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HomeMy WebLinkAbout 03/30/2011 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND RENEWABLE ENERGY STRATEGIES COMMITTEE Committee MeetingMINUTES ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & RENEWABLE ENERGY STRATEGIES COMMITTEE March 30, 2011 A meeting of the Economic Development & Renewable Energy Strategies Committee of the Council of the County of Kauai, State of Hawaii, was called to order by Councilmember Dickie Chang, Chair, at 3371-A Wilcox Road, Lihu`e, Kauai, on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 12:15p.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll: Honorable. Dickie Chang Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Derek S. K. Kawakami Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Honorable Mel Rapozo, Ex-Officio Member Honorable Jay Furfaro, Ex-Officio Member The Committee proceeded on its agenda items as shown in the following Committee Report which is incorporated herein by reference, and as follows: EDR-2011-03 on EDR 2011-02 Communication (3/10/2011) from Councilmember Bynum, requesting the Administration's presence at the March 16, 2011 Committee meeting to discuss the rules, issues and operations of the Sunshine Markets. [This item was received for the record.] There being no objections, the committee recessed at 12:33 p.m. The Committee reconvened at 2:57 a.m., and proceeded as follows: Bill No. 2399 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 23, OF THE KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE REGULATION OF BUSINESS AND TRADES [This item was deferred.] DICKIE CHANG: Thank you very much Madam Clerk. I am planning to defer this Bill No. 2399 but in the spirit of conversation would anybody like to discuss this matter before I ask for a deferral? DEREK KAWAKAMI: Mr. Chang: Yes. Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami moved to approve Bill No. 2399, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Kawakami moved to amend Bill No. 2399 as shown in the Floor Amendment attached hereto, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Mr. Kawakami: Can I have some discussion? Mr. Chang: Please, go ahead. Mr. Kawakami: So my friends, here is what we've done so far with this bill. We took some of the comments from the County Attorney and we took the questions and the answers that came back from Councilmember Nakamura, and we tried to incorporate as much as possible. We sat down with George Costa and Beth Tokioka to hammer out some of the concerns. So what you have in front of you is an amendment and I understand we're going to need more time because Councilmember Yukimura and I will be working on some follow up with some of the farmers that are involved with this. What you have in front of you is an amendment and it does three things. One it deleted the word "the highest quality" because it became a concern from the County Attorneys as to what constitutes the highest quality, so the easiest thing to do was delete it, so no big problem. Number two is it adds in language, and the specific language is under Section E., "or a designated program as deemed acceptable to the Director of the Office of Economic Development." What this does is allows the director the flexibility to institute that program or whatever program may come about in the future. The third thing that this amendment does is that it adds the language "vendors exclusively selling" and this comes under Section E and it pertains to the one-eighth rather. And so one of the concerns that came out and this may change because it's a work in progress is that there was a question as to is it fair if you're a current vendor at the farmers market or sunshine market to be not allowed to offer value added products if that one-eighth ratio were filled up. What this does is it defines that the one-eighth ratio pertains to those that are exclusively coming into the market to only sell value added products. This may be something that is further worked on because I see some valid concerns coming out. The other thing that we came out, out of our work and is that George Costa has agreed to insert language into his rules, and this addresses some of the concerns about the cancellation of insurance. So he's going to have a requirement in his rules that the insurance company notifies the County of Kauai of any cancellations or changes to the vendors' insurance policies. Another thing that he has agreed to do is indemnification clause protecting the County of Kauai. So I just wanted to circulate this thing. I'm not asking for any approval on this amendment as of yet but I wanted a discussion and intimately I'm okay with a deferral because I want to do more work and I understand that there's going to be further changes in the definition section coming from Councilmember Bynum. With that being said that concludes kind of the report on this bill as to where we are at on this bill today. Mr. Chang: Thank you Councilmember Kawakami. Any further discussion? Please Councilmember Yukimura. Ms. Yukimura: Yes thank you and I really appreciate the work that Councilmember Kawakami and the staff has done on the amendments that are before us. I have been speaking with Councilmember Kawakami and it's regarding my thought that perhaps we need to narrow down who can sell value added products and it came out of Councilmember Kawakami's very clear direction at our last committee meeting where he reminded us that the original motive behind this bill was to increase the profitability for farmers. He talked about how using off grades to create a value added product would be an example of that and when I put that together with the response from .our Office of Economic Development, I'm reading a memo from March 16, where it says we would prefer to award value added permits to current holders of the permits that we know to operate farms and then to farms that have integrated into value added products like Hanalei Taro and Juice Company and Moloa'a Bay Coffee. It seems like things were saying I mean there are many issues if we just allow any value added product to be sold at the sunshine market. Does it mean that a present vendor will be bombarded with requests from all these vendors of value added products even though they're not related to a farm? Can they become a middle man for value added products? And there is the danger that the value added products will begin to become more of the .sale than the produce from the farm because they are value added actually. So is that what or could that change the nature of our sunshine markets? That's one question we have to ask and the other is, that if we go back to the original intention that perhaps we first allowed first and foremost products that are from the farms that are selling produce.. So how do we do it? How do we word it? It will take some work. There was also an issue of honey in terms of that coming from a very specialized produce so to speak and you may have beehive people who are not selling any other produce, but you may want to have that product because it's hundred percent Kauai produce. So you can see that there is some work to be done in conceptualizing and then reducing it to language for a bill. aso that's what we would like to try to work on for your consideration in the next committee meeting. I want to speak about this so that people can know in the public that we are thinking about this direction and we can get some feedback from everyone on that. Mr. Chang: Thank you Councilmember Yukimura. Any further discussion? Mr. Furfaro: This is just a point that I think I would like to see the County Attorney confirm to us the next time we get back together. On the notice of additionally insured, should we be making an assumption if someone shows the County as the additional insured, and someone fails to make the payment on the premium within the insurance regulations, are those companies who name us co-insured, are they bound to notify us when the premium is delinquent and/or the policy has been cancelled? Do they automatically notify us as additional insured? I think that would be something we'd like to make sure we understand. Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair, go ahead. Councilmember Kawakami did you have a Mr. Chang: comment? Ms. Yukimura: Go ahead. Mr. Kawakami: No and I think that's a very valid question and if and you know it's almost like a question of ethics. If someone. comes in and buys a policy and they're naming somebody and they cancel it, you would think that the insurance company would do the ethically correct thing to do whether it be required by law or not but it poses a good question. So I'm interested to hear how this thing works out because I know there is probably a lot of businesses that would be faced with themsame challenges that we'd be faced with if that were not true. Thank you. Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Chair. Mr. Chang: Go ahead, Councilmember Yukimura. Ms. Yukimura: I thought I recall seeing a recommendation from the County Attorney for wording regarding that? A deferral will help us look at that perhaps too. Mr. Chang: Councilmember Bynum, did you have anything to add? Mr. Bynum: Just that I like the direction that this is going and I appreciate Councilmember Kawakami is going in the direction of allowing latitude for administrative rules. I think when we can avoid putting things in legislation that can be handled by administrative rules that makes a lot of sense and so I'm fine with a deferral or what you presented here is an improvement and maybe we can pass this and then work from this template but that's up to you. Every change you made here seems like a step forward. Mr. Chang: Councilmember Yukimura. Ms. Yukimura: I think there's one section where they might be a potential conflict. Mr. Bynum: Okay, either way. Mr. Chang: My apologies. I did not see any written testimony but if I can and if there's anybody in the audience that would like to speak? So sorry, okay if not again we are still in session. Is there anybody else with any... Go ahead Mr. Kawakami. Mr. Kawakami: Thank you Committee Chair, I just want to also add that we will be working diligently and the intent and the hope, although is not set in concrete, is that we would be able to come up with a product at the next committee meeting and be ready to be passed out at the whole council. So that is the intent so we will be working towards that goal. Thank you. Mr. Chang: Perfect. Thank you. Any other further discussion? If not the intent is to defer, so can I get a motion to defer this? Mr. Bynum: Moves to defer. Mr. Kawakami: Seconded. Mr. Chang: Thank you very much. Moved and seconded. All those in favor say "aye." Upon motion duly made by Councilmember Bynum, seconded by Councilmember Kawakami, and unanimously carried, Bill No. 2399 was deferred. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:25 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ~`~'"~J L urie how Senior Clerk Typist APPROVED at the Committee Meeting held on M.~~r 11, 2Q:11: ,~%`.y . DICKIE CHAN Chair, Economic Development & Renewable Energy Strategies Committee