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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05/07/2014 Special Council Meeting minutes - Interview SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING MAY 7, 2014 The Special Council Meeting of the Council of the County of Kaua'i was called to order by Council Chair Jay Furfaro, at the Council Chambers, 4396 Rice Street, Room 201, Lihu'e, Kaua'i, on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 9:06 a.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Mason K. Chock, Sr. Honorable Gary L. Hooser Honorable Ross Kagawa Honorable Mel Rapozo Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Honorable Jay Furfaro APPROVAL OF AGENDA. Mr. Rapozo moved for approval of the agenda as circulated, seconded by Ms. Yukimura, and unanimously carried. Chair Furfaro: The next item is for public comment for the Special Council Meeting, not to be confused for the public comment for the Committee Meeting which will happen a little bit later. The item on the Special Council Meeting today is one (1) item which is an interview for a Police Commission. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to testify by Rule 13(e) before we go to that agenda item? Seeing no one, we will go to Section "E" the Police Commission interview. PUBLIC COMMENT. Pursuant to Council Rule 13(e), members of the public shall be allowed a total of eighteen (18) minutes on a first come, first served basis to speak on any agenda item. Each speaker shall be limited to three (3) minutes at the discretion of the Chair to discuss the agenda item and shall not be allowed additional time to speak during the meeting. This rule is designed to accommodate those who cannot be present throughout the meeting to speak when the agenda items are heard. After the conclusion of the eighteen (18) minutes, other members of the public shall be allowed to speak pursuant to Council Rule 12(e). There being no one present to provide public comment, the meeting proceeded as follows: INTERVIEW: POLICE COMMISSION: • Mary K. Hertog—Term ending 12/31/2015 There being no objections, the rules were suspended. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 2 MAY 7, 2014 MARY K. HERTOG: Good morning. Chair Furfaro: Mary, I am going to ask you to introduce yourself but first if you could make sure that blue light is on. Ms. Hertog: It is on. Chair Furfaro: Great. The floor is yours to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your background. Ms. Hertog: Good morning, I am Mary Kay Hertog. My husband and I arrived here on Kaua`i about twenty-two (22) months ago after I retired from the Air Force serving thirty-four (34) years on active duty, or almost thirty-four (34) years. Of that thirty-four (34) years I spent twenty-seven (27) as a cop. Security Forces are Military Police, you might be more familiar with. I rose up through the ranks to actually become the leader of that crew from the top cop in the Air Force where I was responsible for organizing training and equipping about thirty thousand (30,000) airmen for their missions including getting ready to go to combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, protecting our bases day-to-day around the world and nuclear security. I spent about eleven (11) years of my almost thirty-four (34) year career in various commands, many security force units but I was also given the opportunity to step outside of the cop career field. When I was a commander of a wing, one of the largest wings in the Air Force and that is equivalent to being a Mayor and then I was also promoted and was able to be a Numbered Air Force Commander where I was in command of four (4) wings in the Air Force. I have a lot of training background. My responsibility was training about ninety percent (90%) of the Air Forces specialty including security forces. In my final year I spent back at the Pentagon, I was on the Security of Defense staff working sexual assault prevention and response issues. Which I am sure if you see the news or read in the papers know that it is an extremely difficult problem in the Military, college campuses, and everywhere is trying to handle as well. That is a little bit about me and my background and I am happy to be living here in paradise as my husband is too. Chair Furfaro: You live in KOloa, am I correct? Ms. Hertog: Yes we do. Chair Furfaro: I will open up for some questions starting with Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Good morning Ms. Hertog. May I call you, Mary? Ms. Hertog: Mary Kay, please. Mr. Bynum: Mary Kay? Ms. Hertog: Yes. Mr. Bynum: I am Tim. Outstanding resume. Thank you for your willingness to serve. Ms. Hertog: My pleasure. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 3 MAY 7, 2014 Mr. Bynum: One thing I have learned from our Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) and the Commanders we have had over the years is when you reach Command positions in the U.S. Military, you got some serious skills. I am very pleased that you would step up to this position. I have been lobbying the Mayor to appoint more women in community advocates and bring more diversity to the board and you fit all those despite having a background in law enforcement. Thank you for your willingness to serve. I cannot think of a better candidate. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Questions? JoAnn, would you like the floor? Ms. Yukimura: Technicially we should be calling you, General Hertog, right? Ms. Hertog: I go by "Mary Kay." If you see me in uniform, that is okay too. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Mary Kay and I appreciate your speech recently before the Veterans. I did not realize that you were actually living here. I thought you were...I did not realize that you were retired. I did not come in when they introduced you. It is wonderful to have you actually as a resident of Kaua`i. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Ms. Yukimura: I want to say as a woman to have a woman like yourself have risen in the Air Force to the level that you have is an amazing accomplishment. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. I had a lot of help along the way. I did not do it by myself, that is for sure. Ms. Yukimura: I want to honor you for that. Your understanding of what the duties are, are very complete from what your application form says. I want to focus in the role of reviewing and dealing with complaints from the public against the Police Department and its officers. My understanding of the history of the Police Commission, not this particular Commission but in general. The Police Commission is meant to be a lay body over a paramilitary body and an interface between the community and a paramilitary. So, I guess some of my concern is your knowledge of the community and your understanding of that role in terms of whether you would be able to understand a community position versus a military position. Ms. Hertog: I do not think I would have any problem with that because even in the military we are dealing with communities. As a Wing Commander, I was like the Mayor of a small city. Most of my dealings were with community leaders and understanding how my base affected their community, what I could do to bring down the noise of the jets, or whatever the case may be. I think it is very important that we have that kind of interface because the community is who the Police protect and serve and we want to be able to make sure that they have a venue to air any kind of complaints they might have with the Police be it SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 4 MAY 7, 2014 unprofessional conduct, excessive use of force, and that is where the Commission comes in. From what I understand, from reading the Charter, to take a look at the training aspects, maybe you have a problem because the individual was not properly trained or maybe you have a serious problem because this individuals name has come up over and over again. I think the Commission has that responsibility per its Charter to listen to the public, take their concerns, investigate it, and see if it has merit that can be substantiated or not substantiated, and then turn it over to the Police Chief as well. Ms. Yukimura: You have had experience in your former positions in dealing with complaints from a community? Ms. Hertog: Big time. Ms. Yukimura: You had many? Ms. Hertog: Absolutely. It could be traffic concerns, hey, you are blocking the highway that we need to get on to because you are doing ID checks at the gate, it could be your loud noise complaints from the jets flying over, or may we are out blowing something out, you know we are training, and we have to be very sensitive to the community concerns. We cannot operate in a vacuum anywhere. Ms. Yukimura: Alright, thank you very much. Ms. Hertog: You are welcome. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Hooser. Ms. Hertog: Thank you very much for being willing to serve in the community like that. I think your record of significance success and professionally speaks to your ability and I wanted to thank the Mayor publicly for choosing to appoint you to this position. Did you seek it out or were you sought out? Ms. Hertog: No, I sought it. Mr. Hooser: You sought it, okay. Ms. Hertog: When I arrived here about twenty-two (22) months ago, I was reading the Garden Island and there were some letters to the Editor about, "why are there no women on the Police Commission?" I met the Mayor at the Multiple Sclerosis Proclamation Ceremony. I have MS and I was unfortunately was diagnosed with it like six (6) months before I retired but I evidently had it for about ten (10) years and just kind of ignored it and worked my way through it. When I was at my ceremony I took the opportunity to give him my biography and say, "hey, I am a volunteer should a position become every available." Quite frankly I think you need someone to represent the Police Commission because you have women on the force but not only that your complainants may be female coming in and it may be a little intimidated for them to come in and face nothing but males on the Council or on the Commission. Mr. Hooser: And during your career you obviously, as you said, dealt with community complaints. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 5 MAY 7, 2014 Ms. Hertog: Yes. Mr. Hooser: Did you deal with complaints specifically to military police actions? Ms. Hertog: No. When was a Wing Commander, it was anything. It could absolutely anything but when I was a Squadron Commander for Security Forces and I had some units that were six hundred (600) people strong, etc., then that focus solely on complaints. I had people coming in and saying, "I received this ticket for this and I did not do this," or "this person treated me improperly," "his conduct was very unprofessional," or "I feel they used excessive force when they apprehended me," I have had that kind of experience dealing with the public on that. Mr. Hooser: I assume you also have experience evaluating other leaders as you would be asked to do with the Police Chief and others. Ms. Hertog: I have. Mr. Hooser: Okay, great. Thank you for your willingness to serve. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Mr. Hooser: And for reaching out. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Kagawa, you have the floor. Mr. Kagawa: Thank you, Mary Kay for volunteering to serve. Like all the other Councilmembers, I will be supporting your nomination. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Mr. Kagawa: I just have a few questions. Ms. Hertog: Sure. Mr. Kagawa: Were you involved with budgets in your position as General? Ms. Hertog: Oh yes, absolutely. Mr. Kagawa: At the County level we are pretty much broke. Our Police Department is our largest spender. Their budget is about twenty- five million dollars ($25,000,000) right now. Ms. Hertog: Okay. Mr. Kagawa: And in this Fiscal Year it went up about two million dollars ($2,000,000) over this current year, so next year's budget it will go up another two million dollars ($2,000,000). When the County is broke, we cannot keep having these increases or else there will have to be more taxes added to our residents. I think one of the jobs I would like to see out of the Police Commission is SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 6 MAY 7, 2014 to help to bring some accountability to the budget process. I do not think the Council can do it all in a matter of two (2) weeks or so. I think the Police Commission...I would like them to look at what is good for the Department, what makes sense, what is good spending, and I would like to see them cut what is not good spending and what is not in the best interest of the taxpayers. Ms. Hertog: Sure. Mr. Kagawa: Are you willing to try and help the Commission to move in that direction to oversee some of the financial aspects of the Police Department? Ms. Hertog: Absolutely. Frankly I am used to dealing with hundreds and millions of dollars and sometimes billions of dollars of assets with what we had at our Air Forces bases but it gets down to some days you have to less with less and not more with less. You might have to do expectation management. We cannot always respond to every single fender-bender. Maybe you need to drive into the Police station and have somebody give the paperwork to fill out versus a cop out on the street to bring in. I am aware that the police force or the Police Department has expended on a great deal on overtime, you need to peal that back and take a look at what is causing the overtime? Is it a great number of traffic accidents? Do you have people that are only trained specifically in one area? Maybe you only have one traffic accident investigator or two and not one on every shift so you have to call that person out? There are other things you have to balance with it too. This is a small Police Department compared to Honolulu Police Department (HPD) where you have twice as many people and you got a lot of flexibility. When we had a lot of anti-GMO demonstrations, I mean the County, I am sure had to have the budget blew up there in terms of what the Police had to expend in terms of protecting and controlling the crowd? How do we deal with it? Do we make somebody else pay for that? Do we change shifts? Can we change hours that people are working? How much overtime is authorized? There are a lot of things you can do but you got to peal it back layer by layer to find out what the real problem is. Mr. Kagawa: Thank you, Mary. It is exactly what I wanted to hear. It sounds like you have a lot of experience and the energy that is needed. We need people on Commissions to really step it up now that we have burned a lot of our reserves and I think now it comes the times where we need to be more accountable and I like what you bring to us and hopefully you can spread that message to the other Commissioners. Thank you. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo, you have the floor. Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, General, for being here. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Mr. Rapozo: I met you, I guess about twenty (20) months ago. Ms. Hertog: Right at a neighborhood community meeting. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 7 MAY 7, 2014 Mr. Rapozo: You were a new resident at a coffee hour out there in Koloa and it was evident to me that both you and your husband had an interest to serve the community. I am very happy to see you especially in this Commission because I do, as Chair of the Public Safety Committee...I got to tell a story that in 1982, you must have started shortly before 1982... Ms. Hertog: Actually today is my anniversary of being commissioned in the Air Force back in 1978 so, yes, I am a few years older than you. Mr. Rapozo: But in 1982 I attended Lackland for my basic training in the Air Force and... Ms. Hertog: That is where I was Wing Commander. Mr. Rapozo: At Lackland? That was the base where they trained all the cops. Ms. Hertog: Exactly, right. Mr. Rapozo: And that is where they threatened us that if you failed...I went to telephone school but they said if you failed the fear heights test, or fail whatever obstacle...whatever you was that is where you would go. Ms. Hertog: You are going to make a cop, right? Mr. Rapozo: You would be a cop, yes. I witnessed the training because they trained all over that base. I remember having no stripes and then throughout basic having to meet people with two (2) stripes, three (3) stripes, and the more stripes they had either more nervous you got and then of course when you started to see the Lieutenants and the Captains, we rarely got to see a General, but when you did see a General it was just some sense of fear and I never knew you was a General. When I met you, I think you told me that you retired Air Force but I do not think you told me that you was the General and that is being very humble but I saw you a month or so ago at the Vet Center and you were dressed up, you were the speaker, and I saw the General. I almost passed out. I told my wife, "oh my gosh," because she was at the community meeting as well and we had both met you. You said, "She is a General?" Do you know what it takes to be a General in the Military? I say that because I want to edify what the skill set that you bring and especially in the field that will serve the Police Commission quite well. Mr. Kagawa talks a lot about the budget issues and I agree with you. There are many things that can be done to save the County money as it relates to the Police Department, Fire Department, every Department but one of the things you will find different here is the labor unions that you did not have to deal with in the Military. Ms. Hertog: Actually I did. Mr. Rapozo: With the cops? Ms. Hertog: Yes, because we have civilian police as well, so yes, I am very familiar with union leaders. I used to have a standing appointment every Friday. They would come into my office and slap down an unfair labor act on my desk and say, "okay, this is what we are doing here." So, yes, not just cops but other organizations in the Air Force and the Military fell under the union. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 8 MAY 7, 2014 Mr. Rapozo: That is good to know and I am glad you clarified that. In 1985 I joined the Police Department as well and back then it was a paramilitary and I know that sounds like a bad word but it is not. Paramilitary — bring the military structure... Ms. Hertog: Discipline. Mr. Rapozo: Exactly, that is what it was. I can tell you back then you could not call your Sergeant by the first name and it was almost thirty (30) years ago, you could not call obviously the Lieutenant by their first name. It was Sergeant, Lieutenant and I had been trained in the military for that so for me it was easy but I think we have kind of got away from that in some extent today and over the years, gradually got away from the paramilitary and I am not saying that every cops should have an M60 50 caliber machine gun in their cars but I do believe that the discipline needs to be restored. I think the paramilitary structure and I am hoping that you can take a look at that and as we move forward with training, I think that is where it starts. Ms. Hertog: Absolutely. Mr. Rapozo: Obviously your resume and your explanation of what you have accomplished leaves me no doubt that you can at least offer that perspective and suggestions as we move forward. I think it is critical that we do that. I think we have a great police force, I really do. I think they are sometimes overworked because we have...I am sure you know, we only have ten (10) beats on the whole island. We compare our island to different jurisdictions, others would laugh and say, "How can you service that island with only ten (10) cops?" We do and we do it well but it is getting harder to do. Ms. Hertog: Sure. Mr. Rapozo: I just wanted to bring those things up. Again, like Gary, I thank the Mayor for appointing or nominating you. I look forward to a very probably a different Police Commission going forward because you bring that level of expertise. Obviously you will be supported here and approved. I encourage your fellow Commissioners to accept you and really appreciate what you can bring to the table. Thank you very much. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Anyone else? Go right ahead. Mr. Chock: After the story it is hard for me to call you "Mary Kay," I want to call you "General" "General Mary Kay." Based on your responses, experience, and what I think you will bring is great balance to our Police Commission, of course, you have my full support. I am looking forward to having you onboard. Thank you so much for your service. Ms. Hertog: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Mary Kay, I guess it is my turn. First of all, welcome to our island home which is now your island home. Certainly I look forward to supporting you and will support you for the Commission. I just want to SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 9 MAY 7, 2014 share with you a couple of things that for me really standout, my background is business and management being able to interrupt financials. I have been told that I am pretty good at that. Let me share with you some of the concerns that I have. We are entering a grant from the Federal government in the amount of eight hundred and forty thousand dollars ($840,000) for the Police force which would allow us at the cost of this Federal grant to add a Police beat of five (5) officers and one (1) sergeant. The fact of the matter after that grant is finish we then have to finance that extra beat on our own. Ms. Hertog: Sure. It is much like the Federal government, they will give you the startup and you have to sustain it, absolutely. Chair Furfaro: Right. So, I think you are very familiar with the fact that my next question is going to be as the demand is to add beats the question then becomes also understanding how do we sustain that kind of staffing increases? That is a challenge and I think it starts in July that we are going to have that opportunity. Also, different than the Honolulu Department who has twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) worth of overtime in their budget. We have two point two million dollars ($2,200,000). A lot of that overtime and it has to be refined is dedicated to the fine job that the Chief has done in building our recruits to fill our vacancies. He has gone to two (2) recruit classes a year but the net outcome of that for me has to be then let us reduce our overtime when we fill those staffing guides because in fact a lot of the overtime is directed that way. Then of course with the retirements that we have every year, a little more focus on the continuity of promoting people, identifying high achievers, and so forth which I think you bring all that experience to the table. Those are the kinds of things that I think that you will be a big plus for us in supporting the Chief and the Commission and I look forward to voting for you. I wish you success. Ms. Hertog: Thank you very much. Chair Furfaro: Anymore dialogue with Mary Kay? Ms. Hertog: Thank you, I appreciate the time. ADJOURNMENT. There being no further business, the Special Council Meeting adjourned at 9:28 a.m. j�4W: :.i: ! ' " • J' . • Administrative As: , t to . e County Clerk :dmcforlm