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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/06/2012 PUBLIC SAFETY & ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES Committee Meeting MINUTES PUBLIC SAFETY & ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES COMMITTEE June 6, 2012 A meeting of the Public Safety & Environmental Services Committee of the Council of the County of Kaua`i, State of Hawai`i, was called to order by Councilmember Mel Rapozo, Chair, at the Council Chambers, 4396 Rice Street, Suite 201, Lihu`e, Kauai, Hawaii 96766, on Wednesday, June 6, 2012, at 10:09 a.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Dickie Chang Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable KipuKai Kuali`i (excused 1:50 p.m.) Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Honorable Mel Rapozo Honorable Jay Furfaro, Ex-Officio Member Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura, Ex-Officio Member The Committee proceeded on its agenda items, as shown in the following Committee Reports which are incorporated herein by reference: CR-PSE 2012-04: on PSE 2012-02 Communication (05/25/2012) from Committee Chair Rapozo, requesting the presence of the County Engineer to provide an update on solid waste diversion and the potential alternative method of using municipal solid waste shredding. [Received for the Record.] CR-PSE 2012-05: on PSE 2012-03 Communication (05/25/2012) from Committee Chair Rapozo, requesting the presence of the County Engineer to provide an update and status regarding the recent sewage spillage affecting the KalapakI Bay area. [Received for the Record.] Bill No. 2435 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 22, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, BY ESTABLISHING A NEW ARTICLE RELATING TO ALARM SYSTEM [This item was deferred.] Mr. Bynum moved to approve Bill No. 2435, seconded by Mr. Chang. Committee Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Ms. Nakamura: I had a question about the (inaudible). Committee Chair Rapozo: Okay, well I am not able to answer those questions. I know from the Kaua`i Police Department perspective it is with the recent influx of alarm companies, the door-to-door sales men that have gone around and selling these alarm systems and there have been an abundant number of false alarm calls. It takes the officers out of service, in many cases out of service for quite a while, because they have to go find the house and so forth. I know that was the PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 2 JUNE 6, 2012 reason - the motivation for the ordinance. I am not sure and we probably can take a short recess and ask staff to determine whether it is being done by other Counties. I know that it is practiced in many jurisdictions, I just do not know which ones specifically. I did have one (1) concern and it was whether or not these fines that we will be charging, where would it go? Again, like our planning violations, I believe it should go back to Planning. If it is a. Parks issue, it should go back to Parks to further the reinforcement, and I am not sure... Ms. Nakamura: It says it will be deposited into a special account in the General Fund and will be used for administration/enforcement of this ordinance. I had a number of questions about the position, the alarm system coordinator position, does this person exist today and is it in the budget? Committee Chair Rapozo: Can we see if we have someone available from the Police Department that can come over? I am not sure how time sensitive this Bill is, but let us see if we can get somebody from the Police Department, so we can get this out of Committee today. Any other concerns? If not, let us take a recess until we get word from KPD and I apologize I was not aware of any questions, so I did not ask anyone to be here. There being no objections, the Committee recessed at 2:38 p.m. The Committee reconvened at 2:53 p.m., and proceeded as follows: There being no objections, the rules were suspended. Committee Chair Rapozo: Assistant Chief Quibilan, are you familiar with Bill No. 2435, the alarm Bill? ALEJANDRE QUIBLIAN, ASSISTANT CHIEF: Yes, I am. Committee Chair Rapozo: Okay. Councilmember Nakamura had some questions. Ms. Nakamura: Thank you for being here. I wanted to ask you, this refers to an alarm system coordinator. Mr. Quibilan: Yes. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) to receive permits. Mr. Quibilan: That is correct. Ms. Nakamura: And follow up on registration and so forth, does this person exist today in the Police Department? Mr. Quibilan: Technically, no, but we have a clerical position, a part-time clerical position that we may look into having it into a full-time to do double duty. That position is called the Special Duty /Off Duty Clerk position, it is a nineteen (19) hour per week position. That is why we are looking at it and hopefully creating it into a full-time position and take care of both duties of the special assignment for Officers and this alarm. PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 3 JUNE 6, 2012 Ms. Nakamura: So, we would just use the budgeted funds to cover (inaudible). Mr. Quibilan: That is correct. And when you mention budgeted funds, my understanding is that the fees that we collect from the contractors from the Off Duty jobs, there is a fee — an administrative fee does pay for the position, and we are looking for the same method to be used. The fees that we collect will pay for that employee's position. Ms. Nakamura: (Inaudible). Fire also has false alarms? Mr. Quibilan: Yes, that is correct. We are currently researching that information. We started researching it, but as you may know, we are in the new CAD vendor right now and there are some glitches that we are trying to go through. We are using the new system to pull old records. We have the contractor researching that and trying to see if they can give us that number, but we have started to work on those numbers both on residential and business alarms. Ms. Nakamura: Ballpark? Mr. Quibilan: The number initially came out was pretty high that I saw. I reviewed it at the time when they gave me the initial print out, but I had noticed that there were repeat numbers, repeat dates, repeat locations, and so I questioned the vendor why is this coming out, and I do not know the technical part of it, but she said that she will fine-tune it and try to narrow it down. I have not heard from her yet and it is going through our Dispatch Supervisor. Ms. Nakamura: Has there been any discussion with the Fire Department (inaudible) false alarms? Mr. Quibilan: I have not had any serious discussion with them. They understand that we are pushing through this ordinance and they have their own concern, and my understanding are that they are going to deal with their concerns, so I never went any further than knowing that they have similar issues with false fire alarms. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) Mr. Quibilan: For our side, yes. It will be intrusion, those types of alarms, yes. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) Mr. Quibilan: No, we do not. I do not think anybody is tracking that. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) what happens if — you are supposed to transfer the —let's say you have an alarm on the property. Mr. Quibilan: Yes. Ms. Nakamura: And somebody sells the property, the person who buys it are supposed to have thirty (30) days to then file a new application with you, but what happens if the person who does not reapply? PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 4 JUNE 6, 2012 Mr. Quibilan: I do not know how to answer that question. If the new owner does not file again, the service might still be continuing, they may continue to pay for the service. I am not sure how we would deal with that situation. Ms. Nakamura: I was just wondering if there is a consequence. Mr. Quibilan: I do not know at this point. Ms. Nakamura: There is also a Table of Fines and Fees on page six (6). Mr. Quibilan: I am sorry, I do not have a copy of it. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) so if you for example have an alarm system and has not registered it with the Police Department, that would be the same as failure to obtain a permit. Mr. Quibilan: Yes. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) Another thing that is not mentioned in the (inaudible) is if there is a false alarm for non-permitted alarm users then immediately your fine is one hundred dollars, so that is not listed on this Table. (inaudible) And I think there might be some concerns about the fee itself (inaudible) discourage false alarms and if these are targeted to (inaudible). Mr. Quibilan: I did not work on this part, in fact I did not work on this. It was generated by one of our officers who were — I believe he copied it from the Honolulu Police Department — their ordinance, because they have one that is in place right now. I would need to research that and ask the officer. Ms. Nakamura: It would be interesting to see. I know Honolulu is a much larger population, but how (inaudible). Mr. Quibilan: My understanding that Chief Perry who have been retired from HPD said that the program works well. They have several people on staff that the fees cover the cost, yes. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible). Mr. Quibilan: The other Counties? I do not know if the other Counties do have the similar program, but they have the similar problem. Ms. Nakamura: The Department is prepared to put this program in place with the approval of this Bill? Mr. Quibilan: Yes. That is correct. Committee Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura. Ms. Yukimura: So, we are not sure how much of a problem this is; we have not yet determined that? PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 5 JUNE 6, 2012 Mr. Quibilan: We will be able to come out with a number. We are trying to break it down by district, by time, day of the week, we are trying to break that down with the new CAD vendor. So when we get that, we will be able to provide the information, but I cannot tell you what it costs as far as time and officer's time to respond. Ms. Yukimura: I see. Mr. Quibilan: It will vary, because even during my day as an officer, we had a house out in Ha`ena, and Councilmember Rapozo might remember that house, all the way just maybe a mile from Ke`e Beach and it took us time for one (1) officer to get all the way out there. Ms. Yukimura: I will say. Mr. Quibilan: There are cabins I believe up in Koke`e that also have alarms, so it is a time factor. Here in the business district, not too bad. We have a couple of officers that can respond, but it is the ones that is way out there, and some of them if it is an agricultural lot, we are looking high and low for — we cannot find a landmark or a house number and we are trying to call the alarm company and then they cannot pronounce the street name for us to understand exactly where to respond to. So it is the time. Ms. Yukimura: From what you are saying, there is no question there is a problem, especially when we have limited manpower and some vacant positions, and we have to go such long distances, and also the language problem you just mentioned, you are just trying to quantify it, but in terms of this needs a solution, that is pretty clear. Mr. Quibilan: That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. The Police Department initiated this Bill based on the fact that it is a similar law that seems to be working in Honolulu? Mr. Quibilan: Yes. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. You have estimated the personnel need for implementing this based on the Off-duty Clerk that... Mr. Quibilan: We believe that the workload will not exceed that one (1) person. Ms. Yukimura: A half-time position basically? Mr. Quibilan: I would say, yes at this point. Ms. Yukimura: Which is right now it is a position that is vacant — halftime position that is vacant or is it filled? Mr. Quibilan: That part-time position is vacant. Ms. Yukimura: And it is funded to the extent of a halftime funding? PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 6 JUNE 6, 2012 Mr. Quibilan: Yes. Ms. Yukimura: And it is your plan to supply the other halftime funding with fees from this? Mr. Quibilan: That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. Has somebody figured that out in terms of salary, how much salary and how many times you folks will be called out that you can administer the fee that would be supported by these fees of a hundred dollars or you are actually trying to — you also have on top of that a service charge that — it says here service charge means a charge assessed a permitee to offset the County's cost of responding to a false alarm and may include the administrative cost of mailing and processing, so it sounds... it sounds like there is a cost of administering... an administrative cost which is called a service cost and... Committee Chair Rapozo: JoAnn, there is a registration fee that is twenty-five dollars. Ms. Yukimura: To let us know that they have a system installed? Committee Chair Rapozo: Correct, that is when they register the system, the service, and it is kind of weird the way it is called the service fee, but the service fee is actually if the cops have to go to an alarm. Ms. Yukimura: Right. Committee Chair Rapozo: And if it is a false alarm then it becomes a service fee, and that is the fees that are showing on the Table. Ms. Yukimura: Okay and they call that service charge. Committee Chair Rapozo: Service charge is actually when the officer gets out there and realizes it is a false alarm. Ms. Yukimura: Has this gone through the County Attorney? Do you know whether you had the County Attorney review it? Mr. Quibilan: I am not sure. Ms. Yukimura: Before it was proposed to us? Mr. Quibilan: I am not sure if Mr. Kollar was able to review this. Ms. Yukimura: Mr. Kollar, is he here or our County Attorney? Who was the officer who worked on this? Mr. Quibilan: Officer Cataluna, Chad Cataluna. Ms. Yukimura: Okay, but he is not available right now? PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 7 JUNE 6, 2012 Mr. Quibilan: He is probably home resting now because he is on the midnight watch. Ms. Yukimura: Oh, I see. It would be good to talk to somebody who put this together. Mr. Furfaro: Ale, was there a conscious decision that the Police and Fire did not work together on a common Bill? I mean both the Fire Commission and Police Commission would not work on a common Bill because now I am confused because — so I get one (1) false alarm from Fire, next week I get a false alarm from Police, and then I get another false alarm on this fire alarm, and yet I do not know — how many visits is that and do I count them separately? It is the same problem, even the Fire Department trying to find addresses to respond to a home. Is there any reason that we did not work on a joint Bill? Mr. Quibilan: Chair, I do not have any explanation. Committee Chair Rapozo: Maybe I can help. The way they define the definition of the alarm was to include all —burglar, fire, anything except car alarms, so the Fire Department is covered under here, but just that this Bill... Ms. Yukimura: (inaudible) the term does not include alarms installed in motor vehicles or fire alarms. Committee Chair Rapozo: Or fire? Ms. Yukimura: Yes, at the very bottom, page one (1). Mr. Furfaro: So let me ask the question again. Ale, is there an opportunity, because I read the same, and I have heard the complaints from the Fire Department especially out on the North Shore responding to false fire alarms, is there any reason that they might not have worked together on a common Bill? Mr. Quibilan: I do not see any reason, Chair. Mr. Furfaro: Because I would actually encourage. It regardless of which public safety office is responding to a burglar condition, a fire condition, if there is a problem there with an alarm, could be as simple as a gecko getting involved causing a shortage or something, it might have been good to have both parties review and indentify their concerns to come up with one (1) common Bill. But you have answered my question, and I have appointments next month with both Commissions, and I want to surface that question. Committee Chair Rapozo: Chief, I apologize I missed that, because I believe when I spoke to Chad that the Bill was going to cover the fire alarms as well. The Police Department gets called out to fire alarms, correct? Mr. Quibilan: No, we do not. Committee Chair Rapozo: You do not? Not at all? Mr. Quibilan: No. At times when there is a report, a call in of a report of a fire but we cannot substantiate, normally what the patrol officer is PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 8 JUNE 6, 2012 sent to go and find out if it is a natural — for example, like a brush fire, and only one (1) phone call in the entire area came in, so that is kind of suspicious where why only one (1) phone call for a fire, so we would send an officer to go check possibly a mistake was made. If the officer verifies, we will notify to send the Fire Department out, but for alarms, no. Committee Chair Rapozo: So what happens when the Fire Alarm Company calls the dispatch? They just say, sorry we do not respond? Mr. Quibilan: No, the dispatchers will send the Fire Department. Committee Chair Rapozo: We do not have somebody to verify? Mr. Quibilan: Not that I am aware of. Committee Chair Rapozo: Okay. Mr. Quibilan: I was never informed of that. Committee Chair Rapozo: Then obviously this Bill needs to be looked at because I was under the impression that you did and I was under the impression that in fact this would cover all alarms except the car alarms, but now I see that it is actually... the Chair brings up a very good point, so that is something we need to work on. I would agree that we need to do something. You use the Ha'ena example and Charo's was the other one that comes to mind that at least on a midnight shift out in Charo's three (3) to five (5) times a month you got called out to Charo's Restaurant and they had a rodent problem, they did, they had a rodent problem and the rats were big enough that they would trigger the alarm. But as long as they were not getting charged, they did not care. So the first two (2) are freebies, it says go check your system, kill your rats, after that we start to charge you. All of a sudden it becomes cheaper to go take care of the rat problem than having the cops come out. The house in Ha'ena was another one, was it Glenn Fry, was that his name? Mr. Quibilan: I forget the Ha'ena house. Committee Chair Rapozo: Well some celebrity, he had gold records all on his wall, I know that house by memory, but he never paid a penny for that free service of going out there for not even a valid alarm, and it takes the officer out of commission for probably forty-five (45) minutes to an hour. Something has to be done, but we definitely have to tighten up the language. Ms. Nakamura: (inaudible) JUSTIN KOLLAR, DEPUTY COUNTY ATTORNEY: For the record, Justin Kollar, Deputy County Attorney. Ms. Nakamura: Did you have time to review this? Mr. Kollar: Yes. Ms. Nakamura: Is this section actually (inaudible) PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 9 JUNE 6, 2012 Mr. Kollar: I believe that this language would protect the County from situations where the homeowner was not satisfied with the Police Department's response to an alarm. Ms. Nakamura: Thank you. Mr. Kollar: Sure. Committee Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? If not, thank you, Justin. Mr. Kollar: Thank you. Committee Chair Rapozo: I will be asking for a deferral obviously, so we can tighten up some of the language and actually work with the Police Department. I would agree that if there is a way to getting your Alarms Clerk to work with both Departments, and I would bet on this island anyway that we would receive enough revenue from that... maybe not initially because they get the two (2) free ones. Also this Bill, the annual report is pretty stringent for the Department to come back in a year to show us how this is working; at that point the Council can determine whether or not they want to continue or not, but I definitely believe there is some work to do and we will get that done and hopefully we can get it cleared up in the next two (2) weeks. Ms. Yukimura: The coordination between the different charges and when and who, how they are imposed — if that can be clarified in the discussions. Maybe you can explain to me now on page seven (7) at the top there are these different fees — failure to verify, appeal fee, and reinstatement fee, and then on top of that there is a service charge, is that correct? Should be six (6)... it is five (5) and then seven (7). Committee Chair Rapozo: You are missing page six (6), I think. Ms. Yukimura: I am missing but five (5) and seven (7) are on the same sheets, so what is going on here? We should get that... do you see what I mean? So in the definition it says service charge means a charge assessed a permittee to offset the County's cost of responding to a false alarm and may include the administrative cost of mailing, processing, and assessment notice and the prorated share of the County's cost of administrating this article. So it includes not just the administrative cost but the cost of responding? Mr. Quibilan: Yes. Ms. Yukimura: I am sorry, I was reading a Bill that was in my folder but I see the — so who decides which fees they or is it ministerially administered that means the clerk would determine the amount of the fee and which ones applied and send it out? Mr. Quibilan: I would have to say yes, but we cannot factor in the cost of the mileage for the use of the vehicle. Ms. Yukimura: That is a lot of paperwork. It is just easier to just do an average fee than try to track every incident, and it may be useful to really research the Honolulu Police Department's ongoing program because they may have PSE COMMITTEE MEETING 10 JUNE 6, 2012 addressed a lot of these issues. I think it was Councilmember Nakamura who said it would be good to know how it is working in Honolulu, so actually there is quite a bit of work to do. I am just trying to highlight some of the areas that seem a bit fuzzy and perhaps when you take this deferral time to check on those things so we can become clear on it as well as talk to the Fire Department. Chair, it might be better to make a motion to defer and I am not making a motion at this time, to defer pending a report back, I do not know how long but it is up to you. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Committee Chair Rapozo: I think we can just defer it for two (2) weeks. I am interested in taking a look at the Honolulu ordinance and trying to clean up. I am confused too now that you brought up some of that sections, I am actually confused. The one that monitoring company failure to verify, I am not sure, I cannot find that in here but — so we will try for two (2) weeks and if obviously they need more time, we will just defer it again. Ms. Yukimura: (inaudible). Committee Chair Rapozo: I see the fee... Ms. Yukimura: But what it means? Committee Chair Rapozo: Yes. I do not see a paragraph or section that references what... are we going to fine a monitoring company? I guess we need to take a look at that. We will defer for two (2) weeks and ask staff to take a look at the Honolulu and see what the big differences are, and Ale, can you get some information or have someone check with HPD and see what the success of their program is. I do not know if Chad did that, he may have already and this is the fruits of his labor, but if Honolulu could do it over again, what would they do different? Upon motion duly made by Councilmember Chang, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura, and unanimously carried, Bill No. 2435 was deferred. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:21 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Darrellyne M. Simao Council Services Assistant II APPROVED at the Committee Meeting held on July 5, 2012. ft MEL RAPOZO CHAIR, PSE COMMITTEE