share something with all of you folks. We have
already in the budget one secretary for six of you. I would consider obviously having two secretaries
by adding one more so that three of you have one clerical support person and three of you have
another clerical support person. I am not able to support Mr. Bynum's $350,000.00 request, but I
am prepared to support another one $41,000 position. You have to remember, over in the House of
Representatives, they're in a position where they have a chief of staff, they have clerical staff
assigned to them and so forth, and we're working every day of the month on bills and so forth. So I
think we have to get to a point that we start to graduate from some of these particulars. I myself
have been on the council nine years. Every PowerPoint that I've presented, every narrative that I
have written, I have done myself at home, and I'm considered part -time. So, it is challenging. Issues
and legislation go on from the federal government, from grant pursuals to state activities, and I just
think three councilmembers sharing one administrative assistant is probably the next right step. I
don't think that the next step is getting to a point that ... what Mr. Bynum is suggesting. But I could
certainly support the alternative. So I won't be supporting the $350,000 and I hope I've answered
your question.
Mr. Chang: Thank you. And I would say for myself I could really use the
help. I mean, in three years maybe I've gotten used to trying to do things myself, but I could really
use some help like on Monday mornings or on Friday afternoons or on the Thursday after the
council, and I just wanted to bring that up because however the conversation came about, I believe
that I can support and I want to support an additional secretary. If one is already being funded, and
we can get an additional, I think for now I would be very comfortable by at least having an
additional secretarial body to handle three council members and another to do three, then I think
that would be, at this point, better than fair and I can support that.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, well that motion isn't on the table.
Mr. Chang: I understand that.
Chair Furfaro: The motion that's on the table, I only took the point to explain
this to you. Mr. Bynum, let me go to Mr. Kuali`i first and then back to you.
Mr. Kuali`i: Mr. Chair, yeah, having a dedicated staff support assistant
would be nice, but I think at this time especially seeing what Councilmember Rapozo said this
morning about ... we heard from Senator Kouchi and I think the times require us to not be careless, if
you will. I mean we ... it would be nice to have that additional support, but our staff now, I've found
at least, are incredible and they're providing... you know, they're scrambling, they could use the help,
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.83
but for each of us to have a dedicated staff person, it seems like for me personally it's a luxury we
can't afford right now. So I would have to vote against this $350,000, no.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so we had a motion and a second on adding
approximately $350,000 to the council's budget. I'm going to call for the vote. Oh, go ahead,
Mr. Bynum, go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: I appreciate the discussion. I still feel like this is the way to
go, but I'm glad there's an acknowledgement that we need some level of support because we have
this awesome council here of really, really talented people and I'll use the chair as an example. He's
a great big picture guy. He really sees how things integrate and how they work and it's frustrating
to me that he would spend his time rather than engaging with his constituents and putting these
things together, working on a PowerPoint or working on organizational things that high level
individuals, who are decision makers in a major organization, usually don't. And so one way or
another, it looks like we're willing to look at some of that support. I think eventually having... an
administrative assistant is different than a secretary, it's not a lot of dollars difference, but it's
somebody who can research and write and maybe has a different skill set than a secretary because I
wasn't seeing it just as clerical. So I appreciate being able to make the presentation.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, on that... Mr. Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I'm sorry, just one more important point, I feel. In
looking at that support, I would also want to have fulltime positions that thinks of the worker and
their family and not have seven (7) halftime positions that is not benefited and so fulltime positions
is what I would support and that one position I would.
Chair Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Bynum: Just one caveat. One is that that amount of 350 is inclusive
of benefits, right, so if we do a couple of secretaries at 41, it's not 82. It's probably closer to 2 or 175.
And I agree with what Mr. Kuali`i said. That's why it's a halftime position that includes benefits.
And because it's a budgeted amount, two members could go together and hire a fulltime person. It's
just the equivalent, FTE equivalent, of 0.5 is the proposal. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I'm going to call for the vote on the 350 number as
suggested by Mr. Bynum. Mr. Clerk, may I have a roll call on this, please?
The motion to eliminate a funded unfilled secretarial position currently in the budget and to
add $350,000.00 to the council services budget for seven (7) halftime personal administrative
assistants (one per councilmember at $50,000 each) was then put, and failed by the following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Yukimura TOTAL — 2,
AGAINST ADOPTION: Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura, Rapozo, Furfaro TOTAL — 5,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura: Two yes, five noes, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Now while we're on this subject, I would like to suggest that
we add a position, one position, to the one existing we already have for approximately $41,000 plus
about 52 percent in benefits, which will come to about $63,550, and that is with the intent that in
addition to the secretary we have, we now have two, and depending on the relationship on
committees and so forth, we would have clerical support of one person for three councilmembers and
one person for three councilmembers. And I'd like to see if I could get a second on that.
Mr. Chang: Second.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.84
Mr. Rapozo: Somebody has to make the motion.
Ms. Yukimura: Someone has to make the motion other than the chair.
Chair Furfaro: That's right.
Mr. Kuali`i: So moved.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Mr. Kuali`i moved to add $63,550 (approximately $41,000 plus 52 percent benefits) to the
council services budget for a secretarial position for the councilmembers, seconded by
Mr. Bynum.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, thank you for promoting my idea. Okay,
Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I have a question for either Peter or Ricky, if that's okay.
Chair Furfaro: That's fine. Mr. Clerk, could you come up? And a reminder,
you don't vote.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Rapozo: It's more of a logistical question. It's a logistical question as
we move back to the office, do we have ample space to house two more secretary positions in the
configuration that we have?
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.85
PETER A. NAKAMURA, County Clerk: Councilmember, I'd want to say yes, but what I'd
like to do is go back and check the floor plan. I'm pretty certain we do have, we built in...
Mr. Rapozo: And not some closet that we're going to stuff them in because
we never prepared. I mean a decent work space that she can or he can effectively serve the council.
Mr. Nakamura: Yes, my understanding was we did build in additional space.
I think it's just a question of location, where it would be in terms of where that work space would be
because we did build in expansion space into the offices.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, and as the county clerk of council services, is that
something you could support, an additional... I mean I'm looking at this budget with a different pair
of glasses that's why, I guess. I'm looking for ways to reduce and I'm very uncomfortable with
increasing because it almost seems like it's Christmas here today and we're just trying to see what
we can get, but I want to make sure, No. 1, if we really need it, and No. 2 is if we can actually house
that person. There's no doubt we can use it, I mean that's ... of course we can use it, but that's
60 -plus thousand dollars that's going to be added to this budget that we have to find from someplace
else, and I just want to make sure it's something that we can fit into the scheme of things in the
council services.
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Peter, for that comment. Did you have something
for the clerk?
Ms. Yukimura: I have a question.
Mr. Bynum: No.
Ms. Yukimura: I do.
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Clerk, we're integrating quite a few new people. Would it
be easier to put in one new secretary, which is already in the budget this year and then add on next
year?
Mr. Nakamura: Vice Chair, my goals are the council's goals. If that's the wish
of the council to add this position, I'll work with that.
(Inaudible).
Ms. Yukimura: I'm sorry. The same question in terms of logistics of staff
and...
Mr. Nakamura: I think, Vice Chair, like we were speaking about with
Councilmember Rapozo, there is additional space built into the renovations at the historic county
building. So I believe it's just a matter or where we would physically locate that person because we
did build in expansion space in the building. And that's about as...
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to excuse you from the table. Lonnie, I need to
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.86
explain something to you. We took public testimony this morning on everything. We are in the
decision making process and if you want, when we get to 4:30 p.m., you can make a statement. I'll
bring you up for six minutes. And the cameraman, are you stretching or are you trying to get my
attention.
(Inaudible).
There being no further questions, the meeting was called back order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Okay, very good. We're back here together and there is a
motion and a second on the table to add one administrative support person to the council. And I do
want to say that I will support that. You know, I have no problem all my managerial life being able
to make PowerPoint presentations and so forth, but I have to tell you there are a number of duties
that actually get deferred to the last minute because we don't have the kind of support that I think
we're entitled to, but I don't want to jump off the deep end, either. I'd rather do it incrementally and
that's why I made the motion for the one position. Any further discussion on that before I call for the
vote? If not, I'm going to call for the vote, Mr. Clerk, or can someone call for the vote? Oh, here he
is, okay.
The motion to add $63,550 (approximately $41,000 plus 52 percent benefits) to the council
services budget for a secretarial position for the councilmembers was then put, and carried by the
following vote:
FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura, Rapozo, TOTAL — 7,
Yukimura, Furfaro
AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL — 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura:
Seven ayes, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: So on that note, we have closed out finance, we have closed
out the council. The next item we're going to is planning and I would like to point out that we have a
held position with a dollar for a project manager in planning, a second project manager in planning,
and a credit for the health fund. On that note, Councilman Rapozo, I need to excuse myself.
Mr. Rapozo: I was just going to say I think we must be due for a caption
break. We are not? No, I mean we've gone well beyond the two hours.
Chair Furfaro: We're going to take a 10- minute caption break before we go
into planning, thank you.
There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 3:42 p.m.
The meeting was called back to order at 3:57, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Aloha, we're back from that recess and in that particular
piece we are referencing various items within the planning department, and so as I stated earlier,
they had identified two $1- funded positions that may in fact be extracted from the overall scope and
management of two CIP plans dealing with planning. And it looks to me that there were no other
pieces submitted as changes from March 15th to May 6th on planning. Any discussion there?
Councilwoman Nakamura.
Ms. Nakamura: Council Chair, Members, I'd like to make a proposal or motion
to include in the planning department a line item for a transportation planner /engineer. The County
of Kauai does not have a dedicated transportation planner. There's a need for a staff person with
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.87
expertise to improve our county roads, pedestrian paths, bike path, and transit movements. There is
also a need for a staff person to help implement transportation improvements and design complete
streets. It's a very specialized expertise, someone who can see the broad picture, circulation issues,
as well as look at a street and be able to design how it can meet the needs not only of cars but of
bikes and people. And this person would work jointly in both planning in the long -range planning
division as well as the public works, engineering, road division, so would need to be able to speak two
languages and cross some county departmental lines, but rather than two separate positions as a
first step, I think it's important to try to get this person on board and focused on improving
circulation in our county. I see this as not just a planning position, but a public safety position. In
order to draw someone with this type of expertise, in conversations that I have had with staff
members, we would need to have a Planner VI at a minimum position.
Chair Furfaro: Do you know what a Planner VI salary range is?
Ms. Nakamura: Yes, that would be $70,000 plus fringe would be $35,000.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, Mr. Bynum.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.88
Mr. Bynum: You kind of answered some of the question. Would this
person actually be an engineer? Because it's a ... the gentleman we had here last month from
California, Paul, is the kind of guy you're thinking of, right, that has that kind of planning and
engineering background. It makes a lot of sense. Has this been something you've discussed with the
administration and can we do that kind of split, you know, yes, you're in planning but you're going to
support public works?
Ms. Nakamura: I don't think there's a mechanism now. I think it would need
to be in the job description to clearly specify the responsibilities. But I don't think they have joint or
shared positions.
Mr. Bynum: I mean when you are talking about it, I was thinking is this a
public works position or a planning. I guess it could go either way.
Ms. Nakamura: We also learned from the people who were here, the experts
last month, that every county has this person in a different position. In some counties it's in the
public works department, in other counties it's in the planning. So it really depends on where you
want to put him.
Chair Furfaro: But you identified it for the salary grade as a Planner VI.
Okay, Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I really support this proposal. I've been advocating a
transportation person in planning for a long time and we need to make that connection so badly. I
think I'm seeing it in planning now. I know Councilmember Nakamura and I did have the
discussion about someone that would be serving both planning and public works, but I think there's
a real sense of team that's developing between the departments and I'm sure that Larry Dill, our
county engineer, and Mike Dahilig, our planning director, can work together well even though it may
be located in one department. And I do like it in the planning department because that's been the
missing piece, that long range vision of planning and land use has really been the missing piece. So
I think that's a wonderful idea.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any further discussion? Mr. Rapozo
Mr. Rapozo: I have a question I guess, Councilmember Nakamura, and if
you answered it I apologize, but is the administration, are they willing to take this on? Did we get
the administration's blessing? I guess I'm concerned if we're...
(Inaudible.)
Mr. Rapozo: Oh, okay, I'm not sure if the mayor's prepared to answer that
or if planning or public works, but...
Chair Furfaro: Mayor, I will suspend the rules if you could come up. The
question posed is there is a suggestion here to add to the planning department, of which we're
talking about now, a Planner VI position specifically to enhance our outlook and future scoping of
complete streets, highways, and so forth. And I'll let Councilwoman Nakamura embellish upon that.
Go right ahead.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Ms. Nakamura: Or Councilman Rapozo can ask the question. It's basically do
you feel that there is a need and is this something that you would support?
BERNARD P. CARVALHO, JR., Mayor: I mean, to be honest, I'm hearing about this, I think
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.89
it's needed. You know, I think that we're moving in the right direction. We're making some major
changes. I would like to continue looking at our reorganization of our public works team and our
planning teams, and look in what areas we need to strengthen and which areas we need to look at
the capacity of the current staff members that we have. The two project managers are there dollar
funded to look at how we can work closely on specific projects. So the overall idea and the concept is
great, I think eventually we would need someone with that kind of capacity working closely, again,
with our leadership team, with Larry Dill and Lyle Tabata in public works, and you're correct,
there's a partnership and there's a working relationship developing and I'm smack dab in the middle
of that because I feel strongly that in time, in a very short time, as we continue to support the
complete streets, safe routes to schools, and all of these great opportunities and bringing resource
people in and training, and so we're there, discussions are strong. I don't know if this is the time.
but that's the discussions I've had as we've looked at the restructuring of our departments and
looking at the duties and responsibilities and developing different levels of expertise within both
departments. So that's where I'm at right now.
Mr. Rapozo:
Okay.
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo:
That's fine.
Chair Furfaro:
Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Mayor, the two project manager positions is something that
came to us on Friday or Thursday, so we're not real clear either about what the intention is for that
position. I mean, if it is smart growth issues, perhaps we merge this idea of a transportation planner
into the project manager position, saying that it be a transportation planner, but it's going to be
working on smart growth issues. Can you explain to us what those two...
Mr. Mayor: Well, what I know is we talked about the general plan and
now we're switching that to more of a technical plan in looking at growth numbers and so that's
where we needed additional support. This is my discussions now with our team members, to try and
understand what direction, what support you need, where do you want to go, how do you want to
manage this, and get to the place we want to be in a fairly quick time, if you know what I mean.
Ms. Yukimura: Right.
Mr. Mayor: And so the foundation is being built and laid out. So these
project managers, from my understanding, would help support that effort with additional... whether
it be project specific for now as we continue to move in that direction. Now if it's a mixture of both?
That can happen. But just based upon the information that I have, I support the idea of the
responsibility that is at the forefront but at the same time I want to make sure you understand that
we are addressing it overall as being a team concept.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: So Mayor, for clarification for me, are you saying those two
positions that are in the budget as dollar funded, some of this responsibility is going to fall on one of
those?
Mr. Mayor: What I'm sharing with you is that I'm hearing there may be
some opportunity there to look at supporting the discussion based upon what we have currently
submitted with the intention of bringing someone with that type of background, whether it be in
planning or public works, but I think planning is the appropriate place to have that type of expertise
because we're leading the foundation as we move towards addressing how we grow in the complete
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.90
streets effort. So, I just want to make sure you understand that we're thinking alike, we're moving
in that direction. So whether it be now or in the next cycle, the intent was to really look at
supporting that effort and being more project specific because my concern is I'm saying, we're doing
projects and we have to do these projects within a timely manner. And in this particular
department, these are the areas or the positions or the support that was related to me.
Ms. Nakamura: Can I?
( ?): Go right ahead.
Ms. Nakamura: And some of the opportunities that we have identified that
this person could immediately begin to work on would be the multi -modal transportation plan that's
going through the transportation department right now, as well as the roadway resurfacing
improvements that we have annually. There are opportunities to do complete streets on some of
those roadways. So that was the idea, was that there are projects where this type of expertise would
be helpful.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to recognize Mr. Bynum, then you, Vice Chair,
since this is his first time.
Mr. Bynum: Again, I'm really glad we're having this discussion because
one of the things I was toying with before this budget was for an update of our roadway... what's the
right ... the roadway standards haven't been updated since the mid -80's and from the departments
they say, hey, if you want to address these things, that's where we need to go, this is hopelessly
outdated. I was toying with the idea of trying to talk with the administration about consultant
services to address that. But perhaps this individual could also do that because the Big Island
updated their roadway standards about two years ago and when I look at ours and look at theirs, I
question whether we needed to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, but whether it could be accomplished
in -house with the groundwork that's been laid by the Big Island. And so a person would facilitate
that more than a consultant. So would you see that as a key thing for this individual as well?
Because clearly that's something we need to address quickly, I think. That's what I heard four years
ago. We have to address this quickly, these roadway standards. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, there is also underway the state land transportation plan
for Kauai and that's the big land use connection, the basic state highway system and how it
interrelates to our roads and also to our land use. So the county needs a really strong advocate and
liaison to that project as well. So that's another place where, to my knowledge, there's nobody really
in planning who is focusing on that interface of state highways and land transportation and county
land use.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. And I guess it's really unfair to have the mayor
up here because it should probably be planning, but one of the bigger concerns I have from planning
department or that I hear from the planning department is really the enforcement. We don't have
enough inspectors to go out and enforce the code violations and the planning violations that are
really running rampant right now. I'm really concerned and I would ask, I guess, Mr. Chair, if we
could hold off on this one. I'm inclined to support it, but I do want to check with Mike Dahilig. I
want to make sure that if we're going to put in a position that they can actually get it implemented
and get to work right away. I know there's some studies that are going to be done pertaining to this
matter and I want to just make sure that we're synchronized with the administration and not
funding a position that, No. 1, may not be filled; it may not be filled right away. The other question I
have is pertaining to the project managers because although it's dollar funded, there's no reference to
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.91
a salary and that is concerning as well because I'm not going to approve a dollar funded position if I
don't know what the funding will eventually be. Again, that's not a question, maybe Wally can...
WALLACE G. REZENTES, JR., Director of Finance: Wally Rezentes, Jr., for the record,
Finance Director. It's going to come from the CIP items that they're going to manage. It's similar to
how we do it with other areas within public works that we have dollar- funded project managers. The
funding comes strictly from the actual projects that the individual would manage.
Mr. Rapozo: So it'll be a contract position.
Mr. Rezentes: Yes.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, that's not on here that's why. It doesn't show a
contract, so...
Mr. Rezentes: It's a dollar- funded contract position.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay.
Mr. Rezentes: And the funding is tied to the projects that they will manage.
Mr. Rapozo: So it will not come out of general fund money.
Mr. Rezentes: No.
Mr. Rapozo: . Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Wally, I'm going to let ... you want to direct a question at
Wally.
Mr. Bynum: Just to follow up on that. You know that was reported during
budget, but I'm also assuming that there are two positions because they may not both be filled by a
fulltime person, right?
Mr. Rezentes: Yeah.
Mr. Bynum: Because it's project specific, you might have one individual at
halftime for this project and another individual because the contract person has that expertise.
Mr. Rezentes: Yes, you could have it in that scenario.
Mr. Bynum: Right, so I was assuming there were two there to provide that
flexibility.
Mr. Rezentes:
Yes.
Mr. Bynum: But the intent was, like you said, like public works does,
project management specific.
Mr. Rezentes: Correct.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you for that clarification.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Wally. Mr. Mayor, I just want to share with you,
we're going to put this on the radar screen, but I hope somebody from planning could be here
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.92
tomorrow at their convenience. Three minutes? Oh, he's on his way down, how wonderful. So we'll
continue with other items. Mr. Bynum?
The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, just with the same item, you know I think the questions
Mel are asking are good ones and that's why I asked if you had talked with them because I know we
all talk with them. You have this awkward thing where most of our department heads are very good
soldiers. They support the mayor's budget. They don't come to us and solicit increases, right? And
so I just wanted to mention in the planning overall how well I think our budget process worked in
regards to planning because we had a very rich dialogue about the CIP, our planning chair and vice
chair worked out with the administration some collaborative changes to the CIP in particular, and I
think that's just really good leadership both on the administration side and on the council side and a
real good use of our budget process. And for that reason, I'm going to support the planning budget
and depending upon the answers we get from Mr. Dahilig, although I still have kind of a public
works and yeah.
Chair Furfaro: We're in planning, so.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah, something they'd have to work out about collaboration,
but I want to support our new planning chair's initiatives on working on these things that are clearly
consistent with where the administration's going and kind of can be seen as fine tuning.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, is there any more about planning at this point? Well, I
tell you what we're going to do, Mr. Clerk, if you input $70,000 in salary and $35,000 in benefits on
the board, it's already there?
(Inaudible.)
Chair Furfaro: Okay, most fringes are running 52 percent of the salary,
52 percent of $70,000 is $35,680. So, is it higher than that? Okay.
Mr. Rapozo: Government fringe is a little higher.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, we'll go ... okay, they're using the percentages presented
to them by the department of finance, but everything we, look in the department of finance shows us
16.8 percent adjustment. So we'll go with that number for now, Peter. Mr. Rapozo?
Mr. Rapozo: And while we're waiting for planning, this pertains to every
department and I guess it's a good time to bring it up is this supplemental budget does not reflect a
5 percent reduction in salaries as was negotiated by the union and ratified by the union, and I'm
hoping that we are going to make that adjustment to the budget to reflect the 5 percent reduction in
salaries because I believe that that would be the prudent thing to do to accurately depict what the
salaries are going to be. I understand there may be some supplemental discussions, but I think as
we speak today and based on what has occurred with the unions and the negotiations that in fact
that 5 percent, we should budget for where we're going to be and not leave that 5 percent cushion
because then it rolls into the surplus. If we want to keep some money on the side in the event a
supplemental agreement is reached, that should be in a separate line in the reserve accounts so that
there's no question as to what the salaries are.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, when we get to finance we can have that discussion. I
do want to say, though, the budget as it's been resubmitted to us, it is showing our current exposure
and liability for 100 percent of the salaries, you're correct.
Mr. Rapozo: Yeah and I'd hoped that it would have reflected the 5 percent
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.93
reduction. It does reflect the 50 percent medical premium as was negotiated and ratified, but it
doesn't and what that does is that creates another cushion in the salaries that we need to get rid of.
We're trying to balance this budget and do as accurate a job as we can and not budget in a way that's
going to create the surplus. That's just not the way it works. So I'm just hoping and I think I asked
Ricky a while back to prepare that number, I'm not sure what that number is, but it's definitely a
significant number, 5 percent of the salaries of all the union workers. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I'd like to comment on the same thing. The governor
negotiated with HGEA, just the first of our employee unions, this 5 percent reduction. That also
includes 9 days of administrative leave and during our budget deliberations, it was clear that the
county can negotiate a supplemental agreement because I think that was a budget need that the
state needed. We're in a different financial situation. We're a different subdivision. I personally do
not want to see our employees have 9 days of administrative leave in addition to the 21 days
vacation that they currently have because of productivity. To me it's like furloughs by a different
name. We don't have less work to do and by having those... imagine in public works having to deal
with 9 days additional when we already addressed serious overtime issues. And so I'm very hopeful
that we can keep our employees at the same level. They haven't had a raise for three or four years,
and keep them at their desk doing the work on behalf of the citizens of Kauai, or if there is going to
be a reduction that it be prorated so we don't include in that package additional time away from the
job. I don't think that's a good way to go. In think the state may have needed to do that. So I was
actually happy that the funding was in there. But it's kind of a message that the administration
does intend to have the health insurance changes happen, which is going to reduce the take home
pay of all of us that work for the county. Just while we're waiting for Mike to walk through the
door...
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, I agree with Councilmember Bynum. It's not only the
lack of productive time that administrative leave would take away, but it's also the possible overtime
that it might incur if other employees have to cover for someone who's left. So I think and I believe
the finance director also said the tracking that has to be done, the paperwork that has to be done, is
also quite a burden on those who have to track it. So it makes more sense to keep our employees
non - furloughed or at work and to adjust the pay cut accordingly.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, well, I would say to you that I would talk in terms of
our exposure and risk. First of all, the mayor has not been able to share with us the final conclusion
of him being able to negotiate a separate supplemental budget. So until we know that, our
responsibility should probably be to show or reflect in our budget the total risk. And what I mean by
that is the total risk is all of our employees are fulltime equivalents not less 5 percent, not less
6 hours a month. We should show the budget as being the full risk, the full liability. Now, if the
mayor is unsuccessful in negotiating a supplemental agreement, then we can come back and we can
address a redirect of some of the payroll, but to make that reduction now and not reflect our entire
risk is probably something we should sit on. Wally, I just want to acknowledge that the payroll
submitted for this operating budget for the county is at the 100 percent. It does not reflect the
5 percent at this particular time until we know what success the mayor has had for his supplemental
agreements and then we may have to come, if we're at that point, to adjust what we're doing if we
get that way, and we can't get a supplemental agreement. But first ones out of the shot is we should
show our full exposure. I think that's a good practice for us right now.
On that note, I can just see the left part of his crew cut because he's sitting behind the
mayor. Could I ask the planning director to come up and I'll suspend the rules. And in the future
for your presence you should always make sure you sit in front of the mayor.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.94
(Inaudible.)
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
Chair Furfaro: Mike, we have a couple questions for you and they deal with a
proposal that's been put on the table by Councilmember Nakamura dealing with identifying a
Planner VI for a position, a transportation planner, to be put in your department and there were
some members that wanted to get some feedback on how you were feeling about that. So first let me
turn it over to Councilmember Nakamura so she can give you an overview of what we're
contemplating in adding a position in planning as a Planner VI. Councilwoman, the floor is yours.
Ms. Nakamura: Hi, Mike.
MICHAEL DAHILIG, Director of Planning: Hi.
Ms. Nakamura: The idea, again, was to create a Planner VI position within
the planning department that would have joint responsibilities in both planning, the long -range
planning division, as well as with public works in the engineering, road division.
And some of the items that we identified, sort of immediate needs, include roadway devising, looking
at some of the other county roadway standards adopted by other counties as recently as a couple
years ago, County of Hawaii, and developing, adopting new roadway standards for Kauai, being an
integral part of the multi -modal transportation plan that's going to begin shortly this month,
working with the roadway maintenance program to identify opportunities for complete streets and
helping with the design of those streets and finally, being part of the state land transportation plan
update that is also starting this year. So we've identified... and I would add to this that as the
development plans are updated and local roadway improvements are identified, we really need to
have somebody who's going to be on top of implementing those recommendations and we just can't
let one person in the department of public works, who has many other responsibilities, also in charge
of this key piece. So, anyway, for all of those reasons I'm putting forth this recommendation. I think
some of the other councilmembers had some questions as to what your thoughts were about this
course, about establishing this position within the county.
Mr. Dahilig: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: So, you've gotten an overview, a conceptual understanding of
what this job scope would be. Do you have any dialogue you would like to share with us on your
thoughts?
Mr. Dahilig: It's definitely a hole in our overall transportation, I guess our
overall planning program and I don't want to dress it up any other way. It's something that is not
being comprehensively covered and from a coordination standpoint, it's something that we definitely
could work better on in the CIP program, as well as with public works. It's definitely humbling to be
asked if I want another position given like...
Chair Furfaro: Humbling? Is that what you said? Humbling?
Mr. Dahilig: It's humbling. Because what it does, it does speak to the
needs that are there, but my department does have a myriad of needs and my concern about jumping
out of the gates is that as part of the budget process we do go with our proposals and essentially
we're in one big canoe, and there's a lot of things I would like to see for the department and there's a
lot of things that get cut at the wayside as a consequence of the budget process. So I don't want to
say that there isn't a need, but for me to say my needs jump out ahead of those other areas in my
department or that they jump ahead of the needs of other departments, I would be hesitant to want
to jump on that.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.95
Chair Furfaro: Okay. I'm going to ask Councilmember Rapozo to pose a
question to you, and then Vice Chair Yukimura.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mike, for running
down here.
Mr. Dahilig: Sure.
Mr. Rapozo: I like your iPad.
Mr. Dahilig: Thanks.
Mr. Rapozo: I think we may be looking for some of those this year as well.
Do you have any vacant planner positions right now?
Mr. Dahilig: We have two non - supervisory vacant planner positions, a
Planner I and a Planner II, which we've gone through the interview process and we are currently in
the final stages of selection. We do have a vacant Planner VII, which has been posted, and we have
actually had a closed deadline. We're anticipating a list from personnel services coming in.
Mr. Rapozo: And how long has that Planner VII position been vacant?
Mr. Dahilig: That Planner VII has been vacant since the transfer of
Myles Hironaka to Ricky Tsuchiya's old position and that happened sometime, I believe, sometime
last year, late summer last year.
Mr. Rapozo: And that is my concern because Planner VI's, Planner VII's
are very difficult to fill just because of the requirements that are posted for those jobs. And I guess
the question is, what's a realistic timeframe for you to get a Planner VI position filled. I mean is it
six months, is it a year, is it more appropriate to put in a dollar- funded position and have you go on
the hunt versus putting in $115,000.00 and keeping in mind whatever we put up there, we have to
find money to ... we have to take from someplace else.
Mr. Dahilig: I understand.
Mr. Rapozo: So I've been in here long enough to know we've always had
problems with those high level planner positions, filling them, just because of the qualifications and
then the pay that we pay versus what they can get paid on the outside. So that's always a concern.
So what is your realistic timeframe?
Mr. Dahilig: If we were to be authorized the position and ultimately it's
released by the mayor, it's something that when I came into the department pushing hiring is
something that we needed to do right away, whether we have the adequate brain base to fill a
Planner VI, it's hard to tell, but we've been getting pretty strong demand, from what I understand,
anecdotally for the Planner VII from people that we hear anecdotally have said that they've thrown
their name in. I wouldn't say that it would be a problem necessarily to have a pool, but how quickly
we could push through the pool is really a matter of function of how quickly we decide to ... how
quickly we line up and push things through the process. I believe a six -month timeframe that you do
say on the lower end is something that is achievable.
Mr. Rapozo: And would you say that that would be a priority that you
could implement at this point, considering all the other major initiatives you guys are pushing now.
One of my other concerns and I spoke of it before you came in is we only have three inspectors. Are
those three inspector positions full?
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.96
Mr. Dahilig: We have two TVR inspectors as well as two regular inspectors
plus an inspector that is funded by the CZM program. We do not have any vacancies from the
inspection side, so we are, I guess, full.
Mr. Rapozo: Full but is that meeting the needs? Is it meeting the
demand? I don't think you're meeting the demand.
Mr. Dahilig: It's a fair criticism, councilmember, and it is something that
we can do better on, definitely. The demand for enforcement is something that the public screams
for and it's always been a hope of mine to move from a complaint based type of processing of these
the violations to more of a proactive means. And with the manpower we have and the amount of
complaints that we do get, it's hard to even try to launch a complaint... move from complaint based
to a proactive situation.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for that answer. Councilwoman Yukimura, then
we'll go to Mr. Bynum.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, thank you for being here on short notice.
Mr. Dahilig: Sure, no problem.
Ms. Yukimura: And we kind of co- creating here, since you're here and there
are ideas here. As I look at the text supporting the Transportation Planner VI, I'm thinking a better
wording than share would be "to work with" just because you don't have the mechanisms actually to
share technically, you can't be under two bosses. So "work with" might be a better wording.
Mr. Dahilig: Okay, from what I'm looking at.
Ms. Yukimura: If you have any thoughts about it, that's all. I'm just trying to
work for a really workable language.
Chair Furfaro: That's it. You don't have to answer that right now, you heard
the suggestion. This is for us to have some dialogue on and it was a very important point. You can't
have two bosses.
Mr. Dahilig: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Just real quickly because you mentioned the inspectors, we
added positions because we started regulating TVRs, right?
Mr. Dahilig: That's correct.
Mr. Bynum: So they have a lot of work to do now but that's kind of a
bubble, right, that will eventually not be as strong... that's a question.
Mr. Dahilig: That's correct.
Mr. Bynum: I mean you anticipate that eventually there won't be as
strong a demand for that particular need and then that could be the staffing to do what you're
saying, get more proactive.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.97
Mr. Dahilig: That's correct and part of the authority that is under 904
allows me as a director to withhold TVR renewals in the event that there are TVR rentals that are in
violation of the CZO or other like land use regulations. And part of being able to act upon that and
hold these activities in abeyance while they come into compliance is a need for proactive
enforcement. There are kind of spot areas we are attempting to try to look at before the next
renewal period at the end of July. But once the TVR on ag inspections are done and these are the
ones relating specifically to special permits under Chapter 205 HRS, there should be more time for
these inspectors to actually go and do more of the regulation and their regulation is essentially of the
TVRs and whether they're just complying with the normal gamut of CZO, I guess, ordinances as well
as other things that they're supposed to be following.
year.
Mr. Bynum: So your reference to 904 was the legislation we passed last
Mr. Dahilig: That's correct.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, so it actually gave you some new enforcement
opportunities.
Mr. Dahilig: It does. It does allow, towards the end of the legislation, the
director the discretion to withhold renewal of any TVR certificates if there is violations of the CZO
that are apparent.
Mr. Bynum: Right, so that kind of got lost in the debate last year that it
actually gave us a little more authority to regulate.
Mr. Dahilig: That's correct.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Aloha and mahalo.
Mr. Dahilig: Aloha.
Mr. Kuali`i: Before you came, Councilmember Rapozo was asking some
questions regarding the two new project manager positions that are in the budget and dollar funded.
Mr. Dahilig: Okay.
Mr. Kuali`i: What potentially would you see those ... and I guess it was
clarified that they are contract positions. What do you see those positions working on? Could they
work on anything that this transportation planner would work on and the second question is do you
have an estimated salary? What moneys would it take to actually get those positions online?
Mr. Dahilig: Okay, what we looked at in proposing additional moneys in
the CIP budget to fund these dollar- funded contract project manager positions was someone that was
of like experience to the people that we do have in -house and so we were basing it off of generally a
Planner V salary and that was the amount that we had asked as additional for the general plan, as
well as the Lihu`e Development Plan. Because the funds for these project managers will be coming
specifically out of the CIP project, their sole task and only task would be to manage, to oversee, and
to work with the consultant as well as set up the public interface for that particular project. And
because it is tied specifically to a CIP line item, we wouldn't want that to go outside of that line item.
So that's ... if that answers your question, councilmember.
Mr. Kuali`i: It does, thank you.
May 9, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.98
Chair Furfaro: And, Mike, on that note, we are going to excuse you.
Mr. Dahilig: Okay.
The being no further questions, the meeting was called back to order and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Okay, we're going to come back to some deliberation here. We
have the clerk putting the suggested number on the board, and we can vote on that now or we can
think about it overnight. Tomorrow we can start with that item, that would be my proposal, and
then I do want to say that tomorrow we will start with personnel services and right into economic
development, okay? So digest what we heard from the planning director for tonight and we'll revisit
that tomorrow morning, finish planning, then go to HR /personnel services, and then to economic
development. So, yes, Mr. Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I just have a process question. So far we've been
identifying additions, additions, additions. In the end we have to identify subtractions to offset that,
right, to balance that. If we are unable to identify enough subtractions, will we come back and
revisit any of this? Okay, that's what I wanted to know.
Chair Furfaro: Yes and you know, there is a...
Mr. Kuali`i: Because my support at this point sometimes...
Chair Furfaro: I do want to say we're back to where we started. Fact of the
matter is it should be our goal to identify what expenses might be added so that we can revisit
revenues. And I also want to make certain that my opening comments are heard again. We have in
the current operating budget, I suspect, $195,000 overrun in golf, $782,000 overrun in solid waste,
and a $613,000 overrun in the fire department under the current trends. So we would like to hear
from the administration on what he may now be doing with some of the fire department's
encumbrances and so forth. That needs to be heard and then of course the big number at the end is
revisiting the proposed reserve policy that has been presented to us in a narrative form by the
finance director. So, on that note, I'm planning to ... Mr. Bynum?
Mr. Bynum: Before we close for the day, I just want to address... since I've
been here, we always have done this plus /minus, it's kind of the culture of the way we do budget.
However, at the end of the day we have to give a balanced budget. If we put additions in that exceed
takeaways, that's just ... we're starting with the template of the mayor's proposal. The other way we
can address that is by using a different amount of the reserve than was initially proposed or increase
revenues or cut. There's more than one way to balance a budget and we're supposed to look at all
aspects. So I think it's a worthwhile endeavor to say let's start with this as a baseline and be very...
Chair Furfaro: I'm glad you agree with me. We're starting with the expenses
and, yes, we can then visit the surplus, we can then visit revenues, and it's all- encompassing. And
by the way, this might be the culture that's here, but this is also the culture I'm used to in the resort
business because at the end of the day then you determine what your room rate is. On that note we
are in recess till tomorrow 9 a.m. Thank you everyone.
There being no objection, the decision making process was recessed at 4:45 p.m.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.1
The Council reconvened on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, at 9:13 a.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to call our budget decision - making session
back to order after recess. We had a couple items to finalize before we go any further and at this
point I think it's also important for me to stress to the members that this is decision making, this is
unfortunately from the wave of emails that we have received from all the non - profits that found out
that they didn't get money from the State are all now coming to us. I also want to say that this is a
very concerning item because a lot of this work is not in the preview of our Charter, these are issues
that deal with social welfare programs that in fact come under the encompasses of the state but you
know I know a couple more request came in today. This is a very difficult situation and we actually
have limited resources so just keeping that in mind, I want to go back to a couple of items that were
unfinished yesterday I believe either the administration and through Economic Development Chair
Mr. Chang, we were going to get some information regarding the lobbying efforts and may I give you
the floor Mr. Chang, I want to get these things cleaned up before we go any further today.
Mr. Chang: Thank you Mr. Chairman, I believe the staff
circulated the documents that was requested so I don't believe anybody had a chance to take a look
at it but can we confirm that everybody has this on their desk?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Chang: Okay and in additional I have couple other documents
that were sent to me this morning that the staff is making copies which would be two additional
documents for the history that was requested... so maybe Chair if we can just defer this for now so
everybody can have a chance to take a look at these documents and then the other documents that
we're expecting.
Chair Furfaro: So, we'll look it over after lunch if people can digest
the material at lunchtime, I would appreciate that. We did put that on our screen though did we
not?
Mr. Chang: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair just to facilitate things since I was the one
who asked for the information, I'm ready to finish the subject matter if everybody else is?
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I think we're all ready to finish the subject
matter. The subject matter on this particular item is the concurrence that the money's a lot for a
Washington lobbyist contract be approved. Is there anybody who... can I have a motion to approve
and a second?
Mr. Chang moved to approve a Washington lobbyist contract, seconded by Mr. Bynum.
Chair Furfaro: Is there any further discussion on this item? Mr.
Chang...
Mr. Chang: Go ahead Nadine.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you Chair, I wanted to ask that as part of this
contract approval whoever gets it, that the Council receive periodic briefings on the funding
opportunities, the federal funding opportunities that they are seeking and the status of the request.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.2
Chair Furfaro: I would think it would be wise also of us to may be
bump this by ten percent so that we can actually have a face to face with the lobbyist, so a trip to
Washington to the Council might be appropriate. Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: Mr. Chairman thank you very much for considering
the travel, I think that's a great idea. If you go over the other documents and the other documents
that we'll be able to look at, I mean it covers a wide... for... you know for affordable housing to
highways to bike paths to wastewater to levees, I mean the list goes on and on and in the documents
you have to review, just a few things... you know a million dollars for Waimea Wastewater
Treatment part of the rural bus program, affordable housing so there are a list of moneys that we
had received coming back in and the particular group that we were working with in the past, they're
actually ended their contract in mid 2010 however many of the same funding are still available
through competitive grants and direct pensions to the federal agencies and I know as it did in the
past, they will continue to work hard and show us a clear and significant return on our investment.
Having them not only periodically give us reports but come over here to Kauai to meet with the
various department heads and the various agencies on this island of Kauai but you know it's nice for
them to take a tour around the island and see how the projects have been progressing and see other
opportunities that we have in regards to energy concern, sustainability and you know retrofits and
you know different things that we have going on the island of Kauai. I would certainly like to
support the proposal with the ten percent increase use for travel and for meetings here on Kauai.
Thank you Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Any further discussion? This amount now is
suggested at fifty -five thousand. Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes I just want to say that if you even look on the first
page of the fiscal year 2011 -2010 federal agenda comparisons, they show that our Waimea
Wastewater Treatment Plant did get a million dollars and we recently won an award for the
development of that system, so that alone shows the value of it. Now you know having our senior
Senator there you know makes you also wonder well we would have gotten it anyway in some
respects but he won't be there forever and we really need to develop a lobbying capacity and
knowledge about how to develop a presence at Washington DC for the issues that come up. I think
that this wastewater infrastructure and improvements is an example of the money's available even
now in these federal tight times. That we need to go for, so I do see the value if it's well, if the
money's are well implemented we get really capable lobbyist, I think it's well worth the money.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I'm in total support of this, my only concern is that it
may not be enough to establish the scope of work we had previously when the budget was a hundred
thousand. And I know the word lobbyist is a bad term to some people and those folks that deal with
the tobacco industry or the oil company's, this isn't the same thing... this is people who focus on
county government and we focus on money and it's a big part of it being made sure that we're aware
of and have opportunities to capture our fair share but it's also about legislation that can impact
counties, it's also about having an awareness of issues that can impact our county in a negative way.
During the year that we had this, the people did come here, they did regular reports, oh and the last
element is that they let us know what these opportunities were and it allowed us as Councilmembers
to meet with the departments and say are you aware of this grant fund that's available... you know
what are the parameters in terms of forward. Some of those, they did and we were successful and so
I'm in total support of this.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, is there any more discussion? Councilmember
Kuali`i.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.3
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair just one quick comment, so I realize that this is
not a full time lobbyist and by looking at these documents there's a lot for them to work on but I just
wanted to plant a seed and put a wishful thought out there that being that this lobbyist would be in
the Mayor's Office and is there to serve our people that perhaps in some ways and even if it's small
ways, but it might be five percent of their efforts, that it be... that they work also with our non - profit
partners that help our community.
Chair Furfaro: Members before I call for a vote on this item, we have
the fifty thousand in the supplemental review from the Mayor, so it's only the five thousand that
we're voting on. We have a motion and a second.
The motion to approve was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: The other item that I want to finalize that was a
carryover from yesterday's discussion before I have an open session for people to speak from the floor
on this supplemental budget, we had come to the items in Planning including the addition of a
transportation planner and I believe as we left and maybe I'm speaking out of turn, after hearing
from Mike, it might have been suggested that we put this person in starting with the second quarter
of the year for the purpose of his recruitment efforts. So this number which is seventy thousand plus
the thirty -five, a hundred and five... would actually now seventy- seven, five hundred. Do we have
something to pass out on that? After we finish these two carryover items, the three of you that are in
the audience, I'll let you speak like I did yesterday at the beginning of our session on any item that
you're here to testify on. Go ahead Nadine.
Ms. Nakamura: Council Chair the suggestion was that the County
would need some time to staff up and put together a job description and go through a recruitment
and so two options, one was at the three quarter funding and the other was half funding. I think my
preference was to do this sooner than later, so I would prefer the first alternative, the three quarter
of the position being funded. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: I can support that. Any further discussion?
Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I would like that the description of the... it says
transportation planner, if we can get that back on the board... but it also says a planner engineer, I
just wanted to make sure that we're not requiring that this position be both a planner and an
engineer. I mean I think we... like that woman who came from Colorado on the Smart Growth
workshop, somebody that has experience with the engineering aspect and is knowledgeable about it
but doesn't have to necessarily have to have an engineering degree. I just want to make that clear so
that they don't go out to somebody that requires both planning and engineering. Maybe you can
clarify that Councilmember?
Ms. Nakamura: There are transportation engineers and there are
transportation planners, so... we're looking for someone who you know has experience on both sides.
Ms. Yukimura: But not requiring a degree.
Ms. Nakamura: That's right.
Ms. Yukimura: I agree with the idea of experience in both angles. I
guess the technical thing is the transportation planner but with some experience in the engineering
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.4
in roads and transportation systems, engineering of transportation systems. Okay, thank you for
that clarification.
Chair Furfaro: Okay so, that discussion takes us to a Planner that
has some time and exposure in engineering transportation but not specifically to engineering alone,
any further discussion. Mr. Rapozo and then Mr. Chang.
Mr. Rapozo: I just want to make a few comments that we need to
be very careful because I think what I heard the Mayor said yesterday was that he really wasn't
ready for this position. The Planning Director says oh yes there's a hole that's definitely there that
we can fill and I think every department has holes and I'm just realizing that if the positions aren't
filled, money rolls into the surplus and this is the time where we should be making sure we preserve
funds and not give more opportunities for surplus money. I'm concerned in my experience in the
county that I have yet to see this county have a new position filled within six months. I mean I'm
talking where you got to create the job description, get it through Personnel, get all of that stuff out
of the way... have the job posting, put it out, do your examines, interviews... I mean if they can do it
in six months, I'll be surprised, I bet anybody lunch that they can't do it. Simply because there is no
position today, they got to go out and create it and the fact that the Council feels that we need that
may not be really what the administration feels, so I just want to be really cautious. You know in
the Police Department I think they should have a police psychologist but the Chief said we're not
ready for that right now. So I think it wouldn't be proper to put a psychologist in there because I feel
they need one. I think we got to be careful because I understand and I support the intent believe me
and I can support the half time funding simply because I don't believe that they can do it in six
months, I don't believe they can actually do it in nine months but I'll give them the benefit of the
doubt and I can support the half funding of fifty -seven thousand because I believe this county needs
it. I definitely agree that this county needs a transportation planner because this direction this
county has gone... with all of the transportation projects. I'm just concerned that it didn't appear
that the Mayor and even the Planning Director was ready to embraced this and go and get somebody
hire. With all due respect to the requesting party, I will definitely support half year funding and
that will get the administration moving and in the event that they don't fill it, it's really fifty -seven
thousand dollars that would roll into the surplus versus eighty -six or even a hundred and whatever
it is, one fifteen. I would ask that you folks consider that because especially for the newer
councilmembers that haven't been, had the opportunity to be involved with the Civil Service process
and I'm assuming that this is a Civil Service right, not an appointed position so it's a huge task to go
get a person hired, especially when it's a new position. I'll support half time but I cannot support the
three fourths or the full time.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Nakamura do you have any
comments on that, it's going to be your motion so...
Ms. Nakamura: Okay, no... I can support that perspective and I think
the main thing is we move forward, I think there's a definite gap and recognize that it is a lengthy
process. I can support that.
Chair Furfaro: Could I ask yourself and Councilman Rapozo to put
that in a form of a motion on the fifty- seven, seven.
Ms. Nakamura moved to approve with a Planner six position in the Planning Department as
a Transportation Planner with salary and benefits totaling approximately fifty -seven thousand,
seven, zero, nine, seconded by Mr. Rapozo.
Chair Furfaro: Further discussion? Mr. Chang.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.5
Mr. Chang: I'm not sure we answered the question but is this
position going to be under Planning or under...
Chair Furfaro: Planning.
Mr. Chang: It is going to be under Planning. Okay you know my
first thought when I heard about it yesterday and you know I'm not trying to be Santa Claus or
being generous but I actually honestly questioned whether the salary was enough to attract the right
person for this job, that was my first thought... just to make sure that we have a very qualified
person or would that being said when you set a salary, are we getting the best people for the position
because it's a new position and I have to say also looking at the job descriptions and the tasks or the
goals that we would have wanted, I'm still a little unclear as to what exactly is the job description of
our CIP project manager.
Chair Furfaro: Let me share with you first of all, as a Civil Service
position the planner six position is earmarked at the salary that they currently have, that's a Civil
Service position.
Mr. Chang: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: We cannot manipulate that. If we put this position in
and they have difficulties in recruiting it, they have the options to come back to us for a planner
seven or a planner eight... okay. This should not crossover in our understanding of the position that
the Mayor has created which is the CIP project manager. The oversight here is partially driven by
the fact that, we fell almost two years behind in road paving and so forth and may have missed some
opportunities in areas like that that I think the Mayor hopes to terminate any future falling behind
on capital sending but for the purpose of this discussion, this planner six position is a seventy
thousand dollar a year position by Civil Service.
Mr. Chang: Okay, I understand and I appreciate that explanation
so with that being said, I will be supporting the half funding at fifty- seven, seven, zero, nine.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Any further discussion before I call for
the vote? Yes.
Mr. Bynum: I just have a logistical question because I think from
experienced Councilmember Rapozo is probably right that this would be position would be eligible
January 1 at half funding.
Mr. Rapozo: That's right.
Mr. Bynum: But our (inaudible) establishes the position, I'm just
curious if they were able to recruit in four months, could they shift budget money around and fill it
prior to...
Chair Furfaro: That is my exact example that I worked for solid
waste, they keep coming to us for money's for Solid Waste manpower but don't shift money around
that they have. Planning can do the same here Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: That's what I thought and so I think that's a
reasonable, to go with that...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.6
Chair Furfaro: What I think I want to comment on, it is totally
unacceptable to me that we can't move on a position for six months, that's the bigger problem that I
have in recruitment and we'll get to Personnel next. Councilmember Nakamura and then
Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Nakamura: Staff has asked me to clarify my motion that this
position is funding for six months.
Chair Furfaro: Yes. The amount reconfirmed by Mr. Chang is a half
of the year starting January one for six months. Councilmember Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I just wanted to say I'm thankful for the clarification
from Councilmember Bynum because if they can do it faster, we'll see it, it won't, this half year
funding won't necessarily preclude them from hiring someone so that's very good. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, I'm going to call for a vote for this item.
The establishment for a planner six at salaries and wages equaling fifty seven, seven, zero, nine at
six months period in this upcoming fiscal year, all those in favor say aye.
The motion to approve the motion was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: This finishes up our business from yesterday, now we
have people in the audience as I did yesterday, I suspended the rules as we're in decision - making
process for anyone who wants to give testimony now. Our next department we will be going into is
Economic Development, so is there anyone who wants to testify today on any items coming up on the
supplemental budget review? Judy, come right on up.
There being no objection, the rules were suspended.
JUDY LENTHAL: Aloha and good morning. My name is Judy Lenthal,
Executive Director of the Kauai Independent Food Bank. We thank the Council for their support for
our food stamp SNAP outreach program. The Council has funded this program in recent years
started at about fifty -seven thousand dollars a year, the next year it was cut to twenty, the next year
it was cut to five. At the same time that these cuts have been made, the demand for our services in
the last three years has more than doubled. In a pre- recession year we used to get about fifty -seven
thousand request for service. The end of 2010, we were looking at almost a hundred and twenty
thousand request for service. This year, year to date so far it's twenty -six percent over a really lousy
2010. We appreciate your consideration under the Office of Economic Development for proposals for
the SNAP outreach program, it's in the Office of Economic Development budget because of the bang
for the buck. USDA has determined that for every five dollars of new federal SNAP funding, there is
a nine dollar and twenty cents economic benefit to the county, that's huge. In the last three years,
we've brought in over a million dollars in new SNAP money and over two million dollars for economic
benefit to the community and it's a direct correlation that was determined by research economist at
USDA. In terms of bang for the buck, when the stimulus bills were considered at the federal level,
they wanted bang for the buck and they looked at unemployment rates, they looked at capitol
improvements, assistance to state government, looked at extending unemployment benefits and the
one item that showed the most bang for the buck was increasing food stamp dollars. So it's a
powerful way to both providing supplemental nutrition for our community that sorely needs it as
well as promote economic development for Kauai. So we appreciate your consideration of this and
our need to purchase food and I also wanted to remind you, we are going to be in the EBT in the
Farmers Markets with the USDA grant. Within this next year and we're working hard to make that
a reality so that grass root growers can also benefit from these SNAP EBT dollars, so thank you for
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.7
your support in prior years and I know you have difficult decisions to make. But please remember
the people. Mahalo.
Chair Furfaro:
funding?
Judy let me ask you what has happened to your State
Ms. Lenthal: We lost state funding and I appreciate your comment
that a lot of agencies have lost. We used to get about twenty thousand dollars a year from the state,
it's been cut to zero. That was...
Chair Furfaro:
Did I hear you say that it was cut to zero?
Ms. Lenthal: It was cut to zero, it was cut I think almost two years
ago. And we haven't had the state, it was a purchase of service contract from the Department of
Labor and Industrial Relations. So we haven't had that state funding for a while.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum did you have a question?
Mr. Bynum: I won't take the time to say how much a appreciate
and support the SNAP outreach effort, I've done that before. It's great and been wonderful. That's
what I want to focus on, what would you need to ensure that the SNAP program at its current level
continues?
Ms. Lenthal: Right now we're looking at about a twenty -eight
thousand dollar deficit in our next year's SNAP program. I know there's also a proposal that we
could increase it and then we've provided information to the Council on what economic benefit you'd
get for increasing that but it's about twenty -eight thousand dollars for our current SNAP program.
We have two SNAP outreach workers, they go anywhere anytime, anybody's home, meet them at the
park to help them with their twelve page application. They are awesome.
Mr. Bynum: So Judy the answer is to ensure that this SNAP
program continues, it requires twenty -eight thousand?
Ms. Lenthal: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: any more questions for Judy before I call our meeting
back to order? Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: So the twenty -eight thousand is used for outreach
because SNAP is federal money's that come into subsidize people food budgets right?
Ms. Lenthal: Yes. The twenty -eight thousand dollars is to do SNAP
outreach and in terms of bang for the buck the Feds will match a dollar per dollar of that twenty -
eight thousand. That's immediate bang for the buck, that's built into our overall budget, so that the
twenty -eight thousand that the county might consider, we can immediately turn that into another
twenty -eight thousand dollars of matching federal support and then it's federal food dollars, SNAP is
from USDA that comes into the community and the SNAP recipient has their EBT card and can
purchase their own food.
Ms. Yukimura: But the twenty -eight thousand match is not used for
food subsidizes right?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.8
Ms. Lenthal: No its not.
Ms. Yukimura: What would it be used for?
Ms. Lenthal: SNAP outreach, the SNAP outreach program.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. So are you able to submit your total budget
like the Humane Society does so that we can see how all the pieces work together?
Ms. Lenthal: Sure.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. That would be I think important for us.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Aloha Judy and mahalo for being here. Can you tell
me a little bit more about the Farmers Market Program and the match dollar for dollar and... how
and what kind of funding you need there and how that could promote your... clients from the Food
Bank buying local and supporting our farmers and being economic stimulus in that way.
Ms. Lenthal: Sure I'd be happy to. The Kauai Independent Food
Bank received a USDA grant to put EBT SNAP into our Farmer's Markets. Right now our food
stamp recipient cannot shop at the Farmers Markets, that's really bad because they've got fresh
fruits and its cheaper and it promotes grass development, so we're working with the Sun Shine
Markets as well as the KCC market so that we could have the EBT presents at Koloa, Kapa`a and
Lihu`e and KCC... once we get our MOU with the county, we're ready to rock and roll. We've
received our permit to be a license EBT retailer so that they can get little tokens in the market, do
all their shopping and then the grower can get paid. What a lot of states have done when they start
off this program, is provide a match for that SNAP money so that the SNAP recipient knows when
they go in for whatever time period, if they want to buy five dollars of produce with SNAP money,
they can get ten dollars with their five dollars. The economic development goes directly to the local
grower promoting grass roots economic development, it doesn't come to the Food Bank, it goes right
into our community. That's what some places have done, it really kicks off the EBT in the Farmers
Market Program because who wouldn't want a two for one to get you into the market, once you get
into the Farmers Markets you're hooked. But getting in there, that's the key.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, any other questions? Mr. Chang?
Mr. Chang: Thank you Chair. Judy good morning. Can you
explain to me and maybe all of us and even the public, what is the difference between the Kauai
Food Bank or the Hawaii Food Bank and the Kauai Independent Food Bank and has some of your
funding being depleted?
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me Judy before you answer that, we're in
decision - making. I think it's appropriate that you talk about your outlet and not the competitive
profile I think... that is an area that we probably don't want to have in this discussion Mr. Chang.
I'm sorry but... now the second part of his question about other funding for your specific...
Ms. Lenthal: The answer of course is yes. It doesn't create a little
confusion and donor confusion in particular. The funding in food resources what immediately comes
to mind is the letter carriers strive, anything that's decided in Oahu sometimes have an Oahu basis
to it. For example we've had the letter carriers strive here for the last sixteen years or so and we will
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.9
not be the recipient of the letter carriers, it's not post offices here that get to decide that, it's from off
island, so yes there's been an impact. Our support from the community is extraordinary, it amazes
me the support we get. But when off island decisions are made, it tends to favor off island entities.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: I just want you to explain one more time and more
clearly the benefit of the SNAP program. So the SNAP outreach workers are signing people up to
receive federal food stamps and there's a lot of our residence that could qualify but they don't
necessary know how and then there's also a lot of federal dollars available and in your role of
matching them it becomes especially critical because we're helping our families utilize those funds
that's there and available to them, so the outreach worker is providing that primary service for each
worker, they bring in how many more families and how many more federal dollars and then those
dollars are spent locally to purchase food?
Ms. Lenthal: Yes.
Mr. Kuali`i: They don't just pick up food that you provide in the
food bank but they take those dollars and they use it in the community, in our mom and pops
stores...
Ms. Lenthal: Exactly.
Mr. Kuali`i: So that's the economic benefit there as well and the
multiple effect is incredible, it's not just... can you explain that a little further?
Ms. Lenthal: Yes the question I think, if I can remember all the
questions... the question you first asked was how much money was out there that we could bring in,
and it's about six million food dollars a year that would mean a hundred percent of the people who
are eligible for SNAP are actually receiving it, we're not going to get a hundred percent but we've
gotten more than a million so far and there's a lot more out there that we could get. Six million food
dollars is huge, absolutely huge and the economic benefits you multiple by one point eight, four so
that it's a lot more of economic benefit to the community. What our SNAP outreach workers do is a
prescreening to let somebody know that they do prequalify and that's what gives them the
motivation to complete the long application. They complete their application, they get all their
documentation for them, they use copying services, they give them money if they don't have their
birth certificate so that they can get it, there are enormous hurtles to receiving the SNAP money
that a lot of people just can't do whether it's language difficulties, they can't see the font on the
application, they'll do whatever it takes to make it happen so that we can get those federal dollars. I
appreciated your lobbyist discussion just now because I thought we bring in the federal money, we
can do this... our two SNAP outreach workers so far have assisted over five hundred families and we
can do a lot more in the year ahead and in additional SNAP outreach worker could also bring in, and
I don't have the numbers in front of me what each one can bring in, I'm sorry I don't have those
numbers in my head.
Mr. Kuali`i: So the one last question is regarding the actual direct
purchase of food that the food bank makes and you make that food available at the food bank. I
thought I saw somewhere that you said that in the past that per pound, per family request, you
would like to give is eight pounds but because funding is tight and you're trying to serve more
people, you're having to reduce that to five pounds. So basically our families are having to eat less I
mean so what does that mean... what kind of money's you might need to try... you probably can't get
back to eight pounds not without hundreds of thousands of dollars but you know what can say fifty
thousand dollars do as far as helping increase that five pound.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.10
Ms. Lenthal: Before the great recession we were providing about
eight pounds per food request and so far this year because the demand has shot up so radically, we're
looking at a little over five pounds per food request, that's all we have. To even get that five pounds,
we've had to purchase food so that we can help meet the demand. Last year I think we purchased, it
was over a hundred thousand dollars of food product, I haven't gotten the (inaudible) and fishes
thing down good enough yet to make that happen, so we're purchasing, we will buy locally, only
that's all we'll do to support economic development. Any dollars for food purchase will be greatly
appreciated and in the spirit of economic development, my hope would be that it would be restricted
to local purchases so that we can provide the community with the multiplier effect for food. Any
dollars for food purchase would be greatly appreciated. we don't have the food right now.
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
between two SNAP outreach workers?
Ms. Lenthal:
Ms. Yukimura:
Ms. Lenthal:
Ms. Yukimura:
what is your...
Ms. Lenthal:
Councilwoman Yukimura.
So on the outreach workers, five hundred families
Yes.
Over how much time?
We can do that in a year.
But once you got them established... well how many...
Those are new. Those are new SNAP recipients.
Ms. Yukimura: Right, so how many families are you projecting to be
out there that don't know about the program?
Ms. Lenthal: Six million dollars worth and the average monthly
SNAP allocation is a hundred and forty dollars so a hundred and forty times twelve in a year.
Ms. Yukimura: But you already have certain amounts, people in the
system right... they know about it and they come and they're registered.
Ms. Lenthal: Yes, these are new people. Five hundred new
households we can get with two outreach workers.
Ms. Yukimura: Right and so what is the total projected number of
families you think who are needing the food but are not tied into the system yet because they don't
know how to tie in.
Ms. Lenthal: I need a calculator because it's a hundred and forty
dollars per month times twelve, would be per year and then you can divide it by the six million to
see how many households.
Ms. Yukimura: Now the six million is not coming in, it's what we
deemed to be eligible for, is that what you're saying?
Ms. Lenthal: Eligible but not receiving, it's the gap group of six
million federal dollars. It used to be three million dollars but after we got the asset test eliminated,
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.11
that brought in another three million, so it's why for the seniors in particular, it's a killer program
because they were being denied for their prepaid burial plan which was an asset and not eating
really well, so by changing the asset test, that was another three million.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay so to actually see the figures you, I mean... it
distresses me know end that there's another food bank that's competing for this but you have to put
all the figures together to know that how many families are being served, if they're serving some and
you folks are serving some, then you have to know what that total number is in terms of what the
island picture is right and so they're eligible to funnel through the six million as well as your bank
is?
Ms. Lenthal: No we're confusing traditional food banks service of
donated product coming in and going out in our case to our fifty -one non - profit agencies and
churches, that's the traditional food bank.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Ms. Lenthal: When we discovered that there was so many dollars
out there for food, man, we were on that in a heartbeat because we want those federal dollars here
for Kauai and there's no way our community can make up six million dollars a year in food budget.
So you're kind of confusing apples and oranges...
Ms. Yukimura: I see.
Ms. Lenthal: One's the SNAP outreach program and the other is
the traditional food banking.
Ms. Yukimura:
Okay.
Ms. Lenthal: We started the SNAP outreach program, first in the
state with county money.
Ms. Yukimura: Congratulations.
Ms. Lenthal: Thank you, Mel was on the Council for that...
Chair Furfaro: There were several of us on the Council but I also
want to remind you that three years ago we outreached for this, we told you we'd get it started but
we can only give the three.
Ms. Lenthal: Exactly.
Chair Furfaro: Okay so now this is your...
Ms. Lenthal: I do remember that.
Chair Furfaro: So this is your four, okay... Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Back to the Farmers Market, so you already have that
in process then.
Ms. Lenthal: Yes.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.12
Mr. Bynum: Soon you will be able to have EBT at the Farmers
Market?
Ms. Lenthal: Yes. With the MOU with the County, we can move
forward.
Mr. Bynum: But if there were additional funding available you
would use it as this matching fund to stimulate the people actually using it?
Ms. Lenthal: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: Okay I just wanted to clarify that and again this
thinking outside of the box and focus on EBT and federal dollars and getting rid of the asset test
which I know, (inaudible) and you did it and I appreciate it that you having that well rounded view
of this whole issue as opposed to doing it as you say traditional food bank work, that would also
capture these dollars.
Chair Furfaro: Judy, we're in testimony from others here, we're not
in Economic Development right at the moment so I just wanted to remind the members here that
we're not even on our first item today, it's 10:00 and we need to get conclusions maybe at mid night
tonight so... Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair thank you for your patience, I just wanted to...
the last comment say congratulations on your better business bureau award, I just seen it on
Saturday in the Garden Island that the food bank received that award. I was interested to see that
you actually have sixteen employees and I would imagine in addition to that thousands of
volunteers. In this article there's mention to the keiki cafe, plant a row, and some stuff that are new
to me... maybe you can tell us a little bit about that?
Ms. Lenthal: Excuse me Judy, members we are in decision - making
process. The food bank had an opportunity during our budget process.
Mr. Kuali`i: Thank you Chair, I take back my question.
Chair Furfaro: Judy we do appreciate your efforts and we need to be
going through decision - making.
Ms. Lenthal: I understand and I just want to thank you for the
opportunity to speak and for your support in the past years, we've worked our hardest to be able to
make up the county money but our donations got squeezed at the same time that demand got up.
We really appreciate your help now more than ever.
Chair Furfaro: Judy we appreciate all that you do and please know
that we are very compassionate towards the food bank but we have many, many other agencies that
failed at the state level and now it's become abundantly clear the need is in our community and we'll
see what we can do but at the rate we're going, we're going to have to use some surplus money even
to make that happen.
Ms. Yukimura: (inaudible)
Chair Furfaro: Do you have another question for Judy?
Ms. Yukimura: No.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.13
Chair Furfaro: Members in the audience we are taking testimony on
any items here, Judy if you want to stay, we're going to go to Economic Development next.
RANDY FRANCISCO: Aloha. Randy Francisco, Kauai Chamber of
Commerce. I just wanted to give a statement so I won't be more than a minute. I just wanted to say
mahalo for your work, we at the Chamber recognize everything that you do in our government
affairs and other committees. I wanted to take a pause to say thank you because we all go the news
that the state legislature and in this budget crisis we appreciate the decision making you're going
through and I think this is all about statesmanship, leading by example and creating a culture that
we've watched, I've watched on webcast and so our friends in DC, try to (inaudible) help us save
money but more importantly be smart, strategic and pragmatic. That's the only thing I wanted to
say because I'm not in your shoes, you got the input from everyone, we have social justice issues,
businesses have also have cut the budget, cut the staff, cut the taxes. At the end of the day, last
summer I realized I failed once that I can recall in my position by not leading by example and I take
that to heart. So as a new police commissioner, I feel like I have to lead by example and I wanted to
applaud you for your efforts so mahalo.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Randy. Is there anybody else that would
like to offer public testimony at this point, this is your opportunity.
LONI SYKOS: Good morning Councilmembers. Thank you very
much for the opportunity to speak. First I'd like to thank all of you for your effort, for the record
Lonnie Sykos, I'd like to thank you for your efforts, your diligence in doing your job. What's very
impressive is the due diligence that you're doing as you look into all of these request to expand our
tax money. From a civics perspective it's been very interesting watching this budget process. The
original Mayor's budget had it been approved probably would have bankrupted us next year, if not
this year. As a private citizen from a civics prospective, I hope that in this (inaudible) year, you
continue to push the Administration to modernize, and the reason is you should have received the
second budget first... and then your conversation would have been completely different about
funding all these county entities. And so I hope that the administration continues with reforming
their accounting and financing practices so that the next time we have a budget, next time it's time
to do the budget, the budget that the Mayor gives first to you is one that you actually could approve.
Whether you do or don't is political but from an economic side, so thank you very much for so rapidly
consolidating all of that wish list into an actual budget that you're discussing. The transportation
planner is a position that I support because it's a position that has the possibility of saving the
county an enormous amount of money. What I see missing in the conversations especially from the
Administration... in the lost prevention, in the IT head and as well as this transportation planners,
three examples, their responsibilities are laid out to a degree but there is no discussion of the
authority that they have. My father was lost prevention person, who took out a degree in fire safety,
I grew up in a lost prevention household. If the lost prevention has no authority, you're better off not
having them. Right in the same as this planning engineer that... what they do is develop a strategic
architecture for the entire process which is a different set of job skills, it's something that people do
get college degrees in, so I question whether the salary is going to be high enough or not. But...
Chair Furfaro: Lonnie that was your first three minutes, you get
another three, go right ahead.
Mr. Sykos: I'll be as quick as I can... however their training is not
the same as a systems manager or a project manager because they're consistently looking at the
strategic side of things and so it's a different set of job skills and it's not one that can be done by
somebody who's hired to be project manager unless you mis -hired a project manager and hire a
strategic manager instead. So I thank all of you for looking into this so deeply because it is complex.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.14
If you don't get the right person it's going to cost us a fortune. If you get the right person, it'll save
us a fortune. So thank you for doing your due diligence.
In regards to the support services for you folks, I'll make the observation that when I was
living on Maui, when I moved to Maui sixty thousand people in the population and very similar in
many ways to Kauai today, what drove administrative assistance for the Councilmembers was the
introduction of the PC and so during that timeframe they went from everybody doing from paper to
the electronic world and rather than having to retrain the Councilmembers in IT things, it made
more sense to get them assistance that knew how to do all this and so your real Administrative
assistance like they have in Honolulu, you go to college and get a degree in government services and
then you come back and get a job and you work your way up and that's an industry specific set of job
skills. Perhaps what you all might think about is how the new IT functions... how it can be
integrated into your daily lives versus actually starting off with like a personal assistant. Right,
that would save us all money and let you get your feet wet without making a huge commitment like
creating jobs that you don't want to end. Who would want to fire their own personal assistant in the
job positions right so... so that's it... you're doing a great job, I hope you get done before mid night.
Chair Furfaro: Lonnie, I do want just acknowledge just a response to
you, on the process that we have these critical dates, they're given to us as mandates by Charter and
so forth and it also in reference to the supplemental, so many issues are hanging out there until the
legislature ends, we're not aware of.
Mr. Sykos: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: For example we've been talking about the food bank
needs, I mean their potential request are upwards as Councilmember Kuali`i has pointed out,
possibly a hundred thirty -three thousand dollars... we're not in that kind of position, our questions
would be. you know we launched SNAP three years ago, we had good enrollment, it was an added
value but at the same time we have to realize we can't be the catch all as the numbers rolls out for
every social organization that needs help. But we can kokua where we can and we'll have more
discussion but in all fairness to the Mayor's Office, I want to make sure that some of this timing is
tied to critical dates with the state legislature. We still don't know if our TAT is intact as Senator
Kouchi reported to us yesterday, we could probably lose as much as half of that. It's kind of a
decision process that's a template over the state's process. Thank you Lonnie. Did you have a
question for Lonnie?
Ms. Yukimura: No.
Chair Furfaro: Okay we're coming back to order, we've taken public
testimony.
There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Before I go into Economic Development, I have a
couple of announcements again, I do want to point out as we go forward, we do have letters of recusal
from Public Works from Mr. Chang as well as on the Kauai Marathon grant of the Office of
Economic Development which we will be doing next. We also have recusal letters for Councilmember
Kuali`i on two YMCA grants that are in OED and I will.
Mr. Kuali`i: YWCA.
Ms. Yukimura: You said YM... it's actually YW.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.15
Chair Furfaro: I'm sorry.
Ms. Yukimura: That's a common error.
Chair Furfaro: And of course when we get to CIP and I just want to
announce this again because I announced it yesterday on Councilwoman, Vice Chair Yukimura when
we get to CIP funding for the Boys and Girls club, so thank you again members. On that note, the
body is called back to order and we're getting ready to get into Economic Development and I'll start
from there. Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair given the testimony we received and
last night I also received a request that I think I'll circulate, from Karen Gunderson about KISC, the
Kauai Invasive Species Committee because they did not get funding and we do have a record of
funding the coqui frog eradication which was extremely successful and had great economic
development consequences. There's... as you mentioned Chair there's now a lot of people coming to
us for request and I just wanted to plant a seed of an idea of that maybe we can develop and co-
create together, when I first started out on the Council more than thirty years ago, we had this kind
of bright red line that said social services are a state function and county does core function
programs like Police and Fire and Parks and so forth and so you know social programs really were a
state kuleana and so we didn't go into those areas, we have slowly over the last thirty, forty years
moved to help in small ways. You know there's the Domestic Violence, Food Stamps... well this kind
of coqui frog problems where we could act much faster and had to act, so I have a thought that we set
aside a chunk of money's for non - profits and that we develop a criteria for them, I really believe the
strategic is a very key word, that we don't fund necessarily just ongoing functions but we find
initiatives that will prevent more hunger or prevent you know in a long range way but that's not to
be decided here but that we would take some time to really think strategically about how we would
appropriate a limited amount of money in a strategic way. In an area that we haven't done before
but we need some order for our deliberations because there's so many needs out there, so many good
causes... and that we put a chunk aside in this budget because I don't know how we would make
decisions on each one of them today. I mean it really takes due diligence asking for their budgets
and so forth. And then put aside a chunk of money, three hundred thousand or whatever and
develop a process for application and decision making and so I just want to put that on that table
right now and I'm not asking for even decision right now... but just so that we think about having
some framework by which we make our decisions.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Councilwoman Yukimura.
Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: In reaction to what Councilmember Yukimura had to
share, I feel that I had to share that... for me and we've heard from the Food Bank, I don't only see
organizations like the food bank and other non - profits as being just about social welfare programs
and about social services and about filling the gap of the state. I see it as responding to the need of
our citizens and our residents and my neighbors and its very personal we cannot separate it like
that, however it's also the non - profit industry in this state is a large industry that employs a lot of
people so it is about economic development, it is about jobs... we need to be promoting the creation of
more jobs. If the non - profit can grow and hire people at the same time help our people, we're doing
double, you know we're doing good for our people. So it's not just about social welfare, it's about
economic development and creating jobs and clearly you saw the examples from the Food Bank as far
as how they're now spending those newly acquired federal funding and food stamps at the food
market, at our grocery stores that's all economic development. Don't get trapped into thinking this is
about just social service and grants... I don't think we should go there. I don't think we should set
aside money and now have to make approvals on grants, I think we should just do our job and
address economic development and recognize that there's a lot of pieces to it.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.16
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i, I thank you for those
comments. I also want to say there is a County Attorney's opinion that we would have to visit
because the Council as a body cannot necessarily manage grants. The reality is I think the
discussion that Councilwoman Yukimura has put up, ties right into your particular piece that you
know if we set aside money, it should be in Economic Development and then it would have to
managed by Economic Development not the Council as the body... Mr. Rapozo, I'll go to you.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you and let me just start by saying and
clarifying that the Food Bank didn't come up and ask for a hundred and thirty -three thousand
dollars.
Mr. Kuali`i: Yes.
Mr. Rapozo: I'll make that clear for the public because I don't want
the public to think that they came up and saying hey we need a hundred thousand dollars... in fact I
called Judy and said Judy, I see five thousand dollars in the Mayor's budget is that going to be
sufficient and you know Judy as humble as is was... said you know Mel, yes... it's... we can use it
and all of that. I asked Judy a simple question, Judy can you put together a narrative of what it
would take and basically her request was substantially less than what's on Mr. Kuali`i's proposal. I
want to kind of tag along with what Mr. Kuali`i said, this is not just a non - profit. You know the food
bank and many others throughout the years have provided services for this community that the
county simply cannot provide. I have and I'm sure all of us on the Council have personal experiences
with family members and friends or neighbors that have benefited, that survived because of the food
bank. We definitely owe a lot of mahalos and we do, we give them certificates every year and every
time they come up for certificate, we go around the table and say how thankful we are.
Unfortunately you know we're going to give you some money and I don't know how much wind
biscuits they can buy and pass the out but you know this is an opportunity that times are tough,
times are tough and when we discuss the lobbyist and we're asking hey what's the return on
investment, you know what is fifty thousand dollars going to get us and boom we up that... I am
going to support the proposal has submitted by Mr. Kuali`i and yes it's substantial and I'm sure we
won't end up there but I just want to send the message that this is the time now regardless of what
they said we should or should not do... oh don't touch social services, that's kind of the common
theme in local government but this is not someone that's passing out goodie bags, no the food bank is
responsible for a lot of people survival on this island. It is, there's no way that can be disputed, there
are people on this island today, if not for the food bank and if not for some help from this county, will
starve. They're already choosing between medication and food, thank God they got a place to go. I'm
not going to even get into the competitive food bank that's here, I think that's just rotten what they
did but it's... we have an opportunity today when we're looking at all the economic development
funds and I'll speak on the other ones later when we get into those items... the Kauai Marathon, we
don't flinch to think giving two hundred seventy thousand dollars to Kauai Marathon, but we're
going to flinch about giving to the food bank. I think there's some serious problems with that
philosophy. Judy, I'm not saying this just because you're here, because I have seen what you have
done over the last ten or twelve years and I have seen you in the last few years looking pretty
stressed out because of what you're trying to do with the limited resources that you have. I want to
be able to... be a part of a Council that can say you know what food bank, here's some... and maybe
you won't get everything but I want to make sure that what you said you needed to get us up to par
is twenty -eight thousand dollars, that's what you said. That would bring it up and that's just the
SNAP program, that wasn't including outreach, and I'm sure Mr. Kuali`i will explain his proposal in
further detail but if this is what it's going to take for our people of Kauai gets fed, then I'm going to
support it. I agree, I think we will request a budget as well because I think that's important.
Accountability especially in non - profits and county government is very important because it's tax
dollars but I want to make sure that the people know and you know that this Council supports the
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.17
efforts that you do and I'm going to support it, Mr. Kuali`i and if there's some kind of fleshing out of
these items, I'm willing to do that but at the very minimum we need to support the mission to make
sure our people on Kauai get fed and that's all I have to say.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Rapozo and I do want to say and
Judy's in the audience, Judy this Council has already supported your mission, this Council has
always supported your mission. There is no narrative on this piece, there was no discussion with me
as the Chair, it basically says that this is the plus minus for consideration that total is a hundred
and thirty -three thousand, I have no problem with going forward to evaluate these but this is a much
larger number and if you had approached Councilmembers who have put this in front of us, it would
be best at this point to let them speak about it. Mr. Kuali`i, I'm going to let you speak on this piece
that's in front of us first.
Mr. Kuali`i: Okay Mr. Chair, I think the benefit of having Judy
here was during her testimony we got to have a lot of the information. Now like Councilmember
Rapozo was saying, no the food bank did not approach me but as a part of my responsibility and
looking at the budget, I approached her with questions. Questions about the budget over the last
three years, questions about her program and how she was serving our people and what the needs
were. The initial thing I heard was that the SNAP outreach program of the total program of a
hundred and seventy -three thousand annual had a deficit of a twenty -eight thousand, so that was
the food bank's most urgent need, right, so twenty -eight thousand. Then I learned further about the
SNAP outreach program and how hugely impactful it is to our people and how you know with just
the funding of thirty -five thousand dollars for one additional outreach worker, that that person could
now work with our families perhaps as many two to three hundred more families to connect them
with federal sources that are sitting available and not being used by Kauai families right? For them
to now have that food stamps, that funding source to go into our community and shop at our stores at
our, you know economic development, you know helping the families, getting to those federal funds,
the multiplier is incredible, thirty -five thousand, perhaps getting as much as the food value of a
hundred and fourteen thousand in economic impact of five hundred and thirty -three thousand, that's
the additional outreach worker. Food, we talked about the food how that food that they're
distributing to our families had to be reduced from eight pounds per request to five pounds per
request and that's just because... that's just what our families are having to do anyway, right...
they're having to do more with less but imagine that what you're doing more with less on is eating,
food... the basic necessity of life. I saw that fifty thousand dollar request is a straight request of
funding to buy additional food and then the last piece about the farmers market, she explained that.
We all support the farmers market, we support our local growers, we support all the vendors in the
farmers market, if the food bank could send their clients to the farmers market and give them a two
to... you know one to one match... where five dollars became ten dollars... they're getting more food
and their supporting our farmers markets so those four items, piece by piece I see each of them as
the return on the small investment because when you look at each of these, it's relatively small
investments, the total a hundred and thirty -three thousand sounds pretty large, you know it's all
relative I mean as far as the difference that we can make with these levels of funding I think it's
something very well worth while doing for our people and for our economy.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Kuali`i, Councilmember Yukimura, I'm
going to go to you as Mr. Bynum has a question but I'm going to be stepping out for a moment, I'm
going to check on a record of... I mean Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Actually I had raised my hand up to kind of like
general discussion.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.18
Mr. Rapozo: That's fine. Is it a comment on this item?
Mr. Bynum: No.
Mr. Rapozo: Oh okay. Any comments on Mr. Kuali`i's proposal?
Ms. Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah. I want to say that what Councilmember Kuali`i
said even before his proposal about my general proposal, I share whole heartily, I love grass roots
economic development. I believe our non - profit sector is as important as the profit centers as
because of the work they do and they do much more for less and our amazing in the services that
they provide, we couldn't buy their services given the kind of heart and efficiencies that they bring to
the work. Regarding the program, the food bank is really important, it brings a lot of money into it
but the question is how long would those moneys be available as our federal government deals with
its deficit because it still a subsidy program, what we need to move toward is where we're actually
producing our own food and we're hiring our families so that they have money to buy the food and
then it circulates in the community. I mean that's long range economic development and so then you
have, well what does the coqui frog funding have to do with it, well it could kill our export Ag
industry and kill a lot of jobs if that or the (inaudible) come and destroy our watersheds, then our
farmers don't have water and we don't have drinking water. I mean it's all these connections about
what is strategic so that's what I was meaning about how we look at all of this and I love the idea
that people would be able to use food stamps basically at our farmers markets, it's a win -win because
it helps the clients of the SNAP program get fresh locally grown produce and then it helps our
farmers be paid for their produce and sell their produce. I'm very grateful that this connection has
been made and if we can help fund the introduction of it, that's good but I really think twenty -five
thousand is a lot of money so I would go for something like seventy -five hundred and see what it can
be done with it, it's a promotion and it's already going to have an inherent pool because people need
food and if they're able to buy the Sunshine market, they'll come anyway... so if you let them know
about it, I think, I'm not sure how much promotional money you need for it given all the other
priorities that we have. Purchase of food, that's a function that we cannot take on as a core function,
as the county right now... unless we decide we're going to start you know really doing social services
and I don't mean to minimize social services, it's a really critical part but we have a mission as a
county and so we have to somehow, and it's because a share Councilmember Kuali`i's philosophy and
approach that I'm saying in spite of our philosophy and our mission we do have, our mission can
embrace some of these non - profit work but let's be really strategic and thoughtful about how we do
it, not just case by case. Let's really think about how they relate, if they relate to economic
development, that's related to our mission, if they relate to creating jobs, then you know let's think
about that, if it actually is a leverage point that we can then let go of like say okay we give you
funding for a few years and then it can get to a point of self sustainability, that means more than
something that we keep funding year after year after year. For me at this point, purchase of food is
not something we should begin to fund unless we think strategically about how we're going to fund
non - profit work. SNPA outreach, I mean I wasn't quite aware that we had made a three -year
commitment and so I don't know what the rationale for that three -year commitment, it was in a
context of look you have other funding and so we'll help here to start it off but you know it's not
something we can do ongoing. I think that was probably the thing and we need to think about that,
so I don't think we can do both, maybe we do one like the SNAP outreach for one year and that's it
and there has to be some other way to find ongoing funding. I love the idea of a soda tax that creates
twenty -five million...
Chair Furfaro: Okay...
Mr. Rapozo: Yes...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.19
Ms. Yukimura: You know why when you come into ask for moneys
that the state is no longer giving, why isn't the state doing some of its work raising...
Mr. Rapozo: JoAnn...
Ms. Yukimura: ... its money.
Mr. Rapozo: But we have no control of what the state does and let
me just...
Ms. Yukimura: We can lobby for it.
Mr. Rapozo: We can but not today...
Ms. Yukimura: That's right.
Mr. Rapozo: Before I hand it before you Mr. Chair, I guess my
suggestion is that the proposal has been submitted, the proposer has made his comments... if we can
go down the line and call for the vote, otherwise we're going to have...
Chair Furfaro: That is my intent but Mr. Rapozo, I did also want to
clarify that this number was put in front of me today.
Mr. Rapozo: Right.
Chair Furfaro: And it is the first time I saw it so I plan on going
down that line.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for watching over... Councilwoman
Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: And I think Councilmember Bynum wanted to speak
but...
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to let him speak.
Ms. Yukimura: See that's the other thing, we can't cut short
discussions about this, it deserves discussion but we can't do it today otherwise we will never get the
budget done and that's why I'm suggesting an alternative process that will give us time to really
deliberate and give full due to these request but not in this time of frame today.
Chair Furfaro: I I think we understand your idea.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: But we do have to vote on this today, that hasn't
changed and my phone call home ,wasn't for my sleeping bag so, I understand your point.
Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I'll try to be as brief as I can because we'll be in this
mode for a while because of the non - profits and some of the economic development investments are
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.20
in the OED budget so we just started, so to put this in context, I really appreciate Councilmember
Kuali`i's about non - profit. You know our part of our economy they create jobs, they... and many of
their programs provide economic stimulus like the SNAP program like demonstrated... I spent most
of my career in non - profits, I was an executive director of a non - profit and so it is an over look sector
sometime. In this discussion, it's all true... our political subdivision is that our responsibilities are
defined and the state is responsible for social services but this council is very passionate about
focusing on the needs of the individuals that live in our community and sometimes the state fails us
and we have to pick it up because it would be foolish not to. The coqui frog funding is a great
example where Chair Furfaro's leadership said we can't wait on this, the state said oh we'll think
about it and maybe in a couple of years, well the coqui frogs would be established and gone... and we
have the ability to move quickly relatively in government when we need to. The SNAP program is
another example where it's such a bang for the buck and it has that target investment in economic
development component and so I know we all want to say yes to all of the request that come before
us. For me in bringing it back to this food situation, so we have to be cautious especially about,
there's a big different between a program that provides economic stimulus that's time limited and an
ongoing commitment, so yes funding food is a critical need but if we do it this year, there'd be
pressure to do it next year and the next year and it becomes part of the routine. The SNAP outreach
program, I definitely want to support the twenty -eight to keep it in tact. In terms of expanding the
outreach worker to three instead of two, I don't think that's a place where we can go right now.
Purchase of food I have mix feelings, I would like to know more about it, I think... and this is not the
only way to do things. So any Councilmember can put forward a proposal and a money bill and have
the deliberative time we may need to make that kind of fundamental decision as opposed in the next
five minutes. I'm uncomfortable with that portion with this. The farmers market program, I'm kind
of where JoAnn is at that maybe at a reduced amount and so and this is tough because I just want to
say yes. We're going to go through about eight or ten more things and they fall into the categories in
my mind places where the state has, you know we need to pick up that slack for the good and health
and welfare of our community. Places where we're doing target economic investment and we are
sitting on a reserve right now. The County Auditor yesterday put out a synopsis similar to the one
that I presented here early in the month and I said we can't make, we need to be very cautious of
banking ongoing spending commitments by using some of the reserve for targeted economic
investment that plays a return on investment is something that we need to really seriously consider.
And so I think there's a middle ground here in terms of definitely do the SNAP, put some funds into
the farmers market program but the other two, I just don't see that that's a good thing for us to do.
In terms of the food, if any member here wants to put forward a money bill to address these other
things, let's do it because then we will have public hearing, you know a time to really do the
statistics and the analysis that we just don't have today.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: I just have to say that you know this budget process
have been hurried and I'm just trying to do my job here and for Councilmember Bynum to say to put
a money bill forward later... it's my right sitting at this table to put this proposal forward just as all
of you have been. We've been spending money, this is what I want to spend money on. I'm
representing the people. Now I'm willing to make some changes listening to you but then I wanted
this proposal to go forward and you either vote it up or you vote it down and I really hope you would
vote to support this worthy cause that is not just about social welfare, it is about economic
development. I'm leaving the SNAP outreach portion at twenty -eight thousand. I'm leaving the
outreach worker at thirty -five thousand, I'm eliminating the fifty thousand dollars for the purchase
of food and I'm reducing the farmers market program to ten thousand dollars, so my new total is
seventy -three thousand and I really, really, really would want your support for this, for the people.
Mr. Rapozo: Motion.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.21
Mr. Kuali`i: It's my motion.
Mr. Rapozo: Second.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to take one more comment from you Mr.
Bynum and then I'm going to call for the vote.
Mr. Bynum: Absolutely it's KipuKai's responsibility, not only his
right to put forward his proposals and that's exactly what's he's doing and we're going to vote on
them and I certainly know that I'm going to vote for some of this but...
Chair Furfaro: Okay then we'll call for the vote.
Mr. Bynum: That I wouldn't have had he not make the proposal
and I'll have a proposal in a few minutes as other's will and so each one of them we should consider
and...
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I'm going to call for the vote.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: I move to amend by removing the outreach worker
thirty -five thousand.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to vote on this by line item Councilwoman.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: To let each member cast their vote, I'm not going to
take it as a whole bill as it's presented, I'm going to take it as line items. On that note... the first
item on the agenda for this discussion is to add the SNAP program an outreach of additional twenty -
eight thousand dollars, I do want to qualify my vote, this is the fourth year we're doing it Judy, you
need to know you may not get my support in the future but I will be supporting this, this time
around. May I have a roll call of members on the twenty -eight thousand?
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair this is Office of Economic Development
under services, the added budget item is to the Kauai independent food bank for a SNAP outreach
program twenty -eight thousand dollars.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura, Rapozo,
Yukimura, Furfaro TOTAL — 7,
AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Chair Furfaro: Next item please.
Mr. Nakamura: ...
Chair Furfaro: The outreach worker.
Mr. Nakamura: Next matter is for the outreach worker.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.22
Chair Furfaro: I'll take it from here, I was just sharing with you the
Office of Economic Development, that's where we're going to go to the outreach worker.
Mr. Nakamura: This is thirty -five thousand dollars for the outreach
worker for the Kauai Food Bank.
Chair Furfaro: Yes. I do want to say that I cannot support this Judy,
that we should not find ourselves in a position funding payroll for other non - profits specifically so I
will not be supporting this. I'm going to call for the vote by roll call please.
Mr. Nakamura:
worker.
APPROVAL:
AGAINST APPROVAL:
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING:
Mr. Nakamura:
This is for thirty -five thousand dollars for an outreach
Kuali`i, Rapozo, TOTAL — 2,
Bynum, Chang, Nakamura,
Yukimura, Furfaro TOTAL — 5,
None TOTAL — 0.
Five no's.
Chair Furfaro: The next item, I would like to... before we go to the
outright food purchase, I want to go to this farmers market program. Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: The food purchase was removed.
Chair Furfaro: Oh it was?
Mr. Kuali`i: It was not part of the motion.
Chair Furfaro: Okay but I just want to confirm with you, you did
suggest that the farmers market program as a pilot program be reduced to ten thousand.
Mr. Kuali`i: Ten thousand.
Chair Furfaro: Okay so we'll be voting on the ten thousand.
Mr. Nakamura: This is for the Office of Economic Development other
services, Kauai independent food bank, farmers market program at ten thousand dollars.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura, Rapozo,
Yukimura, Furfaro TOTAL — 7,
AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura:
Seven ayes Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much, so we will be adding here
approximately thirty -eight thousand dollars for Economic Development line item for the food bank
and Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Thank you for your support. I do want to say we're
making decisions today for the budget for one year, and next year we'll make those decisions then
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.23
and if the need arises and I choose to bring it forward then, I'll bring it forward then but let's not
worry about beyond this year. This is the year we're deciding on.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you again for putting the initiative forward.
Now we're going to continue in Economic Development on the items that are in front of us that have
been changed from the supplemental budget. The next item is other services for the Agricultural
Tropical Flowers program, originally in the budget for four thousand two hundred and fifty dollars,
the Mayor's revised budget is at thirty thousand. Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I'll try to make this as quick as possible. Once a year
in Philadelphia there is an international flower show, it's been for a hundred and eighty years, it is
the international flower show and members of our tropical flower industry here on Kauai attended
this year. Two hundred and sixty -five thousand people attend from all over the world, these are the
kinds of shows that in economic and visitor industry, we attend. We routinely go there to stimulate
tourism to Kauai and we routinely for years fund that kind of program and I've been in largely in
support of that because it's our primary industry and we're very good at it in terms of HVB. We also
have as goal to versified Ag, we also have as a goal creating (inaudible) for our agriculture and we
talk a lot about economic diversification but we rarely put serious funding into it. This year we have
an opportunity to collaborate between our and it's happening right now as we speak and its pretty
exciting to see our diversify ag folks working with HVB, KVB Kauai Visitors Bureau and really
excited about this upcoming flower show in Philadelphia. Why are they excited about it, every year
they have a theme. This year's theme is Hawai'i, Kauai is having set aside space, Kauai in
particular... has got this huge area where they are... and they are purchasing tropical flowers from
us, the people who run the show. And they're giving us discounted space, special space just for
Kauai and each of the seven islands, and it's an opportunity to stimulate not only the visitor
industry in a way that we have done routinely but this year collaborating it in my mind double bang
for the buck by having our tropical flower and making the connections first of all to stimulate the
economy in that diversify ag sector but also to make the connections that could lead to a whole sale
flower industry growing on Kauai. The Big Island has a whole sale flower industry that has changes
because of vog, because of pest, because of catchment water... on Kauai the reality is we have
(inaudible) ag land looking for market and that could be tropical flowers and so this is a rare
opportunity because the theme of the show is Hawaii because the organizers of the show who were
here in the last month from Philadelphia said we're going to purchase flowers from you, we're going
to give you discounted space, we're going to... we really want to purchase these tropical flowers from
Hawai`I, not from Texas and Florida which are their other options. And so I'm really glad that the
Administration is responding to this and that this... it's really exciting to see farmers and visitor
bureau people working together to say how can we support, both of our industries... so I'm looking
for an increase from this thirty thousand to a total of seventy -five to support this trade show that's
coming up next year. We are going to have a presence but are we going to have a presence that's
really going to give actually some resources to diversified ag and our ag sector and that's diversifying
our economic base here in a way... and I'm talking to the farmers and behind the scenes they're like
hey we understand you're going to give money to the visitor industry but we're an industry here too,
we need your support, they're seeking it and I would like to support it. So I'm suggesting an addition
of I think forty -five thousand in this line item for tropical flowers.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I guess what I was going to do is ask, because Mr.
Kuali`i had submitted his proposal for the food bank and in it included several of the items on the
OED budget, several reductions on the budget which I think, I got to say for first, one month old, two
month old Councilmember, to come in with a proposal or a proposal that includes the necessary
reductions to accommodate your request, I got to say, that doesn't happen often. As I said earlier, I
intending to support your entire proposal, now obviously your request for funds was reduced
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.24
substantially so I'm not sure what your position will be on the other three items on your proposal, I
know Mr. Chang is here and he's recused from the Marathon so I won't discuss that right now but I
will discuss the flower line item. I guess I'm struggling the discussions... when we're talking about
food... we're talking about helping our people... we're talking about filling that void... in social
services if you will and it's not a bad word, I don't think it's that bad for the county to take care of
social services, I don't. many people think it's not our job but I remember when I first got elected, we
went to some conference in Honolulu and Governor Ariyoshi spoke and he said and this is for first
time legislatures, he said don't even forget the core function of government, take care of your people,
your people, your residence, take care of them... core functions public health, public safety and so
forth... like I said yesterday I came to this budget session yesterday with a different pair of glasses
saying hey we got to reduce this budget. We cannot be increasing this budget and every time we got
to increase, we got to reduce. We've increased it substantially... I think there's...
Chair Furfaro: Five hundred fourteen thousand.
Mr. Rapozo: Is that what it is now? So we're looking for three
hundred fifty -nine thousand already I guess. We got to go make up some place. Which means we got
to cut and if you look at the numbers that were tossed out yesterday, it was substantial. We could be
well over a million dollars if we had approved all of the suggestions. I am not going to support any
increases in the OED budget, in the Economic Development side of the house, in fact I am hoping
that we could reduce some of it because I think as the public has sacrificed and cut their spending, as
a private sector has cut their spending on the things that they want to have, this council has got to
be leaders. We got to lead by example. And I think, I have no problem with trade shows and all of
that but I think thirty thousand dollars as was ... from March to May it went up substantially it went
up substantially from four thousand to thirty thousand and I obviously will not supporting any
increase, I would actually by supporting Mr. Kuali`i's proposal to reduce it to ten thousand. Again I
think there's a lot of people to serve on this island that we need to do and you know the perspective
of the community is my goodness you guys are sending all these money's away and putting all these
moneys into tourism and really what is the economic benefit or what is the benefit to the people, the
tax payer... what is really the benefit, some of these events will generate... yeah it will generate
some casual jobs for a week... hotel will be full for a week and then everybody goes home and then
the employees get say you know what we'll call you for 'the next big event. I mean when we're
talking about tax payers dollars, we got to... we're going to have to be really, really careful on how
we spend it. This item here Mr. Bynum you said seventy -five thousand dollars, there's no narrative,
there's nothing here. Mr. Kuali`i got criticized for putting his proposal on the floor but he had the
data.
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me if you're referring to me criticizing...
Mr. Rapozo: No I said Mr. Bynum.
Chair Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Rapozo: Because Mr. Bynum had suggested that Mr. Kuali`i.
Chair Furfaro: I was just saying something narrative appeared in
front of me and I didn't see it until this morning.
Mr. Rapozo: No the criticism was that Mr. Kuali`i should have put
it in a form of a money bill, that was the criticism and I'm saying...
Mr. Bynum: There was no criticism.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.25
Mr. Rapozo: I'm saying... that this money seventy -five thousand
dollars, I see no benefit, I mean how can I see benefit because the Councilmember said there is a
benefit. No, I'm sorry. I am not going to support it, in fact I am going to support the proposal to
reduce it to ten thousand.
Chair Furfaro: And I want to remind members here, the decision
making as I call out the item is going to be on the line item, don't try to influence the other outcomes
with mixing and matching other particular pieces, let's focus on the item that's on the agenda... so
Councilmember Kuali'i, I know your narrative was referenced and you have the right to speak up
when we get to that item. But the item in front of us right now is the consideration of moving the
flower show contribution...
Mr. Kuali`i: Yeah. So sir I have a process question?
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead.
Mr. Kuali`i: So if one of the Councilmembers has a proposal on
that particular line item that increases it and another Councilmember has a proposal that decreases
it, because it's the same line item how are we considering it?
Chair Furfaro: It be considered this way... I'll simply call for the
vote.
Mr. Kuali`i: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: Just as simple as that.
Mr. Kuali`i: So on this question which is to raise the budget from
thirty thousand which was already raised since March to seventy -five thousand, my question... my
comments are that I can't tell just by a total of thirty thousand how it's being spent, what portion of
it is actually being spent on supporting the farmers in building the industry, I don't think that we
have a flower industry on this island and to take a trip all the way to Philadelphia which even in this
narrative provided by the Mayor, sounds more like a promotion item so to call it agricultural just
because its flowers when it's really promotion, it's not clear. Of that thirty thousand, how much of
that money is actually being spent on purchasing flowers from our flower growers and then taking
those flowers to Philadelphia as a sample and promotion of a product that they can get from Kauai.
I don't know.
Chair Furfaro: Members, I had not planned to do this... I don't want
every time we get to a line item to find out, you know we need to be voting on the merit that you feel
down in your...
Mr. Chang: Piko.
Chair Furfaro: Evaluation, the fact of the matter is you're going to
support it or not, I don't want to stop and have somebody come and make a presentation each time
we get to an item but in this case I see George Costa in the audience, I'm going to suspend the rules
because I don't have those answers. Mr. Costa are you prepared to come up and speak about this
request that Mr. Bynum is making.
GEORGE COSTA, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: I can give you as much
information that I have.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.26
Chair Furfaro: Then please come up.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Kuali`i: Process wise, I'm not... I'm saying that I'm prepared
to vote no because this wasn't clear.
Chair Furfaro: So you don't have.
Mr. Kuali`i: So I don't expect that all day today we're going to be
having people come up and answer your questions.
Chair Furfaro: So you have no questions?
Mr. Kuali`i: They should have provided that answers in advance.
Chair Furfaro: You have no questions for him?
Mr. Kuali`i: Yes, that's correct.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum do you have any questions for...
Mr. Bynum: I've been talking to Mr. Costa about this for several
weeks so, I don't have any additional questions.
Mr. Costa: Yeah if I can just clarify and provide some additional
information... first of all we do have a flower industry obviously when you compare our flower
industry, there are flowers, tropical flowers farmers on the island... and maybe not to the degree like
the Big Island but there is an industry here. They actually approached myself and Nalani Brun in
our Office of Economic Development with this and I call it an opportunity, I wasn't aware of this
international flower show until they brought it to my attention. When they started getting into the
details of it that this is world, it's a annual flower show and with the fact that next year's flower
show 2012 will the, the main thing will be Hawaii, it peaked our interest. This is primarily
agriculture but the way, the visitor industry got involved is that here's a venue where obviously its
flower show but being in Philadelphia at the former train station, it's a huge I believe seventeen
acres of convention center and so from the agriculture side and another initiative we want to keep
building a foster is ag tourism and we thought this would be a great opportunity, we want to help
our tropical flower industry but also help promote the visitor industry because there will be over two
hundred sixty thousand people, it's quite an impressive show.
Chair Furfaro: George can you hold for just a second?
Mr. Costa: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: So in this evaluation, how did your office come to the
thirty thousand?
Mr. Costa: Basically that's to help pay for the cost of the tables
and the booths expanse as well as some of the shipment to send the flowers. They'll have to provide
their flowers for the decorations, on top of that the flower show organization is purchasing additional
flowers not just from Kauai but all the other islands to decorate the entire exhibition.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, in your...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.27
Mr. Costa: But it's basically for the tables and the set up fees.
Chair Furfaro: In your calculation to get us to the thirty thousand,
you have display tables, you have shipping in there, do you have subsidy for transportation to get
people there?
Mr. Costa: We briefly talked about it but we don't know the exact
number of how many are going to be attending and so we wanted to just focus on the tables and the
facilities and the shipment of the flowers.
Chair Furfaro: And I just want to talk about cost here. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: George, we have a pretty well establish mechanism to
do tourism promotion right. We send hula dancers, we send KVB people, we subsidize their travel
but this idea of actually investing in other economic activity like tropical ag and... is that something
that's kind of in the works right?
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Bynum: Because we haven't done it before, so we're
developing... and that's part of why it excites me is the collaboration between farmers and the
diversify ag and the visitor industry looking at this win -win opportunities. Our farmers know about
this because KVB sent them, right?
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Bynum: So we're establishing that, you've said we're focusing
on... I like to support like how we do for people in the visitor industry the travel and the expanses
that the individual and to create the connections that, which is already happening because they
attended this year... you know that could lead to an increase in the industry on Kauai. Like I said
the Mayor's proposal right now for the Kalepa lands where the resource center (inaudible) hanging,
putting in drip irrigation and improving that and I've talked to the farm bureau people and the
people who do the east Kauai water, you know could this be lands for whole sale market?
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me Mr. Bynum... I'm trying to get from him...
and I gave him the courtesy of to understand...
Mr. Bynum: Let me... if there were additional funds to support the
farm side of this and the visitors side, there would be appropriate ways to expend those funds,
correct?
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Costa.
There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order.
Chair Furfaro: Now we have two proposals here... number one is this
consideration to increase the funds and then I'm hearing that there might be a proposal on the table
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.28
to decrease the funds, so let me first of all if there's a motion referencing the thirty -five thousand
dollars increase, do we have a second from anybody?
Mr. Chang:
thirty thousand?
Chair Furfaro:
thirty- five thousand.
Mr. Kuali`i:
Chair Furfaro:
going...
Mr. Kuali`i:
Chair Furfaro:
Councilmember.. .
Mr. Kuali`i:
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Kuali`i:
Excuse me Mr. Chair... making a reference to the
I'm making a reference, a motion to increase that by
Forty- five... to seventy -five, from thirty.
I don't know where you guys are going... you're
It's...
No, no... we're talking about this one item
This...
This item goes from thirty to...
Seventy -five, that's what I said.
Chair Furfaro: Seventy -five thousand... okay... thank you for the
correction, I always had a hard time in the fourth grade so I missed it by a few thousand. If there's
no second, that will die?
Ms. Yukimura: Second.
Chair Furfaro: We have a motion to increase and a second and now
we're going to ask that we get five votes.
Ms. Yukimura: Can we have discussion?
Chair Furfaro: Yes, I thought we had some but we can have more.
Ms. Yukimura: I see at putting money's in for tropical flowers as a
way to diversify the industry, I mean diversify our economic base and it is a (inaudible) industry
perhaps but I think right now the Big Island is struggling with the issue of coqui frogs, its making
export of tropical flowers harder to California and elsewhere and we don't have that. And so there's
a real potential here for that and having people go to convention where Hawaii is featured and it's
flowers are featured, it's a way to increasing income to our farmers because it's having them make
connections for sales. That means that they can continue to hire and keep hired workers and these
people can buy their own food and support their own families. Economic development is what makes
our island happen or that's what supports our families so it's a really important part of our work as a
county and I was at a convention... it must have been a smart growth convention but there was a
flower show going on next door and people will come, it's a tourist promotion. So there is this energy
between the visitor industry and the flower and agricultural industry. I think it's very much a
legitimate expenditure for economic development.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.29
Chair Furfaro: On that note, I'm going to call for the vote... could you
do a roll call vote Mr. Clerk.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair roll call on increasing the amount of the
Mayor's supplemental budget from thirty thousand to seventy -five thousand dollars.
APPROVAL:
AGAINST APPROVAL:
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING:
Mr. Nakamura:
Bynum, Yukimura
Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura, Rapozo,
Furfaro
None
Five no's Mr. Chair.
TOTAL — 2,
TOTAL — 5,
TOTAL — 0.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. There's a second motion on this item to
reduce the amount that's earmarked and I want to thank Mr. Costa, it's not typical that I would ask
people to detail but thank you for giving us a quick summary of what the thirty thousand makes up.
I'm repeating that because there is some consideration maybe to reduce that amount. On that note,
Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Yes Chair, my proposal is to reduce the amount from
thirty thousand which was the new amount down to ten thousand, so it's still an increase from the
original four thousand two hundred and fifty. My ideas for this and after hearing further from the
Director of Office of Economic Development is, I still support us having a presence there but if it's
just tables, booths, shipping and decorations, I would hope that we could do that for ten thousand
dollars and that there could be other sources of funding from you know there is a large promotional
side to this so perhaps in working together with Kauai Visitor's Bureau and other tourism
promotion, the hotel associations, that they could collaborate and still make a big impact and this is
probably a first venture out and we're just building and starting so that's my proposal.
Chair Furfaro: Okay thank you. Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I'm going to support that. The initial budget on
March 15 showed an amount of four thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars which I think is pretty
much in line with what Mr. Costa said it was for... the booth space, the presence there, the
decorations and the shipping, I think the forty -two fifty is more in line with that. Mr. Kuali`i's
proposal actually doubles that, I mean more doubles that to ten thousand so I can live with the ten
thousand and I'll be supporting the reduction to ten thousand.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, I'm planning to call for a vote. Mr.
Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I believe the forty -two, fifty is funds that would have
been in there anyway, that are unrelated to the flower show. The addition was the Administration's
saying yes we want to support this. I wonder if the vote wouldn't have been different if the farmers
would have been in here today.
Chair Furfaro: Now let's not speculate on those kinds of things...
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Chang, you have the floor.
Mr. Bynum: I'm not finish.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.30
Chair Furfaro: We're in recess.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 11:07 a.m.
The Council reconvened at 11:21 a.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: We're back from that break let me revisit something
with all of you, as we go through the process today on items that deviate from the March 15
submission and reflect in the Mayor's supplemental, I'm going to ask going forward, as we go
through items that have changed, not (inaudible), that have changed... I'm going to ask for members
to make a motion and get a second... and then you can direct questions to the member that made the
motion. But we need to understand that much of the research and the answers and questions that
you got in written narrative and so forth are dealing with the Mayor's supplemental budget changes
here. If we get to an item for example when we get to future pages here, we're going to go through
Parks and Recreation and many of these subdivisions had no changes, so we're just going to go
through them... unless we come to something that you might want to do then you make a motion,
you get a second, we'll have an opportunity to ask questions, we'll vote on that change and move on.
Okay now when we left Councilmember Kuali'i, we were having a proposal that you were making
regarding changes the other way on the flower show and so I'll recognize you again.
Mr. Kuali`i: That's correct. Just to...
Chair Furfaro: Just to reconfirm, we have a second from Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Kuali`i: That's correct. That's what I was going to say.
Chair Furfaro: Go right ahead.
Mr. Kuali`i: Just that you know like I said we should support it
and with ten thousand dollars for the tables, shipping, decorations and working with Kauai Visitors
Bureau, I think we should reduce it from thirty thousand to ten thousand based on all of our other
decisions and priorities.
Chair Furfaro: Are there any questions of the introducer? No. Okay.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, we're on OED other services,
agricultural tropical flowers... to decrease the funding amount from thirty thousand to ten thousand.
APPROVAL: Kuali`i, Rapozo TOTAL — 2,
AGAINST APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Nakamura, Yukimura,
Furfaro TOTAL — 5,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura: Five no's, two ayes.
Chair Furfaro: Next item. I believe we are going to go into this SEDS
feasibility study, the changes from the Mayor's supplemental budget to... from the original Mayor's
review and supplemental. The changes are...
Mr. Chang: I'm sorry Mr. Chair... I wanted to say if I can have an
opportunity to throw something out on the floor in regards to the agricultural and tropical flowers.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.31
Chair Furfaro: I'm sorry Mr. Chang, if you wanted to add something,
go right ahead... we'll stay on that subject, we defeated to a two /five vote to reduce that amount, you
wanted to have the floor on the tropical /agricultural flower show?
Mr. Chang: Correct. Thank you Mr. Chair... I believe that this is
a very, very important item for our island of Kauai and you know when you're doing these big
international conferences, it just... the set up and the tables and the booths and the cost just to set
up, needless to say get there... is a lot of money and I know the Administration was asking for thirty,
Councilmember Bynum had ask for seventy -five but I want to just throw it out and do a compromise
and make a proposal to make this item a fifty thousand dollar item.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Are there any questions directed at the person that
made the motion?
Ms. Nakamura: Councilmember Chang, what would the additional
twenty thousand dollars get us?
Mr. Chang: Well I actually believe if I'm not mistaken... just the
set up and the booths and the tables and somebody can correct me, that is somewhere at around
forty thousand dollars... is that correct? Somewhere in that neighborhood?
Chair Furfaro: (inaudible) from Mr. Costa and I don't plan to bring
him up again.
Mr. Chang: I understand.
Chair Furfaro: For the registration fee, the table rentals, the storing
of flowers, shipping... was thirty thousand.
Mr. Chang: Thirty thousand. I think through that twenty
thousand out, I thought it was forty, so my correction for that... I would just like to say that I wasn't
in favor of supporting the seventy -five thousand but I feel that (inaudible) of the seventy -five, I just
thought that fifty thousand dollars and any other expenses that comes up from now to next year, I
think... and I hope can be justified.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, thank you. Does anybody have a question for
the maker of the motion? Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Well obviously you see an opportunity, what is the
opportunity for Kauai?
Mr. Chang: If you're doing an international flower show, I mean
there's a lot of people that buy Hawaiian tropical flowers anywhere in the world that you go to, and
many of the mainland hotels or locations or what have you... I think... I want to support the flower
industry, you mentioned a little bit about the coqui frogs on the Big Island and you know keeping in
mind the vog... we had mentioned the vog as far as the agriculture crops, their flowers, I mean there
is an opportunity to let our farmers know and let our people know... look if you folks are growing
orchids... now is the time to do it... there's an opportunity for you, for Kauai to step forward. I've
talked to many, many farmers and it's very hard work I think Councilmember Bynum talked a little
bit about fellow lands, possibly putting up hot houses and what have you but you know those are
very difficult task however if somebody's looking down... we're always talking about the farmer, we
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.32
always talk about the average age of a farmer in this day is sixty, sixty -one, sixty -two years old...
hopefully this will give an incentive to a lot of the younger people and younger farmers and the
families. I just think hearing that it's an international flower show, the show has been around for
hundred and eighty years or so, so when you're bringing around international people that follow this
particular show, if the show is held in Philadelphia in March, I mean think about the business
hopefully down the line that we can get for the summer and the years to come. I think it's a
tremendous opportunity, I think when it comes to trade shows in conjunction with the county and
with the visitors bureau, I mean they have shows as far as presentation, in my opinion it's pretty
wired, I mean we done a lot but to have a show of this magnitude, you know I think it's something
that I would truly would like to support because I think it's a great opportunity but an opportunity
for a long lasting years to come.
motion.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum has a person for the person that made the
Mr. Bynum: I actually I just wanted to add...
Chair Furfaro: I shared with you folks that after a motion is made
you can direct it towards the person that made the motion. So do you have a question for Mr. Chang
on his proposal?
Mr. Bynum: I actually wanted to try to answer the question that
Councilmember Nakamura posed.
Chair Furfaro: We have an opportunity to... is that a question you've
asked since he made this new motion or is it from the previous motion.
Ms. Yukimura: Since the motion.
Chair Furfaro: With the new motion? Go right ahead.
Mr. Bynum: Dickie the nature of this show is that there are
literally thousands of people who buy tropical flowers... wedding planners, event planners, and retail
flower people, tropical flowers happen... are grown in Texas, Florida and Hawai'i, many of these
people want to buy from Hawaii. The people of the show brought a huge list that said these are the
flowers we are going to buy, we'll buy them from Texas but we prefer to buy them from you and so
additional funds would perhaps increase the presence, defray some of the shipping cost, help people
make the connections that could lead to more business for our current industry and could lead to an
expansion of that industry. George said if there were additional funds there are appropriate ways to
have a stronger presences, so that would be my answer.
Mr. Chang: I understand that, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Is there anymore questions of the maker of the
motion, if not, I'm going to call for a vote. There's a vote to amend this amount to a total of fifty
thousand, may I ask you to make a roll call vote please?
Mr. Nakamura: This is to increase other services, tropical flowers line
in the Office of Economic Development from thirty thousand to fifty thousand dollars.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Nakamura, Yukimura,
Furfaro TOTAL — 5,
AGAINST APPROVAL: Kuali`i, Rapozo TOTAL — 2,
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.33
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura: Five ayes Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bynum: Compromise, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay now we're still in Economic Development and I
would like to get through Economic Development by lunch time. We are now on the changes with
the Mayor's budget on the SEDS feasibility study. The Mayor has increased it by one hundred
thousand dollars and if I can reference this, I believe each segment of the six SEDS, we estimated
approximately fifty thousand for each unit, business unit so the Mayor's proposal is now to do two of
the proposed six and again I'll restate the rules if somebody wants to change this, I need a motion
and a second, questions will be directed at the individual that made the motion. Councilwoman
Nakamura.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you Chair. I would like to make a motion to
increase this number. First of all I would like to thank the Mayor for at least amending the original
budget and I would like to increase this number to two hundred and seventy -five, in additional two
hundred and seventy -five thousand dollars and I'd like to explain the rationale... so last year the
county of Kauai completed its...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, let me ask... is there a second?
Mr. Chang: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Chang. Go right ahead.
Ms. Nakamura: And just to clarify the total amount, the one hundred
thousand plus the two, seventy -five thousand and then there's original sixty thousand in there for
KEDB to implement the SEDS, so the... under this proposal KEDB would receive a grant for two
hundred and twenty -five thousand dollars and KPAA would receive a grant for two hundred and ten
thousand dollars. The purpose of the funds would be to help implement the SEDS, the
comprehensive economic development plan for the island which was adopted... which was completed
in March of 2010. About a hundred people were involved in the creation of this plan for this island
which sets a road map in six and now seven different clusters to begin to diversify our economy. We
talk a lot about economic diversification included in this plan are specific projects to, that have been
identified by industry stakeholders on the best ways to get us there. With our unemployment today
on Kauai at... close to eight percent, we need to take action and do something's to create livable
wage jobs for our residence and the plan outlines some specific projects or opportunities to pursue,
these were not just picked out of the sky, there were series of meetings over a six month period to
come up with these projects. Groups that were involved seem very enthusiastic about investing their
time to now bring these ideas to the next step, which is in many cases to do a feasibility study, or to
do further analysis to see if these projects are doable, so the purpose of the funds are twofold, one
would be to bring the stakeholders together in each of the clusters, get them involved in the very
ground level actually to this next step, to begin looking at the feasibility of certain projects and then
the next... funds are also in there for the facilitation of these groups because we know that without
that collaboration the projects would not be as strong as they can be. The organizations have been
identified because they have a track record of number one doing very good facilitation in this
community and number two being able to carry out projects from completion to end. I have
assurances from the organizations that they have the capacity to do the studies, retain the
consultants and get us to the point where we can make a determination whether we want to take
the next step to invest in capital improvement projects and to seek outside grants to make it
possible. The breakdown again is two hundred twenty -five thousand for KEBD and KPAA two
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.34
hundred and ten thousand, the total there is three hundred thirty -five thousand... just double
checking... and there's a... does everyone have a copy of this handout, I think it was handed out to
you yesterday? So it has a description of specifically... there's this two page handout that describes
specifically what the feasibility studies would be for each of the clusters...
Excuse me, I'm just clarifying the cost...
Okay so the total budget amount is... thank you Jade... is four, thirty- five... four hundred
thirty -five thousand. One hundred thousand is already in there in the Mayor's supplemental budget
and sixty thousand is in the original budget under KEDB SEDS implementation.
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Nakamura:
Mr. Kuali`i:
Ms. Nakamura:
Chair Furfaro:
to the maker of that motion? Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum:
funded?
So the net, we're adding is?
I believe is the...
Two, seventy -five.
I have two, seventy -five, thank you.
Okay we have a motion and a second. Any questions
The original study that was completed, how was that
Ms. Nakamura: This was money's that came through the federal
government through the Office of State Planning and to Kauai Economic Development Board, the
funding was supplemented by a small grant from the Office of Economic Development. So it was a
partnership to create this plan.
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
contractors in this studies?
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
RICKY WATANABE:
Chair Furfaro:
Councilwoman Yukimura, you have the floor.
Yes. Are you sure that we can actually designate the
If they're non - profits.
Um?
Am I correct?
Okay good then...
If you look in the current budget.
Please introduce yourself.
Mr. Watanabe: Rick Watanabe. If you look in the current budget,
there's grants to various agencies already there that's listed such as Red Cross, Salvation Army,
whatever have you, Kauai Food Bank... so it's just put there...
Ms. Yukimura: So the energy sustainability plan had it been given to
a non - profit could have been...
Mr. Watanabe:
grantee has to be a non - profit.
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Watanabe:
Ms. Yukimura:
return on investment?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.35
Oh, if you're going to give it out as a grant, the
Okay.
It's a requirement of the County Code.
Okay so how would we measure the results and the
Ms. Nakamura: The results would be twofold. One is that the
contractors, the two contractors would over the one year period bring together the industry cluster
representatives who are really excited about implementing some of these projects. So they will meet
monthly or whatever intervals that makes sense to then make sure that everybody's on the same
page about how they're going to proceed, be involved with selection of consultants that will be the
technical studies, in some cases... and so that's one piece of it would be the facilitation that, making
sure that facilitation got done. The second piece would be actual products, so if it's a strategic plan
for an organization that it was, that that plan was completed, here's a copy of it, in the case of a
business feasibility study within the one year period, this is the results of the business feasibility
study and now the group has read it and this is how we now want to proceed or don't want to proceed
based on what the finding are. Or this might... this project may take a different look or a different
approach because of the results of the feasibility study, so I see it as specific work products that the
council, the county will be able to review and comment on.
Ms. Yukimura: And there's a result beyond that which is the ultimate
result that we want which is the creation of industry and jobs.
Ms. Nakamura: That's right.
Ms. Yukimura: And will there be a way to measure that?
Ms. Nakamura: Yes. And again these projects will take time.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Ms. Nakamura: Business feasibilities study shows that yes this
multiuse facility or center is feasible and this is the scale that makes sense and I foresee the group,
whoever is involve looking at the different islands to see what a digital production center looks like
or what... how some of the other multiuse arenas work so that they can bring back that knowledge to
Kauai but I eventually once the decision is made to move forward with some of these projects that
there will be direct correlation to the number of jobs created.
Ms. Yukimura: And will the tracking of that be included with this
money?
Ms. Nakamura: We should include matrix I think in every contract
that the county lets out.
Ms. Yukimura: And so have you spoken to the Mayor and KEDB
about, I mean OED about this since they will be overseeing this right?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.36
Ms. Nakamura: Yes I had some meetings with George Costa and as
well as with the potential providers to see if they have the capacity and can expand the funds and
you know they are confident that they can carry out the work that's needed. The way that this was
designed is to minimize is to really to outsource this work because we know that OED has a very full
plate with limited staff, that's the idea is to outsource this work to capable non - profit providers.
Ms. Yukimura: And so the outsourcing to KEDB and to KPAA will
result in further outsourcing too, do you envision that KEDB and KPAA are going to hire other
consultants?
Ms. Nakamura: Yes they will need to find consultants with skill and to
do a thorough business feasibility study.
Ms. Yukimura: So I'm looking at the sheet you provided with industry
clusters and amounts and that's the facilitation amount of ninety thousand... let's see... okay so
ninety thousand dollars is for KEDB to facilitation, there's another ninety thousand for KPAA
facilitation.
Ms. Nakamura: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And then you've set aside the implementation projects
and studies of a hundred and five, and a hundred twenty thousand to KEDB and KPAA respectively?
Ms. Nakamura: That's correct.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay and then there's one more factor of a set CED
implementation study, that thirty thousand.
Ms. Nakamura: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: That is SBDC is what?
Ms. Nakamura: That's the Small Business Development Group that's
working on the certified community commercial kitchen incubator that would be part of the KCC
campus that would not only provide the... using that model in downtown Honolulu.
Ms. Yukimura: The center of the pacific...
Ms. Nakamura: We are not just providing the kitchen facilities the
whole marketing, the teaching of the business aspect of an agricultural enterprise, so there's a lot of
thought and energy going around with that project. I'm excited about that.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes that's a very excited project. So your commercial
kitchen... so you're seeing the small business center as doing the feasibility study and then coming
back or finding funds to actually implement?
Ms. Nakamura: I think for all of these projects if the feasibility study
is positive, they're promising sources of funding for the next phase of implementation, then yes.
There will need to be ongoing facilitation but what this process does and it is very process intensive
is it builds in community support of stakeholders from the very inception of a project. A lot of times
that's what holds projects up if people are not involved or hear about it second hand. This will
ensure that key stakeholders, their input is incorporated from the very beginning.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.37
Ms. Yukimura: Well what also appears to be incorporated is some
really good basic planning and I think we find often that many projects are initiated without that
and then falter because there's been oversights and lack of focus.
Ms. Nakamura: I don't want to create the impression that all of these
projects will move forward. I think this is the weeding out process and I think if we don't do this
then we will take on projects in the future that may not make sense and may not be sustainable.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay so the Kauai Tropical fruit disinfection facility
has been on the books for years as the Mayor who has developed the building... and I presume that
this process that would break the log jam because it just seems to be going, has been going nowhere.
Ms. Nakamura: Exactly, that's what it is and I don't think we can be
successful in asking the federal government, Office of Economic Development for more funds when
we cannot show that the funds they've given us in the past is being put to good use and in an
operational manner.
Ms. Yukimura: Absolutely.
Ms. Nakamura: I think that's a critical, that's on the critical path.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. Alright thank you very much.
Chair Furfaro: Other questions for the introducer? Councilmember
Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Can you explain a little further under the science and
technology of cluster, what is a film digital media and production center?
Ms. Nakamura: Okay. This came out of the discussions with the
science and technology industry cluster. The whole idea is to make this production, film digital
media center sort of part of the KCC campus, the idea was that we need the a space, a place for tying
into the instruction as well as the doing part of this industry, to create a kind of a career path,
similar to the kitchen facility and restaurant at KCC, now with that physical facility, you have a
pathway for students to learn a trade and then connect into the industry so it's the same concept.
There are some successful digital media centers in Honolulu, I think the surf rider project is one of
them, out of that many new careers are being developed in this creative media sector.
Chair Furfaro: Could I correct you?
Ms. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Being from Waianae its known as Sea rider
productions.
Ms. Nakamura: Sea rider productions, thank you. So again we have
models to look at and we just want to try and see what we can do here.
Mr. Kuali`i: And the other question and I'm just confused because
in the last couple of five and six clusters...
Ms. Nakamura: Yes.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.38
Mr. Kuali`i: Arts and culture and sports and recreation, on the
Garden Island Arts counsel it says see below and under sports and recreation is says see below, so
where am I looking... below?
Ms. Nakamura: Okay... the...
Mr. Kuali`i: Is it just for those line items there isn't any?
Ms. Nakamura: No, there will be work that we need to do with Garden
Island Arts Counsel so that they can, they have been identified as the lead cluster for the arts and
culture industry and we recognize the need for some capacity building work to strengthen that
organization and also the need to look at a feasibility study. Both arts and culture and sports and
recreation, identify for a multiuse facilities and rather than try to do two separate structures and
projects, the thought is have the groups come together, discuss what might be some common
elements of a center, develop a common vision and see if it's a project that can be pursued, that will
benefit both industries on this island.
Mr. Kuali`i: Now I understand and I think that's wonderful and
when the feasibility study is done, then perhaps we can go after grants and with the community...
and so, wonderful.
Chair Furfaro: Any more questions for the introducer? If not, the
item on the floor... Mr. Bynum did you have a question?
Mr. Bynum: No.
Chair Furfaro: No, I'm going to let you have an opportunity to direct
your questions to the introducer and then we're going to vote on the item.
Mr. Bynum: Discussion?
Chair Furfaro: No.
Mr. Bynum: We can't discuss it?
Chair Furfaro: You can discuss it with the introducer, I don't have
answers... so you have discussion for the introducer, go right ahead.
Mr. Bynum: May I stick with process just for a second?
Chair Furfaro: Surely.
Mr. Bynum: If we're going to vote, aren't we going to have an
opportunity to say why the rationale, why we're voting...
Chair Furfaro: Yes and I'm allowing you to give your rationale to the
introducer.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so that's the discussion.
Mr. Bynum: I was just a little confused but now I got it.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.39
Chair Furfaro: So direct it at the person that introduced it, I wouldn't
have the answers for it.
Mr. Bynum: I know that on Kauai we have a reputation
sometimes on spending a lot of money into studies that go unto a shelf and this is about taking this
study that a lot of people have put time and energy into, and taking it to the next level. It identifies
the six or seven industry clusters and so people in the various clusters are engaged in this process
now. This is an appropriate and perfect proposal to move forward and I'm glad that there's
leadership and it's not going to be a plan that sits on the shelf, that's a considerable amount of
money, so I want to put that in context of why I would support it is you know we're in a unique
situation on Kauai right now and I've been trying to say this that we have to be very cautious about
any new spending that requires ongoing commitments overtime. Because we're in this down
economy and our revenues are down but in addition to that it's just a reality that we are sitting on a
reserve. Appropriate ways to spend a reserve are tax relief, debt reduction...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me if you can... I'm sorry, if you can keep
your questions to the motion introduced at the table.
Mr. Bynum:
Ms. Yukimura:
And I'm...
He is.
Mr. Bynum: And I'm saying that this is targeted investment for
economic development and doesn't result in a lot of ongoing expanses but leads us to the next step to
actually put resources and energy behind this idea of diversifying our economy. Not just lip service
but actually moving in that direction, to not do this would be to put it on the shelf. So it's going to
have my support because it's that targeted investment and we do have resources for that, we don't
have to cut for every dollar we put up on that list today, although I think some cuts will come later,
because we have reserve, we have a chance to address revenue as well.
Ms. Nakamura:
Mayor had already made those cuts...
Mr. Bynum:
Chair Furfaro:
Yukimura.
I did include cuts to try to accommodate this but the
Those...
Any other questions of the introducer? Vice Chair
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair. I'm going to do this format but I do
want to ask that we might perhaps return to the rules and just allow some discussion because this
kind of a distortion of asking a question, but I...
Chair Furfaro: That is your feeling and I'll be glad to break for lunch
and review if I have the authority to focus your questions to the introducer of the bill and that is in
fact discussion. Discussion is with the introducer. So I tell you what, let's break for lunch and I'll
follow up on you and Mr. Bynum's concern.
Ms. Yukimura:
Okay.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 11:59 a.m.
The Council reconvened at 1:20 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.40
Chair Furfaro: Before we broke for lunch I wanted to let you know, a
query was asked regarding speaking through the Chair on particular items, I have the ability to
actually assign to members to confirm questions and remarks but really therefore after that all real
concerns should be addressed through speaking through the Chair. I do retain the right to have
discussions on items that I might not be familiar with, directed at the individual member. Now that
we're squared on rule 13, on Robert's rules, it is my intention I guess to let members speak through
me to the individual member that's addressing the particular proposal and then we may have
discussion with that individual as well as discussion with ourselves. Such as the rules according to
Roberts rules of order but I do reserve the right to assign discussion to a certain member.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, Councilwoman Yukimura was directing
a question... and then we can continue.
Ms. Yukimura: Well I just want to thank Councilmember Nakamura
for a very bold and well organized, well thought out proposal and I'm going to be supporting it
because I think it's a good framework of achieving real results in economic development.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: I too want to thank Councilmember Nakamura for
this very thorough proposal and I just had a couple of last questions and that first industry cluster
regarding food and agriculture, number one with the Kauai county farm bureau that says strategic
plan development and capacity building, what... I understand the capacity building is probably for
the organization itself, is the strategic plan also just for the organization itself? Okay... so in the
next one the tropical fruit disinfection facility, it has creative commercial kitchen and facility has
(inaudible) but then on the bottom there's the commercial kitchen business incubator with KCC, is
there connection there or collaboration?
Ms. Nakamura: I think there's a potential collaboration and I think
they wanted to look at possible sites whether the facility is best placed at the KCC campus or
whether to put in conjunction with this facility so I think they wanted to look at those options.
Mr. Kuali`i: I just saw no funding in that item above and I wanted
to make sure it wasn't any type of duplication. Perhaps the last one because I see some other items
without any funding and I'm wondering where the overall plan for agriculture is or has it been done
already? And in this line item, it list things like commercial level businesses in farming, value
added production and Ag base renewable energy, so that all sounds great other than being part of
some competition as far as the plan for you know... economic development in those areas, happening
going forward because then the other question tied to that, if the plan already exist and if this Kauai
economic development plan for 2010 -2015 was or created with community, aren't there other areas
that are missing like, what about the... what we just talked about... the local flower industry?
Ms. Nakamura: That...
Mr. Kuali`i: Where would that come?
Ms. Nakamura: There are a lot of potential projects to strengthen the
food and ag industry that are listed in this plan and there's a lot of brain storming of ideas and then
prioritization of ideas and this was sort of the next step, trying to flush out the ideas that kind of
rolls to the top of the list among participants. So there's a lot in there, we recognize all of the
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.41
different seven industries within the ag industry, you know the cattlemen, the floral industry,
energy related ag and so forth and they're actually a lot of projects listed in here that have potential
but this business plan competition, a lot of the ideas on this priority list are (inaudible) type projects
but there's also recognition that you can be a very good farmer but you may not be a successful... you
know you may not understand the business and marketing side to it. KEDB, the food and ag group,
working group also I wanted to promote this idea which is to try to you know promote ag users, doing
this business plan competition to sort of attract the strong ideas that are out there and give them the
recognition and encouragement to pursue these ideas.
Mr. Kuali`i: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: You know based on this immediately previous
interchange, it does occur to me that we may be missing the issue of an Ag base, the actual land and
market availability to farmers. I see the ag irrigation systems throughout Kauai consulting one
person doesn't seem like a major program.
Ms. Nakamura: That's not one of them that's funded but...
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Ms. Nakamura: Just to respond in the plan itself there are very
specific irrigation system improvements listed by the region of the island and that information came
from the Ag users saying that if this irrigation system could be improved or this portion of the
irrigation system that you know we could create more jobs. That was not funded under this initial
go around.
Ms. Yukimura: I see.
Ms. Nakamura: But we do need to collect that information, we need to
prioritize it and I know that they're trying to seek state funds and I really don't know or think they
were successful, I really don't know where they're at in that process.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. So if you don't have the land and water figured
out, no amount of business thinking will really work. So just to recognize that there's pieces that
maybe economic development has to track and address in conjunction with the other departments in
order to achieve this success that we're looking at. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Nakamura, I do want to let you know
that on this particular ag resource for irrigation system and water available and so forth... I did
have an opportunity with (inaudible) with the important ag land studies and he implied that there
might be something that you want to broaden out in their study to have a better understanding on
that resource as we begin to identify prime ag lands so it might be an actual different field to look at
as it related to important ag land study. Any further questions for the introducer of this funding? If
not, I am going to ask if there's any further discussion that you can direct through the chair but as I
was pointing out, I may have to refer that to the introducer. No... okay so what is on our agenda
right now is approximately additional two hundred and seventy -five thousand dollars on the SEDS
programs under Economic Development as proposed by Councilwoman Nakamura. Let's take a vote.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair this is adding approximately two
hundred seventy -four thousand dollars to the Office of Economic Development under services grants
and for the implementation SEDS implementation, plans and studies.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.42
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura,
Rapozo, Yukimura, Furfaro TOTAL — 7,
AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura:
Seven ayes Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. So we can go and draw a line
through the proposed changes by the Mayor on the SEDS program then we have the Asian pacific
Corporation APAC, I just want to say at this particular point, the supplemental budget that was
submitted by the Mayor identified the twenty -five thousand as a separate amount and reevaluated
the money's that were reduced in two other agencies and I believe we will be able to discuss the
YWCA issues in Economic Development right now but I think we need to have...
Mr. Kuali`i: Mr. Chair if you're doing the YWCA now, I thought
you were doing APAC but, Mr. Chair and fellow Councilmembers, I have provided written disclosure
on the record of a possible conflict of interest relating to the YWCA family violence shelter line item
and the YWCA sexual assault treatment line item, under other services and for this reason I am
recusing myself from the deliberation at this time.
Ms. Yukimura:
with the YWCA right?
Mr. Kuali`i:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
upcoming grants. I'll let him leave...
Question? And the reason is because you're employed
Yes that's correct. I'm employed in the YWCA.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Mr. Kuali`i has it relates to these two
Mr. Kuali`i was noted as recused from this item.
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I'll try to make this quick. The YWCA is our frontline
social service organization for domestic violence and sexual assault, like a lot of people there
experiencing cuts... that we know the state cuts six hundred fifty million dollars from their budget
this year. They have traditionally received county funding from both this OED budget and from the
Prosecutor. The Prosecutor answered the questions about what kind of funding that maybe able to
provide this year and it is fifty -eight thousand which is down significantly from previous year when
there were AARA funding available that's no longer available. The bottom line of all of that is that is
last year the county gave a hundred and seventy -three thousand, this year our proposal combined
from those two sources is a hundred and eight, YWCA has made it clear that to keep the shelter open
and to keep providing services, that they could not handle that level of cut and so I'm suggesting we
increase the line item for.
Ms. Yukimura: It's for the shelter.
Mr. Bynum: For the shelter to... well one is fifty and one is
seventy -five from the current twenty -five. So one would go up twenty -five and I have the ... oh it's
right here... seventy -five for the family violence shelter and fifty for the sexual assault treatment
program which would basically be a little bit more than we gave last year.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.43
Chair Furfaro: So let me understand this, we are taking the... in your
proposal we are taking the family violence shelter from twenty -five to seventy -five and we are taking
the sexual assault treatment of twenty -five to fifty?
Mr. Bynum:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Bynum?
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
provided by the Prosecutor's Office as well?
That's correct.
Okay. Do I have a second on that?
Second.
Okay, thank you. Are there any questions of Mr.
Yes.
Go right ahead.
So what is the amount that's coming, that is being
Mr. Bynum: The Prosecutor in their budget response said twenty -
nine thousand for the family violence shelter and twenty -nine thousand for sexual assault. Last
year they had access for ARAA funding which made those amounts higher, last year. That was in
their budget response.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. On that note, we have a motion and a second
to increase these two items by seventy -five thousand dollars, may I have a roll call vote for those that
are present? You still have discussion, surely.
Ms. Nakamura: So can you explain what the additional seventy -five
and fifty thousand will be used for?
Mr. Bynum: Yes, to keep the current level of services operating.
The family violence shelter is a facility on Kauai that serves people 24/7, the sexual assault
treatment, they have a 24 hour hotline also for sexual assault treatment so people who have been
victims of sexual assault contact during the crisis period the YWCA provide a range of services and
so it's to keep their service... now the Y sent us testimony that they've already suffered lots of cuts,
they have their employees furloughed, they haven't had raises for... so they have demonstrated that
they looked in their unoperation and discounted it as much as possible and so basically this is to
maintain the current level of services which are already reduced but it's a 24/7 operation being
available to men and women who suffered domestic violence or sexual assault crisis.
Ms. Nakamura: And are there other sources of funding for these
facilities?
Mr. Bynum: Yes. They're non - profit, so they have their own
fundraising and their own... there are state funds that have come from various programs that have
been reduced each year for the last three years so their overall level of funding is considerably down
from what it was three or four years ago. They're just trying to maintain the base level of services.
Ms. Nakamura: And what is the... has the need increased over the
years?
<°
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.44
Mr. Bynum: I can't and I don't want to give a fly by response but I
know the Y has developed all of those statistics and I've never seen an instance where the need is
reduced, so I don't want to give an answer that's not accurate on the other hand whenever economic
difficulties and unemployment are high, the level of domestic violence and sexual assault increases,
so I would be fairly confident in saying that I'm sure that the need has increased in the last couple of
years but I don't have those statistics to...
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Any further discussion before I call for the
vote? Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, again we're faced with request and we
don't have a lot of time or to look at and to talk at these people, I'm incline to vote for it this year but
I'm am going to strongly recommend that we develop a better system of evaluating these request and
in fact we should have a deadline for these request way prior to our budget decision making so that
we can have enough time to do our due diligence and everybody knows what the rules are and I was
just told that Maui has a system of the Maui County Council of allocating grant moneys and I think
we should look at that and develop a system because right now it's totally adhoc.
Chair Furfaro: Understood. Mr. Costa did you hear that suggestion
since all of this falls under economic development, developing a policy?
(inaudible)
Chair Furfaro: Thank you sir. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I just want to agree with that, we talked about that
since I've been here because we all know that we received this proposal on Friday afternoon and so
we had... but on the YWCA's behalf they communicated months ago in writing with packets that had
most of these answers I'm sure, I don't have it right here in front of me and they communicated with
us by email but they didn't know and we didn't know what the Mayor's proposal was going to be
until Friday and so I do know that this would maintain the level of funding that the Kauai County
provided last year plus an additional amount of nine thousand and recognition that they have done,
had cuts from the state and that they have taken appropriate measures to reduce their cost and
they're in fact the only non - profit I seen that's given us that kind of analysis that says here's what
we've done in our own operations to recognize the difficult economic times.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, on that note I might call for the vote, we have a
motion and second which increases this set of lines by seventy -five thousand dollars combined. Mr.
Clerk could you do a roll call vote on the YMCA items?
Ms. Yukimura: YW.
Chair Furfaro: YWCA.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair this is to increase two line items to
other services grants in the Office of Economic Development the YWCA family violence shelter from
twenty -five thousand to seventy -five thousand and the other services YWCA sexual assault
treatment program from twenty -five thousand to fifty thousand.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Nakamura,
Rapozo, Yukimura, Furfaro TOTAL — 6,
AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0,
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.45
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0,
RECUSED & NOT VOTING: Kuali'i TOTAL — 1.
Mr. Nakamura: Six ayes, one recused Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. We're going to look at the
Asian pacific conference, I do want to say to you that the twenty -five thousand was an allocated
amount but now as we've replenished things in the Y and the food bank, the Mayor is showing this
as a separate budget item so it is my intent just to call for the vote on this one since it was there
previously. Oh yes, we'll get Councilmember Kuali'i back. I see we have Karen Gunderson with us,
Karen, we have two items to closeout in Economic Development, one of them will be the question
raised by Vice Chair Yukimura on the endangered species, it is not typical for us to take testimony
while we're in deliberation but since you are here and I want to finish this APAC piece again as I
gave you a summary, it is now showing as a separate line item but was identified in the original
Mayor's review. May I have a motion to approve?
Mr. Chang:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Councilmembers:
Move to approve.
Second.
Okay. All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Now we are almost exiting the Economic Development
section George but we have two new items that we need to have discussion on. Councilwoman
Yukimura, I'll give you the floor.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Yes I received last night this email from
Ms. Gunderson, you have before you the proposal, it looks like this and as you know we actually first
met Ms. Gunderson when the coqui frog infestation in Lawa`i was growing and to the Council's great
credit and through the leadership of our Chair, we funded a program and through the really akamai
usage of the money's, very creative and accountable methodologies. We have eliminated pretty much
the infestation, I think they have to wait another year to see if they hear anymore coqui cry's but it's
quite miraculous that we accomplished that and the implications for our economy and for our
lifestyle and for our visitors, are tremendous. If you look at the other counties, especially the Big
Island where the infestation is out of control, we have such an economic advantage because our
nursery plants and other exports are not as suspects as the Big Island plants, our visitors are not
bothered by the cries of the coqui frog, anyway... this is a proposal because they only recently found
that they lost a lot of funding. The is an economic development matter and it just came in, so I told
Mr. Gunderson that I would put it before the Council for consideration. I don't know if the Chair
is...
Chair Furfaro: I'd be glad to speak on this, you know I do think the
invasive species counsel should possibly when it comes to the (inaudible) issues, that that is
something that they should have discussed with the Water Department. I do believe that to come
back, our county of almost coqui free and continue as such through the efforts of the invasive species
counsel, I could certainly consider fifty thousand for this ongoing battle, especially since as I
understand it, we still have a year of auditing in the various parts of the island to make sure we are
able to reduce the colonies.
Ms. Yukimura: Actually I'm told Mr. Chair that they found thirteen
coqui frogs outside of the Lawa`i area over the last year or so, so it is an ongoing effort and I might
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.46
mention to that the other very (inaudible) invasion species, the mite that infects bee hives... which
really severely damages the honey industry and while we are mite free, we have an incredible
economic advantage to develop not only the honey business but also the queen bee business, there's a
tremendous value to clean queen bees that you can sell around the country, your market is the
country maybe the world if we can keep that advantage and keeping that advantage means keeping
invasive species out of our jurisdiction and land area.
Chair Furfaro: We have in front of us total propose budget of fifty
thousand as I made my comments about (inaudible) possible support of the Water Department, are
you proposing that we might be looking at fifty thousand for this ongoing battle with coqui frogs?
Ms. Yukimura: To keep things moving, I'll so move Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chang: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Are there discussions, if you there's any questions,
you can direct them to Vice Chair Yukimura? If not, I'm going to call for the vote, this will be a roll
call vote.
Mr. Chang: Just for the clarification, it's for fifty thousand?
Chair Furfaro: Fifty thousand that's correct. It does not include the
myconia, it's something they have to pursue with the Water Department. I'm sorry Karen, we're in
decision making, I'm not taking any testimony.
Ms. Yukimura: Unless there's a really... if I can't...
Chair Furfaro: Are there four members that would like to have
testimony. I want to move forward here.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair this is to add a new grant to the Office
of Economic Development, other services for the Kauai Invasive Species Committee for fifty
thousand dollars.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i, Nakamura,
Rapozo, Yukimura, Furfaro TOTAL — 7,
AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura: Seven ayes Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Karen thank you for coming down but
we're in decision making and not public testimony in this particular time and I also want to thank
you for an excellent report that was given. Members before we go any further, I do want to take our
attention to the board, we have now the one million one, eighty -one there but I want to point out that
four hundred and fifty -two thousand of it is approvals that we got, have given that was in the
Mayor's supplemental budget, the net changes we've made so far is seven... seven, twenty- eight,
nine, zero, one. Seven, twenty- eight, nine, zero, one.
Mr. Rapozo: I have a question?
Chair Furfaro: Yes go ahead.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.47
Mr. Rapozo: I guess I'm really concern as that number is rising as
we approach the million dollar mark, the fact of the matter is that we are going to have to find that
money to balance the budget and I know I heard a couple of times throughout this process or this
session that the reserve has been addressed and I just want to make sure just for my own personal
knowledge going forward that in fact that reserve as presented, I'm assuming that we're going to
keep that reserve intact.
Chair Furfaro: Well Mr. Rapozo, that is exactly the query that we'll
get in the end... the proposed reserve is at twenty -four million.
Mr. Rapozo: Right.
Chair Furfaro: It might end up being twenty- three, if we can't find
other sources to cut.
Mr. Rapozo: And I guess that's... and we'll have the discussion
later but as I'm thinking about... you know I held back on projects and expenditures this session
simply because the uncertainty of the budget but if in fact we're going to utilize the reserve funds in
this budget which I think really violates the spirit of the purpose and that's what you have pursued
for a long time Mr. Chair that that reserve would be focused as a reserve and not to be use by the
Council to spend at decision making. And that's becoming a concern as I look at that number rise
and we haven't even touched the CIP yet.
Chair Furfaro: Understood.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Comments are well taken but we will revisit that
when the appropriate time comes and we get to CIP as well. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: The reserve that's in the budget is not the entire...
Chair Furfaro: We understand... Okay ... just moving right along in
Economic Development, I would like to say Mr. Costa, I have a proposal that I want to share as
well... I'm sorry this has been put in front of me.
you.
Ms. Yukimura: Actually it was given to you yesterday.
Chair Furfaro: Yes okay, this is the one I took home to read? Thank
Ms. Yukimura: And I think it's related, we can put it all together.
Chair Furfaro: Okay I have a need to share with you folks that I've
been meeting with Mr. Costa about two needs in our organization. If we move forward to take
sustainability as a serious matter and overall energy management and I am proposing and I've
worked through job descriptions that I can make available to you with the Office of Economic
Development, a position for a (inaudible) manager or sustainability manager as well as a position for
a county facilities manager as it relates to mechanical and energy items. These are two proposals
that I would like to pursue and I think they fall in line with some of the other items that
Councilwoman Yukimura is proposing as well, so on that note, may I ask the body if you would ask
Mr. Costa to come up as we worked together on these job descriptions for these two positions? Mr.
Costa would you mind, I'm going to suspend the rules.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.48
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Ms. Yukimura: Let me see...
Chair Furfaro: And I have prepared and I have one to circulate with
you a position for a green manager, a sustainability manager who would really take advantage of the
multiple benefits that are posed in front of us, adopting things that are more environmental sounds
as practices within the county. You might almost call this a green collar job, it is someone who
would evaluate within a very healthy, livable community, a conservation and restoration and actions
including actions that relate to the climate and the deteriorating efforts that we have in footprints in
fossil fuel use, while prioritizing sustainable activities that are identified in the sustainability plan.
Make sure that we are pursuing environmental excellence while at the same time being compliant
with regulatory issues as it deals with managing energy going forward. Thank you very much for
collaborating with me on this job description as it is a new item and I would like you if you could
expand a little bit more on this position Mr. Costa.
Mr. Costa: Okay with regards to sustainability /green manager
position in the Office of Economic Development we've been working with various organizations in
agriculture, energy and what is becoming more apparent is that within the county organization we
really don't have a sustainability /green type person that would look at all of different operations of
the county. Look at what kind of carbon footprint we have, when you're talking about looking at
decisions such as purchasing of our county fleet, moving towards more fuel efficient, moving away
from gas vehicles, looking at the county operation from a facilities type of operation, our purchasing
decisions, you know all of these are taken into account by this sustainability person and looking at
the mainland and in other areas that have this type of position, I think the county of Hawaii also
have a similar position that looks at all of the (inaudible) of county operations and moves towards
sustainability. I for one can't profess to even know a lot about the sustainability but as we look at
the buzz word or hear the buzz word sustainability and carbon footprint, it's becoming more
apparent that as a county, we need to be doing that not only from what is the right thing to do for
the environment but also from an efficiency stand point and all of the practices that we do so this is
one of the two proposals that we have before you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Costa and on the same note as I've
had some personal experience with this is in my other life, having someone who works within the
Public Works Department that would be a liaison with this person as well on the mechanical and
energy management systems that we have, for example in the Police Department, Civil Defense and
the County Attorney's Office, we have an energy management system that both you and I are
familiar with called a trained system but the reality is being able to manage and monitor it. If the
intent is to reduce chill water temperatures, to reduce energies in being able to maintain the
appropriate calendar entered into a computer so that we know the demand usage and the peek
energy draws, but I just used that as an example as we look at the sign opportunities that we have to
manage the utilities in this county. We get a audit report back saying that we have this large
variance in energy and some people seemed to be surprised, I'm not... the reality is that we need
someone full time to be managing this effort and therefore we have identified this facilities manager
position that's also important to our sustainability plan. So would you like to add anymore?
Mr. Costa: Yeah if I could and that one I do have experience with
like you having been a former general manager the last three jobs that I've had or company's or
resorts that I've worked for, going back to ten, fifteen years ago, we've looked at energy conservation
measures, info red systems where it would monitor hotel or timeshare guest coming in and out of the
rooms, it would be tied into the air conditioning system where if any heat wasn't detected, it would
turn the system off and in my last roll as general manager of the former Hilton Kauai Beach Resort,
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.49
I was fortunate enough to hire an engineer that was actually from KIUC and within one year, he not
only justified his salary but he helped reduce our energy cost right at the time when our fuel cost
were escalating in 2008 and I guess one of the examples that I can give is that, he was well versed in
mechanical engineering and he knew the air conditioner systems where he without letting myself or
anyone on the staff know that he adjusted the chill water temperature and kept adjusting it over
time, increasing the temperature until it became very apparent that it was uncomfortable to most
people, well it took him about a couple of months but in the ten degrees that he adjusted that
temperature, after a year we could associate about a hundred thousand dollars worth of savings just
from that one initiative that he took. From a county standpoint I see that within the county we have
the Public Works Department, we have the Building Department but nowhere within the county do
we have somebody that's technically trained to look at all of these mechanical energy equipment and
I believe that the county with its seven million dollar annual electricity bill, if we can even save ten
percent of that, would more than pay for that persons salary and benefits and then some. I firmly
believe by having somebody on our staff would really help towards not only saving the county money
but going forward look at all of our facilities and becoming more energy efficient. Our facilities with
the latest auditor's report, a lot of people think about the county's office space but out there in the
county we have the neighborhood centers, we have the golf course, we have the wastewater
treatment plants, department of water, you know a lot of these different county facilities utilized a
lot of energy and so having somebody that's technically trained I think would be a benefit to our
county.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for that George. And George, I do want to
let you know that the second position I've identified is someone in Public Works which we haven't
gotten here yet but I think Council Vice Chair Yukimura will be talking about general things that
are in our sustainability plan which her and I both sat on the Committee and we both co- introduced
the bill although it comes under your jurisdiction, I just want to touch on these two concepts so that
when we get to Public Works, I'll revisit the mechanical and energy facilities manager as a separate
item but for within this discussion sustainability or a greening manager is extremely supportive of
the sustainability plan that we have. I'm going to excuse you from the stand...
Ms. Yukimura: Oh could I ask?
Chair Furfaro: Oh you certainly... we have Councilwoman
Yukimura... Vice Chair.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes thank you. As the Chair pointed out the facilities
manager was a recommendation in the energy sustainability plan and I think that position as you
pointed out can be very useful and cost effective as long as the price of oil doesn't keep rising to offset
any savings we make. On the other hand, we'll still do a savings because if we were consuming the
same and unreduced amount, the bill would be higher.
Mr. Costa: Right.
Ms. Yukimura: So some of the discussion in the advisory group was
about having that position not in the Public Works Department but in the Mayor's Office because it
requires not just technical knowledge but human behavior and that you needed somebody who says
do this, do this, do this... and I actually spoke with the buildings manager about this and Mr. Sato
the energy manager has said that to that's it's hard for a line person to tell other departments what
to do but are you thinking of it and it's an open question, I'm really not knowing the answer to, there
had been some suggestion to put it in the Mayor's Office, this facilities position but where would it be
the best place to put it?
green...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.50
Mr. Costa: Okay we're talking about facilities and not the
Ms. Yukimura: My other question is how the two might relate?
Mr. Costa: Oh okay.
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me George.
Mr. Costa: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: I gave you descriptions of both.
Mr. Costa: Both of them, right.
Chair Furfaro: For the purpose that knowing when we got to Public
Works this mechanical facilities manager will be identified for discussion as well but for right now
the item that we have is the sustainability green manager as which as we simultaneously talk about
this possibility.
Mr. Costa: Right.
Chair Furfaro: We need to simultaneously visit any credits we might
get on energy.
Mr. Costa: Okay.
Ms. Yukimura: And Mr. Chair if we could get copies of that that
would be helpful.
Chair Furfaro: I'll certainly give you copies.
Ms. Yukimura: Because I don't think any of us do... that's your job
description of the sustainability position as well as the facilities manager?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And in the mean time if you might share your manao
with us?
Mr. Costa: Yes from a sustainability green manager position, I
see that more from the Mayor's Office, where administrations, that position I see all encompassing
working with all the departments through all different facets of operations. And again some of it's
based on my conversations with Glenn Sato and some of the things that he was trying to work on
and implementing was very difficult from his position as opposed to somebody that is overseeing, I
wouldn't say all departments but has influence over all departments within the area of sustainability
and greening. As far as the facilities manager position that's obviously that's more engineering
related so I think the best place for it would be in Public Works, working alongside Buildings and
those technical aspects.
Ms. Yukimura: And I guess we haven't had any real discussion with
Mr. Dill about it, so going to the sustainability... what is it called?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.51
Mr. Costa: I have it as sustainability -green manager... a lot of
jurisdictions call it sustainability, some call it green... so I kind of used both.
Ms. Yukimura: What level are we funding this at?
Mr. Costa: I didn't put any level of funding.
Chair Furfaro: I can tell you, it's on my...
Mr. Costa: But in looking at job descriptions that salaries go
anywhere from seventy -five to a hundred thousand dollars from what I seen.
Chair Furfaro: I have the two departments combined JoAnn at
ninety -five thousand each.
Ms. Yukimura: Two departments combined.
Chair Furfaro: The two departments... Public Works for the facilities
manager at ninety -five thousand and Economic Development at ninety -five thousand, combined
that's one hundred and ninety thousand dollars.
Ms. Yukimura: With benefits?
Chair Furfaro: No, that's plus benefits. And as I mentioned earlier if
we make this decision, we need to take a reasonable credit in energy.
Ms. Yukimura: So, okay I hear the Chair talking about it being in
Economic Development, you talked about it being in the Mayor's Office, so where are we talking
about it and being... the sustainability manager?
Chair Furfaro: I don't care where it goes, it needs to be done.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay and so I don't have the job description...
Chair Furfaro: It's coming.
Ms. Yukimura: In front of me...
Chair Furfaro: They're making copies.
Ms. Yukimura: But my feeling is... okay are these really two separate
or could not the sustainability person also oversee the requirements for a facilities manager or we're
going to do an energy audit or we're hiring consultants to identify energy savings and energy
efficiencies throughout the county and I'm just trying to figure out the sequence of things, should we
do that first and then they train a facilities manager after that or... and could the sustainability
manager just develop such protocols or borrow such information that our facilities people could
identify someone from within the ranks to develop that kind of expertise?
Mr. Costa: Again just based on my experience you have engineers
that have certain training and education with mechanical engineering. A lot of experience comes
with that and just from looking at it from a hotel level where you have a facility say a three hundred,
four hundred room hotel and an engineer with the right amount of experience could probably and
has done a hotel situation but when you're talking about county wide, island wide facilities... and
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.52
being a one person, I think that one person is going to have more than enough to do just with the
facilities and the overseeing and I've also got on there in that job description that that person would
also be responsible since they are looking at the facilities and the operations that that person would
also working with each department say a green team type situation where they could work with
individuals within each department to ensure the human element is I guess maintained where no
matter how much you have in energy performance contract to come in, they go through all your
facilities, they make recommendations, they make changes but once they leave, you would need that
facilities manager to oversee those changes and make sure that they continue throughout but one
person alone cannot be in very single office, every single neighborhood center, so that's why you
would need a green team designated individuals to kind of monitor air conditioning, lighting, .
computers... you know computers being turned off and the light.
Ms. Yukimura: So um...
Mr. Costa: And then with the sustainability green manager, it's
more policy making over...
Ms. Yukimura: Well you know green teams are more than energy.
Mr. Costa: Right.
Ms. Yukimura: It's about Styrofoam use in your offices, it's about you
know... so the green team is actually someone that would be developed under a sustainability
manager and it would include, I mean it's a lot of things recycling, reuse... energy...
Chair Furfaro: It's on page two...
Ms. Yukimura: Right but I'm trying to understand how these two
positions would interact, so you see a facilities manager as somebody that is meeting an ongoing
need beyond energy cuts?
Mr. Costa: Right it would continue to look at the facilities, look at
the operations, monitor any kind of equipment diverse in the computer equipment that maintains
the...
Ms. Yukimura:
and all of those things as well?
Mr. Costa:
the repair and maintenance.
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Costa:
And would be in charge of repair and maintenance
Would work in conjunction with Public Works with
Well I mean where in the org chart is this going to be?
I don't think we have defined it that far.
Yeah.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman, I think what I'm saying is if we
promote these positions and no this is not somebody who is the RNM person, that's the repair and
maintenance, that's Doug Haigh, that's regular building maintenance and repair, this is about
someone that's directs and evaluates the buildings lighting, air conditioning, water consumption,
policies on traffic and transportation dealing with the building maintenance department that make
strong recommendations and suggestions that what needs to be implemented. On the flip side I also
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.53
want to say that as we look at these positions, I am willing to actually offset having these positions
with setting some kind of basic goal maybe reducing utility consumption by five percent as this first
look at the budget. This is a plus and minus possibility.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay and then the green manager is an ongoing, it's
not civil service but you see it as an in perpetuity position?
Chair Furfaro: I do.
Mr. Costa: Yeah.
Chair Furfaro: If we're hearing all this great goals of getting to
energy self sufficiency and reducing energy consumption by twenty percent through the year 2011,
yes I see this as an ongoing position but one that we can clearly through utility bills, water
consumption actually measure our successes.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Aloha and mahalo. In your presentation to us on
April 18 this was kind of talked about on your upcoming initiatives and you said that Kauai energy
sustainable plan recommendations, work with County Council, EPAC, KEDB renewal energy
committee, energy coordinator on implementing short term recommendations and then energy
savings performance contract for building division and parks department with their electric bill close
to two million a conservative ten percent savings, would equate to two hundred thousand dollars, so
if that... what are those short term recommendations and was it only initiative then and now it's a
new position, why didn't you put the position forward already?
Mr. Costa: Well for the energy facilities manager, that's been in
there with the Kauai Energy Sustainability plan and that's something that we've been proposing
actually for quite some time and I did mention it in my budget proposal where I felt that somebody
with that type of expertise could help our county. As far as the sustainability manager position, it's
something that I've been looking at again in dealing with the different organizations, it's coming up
more and more that we need an overall sustainability green manager position to look at policy and
not just energy sustainability but sustainability that over all facets with solid waste, with our carbon
foot print and other initiatives.
Mr. Kuali`i: So it sounds like there's a lot of overlap because you
talked a lot about energy and I thought I also saw that there's a contractual position funded by the
state or federal grants for an energy specialist /coordinator state (inaudible) funds and that was from
710 to 630/11.
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Kuali`i: So it's after 6 -30 -11 there would be no more funds for
the State (inaudible) for the energy specialist /coordinator?
Mr. Costa: We're not sure. Every year that position which is
Glenn Sato our energy specialist applies for grant moneys from DBED and we usually don't find out
if he has a job or not until late June and so that's been a constant struggle every year and one of the
factors that we pointed out is the county receives a franchise fee from KIUC and that equates to
about three and a half million dollars a year and we felt that position could be funded, although
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.54
those money's go into the general fund that that position alone could be justified because it is energy
related as opposed to having year after year relying on DBED funds to fund that energy position.
Mr. Kuali`i: Just to make that really clear, is that the position
currently listed in your budget?
Mr. Costa: Yes.
Mr. Kuali`i: One the of eight positions in the Office of Economic
Development that's Economic Development specialist for energy?
Mr. Costa: Yes that's correct.
Mr. Kuali`i: So would you be proposed or would you support then
this new position replacing that old position with county funds that would be there instead of relying
on DBED funds that may not be there?
Mr. Costa: Okay, run that by me again. I'm sorry.
Mr. Kuali`i: Because it sounds like there's a lot of overlap
especially with the energy piece, the only thing I heard different is the environment and carbon
footprint but all this stuff about the energy savings and all the benefit to the county, I agree, that's
great... I'm just saying that if this energy specialist /coordinator position that is ending on 6/30/11
and we're not sure that we'll get DBED funds again, at seventy -five thousand dollar position, if we
wanted to secure a position such as a sustainability /green manager position, could that position
replace the economic development specialist for energy position and then secure us with having
knowing that that position would be ongoing?
Mr. Costa: Right now just from seeing the job function that the
energy specialist performs right now, I would say no... you're actually talking about two different
positions with our energy specialist, I can't imagine him taking on another, say for him... and saying
okay besides what you're doing now how about taking on these other creating policy for
sustainability and looking at other functions above and beyond what's he's doing now, I guess I
would look at it that way and I would say no that's not a possibility.
Mr. Kuali`i: I guess the only confusion then is that the position
that exists that has DBED funding, you said that we are unsure if we would get those funding again,
if we didn't get that funding, would that position go away or would you come seeking other funding?
Mr. Costa: That position would go away but that's why we put it
in our budget this year.
Mr. Kuali`i: So then we could address this with the new position,
that's all.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. I want to say that I do want the members
to realize Councilwoman Yukimura and Councilmember Kuali'i that I also intend... I think as they
proposed measuring it by a percentage of the dollars, I want to be a little bit more cautious and I
would actually lower the percentage of the dollars to five percent because what we really want to
measure is the kilowatt usage and with these fluctuating oil cost, I think it might be good of us to
look at a number that's more related to a five percent reduction on a seven point three million dollar
energy bill, I'm looking to put a credit in that will be allocated later of about three hundred and
sixty -eight thousand dollars. Councilwoman Yukimura.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.55
Ms. Yukimura: Can you explain credit?
Chair Furfaro: Yes. In other words we have right now as the auditor
report we have seven million three hundred sixty -one thousand dollar utility bill for the last twelve
months, but the real measurement is our savings is to reduce kilowatt hours rather than as Mr.
Costa pointed reducing ten percent of the dollars, I'm saying we should look at setting a goal and
have to set it... maybe only five percent of the dollars that we currently spend by taking a reduction
in what we're credit and what we're seeing our utility bill would be by five percent but as this gets
refined, we measure the kilowatt consumption, that's what we want to reduce and on that note, I'm
going to go to Mr. Rapozo and then I'm going to call for the question.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. George so I guess I misunderstood the
narrative, I was under the impression that you were looking at funding that the existing manager
as one of these positions and then the energy facilities energy specialist is a second position but in
essence you're saying you want to fully fund the currently grant funded position?
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Rapozo: But we never lost funding on that grant, right? I
mean how long has that grant DBED provided that position?
Mr. Costa: I believe it's gone on for at least ten years.
Mr. Rapozo: Right. Is there any indication that we might lose that
funding and if we can rely on state funding, I think we should.
Mr. Costa: There's always indication that we could lose it. I'm on
the understanding that it's in the governor's office right now to decide on...
Mr. Rapozo: Okay so I mean that would be (inaudible) for them not
to fund it now with the focus on energy. The other thing is, so we're going to fully fund that as well
as two additional positions is what you're proposing?
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Rapozo: Is this something you feel you need this year? And if
so where would you suggest recover some funds or transfer some funds to fulfill these positions?
These positions I guess for me, my concern is that when you... the state cut...
Mr. Costa: Right.
Mr. Rapozo: We're adding positions and I'm just curious where
would you suggest we if in fact is there a summary in your budget that you can transfer into these
positions if it is a priority?
Mr. Costa: Well...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me before we go any further George, Glenn's
position did not get funding from the state, it's in the budget sole from general funds.
Mr. Costa: No...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.56
Mr. Rapozo: For this year?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Rapozo: Right, no, because they put it in this year.
Mr. Costa: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Rapozo: Historically it's been DBED.
Chair Furfaro: But I just want to make sure, we didn't get anything
from them?
Mr. Rapozo: Right.
Mr. Costa: Right so in getting back to your question, there's no
way in our OED budget to pull the funds to...
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me George, maybe you didn't hear me...
Mr. Costa: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: I'm proposing to reduce the county's utility
consumption not knowing what the kilowatt hours are but overall by five percent. Five percent of
seven million three hundred and sixty -one thousand, if we're successful here, I expect to reduce the
general cost, the dollar cost of utilities across the board of three hundred and sixty -eight thousand
dollars...
Mr. Costa: And I agree and for my experience that's where I
would say at least the facilities manager could come from the cost reduction.
Chair Furfaro: We're only talking about the sustainability /green
position and that's basically the other area that would come from on the cost reductions otherwise
within the Office of Economic Development there's no funds to pay for that.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, I'm going to call for the vote.
Ms. Yukimura: I have one question.
Chair Furfaro: Yes, go ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: You talk about the sustainability green manager or
preparing or adopting developing and implementing a sustainability plan for the county, is that in
the budget anywhere or is this guy or gal going to do in house as just out of the blue.
Mr. Costa: Well.
Ms. Yukimura: Or were we going to hire consultants on top of this or
what is the plan?
Chair Furfaro:
sustainability study, the expectation is...
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Costa:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.57
Let me answer that George, since we did a
No we only did an energy...
Energy sustainability plan.
We didn't do an overall one that includes.
No, no, no... we did an energy and transportation.
Oh okay well transportation.
Chair Furfaro: Okay so I'm just trying to answer the question
because this is coming through my request, so obviously in the initial stages between energy
evaluations and transportation, there are opportunities for us, I just wanted to answer that question.
Mr. Costa: Well and you know getting back to your question
when I put that job description together basically I've looked at other job descriptions around the
country and put that together and sort of basically, what I think would be appropriate for
sustainability /green manager, now whether we end up with this position and all of these duties
because they're quite comprehensive and that's why I can't see one person doing both the facilities
and a green energy position. And when you look at sustainability its more than the energy piece,
there's a lot more components to sustainability than just that. So I don't know if I answered your
question or not.
Ms. Yukimura: Well right now there's no plans for...
Mr. Costa: There's no plan.
Ms. Yukimura: For sustainability plan?
Mr. Costa: Right.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to call for the question here George, I'm
going to excuse you. Okay, we have a proposal within Economic Development to add this position
which has been circulated as called a sustainability greening manager, the other energy mechanical
item is for Public Works for later but they do have a double impact on county. This position that I'm
asking for us to consider is at roughly ninety -five thousand and I would like to see if I can get a
motion and a second to get this... Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang:
sustainability green manager for now?
Chair Furfaro:
Development, yes.
Mr. Chang:
Chair Furfaro:
Just a clarification, you're asking for the
That's what we're doing now, we're in Economic
Yes.
Can I have a motion?
Mr. Kuali`i: Again on the process because I'm, I have the same
concerns that Councilmember Yukimura has and that so we're going to vote this up or down by itself
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.58
but then we're going to have the other one to vote up or down by itself and if we don't necessarily
support all of that funding for both, isn't there anyway that we can get some value of a third option
being a combined position?
Chair Furfaro: You know that's a very good question, a very
interesting question but at this particular point if we're adding roughly three hundred thousand
dollars of cost, payroll and benefits, on the flip side when we get to the energy uses, I'm going to ask
that take a five percent credit to get that back. Obviously until we implement it and evaluate it, we
won't know our successes and continue challenges so I'm going to say that that's a very good question
but I would like to have a up or down vote now on the sustainability green manager.
Mr. Kuali`i: If I could just to ask one more question?
Chair Furfaro: Surely, go ahead.
Mr. Kuali`i: And that would be if the department could tell me
which of these two positions is more important to them?
Chair Furfaro: Okay, George? George if you had to put a value on
one of these positions over two of them, obviously I would think you would support the one in
Economic Development which is the green sustainability.
Mr. Kuali`i: Or the one that can save more money for our people.
Mr. Costa: That's a difficult one but you know I would say the
facilities one would...
Mr. Kuali`i:
Thank you.
Mr. Costa:
Because it's something that I've seen happen.
Mr. Kuali`i:
Thank you.
Chair Furfaro:
Okay.
Mr. Costa:
You bring somebody in and they can save you.
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I appreciate the question about combining it but I see
these as two very different things and different types of skill set that's required. I'm looking at this
sustainability green manager in terms of the biggest short term return in investment, I probably
agree with George that the facilities person is clearly that but we're talking about again not just
talking about sustainability but actually putting some resources into it and this position it address
facility and energy but it also it could potentially have input on land use and transportation and
other elements that help create a more sustainable community as oppose to just focus on facilities so
I see them as very different.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, I'm going to call for a vote. Mr. Clerk.
Ms. Yukimura: We need a motion.
Chair Furfaro:
Chang are you willing to make a motion?
Mr. Chang:
Mr. Bynum:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.59
Yes I understand, let me get the clerk in place. Mr.
So moved.
Second.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum thank you for the second. Can we have a
roll call vote on the position sustainability green manager.
Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair this is to add a new position in the Office of
Economic Development for a sustainability /green manager.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Nakamura,
Furfaro TOTAL — 4,
AGAINST APPROVAL: Kuali`i, Rapozo, Yukimura TOTAL — 3,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, motion fails. Thank you Mr. Clerk. Staying in
Economic Development, I think a member was going to rise a discussion on the...
Ms. Yukimura: Energy sustainability.
Chair Furfaro: No.
Mr. Kuali`i: Kauai Marathon?
Chair Furfaro: The Kauai Marathon, is that right Councilmember
Kuali'i and on that note I would like to have a discussion on the Marathon and actually have Mr.
Chang recuse himself from this vote.
Mr. Chang was noted as recused from this item.
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Rapozo:
Okay, thank you.
You want to make a motion Mr. Kuali`i?
Mr. Kuali`i: Yes. So my initial motion is to reduce the commercial
support Kauai Marathon item, line item from a hundred and twenty thousand to twenty thousand,
which is a hundred thousand dollars difference.
Mr. Rapozo: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i made a motion and it was
second by Mr. Rapozo. Could you state your motion again before I ask if there's any questions.
Mr. Kuali`i: My motion is to reduce the line item for... under the
Office of Economic Development for commercial support Kauai Marathon from a hundred and
twenty thousand to twenty thousand. Is there anyone that would like to pose questions to
Councilmember?
Mr. Rapozo: Are you allowing any commentary to the proposer?
Chair Furfaro:
have a motion and a second.
Mr. Rapozo:
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Rapozo:
Chair Furfaro:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.60
If you want to make comments, you can do that, we
Thank you.
Do you want to be recognized?
Yes.
You have the floor.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you very much. I will be supporting your
motion obviously and I think it's important to note that this hundred twenty thousand dollar
appropriation or allocation is in addition to another a hundred fifty thousand dollar money bill that's
up for tomorrow so if both pass that is three hundred ... I mean I'm sorry, two hundred seventy
thousand dollars for that Kauai Marathon function. For obvious reasons if I had make the motion, I
would have reduced the entire line but I will be supporting your proposal to reduce it by a hundred
thousand dollars.
Chair Furfaro: Any further discussion before I call for the vote?
Ms. Yukimura: Question Mr. Chair, I need some help understanding
tomorrows vote which is...
Chair Furfaro: Let me share with you something.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: The Kauai Marathon is asking for a multiyear
promotional effort to get this event sustained as a signature item.
Ms. Yukimura: Right.
Chair Furfaro: To do that they need to identify and spend money in
tomorrow's vote in the year for the year and for the next year that bill is a hundred and fifty
thousand and the bill we're dealing with right now is one twenty ... it reduces itself by thirty
thousand for the third and final year of the request. But they need to be spending marketing dollars
now to promote the sales, so that's what's happening.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay so the money's that are allocated in this budget
that we're talking about would be used next spring?
Chair Furfaro: That's correct.
Ms. Yukimura: In order to promote and do the basic foundational
work for the marathon that would be in 2012?
Chair Furfaro: That's correct...
Ms. Yukimura: No, 13.
Chair Furfaro: No.
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
that would be done in the fiscal year 12/13.
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
going to call for a roll call Mr. Clerk.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.61
2013?
Yes.
But the foundation work has to be done in...
11 and 12.
Well the money's would be put in the budget for work
Yes.
12 -13.
Exactly.
I see. Okay.
On that note we had a motion on the reduction, I'm
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair the motion is to reduce funding for the
Kauai Marathon in the Office of Economic Development from a hundred and twenty thousand
dollars to twenty thousand dollars.
APPROVAL:
AGAINST APPROVAL:
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING:
RECUSED & NOT VOTING:
Mr. Nakamura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
recommendations that came...
Chair Furfaro:
Kuali`i, Rapozo
Bynum, Nakamura, Yukimura,
Furfaro
None
None
Two yes, four no.
TOTAL — 2,
TOTAL — 4,
TOTAL — 0,
TOTAL —1.
Thank you. I think this might actually be...
I actually have one more Mr. Chair.
Go ahead Councilwoman.
I circulated this response or this memo indicating the
Can you ask Mr. Chang to come back?
Ms. Yukimura: ... the recommendations from the energy
sustainability plan which relates to budget items and actually as you can see by the memo and by
the attachment which is the recommendations of the energy advisory committee, we're going to
address the facilities energy specialist when that comes up in Public Works. The other
recommendation is about the energy manager which is already in the budget, the bus
recommendation which is the first time, which is the fossil fuel tax is something that we won't
address in this budget but might address later on this year and the other recommendation regarding
expansion of the Kauai bus system was actually partially implemented when we voted to expand the
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.62
bus service into the evenings and on Sundays, so the only remaining recommendation and it was one
that came out of the committee rather than in the plan itself was that there might be some conflict
resolution money's placed in the Economic Development Office to support conflict resolution around
energy projects. If you look at the history of the island with respect to energy projects and you look
today, right now with KIUC proposal for hydro electric, the obstacles are in the lack of consensus in
the community and KIUC could not fund a conflict resolution process because they would be one of
the stakeholders, it is an appropriate role for the county to not be the facilitator but to fund capable
facilitators like for example Elizabeth Kent or others that do it and this could actually be a real tool
to break the log jams that have stopped projects from moving ahead. I'd like to propose fifty
thousand dollars for money's to be placed in Economic Development for and to be administered by
Economic Development for conflict resolution.
Chair Furfaro: May I have a second?
Ms. Yukimura: So move.
Mr. Chang: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Is there any further discussion directed at the
introducer?
Mr. Rapozo: I have a question.
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Can you explain that one more time, what this funds
be use for?
Ms. Yukimura: It would be used to fund mediator facilitators to
resolve conflicts that come up in the community.
Mr. Rapozo: Regarding?
Ms. Yukimura: Energy projects.
Mr. Rapozo: Can I get an example, I don't know.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah the example is current today.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah.
Ms. Yukimura: KIUC is proposing hydro electric plants around the
island and there's a lot of concerns about water rights, cultural rights all kinds of concerns that have
been coming out of the community and the question is how to resolve it and you know so often our
methods have been a public hearing or people kind of come and yell at each other and a decision
that's one group doesn't like and the other group likes. Conflict resolution would be a process that
we went through with the transient vacation rentals for example, I mean it can be applied to all
kinds of conflicts but in this case, it would be energy conflicts.
Mr. Rapozo: I just don't know if we have that many, I'm trying to
figure out and why would the county be responsible for this?
Ms. Yukimura:
mutual bodies to...
Mr. Rapozo:
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Rapozo:
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Rapozo:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.63
Because they can be a mutual body, there's not many
KEO is a mutual body.
KEO?
Yes.
Yeah they could be.
They offer mediation as well.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes they could be. But the implementation of the
energy plan was really in the nexus of economic development and its part of our county.
Mr. Rapozo: Right but I would... I guess if the county is on a
direction, on a specific direction, how can there be an unbiased third party? If the county has an
energy sustainability plan or a plan that has a focus and a direction, how can the county by in a
unbiased provider of mediation services?
Ms. Yukimura: The county wants energy systems that address the
need of the community but also respect the other interest that they feel, that are in competition or
maybe in conflict, so the county is one that would like to see the process go to an end result but
taking into account the rights and concerns of all people so that's how the county would be a logical
body. And the county would not do the mediation itself, we're not, we don't have the capability but
we would be responsible for funding properly trained and credible mediators and in the mediation
process itself all stakeholders and parties have to agree with the mediator so it's a very even playing
field, everybody have one vote no matter how big or how small your interest and it only proceeds if
everyone agrees to the mediator.
Mr. Rapozo:
KEO and other's do, so that's fine.
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Kuali`i:
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Kuali`i:
of Economic Development?
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Kuali`i:
take on this added responsibility?
Ms. Yukimura:
That's why I just see it as a really duplication of what
KEO does not do community level conflict resolution.
Any further discussion?
Question.
Councilmember Kuali`i.
So this fifty thousand was proposed to go to the Office
Yes.
So does the Office of Economic Development want to
We can ask Mr. Costa.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.64
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, I'm sorry... George... The Mayor has the
floor over you George.
MAYOR BERNARD CARVALHO: I just want to say Councilmembers, our Economic
Development Office has so much on its plate and I want to make sure you understand as you
continue to make decisions, for George Costa and our economic team, my concern is delivery... and I
want to make sure, I'm trying to manage our departments in a way that when we come to a table, I
want to be able to say we're going to finish this project, we're adding and adding which is great, I'm
not saying it's bad but I want to make sure you're not setting me up, us up to fail. I want to be
efficient, I going say it on the table. I want to make sure you understand that and I appreciate all
the discussion, I think it's great information, there's great planning opportunities, there's great
everything's great but please understand that we are being... my Economic Development Office, I'm
the Mayor, I'm going to be responsible, I don't care how much discussion is happening so I just want
to make it clear that if you continue to add more to our Economic Developments department plate, if
you will, it's going to be difficult. There's a lot of different project we already have in motion, tell me
which one you want us to finish... I want to finish, I want to move to the action of many of the
projects that are listed in many of our departments, so please take consideration into how many
projects and additional pieces we have to work with, I'll take it head on but I want to make sure we
finish and we're able to have the resources to continue whatever the areas that you're discussing, so
that's all I have to say. Thank you so much for your discussion.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Mayor, your passion about your office and your
administrative overview is appreciated, what we've added so far to Economic Development is the
SEDS programs which will be contracted out but your message is shared with us, we appreciate it.
Some of the other discussions that occur did not get the five votes and obviously the reason why
we're looking at the five votes is we know that if you choose to extinguish some of those things we
add, we're going to need to five votes to override the veto. But thank you for your passion.
Mayor Carvalho: Just one last thing Chair.
Chair Furfaro: You may.
Mayor Carvalho: Regardless of being contracted out, we're still
responsible for the management and the oversight of all of these projects regardless, so thank you so
much.
Chair Furfaro: No, that's understood. On that note, we're going to
change the tape.
Mayor Carvalho: Thank you, aloha.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 2:47 p.m.
The Council reconvened at 3 :10 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: We're back from the recess for the tape change and
the floor is going to recognize Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Chair I want to move to reconsider a vote we just did
a few moments ago based on the Mayor's comments, I understand his concern that we...
Ms. Yukimura: You know just... technically speaking, we have a
motion pending so maybe we'll just defer it to...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.65
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me, Mr. Clerk? What motion is pending
before we went to recess?
Ms. Yukimura: So Mr. Chair, I will withdraw the motion...
Chair Furfaro: Let me talk with the Clerk here.
Mr. Nakamura: (inaudible)
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so may I ask the person who made that motion
to withdraw it?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes I will.
Mr. Chang: Withdraw second.
Chair Furfaro: Okay the motion was withdrawn by Councilwoman
Yukimura and the second by Mr. Chang, now the floor recognizes Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I appreciate the Mayor giving us caution because I
think the majority of the Council does want to address some of these economic development
opportunities and that's going to fall on Mr. Costa and the green energy position that I'd like to move
to reconsider because that would be a person who could administer some of these things and there
are other economic development issues where we're looking at economic development to step up and
provide more leadership in the future so I think that that position is important in terms of some of
the things we already added and I'd like to move to reconsider.
Ms. Yukimura: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Is there any discussion before I go further
and call for a vote again?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair.
Ms. Yukimura: During the break, I did have a chance to talk with
Mayor Carvalho and it is his desire to have this position, to help move the county towards
sustainability and I'm willing to reconsider my vote but I... but he also agreed that we could defer
the facilities position for a year while our energy contract consultant is being used and then later on
come back with a clarity about how that position would work within the county system. On that
condition, I'm willing to vote for the sustainability position and the Economic Development Office
and the Mayor are agreeable to putting twenty -five thousand in for conflict resolution and I hope
that I can get a positive vote on that, that is up to the Council but...
Chair Furfaro: Okay let's take one item at a time, that was covered in
your discussion?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay and so I would also like to say although the
mechanical energy person was actually a motion I was going to make when we got to Public Works, if
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.66
this will assist the Mayor, I will let that go dormant for a little while. Any further discussion before I
call for the vote? If not, Mr. Clerk could you do a call on the vote regarding the sustainability and
greening manager.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, my apologies I think there's a motion
to reconsider on the floor right now actually.
Chair Furfaro: That's correct.
Mr. Nakamura: I think that could work by voice vote.
Ms. Yukimura: We need to...
Chair Furfaro: No, we're going to do it by voice vote, okay? All those
in favor of reconsideration signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers Bynum, Chang, Nakamura, Yukimura: Aye.
Councilmembers Kuali`i, Rapozo: No.
Chair Furfaro: One?
Mr. Rapozo: Two.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, very good. So now let's call on the recount.
Mr. Nakamura: Councilmember, we're back on the reconsidered item,
there's motion and second to approve the new sustainability green manager position in the Office of
Economic Development for ninety -five thousand dollars plus benefits.
Chair Furfaro:
Okay, would you call the names?
Mr. Chang:
Did you say ninety -five thousand plus benefits?
Mr. Nakamura:
Yes.
Chair Furfaro:
Yes that's the item on there.
Mr. Chang:
Okay.
Chair Furfaro:
Okay let's start the roll call again please.
APPROVAL:
Bynum, Chang, Nakamura, Yukimura,
Furfaro TOTAL — 5,
AGAINST APPROVAL:
Kuali`i, Rapozo, Yukimura TOTAL — 2,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING:
None TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura:
Five ayes, two no's Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro:
Thank you. Let's move to the next item that was.
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Chair.
r
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.67
Chair Furfaro: The motion to move and second was withdrawn on...
Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: So I move now for twenty -five thousand dollars for a
conflict resolution fund in the Economic Development Office.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Chair Furfaro: There's a second by Mr. Bynum. And that now is
twenty -five thousand?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Yes okay, is there any discussion?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Go right ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: I know it's hard for people to see exactly how it's going
to work but I believe if you look at the history of our county that, even if it's just hydro electric or
energy projects, the problem has been in the community not being able to build a consensus and this
is, this conflict resolution would help us do exactly that. So I would like to have this money just to
show a little pilot about how it could happen and then we can evaluate and see whether it worked or
not.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I just wanted to share that I think conflict
resolution for our community is important, I just don't think it's our role, so I'm going to vote against
this.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: KEO has an outstanding program, the Courts have a
program, mediation is a good way to go rather than get into conflict and go through the normal
process but this is a different level of that then those programs, it requires a different skill set, I
won't go into details but right now we have circumstances where there's competing private and
public interest and state people and I've wished along that they can sit down in room together with a
good facilitator and so I'm going to be supportive of this. Hopefully that it does bear fruit and if it
does, we do it in the future but I think when we as leaders in the county see all of these things
potential conflicts, providing leadership to resolve conflict seems to me an appropriate thing for
government to do.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to recognize Mr. Rapozo first.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. I believe there are community resources
available, I do not believe that it's this county's role, I think especially the time we're in, the fiscal
time we need to be responsible as far as how we spend our money. If in fact the Office of Economic
Development feels that this is something that their office can handle, I'm sure they have twenty -five
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.68
thousand dollars surplus somewhere in their account that they could actually come to the county and
utilize it, it's a reactionary measure because of the existing conflict with KIUC and I don't see it as a
standing role for the county of Kauai to participate, so I will not be supporting the money.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I just want to clarify, this is for energy projects. It's
for the citing and permitting of energy projects where there might be stumbling blocks and it is an
Economic Development issue because we want to get off of oil and become more energy independent
as fast as possible as the prices of oil continue to rise.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Nakamura.
Ms. Nakamura: I'm a little torn about this one here because I believe
with proper planning and community participation early on, these kinds of conflicts would not arise
if you do your proper planning, involve the community, educate the community along the way and I
think in this case, it was not done. But there is an issue out there so I really see this as, it's not
something I think as a county we should be promoting to do, to solve everyone's problems when it
comes up, so it's... I'm... I'll support it in this situation with the limited funding, it should be a last
resort, it should not be a practice of this county to do this. I think the organizations that are leading
these projects need to do a better job at upfront community base planning.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Councilwoman. And is there anyone else
that would like to speak before I speak? Mr. Rapozo? Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I think Councilmember Nakamura's analysis right
now was a pretty darn good one however I don't want to get specific but some of the entities did good
community outreach involvement and others didn't and it's such a critical issue for the future of
Kauai. I agree that is different but in this instance I hope we're going to give it a shot because if it
has a positive outcome, the payoff is tremendously enormous.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. I'm just going to say before I call for the
vote, I have a tendency to agree with Councilwoman Nakamura. The reality is some of this is KIUC
kuleana, end of story but I will be supporting it as framed by Councilwoman Nakamura. On that
note, let's call for the vote.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair the item to be added to the Office of
Economic Development other services line is a conflict resolution pilot program for energy projects.
APPROVAL:
AGAINST APPROVAL:
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING
Mr. Nakamura:
Bynum, Chang, Nakamura,
Furfaro
Kuali`i, Rapozo
None
Yukimura,
TOTAL — 5,
TOTAL — 2,
TOTAL — 0.
Five ayes, two no's Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. I think we have done a
significant amount of reviews as it relates to Economic Development and I do want to let everyone
know that the staff should be planning for dinner at 6:30 because we've got a long way to go and I
will continue to follow my suggested allocation of discussion to those members that want to make
those changes. From Economic Development we are now going to the Police Department, I want to
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.69
point out very, very few reconsiderations in all items in the Police Department as listed so is there
anyone that has anything to add or delete from the Police Department before I go forward and ask
for a vote? If not, may I have a voice vote to except the Police Department as presented to us? All
those in favor say aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Fire... we have Fire, Fire Administration, Fire
Prevention, Fire Training, Fire Department Water Safety, so there's six items there... is there any
further discussion on the Fire Department as it relates to the Mayor's supplemental budget? If not, I
do want to acknowledge that I had pointed out to the Administration that in the current trend they
may be coming to us for a money bill but if not, all those in favor at excepting what's in the
supplemental budget say aye?
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. We'll now go to Civil Defense.
Civil Defense is there any additions or deletions that people would like to discuss? If not, all those in
favor excepting the resubmitted supplemental on Civil Defense signify by saying aye?
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. Public Works Administration
and Public Works Fiscal, any adds or subtractions? If not, all those in favor say aye?
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. We're on the next page. Still
in Public Works, we have several categories on page two and three in particular, Public Works
Engineering, Public Works Building, Public Works Repair and Maintenance... and obviously the
earlier the recommendation on a facilities manager, we had agreement from the Mayor to defer that
for a year so may I ask to vote for Public Works Building, Repair and Maintenance, all those in favor
say aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: May I ask to vote on Public Works Building
Inspections, all those in favor say aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Now we are in Public Works Engineering... there is a
significant change under categories, a transfer from what looks like Solid Waste of a civil
engineering position and there are a couple small net differences that went down. Any discussion on
these particular items? If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Public Works janitorial, any discussion?
If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.70
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Now we're going to move into Parks and
Recreation. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I was going to suggest we do them all.
Ms. Yukimura: Do it all.
Mr. Bynum: Do it all in one.
Chair Furfaro: Okay it was suggested that we do it in total. We have
Parks and Recreation Administration Fiscal, Planning, Recreation, Park Maintenance,
Beautification, Stadiums, KWMCH, only changes look like they're in the Mayor's supplemental
dealing with the Health Fund, all those in favor...
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: I just want to say that we recently received a petition
and I don't know if everybody saw it about the Kilauea Park maintenance and I hear the
Administration is going to take care of it with this year's budget.
Chair Furfaro: Actually I am very close with that that deals with the
Kilauea gym.
Ms. Yukimura: And the playground equipment, bench and so forth.
Chair Furfaro: Yes. And I've had a separate discussion with the
Mayor as well as Mr. Rezentes they're going to address the gym floor within the repair and
maintenance money that's available this year and also the...
Ms. Yukimura: Playground equipment, the bench...
Chair Furfaro: ...the bench and so forth.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: And I will report that to Bill (inaudible) and the group
in Kilauea as I promised them a follow up phone call.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: All those in favor of Parks and Recreation as
submitted in the supplemental budget signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. We are now in Elderly Affairs,
there is an additional in RSVP program, I believe that's based on the fact that there were some
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.71
revenues or I'm sorry some funding
that was reclassified from the state and the Mayor is
resubmitting to keep that program RSVP program whole, he's added fifteen, seven, one, two.
Ms. Yukimura:
Move to approve.
Chair Furfaro:
Okay, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers:
Aye.
Chair Furfaro:
Moving on to the Housing Agency.
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro:
Yes Council Vice Chair.
Ms. Yukimura:
Could I ask your Council indulgence and have this
matter deferred to right after dinner?
Mr. Bynum:
The Housing?
Chair Furfaro:
We're going to eat dinner at 6:30.
Ms. Yukimura:
Yes.
Chair Furfaro:
You want to hold it until then?
Ms. Yukimura:
Yes, please.
Chair Furfaro:
I was hoping we could...
Mr. Rapozo:
Which one?
Ms. Yukimura:
Housing.
Chair Furfaro:
Housing, I was hoping we might not get to dinner but
I will plan on saimin for dinner so I...
Ms. Yukimura:
Oh well then... until our next break...
Chair Furfaro:
Until our next break, yes.
Ms. Yukimura:
Thank you.
Chair Furfaro:
We're going to hold Housing until our next break.
Transportation Administration, Transportation Operations I believe there was a small item in their
CIP, I think we're all satisfied with, with the building of the bus stops.
Ms. Yukimura:
But we're not on CIP yet right?
Chair Furfaro:
No we're not.
Ms. Yukimura:
Okay.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.72
Chair Furfaro: That will be in CIP.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: We have a couple small adjustments here on
Transportation adjustments and if there is no discussion on those two items, may I ask for all of us
to wait on the CIP budget items for Transportation and approve this as submitted in the
supplemental, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. We're now on page nine. We have the
Highway Fund, we have seven classifications here that deals with Roads Administration, the
Hanapepe Baseyard, the Kapa`a Baseyard and Hanalei Baseyard, Signs and Road Markings, also
Road Maintenance and Auto Maintenance, any discussion? Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I am not requesting any changes, I just want to note
for the record that Highways is going to give some feedback to the Council about a thermal plastic
markings and equipment, it's the third year I've asked for that and so it'll be coming up but I'm not
suggesting any changes.
Chair Furfaro: Yes that will be coming up on the May 18 calendar,
okay? I do have one request here and it comes under, I'm going to take advantage of this, signs and
road markings, could I have a letter sent to the Roads Division and copy the Kilauea Community
Association who has been asking for a sign to be placed on Liliuokalani Street as you come off of the
county road and unto Kolo Road there's no signage there for school zone and a fifteen miles an hour
speed limit sign and I would like to get it to them as quickly as possible and I think they must have
that money within the money we're allocating for them but a sign needs to be presented on
Liliuokalani Street as it merges with Kolo. Any discussions about the seven categories in Roads? If
not, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. The Liquor Fund, we're
moving there. There are only a minor reduction in the indirect cost for Central Services and if not,
everything else is acceptable, may I have... all those in favor of excepting the supplemental Mayor's
budget on Liquor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. We are now going into Solid
Waste, is there anyone that would have anything to discuss on these eight categories?
Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair, I wanted to move to delete a hundred
seventy -five thousand for Curb side recycling.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Chair Furfaro: May I have members pose questions to you deleting
one hundred and seventy -five thousand from the road side recycling.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.73
Chair Furfaro: Any questions? If not, will you give us some narrative
please?
Ms. Yukimura: Oh yeah okay. It's something we all want but it's
kind of the cart before the horse because in our Integrated Solid Waste Management plan the first
part of curbside recycling was to do a MERF, a material recovery facility so that we can properly sort
and take advantage of the markets that would be available in marketing recycling materials so we
actually started curbside recycling before we built the MERF and in the experimental phase it cost
two thousand dollars per ton which alone is very expensive. But in this second year, it's going to cost
fourteen thousand dollars per ton which is a hugely expensive amount and so I would propose
actually taking this hundred seventy -five and putting it in a line item for a development of a MERF
which we need to start now. It was slated for starting in 2009 and if we had followed the plan, we
would be opening a MERF next year, 2012 but because we haven't started, we have at least three
years development time so it's not, it's really a suspension, it's not a stoppage, we just need to use
our money strategically and effectively and so stop this really expensive process that will continue to
be expansive until we get a MERF which will also create green jobs for our people and so I think
that's the smarter way to go right now and it's kind of a temporary suspension in return for a really
long term in expanding curbside recycling program.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Clerk, I'll recognize you.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair could we have a short recess so we can
locate this item in the budget.
budget.
Mr. Rapozo: Yes, I was trying to find it, I can't find it in the
Mr. Nakamura: So if we could just take a short recess.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 3:35 p.m.
The Council reconvened at 3:58 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Before I call the meeting back to order, Mr. Clerk did
you find the item that you were looking for? Yes, okay. Before we go any further I want to ask... yes
we're back to order and on that note I would like to ask Councilmember Chang who has a recusal
letter for Solid Waste items dealing with recycling.
Mr. Chang was noted as recused from this item.
Chair Furfaro:
Chair Yukimura.
Thank you. On that note, I think we were with Vice
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair so I made a motion to remove a
hundred seventy -five thousand from the line item on page two, twenty -six called recycling programs.
Part of that is for curbside recycling and as I explained, I'm totally in favor of curbside recycling but
I'm looking at a long term islandwide curbside recycling and in order to do that we need a MERF and
the cost right now without a MERF is tremendous, fourteen thousand dollars a ton is really
expansive and so if we could move that toward the creation of a MERF and take it out for now so
that we can have a long term curbside recycling program, that is what I'm aiming for with this
motion.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.74
Chair Furfaro: Okay on that note, I was going to give Mr. Bynum the
floor. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Yes I think this is kind of sad situation at least for
me, I'm speaking for myself because I've been here since we adopted the Solid Waste Plan, this
Council, I believe unanimously said that we wanted to move expeditiously on a MERF, we wanted to
hire, you know this was an issue a couple of years ago a recycling coordinator because the roll out of
that plan is going to put a big burden on Solid Waste and unfortunately we're behind schedule.
There wasn't a lot of support in the community from the Solid Waste folks like zero waste for the
curbside recycling pilot, the Mayor called it... I supported that saying this should be seen as a early
roll out because I didn't think the'pilot program should stop. Once you get going with this, but now
that the cost has accelerated the MERF is not going to be met on schedule, it's going to take at least
three years even at the fast track and so the Administration has said we're not going to continue this
pilot this whole time so if we're going to end it, we might as well end it now. Save those funds and
focus on rapidly getting a MERF so I'm sad but I will support this because it just not pragmatically
doesn't make sense.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you. I did have a chance to chat with the
Mayor outside on the last break or a couple of breaks ago... and he has a vision, he has a direction
that he has chosen and he has actually set forth a plan. Part of that is the curbside recycling. I'm
really concerned about the figure that Ms. Yukimura has put out, the fourteen thousand a ton. I
haven't seen that, I've heard that for the first time right now, I'm not sure where that is from... but
I'm not doubting it, I just haven't seen it. More importantly as I spoke to the Mayor outside about
the MERF, his Administration is not prepared at this time to start the process with the MERF,
they're still in the stages that don't require the funding and that's why he removed it from the
budget. I'm going to honor that Mayor's request because like Mr. Bynum mentioned the Council's of
the past have promoted certain functions that don't get done... because the Administration wasn't
ready or maybe it wasn't in line with the Administration's goals and objectives. The bottom line is
that we can put the money in there but if they're not going to use it, it's just again more money that
we're putting into a hold that's not going to be spent. So I'm not going to support that, I'm going to
keep it as it is in the budget and we're going to have an update, I'm assuming at the Committee real
soon on Solid Waste and the Landfill and so forth and I think those questions need to be asked but at
this time if the Administration is not ready for it, I just see no use in doing that.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali'i did you want to speak on this
item because others have spoken?
Mr. Kuali`i: Did we get a handout on this?
Chair Furfaro: No.
Mr. Kuali`i: That's fine.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Nakamura.
Ms. Nakamura: I have a question, I wanted to find out what is the
hundred seventy -five thousand curbside recycling intended to do this coming year?
Ms. Yukimura: It was to continue the curbside recycling project for
the rest of the year.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.75
Ms. Nakamura: So their...
Ms. Yukimura: I mean for the 2012 -2011 fiscal year.
Ms. Nakamura: And the materials that are picked up are sent to the
different recycling centers?
Ms. Yukimura: They're processed by a contractor and then sent off
island but the contractor is not equipped to do it with the volume so they can't expand and the cost,
the contractor realized that it cost much more to process then they originally thought.
Chair Furfaro: I was going to recognized Councilmember Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I just for clarification, my understanding is the...
right now they just take it and dump it in a big pile and people hand sort it, they don't have any of
the mechanism and it was costing initially two thousand a month is what I heard, not per ton...
Mr. Rapozo:
Mr. Bynum:
fourteen thousand a month.
Mr. Rapozo:
Ms. Yukimura:
That's what I heard.
Two thousand a month and that cost has gone to
Not a ton.
Oh excuse me if I was...
Mr. Bynum: So that's my understanding so I wanted to make sure
that that was my understanding but that's still a very large increase and you know I asked do you
continue doing this curbside recycling in Lihu`e until the MERF is ready? And it's like, no we can't...
we're going to end it. Well if we're going to end it, we might as well end it now. And just say
whatever we learned from it, we learned and we did... we learned what the volume was and what
categories but unfortunately we're really behind schedule and rolling out the MERF. So this is just
about cutting the funds, later we may discuss what if anything we do about the MERF right, so I'm
going to support the removal of this portion.
Ms. Yukimura: In fact Mr. Chair, I would like to amend my motion
and just call it a removal at this time and then we can address the MERF issues separately.
Chair Furfaro: Okay I wanted to clarify that because Mr. Bynum has
just assumed that that was what your motion was but I heard move the money...
Ms. Yukimura: Right.
Chair Furfaro: From Roadside recycling to a MERF.
Ms. Yukimura: So if I can move to amend and get a second then we
would just isolate the issue and then take them separately in terms of... I mean as we know from all
the previous items we have a lot of places where we could apply that hundred seventy -five thousand
if we choose not to put it to a MERF.
Chair Furfaro: But right now the discussion is just to remove the one,
seventy -five?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.76
Ms. Yukimura: Right.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Is there any further discussion on this? Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I do want to just state and I don't have the
information in front of me but I did send a inquiry over and I believe it went to the Finance
Department regarding that contract and why the contract amount went from two thousand plus a
month to fourteen thousand a month. We have not received that response, if it did, we didn't get it.
Chair Furfaro: Excuse me why don't you let me see if I can call Mr.
Rezentes up, your question requires that answer.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rezentes, you may have heard Mr. Rapozo's
question about that.
Mr. Rezentes: I do recall the question a while back and I thought we
had responded... sorry? Wally Rezentes Jr, Director of Finance. I apologize I do recall that
communication and I believe a while back we did respond but I can go back and double check with
staff to see where that is and send it again but just on the top of my mind, I do recall that and I
recall talking to you a little bit about it.
Mr. Rapozo: I have not and again I guess my concern is I have not
heard any concern of this until right now so I'm not prepared to remove anything from the budget
because personally I know there's a lot of people in Puhi that really enjoy and recycle more with this
service. It's definitely causing a huge increase in recycling. The cost of it, we got to question but to
remove that funding I think is a mistake right now because of the residence that are participating,
it's huge in Puhi. Everyone now uses the blue bins to recycle and if we were to stop that I just think
we're sending the wrong message after we got them on track to recycle, now we're going to say no it's
too expensive, so I'm not going to support the removal of the funds but I will pursue that issue in
more detail.
Chair Furfaro:
mine to last. Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura:
Wally, I have a question for you as well but I'll hold
No, I'll speak later.
Chair Furfaro: Wally can I ask you procedurally if we approve
something in the way of a contract that's two thousand dollars a month, and what I'm hearing now
that contract has been amended to fourteen thousand dollars a month, does that not trigger a revisit
to the Council for the funding of an amended contract?
Mr. Rezentes: No. If we have the funds available within the
department.
Chair Furfaro: Very good.
Mr. Rezentes: You know we can do that but it's not very common
that we would approve an amendment with that kind of variance.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.77
Chair Furfaro: I appreciate that response because that's exactly how
I handle it at the Council, if I have the funds within the department you know I just transfer funds
and you've answered my question. Any more questions of Mr. Rezentes? No. Thank you Mr.
Rezentes.
There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Any further commentary here? Councilwoman
Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair this is because... I mean I'm the
greatest advocate for curbside recycling but we need to get the proper infrastructure in place so that
we can do it at a cost effective way and so to stop it... I mean to have started it without a MERF was
really ill- conceived and to continue it at this cost is not going to allow us to expand the program or to
even make it a sustainable ongoing program and my goal is a sustainable ongoing program that is
going to divert huge amounts of... this is also a landfill life extension program that we're talking
about. We have to kind of get our ducks in order, in order to create the proper infrastructure and
create the system that's going to support recycling on an ongoing basis.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I just have a question for Ms. Yukimura is that
wouldn't you agree that this pilot project or this program in Puhi and that whole entire area is not
diverting a lot of waste from the waste treatment?
Ms. Yukimura: Not a lot compared to what it could do if we had the
ability to expand.
Mr. Rapozo: I understand but as it currently stands, we don't have
that, we don't have a MERF but considering the fact that our landfill, the life is being shorten, we're
getting to the end, I think every opportunity we can to divert, I think we should take advantage of.
And again to remove that, take away that program from the residence, I think is going to, it's not
going to be a very good...
Ms. Yukimura: It's not going to be easy at all and I'm sorry we started
it, that's why I was against it in the beginning because we owe it to our citizens to be able to
continue a service and have a good plan and system in place and we didn't do that. We didn't even
follow our own plan. We seen over and over again how we spend a lot of money on plans and then we
don't follow them and the plan was laid out for us and I'm trying to get back on track so that we, for
a longer, larger good.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah and that's why I framed this as a sad and
difficult decision because it is people do appreciate it and it is diverting some from the landfill but we
only done it in a limited area and I know we can't go deep into this but we do have facilities to
process greenwaste and that might be a place that we could divert sooner and quicker and so this is
sad to end it but at fourteen thousand dollars a month, and when the Administration told me, they
were going to continue it next year but it wasn't going to continue until we had the MERF and the
cost of that would be, it's just pragmatically... so it is sad for the reasons that Mel said, I agree with
you. People got educated to this and we'll pull it back but it's going to get pulled, if it's going to get
pulled back might as well do it now and bite the bullet.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.78
Mr. Rapozo: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Rapozo: I guess for Mr. Rezentes, our initial request was sent
over on March 22 with a due date of April 8, a follow up request went over on April 19 with a due
date of April 29 and we have not gotten a response. So I mean it's I believe the cost of the program
needs to be looked at and I think we need to tweaked that contract, so I'm not going to rely on the
fourteen thousand or in my request actually I was informed that it was twelve thousand a month
that in fact until I know what's going on, I'm not going to move that. Ironically I just got a text from
someone who said we l000000vvvveeeeee our recycling and somebody's watching this right now and
saying don't take away our recycling. My brother lives there and I seen and we were never a
recycling family and now he is and if you can convert one of us to be a recycler, you've done a good
job and I think it's going to... to remove that right now, before we straighten out the contract would
be I think premature... we can always address this in the next fiscal year, thanks.
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I come from Puhi and my parents do still live
there and I agree with Councilmember Rapozo and I'm just, you know eventually we want to be
there and we've already set it in motion where some people are there. And then we also have these
solid waste fees coming online so we're hearing... I'm hearing complaints about that and for the
people who will be paying that and it will seem like we're taking away services, if what you're saying
the Mayor's going to do it eventually, let him do it. I mean we should continue as much as we can
and it's probably not a whole lot. The problem here clearly is that contract and again perhaps it's a
lot of money to the department to find the money and transfer it but when a contract goes up six
hundred or... I mean it just... it went up six times or seven times... something's wrong and whether
the Council has a role in determining to you know that or not, I think that should be looked at as
well.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: The issues with fees is very difficult for our people to
handle and I oppose just doing a set fee without a pay as you throw which would have allowed our
people to reduce their fees by having curbside recycling and by being able to recycle more than the
fees would go down. But you can't have this program at the cost of fourteen thousand a month, it's
not sustainable on a wide spread basis so you can't give some people that privilege and other not the
privilege. It has to be a system approach and it's really unfortunate and we're seeing how
unfortunate it is that we're having to do this but that was because we didn't follow our plan and in
order to get back on track, we have to use these moneys that we're using right now to get back on
track, that's really what we have to do. Unless someone can show me somewhere else where we can
put in moneys for the MERF. This is a logical thing, the opportunity forgone that we did when we
started curbside recycling was that we use that money for curbside recycling for a very short term
project instead of investing it in a long term MERF solution. That was the error and we have to get
back on track so that everybody can enjoy and have the opportunity for recycling and as I said this is
the importance of doing this is extending the life at Kekaha, we're not going to be able to divert
enough materials just by the small subdivision or wherever we're doing it right now, it has to be on a
much broader scale.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, I'm going to call for the vote, I
understand right now that the motion is to remove a hundred and seventy -five thousand that was
budgeted in Solid Waste for curbside recycling. On that note, where's Mr. Clerk, did he step out?
Councilwoman would you restate the motion?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.79
Ms. Yukimura: Yes it was to remove a hundred and seventy -five
thousand from the other services recycling program that is earmarked presently in the budget for
curbside recycling.
votes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay and make a note that this will require five
Mr. Bynum: A yes vote is to remove?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: No four votes.
Chair Furfaro: No, if you read my rules, I want five votes for both
adds and subtractions.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: I think... I think five votes are only required for
additions because the Mayor cannot veto something that's missing.
Mr. Rapozo: It's five.
Ms. Yukimura: He can't... no, it's four.
Chair Furfaro: It is what I stated at the very beginning of our
meeting yesterday, I'm looking for five votes on all additions and all deletions, did I not make that
clear?
rule.
Mr. Rapozo: Yes you did.
Ms. Yukimura: Point of order Mr. Chair, I don't believe that's our
Chair Furfaro: We're in recess.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 4:10 p.m.
The Council reconvened at 4:20 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: I regret to share with you that based on this potential
change from what we agreed to in the beginning, we're probably going to have to go back and visit
everything that we did for two days and I suspect we should probably take a dinner break to do that.
We agreed on item three what we were going to do, based on what the County Attorney has told me
this cannot override the Charter so let's all be prepared for a very long night, let's vote on this item
now and take a dinner break.
Mr. Rapozo: Mr. Chair, I just want to say that in the beginning of
the session, it was clear that it would require five votes to add or remove, that has been the way it's
been, yes I understand the Charter has four to remove and five to add but I thought by your
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.80
explanation and the acceptance of all Councilmembers at that time and the fact that we had gone
through almost two days, in fact two days of decision making utilizing the five vote rule on both...
Chair Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Rapozo: It's quite disturbing I guess that that trump card
would be pulled right now. I'm just want to lay it on the table because I don't want to hide my
disappointment but you know the Charter is the guiding authority but I think the Chair has set
some, he has some prerogatives and yes if the challenge is brought, obviously we would follow the
Charter but I still believe has it has been and this would be my seventh budget, that although it was
four to remove and five to add, the Council has always utilize the five vote rule to protect from the
veto so I just... so obviously we'll follow the Charter because that's the Charter and we all took an
oath to uphold the Charter but like you said Mr. Chair, I will now reserve my right to revisit every
item that I had sought to remove and I will hope to now get four votes and reduce the budget, thank
you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, so I think that's where we're at but before we
go any further here and we'll take a 4:30 dinner break, I do want to say personally how disappointed
I am that I would express what I thought was an understanding going through the budget but the
reality is we're being called to the process in the Charter where it is five votes versus an addition and
four votes on the deletions. On that note, let's call for a vote Mr. Clerk on this item and we'll break.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, we're on the Public Works Solid Waste
Division other services recycling programs, the motion is to remove a hundred seventy -five thousand
dollars for the curbside recycling program.
APPROVAL:
AGAINST APPROVAL:
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING:
RECUSED & NOT VOTING:
Bynum, Kuali`i, Nakamura,
Furfaro
Rapozo
None
Chang
Yukimura,
TOTAL — 5,
TOTAL — 1,
TOTAL — 0,
TOTAL — 1.
Chair Furfaro: Okay now let me make a note, we're going to take a
dinner break so that I can review with the staff the voting practices since yesterday on any item that
may have to be called back for a vote based on this change in rules. I do want to say how very
disappointed I am that we're at this point.
There being no objections, the Council recessed 4:25 p.m.
The Council reconvened at 5:37 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: We're back from our dinner break. First of all Mr.
Clerk let me thank you and the staff for reviewing our business to date from yesterday and at this
particular point in time I do understand that there is nothing that will require us to go back and look
at other votes that were plus or minus in the four /three category as the one item we did have was
later voted to reconsider, am I correct, can you confirm that?
Mr. Nakamura: That'd be correct Council Chair. After checking the
logs there was a four /three vote on the initial sustainability green manager position but that was to
add so it lost on a four /three vote to initially add. And the Kauai Marathon which was to reduce,
failed by two votes in favor of reduction and four votes no and one members being recused. And on
the reconsideration of the sustainability /green manager position it was five to add it under
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.81
reconsideration and two against it. On the reduction, the last vote on the reduction of the curbside
recycling with one recusal the vote was five to reduce and one against it.
revisit?
Chair Furfaro: Okay so there is nothing at this point that we need to
Mr. Nakamura: No.
Chair Furfaro: I do want to say that the County Attorney despite the
fact that the summary that I passed out yesterday on the five /two plus or minus vote, we have been
doing that since I was a rookie on the Council and (inaudible) to me there was no agreement
yesterday although I thought I had it and we have to understand that the interpretation that we got
from the County Attorney now allows that particular pieces of the four /three vote but may not
protect us from a Mayor veto and that was the particular thought that if we added something or took
it out of the Mayor's budget, we had an opportunity with the super majority. Going forward we will
function accordingly but I myself plan to make all my votes final and I will not reconsider anything
given the opportunity on a potential veto coming back.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair just for clarification so from going
forward we're now four to reduce and five to add?
Chair Furfaro: Four to reduce, five to add. Okay?
Mr. Nakamura: I'm sorry Council Chair just a slight editorial note...
because we are actually in here going back and checking on the votes the staff did not get the full
dinner break and so at a certain point in time, if we'll be watching the clock.
Chair Furfaro: Okay why don't we do this, why don't we take an
extra fifteen minutes until the staff has...
Ms. Yukimura: How much do you need?
Chair Furfaro: We'll take another fifteen minutes here but before I do
let me recognize the County Attorney's Office, Mr. Guyot.
MARC GUYOTT, DEPUTY COUNTY ATTORNEY: Just a clarification on 19.7a the County
Charter, it requires a majority to reduce, so that would indicate if you did have recusals and as long
as you had a quorum, it may not necessarily be four, so I just wanted to point that small.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for the clarification but again what we
passed out yesterday was a practice here for almost ten years, with previous Chairs and so we have
that clarification and I appreciate your comments so five votes to add, four to delete and we're going
to go back for... ladies are you ready or shall we take a few more moments for you? We were going to
break for a few more minutes but are you ready? Okay... we're not recessing for the rest of the staff
to have an opportunity because they did some research on their break and I want to thank them
again. Next section that we're on, I believe we want to come back to Housing as requested earlier by
Councilwoman Yukimura but I believe you have nothing to add or...
Ms. Yukimura: I'm okay.
Chair Furfaro: So with the Housing Department, we are okay and...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.82
Ms. Yukimura: Maybe I can just verify with staff that the money's for
the development of the `Ele`ele site is a CIP item? Yes? Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: That's an acknowledgement, okay, thank you. Is
there any discussion on Housing so we can get that approved.
Mr. Rapozo: Move to approve.
Ms. Yukimura: Second.
Chair Furfaro: All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. Now that will take us back to,
excuse me, I'm just trying to find my place. Is there anymore discussion within Solid Waste? If not,
may I have a motion to approve.
Mr. Bynum moved to approve Solid Waste, seconded by Ms. Yukimura, was then put, and
unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: Let's move forward now on Wastewater Sewer. Is
there any comments or anything to add? I'm sorry let me go back to my list... I'm sorry... there is on
the bottom on page nine there is Housing and Community Development Fund. We have voted on the
Housing as a Department, anything to add or delete here members? If not...
Ms. Yukimura: I just want to verify, that does not include anything
with respect to `Ele`ele right? Jade? Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, thank you.
Ms. Yukimura moved to approve Housing and Community Development Fund, seconded by Mr.
Bynum, was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: From the Housing and Community Development
Fund, I'm going back to the top of page ten which is the Wastewater Sewer Fund. Any discussion
items here? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve as the Mayor's supplemental budget?
Ms. Nakamura moved to approve Wastewater Sewer Fund, seconded by Ms. Yukimura, was then
put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: Now we are now on the Golf Fund. Is there any
discussion here on the Golf Fund? I do want to let you know that I appreciated on the dinner break I
was able to visit with Finance to reconfirm the revenues for the Golf Fund and I was given the
appropriate breakdown to reconcile the one million two hundred thirty -two thousand three hundred
twenty -seven dollars made up of the forecasted nine hundred sixty -nine thousand, three, zero, three
of green fees and locker fees. A new contribution and sixty -one thousand eight hundred for the
restaurant, fifteen thousand and three hundred for pro -shop, hundred thirty -five thousand for golf
concessions and fifty thousand for range balls, all are in the reach of the amount that is budgeted in
Golf. As we look at the Golf Fund, may I get a motion to approve?
Ms. Nakamura moved to approve the Golf Fund, seconded by Mr. Chang, was then put, and
unanimously carried.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.83
Chair Furfaro: We'll go to Kalepa Housing, there's no major changes
in Kalepa Housing Fund.
Ms. Nakamura moved to approve Kalepa Housing Fund, seconded by Mr. Bynum, was then put, and
unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: Paanau is the next item there.
Ms. Nakamura moved to approve Paanau, seconded by Mr. Bynum, was then put, and unanimously
carried.
Chair Furfaro: We'll go now to page eleven. Page eleven starts I
believe on the CIP. Okay...
Mr. Rapozo: Mr. Chair are you going to...
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to ask Jade before we go into the CIP
project, I'm going to ask for a proviso for you to consider for the consideration this proviso language
to be added to the operating budget. It should add a new section to the other sections renumbered
appropriately. The Director of Finance has the authority to transfer quarterly from the General
Fund to other funds up to the amount approved in the budget ordinance to cover deficits in other
funds and to balance other funds. The purpose of this of course is based on our ability to earn
greater interest in the General Fund account and we want to leave that to the discretion when we
get to cash management to the Director of Finance.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Chair Furfaro: All those in favor...
Ms. Yukimura: Oh yes... I just want to understand this Mr. Chair.
And who made the motion?
Chair Furfaro: I'm sorry I introduced it.
Ms. Nakamura: Move to approve.
Chair Furfaro: There's the motion.
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Ms. Yukimura: Oh okay thank you. So the Director of Finance has
the authority to transfer quarter from the General Fund to other funds, up to the amounts
approved... so this is basically a cash flow?
Chair Furfaro: This is a cash flow, interest earning opportunity for us
and let's the Director of Finance manage our ability to earn from the General Fund.
Ms. Yukimura: I see. Not a problem. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Okay thank you. So I'm asking for consideration on
this proviso.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.84
The motion to approve the proviso was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: Now we'll go to CIP. BC, I hate to do this to you but
I'm going to take a short recess so that we can all get to our capitol appropriation items.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 5:50 p.m.
The Council reconvened at 6:17 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. Before we get into CIP, I
understand there were a couple other members wanting to provide provisos in the Operating Budget
and so on that Councilmember Kuali`i, I'll recognize you and you have the floor.
Mr. Kuali`i: Yes Chair so we started yesterday morning with a
discussion on this matter which staff helped me come up with a proviso so I'd like to read that.
Appropriations or authorization for positions in this ordinance shall constitute establishment of such
positions. Departments having sufficient funds may hire dollar funded positions provided that the
Council is informed of the hiring of such positions. The Mayor shall inform the Council on a monthly
basis of any actions related to creation or abolishment of positions.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Kuali`i: That's a motion.
Ms. Yukimura: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Is there any discussion on this proviso? If not, I think
Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: I just was noticing on the notes that we had earlier,
was that something that was discussed with the County Attorney?
Chair Furfaro: Yes, it's been reviewed by the County Attorney?
Mr. Kuali`i: That's correct.
Chair Furfaro: And it was a discussion actually introduced by
Councilmember Kuali`i yesterday. Any further discussion? If not, we have a motion and a second on
this proviso. We got a short time out. We're going to take a short recess again as we're having some
discussion on the status of that proviso.
There being no objections, the Council recessed at 6:20 p.m.
The Council reconvened at 6:23 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: We're back in session and I want to welcome the
Mayor back, thank you Mayor for being here. We are now finishing up the provisos as they relate
only to the Operating Budget before we go to CIP. Councilmember Kuali`i, I recognize you on the
floor.
Mr. Kuali`i: Council Chair, I would like to restate my motion here
for the proviso and the language is appropriations or authorizations for positions in this ordinance
shall constitute establishments of such positions. Departments having sufficient funds may hire
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.85
dollar funded positions provided that the Council is informed of the hiring of such positions. The
Mayor shall inform the Council on a monthly basis on any actions relating to the reallocation,
reclassification or abolishment of any position.
Ms. Yukimura: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Discussion members? This has been also looked at by
the County Attorney? Thank you very much.
The motion to approve Councilmember Kuali`i's proviso, was then put, and unanimously carried.
Chair Furfaro: I believe we have another proviso submitted by
Councilwoman Nakamura. Councilmember, the floor is yours.
Ms. Nakamura: Everyone should have a copy of this one page, one
paragraph amendment to section twenty -one that basically gives the administration forty days to
provide us with quarterly statements. What I'm adding here is as you know the statement that we
get is by account, individual account and it's about this thick which makes it very difficult to see the
big picture and I don't have the patience like our Chair to do a separate spreadsheet so I am asking
that the administration provide a consulted variance report by department and I'm hoping it'll be a
thinner document that will give us the bigger picture in... just a few pieces of paper.
Mr. Kuali`i: Second.
Chair Furfaro: I see Mr. Rezentes acknowledging with a head nod
that this can be done, a short consolidated report with highlights. Any discussion members on this
proviso?
The motion to approve Councilmember Nakamura's proviso, was then put, and unanimously
carried.
Chair Furfaro: Are there anymore proviso's that relate to Operating
items, not CIP, Operating items? If not, we will now go into the CIP budget which is broken down in
roman numeral three and four and is further broken down by a short highlighted description
identified those as General Fund CIPs, Highway CIPs and Bond CIPs... so let's take section by
section. Councilwoman Yukimura did you have?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair and is it the plan after we do that to go
back to the original list because some of us has proposals for the original list not just the...
Chair Furfaro: We can do that and I would say that we can do that
now if you would like as long as we're only dealing first with General Fund items and then secondly
with Bond items.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: So I will ask on that question, are there any
discussions from members on items that are reflected in the Mayor's supplemental budget that are
dealing with CIP General Fund moneys?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: You have the floor Vice Chair.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.86
Ms. Yukimura: At this point I'd like to move to amend the line item
on material recycling facilities to add a hundred and seventy -five thousand dollars that we took out
of the Operating budget and also to include four hundred thousand from the Koloa- Po`ipu bypass
road in the Highway Fund that would be lined out and then Kahuna Road would be put in for four
hundred thousand of the Highway Fund releasing General Fund moneys to go to the materials
recycling facilities.
Chair Furfaro: We're going to take these one item at a time.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: And therefore, I also want to acknowledge the Chief
Engineer for the County of Kauai Mr. Dill in the audience so that we could call him up for
discussions but first let's start if I can get a second on Council Vice Chair's recommendation dealing
with the hundred and seventy -five thousand for the MERF.
Mr. Chang: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair Yukimura, I'll recognize you on the floor to
discuss this item.
Ms. Yukimura: Well I think as your instincts indicated we should
hear from the Administration because they are here and I think they have some things to share with
us about the MERF and a lot of us have concerns about the MERF so it would be good to have them.
Chair are you willing to suspend the rules...
Chair Furfaro: I'm more than willing and I did mention that earlier,
thanking them for being here but I just thought you had something to add before I brought them up
so...
Ms. Yukimura: Alright let me just to a short synopsis it is a repeat of
what I had said earlier but the MERF is key to both a curbside recycling program on this island that
is expansive and inclusive and it's also key to extending the life of our Kekaha landfill to increase
diversion of materials from the landfill into actually commodities that will bring money to the county
and create jobs. It was a top priority, it is a top priority in our integrated solid waste management
plan which showed that we should have started planning in 2009 and had we done that, it would
have been ready for opening in 2012, next year. We unfortunately did not follow the plan and its
really urgent that we start the development of a MERF.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Before I go any further on that scope I
know earlier on solid waste, Councilmember Chang, you've heard this description that I asked from
the Councilwoman, it would be your call if you choose to recusing yourself from this discussion or I
did not hear anything that to me would prevent this discussion. Okay... to the County Clerk, I will
recognize you...
Mr. Nakamura: My apologize Council Chair, Peter Nakamura County
Clerk for the record. We were just... because this is... just kind of heard it now, we're just trying to
see if there's any relationship between Councilmember Chang's earlier recusal on the recycling
programs in the Operating Budget and this matter in the CIP and at this point unless the County
Attorney tells us different, I think we're within the scope of Councilmembers Chang ability to sit in
on this matter.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.87
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. May I make note to the County Attorney,
Mr. Chang recused himself earlier on Operating issues related to some contractor activities with a
local refuge collection agency but this discussion is focused on funding the possible development on a
material recycling center, so I see it as not very specific as it relates to his earlier recusal.
Mr. Guyot: Deputy County Attorney Marc Guyot for the record
Chair. I don't see any problem with that. It's a separate entity, Mr. Chang from my understanding
is not a shareholder of this disposal company, the refuge company and his connection to them is in a
different light, so this is completely different, so I concur with you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. Mr. Chang, I hope you don't
mind I pose that question.
Mr. Chang: Thank you Chairman.
Chair Furfaro: This is about the MERF and they see no conflict on
this discussion. Now Council Vice Chair, I'll ask the administration to come up. Mr. Dill would you
come up and discuss with us any issues related to the redirection only at this point of the hundred
and seventy -five thousand dollars proposed towards a MERF. Councilwoman Yukimura after he
introduces himself, you have the floor.
LARRY DILL, COUNTY ENGINEER: Good evening. Larry Dill, County Engineer for the
record.
Ms. Yukimura: I guess we're all interested in knowing the
Administration's plan in creating a MERF and following the Solid Waste, integrated Solid Waste
Management Plan. What your timetable and plans are for getting the MERF up and running.
Mr. Dill: As you know establishing a MERF is part of the
Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan. We have done some curbside recycling in order to help us
support that initiative to find out that aspect of it because curbside recycling is part of that program.
This county, Public Works Administration has been in place for four, five months now and the
direction of the MERF and other waste diversion initiatives were centered around a (inaudible)
recovery park and so the park is still the direction however as you're aware we recently brought on
board a little over a month ago a Waste Diversion Specialist and he has been in charged with
aggressively looking at waste diversion alternatives to help us extend the life of our existing Kekaha
landfill. Included in what he's looking at is the establishment of a MERF to see if it makes sense for
us to establish a MERF prior to the (inaudible) recovery park coming online because we all recognize
that is probably going to be several years down the road. And that being the case, we are indeed
aggressively looking at right now, we are planning on making that presentation to our
administration later this week actually and when that happens we'll have a lot better idea on the
direction we're headed in. At this point as I said earlier when I made my budget presentation to you
for the March 15 submittal, we are looking at a MERF and when we have something more concrete
to present to you, we'll put that before you and request funding for that. At this stage we feel it's
premature for us to have a proposal to you and (inaudible) that funding because we don't have a
basis for a funding amount to give to you.
Ms. Yukimura: So what do you plan to do in a year, within this
coming year with respect to a MERF?
Mr. Dill: I cannot give a firm answer to you, beyond right now
we are reviewing integrated solid waste management plan and doing a more specific feasibility study
which will include some costing so the next step, that will establish the next step.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.88
Ms. Yukimura: And so I think your responses to the budget inquiries
that we sent you said that your feasibility would be done in house so you're not needing any money's
for that?
Mr. Dill: For the first stages, that's correct.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Mr. Dill: If the first stage indicates and it well may that it
makes sense for us to pursue a MERF we may well but at that point come back and request funding
for the next step in that process, an Engineering study or Engineering Conceptual Design or
whatever you might be.
Ms. Yukimura:
us?
Mr. Dill:
Ms. Yukimura:
know?
And you're not going to wait for a year to come back to
That's correct.
That means you'll come back to us as soon as you
Mr. Dill: Yes. One way or another. Yes. I don't want to make
a commitment at this time because we haven't through that first step yet.
Ms. Yukimura: I understand but if you come out with a conclusion
that we need to start working on a MERF separate from the resource recovery then you're not going
to wait a year to come back to us, I presume?
Mr. Dill: That is correct.
Ms. Yukimura: You do understand the urgency of a MERF?
Mr. Dill: Absolutely.
Ms. Yukimura: Especially when we were told that you could actually
substantially reduce our fees to waste management at the Kekaha Landfill if we got below a certain
level of diversion?
Mr. Dill: I'm not clear that that's the correct interpretation of
that contract but we do definitely recognize the value of diverting more waste from the landfill to
extend the life of the landfill.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. I'd like to ask for a request, I'd like to request
from you an interpretation of the contract.
Mr. Dill: Okay, sure.
Ms. Yukimura: And even though you may not have those actual
benchmarks to go by, you do realize that the life of the landfill could be considerably extended if we
did more aggressive diversion?
Mr. Dill: Absolutely, yes.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.89
Ms. Yukimura: And so you understand the urgency of it?
Mr. Dill: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Would the Councilwoman yield the floor to Mr.
Bynum. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I think we're all reacting to a disappointment of
seeing diversion funds go out of the budget because the Councilmembers who have been here a long
time had a sense of urgency about this for a long time and now basically what we're hearing is, well
we're at square one (1) but we're serious about it now and so we'll cry over spilt milk later. But we
want to make sure that I think and I'll speak for myself, I want to make sure that not putting
something in the budget (inaudible) by even a day and in future meetings we will cry over split milk
because a lot of things were done and said that didn't happened and it's just disappointing. Some of
us would like to say hey what do we need to do to support and make this happen? I hear your
answer that you'll come to us soon and it may include a money bill to fund whether we're the sense of
urgency is, so just a lot of us would like to have seen that happened several years ago.
Mr. Dill: I understand.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Dill can I pose a question to you? If phase one (1)
would be done in house and you have come up with an evaluation and a strategy, you'll present that
to the Administration, is that something that you're going to present within the next few weeks?
Mr. Dill: Absolutely, yes.
Chair Furfaro: And what would phase two (2) then encompass?
Mr. Dill: Having not gotten through phase one (1), it's difficult
for me to define phase two (2) clearly but it may involve hiring a consultant to actually do some
conceptual design and preliminary engineering work, acquisitions, entitlements, yes.
Chair Furfaro: I guess citing would be...
Mr. Dill: Citing, yes.
Chair Furfaro: Before acquisition.
Mr. Dill: And all those things are under discussion now, to look
at all those things but it's gotten to a point we feel that it's premature to bring those things to the
table to present to you because we haven't reached any firm conclusions yet.
Chair Furfaro: I'm good, I understand your answers. Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you and there's a good or a possibility if in fact
the MERF is cited, there's a good possibility that it will be at the resource recovery park, right?
Mr. Dill: That's a possibility yes.
Mr. Rapozo: And right now there's one point eight million dollars
in that line that you have access to as you develop and plan on this resource recovery program?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.90
Mr. Dill: There's one point eight in the line item for resource
recovery park?
Mr. Rapozo: Correct.
Mr. Dill: ...
Mr. Rapozo: The title is new landfill and resource recovery park
development acquisition.
Mr. Dill: Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Rapozo: There's one point eight million dollars at your disposal
as we speak I mean provided we pass that line.
Mr. Dill: Yes but what we're doing is I think we're talking
about the possibility of citing a MERF at a separate location but at the same time we are providing
for the eventuality or possibility there may be a MURF located at the resource recovery park?
Mr. Rapozo:
Mr. Dill:
Mr. Rapozo:
ready. So why throw money at.
Mr. Dill:
that money.
Mr. Rapozo:
Chair Furfaro:
Dill? Councilwoman Yukimura.
Right and as of this date, we don't know.
Correct. So we'll be pursuing parallel tracks.
I appreciate your fiscal responsibility that you're not
I don't have the basis to come to you right now for
Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any more discussions for Mr.
Ms. Yukimura: If you decide to sited elsewhere, you cannot draw on
that money from the expanded landfill line item. So do you mind if we put aside a contingency fund
so that in case you decide for a separate thing, we would then be able... we have money set aside?
Otherwise you're going to have to find the money from somewhere else and wait for a year.
Mr. Dill: Well as I said we would come back to you for a money
bill if we feel that additional money is warranted and necessary to pursue a MURF. Setting aside,
would I mind? I supposed I wouldn't mind if we set aside a contingency fund, I don't have a basis to
request a dollar amount from you at this time.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Dill. Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: There's also a hundred and fifty -nine thousand dollars
in the project contingency in the CIP as we speak as well, so that's at your disposal as well.
Mr. Dill: In the project contingency?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.91
Mr. Rapozo: Correct. In the General Fund CIP. That's just the
contingency amount that's available for CIP projects which this would be. Just to let you know that I
really appreciate your... because if you look on that screen, its...
Mr. Dill: Some big numbers up there.
Mr. Rapozo: So I appreciate that and I think the resources are
there for you as we speak we (inaudible) create more expenditures, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Your frugality is appreciated as Mr. Rapozo said. Mr.
Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I just wanted to let you know that when we're done
with budget we're going to do a review of all the CIP projects, projected timelines that we got a year
and a half ago, where we are now and where realistically we are going forward.
Mr. Dill: Thank you for the heads up. Okay.
Chair Furfaro: That would be something in Mr. Bynum's Committee
as he presented to you. Okay so you are open to the hundred and fifty -nine thousand contingency
that is available to you and earmarked specifically for these types of projects that you may want to
launch.
Mr. Dill: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: I'm going to excuse you for this particular portion, I
want to take these items one at a time. Okay as expressed in the CIP there has been a motion and a
second to add a hundred and seventy -five thousand to the MERF and I think we all had some fresh
responses from Mr. Dill. I'm going to call for the vote on this and I'm going to make it a roll call vote,
may I ask the Clerk.
Mr. Nakamura: The motion is to add a hundred seventy -five thousand
dollars to the General Fund CIP budget for materials recovery facility.
APPROVAL: Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i, Yukimura TOTAL — 4,
AGAINST APPROVAL: Nakamura, Rapozo, Furfaro TOTAL — 3,
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0,
RECUSED & NOT VOTING: Chang TOTAL — 0.
Mr. Nakamura: Four (4) yes, three (3) no... not added.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Councilwoman Yukimura, you did have
another question dealing with the redirection of approximately a four hundred thousand dollars in
the Highway Fund?
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
should we have questions, go ahead.
Yes.
Could you restate your position again?
Yes.
And I will ask Mr. Dill to make himself available
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.92
Ms. Yukimura: Yes. I'd like to eliminate the four hundred thousand
in the Highway Fund for the Northern leg of the Koloa Western Bypass Road and I have some
materials to be passed out. I so moved.
Mr. Kuali`i: Second.
Chair Furfaro: We have a motion and a second, we have a handout
coming along. Mr. Bynum, you had your hand up.
Mr. Bynum: I'm a little confused, I may need help from the
Administration that they told us that this year their intention was to take things out of the CIP we
weren't going to actually expend, does that include the Highway Fund, does that include the other
funds or just General Fund in Bond and... because I doubt very seriously we're going to expand any
of this four thousand in this coming calendar year. It's certainly not a high priority as far as I'm
concern and I'm assume that maybe that Councilmember Yukimura is passing out the Koloa- Po`ipu
circulation plan which also said was not a high priority so... are we removing this from Bond Fund or
Highway Fund...
Ms. Yukimura: Highway Fund.
Mr. Bynum: ... if we're not using it?
Chair Furfaro: Before we go any further, let me suspend the rules
and ask Mr. Rezentes to come up and you can proposed any questions, okay? Mr. Rezentes may you
come up and join us? Mr. Bynum, you still have the floor.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Bynum: Wally the Administration has told us since beginning
of this process that CIP that wasn't going to be expended in this year will be removed from CIP, does
that include the Highway Fund and the other funds?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Mr. Rezentes: If we're not going to spend it within approximately an
eighteen month timeframe, we were going to look for other priorities.
Mr. Bynum: Okay, so why did this four hundred stay in?
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Dill you're up but you need to introduce yourself again please.
Mr. Dill: Larry Dill, County Engineer. This project as we pass out the
piece I used and hopefully you still have those was identified in the Kauai long range transportation
plan back in 97 as one of the necessary improvements. We do plan to move forward on this project
this year it's going to be a procurement for a consultant, these are highway funds so its dedicated
highway usage. Also this is ours and what we have in the budget is a county match for Federal
highway administration stip funds so we risk losing that match if we don't move forward with that.
Mr. Bynum: And the stip funds for the Northern leg of the...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.93
Mr. Dill: It's on the stip yes.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: Any other questions before I recognize Council Vice Chair
Yukimura? Councilwomen you have the floor.
Ms. Yukimura: So why the Koloa /Poi`pu area circulation plan laid out, which
is much more recent then the 1997 land transportation plan of the state which is currently
undergoing an updating and the Koloa /Poi`pu area circulation plan has a list of roadway projects
that are immediate priorities or year one. It has year's two to five, it has year's five to ten and it has
years ten to fifteen and the Makai connection of the new North /South road is in years ten to fifteen.
So why are we funding a project that was slated for years? Ten to Fifteen when we haven't even
covered the ones that is on the immediate priorities or on the year's two to five, or on the year's five
to ten?
Mr. Dill: That's a good question and I don't have an answer for.
Ms. Yukimura: And as I recall the Charlier plan said we may not even need
the northern bypass that we needed to do all of this first to see how circulation would flow before
going to this. So why are we funding this, stip or no stip? Why aren't we asking for stip for some of
the other road improvements that are much more urgent under the K61oa /Poi`pu area circulation
plan?
Mr. Dill: Well I'm not familiar with the list of the requirements on that
list councilmember but I don't know first of all if they would all qualify for stip funding from the
state.
Ms. Yukimura: Well whether or not they do the stip funding is not the goal.
The plan for circulation is the goal and this is at the very end.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Dill if you have no more to add to that I understood your
summary as it relates to matching stip funds but if you're not able to offer anymore there I'm going
to...
Mr. Dill: I will just note that it's a major component of that
transportation plan and that we did request stip funding for and that's in place so that's our point to
behoove us to move forward with that. If there are the projects in here then we need to get those
included as well in our CIP.
Mr: Furfaro: I want to acknowledge Mr. Bynum and then Councilwomen
Nakamura.
Mr. Bynum: I'm sorry I just want to be able to make some comments when
we call the meeting back to order.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay then will wait on you. Did you have a question of the
engineer? Okay will wait for that too when we get back.
Mr. Kualii: I just have a quick question of the staff. Do you know if this
segment, this improvement...
Mr. Dill: I'm sorry if what?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.94
Mr. Kualii: If this segment this four hundred thousand for that piece of
the highway, if that's have you taken in to consideration complete streets?
Mr. Dill: Since it hasn't been scoped yet when we procure the
consultant we can have him include that in his scope of work.
Mr. Kualii: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Actually there are many complete streets components in the
Charlier plan and there in years one and years two to five.
Mr. Dill: Oh okay.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Dill if you would like to close your mic since you have a
consultation going on there. We'll give you a moment to speak to your colleagues. Okay you have
new consultations to share with us?
Mr. Dill: Yes sorry it has been pointed out to me in this table 8.1, what
we're looking for is the third item in the first phase. It says Northern expansion of the Western
bypass predesigned phases. That's the phase that we're requesting funding for, so it's in the first
group of projects and my apologies for not bringing that up earlier.
Mr. Furfaro: No that's quite alright it's all kind of summarized within the
bypass road so your consultation with your staff indicates that your focusing on the first priorities in
that area.
Mr. Dill: It's among the immediate priorities in year one.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you.
Ms. Yukimura: Than I apologize but if you look at the map the 10 -15 years is
the red design.
Mr. Dill: No the 10 -15 years is construction. Right now we're looking
to fund the design and the engineering work.
Ms. Yukimura: And it says with impact fees, is that the funding source?
Mr. Dill: And Federal.
Ms. Yukimura: And Federal too correct.
Mr. Dill: Right now the funding we're requesting is not impact fees it's
general funds for our match and I don't know where those general fund fees came from if it came
from impacts fees or not but the rest would be Federal funds.
Ms. Yukimura: We don't have impact fees as I understand them.
Mr. Furfaro: Larry just for your edification as the process was presented by
Mr. Charlier there were concepts about assessments that we needed an ordinance for, for impact
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.95
fees. This council has not moved on that portion of the ordinance. The other interpretation is
appropriate when you look at getting a share of County money to be matching with Federal highway
moneys. There is another phase to the overall transportation plan and this council has not worked
on the ordinance for impact fees.
Mr. Dill: Okay thank you.
Ms. Yukimura: So there's also the Koloa town traffic flow and safety
improvements and that's not in the budget anywhere is it?
Mr. Dill: I believe you're correct.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay I'm going to want to focus on this four hundred
thousand dollars that's been brought up. I don't want to be going all over the Charlier plan to have
discussion. The item here is the CIP budget item on of four hundred thousand dollars, on date note,
Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Larry this Northerly bypass is a priority for your department
correct?
Mr. Dill: Correct.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay thank you. Because it is a huge priority for the people
of Poi`pu and they have been calling and calling and I'm glad to sit in there and I'm glad to support
the money to at least start that project moving forward
Mr. Furfaro: On that note Mr. Dill I'm going to excuse you so that we can
go into deliberation here. Okay Mr. Bynum you wanted to have time when we're back in session, the
floor is going to recognize you.
Mr. Bynum: I'm very sympathetic to Mr. Dill who doesn't have the history
that some of us have on this project but you know I have a totally different view and I don't hear any
public pressure for this There are many other elements that cant plan particularly the cane haul
connectors, the lateral connectors you know the history of this is that the community got deeply
involved with this and I know this Council I believe got very frustrated that even the short term
improvement implementations which I think is still out there on the plan you know haven't
happened five years later. Clearly Charlier said we may never need it and if we do it would be about
15 -20 years. I'm frustrated that we would be capturing stip funds for that which is precious and I
would hate to see us lose that opportunity but since the Mayor's been Mayor he's realigned some of
those priorities quite quickly with the help of state highways and I just don't think this is a high
priority at all for the Poi`pu area. There are many other priorities and issues that I intend to bring
here later in the year especially for the lateral connectors which there are none of and there's no
movement on so I am very reluctantly I'm going to support this to take it out because I don't think
we should put design money in for something we don't anticipate building for 15 years.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay anymore discussion on this before I call for a vote?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: Council Vice Chair.
Ms. Yukimura: I think the northern extension of the Western bypass is not
the well I'm not sure what it is but I think it might just be straightening out the road. Does
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.96
somebody know or can tell us? I have the plan here and it is through wetlands very complicated and
not high priority. The council can set priorities amongst the planned priorities. Okay Mr. Dill do
you want to come forward?
Mr. Furfaro: I will make that decision.
Ms, Yukimura: Oh sorry thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Is there further discussion before I call Mr. Dill up?
Mr. Rapozo:
Mr. Rapozo: I think Mr. Dill has already clarified that point. I think
Mr. Dill has stated that it is that component that's on the map, I think he answered that question, I
think Mr. Tabata answered that question and it is what it is. The question is do we support it or
not? As many times you answered the question I would anticipate the answer being the same.
Ms. Yukimura: That's fair enough, thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay members there is a motion and a second. Could we
repeat the motion first?
Ms. Yukimura: Oh it was to remove the four hundred thousand in the
highway fund design for the northern leg.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Clerk we heard the motions to remove the money, design
element that in for the northern lake.
Mr. Nakamura: Sorry Council Chair, Peter Nakamura for the record. The
motion is to delete from the highway fund CIP projects, the Northern leg of the Koloa Western
bypass road and that's to remove funding of four hundred thousand dollars.
Councilmember Bynum — Aye
Councilmember Chang — No
Councilmember Kualii — Aye
Councilmember Nakamura — No
Councilmember Rapozo — No
Councilmember Yukimura — Aye
Chair Furfaro — No
Mr. Nakamura: We have 4 no's and 3 yes's motion fails.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay next item in CIP, CIP from the general fund. I'm just
taking a general fund item. Mr. Bynum the floor recognizes you.
Mr. Bynum: Yeah I just have a text change only on the Kawaihau
Mailihuna Road. No changes in dollars just a text change which I've had circulated which says that
the funds are for consultant services conceptual plans and designs, complete streets intersection.
Ms. Yukimura: I second the motion.
Mr. Furfaro: I know you passed that out in written form I have it
somewhere. It's been seconded by councilmember Yukimura. Mr. Bynum closes yours to discuss.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.97
Mr. Bynum: I have discussed this with the administration and I believe
they have no objections.
Mr. Furfaro: I see some nodding of the heads no objections is that
affirmative very good, Mr. Bynum do you mind if I call the vote to add this text?
Mr. Bynum: Please do.
Mr. Furfaro: All of you in favor of adding this text in the CIP general fund
capital improvements for high ways say "aye"
All Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much. Do we have any more in CIP general
fund? If not I'm going to... oh Mr. Chang?
Mr. Chang: Actually I think Mr. Rapozo you might have been first, go
ahead.
Mr. Furfaro:
That's very gentlemen of you.
Mr. Rapozo: That is. I know we had some discussion on the Kapaia
swinging bridge that we were going to restore that funding. I wasn't sure if the intent was to do it in
this fiscal year and I don't think we have enough time to do it so I know we were going to restore it to
two hundred thousand and I'm not sure I mean I don't have a calculator.
Mr. Furfaro:
You need one hundred twenty six thousand.
Mr. Rapozo:
Okay whatever that number is to bring it up to two forty.
Mr. Furfaro:
Okay are you going to make that in a motion.
Mr. Rapozo:
That would be a motion
Ms. Nakamura: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you I have a second, any discussions amongst the
members? Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I believe the administration has completed some consultant
studies and is this still an agenda item on the council?
Mr. Rapozo: Tomorrow.
Mr. Furfaro: For tomorrow and the hundred and twenty six represents the
monies that were moved to other projects.
Mr. Furfaro: I guess I would like to know if the administration is seeking
this I'm just confused as to why we wouldn't deal with it on the council floor as an agenda item?
Mr. Rapozo: Because we won't because we're in budget session today that's
why and we're not going to have an opportunity tomorrow is not a vote able item tomorrow is an
update it's not a money bill.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.98
Mr. Furfaro: I only think it's fair and reasonable to replenish the fund
that's there with the intent. Now the administration may have other options with the Kapaia group
that deals with other sources to do the work and other grants and so forth. We deviated money for
the purpose of fixing other bridge ways in the County as an emergency repair and this fund should
be replenished in my opinion.
Mr. Bynum: I've come back around the administration will determine how
and if they use these funds?
minute.
Mr. Rapozo: Yes.
Mr. Bynum: Okay thank you and thanks for being patient with me for a
Mr. Furfaro: Council Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes I'm more than in favor of restoring the funds; I'm just
curious where it will come from.
Mr. Furfaro: It's going to go on to the plus and minus list here. And we're
going to have that discussion when we find out exactly...
Mr. Rapozo: Believe me I have a lot of suggestions where that nine
hundred and or seven hundred and thirty five thousand and I didn't hear anyone come up with a
proposed source of funding other than putting it up.
Mr. Furfaro: I did you heard me I am prepared to look at it because the
administration is going to wait until June to give us a proposal on establishing the reserve fund. I
have already stated that I believe as we end this year we may find ourselves with about two million
three of surpluses just for my tracking, but since we will have a separate agenda item in June with
the administration on the reserve policy that will provide us that opportunity.
Ms. Yukimura: So what is the amount now?
Mr. Furfaro: A hundred and twenty six thousand.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: I'm going to call for the vote. All those in favor of this
hundred and twenty six thousand to restore the line item at Kapaia bridge, signify by saying "aye."
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Any nays? Hearing none can we now move to the bond fund?
Mr. Rapozo: I'm sorry Mr. Chair I had one more general fund and I'm
trying to find my reference document I don't know what happened on the break. The sheltered bus
stops in the initial proposal...
Mr. Furfaro: Was two fifty.
Mr. Rapozo: Correct and then the supplemental proposal, its three fifty.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.99
Mr. Furfaro: I'm not sure that changed did it?
Mr. Rapozo: I'm sorry it was moved to the bond fund, I'm sorry but it went
up to three fifty in the bond fund so I did want to address that when we get to the bond fund.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay and I'm trying to get us to that item now.
Mr. Rapozo: I'm sorry because it was in the general fund originally it was
zeroed out in the general fund in the supplemental move to CIP bond fund with an increase of a
hundred thousand so I did want to visit that.
Mr. Furfaro: Very good. We are now in the CIP bond items.
Mr. Chang: I think I missed out when we were in the general fund.
Mr. Furfaro: Did you miss out?
Mr. Chang: Yeah I yield it and I think we skipped a little...
Mr. Furfaro: That's probably because you were such a gentlemen and I
probably forgot... We are still on CIP general fund Mr. Chang.
Mr. Chang: I was practicing the spirits of aloha. With that being said I
would like to thank the department for coming on over here Mr. Larry Dill and I saw Lyle Tabata a
little earlier. I wanted to just say on behalf of the long, long, long, long, time Kalaheo residents,
there was a road there in Kalaheo on the Mauka side Lae road and apparently in and around 1926
there was a Elua Reservoir, which was around that area an there was hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of feet of the road that is just adjacent to the reservoir. I want to take this opportunity to
thank your staff for getting there because there's a lot of very, very step embankments right off the
road that is definitely a hazard and prior to hurricane Iwa some very close to 30 years ago there use
to be a wooden rail along the side of the embankment and unfortunately after hurricane Iwa you
know again some 30 years ago many of the larger tree's fell on the wooden guardrails. Consequently
they removed the guardrails and since 1982 after numerous attempts to get that area improved
safety wise it's finally going to happen. I want to thank you folks for getting out there and there are
many, many long time Kalaheo residents. As I stated to you earlier that this whole area means a lot
as far as the safety reasons for particularly not the local drivers there but those that maybe
wondering off into that street. It's also very, very dark but it was deemed unsafe. I just want to
thank you folks for doing your diligence and on behalf of thee as I mentioned many, many Kalaheo
families that have patiently been waiting. I know this is good news for them and now that you folks
are here I want to thank you for following up on that. Thank you very much Mr. Chair.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay that was very gentlemen of you to pass on those
Mahalos but I do want to now go to bond fund CIP. There are 16 items listed that had either been
new or changed, reduced in scope. We have new items in here Kahuna road realignment, the bus
shelters as been mentioned by Mr. Rapozo. We also have as mentioned earlier the need to address
the Coco Palms STP Plant and the general plant technical studies are going from what was a million
to fifty now reflecting at four hundred twenty four thousand. Let's start in that general area if we
can. Members do you have any questions about the 16 items that have actually been re summarized
in the Mayor's supplemental plan? We can start with the bus shelter if you'd like Mr. Rapozo?
Mr. Rapozo: Yes thank you and I read this thing wrong. It's actually three
hundred thousand not three hundred fifty thousand. In looking at the responses to the questions
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.100
one of the most important questions to me are you know we have 7 existing bus shelters and the
intention was to build 5 more this year and the average cost of the shelters that we currently have is
twenty one thousand six hundred eighty three. I'm going to be proposing that we reduce the bus
shelter line item to reflect the twenty five thousand dollar allocation per shelter times five which
would be one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. That would be my motion.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay is there a second?
Mr. Chang: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you there's a motion and a second to discuss reducing
the bus shelter items from three hundred thousand to five units at twenty five thousand each with a
total of one hundred and twenty five thousand. We have a motion and a second, councilwomen
Yukimura you have the floor.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes the average cost is not reflecting the difficulties of various
individual sites and I was trying to look at it because they also talked about the difficulties and their
priorities. I don't remember whether their priorities were among the difficult ones but I think we
need to leave a little bit more leeway then just judging by average cost. I would suggest at least two
hundred thousand because you can't just go by average cost.
Mr. Furfaro: On that note would you mind if I suspend the rules and ask
the Finance Director to come up and give us some guidance on how that number changed.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Rezentes: There are a lot of variables definitely the amount requested
will not go and address bus stops Island wide. It will help in getting more of these locations up and
unfortunately you have to look at it from a site by site basis. Some sites may require EA "s and other
soft costs others may not. Some we may be able to leverage the private sector where they can allot
some land for the sites for the counties behalf so there is so many variables at this time that it's hard
to pinpoint a dollar per site. Again there's going to be I think a lot more request down the road as we
move forward with constructing and locating these sites Island wide.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you Mr. Rezentes. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I recall the discussion with the bus transportation folks about
this and they said that a minimum of five would happen with two fifty that they originally proposed.
We went from no attention at all to bus stops a few years ago to getting a commitment from
administration to start addressing it and I want to provide them the resources to do that. I did the
dialog was very appropriate and I agree with Council member Rapozo that we should really look at
some level of standardization that may be prepackaged. I also trust the transportation agency who
has had a great track record of administering their projects and programs and give them the latitude
and resources and we can call them back and ask for updates and knows what going on. I want to
support keeping this at the three hundred thousand level.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Mr. Rezentes I do want to share something to you
before you respond to that. When she was here I had quarried this amount averaging fifty thousand
and stop. As we've expanded our service it became very clear to me that we had to put in some solar,
we wanted the lights at the bus stops and so forth and then she had a few issues about actual
easements and safety issues. I was hoping to get back more than just the twenty one thousand three
hundred eighty five building cost. There was the solar paneling and all those other things so I'm a
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.101
little concerned we didn't get the break down but I do remember the discussion and there were other
components that are yet to be determined such as the solar, such as easements, ADA so I will give
you the floor.
Mr. Rezentes: I just wanted to say when we were discussing it internally in
the Mayor's office a few weeks back one of the things that they did mention was the fact that there
was a lot of community groups that also have come to them and had requested that they want to
provide assistance in constructing some of these sites and various areas so that's another cost
variable if we have that type of volunteerism and don't have to fund the construction of it and we can
leverage the sweat equity from these community groups that's another item that I'm sure going to
get to in the foreseeable future.
Mr. Furfaro: I'm going to recognize Mr. Rapozo, if you have a question
directed at Wally then you if you have a question directed at Wally.
Mr. Rapozo: Wally I don't know if you can answer this but when
transportation was here I inquired about the prefab buildings and I took it upon myself to go and
contact a distributor and actually a local contractor and they provided an estimate that if we were to
purchase twenty buildings twenty of these 4x8x10 3 sided sheeted bus shelters which is standard in
many municipalities. The first shelter is twelve hundred bucks, the second and each additional one
would be nine hundred and seventy seven and the shipping would be about for twenty buildings the
shipping would be about less than five thousand dollars to get it here. I'm thinking of those options
rather than go out and spend for the initial response basically for the five shelters the materials and
labor would be a hundred and sixty three thousand and I think we could cut that substantially if we
went with the prefab model and that's what I'm encouraging the administration to look at our
options as opposed to building these concrete and wood and...
Mr. Rezentes: I believe she was also doing that research and I did some to
on my sleepless nights. There are a number of companies that offer the prefab solutions on the
Mainland and I can't tell you on the durability and how the salt water salt air influence would play
on it but there are a number of companies that have that option and I think it's a viable option to
look into and consider. Some are a lot higher quality than others and some are obviously larger than
others but it's something definitely that we can hopefully gain from by going that route.
Mr. Rapozo: And this is a local contractor, this is not just numbers off the
internet this is actually a local contractor that can get the buildings here so my concern is if we're
going to allocate that much money and we can get 20 buildings, we could do 20 bus stops I think at a
stroke rather than doing 5 or 6 or 7 at a time.
Mr. Rezentes: I have been around too long it sounds great but when the
rubber hits the road then you have all these various agencies that have all these various
requirements, EA, ADA, you know you name it that you got to wiggle your way through before you
start pounding nails. Hopefully we can get through that phases sooner than later and erect these
shelters for the community.
Mr. Furfaro: On that note we have questions for you for Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: Just real quick so these funds could be used like we do with
park projects where there's collaboration with the community and we provide material and they
provide labor?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.102
Mr. Rezentes: Yes and I think that is a definite possibility I think even with
the prefab option that council member Rapozo mentioned. It will probably go a lot faster if
it's prebuilt, prefab and you just put it together. I think it will be easier for community groups to
help us with the installs.
Mr. Bynum: And it is kind of open ended at least five or six but if we can
do 15 great.
Mr. Rezentes: Sure.
Mr. Bynum: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you Wally on that note I'm going to excuse you so we
can vote on these suggestions. We have a suggestion from council member Rapozo and do we have a
second we have a second to reduce this item to a hundred and twenty five thousand I believe and
was it seconded by you Mr. Chang?
Mr. Chang: Yes sir.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay very good, on that note Mr. Clerk I would like to...
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes go right ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: I move to amend to two hundred thousand.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay let's see. I would like to see first we can do these two
ways, who took the high road who took the low road. We can vote on the two hundred thousand first
and if people want to lower it we can go to the one twenty five or we can vote on the one twenty five
first?
Mr. Rapozo: I would ask for the courtesy of voting for my motion
Mr. Chair?
Mr. Furfaro: I think that's what I'm trying to get through with the best
solution for the group that I can.
fine.
Ms. Yukimura: I was just following regular amendment procedure but that's
Mr. Furfaro: Okay so we have a motion and a second at one twenty five?
Mr. Nakamura: Council chair the motion is in the bond fund CIP project to
decrease the sheltered bus stops line from three hundred thousand dollars to a hundred and twenty
five thousand dollars which is a decrease of minus one seventy five, one hundred and seventy five
thousand.
Mr. Furfaro: Call for the vote.
Mr. Chang: Just a clarification we're talking about the five shelters
correct?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.103
Mr. Furfaro: Well you know there's a couple of ways you can look at this
Mr. Chang. If we approve the three hundred thousand and they come in lower maybe we could get 7
or 8 because the young lady told us she had eighty seven shelters to do. Now if we go specifically to
one twenty five, it's based on five shelters at twenty five thousand each. That consideration is you
know we're voting on money for bus shelters to keep it tight at one twenty five or to stay with the
original piece at three hundred which might give them more access depending on how the pricing
comes in or we can vote on councilwomen Yukimura's that reduces by a hundred thousand so I'm
going to call for the vote right now please.
Mr. Nakamura: Again council chair this vote is to reduce a yes vote would
reduce the amount in the bond fund CIP sheltered bus stops from three hundred thousand to a
hundred twenty five thousand.
Councilmember Bynum — No
Councilmember Chang — No
Councilmember Kualii — No
Councilmember Nakamura — No
Councilmember Rapozo — Aye
Councilmember Yukimura — No
Chair Furfaro — No
Mr. Nakamura: Six no's and one aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Now if councilwomen Yukimura still wants to introduce her
amendment fine.
Ms. Yukimura: No.
Mr. Furfaro: Now we're back to the original discussion on the
Mr. Kualii: Actually I would like to make that motion?
Mr. Furfaro: You can have the floor.
Mr. Kualii: To reduce it to two hundred thousand.
Mr. Furfaro: There is a motion to reduce it to two hundred thousand, is
there a second?
Mr. Rapozo: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay there is a second. Mr. Nakamura we're going to ask to
have a call of vote on the amount equal to two hundred thousand. Make note that it was originally
suggested by Councilwomen Yukimura but the new motion was made by Councilmember Kualii.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair Peter Nakamura, County Clerk for the record.
This is to reduce the amount in the bond fund CIP sheltered bus stops from three hundred thousand
to two hundred thousand dollars which is a decrease of a hundred thousand dollars.
Councilmember Bynum — No
Councilmember Chang — No
Councilmember Kualii — Aye
Councilmember Nakamura — No
Councilmember Rapozo — Aye
Councilmember Yukimura — No
Chair Furfaro — No
Mr. Nakamura:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.104
Five no's and two aye's Mr. Chair.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay so let's go to the original piece since we've had this
discussion at three hundred thousand and again the one comment I made is if the Transportation
Department finds that they have this money to work with and they come in and are able to actually
build more than five shelters and the resources are there remember we have 87 shelters uncovered.
All those in favor of the proposal as submitted by the Mayor's supplemental budget say "aye."
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: All those that oppose? Any nay's? Hearing none we have
agreed on the Mayor's supplemental amount. Going down this same area Mr. Rapozo I'm going to
give the item on Coco Palms STP Pump Station the lift and there was something you wanted to add.
The Mayor has added that at three hundred and fifty thousand. Is there any need for any more
discussion there? If not I'm just going to call for the vote.
Mr. Rapozo: No discussion.
Mr. Furfaro: No discussion. All those in favor say "aye."
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: You're welcome Mr. Rapozo from the council thanks you for
introducing it and Mayor we thank your administration for the follow up. Next item is and we've
had some discussion here about technical services associated with re- evaluation of the general plan
technical services study totaling four hundred and twenty four thousand nine ninety nine. This has
had an opportunity to be a subject of a discussion with Mr. Dahilig, Mike Dahilig from the Planning
Department. I would just like to ask for a motion to approve as re- evaluated?
Mr. Kualii: So moved
Ms. Yukimura: Seconded.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. All those in favor say aye?
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay, now I do have a housekeeping item for all of you. We're
coming up on our. 2 hours and we need to take a short break I think for the captioner. I do need to go
back to the CIP as it relates to the general fund. We had a disclosure letter from councilwomen
Yukimura and we have an item in there that deals with improvements to the Boys and Girls club. I
would like to take a vote on that councilwoman with you being excused. Thank you so noted we just
want to vote on that item as a separate item with Council Vice Chair Yukimura absent. It's pretty
self explanatory application for a grant for the Boys and Girls Club. I would like to just say on that
note may I have a motion to approve and seconded.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.105
Councilwoman Yukimura was noted as recused.
Mr. Rapozo: Move to approve.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Can I have a second?
Mr. Kualii: Seconded.
Mr. Furfaro: All those in favor please signify by saying "aye."
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much let the record note that councilwoman
Yukimura's absence and we're now going to...
Mr. Kualii: Chair, can I?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes you may.
Mr. Kualii: Since you did go back to CIP general fund. There was one
other item in here and I'm just not sure and I think since...
Mr. Rapozo: You want to get councilwoman Yukimura back in?
Mr. Kualii: Oh yeah. Since the Public, since Mr. Dill is here and I know
this might be a question for Mr. Haigh but Mr. Dill works with Mr. Haigh right?
Mr. Furfaro: You're correct that's the chain of command.
Mr. Kualii: I just noticed that for the CIP...
Mr. Furfaro: Hold on a second let's get our 7th member here.
Mr. Kualii: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: She'll be right in. Mr. Dill may I ask if you and I'm going to
suspend the rules on this question that's going to be opposed could I please have you come up for this
item. Vice chair Yukimura is in the room councilmember so you can pose your question.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Councilwoman Yukimura was noted as present.
Mr. Kualii: My question Mr. Dill is with regards to the Pono Kai Seawall.
The appropriation of 1.5 million was removed and put down to zero and I thought that if it's coming
up in the next 12 -18 months that something would be included and in one of my briefings with
Mr. Haigh he said that some action would start on this within the next year but it's zeroed out.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Dill let me say this and perhaps it is my understanding
that I share this with the group as well. We will find ourselves going to refinance a bond in May to
the Mainland and it is my understanding that this item will be revisited on the outcome of a future
and new bond.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.106
Mr. Kualii: Yeah.
Mr. Furfaro: Are you aware of that?
Mr. Dill: Larry Dill County Engineer. I believe that's correct and to be
honest I'm not close to this one so I would be happy to make a phone call if you want to go to recess?
Mr. Furfaro: Oh no I'm just sharing that because I'm traveling with the
group that goes for the bonds so I just wanted to share that with my colleagues.
Mr. Dill: Okay.
Mr. Kualii: I think I may just have missed that. I was looking at the
general fund and it was zeroed out but if it's been moved over to the bond fund and there's some
monies there then it's being addressed.
Mr. Rapozo: Where is it in the bond fund?
Mr. Furfaro: It's not.
Mr. Rapozo: It's not right?
Mr. Furfaro: No let me make sure. We are going to fund. We're going to
San Francisco to consider a new bond fund where we possibly could save some financial structure as
well. In that item there is a possibility that we will be re- visiting the amount in the new bond for
Pono Kai Seawall. That is what I think is going on okay.
Ms. Yukimura: But for now it is in the old bond fund so it's covered, it's
covered.
budget.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And there may be another way to save more money.
Mr. Furfaro: That's right.
Ms. Yukimura: But it looks like the line item is part of the priorities of the
Mr. Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Kualii: Thank you Mr. Chair, thank you Mr. Dill.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you for that question. Now when we come back from
recess we have we have finished the Boys and Girls Club, we have finished our particular funding in
the general CIP and we will be back to bond items when we return. We are on a 10 minute recess.
There being no objections the Committee recessed at 7:36 p.m.
The Committee reconvened at 7:59 p.m., and proceeded as follows.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.107
Mr. Furfaro: Okay members I would like to call us back and we're dealing
with the bond fund in the CIP. I would like to identify the next items as such. These 4 items that
have significant changes from the Mayor's review on March 15, and the difference is that it exist now
in the `Ele`ele Waste Water treatment plant. There is also the Island wide (inaudible) at six hundred
thousand that's increased. There is a Wailua Water treatment plant renovation which is a million
two. And the last two changes the Kapa`a Stadium improvements was added at four hundred
thousand along with a five hundred thousand dollar revisit of the Koloa Development Plan. Now
Mr. Dill I'm going to ask you because as it gets later in to the night we're looking at these items and
we're coming to the end of the process here but these 4 significant variances I would like you here to
talk to us as we raise the questions. I will start on the Wailua Waste Water Treat Plant. I
understood that we were going to be missing about four hundred thousand dollars in clarifiers but
the number we got in this due item identifies for Wailua for Lydgate 1.2 million. That's a far
number from what I heard when we talked about waste water not having four hundred thousand
dollars. Lyle can come up with you but these are some big changes in the bond that we have
approved and I would just like to hear from you on the technical issues involving those changes. If
you could come up I'm going to suspend the rules. Do you have this list Larry?
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Mr. Furfaro: We had a good overview from I.T. earlier in the week but
again the items I want to talk to really falls to both of you gentlemen's specialty. We've got a six
hundred thousand dollar change at `Ele`ele Waste Water Treatment Plant. We've got a million two
change in Wailua Waste Water Treatment Plant. For those two big items since they're both dealing
with waste water and like I said Larry I was under the impression that we missed about four
hundred thousand dollars dealing with clarifiers. I was a little surprised when I saw this number so
could you give us a little better understanding of that scope?
Mr. Dill: Good evening Larry Dill County Engineer, the Wailua Waste
Water Treatment Plant the four hundred thousand your referencing I believe chair is a recent
request we're coming to you for and that's for a recent development...
Mr. Furfaro: I just realized that the four hundred thousand that you told
me about the clarifiers that was actually in the CIP capital fund. I guess the million two is I would
like to hear it because I just found what I thought I was talking about in the bond.
Mr. Dill: Okay.
Mr. Furfaro: So will start with the 2 waste water treatment plants, six
hundred thousand at a million two. Jade's going to point it out to you.
Mr. Dill: Okay so the Wailua Waste Water Treatment Plant
improvements are a project that is ready to go. To be perfectly honest it should have been in the
original submittal and so because that project has been moving forward and is ready to move to
construction so we are requesting the 1.2 million. We have a PID for that that we just handed out.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay so we just missed it in the March 15?
Mr. Dill: Correct.
Mr. Furfaro: You had the project ID?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.108
Mr. Dill: Yes we has a PID and funding should not have been removed
so we're adding it back in.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay before you go any farther on that item and that item
only, Mr. Bynum has a question.
Mr. Bynum: Well I had a question about an adjacent item.
Mr. Furfaro: Let's focus on this one item.
Mr. Bynum: Okay sorry.
Mr. Furfaro: Go ahead.
Mr. Dill: Do you want to move to `Ele`ele Waste Water Treatment Plant
improvements?
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Mr. Dill: That's a matter of us taking 1.6 out of the bond because we
will be pursuing SRF funding through the state for that work so it's just a matter of financing.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay, now before we leave the area of waste water and water
in general Mr. Bynum you had a question?
Mr. Bynum: Is that similar about the chemical lab reduction?
Mr. Dill: No the chemical lab reduction we had funding in place from
the council for a million dollars. The bids came in significantly less and so we're just returning the
funds that are...
Mr. Bynum: Yahoo.
Mr. Dill: Yahoo yes.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Bynum: So no changes (inaudible)?
Mr. Dill: Correct.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay so let's move down to the other 2 major changes. The
Kapa`a Stadium improvements we added four hundred thousand from the March 15th to the May 6th
Mayor's supplemental and just in below that is an addition of five twenty five for the Koloa
Development Plan.
Mr. Dill: Regarding the Kapa`a stadium improvements you can note
that under the general fund we're just moving from general fund to bond fund. So the (inaudible)
and the amount stays the same.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.109
Mr. Furfaro: Okay and I guess the Koloa Development plan is not in your
scope it's in planning?
Mr. Dill: True but same situation. You will find it under the general
fund that we removed that funding and added it into the bond. Same amount same scope.
Mr. Furfaro: Very good. I have a question from Mr. Bynum for you.
Mr. Bynum: I just need to put this on the record for my friends in Kapa`a.
The stadium improvement plan includes moving forward with the 11 acre project right? Thank you.
Mr. Dill: You're welcome.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay that kinds of brings us to the summary here of the bond
fund items that have variances. Imp going to excuse you to 2 gentlemen.
Mr. Bynum: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much. Members I do not see any major
variances in this bond piece that requires a discussion or voting so I would like to just get an
acknowledgement that we are finished reviewing the capital improvements as presented in the
Mayors supplemental program. Do you want the floor? Okay go ahead.
Ms. Nakamura: I have a couple of text changes.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay.
Ms. Nakamura: One is for the Adolescent Drug Treatment Center.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay.
Ms. Nakamura: And a copy of the text change is being handed out. The
purpose of the text change is to clarify that the funds that have been decreased here from I think it
was two million to five hundred thousand. That the funds can be used for feasibility studies,
analysis of programs alternatives and land. I wanted to offer this text change to give the
administration the flexibility to use these funds to look at the feasibility of operating this if it's a
center in the long run but also to look at program alternatives because the solution might not be a
physical location. I just wanted to give you the range of alternatives and flexibility to us these funds.
Mr. Furfaro: Is there any discussion on that Council Vice Chair Yukimura?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes I think this is going in the right direction and I wondered
of council member Nakamura would accept a friendly amendment to eliminate the word "Center" but
just say Adolescent Drug Treatment?
Ms. Nakamura: I wasn't sure whether because it's from the bond fund
whether the word "center" was needed? Maybe it's a Wally question.
Mr. Furfaro: Wally would you like to come up?
Ms. Nakamura: Wally because this is part of the bond fund is it okay to right
now its listed as adolescent drug treatment center and the suggestion from council member
Yukimura is to take off the word "Center "?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.110
Mr. Rezentes: It all depends on how the funds are going to be used. If it's
going to be used for program cost then it would likely be inappropriate to use bond fund capital
money. Capital money would be more appropriate for infrastructure and construction and I'm not
sure by deleting the word center if the intent is to use it for more of an operational in nature item.
I'm not sure.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, we actually don't know at this point and for me the best
use of any monies right now would be to determine a clear end in mind. I think our goal is effective
adolescent drug treatment and the conventional thought is that you need a 24/7 treatment center.
There is not a lot of evidence coming forth that that's not really feasible for a small community and
that those people who are in the trenches have been designing an alternative way which I'm not
totally schooled at or I don't fully understand but it's some kind of a seamless series of and a team
approach to the provision of services. It would be terrible to spend million plus dollars to create a
physical structure and then realize that we don't have the wherewithal to keep it open. That would
defeat our purpose of effective drug treatment so it seems to me that we need some analysis and
design or some visioning or something that's based in reality and in best practices. I am totally
supportive of that end of effective adolescent drug treatment and that's what I think we all want.
Mr. Rezentes: My suggestion would be to provide flexibility and my
suggestion would be to consider not using bond funds for this purpose and maybe flipping /switching
appropriate general fund CIP item into bond fund and moving this bond fund item to general fund
CIP. The reason for that is there's less strings obviously because it's county sourced funds versus
bond funds that are more restricted in nature and how we use it.
Ms. Yukimura: So for example a good bond project?
Mr. Rezentes: Maybe combinations and we can also fund portions of projects
in general and bond at the same time to get to the correct dollar.
Ms. Yukimura: And actually, because we don't appear to be ready to build a
building we probably don't need half a million. I mean we need to go through this step of designing
what we want and researching it and clarifying what we want but even if we were to keep the five
hundred thousand your suggesting we take it from the general fund and switch in something else
that would have no problems qualifying for bond monies.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Rezentes on that note I just want to identify five hundred
thousand dollars worth of projects if we're going to pursue this discussion and that would be moving
the road improvements of a hundred thousand as well as the 2 clarifiers of four hundred thousand.
We could use those to the bond and that would certainly qualify for the bond just for the purposes of
this discussion. Mr. Bynum you had a question?
Mr. Bynum: I appreciate that response Wally about appropriately placing
it and I assume when the amount was reduced that there was no intention to use any of these funds
for actual construction. Is that right?
Mr. Rezentes: For the five hundred thousand?
Mr. Bynum: Yes.
Mr. Rezentes: I believe the five hundred included a lot of the soft cost
involved.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision- Making p.I l l
Mr. Bynum: So I think this text change would provide some flexibility and
not limit you in any way and I want to go on the record as saying something right now that maybe I
should have said sooner. Part of what I would like some response to the community on, I think a lot
of the petitions that we received about don't put an adolescent treatment center in any neighborhood
were based on concerns that there was some treat or some fear factors which are understandable. I
don't believe there's any hard evidence that an adolescent treatment facility in or around the
neighborhood constitutes any real treat over and above the people who are using and doing drugs in
all of our neighborhoods. I don't think people who are trying to address their drug issues in
treatment facility is as big a treat to the community as untreated people who live in that community.
I understand the concern from people but if we can do some education and some understanding
about whether there really is a treat from that kind of facility because there's definitely an
advantage, these are our friends and neighbors that needs this treatment. These are people in our
community who live in our community now who we want to reintegrate to our community and so
placing them out in some distant location I don't think sends the right message. I think we need to
educate people. Is there a treat from a residential treatment facility? I don't know of any evidence
that says that.
Mr. Furfaro: I think Wally went to finance school.
Mr. Bynum: So that would allow you know that could be part of the
feasibility because my bigger concern is the world has changed since we put this in you know we're
exciting it somewhere else. I haven't seen clarity that we would have the operating funds if the
facility was there so that's the other part of this. I would be inclined to support this text change
because I don't think it limits you in anyway but it does open up some other possibilities if you
choose to go that way.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay on that note, I want to point out that as a suggestive by
finance and the difficulties for the scope that we're at on the difference between general fund CIP
and the guidelines and parameters we can have on bond money. There is going to be a subsequent
question attached to this narrative and that would be to move up to five hundred thousand dollars
from CIP improvements in the general fund, the 2 items that I have acknowledged while moving the
five hundred thousand back -up to general fund CIP so we're within the parameters of a standard
general accounting practices that meet the bond markets criteria.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Am I correct Wally?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes, it would be more appropriate that way.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay. So I do want to say so if we move to approve the
narrative as proposed than we also have to in good faith, look at changing /switching those projects.
On that, I'm going to call for a vote...
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair.
Mr. Furfaro: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: I wasn't clear about my suggestion for removing center or not
is that...
Ms. Nakamura: If they're going to move it now I guess we can.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.112
Mr. Rapozo: I think it was the Mayor's commitment to the community that
in fact it would be an adolescent treatment center. The location or whatever happens but I think it
was the Mayors commitment that a center was going to be built, that was the intention and that's
how the money was put in and unless the Mayor has changed the position I'm inclined to leave it as
a center until the feasibility study is done and at that time we can change. I want to respect the
Mayors commitments that he has made to this community and I think if you heard the testimony
from all the people that came up and signed those petitions, they were not opposed to a center they
just did not want it near a residential subdivision. I don't think they were opposed to the fact that
we're going to have an adolescent treatment center. I fully support the center wherever it may be
but I think Kauai is definitely in need of a center and so I would ask that we keep the center in and
that should be the direction of the feasibility study as was promised.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay Mr. Rapozo, Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: So I don't have a problem with that but I do hope that the
Mayor is open to looking at program alternatives just because we want to achieve our goal.
Ms. Nakamura: And that's what I have heard so I'm very comfortable with the
way it's written and giving the administration the flexibility to maneuver.
Ms. Yukimura: Very good thank you.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay on that note, I'm going to actually call for the vote on
the proposed narrative changes as submitted by Councilwoman Nakamura and we have a motion
and a second. All those in favor... oh we don't have a second? We should have had a second.
Mr. Rapozo: Seconded.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. All those in favor signify by saying "aye."
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Very good now I'm going to make some additional suggestive
changes and that's is to reclassify 2 projects totaling a hundred thousand and four hundred thousand
from the capital improvement general fund and moving them to the bond fund while moving the five
hundred thousand for the treatment center up to CIP budgeted general funds. So can I have ...?
Mr. Bynum: So moved.
Mr. Kualii: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Can I have a second, thank you. Okay we have clarity here
and we have a second thank you council member Kualii. All those in favor signify by saying "aye."
Council members: Aye.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much. This will bring us to a conclusion of
the section on CIP, now we have two small business matters yet to agree on and that is in fact for the
purpose of this discussion and we are now at eight hundred and sixty one...
Mr. Rapozo: Eight hundred and sixty one thousand, five hundred and
thirty six dollars.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.113
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you and what I'm suggesting at this point and let me
finish my suggestion so that everybody gets the drift of where we're at. For the purposes of this
budget piece, we've reduced this supplemental, we've reduced the plan reserve by that amount, and
we worked to get to a reserve policy in June. That would be my discussion at this point,
Councilwomen.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, I apologize I was asleep a little bit. I did have one
CIP thing and one operating budget. One is to move the affordable housing line item into a
contingency fund and its two hundred seventy three thousand in the bond. Because I understand it's
for the 'Ele`ele project and my committee and the council I don't think has really been able to vet that
project and I would like to get, well I actually intend to have a workshop on that issue so if we could
put that in a contingency fund I would like too.
Mr. Furfaro: So you want to put it in a contingency fund under the
classification that it currently is within the bond?
Ms. Yukimura: Right.
Mr. Furfaro: And I'm not absolutely sure that the general accounting
practices will allow us to do that. Mr. Rezentes could I ask you to come back up again and do I need
to repeat councilwoman's did you hear the query?
Mr. Rezentes: Again if that is the intention of council I would suggest that
you move that to the general fund because the projects that are in the bond fund should be projects
specific and...
Mr. Furfaro: Okay so we need to go on a two hundred seventy five
thousand dollar hunt again if we're going to do this but before I go to do the hunt, I want to make
sure you have the votes to make the hunt realistic.
Ms. Yukimura: Right. Yes, Mr. Chair I don't know if the prior council had
any full discussion about this project. It is a commitment of a huge amount and I don't know what
that amount is and they didn't know either in the discussion. It is a focus of a lot of our housing
monies so we need to know what other projects are not being prioritized for this. That's why I feel
like we should really have a clearing on this matter before we commit to it and that's why I'm
suggesting before there is any expenditure that we have a workshop, any questions?
Mr. Furfaro: Any questions, Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I understand your intention and it is a very I mean moving
forward this could be the biggest housing project ever so I'm supportive of what you're saying.
Mr. Rapozo: Any other questions? If not let us wait for Mr. Furfaro to
come back and there we go.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay thank you Mr. Rapozo, I'm going to do this. I'm going to
find out if we have the votes on the reclassification then I'm going to take a recess to see what
arithmetic works in switching that amount. So we're going to have to take a short break if what
councilwoman Yukimura poses passes.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair I would hate to drag this thing on so if we could I
have one more proposal for the council budget on the operating budget. If we could discuss that
while the staff does the other work.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.114
Mr. Furfaro: Okay so you want to go back to opening up the council
operating budget?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes it's a ...
Mr.. Furfaro: Lets take one thing at a time and I will allow that, first
consideration do I have a second to council vice chair Yukimura's?
Mr. Kualii: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Now will you restate your position again?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, so I guess it is to move the affordable housing monies,
two hundred seventy three thousand and thirty eight dollars to which is earmarked as I understand
it for the `Ele`ele Housing Development, to a contingency fund pending a workshop of the council on
the subject matter.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay where's the Clerk?
Mr. Rapozo: Well I just need some clarification. You said you're moving it
to contingency pending?
Ms. Yukimura: That it would be in a contingency until we had the workshop
and then we would decide to appropriate the money.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay but I'm seeing an increase of a hundred and fifty nine,
518. Your just talking about moving the money to a contingency fund right? Not adding to it right?
Ms. Yukimura: No.
Mr. Rapozo: So there should be no increase, correct?
Mr. Kualii: This is like a text change.
Mr. Furfaro: Yvette are you following this discussion because this is going
to be a one on one exchange if it passes, it's not new money.
Mr. Rapozo: Right but there's going to have to be an entry that will wash
that right?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes.
Mr. Furfaro: No, I think she's looking at other things right now so I had an
acknowledgment from her and she understands what we're doing and that will be a wash. Let's go to
this motion and a second. Mr. Clerk, are you aware of what we are now asking to vote on? Mr. Clerk
is you aware if not I will restate the...
Mr. Rapozo: I guess I'm just questioning if we have to vote we have to do
the ad and then we have to vote to...
Mr. Furfaro: What we're going to do and I will make it very clear, is I want
to find out if her motion fails than there's no sense to play with the little IBM pad over there okay,
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.115
end of story. Let's find out if her suggestion passes and if it passes, I'm going to take a recess and go
look at where we can switch from bond to general fund ok?
Mr. Nakamura: So chair you're voting on all 1, 2, 3, all the text change the
reclassification?
Mr. Furfaro: No I will state the motion okay, Mr. Clerk I know you were in
the back so it has been suggested by councilwoman Yukimura that the monies that have been
identified in and around the housing department in the bond fund CIP be re- categorized to a
contingency fund pending a workshop for housing and if that passes we need to move that to CIP
general fund while moving CIP general fund in to the bond. We want to see if it passes first before
we go in to that mode.
Ms. Yukimura- Mr. Chair, I think we can eliminate the pending a workshop
because it's not just pending a workshop so that we have a workshop and then we move it.
Mr. Furfaro: I'm just repeating what you said you wanted to do and
another councilmember asked if that's what we were doing so if that's not what we're doing will take
it out.
Ms. Yukimura: We're just putting it into a contingency fund but the
understanding is that we would have a workshop and decide what to do from there.
Mr. Nakamura: Council chair because my understanding is once you create or
once you move the money into a contingency fund it would take a bill to appropriate the monies back.
Ms. Yukimura: That's correct.
Mr. Furfaro: Why don't we do this, why don't we take the recess now so
everybody can get clear and then will come back.
There being no objections the committee recessed at 8:30 p.m.
The Committee reconvened at 9:09 p.m., and proceeded as follows.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay we're back from recess and getting some of our technical
pieces up to date. We have a motion being requested that would reclassify two hundred seventy
three thousand thirty -eight dollars from the affordable housing piece yet to be determined. What I
need to do is to first ask for the vote of a motion and a second to make that adjustment and
identifying this money as being contingency money in affordable housing, Mr. Clerk could we call for
that vote first?
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair Peter Nakamura County Clerk for the record.
This motion deletes two hundred seventy three thousand thirty -eight dollars in the bond fund CIP
from the affordable housing line and it basically does that. This is to delete bond fund CIP for
affordable housing.
Councilmember Bynum — Aye
Councilmember Chang — Aye
Councilmember Kualii — Aye
Councilmember Nakamura — Aye
Councilmember Rapozo — Aye
Councilmember Yukimura — Aye
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.116
Chair Furfaro — Aye
Mr. Nakamura: Seven ayes Mr. Chair.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you and now members I would want to say that to re-
direct the two hundred seventy three thousand from the bond fund to the general fund CIP requires
us to move down to the bond fund. Ahomanu Road repairs at a hundred nineteen thousand one fifty
two, Vidinha Stadium track and field improvements at one hundred thousand dollars and a
comprehensive road maintenance plan at sixty -three thousand eight, eight, six.
Ms. Yukimura: Move to approve.
Mr. Kualii: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you, may I have a roll call vote on that?
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair this motion moves 3 projects with the general
fund CIP that totals out to two hundred seventy three thousand thirty -eight dollars to the bond fund
CIP.
Councilmember Bynum — Aye
Councilmember Chang — Aye
Councilmember Kualii — Aye
Councilmember Nakamura — Aye
Councilmember Rapozo — Aye
Councilmember Yukimura — Aye
Chair Furfaro — Aye
Mr. Nakamura: Seven ayes Mr. Chair.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, may I just ask that the affordable housing move to
general fund CIP line item be included the word "Contingency fund "? So it would reflect the vote
and the motion.
Mr. Furfaro: Did you folks understand we wanted the narrative as I stated
in the statement to reference housing contingency, housing contingency fund. Okay let me clarify
that. Did the member want to put the two seventy -three o thirty -eight in the contingency line that
in the budget under CIP general fund, and also have the narrative contingency in there.
RICKY WATANABE: For affordable housing?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, that would be fine.
Mr. Watanabe: So that's your intent?
Ms. Yukimura: The intent is that it not be available until we move it out.
Mr. Watanabe: Yeah you would have to move it out through a supplemental
appropriation bill.
Ms. Yukimura: Through an appropriation bill but that it would be earmarked
for...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.117
Mr. Watanabe: Yes we would put language in project contingency.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you very much.
Mr. Furfaro: Because that line does exist and we already have money in
there so we want to identify it specifically. Now I'm concluding that we have done all what we
intended to do in CIP. I need to close the CIP discussion. Councilwomen Yukimura wants to visit a
for decision making in the operating budget some tablet computers and Councilmember Nakamura
wants to put a proviso in for text so let's do those two items. Yes Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: We never discussed the Humane Society.
Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Bynum wants to discuss the Humane Society. Okay let's
go back to the operating budget and we may not have discussed it because no one made a motion to
discuss it. Let's make sure we understand, we didn't forget something we just didn't have the motion
for someone to speak up on. Let's take first things first, Councilwomen Yukimura I will recognize
you for the circulated piece that I have, do other members have this?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes everyone has it I hope.
Mr. Furfaro: Okay.
Ms. Yukimura: In our Council Services line item we have in the past had
monies for lab tops for the operation of operational support for Council members. I would like to
make it sort of state of the art I.T. support now that it be in the form of tablet computers instead.
This would be a way to make up for not having individual assistants, it would be a way to expand
I.T. support for Council members work and I think well I know we would all have some learning
curves but it would help move our work better, so there's a line item with an itemized cost
accounting of $12.480.00.
Mr. Furfaro: Could I have a second on that?
Mr. Bynum: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much, any further discussion before I call for
the vote on this item? If not let's call for the vote, Mr. Clerk?
Ms. Yukimura: Oh and this would be under Council equipment line item.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, Peter Nakamura County Clerk for the record.
This goes back into the Council Services operating budget and to be specific this is page 13 of the
council services operating budget on the equipment line that we would change /amend the level text.
There is currently four thousand five hundred dollars in that equipment line for computers and
accessories, what we would do is we would add the circulated sheet of $12.480.00 to that $4500.00,
because I believe that was for some pre- existing replacement of some old computers so that would
increase the level text for the line for equipment from $4500.00 dollars to $16.980.00 dollars.
Mr. Furfaro:
now.
Mr. Nakamura:
computers line.
Thank you Mr. Clerk. I would like to call a roll on this item
Council Chair on adding $12.480.00 dollars to the equipment
Councilmember Bynum — Aye
Councilmember Chang — Aye
Councilmember Kualii — Aye
Councilmember Nakamura — Aye
Councilmember Rapozo — Aye
Councilmember Yukimura — Aye
Chair Furfaro —Aye
Mr. Nakamura:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.118
Seven ayes.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much, now on the next item I would like to
recognize Councilmember Nakamura for a proviso for consideration.
Ms. Nakamura: Under the bond fund there are two development plans that
are funded, the Lihu`e Development Plan and the Koloa /Poi pu Development Plan. I just wanted to
add some language in here that these plans be guided by the general plan technical study social
economic forecast growth policy that's approved by the Kauai County Council. So one of the general
plan technical studies is this growth policy and that should guide population projections and job
projections for each of the regions on the Island. I think that the plans need to have this guidance.
Mr. Furfaro: Is there a second before we have a discussion?
Mr. Kualii: Second.
Mr. Furfaro: Thank you, Vice Chair Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair I think this is a good idea and I'm understanding that
it signals the Planning Department that we want them to sequence their programmatic activities so
that we're able to use the results of these technical studies of the development of the Lihu`e and
Koloa Development Plan. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Ms. Yukimura: That is your intention right? Okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Other members, discussion? Does the County
Attorney have a question for us? Mr. Guyot the floor recognizes the County Attorney.
Mr. Guyot: It appears that there's contingency for an
appropriated item that then requires another approval. I think that's just problematic, we haven't
had time to look at this and analyze this but it strikes me as being problematic. That money is
appropriated but we're putting it as a contingency but then it requires a secondary approval.
Ms. Yukimura: I think we're on another item, right?
Ms. Nakamura: Are you talking about the DPs?
Chair Furfaro: As...
Mr. Guyot: The Lihu`e Development plan and the K61oa
Development Plan.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.119
Ms. Nakamura: We're not saying, I'm not saying that it cannot
proceed but that because I think there's a lot of startup work that needs to be done. You can do some
things but the general guidance for the plan needs to, they need direction, the consultants need and
the Planning Department need that direction. Right now there is no direction and no growth
direction and that's all it is, it's one component of the plan. It's not going to... so some parts of the
Lihu`e Development plan can go forward.
Mr. Guyot: I think it's re... so problematic and that it's in a form
of a bond, in the bond fund.
Ms. Nakamura: Oh.
Mr. Guyot: And I think that's where we tend to have a problem is
that we're now getting money loaned on this project and now it has a couple extra strings attached
which I think that's where its problematic.
Ms. Nakamura:
Oh.
Chair Furfaro:
Okay, thank you.
Mr. Nakamura:
Council Chair?
Chair Furfaro:
County Clerk.
Mr. Nakamura: Peter Nakamura, County Clerk for the record.
Council Chair, I think it's a... and correct me if I'm wrong, I think both the General Plan study or the
technical studies, I believe is called... and the Development plans are all in the Bond Fund. So they
would have similar expenditures schedules so what you have is basically a timing issue where the
General Plan technical studies must occur prior to... I mean... must occur prior to the development
plans kicking off. I think if all the plans take place within the framework of the Bond, the 2010
bond, I think it should be okay but it's just a matter of working out that timing mechanism.
Ms. Yukimura: Council Chair?
Chair Furfaro: So you're pointing out that we have a problem with
this (inaudible) approval?
Mr. Nakamura: No, no... I'm saying that all the projects in the Bond
Fund have a time limit to be expended, so what would have to happen is they would just have to
make sure that that money takes place, that expenditure takes place within that timeframe of all...
Chair Furfaro: Understood now.
Mr. Nakamura: ...of all three (3) Bond Fund.
Chair Furfaro: Understood.
Mr. Nakamura: Bond Fund projects.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for the clarification. Councilwoman
Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: ...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.120
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Clerk.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah Mr. Clerk or County Attorney.
Chair Furfaro: We have a question for you.
Ms. Yukimura: What is the timeframe for the bond?
Mr. Nakamura: Vice Chair, I would probably have to go back and look
at it. I believe it's in the 2010 series, I can't tell you without any certainty right now without going
back to the bond.
Ms. Yukimura: Well maybe the Finance Director can.
Ms. Nakamura: If that's the case, I can pull back this. But as long as I
think the Administration has the understanding that guidance is needed for these development
plans, I okay pulling it out.
Ms. Yukimura: I still like to know what the bond period is if...
Ms. Nakamura: Staff suggestion that they can capture it in the
Budget message and I'm fine with that.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: And I'm reading the piece here that brought to
everybody's attention that really deals with... you know once we have set aside an appropriation for
the Mayor there's an opportunity to encumber but as I was mentioning that's a second tear of
approval, so okay we're going to put it in the Budget message Wally.
Ms. Yukimura: Ah... yes...
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman.
Ms. Yukimura: What is the year... I mean the year spend?
Mr. Rezentes: There's no specific year but when we issues bonds,
there is a reasonable expectation component to the expenditure and that reasonable expectation
component is three (3) years from the time of issuance but it's not a hard line.
Ms. Yukimura: Right.
Mr. Rezentes: But when we propose projects, the reasonable
expectation on the expenditures is three (3) years.
Ms. Yukimura: And so this bond was issued in 2010?
Mr. Rezentes: 2010.
Ms. Yukimura: So 2012 -2013, we can finish it at that time.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.121
Chair Furfaro: Wally thank you very much. I think you heard from
the introducer that we're going to have something in the general narrative of the budget from the
Council, the Council message. Okay so we'll leave that for the Council message and then Mr.
Bynum, Mr. Bynum wanted to visit or revisit the Humane Society proposal. Go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: I think we were all here for the testimony from the
Humane Society, they've followed up and given us a document in the format that our department's
were doing with their mission, goals and objectives but they're reiterating their request for fifty
thousand dollars to increase the partially reduce contract deficit which still shows a hundred and
sixty -two thousand lost and five thousand increase to partially increase the contract deficit and spay
and neuter services and I'd like to put that proposal before us, that we increase the funding for the
Humane Society by fifty -five thousand according. They made initially other request which in this
document they've not making because I think... deficits was one thing but new vehicles was
something else so I'd like to put that forward.
Ms. Yukimura: Second.
Chair Furfaro: Any further discussion. Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: It was the same amount though right?
Mr. Bynum: I'm sorry?
Mr. Rapozo: Wasn't their original for the truck and so forth was
still would come out to fifty -five thousand right?
Mr. Bynum: No. From my memory it was totally separate. They
were saying on our main contract with the County, we are subsidizing that with our own fundraising
and we're running a deficit and we have increase cost and so we'd like you to pick up a portion of
that deficit which was fifty thousand. And I'm going by memory here by some extent and this
document that we received but I don't see the request for vehicles in here, do you...
Mr. Rapozo: Yeah but I remember the first request and that's
fine... I'm not going to be supporting the additional funding. I had requested a breakdown, I wanted
to see the total budget of the Humane Society at not just the County budget but I wanted to see the
entire budget of the whole organization and what part of the expenditures that the County funds.
I'm very well aware of the mandate from the state, the HRS that says we must contract with the
Humane Society but I think again as all other agencies and departments and everyone is suffering
the pinch, I think. We just got to be cautious and I believe that the funding amounts that we provide
are sufficient for the duties that we are required to contract with them. Some of the services they
provide under the County contract are not mandated by the State law and I think it's time that we
got to tighten the belt so I'm not going to be supporting the increase.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Any further discussion? Councilmember
Kuali`i.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I'm sorry I'm just... I don't understand what
we're doing here... is it an increase to... and I don't see it in front of me so?
Ms. Yukimura: It's in the Mayor's...
Chair Furfaro: Did you not get a copy?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.122
Mr. Rapozo: It's not in the Mayor's budget because he didn't...
Mr. Kuali`i: So what is the original amount and then what is the
change we're proposing.
Chair Furfaro: Okay
Mr. Kuali`i: We're adding to the Mayor's budget which already
added or what is the...
Chair Furfaro: No. The Mayor did not add this subject matter.
There is a narrative that they followed up on us for fifty thousand and five thousand for a total of
fifty -five thousand. Did you not get a package Councilmember?
Mr. Kuali`i: There's something that was just handed to me.
Chair Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Kuali`i: But it's a whole lot of narrative, it doesn't look like
any kind of budget proposal or anything.
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead.
Mr. Bynum: The Humane Society provides services for us that. we
have to provide and they have been every year and showed us in their budget that the services they
provide the county are actually subsidize their own fundraising at a considerable amount because
their effective fundraisers and they have good fundraising... if we had to do those services in house,
you know and have animal patrol officers, I can't imagine what that would be like. They're willing to
subsidize basic level of county services but they're saying and they presented this, they need fifty
thousand to make their operations viable. They were very friendly this year, the previous year they
said if you don't want us to pick up animals on the roadway, if you can't have this... that was last
year if you recall... you know we can eliminate that service but if we're going to continue the level
the of service and you don't want your police officers to pick up dead animals on the street, we need
this level of funding. And so I think it's a reasonable request, I'm impressed that the owners of to
the Humane Society are willing to have some of their funds go to subsidize County services and they
provide statistics about their increases, I didn't know that we wanted to go into that kind of
narrative but twelve percent increase and field services regarding (inaudible) of unlicensed dogs,
twenty -three percent increase of intake of stray dogs... eighty percent increase of citations by field
officer something I've personally very much appropriate because I helped author the law that
strengthen the, you know the leash violations and they're working cooperatively with our park
rangers and police department, twenty percent increase in lost cats and dogs return to owners and
hundred fourteen percent increase in cases and so I just felt that the services they provide us is
outstanding. They come here and give us their budgets and ask us to do it and they're asking for
fifty thousand dollars increase to partially reduce their contract deficit, which still shows a hundred
and sixty -two thousand dollar lost. Five thousand to increase, for the spay and neuter services that
they provide.
Chair Furfaro: On that note, I'm getting ready to call for the vote.
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair just still... What is the first number? What are
we adding fifty thousand dollars to?
Chair Furfaro: I think it's sixty...
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.123
Mr. Rapozo: Five hundred...
Chair Furfaro: No, no... I was going by categories...
Mr. Kuali`i: I was hoping that by now it would have been up there
but... all I see is the shelters requesting a fifty thousand dollar, eight point four increase.
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Okay. Did you hear that the...
Oh it's under Finance.
Chair Furfaro: They're operating subsidy is six, fifty -five
Councilmember.
Mr. Kuali`i: So we're trying to increase from six, fifty -five to seven,
o, five?
Chair Furfaro:
Mr. Bynum:
Seven, ten.
Seven, ten.
Mr. Kuali`i: Well Chair, I mean looking all the way back to the
discussion we had with Food Bank, I just cannot support fifty thousand dollars more to the Humane
Society at this time. I hope with six hundred and fifty -five thousand dollars, they can accomplish
what they need to accomplish.
Chair Furfaro: Okay I'm going to call for the vote on this item.
Unless there's other discussion, Mr. Chang?
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Chair?
Mr. Chang: First of all, question for Mr. Kuali`i. So you're making
mention about the fifty thousand dollars that the Food Bank was requesting to buy food, is that what
you're making reference?
Mr. Kuali`i: No, I'm just talking about in general... we had a long
discussion and you know where we started and you know we ended up. It was modest amount of
money, it was nowhere near six hundred thousand dollars and I know this is apples and oranges but
I'm just saying... you know that's my position, no.
Mr. Chang: Well I'm actually a little semi twisted because you
spoke in regards to the Food Bank with a lot of passion for the hungry people and I think a lot of this
passion goes with the animals. However I'm not going to go into the goals and objections and I'm not
going to go into the challenges and the improvements because that's not what the items are about
because I do have my concerns regarding the Humane Society. I think there's a lot of unanswered
questions, there's a lot of public confusion out there and we have been without a Executive Director,
although we've had an acting director for the past eight months or so, however... I do feel that it is
an important part of the goal of the Humane Society in conjunction with the County. For that
reason, like I mentioned I do have my concerns but I am going to support the funding of fifty
thousand dollars.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Yukimura.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.124
Ms. Yukimura: Yes Mr. Chair the mission of the County or the
kuleana of the County by statute, by State law I think is animal control. So it's the regulation, it's
the control of, I mean ever expanding population, feral cats and stray dogs... dead animals, that kind
of thing, it's actually a public health function and if the Humane Society were to and I guess I said
before, I recall when the county was in charge and it was a huge responsibility that we were not able
to do well and I think this non - profit group has been doing an extraordinary job and if -they were to
stop, we would know immediately the value of their work. It's kind of like when it's taken cared of
well, you don't even think about it but if it stopped, it would be really great. At least the five
thousand would be a no brainer for anybody, the part that is for spay and neutering which is a
prevention, it's money, we know that money spent on prevention is... what is it... is worth a lot more
than treatment and the problems of dealing with uncontrolled populations and everything... so... I
just wanted to try to convey the value of these services and the fact that a non - profit is doing it
probably far more efficiently then the County could.
Chair Furfaro: Okay, is there any more discussion? Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: There's two components to this, there's the HRS
which says we got a contract with the Humane Society, that's really state wide and Kauai has a
separate provision and I'm still trying to figure out the legality where we must contract with the
Kauai Humane Society. It doesn't give us an option of going to another organization and for
whatever reason that's how the state law reads. But the key component in all of this is the contract
or the agreement between the county and the Kauai Humane Society. I ran to my office it was in
there, it's not right now and I believe Ms. Tresler as we're working on some Legislation but if you
look at the terms of the agreement and the contract that we have with the Humane Society, the
money that we provide is sufficient. They do a lot more with the money but what I'm saying is the
contract we have with the Humane Society is limited, it doesn't account for all of the bells and
whistles that they provide, that's my point. One of the disturbing things in the report that just came
out, the request or the proposal was the fact that their employees hadn't had a raise in three years
and a lot of people hadn't had raises in three years. A lot of people have had furloughs, a lot of
people have lost their job and reduced hours. It's the way of the economy and I will touch on the...
what Mr. Kuali`i talked about the Food Bank. It's not apples and oranges... I mean we have one pot
of money that we have to try to make our ends meet and tighten up the belt and in my opinion and
I'm an animal lover but I also believe that we got to be careful with our money and to comply with
the contract with the Humane Society in my opinion the money's that we have allocated, the six
hundred and fifty -five thousand is sufficient. I think we need to focus on what is really required of
them, of the contract and focus on that because it is a really it is not... if times were much better, I
would definitely support that right now. We just got to be tight with the money.
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Yukimura and the Councilmember
Kuali`i.
Ms. Yukimura: Just a question for Councilmember Rapozo, so you
don't feel that the spay /neuter function of the Humane Society should be supported?
Mr. Rapozo: Spay /neuter is different, that's a sixty thousand dollar
contract, I'm not talking about the sixty thousand. I'm talking about the fifty thousand dollars in
addition to the six, fifty -five.
Ms. Yukimura: ... okay but I think the motion includes the five too?
Chair Furfaro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.125
Mr. Kuali`i: Chair, I hope I don't have to do this much on this
Council but I do take offense to Councilmember Chang's statements that seem to imply that I don't
have no passion for animals. I am a animal lover as anyone else. I just feel like this narrative was
just handed to me and it's not even presented as a budget proposal with changes, with explanations
of where that six hundred fifty -five thousand dollars is spent. I like hearing Councilmember
Yukimura say stray dogs, feral cats, dead animals but how it is all spent and where is the
justification that more money is needed to address the problems that we're concerned about, that is
our responsibility. That's just it, I don't have the answers right now, maybe if I had them that would
be different.
Chair Furfaro: Going forward Councilmember and just for your
general information, we do require of them to give us quarterly updates but that's just an FYI for
now. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I don't have all of this in front of me but I understand
that the Humane Society has a budget for the bells and whistles and they have the budget for the
services they provide the county. That we all want them to provide, they're creative twenty -
four /seven operation that services the county well and their donors subsidize the portion of the work
that they do for us. They've laid this all out for us, they've done it in the future, they're between
executive directors. If Dr. Becky was still on board, she'd probably be saying right now, look you
cannot accept the subsidy that we get from our donors for county services and you cannot give us this
budget request but we're going to cut services, we're not going to continue to pick up dead animals on
the roadway and I don't think we want to do that. I think this is a reasonable and appropriate thing
and we can call for the question.
Chair Furfaro: Let me make a statement here on this particular
thing... I think we have learned a lot of things and this is my first full year of leading you folks
through the budget. We had suggestions today about pulling grant money, about having earlier
discussions in the year about people that actually turn out to be fenders for us and so forth but you
know we don't have to make this decision on the Humane Society tonight... we can have them come
back, we can look at a money bill, we can get some of the items clarified here. We are budgeting for
them six hundred and twenty -three thousand dollars for the twelve -month period starting July 1.
We can have this as an agenda item and have it come back to us and look at it as an additional
money bill so that we can get some of the specifics answered by them. But I think a lot of good
discussions came up over the last two days about one of them pulling some money for grants in the
future and so forth... quite frankly I think it's time to revisit and maybe I'll even create a Sub -
Committee on revisiting our procedures once we hear from the Audit Department who's going to
review our budgeting process. So there is the other alternative out there about having Humane
Society come back and look at a money bill going forward. I do not like the idea that the perception
is that is if they don't get the money, they're not going to perform certain duties because we are
mandated by legislation to contract to them that works both ways in a contract. It's by mutual
agreement, they do so much work for us, we pay them for that work. Before we go too far down here
and take the time, I certainly have no problem asking them to come back and visit with us on a
money bill.
Ms. Yukimura: Council Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: If we're going to vote on it, can we separate the two?
The fifty thousand and the five thousand?
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.126
Chair Furfaro: I think we can if you want to, I still have my option
out there that we just have this come up at a later time in a presentation, we agenda the item and
have the... because I would like to have some clarity about what they provide for us and have some
other options that basically says here's the basic service okay so we got the Chevrolet, this is what
you get for the Pontiac, a little bit more for the Buick and my gosh if you want to Cadillac, this is
what it cost you.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, I fine with respect to that on the fifty
thousand. I mean we are going to be considering the trap, neuter and return and that has raised the
issue of how critical it is to neuter the animals that are brought in.
Chair Furfaro: I understand your point.
Ms. Yukimura: And so five thousand isn't that much but I would like
them to have it in the beginning of the budget and I think it's...
Chair Furfaro: And I would like to hear from them on spay and
neuter and then today they call me and ask to defer that item.
Ms. Yukimura: Because it's more than just neutering.
Chair Furfaro: I understand.
Ms. Yukimura: Yeah.
Chair Furfaro: I understand I mean I understand their process but
what I'm saying is let's not get ourselves all kind of twisted here on assumptions on their answers
without having them here. If you'd like to take a vote on the five thousand, I can support that now.
If you want to make a motion... but I think it would be better for us to have them come back and
evaluate a money bill.
Ms. Yukimura: So Mr. Chair there is a motion pending on the floor
and unless it's withdrawn, we vote on it one way or another and if it's voted down, then I would like
to introduce one for the five thousand and then we would complete our... for now.
Chair Furfaro: Or we can have the motion restated and look at the
five thousand and then if you trust the guidance that I'm giving you here, I will put an agenda item
in the Committee of the Whole talking about this item going forward. What is the pleasure of the
Council?
Ms. Yukimura: It's the mover of the motion.
Mr. Bynum: Would you like me to withdraw the motion?
Chair Furfaro: And put in for the five thousand, I'm fine with that.
Mr. Bynum: I thought this was going to walk right through
actually.
Chair Furfaro: Well... obviously everything...
Mr. Bynum: I'll withdraw the motion.
Chair Furfaro:
thousand for the spay and neutering?
Ms. Yukimura:
Chair Furfaro:
Ms. Yukimura:
Mr. Bynum:
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.127
Would you want to introduce a new motion for the five
I do.
Okay Councilwoman.
So move.
Second.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Okay we're going to vote on an item that
deals with the single amount of five thousand dollars on the expanding on the spay and neutering
and in future Council agendas I would put this balance of it on an agenda item. Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: I just want to and it's... some may think I'm a
nitpicker but I think what Mr. Kuali`i mentioned, that fact that it gets dropped here and there's no
real discussion and the fact that we don't have any information, makes it difficult for me to support.
I think your suggestion was a reasonable one, bring the Humane Society forward and we can get the
questions answered. Again it's five thousand but its five thousand dollars that's not tied to any kind
of statistics and that is my concern. We set a precedence when we do this and I just want to make
sure that the public understands that we are the oversight Committee and we all want to help
everybody but really if that narrative that came in wasn't sufficient in my opinion and I think to get
it on the agenda and to get a money bill, would be just as sufficient and it would be okay and it
would make the time... and again I know some will criticize me for being a animal hater and a
nitpicker but you know we have a duty and I would rather we wait for the presentation by the
Humane Society at a Council meeting.
Chair Furfaro: I understand your point and I think everybody
understands what I have to offer. We have five thousand dollars for spay and neutering.
Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: I just want to point out that they come before us in
budget hearings to answer questions and they did have an original submittal besides this one now
and in the submittal it says that they will have a loss of a hundred twenty -one thousand in their
spay /neuter services and that they've had an eight percent increase in feral cats requiring
spay /neuter services over the same period for fiscal year 2010.
Chair Furfaro: Okay thank you. Mr. Bynum.
Mr. Bynum: I've already withdrawn my motion, I just want to
point out like Councilmember Yukimura, we've been funding them for some period of time, they
came here and made themselves available, I don't have the paper in front of me but they brought a
presentation. We asked them to do it in a format like our departments did and they did. Earlier in
the day when I suggested that if we wanted to put fifty thousand dollars in for food purchase in for
the Food Bank, which is a proposal we never heard anything about, people were mad because I said
let's do it with a money bill and now... so I already made my motion but this is something what they
have been doing and they have been here...
Chair Furfaro: Okay... I'm going to call for the vote here. Mr.
Rapozo, I'm just going to call for the vote.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.128
Chair Furfaro: Okay, there is a motion and a second to do five
thousand dollars for spay and neutering for the Humane Society. I have expressed to you that in the
near future I will put this item on an agenda item when we have the Humane Society here to discuss
particulars with us. Mr. Clerk, I don't think you need to restate the comments I just made but let's
call for the vote on the five thousand.
APPROVAL:
AGAINST APPROVAL:
EXCUSED & NOT VOTING
Mr. Nakamura:
Bynum, Chang, Kuali`i,
Yukimura, Furfaro
Nakamura, Rapozo
None
Five (5) ayes, two (2) no's.
TOTAL — 5,
TOTAL — 2,
TOTAL — 0.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you members, I'm going to hope that you can
let me get something on the agenda in the Committee of the Whole for the Humane Society. Let's
make the reflection of the five thousand additional at this point. There are no more items to discuss
within the operating budget of the county at this point and so I'm going to close this reopening of the
operating budget, we have completed the CIP. I do want to also say that is at this point we are at a
number of seven hundred and forty thousand, five, thirty -six and we have an understanding, Mr.
Rezentes, I'm going to ask you to come up if you could for this next discussion item.
Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, Peter Nakamura, County Clerk for the
record, my apologies that number, I haven't had the time to add in the increase of the Council
Services budget yet so that will increase by...
Chair Furfaro: The twelve thousand, four, eighty?
Mr. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Very good.
Mr. Nakamura: So I'll add that in now.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rezentes could you come up for a moment?
There being no objections, the rules were suspended.
Chair Furfaro: This is more for the record than anything else, I just
want to reconfirm our understanding. It is my thought that we should at this particular time reduce
the amount propose in the reserve at this time by seven hundred, fifty -two thousand, nine hundred
and seventy dollars if I add that twelve thousand, four, eighty correctly and we do have a
commitment from the Administration that from the very middle of June, we will be discussing an
appropriate ordinance dealing with a policy on the reserve.
Mr. Rezentes: Yes we did make that commitment by June. We
actually did include the reserve policy in the budget ordinance that was presented to you, so that is a
part of an added budget proviso but if it's the pleasure of the Council to discuss the... proposed
reserve policy later on, that is fine as well.
Chair Furfaro: We are looking for your office to be in front of us in
June with a ordinance or Resolution, one of the two (2) to discuss the policy that the Council can
adopt on the reserve policy.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.129
Mr. Rezentes: The Council will be adopting that policy if they
approved the budget with the provisos that we included. So if the Council, I guess would want to
amend the proviso that's currently in the Mayor's proposal, that's fine as well.
Chair Furfaro: I clearly understand that Wally but I think we have
the next step here, I would prefer going forward to have an ordinance. I've heard from the
Administration you'd prefer to have an Resolution, when we adopt this narrative, we are adopting
the proviso that you put in for reserve policy at this time. You're fine with that?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Members do you have any questions for Mr. Rezentes?
Mr. Rapozo: I just have a question and it's more of a question as
far as the reserve, are you folks okay with us using the reserve to balance the budget?
Mr. Rezentes: Excuse me, I'm sorry... that's a Council policy call. In
our recommended reserve policy that we included, we stated that the reserve policy be within the
range of twenty to twenty -five percent of general fund expenditures plus encumbrances and
transfers from General Fund to deficit funds. We set our budget based on twenty -two and a half
percent reserve and the number is in the budget ordinance is twenty -six million and change...
Mr. Rapozo: Does this keep us within that?
Mr. Rezentes: It would... this seven hundred, fifty -three would...
you'd still be within the range of twenty to twenty -five percent, yes.
Mr. Rapozo: Okay. So you're basically leaving that up to us, you're
not going to make a comment one way or the other if... okay, thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you Wally. Any questions for Wally? Wally I
also want to reconfirm a couple pieces here, as we started to chat a little bit earlier, I do believe we
have Councilmember Bynum who does intend very soon to introduce some Legislation that deals
with some new taxing categories and at the same time I guess it's to the victor that gets to the
finishing line first but I also understand that the Administration will be proposing some tax bills to
be evaluated by the Council within the next thirty to forty -five days?
Mr. Rezentes: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Mr. Bynum did you have a question for Mr.
Rezentes? Okay. So you are aware of Mr. Bynum's intentions as well?
Mr. Rezentes: Yes we are.
There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows:
Chair Furfaro: Okay. On that note I do want to say to everybody that
we have a couple things that need to happen here. We have in the Committee of the Whole, I believe
on May 18, am I correct Jade? May 18 we will have a polish version of this in the Committee of the
Whole, we then will also will trigger a public hearing on... what date was that Jade? On May 25th on
the Mayor's modifications and that will then go to a vote for the Council on the same day, on a
Special Council meeting on the 25. Mr. Bynum.
May 10, 2011
Deliberation and Preliminary Decision - Making p.130
Mr. Bynum: I just want to make a comment.
Chair Furfaro: Sure.
Mr. Bynum: When we started this budget process yesterday
morning I said I wanted to address revenues... rather than do that now, I just want to say that I
have a bill coming on to increase the homeowners exemption and on May 25, we are going to set the
tax rates and I'll have a proposal then to have a small bump up in tax rates so that those two (2)
provisions are basically (inaudible), that the homeowners exemptions which will put tax dollars back
into the pockets of basically thirteen thousand homeowners on Kauai will be offset by revenues from
making changes in rates.
Chair Furfaro: Okay so you are reconfirming what I've anticipated
sharing with the Administration that you have these proposals coming up on the radar screen.
Mr. Bynum: Yes sir.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. On that note, do we have any further
business for today?
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair?
Chair Furfaro: Before we get to adjourn, Councilwoman Yukimura.
Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, I just want to thank you for your
leadership, I want to thank all of you around the table for your insightful and passionate advocacies
and ideas. I want to thank the Mayor and Wally and his Administration for participating so closely
and really making this a collaborative effort and most of all I want to thank our staff for their efforts,
patience, knowledge and support.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much for sharing that, it is much
appreciated, staff I know it's 10:00 in the evening now and I think we have some mutual agreements
where we're at, so on that note I want to thank the Administration, I want to thank the Mayor for
being with us this evening and I am now going to adjourn decision making.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 10:01 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Wilma Akiona, Council Services Assistant
Darrellvne Simao. ouncil PSe Assistant