HomeMy WebLinkAbout03/29/2019 Public Works Dept (Operating & CIP Budget) Department of Public Works - Operating & CIP
Honorable Felicia Cowden
Honorable Mason K. Chock
Honorable Luke A. Evslin
Honorable Ross Kagawa
Honorable KipuKai Kuali`i
Honorable Arryl Kaneshiro
Excused: Honorable Arthur Brun
The Committee reconvened on March 29, 2019 at 9:01 a.m., and proceeded as follows:
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Good morning. I would like to call back to order
the Committee of the Whole and Fiscal Year 2019-2020 Departmental Budget Reviews. Let
the record reflect that we do have a quorum. On the schedule for today, March 29, 2019, we
have the Department of Public Works' Operating Budget, followed by Capital Improvement
Projects (CIP) Budget, if time permits. We have allocated today and Monday for Department
of Public Works due to their size. If we get done with everything today then we will cancel
Monday's meeting. We will see how it goes. For today, we will take the Public Works divisions
in the following order: Administration and Fiscal, Building, Engineering,Auto Maintenance,
Highways and Roads, Wastewater, Solid Waste and I believe you folks gave us that order. So
you will have everybody here on time for those, yes. As we do each morning we will take
public testimony at the beginning of the meeting. Anyone in the public wishing to testify on
this?
There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony.
There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order,
and proceeded as follows:
Seeing none, I would like to call up Lyle. Lyle, if you want to do your presentation. Let
us go in that order. If you want to do the presentation for Administration and Fiscal, do that
presentation, we will ask questions on the presentation and the budget. Then we will move
on and you can do the presentation on Building or Doug can do the presentation on Building.
We will just go through it that way.
LYLE TABATA, Deputy County Engineer: Yes, Lyle Tabata, Deputy County
Engineer. Chair, Members of the Council, we welcome the opportunity to spend our morning
or our day with you. I have prepared in advance a summary of the entire Public Works
Budget. My Fiscal Management Officer has prepared this, just so you have a background of
the last five years and where we are today. The Budget is in sections by Division. This kind
of puts it all on one page, quick reference for you. The most significant in changing of the
budget, as you will see, is our new line item for General Excise Tax (GET) Fund. Alright, so
to begin, myself and Mike Tresler my Fiscal Management Officer, will be doing our
presentation for Administration and Fiscal and be available for all the Divisions. We had
multiple sets of meetings. I just wanted to start off quickly by going over our synopsis. This
is just the Administration section where a majority of our funds are for salaries; myself, and
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our staff, and very little for utilities, and other. In general, I just wanted to summarize the
overall Public Works budget right now. As I stated upfront, the major change overall in the
Department of Public Works budget is the GET surcharge money. We worked long and hard,
and appreciate the Council's approval of this surcharge. We will deliver, there is no question,
and we are in the process already. The 2019 islandwide contract is out to bid. By the end of
the month, we will have a known bidder, and contractor, which will go to contract. Further,
we have some increases in Solid Waste Management and Wastewater Management
Divisions, primarily to do catch-up in overdue maintenance. Each division head will come
forward and speak to those individual needs. Some of the operational challenges that we have
out there is that the Department of Public Works is so large, our mission is to protect the
health and safety of our community and ensure that our infrastructure needs are met.As you
know, our County being as small as we are, is limited in size. Thus, the amount of General
Fund available to us to do these repairs and maintain all of the infrastructure is limited.
Thus, that feeds back to at least for our roads and bridges, the GET surcharge, which we
asked for and you approved. I would like to say that we are challenged, that I am the
administrator of the Department, and the Deputy. It presents its own challenges. I lean
heavily on my Fiscal Management Officer and my division heads to meet the challenges that
we see every day. I would like to put forward that my style of management is being of that a
servant-leader and I am there to support the division heads and help ensure that we provide
the financial, personnel, and equipment needs for all of our divisions so that we can carry on
our mission. I would like to summarize last year's top three highlights: we completed the
Environmental Impact Statement for the new Ma'alo Landfill; a major hit to us was the April
storms of last year. We continue to bring forward projects that help us continue our recovery.
As we all know, Kuhio Highway. The State Department of Transportation (HDOT) is still
working to complete the needs that are beset us on the North Shore. Public Works has a
number of projects in the Roads Division, Engineering, and Solid Waste, that we can recover
as we anticipated at least 75% of the costs through our Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) partners. Then another major project was the rehab of the Puanani Street
storm drain which was a problem for eight years; it is looking for a solution that had met the
needs to not only structurally support the storm drains, but also meet the needs of storm
flow. Given that, we can go right into any questions you might have fiscally on the Operating
Budget for Administration.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions from the Members?We are going to
start with Administration, or if there is any questions on the presentation? Operational
challenges? Highlights? Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you. Lyle, you went over the GET share. So
we are talking about $24 million, right? Per year?
Mr. Tabata: The Public Works' share.
Councilmember Kagawa: Public Works' share is almost $18,000,000.
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Kagawa: $6 million going to the bus?
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Mr. Tabata: Yes. I believe it is a 75/25 percent split.
Councilmember Kagawa: Does that mean we are taking some from the bus
to go elsewhere?Freeing up General Funds?We just had a news report on KHON, where the
bus ridership is down nationwide, it seems to be going in the opposite direction with bus
ridership going down nationwide, and we are going to try and expand the bus now? It is like
we are forcing, but anyway, because we talked about that in the last meeting how the roads
is a $100 million backlog, but now we are $200 million in backlog, yet when we approved this
thing...I think it was one Councilmember...two...Councilmember Chock and Councilmember
Yukimura who maybe supported some going to bus. The other five...we are going to catch up
on the roads and the bridges. I do not know what the split is here. I think it is 4-3. We want
the roads to get done. Why are we going to take $6 million and expand something that is
going downhill? I can see if we take $2 million maybe, increase by $2,000,000 but to increase
it by $6,000,000 when you have four here that want to fix the roads...I think they are
short-changing you folks. How are we ever going to catch up on the backlog if it is now $200
million?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kagawa, I get your point, but let
us not make assumptions on the Members and where they are going on this.
Councilmember Kagawa: I am talking about when we approved it in its first
intentions, $25 million was about the roads. I would have voted "no" if they said they were
going to give 30% to the bus of the 0.5% GET. It has everything to do with intentions, right?
To the public, what is the GET for? It is for Transportation and Roads? I would say, "no, it is
for roads." That was my intention when I supported it.
Mr. Tabata: Your point is well-taken, Councilmember
Kagawa. I do not think Mr. Tresler and I are in a position to answer your question. Whatever
funds that we are provided, I guarantee we will spend it.
Councilmember Kagawa: If the Council were to change the funding, and say
instead of $6 million per year for Transportation and $2 million per year goes to
Transportation, can you spend $4 million more?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members? It
can be on the presentation or it can be on the actual budget for Administration.
Mr. Tabata: Our budget is pretty flat for Administration and
Fiscal.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes, there is not much to the Budget.
Councilmember Cowden.
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Councilmember Cowden: I was just trying to look where I put it, I was
reading in here on your "challenges." One of your challenges is that you have a hard time
finding Civil Engineers; is that correct?
Mr. Tabata: Yes, the Engineering Division, in the last three
months...we made offers to engineers, as I believe was mentioned by the Department of
Human Resources (HR) Manager yesterday. They are looking at shortage differential, but it
has not been implemented. So we still, though we hire on a range, and the range is based on
what they tell us is their years of experience, we match according to where it would fall in
our range for that certain level of engineer that they applied for. It still falls short, and we
have been turned down.
Councilmember Cowden: Did I read in here that you get new hires, they are
not in long and they get picked off by industry?
Mr. Tabata: The last two years, we had two Civil Engineers
hired, not licensed, and so they fall within that range that based on their previous experience,
they gain knowledge while working for us.
Councilmember Cowden: Yes.
Mr. Tabata: We advance them as much as we can within the
rules, and they had been offered positions in the construction industry that did not require a
Professional Engineer (PE) license for more than double the pay that we offer. That is very
hard for us to compete with.
Councilmember Cowden: So in really grasping this challenge, even as you
are raising people up and you need to have someone who is licensed to take our County
Engineer position, you cannot even get them to that point, because there is too many other
better-paying jobs out there that are available?
Mr. Tabata: At this point in time, yes, because of the
construction industry being very vibrant.
Councilmember Cowden: Are we directly prospecting, say, University of
Hawai`i (UH) graduates for those beginners?
Mr. Tabata: Yes. We have posted on the University website in
the past, in national publications. We interview people from around the country who have
applied. I believe the cost of living, once they identify how much it costs to live in Hawai`i, we
have a hard time competing.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will try to hold, if we have questions for
Engineering we will wait until we get to the Engineering section. We will have Engineering
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folks here. No problem. Any questions for Administration? We are on Administration right
now. Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So on the County Engineer position, the budgeted
amount is $119,357. That position has been vacant for a very long time, correct?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: What is the plan'? How is that money being spent
if the position is vacant?
Mr. Tabata: It is not being spent.
Councilmember Kuali`i: It is not being spent.
Mr. Tabata: So it would be the carryover.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Carryover?
Mr. Tabata: It would carry over to the next year.
Councilmember Kuali`i: What is the anticipation of filling that position?
Any time soon?
Mr. Tabata: I am not aware of candidates. I touched base with
the Administration and they tell me that they are working on a solution.
Councilmember Kuali`i: We should follow-up with HR.
Mr. Tabata: I am not aware.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay, thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Administration?If not,we
are going to move on to Fiscal. We will move on to Fiscal. Oh, wait, one more question.
Councilmember Kuali`i: I only noticed in our variance analysis it said that
three positions were changed. I do not know what this position is E-24, Program
Administration Officer II, and it is listed at $112,104. Can you tell me just real quick what
that position is? Whether it is vacant or not or how long it has been occupied?
Mr. Tabata: Thank you. That is our CIP Manager, Wade Lord.
You will be seeing him when we go into CIP.
Councilmember Kuali`i: CIP Manager—so because of the "E" that is an
appointed position?
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Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: We have somebody newly-appointed into that
position?
Mr. Tabata: Wade Lord.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Wade Lord. Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Are we allowed to say names?
Mr. Tabata: I believe he is still under Mayor's Office.
Councilmember Kuali`i: It is filled, yes?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Same thing for 9051—that is a Civil Service
position, Program Administration Officer II...it is the same title with $91,752. So basically,
this is generic term, right?
Mr. Tabata: That was Mr. Tresler's former position in the
Mayor's Office. So Mr. Tresler took the position of Fiscal Management Officer, and vacated
that former position.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So what is 9051?
Mr. Tabata: I do not have that on my list. I am sorry.
JANINE M.Z. RAPOZO, Director of Human Resources: 9051 is classified as
Program Administration Officer II and used to be the Executive Assistant to the Mayor,
EM-5 and downgraded the position to an EM-3 and it is attached to the Mayor's Office and it
is filled.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So it used to be the Executive Assistant to the
Mayor; what is it now?
Ms. Rapozo: It is the Program Administrative Officer. It is still
attached to the Mayor's Office, but we downgraded the position from Executive Assistant at
an EM-5 to Program Administrative Officer, EM-3.
Councilmember Kuali`i: When you say attached to the Mayor's Office,
what does that mean? Is it here in Public Works or is it in the Mayor's Office? What does the
job do? Connect Public Works to the Mayor's Office?
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Ms. Rapozo: I think the intent there was because there is no
County Engineer, it is helping Public Works through the Mayor's Office with special
assignments, and Mr. Tresler was in the position so he could better answer.
MICHAEL TRESLER, Fiscal Management Officer for Public Works:
Councilmember Kuali`i, for me, I was in that position and for all intent and purposes I acted
like the acting Deputy to the Engineer.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions? Okay, we will move on to
Fiscal.
Mr. Tresler: Michael Tresler, Fiscal Management Officer for
Public Works. There is really no change, I think the change here is an increase in office
supplies, basically to keep up with costs and increase in supplies that are needed that is it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Thank you for the $1,000 increase in Office
Supplies. The budget is pretty flat; the only difference is the benefits, which we all know have
been going up. Any questions? Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I see that you bought a new copier, is that right?
Pretty small in terms of increase.
Mr. Tresler: Yes. We are adding a copier this year. There is a
lot of copying and scanning that we do for our federal projects and other projects. Right now,
we have to run back and forth to the Administration Office from Fiscal.
Councilmember Cowden: I support that.
Mr. Tresler: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Position No. 807, Accountant II, vacant since
December 15, 2018, so 90 days now. What is the status of filling that position?
Mr. Tresler: Councilmember Kuali`i, the status is we are close
to closing the recruitment on that position, so we expect to fill it in the next 90 days.
Hopefully, sooner. So we have been challenged, there has been two of us running that
office—Menchie and myself—and she has been doing an outstanding job, basically filling
more than her role currently.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Filling 90 days or sooner is what I heard you say,
right?
Mr. Tresler: Yes.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay, then the last one, another one was
highlighted as changed, too. What is that position? Sometimes these generic titles that are
what the system generates, like you ended up telling me about the CIP Manager. That is
something different, but I could not distinguish between what that position was. What is this
Fiscal Management Officer, Position No. 804, $116,844 budgeted, EM-5.What is that position
actually? Is it currently filled? Is it newly filled? New appointment by the Mayor?
Mr. Tresler: You are looking at the person.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Your position?
Mr. Tresler: Yes, that is my position.
Councilmember Kuali`i: What is your title?
Mr. Tresler: I guess it is Fiscal Management Officer.
Councilmember Kuali`i: It is that. So it is not like Deputy County
Engineer?
Mr. Tabata: He assists me every day. It is like the two of us.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Yes.
Mr. Tabata: Division head and I cannot cover, you know? I
have vacation days and so forth. He is the next in line for signing authority in the department.
When I am not there, he helps me chase down day-to-day items and he is very busy, on top
of his regular work.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay. Thank you. That answers it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Fiscal? We will move on.
Next up is the Building Division.
Mr. Tabata: We have, Chief of the Building Division, and
Leolynne Escalona is our Code Enforcement Officer. They will do their presentation on their
synopsis and answer your financial questions.
DOUG HAIGH, Department of Public Works, Building Division Chief: Good
morning, Doug Haigh, Department of Public Works, Building Division. The Building Division
has two primary functions: we develop facilities for the County of Kaua`i, building facilities
and others, and we manage the code enforcement process for the island. Our division is made
up in those two groups, basically we have two and a half people working on the Facility
Development side. That is myself and our Project Manager, and then our Office Manager,
halftime helping us on the Facilities Development side. Then the balance of the employees in
the Building Division are part of the Code Enforcement section, which is led by Leolynne
Escalona, our Code Enforcement Officer. Our goal is customer service. One, we are servicing
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our clients, other County agencies, providing facilities developments for the other County
agencies. That is our primary job there and then we provide services to the public, for
code-related issues. I will let Leolynne address some key issues concerning our code
enforcement section.
LEOLYNNE ESCALONA, Code Enforcement Officer: Good morning, Council
Chair Kaneshiro and Members of the Council. Leolynne Escalona, Code Enforcement Officer.
I just want to go over a couple of changes that we have in the Building Division over the past
year. Last February, we implemented 100% electronic plan review. When we implemented
this change, we also purchased large monitors for the Building Permit Clerks to aid in
reviewing and processing our permit applications. I guess after a little more than a year, the
average number of review days went from 97 to 67. So that is a significant improvement in
one year. Also last year, we purchased iPads for all of our Field Inspectors. These iPads have
cellular capability. Once we get the supporting software, our inspectors do access
electronically at the job site and also it allows Field Inspectors to enter inspection results in
real-time. It will also allow Field Inspectors to research properties for permits, and possible
code enforcement violations. Thank you.
Mr. Tabata: If I may add to that, we have taken an aggressive
approach to enforcing our Sign Ordinance. We work with our community members and I
believe we are making headway; it is not perfect, but we are making headway.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Thank you. Any questions from the
Members. Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you for your presentation and thank you
for transitioning to electronic review; from everything I have heard, it is working well for a
lot of people. Just a quick question on the presentation, you said permit time went from 97
to 67 days; is that just for the Building Division's review or is that time to get a permit?
Ms. Escalona: That is the operational review.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I want to also thank you, and having seen those
large screens and seen how much of an improvement that would be for viewing, I am
surprised you are able to do a quicker job. Does your area...do you make any decisions, like
when people want to be part of a stewardship or is that completely out of our purview?
Mr. Haigh: I am sorry, I do not understand the question.
Councilmember Cowden: When the community wants to be involved with
the design of the buildings, is there any job position or any piece in here that helps that or is
that all the different departments?
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Mr. Haigh: If you are talking about County Facilities.
Councilmember Cowden: County facilities...
Mr. Haigh: Some of our projects we do are public outreach,
bicycle path projects for one, the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery
(TIGER) Grant project that we are managing for engineering had a tremendous amount of
public outreach. Typically, our fire stations/police stations...we do not do extensive public
outreach. Really, most of that public outreach will be covered when we go for our planning
permits. That would be when it is opened up for permitting issues for public input.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I know sometimes on the park buildings, at
least right now coming up, I am hearing a lot of feedback. So I was not sure if it is in.
Mr. Haigh: The feedback would happen primarily during the
planning stages of the project. Right now, we are managing the Kawaihau Police Substation
Project, which we just recently awarded the contract to the design firm to move forward. One
of the first steps is to get ready for the planning process, which will include public meetings
to do outreach to the public and let them know what we are planning and getting input on
the site selection and move forward from there. Of course, the planning will also go through
the Planning Department. With a project like that, we try to have public informational
meetings early on in the project to get feedback from the public.
Councilmember Cowden: That is all included in this price here.
Mr. Haigh: Well, it is managed by two-and-a-half people. We
hire consultants, who help us through the projects. So we are basically managing the
consultants, and of course, when it comes in the public process, our clients...when we have
public meetings, we expect our clients like the Police Department to be there at the public
meetings to be able to listen to the public and inform the public on some of the key issues
related to a project.
Councilmember Cowden: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So on positions, I noticed in your comments you
have operational challenges, and you say your intent for 2020 was to move two positions, the
Building Permit Clerk and the Supervising Plans Examiner, from the Revolving Fund to the
General Fund. That was denied. So because you were unable to get the funding source you
wanted, General Fund instead of Revolving Fund, you have dollar-funded both of those
vacant positions. Do you need those positions or not? If you need them why are you unwilling
to pay with the Revolving Fund or unable to? I do not know what your balance is or what
have you. The other question I had with regard to those positions, and needs as far as
Building Permits...because obviously, we want to be fully staffed if we want to expedite
permitting and do better for our constituents, be quicker, to move that along. These positions
are vacant and dollar-funded and it seems like it is because of the funding source. The
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Building Permits Clerk is the lowest-level position, its salary is only $36,732. I do not want
to use harsh words, but it seems kind of extreme that a low-level position that might be
needed for expediting and moving things along is not being funded for $36,000. Now, I do see
all these other positions with a "T" in front of them, which I think means, "temporary" and
one funded by another source. What can you say to that?
Mr. Tabata: Councilmember Kuali`i, if I may answer. These
positions are traditionally held as flex positions for the division. We had wanted to convert
to General Fund, so we could have more Building Revolving Fund available to flex even more,
if we needed. However, decisions were made, and you know, as the Mayor said, we have to
make cuts to balance the budget.
Councilmember Kuali`i: You say "decisions were made." The budgetary
decision to deny $36,000 for Building Permit Clerk, that decision was made by whom?
Mr. Tabata: To be funded through the General Fund.
Councilmember Kuali`i: By the Council?
Mr. Tabata: No.
Councilmember Kuali`i: By the current Mayor?
Mr. Tabata: Administration.
Councilmember Kuali`i: By you?
Mr. Tabata: Our Administration.
Councilmember Kuali`i: You decided not to fund it?
Mr. Tabata: We decided to keep it as a flex position to be able
to flex and hire as-needed, as more Revolving Funds can become available. As building
production picks up further, statistics showing that we really not at the point where we...it
is "nice to have" versus a "need to have." So we are keeping this and asking that it not be cut
and kept as a dollar-funded position for that flexibility, if it does become a needed position.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So I am hearing your explanation now, but I just
have to point out to you that in your operational challenge report, you say, "since this request
was denied, it limits our capability of increasing staff to address the growing number of
building, plumbing, electrical and sign violations complaints our offices receive weekly." So
if you are making the decision not to fund it because you want that flexibility, do not say it
was denied because now I am questioning: Did the Mayor deny it or do we as a Council,
because I will add it to the budget if you need it, I will propose adding it. I am one vote and I
need five.
Mr. Tabata: Your point is well-taken. We correct it.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It is just a matter of justifying the position. If you
folks need it, then put it in the budget. If you do not need it and you are going to try to do the
work without it, then you stand by the position you are at.
Mr. Tabata: I ask that my people try to do the work without it
and we keep it available to flex, when it becomes...
Councilmember Kuali`i: The follow-up to that as far as funding source,
Revolving Fund versus General Fund, for General Fund, where do the funds come from and
go? It comes from fees, right? Fee for service? People pay?
Mr. Tabata: The Building Permit fees.
Councilmember Kuali`i: All go into the Revolving Fund?
Mr. Tabata: Not all of them, a percentage of it goes into the
fund.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So demand is growing, that means we can collect
more fees. So we should be able to budget for more staff?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: The last question on positions is T-1981,
"Supervising Building Plan Examiner." So what does the "T" mean? "Temporary"?
Mr. Haigh: Okay, this is a Building Permit Revolving Fund
position. The "T" ones are temporary because they are not funded under the General Fund.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So all the "T's" are Building Revolving Fund. That
is what you mean by other source, too?
Mr. Haigh: That is correct. Let me just make sure.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Which in a sense it means it is being helped being
paid for by the fees that we collect from contractors and whoever pays.
Mr. Haigh: We have a plan review fee.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Plan review fee.
Mr. Haigh: Which is the 15% of the Building Permit Fee and
those go to the Revolving Fund. Up to $250,000, I believe. If we collect more than $200,000,
it goes to the General Fund.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: The last question on this, and I am not proposing
anything, I am just saying obviously, those fees are looked at from time-to-time, and as time
goes by and everything gets more expensive and the salaries go up, those fees are adjusted
accordingly?
Mr. Haigh: Well, the fees are based on the cost of
construction. We have a policy on how we generate the cost of construction. The value is
within the policy, so we can adjust the policy as construction gets more expensive.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So there is a mechanism in place?
Mr. Haigh: Yes. There is a mechanism in place.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I have a fun question and I am going to ask this to
Parks also: How is the "Green Box" initiative working? Are we seeing more efficient work
getting done? Faster service?Any cost-savings on it?
Mr. Haigh: It is great.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: For the Members, the "Green Box," at one time,
Buildings had their own Building employees, Parks had their own Parks employees, and the
Buildings folks would do building work and Parks would do parks work. Then last year or
two years ago, we moved all those employees into Parks to be more efficient in getting work
done.
Mr. Tabata: From my point of view—and Doug is not involved
in the day-to-day operations of the "maintenance" anymore—with the new Parks
management, I believe they are evaluating, and we have had preliminary discussions on
where we are at and if it has improved or not. They would be more appropriate to answer at
this time, but I would give them some time to analyze what they have received and where
they are at.As far as from the technical perspective, we are available to assist them and have
been assisting them as they need.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: You can give Parks a heads-up, I am going to ask
that to them when they are up here.
Mr. Tabata: I will.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: As far as the Building side goes though, is it still
running as smooth as it used to be? Better? Do you have less people to manage?
Mr. Haigh: It certainly makes my job easier, but then they
load me up with more projects to make up for that. But for maintenance, managing the
maintenance side is a lot of work. It is a very critical operation. You have union issues and
you have a whole bag of issues that goes with that. So it is not an easy task. So having that
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task assigned to somebody else, as far as Code Enforcement, we are very fortunate Leolynne
has stepped up and moved up in managing that. Again, that has made my job a lot easier
that I have someone very competent managing that side. It allows me to focus primarily on
the facility development, while also still focusing on the code development side.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I have another question. For Security Services, is
that security for the building at night? Do we have a contract?
Mr. Haigh: It is security in the morning.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Civic Center, Monday through Friday, $35,000.
Mr. Haigh: This is one of those, it is in your budget, but this
year, Parks actually managed the contract because I did not have the time to procure that
contract. My priorities for the CIP projects was such that I could not get to do that purchase
order. So Parks does it and the service is really is for the janitors, to provide security for them
in the morning when our janitors are here at 4:00 in the morning. It is very early in the
morning and they are feeling uncomfortable being on site without anybody else around.There
is a certain population that can be there in the mornings. So the service works out well. I
have been trying to get it shifted over to Parks as a funding source to be their funding. So
they can move forward on it. We will have all the same challenges next year.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Has it been contracted out?
Mr. Haigh: Yes. It is been contracted out.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: But it is in your budget?
Mr. Haigh: It is in our budget.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I am looking at year-to-date expenditures and it
was zero.
Mr. Haigh: It took a long time for them to get contracted out,
but it is out and there have been some invoices coming through because I have been trying
to let the vendor know that they need to send those invoices to Parks. I have been forwarding
them to Parks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: So Parks has the number? Parks is paying?
Mr. Haigh: Yes, they are paying. They should be using this
account. So they should be coming to us for the funding, but they are managing the contract.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: The invoices are going to you?
Mr. Haigh: They are coming to me and I forward them to
Parks to be approved.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay.
Mr. Haigh: They just started a couple of months ago. So they
may not have been in the system as far as the budget.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Does Parks have a number for security in their
budget or what is the intention?
Mr. Haigh: I do not believe they have a separate item in their
budget.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: As far as the Supplemental Budget, are we going
to expect to see this in Parks' budget or keep it in yours?
Mr. Haigh: I fully support that.
Mr. Tabata: We will talk to the Administration of making the
change.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members?
Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Just a quick one. So your training budget is flat.
You are not asking for any more than you asked before?
Mr. Haigh: That is correct.
Councilmember Kuali`i: But in your comments, you seem to be alluding to
the changing technology and the changing codes and everything, that you may have a need
for additional training or just the same training...what about all of the additional Transient
Vacation Rental (TVR) enforcement?
Mr. Haigh: TVR enforcement is not a Building Division task,
it is the Planning Department's task. We work closely with Planning. As far as training, we
also supplement our training with the Revolving Fund. But the Revolving Fund is getting
more tasked with salaries, so our flexibility is not quite where we would like it to be and that
is why we would like a separate training budget to make sure that we can maintain the
minimum amount of training for our staff.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions for the Building Division?
Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you. Three years ago, we moved Building
Maintenance from the Building Division to the Parks Department, right?
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Mr. Haigh: Three years ago.
Councilmember Kagawa: Was it three years ago?
Mr. Haigh: About.
Councilmember Kagawa: So anyway, I know I had kind of asked about that
and almost got into one Councilmember wanted to charge me with meddling or whatever. So
anyway, they moved it. The Mayor was allowed to move it and we were not allowed to,
built-in on that issue, so I am wondering now with the new Mayor, where are we with that?
Mr. Tabata: Councilmember Kagawa, that question surfaced
earlier...
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I do not want to say you went to the restroom, but
you went to the restroom.
Councilmember Kagawa: We are not on Buildings?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I asked that question. If you could just
summarize.
Mr. Tabata: The summary is that the new Department of
Parks and Recreation management is evaluating where they are, to identify...and we have
had preliminary discussions of working together on a possible new direction. We are letting
them have time to assess where they are at.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: No problem. It is a big question. Oh, lollipop.
Councilmember Kagawa: I wanted to get sweeter. I started off my day
dropping my Hydro Flask on the floor, full of water so it was not a good start.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will have staff keep bringing you lollipops.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions for Building?
Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just expanding on my other question regarding
average time to get a permit, so that is continuing to trend downward?Are we pretty flat at
67 days? Is that the best we can do?
Ms. Escalona: Well, the assessments are as of February 1st of this
year. So we will continue to monitor.
Councilmember Evslin: As we get adjusted to the electronic, or you get
adjusted to electronic, does it seem like there are more improvements we can make to reduce
that time?
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Ms. Escalona: Definitely.
Councilmember Evslin: Does that includes the Department of Water's
plan review time?
Ms. Escalona: It also includes the Department of Water.
Councilmember Evslin: Lastly, to make significant decreases in that, in
theory, would another position help decrease that? What makes it be 67 days?
Mr. Haigh: I will answer that. Primarily our staff is doing
really well. Right now we just recently promoted the Supervisor Plan Examiner to strengthen
our plan review. We are pretty capable but the other agencies have further challenges and
we cannot answer to their challenges.
Councilmember Evslin: Is there anywhere that we could have a
breakdown on how much each department is taking? Because I know you are pretty quick.
Mr. Haigh: That information is available.
Councilmember Evslin: It is available, the average time for each? Thank
you folks.
Mr. Haigh: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: That would probably come as a follow-up question.
I think you have seen that before where you line-itemed each department and the review
time.
Mr. Tabata: Yes, we have.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: So we will probably send that as a follow-up
question. Good information to have. Any further questions for Buildings? If not we will move
on to Engineering.
Mr. Tabata: Engineering. We have Engineering Chief Michael
Moule here to provide his discussion points for his synopsis that has been submitted.
MICHAEL MOULE, Chief of Engineering: Good morning, Members of the
Council. Michael Moule, Chief of Engineering for the record. Our budget is pretty
straightforward. Our main piece of our budget is for salaries. We do not have a whole lot of
other interoperating budgets, no travel for training, office supplies...as far as traffic counts
and things like that. We have two major changes that we sent to you in our Operating Budget
this year. The first is to...we have an item called "Other Services." In that item is several
things lumped into that, one of which for the past year was...last year was a $30,000 item for
Surveying Costs shown in the Budget. We propose to increase that Surveying Costs from
$30,000 to $50,000. We have not been able to fill a position for the County Surveyor since
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2015, there is no one available for that position at the level it is at. Instead, we have been
very successful with handling much of what the County has done in-house, but when we need
actual surveys done, we do not have surveyors. We can do some data collection for our
in-house design purposes in-house, but as far as doing surveys that require mapping, signing,
and sealing by a surveyor, we cannot do that and we have an on-call contract with Esaki
Surveying & Mapping Inc. about a year-and-a-half ago, something like that. We are asking
for additional funds to bring that amount up a little bit for this fiscal year because there are
additional surveying needs, sort of backlog of things to be surveyed for various purposes. For
that contract, we do surveys for not just the Engineering Division, but other divisions in
Public Works, as well as for other Departments, the Parks Department, primarily. So we are
just trying to bump that amount up so we can do more of the surveys. The other item that we
have a significant increase in is our...sorry, I think I might have made a mistake in this text,
but it is for our Plotter, our Supplies Budget...Small Equipment, sorry. It is relatively small,
$3,500 usually used for purchasing traffic counters, things that break or things that get
stolen off the road, things like that. We are increasing that significantly to $3,500 to $13,500,
$10,000 one-time item, meaning once every ten years, items to purchase, a new
Scanner/Plotter for the office. It is something we use on a regular basis, almost daily, doing
scans/plotting several times a month for various things that we design or otherwise and it is
ten years old. It is breaking down regularly. Computer drivers for new computers do not work
really well. When we asked about it, my staff said, "This is getting pretty old. What do you
think?" We talked to the Information Technology (IT) Department and they said, "Yes, you
need a plotter, it is time." I think ten years is a pretty reasonable timeframe for getting a new
one. That is where we are. The only other items that we have in the operational challenges
that we brought up are just staffing issues in Engineering, especially with the engineer
positions. We briefly had all positions filled last year, but the challenge we have is largely
related to salaries and some of the younger engineers being pulled away by contractors who
are really busy right now, especially with the emergency stuff, they just are being paid higher
salaries. We are working with Human Resources on the possibility of doing shortage pay,
which, does not, as I understand it, bump everyone up in the office, but especially people at
the lower level where we need it to recruit and retain staff. We did just fill one vacancy with
the one person that left last year, although it was an internal hire, someone who came from
another division, so it still leaves a vacancy elsewhere. We just had interviews this week for
another one with some promising candidates. We have made offers to people in the past and
they have turned us down. It is still an ongoing challenge with recruitment and retention. It
may affect the budget if the shortage pay does kick in, but it would not be significant. Just a
handful of employees at the lowest steps within their salary range if that makes sense, as I
understand it. That is all I have to talk about and I am willing to answer any questions.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Then Councilmember
Kuali`i.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, thank you so much. I will definitely support
the new printer/scanner. Talking about the employment, I think it is a real big issue,
especially when people are coming out of such slow performance. I am learning about the
union, but can we maybe take those positions and move them up on the Salary Range (SR)
or however we do that, so we can be paying a little bit more for those positions?
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Mr. Moule: Yes and no. The two staff members that we lost
last year are both relatively young, new engineers that were some of the best employees that
we have had, very competent employees, but without enough experience, and we had them
at the highest salary range they possibly could be at based on their experience. We reallocated
them because they were good employees. The only way to raise their salaries, the only
mechanism to increase, is to move them to the higher step, but you cannot just do that.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, do they have to have more experience?
Mr. Moule: Or there is the shortage pay thing, which again
HR is working on. However, we did not have that in time to retain the staff that we had.
Councilmember Cowden: I am wondering if we have anything in the budget
for going out and doing active recruiting. I remember as an engineer, certain companies
would come and try and you do not just post, but show up and talk people into coming into
the job. Do we have any effort in that?
Mr. Moule: We have not made those kinds of efforts. We have
made contacts where we, besides posting on our own website...I might contact a network
nationally to get people out or on O`ahu, not going to conferences and things like that.
Councilmember Cowden: With surveying, is that something we can work
with training people? Like using the UH system or can we take our own people and train
them to become surveyors? Because lack of having a surveyor seems like a really big impasse.
Mr. Moule: The system is working out pretty well right now.
Councilmember Cowden: With the contracting.
Mr. Moule: Contracting in place. We just wanted to get a little
more funding in it to do more of those. I think it is a reasonable solution given the alternative
to staffing in this case.
Mr. Tabata: I believe that filling the position has been a
challenge because the position requires the surveyor to be licensed to meet the County's
needs.
Councilmember Cowden: Right.
Mr. Tabata: So training somebody up, it can be done with the
intent that they will sit for the exam and become licensed.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I have a follow-up on the surveyor question. Was
there a position for the surveyor? Did we move the position to something else?
Mr. Moule: It was reallocated to an engineering position.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Is it currently filled?
Mr. Moule: We currently have one vacancy in Engineering.
The answer being that we tend to use that position for project management, managing
County projects, trying to keep our projects moving; especially with the emergencies and
everything, we have an increase in that, essentially to avoid overtime for staff and have more
staff to manage our actual projects, our regular projects, and emergency projects.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I agree with contracting surveying. If we have one
surveyor in the office, is he able to do the amount of work that we can contract a company to
do that maybe has all these employees that can get on a project and do it all within one day?
I want us to continue to look at that cost-benefit analysis. If we get one employee who needs
to be certified, we are probably looking at over $50,000 for that employee and his benefits
when we can contract $50,000 out, as it is now and maybe get the same amount of work or
more because they have more resources. So yes, I am happy that we are contracting it out
rather than having one employee. I do not know how much that employee would be able to
do as far as surveying. If things change, if our contract for surveying goes up and you say it
might be better to be justified that we have a surveyor that can do all the work by themselves
and it will make better sense for us, I would be more than open to listen to that. I think right
now at the amount that we have, we are probably getting the biggest bang for our buck,
rather than trying to find a surveyor to do the work.
Mr. Moule: I think that is right for the actual surveying.
Surveyors cannot do surveys by themselves for a lot of things and requires staff to do flagging
or to hold rods and that sort of thing. We had a surveyor and still do some kind of surveying
ourselves like data collection for design purposes. In that case, we would use our Engineering
Support Technicians or Surveyor I, II, or III, go out with the Surveyor and do data collection
or do the actual work in the field. So in a sense, this is sufficient because they do have stuff
to do that and they can do the surveys very efficiently. It is just that we have a pretty big
backlog and it keeps getting bigger. We take some off of it and we get other requests, then
the Roads Division says, "Oh, there is this, we got a complaint from a resident there, drainage
easements between these houses in Kalaheo can you survey that?" So we can determine
whose houses or properties the trees are on. So we need to go and do that and we can tell the
Roads Division folks to take the trees out. We have done that on roads as well, right-of-way
of the roads and trees on our property or on State property. These are the kinds of things that
we use this for and they keep coming up. At some point, if our backlog gets smaller, where it
is not growing, when we are conducting...maybe we can dial this back, but right now the
backlog is growing, if that makes sense.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It makes sense. Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: One simple question, I noticed on other employee
benefits on page 189, it dropped by $72,730. Is that because of not being able to fill the
position? What would make the other employee benefits have a negative number that large?
Page 189. It is over on the right.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It says "STIP Reimbursement" on it. We are
getting reimbursed by the State.
Mr. Tresler: Michael Tresler. Fiscal Management Officer,
Public Works. That is offset, what we do with our Federal projects is we charge our time to
those projects. As we go through reimbursement, it nets out against our General Fund
salaries.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Under "Salaries" there is $100,000, "STIP
Reimbursement" and then under "Benefits" there is this $72,000 reimbursement.
Mr. Tresler: Yes. So whatever our benefit rates are, it is the
salary plus the benefits. That currently is at 79.66%.
Councilmember Evslin: Is that $100,000 just based on the amount of
Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds we are getting?
Mr. Tresler: Yes. It is an estimate on projects we have, and how
much time we will be putting forth on those projects.
Councilmember Evslin: Is the $100,000 reimbursement pretty steady
throughout the years or does that fluctuate?
Mr. Tresler: Yes. It is been pretty consistent.
Mr. Moule: We have not had problems with our salary budget
in Parks because of the vacancies, so between the vacancies and this reimbursement we have
not had an issue going into the budget for the last several years. We always have STIP
projects and staff and we always have a line item for County forces. We will continue to have
them. We think that consistent amount makes sense this time.
Mr. Tresler: There are also budgets within each project and
sometimes you exceed or do not exceed those budgeted line items within that project as well.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Back to the positions. You talked about the two
engineer vacancies and filling one. So what was the other vacancy? I see one is Civil Engineer
II that went vacant on January 14th, so 60 days now was the other Civil Engineer II?
Mr. Moule: It was a Civil Engineer I.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: And then you said the one that was filled was
filled internally. Does that mean we have a new vacancy?
Mr. Moule: Yes. The first filled was Engineer I and was
previously the Engineering Support Tech III in the Roads Division.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Do you know the position number?
Mr. Moule: It is not in Engineering.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Roads Division.
Mr. Moule: That is something you can talk to the Roads
Division about.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Tell me the name of the title again.
Mr. Moule: Engineering Support Tech III, I believe.
Councilmember Kuali`i: The other vacancy you have just happened a week
ago. Two weeks ago.
Mr. Moule: January.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Clerical Assistant, Position No. 1999—was that a
retirement? They got gobbled up in County?
Mr. Moule: That is a staff person who is with the County, a
person who is on extended leave.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Now you are going to fill the position you posted?
Mr. Moule: We are working on documents to post that
position.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Do you anticipate filling within 90 days? 120
days?
Mr. Moule: I would say 90 days. Hopefully, sooner.
Councilmember Kuali`i: As soon as possible, but however fast HR can
move. It takes time. The only other question I have is, you talked about the small equipment
and $10,000 investment in something bigger and better because the other one was old
already, too, like ten years or something? On this new equipment, it also said something that
we use it on a weekly basis. I am curious then as to how often the machine might sit idle and
how much use are we using it and is there any way maybe there is other builders or
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contractors, or people who could potentially, if it is even possible, use it for a fee and make
back some of the money to help pay for the $10,000 equipment?
Mr. Moule: Theoretically, that is possible. We do not really
have a system in place for that use. When I say least on a weekly basis, it is almost every
day.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Well, in the standard office, the copier is"hot" and
used all the time.
Mr. Moule: Right. It is a large format scanner/plotter, so big
maps. We have a large archive of old plans, of County projects dating back decades. What
that scanner is used for in part is to archive those electronically. Essentially, we have one
staff person who has other duties as well, but one of his main duties is doing that. On days
when he is not busy with other duties, it is sort of his backup. He will continually be scanning
and archiving those maps. There will be times where we need specific maps, where we say,
"Okay, we have an upcoming road project on Olohena Road. Let us find the old plans for
Olohena Road. Get all those scanned in if they have not been already and get those to the
designers and consultants who are designing the project." It is probably on average three
days a week. It is pretty regular, if not more.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So even three days or more, the thought about
getting more use out of it and making some revenue back, that is just not possible or feasible
in your opinion.
Mr. Moule: We have not looked into it.
Councilmember Kuali`i: You have not looked into it?
Mr. Moule: We have not looked into it. I do not know that it is
advisable because it would cause wear-and-tear and we have to replace the existing bulb.
Councilmember Kuali`i: You would be handling it, right? And you would
charge a fee for doing it? I do not know if there is a desire or even demand.
Mr. Moule: There are services for that on-island. There are
printing/scanning services that smaller engineering companies use. The larger ones have
their own.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Then the other thought is based on how much
those services are? Is it better for us to have our own machine or to be paying for that?
Mr. Moule: I think it is also important to note that we do scan
maps for other departments as well on a regular basis. For example, Attorney's Office comes
to us with large subdivision maps that are part of some discussions we are having right now,
and ask if we can scan it for them. Having something like that in-house, is necessary. It is
just a matter of needing a new one.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions for Engineering? If not,
thank you. Next up is Auto Maintenance. Auto Maintenance is on page 277 on the bottom.
Mr. Tabata: This is a Division that Mr. Tresler helps me
administer daily. He is highly involved in the Automotive Division. Unfortunately,
Mr. Adachi had a vacation scheduled, so he is not available. Mike and I are covering for him.
The challenges he states is the facility. As you all know, we have been in this facility from
the `70s. We are limited in size, and because of the limited size, Transportation has their own
shop, Fire takes care of their own maintenance. Police actually has their yard and they bring
the vehicles to us as we have space available for them. So he is also limited because of the
size in the amount of employees he can have in the footprint he has. So part of it is we have
a growing fleet and we are challenged with maintaining all the equipment in the space that
we have. Part of the original discussions for the use of the GET money was to look for
additional property to create a whole new shop. But right now, the thrust of our focus is
repairing roads. So down the line, as we start catching up, and as Councilmember Kagawa
points out, the backlog has grown, as a County we still need to look for a new auto and
equipment maintenance facility location so we can meet the needs of the change in the growth
of the County maintenance needs.
Mr. Tresler: I would like to point out that I am not sure
organizationally but there is a General Fund piece that you are seeing, but the main budget
for that is in Roads.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Right now we are looking at the Highway Fund.
Mr. Tresler: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Page 277 is the Highway Fund.
Mr. Tabata: Having said that, we will open up the floor to
questions.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Lyle, a couple years back
we were talking about this expansion. I just wanted to get an update in terms of the future.
You have said that this is something from the `70s and we have not even addressed it. With
these folks, every year, it is the same thing, same need.
Mr. Tabata: Right.
Councilmember Chock: I am just curious, as you look past roads and to get
to where we need to on this, where are we in locating a better area for their needs?
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Mr. Tabata: We continuously look in the community for
opportunities. We are working on something right now, but it is not ready to bring forth to
the Administration to look at. But we have looked at, I have looked at different locations
around the Lihu`e, Puhi, and Hanama`ulu area and talked to landowners of opportunities
and "what-ifs." It is only at that point and nothing has been confirmed.
Councilmember Chock: When we are talking about space, we are talking
about work space.
Mr. Tabata: Exactly, roof over the workshop.
Councilmember Chock: Where they can do their maintenance.
Mr. Tabata: Part of what we are moving forward right now, I
believe we are going to contract, is finally completing the mezzanine we talked about in the
shop. So we can move groundfloor storage on the mezzanine level to open up another bay to
do work. Until that gets done...that was one of the first steps.
Mr. Tresler: The other point is when you are doing
maintenance, there is a need for space, other than just under roof space. Right now we utilize
the "park and ride" to stage equipment there. But that will be or is intended to be developed
into a housing facility project, so we may end up losing that staging site as well. So that is
going to create more challenges.
Councilmember Chock: The reason I asked is because I do not know if you
need Administrative space. It is not like we have space across the street here. What kind of
space are we looking for? If it is storage stuff, I know the mezzanine was a big project that
was going to take care of a lot of that, as you said. I am curious.
Mr. Tabata: It is a short-term fix.
Councilmember Chock: Yes.
Mr. Tabata: We are looking at something along the lines of
six (6) acres.
Councilmember Chock: Okay. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, just a quick follow-up. I noticed that the old
Department of Water Building is sitting there unutilized. Is that an area where something
like that would work?
Mr. Tabata: They are presently going through a redesign for
their own Maintenance Facility.
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Department of Public Works—Operating & CIP
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: Have we looked at reorganizing so that we
perhaps limit the amount that we require our auto shop to do and make do with what they
have for now and just contract out the rest to private sector?
Mr. Tabata: We have utilized contracting out some of the work.
Councilmember Kagawa: I think that is what the State does. I used to bring
my car to Gary's regularly and I would see a lot of State vehicles there. I am just thinking
that, yes, it is nice to fix our own, but seems like we are getting too big for our capacity. So
maybe if we can just reorganize, and that way our auto shop knows what they are going to
get regularly instead of knowing that every time we buy something that is possibly going to
be added to their job...keep them limited to a certain amount, and contract the rest to the
private sector, who can meet our demands and get things out.
Mr. Tabata: Thank you. Point well-taken. We have utilized
that. However, their turnaround, because of how busy they are, has been a challenge for us.
Councilmember Kagawa: You mean the private sector?
Mr. Tabata: The private sector, yes. Meeting our needs has
also been a challenge for them.
Councilmember Kagawa: Like with the heavy equipment, I know a lot of
times they would say the heavy equipment shutdown, lawnmowers or what have you, not
fixed. Is that something that can go to the private sector?
Mr. Tresler: I believe lawnmowers are handled by
Transportation. Heavy equipment is handled by us.
Councilmember Kagawa: Transportation fixes the lawnmowers. Do we not
have a policy that says if Transportation has a backlog to send it out to the private sector? It
is ridiculous that we have to add more because the maintenance folks are backed up. I know
you said maybe the private sector is backed up. Thank you.
Mr. Tresler: We totally agree. We have looked into it and some
part of it is making that transition, right? If we are going to feed Private Sector businesses
consistently, then we can expect to be prioritized and get a quicker turnaround in equipment.
Some things are specialized in Solid Waste, in our rubbish collection vehicles, and nobody
else deals with it really. So those would be hard to outsource. But yes, we do look into that.
We have actually utilized that at one point, and we will look into that.
Councilmember Kagawa: Do we have an account for that?
Mr. Tresler: Actually, we charge to our Repair and
Maintenance line items.
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Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: As far as looking for land, getting bigger
operations, are you folks looking at consolidating with Transportation also?
Mr. Tabata: So that was the intent, going back four years ago,
when we first came forward, that we would look for enough land so that we can consolidate
all of the shop operations under one roof. Thereby, synergize the resources, and not have each
individual shop creating their own purchasing system. You can buy oil, tires, batteries, and
have it kept at one location, versus little satellites all over the place. We are trying to do that
right now as far as the procurement process.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If we are going to do it, we may as well as
consolidate.
Mr. Tabata: Yes. That is the intent.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Right now, both operations are busting at the
seams. I forgot what my second question was, I will come back. Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I was just kind of following up on that same wave.
Seems like if we consolidated all of that together, we would have crossover in our staffing. So
people shifted or moved, we would have them cross trained. Seems like there is empty spaces
in some of these industrial parks. Maybe their rent is too high?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Cowden: Is that a challenge?
Mr. Tabata: It is all about the funding.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: My other question, is that we are investing
heavily in new vehicles, new trucks; are we going to be able to see the fruits of that as far as
less maintenance on our vehicles? When will we start to see something like that?
Mr. Tresler: Specifically speaking to refuse trucks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Obviously, we cannot replace them all.Will it kind
of give them a little more breathing room?
Mr. Tresler: Yes, absolutely. If we continue and stick to our
replacement schedule,we will see that. We have seen it in spaces, and results in certain areas
of our equipment. But yes, we definitely get into trouble when we do not stick to our current
replacement schedule, for sure.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes, for us the expectation if we are going to be
investing in new vehicles is that we see less maintenance work and open up our folks to
actually get other work done. Any further questions for Auto Maintenance? Councilmember
Cowden, do you have a question?
Councilmember Cowden: I think it would be for Transportation. The
Transportation is all a separate budget, right?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i Just on the two vacant positions—Heavy Vehicle
and Construction Equipment Mechanic I and Repair Shop Utility Worker—one was just since
January and the other since November of last year. What is the status of the recruitment and
expectations to hire?
Mr. Tresler: Councilmember Kuali`i, for the Utility Worker, I
believe I was on the interview committee, I think that is in the process of hiring. The other
one Heavy Equipment, there is a person being temporarily assigned to that position, filling
that position. So I think in next couple of months, there will be a transition and recruitment
for another position. So we could possibly be filled in the next...I would say, four to five
months.
Councilmember Kuali`i Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kagawa
Councilmember Kagawa: Mike, I noticed that a lot of our County work
trucks have a lot of dents. Are we holding folks accountable to report, or if they dented it and
the excuse was bad, take it out of their paycheck or something? When it comes to their
personal vehicles, I do not see these folks driving around nice trucks with dents all over.
When they come to the County truck, it seems a little more lackadaisical attitude or
something that is going into our efforts to make sure we are avoiding reckless...Those are
some pretty nice trucks that have all these dents on them. Are we going to try and...because
I know that is not something that we condone. I am just thinking do we take that serious?
Mr. Tresler: Councilmember Kagawa...
Councilmember Kagawa: For our auto body folks to make it nice again?
Mr. Tresler: Mayor Kawakami and his Administration has
made it very clear that one of their initiatives is basically to improve the way we view our
equipment as it belonging to the taxpayers, and therefore, we need to be more accountable.
So they have really pounded on us in all of our operations, especially Solid Waste where we
have a lot of equipment use. Roads, and doing the preterit, do the reporting and the
follow-up and management of that. So yes, definitely more emphasis is being put on that. We
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just need to take more pride in our equipment. All the way around that should also help our
shop, too.
Councilmember Kagawa: Because I think a lot of times when the dents are
made, it is known who put the dent on. So if you hold someone accountable and take it out of
that employee's paycheck, everybody will drive a little more carefully, I guarantee that. We
have to basically hold the folks accountable or just get them to be more honest and self-report
and that way we have transparency. Thanks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I am wondering if we have many decommissioned
vehicles that are basically otherwise running fine for one small issue or another. I see we had
that in Transportation...chassis gets damaged. In our General Auto Maintenance, do we have
fine working engines and just a little damaged chassis? That kind of thing? Do we have a
problem that has not surfaced to my attention yet?Are we just having them sitting there and
parked and largely fine?
Mr. Tresler: From what I know and what I have learned the
past year-and-a-half, we do a good job of salvaging. So you may have good equipment laying
around that has a purpose and use for it. If not it gets...
Mr. Tabata: We place in the Honsador lot for auction.
Mr. Tresler: We auction it off. So we do dispose of it...that was
the word I was looking for.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Alright. If we need to we can cannibalize
and get some parts and things like that.
Mr. Tabata: Especially for our refuse trucks to turn them
around faster because lead times for delivery of parts.
Councilmember Cowden: Very long.
Mr. Tabata: It is substantial in some cases. So we have them
go out there and disassemble and scavenge, but it makes it less attractive for auction, but we
do what we have to do to keep things running.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. That is what is important to me. We do not
have gaps in service. Thank you so much.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: I just have to offer my apologies if you went over
it already, but reduction of services to non-highway funded—so each department will pay for
their own maintenance when it comes you folks? How does that work?
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Mr. Tresler: There is a General Fund...other departments...we
do set up those reimbursements. Solid Waste, General Fund, which includes Kaua`i Police
Department (KPD), and all other departments.
Mr. Tabata: The larger departments.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Our Highway Fund can only cover Highway
Fund-related costs. Like all of our Roads Maintenance folks, if they have vehicles or
equipment that needs to be repaired, that is covered by the Highway Fund. Our Auto
Maintenance takes care of police vehicles but police vehicles repair cannot be funded through
Highway Maintenance. That is why we see these reimbursable type of expenses.
Councilmember Evslin: How do you bill the department? Is that just staff
time?
Mr. Tresler: Yes. Time and parts are tracked. KPD is a little
unique where we actually communicate with them, and they order and purchase their parts
and deliver it. Then we record our time as far as their repairs for the most part.
Councilmember Evslin: Last question, do you folks keep track? Is there
any data to look at as far as average time for repair or downtime of vehicles or number of
vehicles sitting in the repair shop?
Mr. Tresler: We have a report about downtime, for sure.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Who maintains the replacement schedule for
vehicles? Is it the Auto Maintenance Shop or is it the individual divisions?
Mr. Tresler: It is Auto Maintenance Shop, that program is
maintained by Dwayne Adachi, Superintendent.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: As far as rental vehicles, we rent vehicles also,
right? For roads?
Mr. Tresler: Yes. We try not to, but at times we do rent
vehicles, trucks mainly, and equipment when we need specialized equipment or when we
need a certain piece of equipment that is under repair and we need to get certain projects out
and they are not available in rest of the County.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: For me, I am interested in an analysis as far as
purchasing or leasing of a vehicle, versus having to rent the vehicle the entire year. Are we
utilizing the vehicle as best as possible? Does each individual employee get to drive to their
place or carpool them around? I know there is probably difficulties, if their work is spread
out and getting people around. Just some type of analysis? Do we have more vehicles than
we need? Do we need more? Can we rent less? Something along those lines.
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Mr. Tresler: Council Chair, very good question and we had a
lot of dialogue, again with the new Administration not frowning upon the rental situation.
There are justified rentals, and operationally we can pose those questions to our Roads
Division. Exactly like you said, there are opportunities to carpool. We still have ride-share
vehicles. I forget what the term is.
Mr. Tabata: Labor wagons.
Mr. Tresler: Those are trucks that are utilized in operations.
But if they are in different areas, it does not become problematic as dropping everybody off
as far as transportation to specific job sites. I do not think I am the one to answer. I know we
have discussed it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I will probably ask that question later, and again,
it is justifying it. Is there any way to consolidate our vehicles? I do not know...not rent as
many? Instead of renting the vehicle we can just buy it for ourselves, that type of analysis.
Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Following up on that, I wondered if there was or if
there is not, it would be really nice to have a general performance indicator package, so we
have a nice little binder like this. Maybe not during this particular budget session, but
moving forward; that would be really excellent way for us to be educated and to be able to see
where we can most help you all become more efficient, if all these different pieces that are
being asked right now.That would be kind of standard to get a performance indicator package
like that.
Mr. Tresler: Point well-taken. I believe some part of that could
be answered by our very robust fleet management system that could actually track our
vehicle and equipment use and utilization. So right now we do not have that. We have a fleet
managing system but it is only basically on our vehicles and not equipment. Anyway, point
well-taken. We can look into it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I am not going against rental vehicles. There may
be cost-benefits for rental vehicles. Maybe if we do bang them a little bit, they are not going
charge us for the dents. I do not know about the maintenance of those vehicles. So if there is
a cost analysis on rental vehicle versus actually purchasing where we take care of everything,
just being able to see what is the biggest bang for our buck again from the County's
perspective.
Mr. Tresler: Council Chair, we are trying to figure out
something, but I think we do, as we go through the Budget process, go through a justification
need. But maybe not on a higher-level that you are discussing.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: The cost to rent it is equal to the cost of us actually
purchasing and maintaining them.
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Mr. Tresler: Certainly for specialized equipment, that analysis
has been done where you would not use that equipment more than maybe a month out of
year or a few days so forth, so that kind of analysis for justification of acquiring or replacing.
But I think we try to do that. We certainly can do a better job and maybe formalize that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Thank you so much on that awareness. When the
Mayor was in here, we talked about our priority products for this whole Administration. So
auto was a piece of that and to me, having things like performance indicators is an ongoing
self-audit that can move forward all the time. It is in alignment with our overall goals. So it
is not a request just for right now. I know that you folks are working hard and it is just
something moving forward, I think really helpful for us to hone in on where we can become
more efficient. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I know these budget presentations are like a
living, breathing document. In the past, they provided a lot of information. Sometimes I did
not think all of it was relevant and our meetings would go really long. Sometimes there are
things that are relevant. It just really depends on the interest of Councilmembers and what
they are trying to look at in the budget. So if it is something that you are interested in, we
can definitely request it and we can request it throughout the year for them to put it together.
Some things that we used to ask them to put in the budget took them a super long time to
put together and it was a special interest of a Councilmember. I want these folks to be
spending all of their time to work on stuff that we care about. It is definitely something that
is valid.
Councilmember Cowden: It would not be just coming for me. I would see this
as something that the Mayor and whole Council would want. It is something that I used to
do a long time ago as an engineer. It was one of my roles and made a big difference.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just sort of building off of what Councilmember
Kagawa and Councilmember Cowden were saying; for me, I have always subscribed the
notion that government outsources construction of a vehicle, obviously, but we do in-house
maintenance. It would be so valuable for us to see what that cost is, what we are actually
paying for maintenance so we can compare it to what we could potentially get by outsourcing,
because this is one of the few things for a potential to outsource. I am not suggesting that we
should, but it would be important to get that data somehow, including salaries, parts, and
overhead for that department just to see how we are doing.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i I will just echo, it is important to me, too. I asked
for it before in the sense of we are making these investments in equipment, and obviously
the maintenance is important. But knowing budgetarily how long that equipment is going to
last having and a depreciation schedule, along with the replacement schedule and being able
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to plan ahead of when we need"x" amount of dollars to replace it, is just sort of basic. In the
budget, when you come before us, highlight it, because we can highlight for us right here on
this Automotive Division, "Vehicle Equipment Lease" line item goes from $37,000 up to
$84,000. It is more than double, 128%increase. But in the item of major changes and variance
in the Operations Budget, it just says "none." It would have been easy to just highlight that
you are renewing some equipment and saying what that is. I see there is, after digging
around, a Portable Welder for$21,000. It is all part of the budget.You are making investment
in new equipment, so do not forget to mention it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions from the Members? This is
for the Auto Maintenance Highway Funds. We are going jump back to the Highway
Maintenance General Fund. We may as well get through Auto Maintenance now and not
have to come back to it. I have the page number. I have it somewhere written down. Auto
Maintenance General is on page 199, on the bottom. This is for work on vehicles that cannot
be paid out of the Highway Fund, Solid Waste vehicles, police cars, et cetera.
Mr. Tabata: Solid Waste vehicles would come under the Solid
Waste Budget. This is the General Fund, and on page 201, you will see the entire list of
vehicles that are going to be replaced. These are vehicles that are in the motor pool. We are
replacing a number of vehicles for the motor pool because of age for some of them and
unavailability. So we are upgrading the age of the motor pool, so it can be more available to
the users.
Councilmember Kagawa: I have a question.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: Who is in charge of the purchasing of the vehicles?
What kind of vehicles?Because I know the last time they blamed Governor Lingle's mandate
that we had to buy hybrid vehicles and then it turned out to be highly inefficient because
hybrids are meant to be driven a lot, which recharges the batteries. That is why they said a
lot of batteries were dying because we have use that is irregular, I guess.
Mr. Tresler: Public Works and Dwayne Adachi specks the
vehicles.
Councilmember Kagawa: Can we make sure we learn from our past
mistakes though?
Mr. Tresler: We are. We do have that Hawai`i Revised Statutes
(HRS) law that we have to follow but then we, I think in reality, look at the needs based on
utilization and needs of the County of what kind of vehicles and types of vehicles. Most
recently, we need more trucks, more off-road vehicles or vehicles with higher clearance,
because we go into construction sites, or sometimes in the camps and off-roads types of areas.
So we are trying to basically replace vehicles with those that would be more utilized and will
be more appropriate for our user base.
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Councilmember Kagawa: So hopefully we will get something that fits.
Mr. Tabata: So what we have done with the motor pool is we
have partitioned it for office users and then field users.
Councilmember Kagawa: If Governor Lingle's mandate is not working let us
go to Senate President Kouchi, because I do not want us to go back to that mistake that does
not fit our needs.
Mr. Tresler: Part of the use thing, Councilmember, was the
fact that these hybrids were older and in bad shape or broken a lot of times and there are
smaller office type of hybrids, which cannot be used by our field people...or they can, but they
get really roughed up and dirty, which is a whole other set of challenges. That is why we went
to bifurcating the pool for office use versus field use.
Councilmember Kagawa: We had George Costa washing cars and he said he
was doing two cars a day, trying to keep the cars from smelling.
Mr. Tresler: We are trying to figure that out for the motor
pools. We are getting vehicles that are more appealing and we ordered hybrids with better
ground clearance and even four-wheel drive.
Councilmember Kagawa: So hybrids that will be used, hopefully.
Mr. Tresler: Yes. Exactly.
Councilmember Kagawa: If the hybrids are not used, then they do not
recharge and it is problematic, right? If you do not use the hybrid for a couple days then it
does not recharge the battery. I just want to make sure. I love it that we have a lot of cars,
that the motor pool is there and people do not have to drive the same car all the time. But if
the battery is dead, you cannot drive the car.
Mr. Tresler: Exactly, right.
Councilmember Kagawa: To make sure that we have cars that fit our needs
so that our workers do not have to use their personal cars and they are going to get
reimbursement. It creates a lot more accounting headaches, I guess. Thanks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Page 199, there under "Regular
Salaries"—between 2016 and 2020, I noticed a dip; why was 2018 so low? $68,000, and then
in 2019, $175,000?Although, I want to acknowledge 2016 is $196,000. So just seems unusual
for it to move like that. Do you see that there?Top line.
Mr. Tabata: Yes. I think 2018 was when we first started the
motor pool.
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Councilmember Cowden: See how 2016 is so high.
Mr. Tabata: I think it was how we used to account for the
funding in the benefits and so forth. That was the higher need for the higher change.
Councilmember Cowden: So it is like a $107,000 increase?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Cowden: Between 2018 and 2019. So if we are on the same
thing there, what is our change right there?
Mr. Tabata: We have to get back to you on exactly what
happened between `18 and `19.
Councilmember Cowden: Alright.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions on this from the Members?
I misspoke—Solid Waste is General Fund and is going to be in the Solid Waste budget section
when we get there. This is for just motor pool. But then it also says, "Police," which I have
not looked at Police's budget yet.
Mr. Tresler: So like I explained earlier, this General Fund
reimbursement includes Parks, Kaua`i Police Department, and any department in the
General Fund that has vehicles that we worked on for equipment in the auto shop. So Kaua`i
Police Department will have their budget for parts and Auto Maintenance as well. Like I
said, Kaua`i Police Department is a little unique because they purchase their own parts for
their vehicle repairs. But their salaries and stuff is included in this reimbursement section.
Councilmember Evslin: So just to clarify, for repair, KPD pays for the
parts, but the labor expense is coming from here for the repair.
Mr. Tresler: Yes. I believe so.
Councilmember Evslin: So that is unique for Police? Like Solid Waste and
others?
Mr. Tresler: I will double-check on that to be absolutely sure. I
know parts, for sure.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions on this?If not, we are going
to move to Highways and Roads. Public Works Roads tab. We have about ten more minutes.
I am thinking we will take whatever presentation they have and if we have a few questions,
we will try to squeeze it in and then we need to take a ten-minute caption break.
Mr. Tabata: Roads Division Chief Ed Renaud and his
Superintendent Scott Suga are here. I will let Ed review his synopsis.
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EDMOND RENAUD, Chief of Field Operations & Maintenance: Ed Renaud.
Good morning, Councilmembers. I am here with Scott Suga.
SCOTT SUGA, Assistant Chief of Field Operations & Maintenance: Good morning
Council, Scott Suga.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Ed, do you want to go over your synopsis?
Mr. Renaud: Yes, it is short and simple. The Roads Division is
made up of approximately 81 people or positions, I should say, and divided into two, to make
it simple, two areas. One is the projects, which are the roads that we work on and the other
part is the maintenance. That is where we are at, to make it real simple, and with the moneys
that we have been receiving, I thank you folks. It is been great. We just have to put it to use.
We will do that, if we keep on getting it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We have the synopsis. Do we have any questions
for Roads?
Mr. Tabata: Outside of the GET Funding, the budget only
increased $330,000. The GET Funding, as we spoke to earlier, is the difference in the overall
Public Works' budget. The Roads Division administers that fund, along with Engineering.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We are on Roads and Administration.
Councilmember Kuali`i: On your overall basic presentation that you gave
us on the charts, graphs, and the changes—the Vehicle Equipment Lease line item for Fiscal
Year 19 is $769,000, Fiscal Year 2020, is $1.4 million—so almost doubling; what does that
represent? Significantly getting additional equipment or vehicles?
Mr. Renaud: Councilmember Kuali`i, majority of that money is
going to replacement of aged equipment that the prior Administration...thankfully gave us
the funding to replace a lot of our trucks, several pieces of heavy equipment, and much of
that money is going to replacement equipment.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Any kind of detail? How many trucks? At what
price? This is over half a million dollars, and under major changes and variances in
Operations Budget, you list "none," just the basic summary that you provided. That, to me,
is major. Just something with simple detail, how many vehicles at what price, for what
purpose? Also, maybe the replacement schedule or depreciation schedules for what it is
replacing.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: That is the overall budget. So as we go through
the individual budgets.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Does it not start with the overall? They came up
to do their first presentation.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. So overall, as we go through each division,
Highway, you will see all of the different lease equipment that we have. They are buying a
lot of equipment.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Are we starting each division with the overall
presentation?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It is the overall. So with this one, they just did an
overall for all of divisions.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So you are saying my question is not appropriate
at this time?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: No. I am saying as we go through the budget,
through the individual departments and divisions, we will get the line items for each, for all
the new equipment.
Councilmember Kuali`i: I am reading Roads Division: "Vehicle Equipment
Lease." Is that for them to answer or for somebody else?
Mr. Tresler: Councilmember Kuali`i, the Roads Division is
broken out into Administration, Hanapepe Baseyard, Kapa'a Baseyard, and Hanalei
Baseyard. What they are saying is that equipment will be reflected in each of those. So we
can go and explain the increases in vehicles and equipment in each division.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay. I will hold my question until later.
Mr. Tabata: Each section of the division, yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I have a basic question, when I see Equipment
Vehicle and Equipment Lease, when I watch the roads get fixed, you folks have contractors,
right? Is that part of the Equipment Lease or is that contractor a separate line item? This is
our own leases on vehicles for us, versus...
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Mr. Tabata: It is only for us. When we outsource the road
resurfacing, that is a separate contracted total.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We can get into individual budgets.
Councilmember Chock.
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Councilmember Chock: Before we go to that, since we have them on the
overall...when I look at the budget submission, the written submission, I know we have
talked about this issue with the vegetation and the ordinance. It says that the ordinance is
on hold although, it has already been sent to the County Attorney's and Mayor's Office. What
is the hold up?This is the one regarding private property. Maybe Lyle knows this one, dealing
with the problems we have had in the past.
Mr. Tabata: Yes, we are working with our assigned attorney to
complete this. We have prioritized the ordinance we just have one attorney and he has a
heavy work load, so hopefully he will be able to get us something shortly.
Councilmember Chock: Okay. So the Attorney's Office. It was not clear, it
was just on hold. Okay.
Mr. Tabata: Well, hold because we are waiting for the
attorneys to help us complete preparing to send over for Council review and go through the
process, hopefully for approval.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: With that, we will go into the individual budgets.
We are going to start with Roads Administration. Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Because I am not following this as clearly, do you
under this budget that we are talking about right now, have any vacant positions? If so, can
you tell me? 258, right?You just did 257, 258.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We are on 258, if they have any vacant positions?
Councilmember Kuali`i: There are only five positions listed...Chief of Field
Operations and Maintenance...Civil Engineer VI. None of those are vacant, correct? If it is
on another fund on another page, I am not seeing it? No vacancies?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We are on the Administration Budget.
Mr. Tabata: No vacancies on the first page.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I did not see any vacancies in the Vacancy Report.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay, where are we going next?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will stay on this budget for now. Any other
questions for Highways, Roads, Administration? I have a question on Position No. 836,
Project Manager—there was a note it moved to Finance—IT. Is that a position you folks
needed? Why did it move to IT? Can you give me a little background info on it?
Mr. Renaud: That one is supposed to be to assist me with my
field operations, but I was too slow to react to the hiring process. It was presumed that we
did not need the position so I guess it was shipped off to Finance.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: That was the position that was vacant for a long
time?
Mr. Renaud: Yes, I believe so. I believe it was a couple of years.
Mr. Tresler: Part of that justification was moving that position
to IT and I know we brought up the discussion about tracking and gaining information on
such as vehicle use replacement information was part of the justification that was used for
that transfer. We are supposed to get additional support.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Anyone else, questions? I have a question on the
lease. The third year lease, the prior year was around $7,000 and went up to $10,000. The
very last line item.
Councilmember Cowden: Which page?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Page 259. $10,128 and prior year lease payments
was about $7,000. Typically, when you have a lease payment, they do not change over the
years.
Mr. Tresler: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Unless there was a new, so I was wondering why
there was a difference.
Mr. Tresler: So sometimes there is a lag between when it is
budgeted, procured, when the lease is done for the exact amount. If I remember correctly,
with Menchie, I think that was a catch-up because the true-up in the lease amount. So yes,
that is a good catch, Council Chair. But I believe that is the one that we needed to catch up
on for some reason. Normally, you have a budgeted amount. When the actual procurement
occurs and the lease amount is calculated, you will see a difference in year 2 and 3 sometimes
and then it should be fixed at that point.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I think difference is from year 1 to year 2, I was
wondering if this one is year 3.
Mr. Tresler: Yes. I remember that one.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Yes, that was my question, too. The leases have
all gone up in all the categories and the ones that relate to outside Administration, that relate
to the Heavy Equipment and so forth. My question is, in the past as Council, you see a lot of
lease equipment, they come back to us in the form of repairs and issues in terms of how we
are using the equipment, and then they are damaged or whatever—I was just curious in
terms of the lease as it relates to these kinds of...because we are really doing a lot, right?
Moving forward? What kind of protections do we have as a County? I do not know if it is
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insurance or whatever to make sure these things are being taken care of. We are going to put
a lot of wear-and-tear on them over next year and moving further than that. I am curious as
to what I am missing on that?
Mr. Tresler: Councilmember Chock, to answer your question,
one part of my response is that I believe the lease terms always are shorter than the life of
the asset. Meaning these assets, for example, a loader, excavator, they can last 10, 12, 15
years...we make them last a very long time and the leases are five years. We have looked to
go to seven years in some cases when they are a bigger, larger dollar item equipment, and to
smooth out and basically better match revenue with expenses. With that said, to answer the
other part of your question, earlier we mentioned the emphasis on changing the way we view
our equipment and the attitude towards it. So the Administration has been very serious about
it. In fact, we were not gaining approvals on our budget requests until we made some changes
in our policy and proved to them that we are doing the pre-trips on our equipment and
post-trips. There are follow-ups and supervisor follow-ups. So we do need to improve. We can
improve. We have a lot of room to improve, but we are emphasizing that, and we are taking
that very seriously.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for the Administration
budget? I have a question regarding our islandwide resurfacing. I know we have the entire
amount of GET and nothing that I need to worry about within my term, but eventually, as
GET comes to expire in ten years, as it gets closer, I think we are going to really have to be
careful on how we deal with pulling that money back into the Highway Fund or other funds.
It will affect the budget at that time. GET is for islandwide resurfacing projects. It is going
to make our Administration budget look great for the next seven or eight years. But year 11,
we are going to see, that either we do not do any roadwork, or we have to put that money
back in somehow.
Mr. Tresler: Good catch. Nothing gets by you, Council Chair. It
is actually a significant variance that we went from $5 million to $4.5 to zero in the Highway
Fund and we have $17, almost $18 million for road resurfacing and other road projects. Your
point well-taken and I cannot answer whether tax revenue versus what we are expending
right now. I think the important thing is that we have more money than we ever had in the
past and we will get these roads resurfaced. We always talked about seeing a five-year
difference after this program, the GET Program, is implemented and executed in five years,
so we should see a big improvement in our roads and quality of roads and hopefully quality
of life. We are already seeing improvements in the areas that we did address and having a
positive impact on our Roads crew because they would have to constantly be attending to
those roads. One example is Olohena. That has improved. So they can focus their efforts on
other areas, so we are excited for the next few years to get these contracts out, get our roads
fixed, and again, I think it will help our overall operations in roads.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We should not get too comfortable with all the
GET money because as time goes on we will have to figure out what we are going to do when
the time comes. What if the GET does not get renewed then? We will be looking at pulling a
lot of money back in here. I know there are probably a few more questions. Let us take a
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caption break, we are at eleven o'clock. We will take a ten-minute caption break and come
back.
There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 11:04 a.m.
The meeting reconvened at 11:19 a.m., and proceeded as follows:
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Welcome back. We are still on Highways and
Roads Administration Budget. Do we have any further questions for the Administration
Budget? I have one last question and I know we do have GET Roads coming up later in the
budget. Mine is just an overall question: are we ramped up and ready overall for GET money
coming in?Are we ready to spend it? Do we have enough people? In general, the expectation
on passing the GET was to get roadwork done and to make sure that we are ramped up that
we will be ready to get the work done.
Mr. Tresler: I can help answer that question. I think Deputy
Engineer Lyle Tabata answered that earlier our islandwide resurfacing went out to bid, and
so what we have done, what Ed has done and spearheaded...in the past, we have actually
put out contracts to bid late in the year. So now it is March and then we contract. We end up
doing the work actually in next fiscal year, but it is using this fiscal year's Funds. But to turn
the dial and turn the table, we are prepared. So what we do, we go out. We went out with a
whole slew of roads knowing that we had "x" amount of moneys, but added alternatives. So
that when additional funding becomes available, we can just issue those contract
amendments and get those roads done. The answer is "yes, we are." We are aware of our
procurement challenges and we know we have that money to spend and we have a whole
bunch of roads and we have other projects that need funding. So we are prepared.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Thank you. Any further questions? If not,
we are going to move on. Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: I was talking to my friend and he was telling me
and showing me, trying to get me this video link, but I do not have E-mail anymore, thanks
to someone. But anyway, he was trying to send me the link and I think I have it here...it is
in Europe...this is a pothole repair machine and he said it is just amazing. He thought of
Kaua`i as being perfect. I guess, that machine cuts the puka and everything, then fixes it. Is
that realistic for something like Kaua`i or are we too small? England has millions.
Mr. Suga: Yes. I have seen that same video also. I think it is
a little unrealistic because we do not have the supply for the asphalt here as they do maybe
in some other areas. We are limited to just two contractors right now that we can get asphalt
from. It is all based on their schedule. Most of them are doing night work at this point in
time. So it is not quite feasible.
Councilmember Kagawa: The machine will not have enough asphalt?
Mr. Suga: It would be hard to get the material to do the
repairs. Going back to what Council Chair was saying as far as equating the cost of something
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and you buy this piece of equipment, but it would not be utilized to its full extent. It would
probably just sit there.
Councilmember Kagawa: Maybe we will see how Honolulu does it.
Mr. Suga: They have more contractors there.
Councilmember Kagawa: Yes, they have a little bit more money, too. It
seems amazing. That is a problem because you can cut it out and then vacuum all the loose
stuff and I guess that is the true way to fix the potholes.
Mr. Suga: It is just one guy, instead of six, you have one guy
operating the equipment.
Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just a question on Operations. You folks contract
out all resurfacing, but repairs and preventive maintenance is done in-house?How does that
work?
Mr. Renaud: Okay, say today, we get back to the office and
there is a pothole complaint, we go out and we schedule that pothole to be repaired. It is
temporarily fixed. Now other repairs, is all subcontracted out. We call "big repairs"
reconstruction or partial.
Councilmember Evslin: So temporary pothole filling and restriping and
such are done in-house and everything else is contracted?
Mr. Renaud: Restriping, if we damage it. Very shortly we will
be doing more restriping.
Mr. Suga: Just to add on, the majority of the paving work is
done by contractors. They hire their own stripers to stripe the road. We do not use County
forces for that. It is primarily a contractor who hires their own entities to do the permanent
restriping after the road is resurfaced.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Can you give an over view of what our folks are
responsible for and what they do on a daily basis? We have new Members and I know our
budget is all over the place. A lot of people say even with the GET conversation they are
asking, "What are we getting for our money?" The fact of the matter is we need to maintain
roadsides, we do potholes, we do a whole bunch of things. If you can just give an overview of
what our road maintenance crews do? Just so we have that information.
Mr. Suga: In a nutshell, some of the activities that we do is
pothole patching, grass trimming along the County right-of-way which is right along some of
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the County shoulders. Tree-trimming and picking up dead animals. We specifically only pick
up dead pigs and cats; dogs are handled by the Humane Society. We do not take care of dead
chickens. We also at times deal with residential homeowners putting out obstructions in the
right-of-way, whether it is rocks or reflectors. We go and talk to the homeowners to have
those removed. We also maintain County bridges including swinging bridges. There are three
of them on the island right now. Alongside that, we also have the levees: Waimea and
Hanapepe, those flood control systems. We maintain that. There are a lot of other activities
that we do assisting other departments. Oftentimes, we help KPD pull derelict vehicles off of
beaches. They do not have equipment to do that and we do that for them. As far as Parks, we
help maintain a lot of their gravel and sand parking lots, majority on the north shore,
stretching from Anahola going North and also pothole repairs from time-to-time. But in a
nutshell, that is what we do daily.
Mr. Tresler: So structurally, the Roads Division consists of the
Administrative Office.We have a baseyard in Hanapepe, Kapa`a, and Hanalei. The Hanapepe
baseyard maintains from "Halfway Bridge" and west; Kapa'a baseyard maintains from
"Halfway Bridge" to Anahola; and Hanalei takes care of Anahola to Ha`ena. We have a Signs
and Specialty Crew Division as well that is based in Lihu`e.
Mr. Suga: The Sign Crew is in Kapa'a and our Special
Construction Crew is primarily in the Lihu`e area.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Follow-up question. Thank you for that, that was
helpful for me. You said you do a temporary fix for a pothole and if there is a stretch of
asphalt, do you come to a temporary fix and is there a permanent fix that is done later on?
That is not rebuilding the road? Like somebody resurfacing that or way down the line? How
does that work?
Mr. Renaud: If it is a local county road, it is 100% County funds.
If the road only needs repair, rectangle or square, and the rest of the pavement is in good
shape, that is all we do. If the road is bad, we do an overlay over that. Collector Roads are
different, these are shared by the State 20/80 and I think you have heard in the past meetings
that the funds for the State are limited. So what we have been doing on the Roads side is on
our contract trying to do the repairs and if it is in worse condition, we have a little meeting
with my bosses. I am going to say, make it simple. So we are going to overlay this...I have
some money...we will share it then and we will overlay it because the State will not do it and
we wait for State funding. We would lose, and the road would be in worse condition. There is
a lot like that.
Mr. Tresler: Councilmember, we do have the temporary and
then that road is subject to our policy and how we schedule that road. So if it is on the list to
be repaved and repaired, then it would be done in a more permanent fashion under our
contract, and if it takes two, three years, we will continue to do the repairs until that road
comes up and is selected to be repaved. To answer your question, we do the initial repair
work. Unless that road becomes a road that is selected to be repaved and repaired under our
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islandwide road resurfacing contract, it will not be permanently repaired. We are looking to
do an open-ended contract, and with that contract, the State has done it. Then what we will
be able to do is address these situations where it needs more than just a minor repair. We
can do the minor repair, so it can last months. You would then call the contractor to do a
permanent fix of that patched area. That is something that we are looking to implement that
I think is the game-changer in the next year.
Councilmember Evslin: That sounds great. One follow-up question, final
question. You said you help with Parks for gravel and dirt lots, but you do not help for their
other lots, like public beach parks?
Mr. Tresler: Paved parking, no we do not. We are under
discussion with them.
Councilmember Evslin: So they handle paved parking?
Mr. Tresler: They are responsible for those paved parking.
Councilmember Evslin: Alright, that is all. Thank you folks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: First of all, thank you for all the work that you are
getting done and I know it has been a really rough year. I appreciate what has happened in
the parks along the bay, and on the north shore. I have a couple of questions. Some roads
seem like almost maybe no one owns them. I do not quite understand. If you go up in Kapahi,
Kawaihau Road going mauka, there are roads to the right that you can hardly tell they are
paved except for how big the potholes are. I know the refuse trucks go down there. What is
the story with those roads?Are those our roads?
Mr. Tresler: Some of them are clearly County roads and some
are not. That has been part of the discussion earlier about "roads in limbo" and these other
types of roads. I know that Mr. Tabata issued a directive basically saying if we provide
garbage service down those roads, we need to try to help maintain them, because we need to
protect our equipment and make sure that they are safe. It is hard to answer your question
unless we know the road specifically.
Councilmember Cowden: Right.
Mr. Tresler: We do have bad County roads. Ka'apuni is one of
them.
Councilmember Cowden: Yes, that is clearly County. Like I said, between
Kealia, Keapana, and Kapahi, it seems like there are roads that we probably should not be
driving on. As people complain, I go and drive them. Even going from Kealia Road over to
Anahola...it would be nice...I know it is too expensive. Who owns that road?You can go along
that road along the back.
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Mr. Tresler: "Spalding monument."
Councilmember Cowden: Is that private?
Mr. Tresler: That is private.
Mr. Renaud: What we have been doing, because we know it is
an emergency outlet, Scott goes in and schedules his crew to try to grade with natural
materials.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, because I was thinking of natural
materials...some of those in Kapahi...if they just put crushed coral or something on it would
make it...not a good idea? That might make it so that I wonder how the refuse trucks get in
there and work. I am going to jump topics. For sides of the roads, not asking for this yet, but
when we have seen lawsuits that are won against Roundup...where there have been very
significant lawsuits both at the State and Federal levels saying that is a carcinogen and I get
E-mails all the time and questions, but we do not always we use Roundup along sides of the
roads but is there another method? Can we do a heat gun or anything like that? Is Roundup
our main maintenance tool beyond mowing?
Mr. Suga: Yes. Right now, that is our primary use as far as
vegetation control. There has been studies that Maui County uses a variety of products, some
that are organic, using salts, and so forth. None of those things were successful. Organic
products were much more expensive also so there was a cost added to that one. For us, as far
as spraying, we do pick what locations we spray. Obviously, we stay away from schools, dense
residential areas...the majority of areas that we spray is where there are some guardrails
that we need to keep the vegetation off, so it is more to the rural areas that we apply that
type of material.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If someone has a problem with spraying are they
able to go and maintain it themselves if they wanted to?
Mr. Suga: Sure. We have had individuals in the community
who have done that, but there have been times when they say they will do it and they end up
not doing it and we will have go back in and take care of it ourselves.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We have a lot of people say, "Do this and do that,"
and if you really want it that bad then they can go and take it over. It will help us. We can
spend more resources on other areas. Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: In working with Ray McCormick before with the
Department of Transportation, they did take a two-year break on that. There is a steam wand
that does melt it down. That is what they use in Australia, that they have county trucks or
municipal trucks that steam it or melt it down. We can look at that another time.
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Mr. Tresler: I would like to take this opportunity to point out
the change in the landscape of maintenance because when we started not using Roundup as
actively in spraying, that put a much greater burden on our crews to mow.You folks all know
in the area of Hanalei Bridge to Anahola, which has a lot more rain than sunshine and a lot
more growth. So it has increased the burden on our work crews, for sure.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Do we want to get into...I forgot where we were at
already. Hanapepe Baseyard Budget. Do we have any questions on the Hanapepe Baseyard
Budget? Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Position No. 919, Laborer II. Vacant on
February 16th. What is the status of filling that position?
Mr. Suga: We are currently in the process of filling the
Laborer position. This was just put out and I believe the list closes on the 6th, I believe. So we
will be actively recruiting for that position soon after.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Is it expected to be filled within the next 60 to 90
days?
Mr. Suga: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Any other positions vacant in the Hanapepe
Baseyard?
Mr. Suga: No.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I just have an overall question, in looking at our
three different baseyards, how our roads are split, do we have enough staff, enough people in
each section?It looks like Hanapepe has the most, but Hanapepe might have levee employees
also. You have the whole Kapa'a area and Hanalei is probably the smallest budget. Do they
have enough people to be able to cover that ground? I would think that Kapa'a has a ton of
County roads compared to Hanalei roads. Do we have enough resources?Are we able to say,
"Let us move a Hanapepe guy to Kapa'a or to Hanalei for coverage purposes"?
Mr. Suga: It is a very good comment. We do have some
resource challenges, I guess you could say, with manpower. As you suggested, also, we do
from time-to-time move our resources as needed to assist other baseyards. Of course, we
would always use the extra help. I think moving forward, having this equipment coming in
is going to definitely have a role in improving our maintenance. So in the upcoming budgets,
we probably might want to be asking for more resources at that point. But I think for this
point in time, we are going to utilize equipment that we have, and transitioning folks from
other areas to assist each other.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Because I see, yes, we have a huge equipment
request for each baseyard and dump trucks loaders, water trucks; are we going to see a big
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difference in them being able to be more efficient? Are we down water trucks? So they have
to wait? How is this new infusion of new equipment, what should we expect to see with that?
Mr. Suga: Definitely as far as maintenance purposes, each of
those pieces are critical as far as which work activity we can do. So the answer would be"yes,"
as far as some shoulder work. We do need a water truck to wet down the base course for good
compaction. From time-to-time we do not have that equipment, so we would have to skip over
that work activity and postpone it. It may be from two to six months down the road before we
can get to it because we do not have that piece of equipment available. To go back to what
you mentioned earlier, this would definitely help cut down on our rental fleet. Equipment
like these are critical need equipment that we use every day, but having these County-owned
pieces coming in is definitely going to cut down the need to rent.
Mr. Tresler: Council Chair, I would also like to point out that
the majority is replacement of equipment versus adding equipment. There is one piece of
equipment, I believe, that we are adding. Certainly, updating our fleet and getting newer
equipment with reduction of repair and maintenance time is important and would be
beneficial. We are not adding a whole bunch of new equipment, we are on a replacement
program. That is why we are being aggressive.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members for the
Hanapepe baseyard? If not, we will move on to the Kapa'a baseyard. Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: I see that Position No. 937, Labor Working
Supervisor, has been vacant since December 31, 2018.
Mr. Suga: We just actually sat down and had interviews
yesterday and that position will be filled probably within the next couple of weeks.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you. Any other vacancies?
Mr. Suga: Not at this baseyard, Sir.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Kapa'a baseyard? If not,
we will move on to Hanalei. Any questions for Hanalei baseyard?
Councilmember Kuali`i: No vacancies here?
Mr. Suga: No vacancies.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If there are no more questions, we will keep
moving. Councilmember Evslin, I saw a hand go up and thought maybe you had a question.
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Signs and Roads Maintenance. Councilmember Kuali`i, I am sure you will have a lot of
questions on this one. I see four vacancies.
Councilmember Kuali`i: I see at least four vacancies. Can we start with 899
TS and Marking Crew Leader?Vacant since January 16th.
Mr. Suga: That one there...same thing...we just solicited for.
It should be filled shortly.
Councilmember Kuali`i: By shortly you mean, by 60 to 90 days?
Mr. Suga: Yes, Sir.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Then Position No. 956, has been vacant for over a
year, Bridge Maintenance Worker I, vacant since January 16, 2018. What is the status?
Mr. Suga: This one here has kind of been a challenge. It is
one of our skilled workers for our best Bridge Maintenance Crew and some of the issues is
them passing the written test. As of right now, we have five individuals, I believe, that
passed. We will be doing interviews here to recruit for that position.
Councilmember Kuali`i: The challenge has been met?
Mr. Suga: Yes, Sir.
Councilmember Kuali`i: By hiring one of these five individuals in the next
60 to 90 days?
Mr. Suga: Yes, Sir.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Then, Position No. 879, Equipment Logistics
Crew Leader, vacant since October 1, 2016, two-and-a-half years and an even bigger
challenge.
Mr. Suga: For this one, we have been trying to work with the
union. We had a lot of back and forth discussions. We have been trying to reclassify the
position. So as of this past year, we finally have an agreement made with the union, so we
will be recruiting for this position and the other Equipment Logistics Operator coming up,
probably within the timeframe of 60 to 90 days.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So for 879 and 856?
Mr. Suga: Yes, Sir.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Operator, which was vacant 3.3 years.
Mr. Suga: Yes.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: Did you say that you worked out the classification
and expect it to be filled within 60 to 90 days?
Mr. Suga: Yes, Sir.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay. No other vacancies in this division?Just the
four?
Mr. Suga: Yes, that is it.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Where is Position No. 939, Laborer I?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It might be in GET. Double-check the far column.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Yes, okay, GET.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will get to GET after this. Any further
questions for Signs? If not, we will move on to Roads Maintenance, we are on page 274. Any
questions regarding Roads Maintenance? Councilmember Evslin, then Councilmember
Cowden.
Councilmember Evslin: Sorry, what are "indirect costs"? A million
dollars?
Councilmember Cowden: Page 274.
Mr. Tresler: Those are Central Services Costs. That is
allocated by our Finance Division for overhead. We could eliminate that, that would be great.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Another one that is a little vague to me that I see
going up, is "Other Services." What does "Other Services" mean? That seems like a
"catch-all."
Mr. Tresler: Yes. There is a detail, actually.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Tree-trimming, $100,000, Multimodal
Improvements, $100,000, and Roadway Safety, $200,000. Thank you. It is on page 275.
Councilmember Cowden: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Sorry, just going on individual cost slots. Every
department has an allocation based on cost of...
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Mr. Tresler: We do not know what it is at all. No, I am just
kidding. It is based on there...yes, there is a rhyme or reason. There is justification for it, yes.
Councilmember Evslin: Sounds good to me.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Roads Maintenance?
Mr. Tresler: I am being reminded because Roads and Highway
Fund is separate, they need to pay a portion for the overhead costs of the services they provide
or they receive, for example, payroll, benefits, accounting charges. Part of it is my services,
because I am general-funding Fiscal Officer. So that is well worth it, right?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We are going to be jumping around again. So let
us go to the General Fund. We will go to the General Fund. Did we do General Fund Auto
Maintenance?
Mr. Tresler: Yes, we did that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: General Fund Road Maintenance? No. Page 197.
Mr. Tresler: That is basically to cover the services provided by
Roads for General Fund departments.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Can you repeat what you just said? You said that
with a little hesitancy.
Mr. Tresler: Well, it is Roads, and they can provide more
detail, providing services to other Departments. So that is where it is similar to Auto
Maintenance. That is where they are charged back for those services. Part of this "Other
Supplies," for example, the maintenance we do for parks non-paved parks. That supplies the
materials in this line item. That is "Other Supplies" so that would be a big, large portion of
that budgeted amount.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Just for the Members, I do finally realize why I am
getting confused on the numbers, too. We are in the Public Works tab, page 197. I was trying
to look the GET master plan, I see it got moved up.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So there is a salary line for $70,000, but there are
no positions.
Mr. Tresler: Sorry, what was that?
Councilmember Kuali`i: I may just not be seeing it, but there is "Regular
Salaries, $70,000." But I do not see any positions.
Mr. Tresler: How that works is when they are doing services,
meaning repaving the parking lots, dirt or gravel parking lots for Parks, they are going to
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charge their salary, time, benefits, and materials to this account for the General Fund
because it is a Highway Fund, they should not be using...we should not be using their
employees and resources.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So we are allocating a part of another salary to
this fund?
Mr. Tresler: Right.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So when we look at that other salary, will it show
a smaller salary with the allocation?
Mr. Tresler: If you look at every baseyard, there is a negative
amount in there. We just kind of breezed over it.
Councilmember Kuali`i: It is at the bottom.
Mr. Tresler: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So the salary is still showing full.
Mr. Tresler: Right.
Councilmember Kuali`i: At the bottom, part of that salary is back to the
budget.
Mr. Tresler: Correct. It says "Labor for Projects and Special
Events," there is a negative $47,000 (-$47,000) in the Roads Hanapepe Baseyard Budget, for
example.
Councilmember Kuali`i: In this whole area, that is what is happening?
That is why there are no details here?
Mr. Tresler: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: They are all being charged back to different
places?
Mr. Tresler: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Or being charged from and credited back.
Mr. Tresler: Right.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay. Thank you.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Again, in the past, I believe we were mixing funds.
Highway Funds, probably to do work in Parks. One year, the Auditor came in and said that
we are not allowed do that and that is why we have the Highway Fund being very specific.
You see the transfers because it only makes sense to have our Roads folks who have all the
equipment to do the parking area in a park, where Parks is not going to have a road crew
that going to take care of all of the parking areas. As far as the funding goes, that funding
has to come from the General Fund and not necessarily the Highway Fund.
Councilmember Cowden: I see.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: The Highway Fund money comes from vehicle
registration, gas tax; that money is earmarked for the Highway Fund. Just like the General
Excise Tax. So we cannot move in and go down a big parking area in our park, and use
Highway Funds. That is the reason you see all of these in-house. Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Mike, earlier when you stated you folks are
talking with Parks, are you folks leaning towards expansion or taking over more of these
parking lots? Is that part of the discussion?
Mr. Tresler: That is part of the discussion because we deal with
potholes and repaving and paving, so they would certainly like us to do it. We, again, we are
challenged with what we already have.
Councilmember Chock: How much does this one cover that you folks are
taking care of?
Mr. Tresler: These cover from North Ha`ena to Kalapaki...the
non-paved areas. So that includes Black Pot...Kealia is a big one...Kalapaki, Ha`ena...Pine
Trees...Pavilion...Anahola is another one.
Councilmember Chock: So what happens? Do you folks get a call from
Parks to do them or do you just enter it on the calendar?
Mr. Tresler: Scott tries to schedule it, but again, things like
this storm and Act 12 issues kind of threw us off. I think we are trying to get to Kealia.
Mr. Suga: Yes, Kealia is coming up. We are trying to avoid
the busy times and obviously trying to do it in the winter when there is not a summer crowd
there. Summer is coming up. We are probably going to have to do something soon, prior to
the summer crowd coming in. It is good weather that we can get that done.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just an overall question. Do we have data on the
number of potholes annually or the amount of time from a complaint to potholes getting
filled? Is that tracked?
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Mr. Suga: We do not have a specific number-to-number of
potholes. We have data as far as when we do them and what roads we cover. We have data
as far as how often a complaint comes in on that road. We do not have anything more.
Councilmember Evslin: Do we know the average time from complaint to
when the pothole is fixed?
Mr. Suga: To answer that question, as far as when a pothole
complaint comes in and we receive it. We typically try to ask the caller some detailed
information, size, depth, and so forth and that determines how we are going to handle this.
If something comes in, six inches deep, they definitely can do a blow out, and something that
we are going to verify first to make sure that is the case. For something like that, we will
handle it that day. Other potholes may be just an inch deep. We typically schedule that at
the end of the week by Friday to do all the potholes at one time. For those that are severe, we
typically do that day and schedule it during that time to get it done.
Councilmember Evslin: Are we trying to look at ways to judge
effectiveness over time? It would be great to have some way to look at how we are doing in
those regards, whether we are improving on our response time.
Mr. Tresler: We look for that same information. Point
well-taken. I think I can, that is the reason for the transfers to IT, to gain more support. We
also have our LIMS Project we are working on and we think next couple of years there is a
concerted effort to improve on our technology and use of it and be able to get data such as
that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Mostly I have a question, but slightly following-up
on that same thing as far as a performance indicator package. It would grow over time to
have that collected. This is just for my education. When you have a six inch hole, what kind
of crew is required to go out there? How big is that? Is it a truck with asphalt in it and you
take a shovel and crew of two and fill it up? How big of a production is it to go and do that?
You are saying when you get out there within a day. There are a lot of places where there are
problems, so I imagine there is a region.
Mr. Suga: Typically, our pothole crew averages is six to eight
people.
Councilmember Cowden: That is a lot. It is not trivial. How big is that
vehicle?
Mr. Suga: We have one labor truck to transport the people,
one dump truck that carries the material, and we have a Supervisor and one Equipment
Operator. We also need folks for traffic control to stop traffic, so we can safely work on the
roadways. We have individuals actually filling the holes. From time-to-time, we have a
variety of materials that we use. We have the typical standard cold mix, which is just stuff
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that you "throw and go." We have more expensive materials that we found and have been
utilizing one that have had some success.
Councilmember Cowden: Is that white?
Mr. Suga: No. That is part of the reason it is white because
the aggregate that they use comes from the mainland, it is granite.That is why it turns white.
It is not cement. We have a product that is similar to cement, where you need to have water
to initiate the curing process. So there is a pothole, most of the holes show up when it is
raining. So we can actually throw this material in the hole with water and we actually need
water to start the curing process; that actually helps us. With the typical material we
normally use, you put it in and it will be out within a few hours as people drive over it. But
we do have a better type of material that we use that has been lasting a little bit longer.
Councilmember Cowden: A month, two months longer?
Mr. Suga: We had success with over six in some areas. Places
like Ka'apuni is a challenge, that road is severely beaten. If you put this material in, it will
stay. But areas typically around that will then come up and then you will have another
pothole besides the area that we used the cementitious material in.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. It is kind of like digging in sand. It is a
constant process.
Mr. Suga: We should also clarify that there is a difference
between a pothole and a depression.
Councilmember Cowden: A pothole is broken asphalt and a depression is
flat.
Mr. Suga: Correct. Depressions are where the road is
starting to sink and unfortunately some of the areas cannot be patched because the material
is not going to stick. So until the pothole actually forms is when we can do the formal repair.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, so eight employees, two vehicles, and some
skill for something that is short period, just so people understand and I understand; people
do not seem to understand why it is hard.
Mr. Suga: The challenge is the safety aspect. Unfortunately,
people are a little reckless when we are on the roads, speeding by. We are trying to be out of
the way as soon as we can, but it is hard sometimes. I think the road that we have the most
difficulty with is Maluhia because the speed limit is 50 miles per hour. We employed
contractors to help us, professionals who can set up all the right signs and set-up so we can
safely go and do what we need to do.
Councilmember Cowden: How long does that material take to become hard?
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Mr. Suga: As soon as you place that cementitious material
in, you can probably drive over it within a few minutes. You cannot turn your steering wheel
over it. It will unravel. If you are just driving over it, it will not come out.
Councilmember Cowden: Black patch takes longer, right?
Mr. Suga: Excuse me.
Councilmember Cowden: A cold mix of black asphalt takes longer to go
hard, yes?
Mr. Suga: That actually does not typically become hard.
Councilmember Cowden: Oh, okay. Thank you so much.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: There is no good product out there. From my
experience with roads, you fill a pothole and we get a big rain, everything around the pothole
just starts to disintegrate, too. Maybe they did not fix the pothole and you put the material
in, but then everything around it or past it starts to deteriorate and I do not know how you
solve that besides you having to redo the whole road.
Mr. Suga: That is where the GET money is a huge benefit to
us where we can minimize having to do these costly repairs. It will save us time and we can
do other work activities to focus our time and energy on. With resurfacing, as you know, Mike
mentioned earlier that Olohena is saving us some time now. We used to be out there weekly,
if not every other day.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: I have a different take on complaints because I
think a lot of local people, at least where I come from, do not complain too much. The
complaints are from our newfound residents. Do we need those calls to tell us where the
potholes are? We know where the potholes are. Our workers live in the community and we
do not need calls. We know where the potholes are, right?
Mr. Suga: True. The calls are just an added bonus.
Councilmember Kagawa: I do not like the fact that if you call you will get
the pothole fixed because I know who will be calling. It is not local people.
Mr. Suga: Understood. That is not the correct way we handle
it. The calls are just in addition to what we already know. Our District Supervisors are tasked
to go out weekly, especially now since we all know when it rains, you are going to have
potholes, especially those roads like Ka'apuni. We check them after a rainy event. Kilauea
Road is another one. Roads that are in pretty horrible shape, we send our folks to go check
and drive to see. From there where we can determine when the temporary repair can be done
whether it has to be immediately or....
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Councilmember Kagawa: We know where the potholes are, it is just difficult
to have the manpower and materials and hopefully we can catch up with repaving because
we put off with paving for a while. Hopefully, we can solve the road in its entirety instead of
patching here and there, right.
Mr. Suga: Right.
Mr. Renaud: Just to add one thing. I have been hearing
"Ka'apuni, Ka'apuni, Ka'apuni"—Ka'apuni supposed to have been repaired already, but the
State needed to help in Hanalei, so the contractor is out there and they should be coming
back next month. That is what we are told. They are going finish up the road. They are going
to do all the repair areas first and then in the next contract, so many months later, we will
do the overlay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: I just want to say that I used to drive on Ka'apuni.
I hear that every week someone has a complaint. I use to drive on that every day. It is a
heavily-used road.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions on General Fund Road
Maintenance? If not, we are going to move on. So this is the General Excise Tax for Roads.
Do we have any questions for that? Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So three vacancies. I am curious as to the first one,
939, vacant since July 1, 2018. Says Laborer I—Bus Stops. So is this an old position that was
reallocated? The GET only starts...when did the GET funding start? January 1st?
Mr. Suga: So this is something that the previous
Administration allotted. We had vacant positions at the time and we created a Bus Stop
Maintenance Crew for the Transportation Agency. So we did hire two individuals, but looking
at the number of bus stops that we have, the two individuals were more than sufficient to
maintain all the stops on the island. Having the third individual, we made the choice that it
is not needed and we will not solicit for that position. I am hoping that we could transfer that
position into one of our baseyards to use that as additional manpower. But that is to be...
Councilmember Kuali`i: This vacant Position No. 939 Laborer I—Bus
Stops is the third position you are talking about?
Mr. Suga: Correct.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So we are going to see that there is no intention to
fill that position.
Mr. Suga: Not for the Bus Stop Crew, correct.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: So we are going to see that come out, and you
are...
Mr. Suga: Hopefully, yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: And try something else?
Mr. Suga: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay. So that would be an eliminated position,
939, or dollar funded. The next position...and these two were only vacant since
March 16, 2019. So for the Project Assistant 1977, $45,000—I think I noticed it was
dollar-funded last year. So was this is a position that came from somewhere else?
Mr. Tresler: No. These are reallocated, those positions were
created for the General Fund. I do not know, Scott?
Councilmember Kuali`i: Newly-created positions being paid by the...
Mr. Tresler: Yes, these are specific positions created for the
GET Fund.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Correct.
Mr. Tresler: Just to get to the point of it, we had it filled. But
other agencies stole employees.
Mr. Renaud: They were looking for more money so they went to
other agencies.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So 1977 is currently vacant. What is your
intention on filling that position?
Mr. Renaud: 1977?
Councilmember Kuali`i: Yes. The position we are talking about.
Mr. Renaud: We have it out for recruitment...I should find out
in maybe a week.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Then the last position is 9047, Principal Project
Manager.
Mr. Renaud: Same thing. Yes. Correct.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Same thing. Okay.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kagawa.
Councilmember Kagawa: A follow-up. What do these folks do? What do
these two positions do? Specifically for the GET?
Mr. Renaud: Work for the GET Projects, road projects.
Councilmember Kagawa: I thought we contract out most of those.
Mr. Renaud: No. Not my work in the office.
Councilmember Kagawa: Oh, okay.
Mr. Tresler: Project inspection and making sure the contracts
are doing what we are paying them to do.
Councilmember Kagawa: Helping to follow-up since there is such a big bulk
that will be going out? Okay.
Mr. Renaud: We would create a lot of overtime, I do not want to
work a lot of overtime.
Councilmember Kagawa: Police and Fire did not mind.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We are getting close to lunch. Any other questions
on GET? I have a question regarding GET...So right now, we have it separated between, and
this might be a Finance question, also but we have the GET moneys separated between Roads
and Transportation. So what happens if money lapses in Roads or money lapses in
Transportation? Does that money stay with the Transportation folks? Does the money stay
in the GET Fund? Ideally, since we have an unlimited amount of roads to do and if
Transportation does not spend the money, do they keep gaining funds or does it go back into
GET?
Mr. Tresler: That is a good question and I am glad you have
asked that question. We have been in discussions on how to handle that situation and I know
our hope was that because it is one fund, everything would be in one area. So if money lapses
operationally and you are not going to spend it, say, for example in Transportation, we could
take that money and use it for repaving more roads before the end of the year. So
mechanically, I think that would be the easiest. We are trying to get that resolved. If not,
then there may be complications with money bills and so forth. But I think for efficiency,
transparency purposes, it would be great to have, it is all-in-one fund, but to have it by
Divisions. So if Transportation needed money, that transfer could be made quicker. But,
again, the purposes of expending these funds is to fix roads, which is our interest. That it
would make it much more efficient mechanically than having to come back and go through a
money bill process for two months, which then would make it too late and lapsing funds into
next fiscal year budget.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Could you E-mail us what the policy is going to be?
Does the money stay with Transportation? Does it get to go back into the GET Fund and
reallocated based on who is spending the money or using the money?I understand the timing
on roads. Ideally, I would love to see a money bill come through where I know people are not
spending money and when another budget comes up, we know roads did not get all the work
they wanted to get done and Transportation was not able to get theirs done? I am kind of fine
either way of knowing that the money is earmarked to Highways and Transportation. So it
is going to have be spent that way. I just wanted to know, how does this bucket work? Is it
two separate GET buckets or one big GET bucket? Could I get better clarity on how you plan
to handle it? That can come in an E-mail if you are not ready policy-wise to tell us how we
want to handle that.
Mr. Tresler: We will follow-up with discussion with the
Administration.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I think the intent of GET is to see projects move.
So I do not want a policy that is going to be holding up projects either. I think we passed it
with the intent of allowing the residents to see the work getting done. So I am open either
way. If you tell me it is faster to have it in one bucket and we can get projects moving a lot
faster. I am almost more open to that because I want to see work getting done on the roads.
People are paying a higher tax and they want to see the outcome of it. That is just my feeling.
If you could send something over later so we know what to expect. We can always change it
later, how we want to see it. Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Speaking about that, I think it is outlined in how
it is that we passed the GET in disbursements with 25/75 and would need to be a change to
those details. I actually want to have that money working for us constantly, too. I do not think
it was clearly stated about what is being underutilized and how we spend it. I will look into
it, too.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members on GET?
Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: It is a broad question in the sense of "Other
Services." It is a huge item, going from $7.6 million to $17.4 million, you stated before that
you used to make your plan for future road paving and what have you, and then you budgeted
and then it happened the following year. Do you have the numbers for what the $17 million
will get us?
Mr. Tresler: Well, we have identified the roads, yes. We do not
have a problem in spending that money to repair our roads. We also have...
Councilmember Kuali`i: Can we get some basic information, for example,
"Last year, with $7.6 million we did`x' miles and this next year with $17.4 million we plan to
do `x' miles"?
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Mr. Tresler: We have that breakdown and we will provide that
information. It was part of our presentation, earlier, when we spoke about our policy and
road repaving.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: We talked about all of the different ways that we
want to repave these roads. A lot of the time, what we are hearing are the benefits of doing
concrete and I just wanted to make it clear, we are not going to do that improvement, right?
We are just doing all asphalt improvements, right?
Mr. Tresler: Right now, that is the focus. We cannot say that
we would eliminate analyzing if perhaps it would make sense to use concrete, right?
Councilmember Chock: We could do that. That is an option.
Mr. Tresler: It is an option.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We have done collector roads with concrete, Puhi
Road is concrete.
Mr. Tresler: Yes. Ed has mentioned about our STIP collector
roads, 80/20 match; we spent 20% and the Federal government provided 80% and we did do
cement on that road.
Councilmember Chock: It is the cost.
Mr. Tresler: It is the cost, but I think at some point there is a
crossover with the cost of fossil fuel, cement, and the life and maintenance and so forth. So
once fuel prices dropped, that changed. If it is coming back up, it is worth the analysis. We
would normally look at those projects, kind of a major construction/reconstruction. So that
would be kind of like a STIP funded project. Again, it is something that we could look at. It
is always an option.
Councilmember Chock: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I did get clarity. The bill does not specifically
break it out. I believe we left it that way, because we did not know how the money...we just
know the money is specific to Highways and Transportation. There was no indication that it
had to be 25% Transportation and 75% to Highway. I think right now that the
Administration's policy on how they are splitting up the money, but it could change. Next
year, it would be 100% Roads and next year could be 100% Transportation. It can go either
way. Councilmember Kagawa.
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Councilmember Kagawa: With concrete, is it more difficult to get to
utilities?Like our Department of Water(DOW), they are famous for patching, right?It would
seem easier to patch asphalt than concrete?
Mr. Suga: I think something like that, discussion and
communication with DOW for a project like that should happen before the project, actually,
and have them replace the lines prior to this going in. It would be a significant problem trying
to do that.
Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members on our
General Excise Tax for Roads? If not, I think, we have gotten to a good stopping point before
lunch. We are going to be done with Highways and Roads. Any last or final questions on
Highways and Roads? We have Wastewater and Solid Waste left, and if we have time, we
can go over CIP. Again, if we can get through all of these today, then we will not need to show
up on Monday for any follow-up on these. I would love to do that, Members. So we will be
back at roughly 1:20 p.m., one hour lunch.
There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 12:18 p.m.
The meeting reconvened at 1:31 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Next up, we have Wastewater. Jason, if you
want to provide your brief synopsis, then we can get into the numbers.
JASON KAGIMOTO, Chief of the Wastewater Management Division: Good
afternoon. For the record, Jason Kagimoto, Chief of the Wastewater Management Division.
So just to give an overview of our utility. How we basically...we have four treatment plants,
two on the westside, two on the eastside; Waimea services basically Waimea, and `Ele`ele
services Hanapepe and `Ele`ele. We have one in Lihu`e that services half of Lihu`e and
Hanama`ulu and we have one in Wailua that services Wailua and Kapa`a. We have about 20
pump stations and 35 people within the division. The utility is in charge of maintaining all
of the facilities, including about 50 miles of wastewater pipelines, as far as the utility itself.
Generally, we operate behind-the-scenes.You do not really see or hear from us. The work has
been getting done, and I guess when you see us, that is generally when there are issues and
whatnot, so I am proud of our folks knowing that basically they are kind of out of sight, and
they go about their jobs on a daily basis and take a lot of pride in their work to be able to
make sure that we are maintaining our services. There are a lot of times with running
utilities that operates 24/7 that there are equipment or things that need to be juggled around
when things go down to be able to maintain services. That does not come to the forefront as
far as in the public eye. A lot of those things happen behind the scenes. So they do a really
good job of responding at all hours of the day to be able to make it happen. So we do have a
lot of backlog of work. So I really do appreciate...we are grateful for the Administration for
helping us. They have provided us with a bunch of help as far as being able to get more
equipment, more budget, and it is a good step in the right direction. So we are definitely
grateful for them listening and helping us to get the utilities to where we need it to be. That
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is an overview of the utility and where we are at. If anybody has any specific questions, we
can answer them.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: As we look at your budget, we definitely see an
increase in the equipment, which is a big concern that was outlined in your presentation. So
I think listening to what the Mayor had to say, I want to be clear on what the outcome will
be. What are the takeaways at the end of this next fiscal year in terms of what you folks will
be investing in from the community's standpoint?Expansion of services or more connections?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, so for right now, our main focus for the next
several years is to really just catch up on a lot of deferred maintenance, a lot of deferred
replacement of equipment, and whatnot. As far as in your budget, that is the main focus. We
are trying to catch up on replacing a bunch of equipment. It was presented to the
Administration and they have helped us with this new approach. You will see we are doing
this leasing program for a bunch of our equipment, so that helps to lower the capital cost up
front and that allows us to be able to pay off these loans more in line with the revenue that
we are getting from our sewer customers. So that allows us to be able to do more than we
have been able do in the past. That is basically our primary goal right now, to get our existing
utility to a better condition, and then we are also going to be doing some facility plans, which
is more on the CIP side. When those kind of projects come around, that is when we are going
to be looking at planning and expanding the system.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Not too long ago, when we had the accident in
Wailua, we learned that there is a sleeve or a stent that we can put in the pipe. Is that going
to happen with this? That would cost a whole lot more than $500,000, yes?
Mr. Kagimoto: Actually, all of that we do that under contract.
That is not really reflected other than it will be eventually reflected in our loans, so if we get
a State Revolving Fund (SRF) loan to do the construction. That is stuff we contract out and
we basically get a 20-year loan for that work.
Councilmember Cowden: Is that work intended to happen during this
upcoming year?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. It is sort of an ongoing thing. There is the
condition assessment portion and then we go into the actual design, and then eventually it
will be the construction. So it is a several-year process. On two of our projects, we are
finishing-up the design phase. So we have already done the assessment and we are almost
done with the design phase and this I guess next fiscal year or this calendar year we expect
to get at least one of them on the street, which is the `Ele`ele subdivision. We are going to be
doing assessments throughout our collection system, the design and the construction.
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Councilmember Cowden: Once that eventually shows up in here, is that in
CIP or under Wastewater?
Mr. Kagimoto: We are trying to do as much as we can through the
SRF Program. So the SRF Program will at least help us...
Councilmember Cowden: What is SRF?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: State Revolving Fund.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, sorry. State Revolving Fund. That is a
program that is administered by the Department of Health and they offer a 20-year loan.
Historically, what we have done is the County has funded the assessment portion and the
design portion and we could then apply to the loan for construction. In the past year or so,
we have been informed by the Department of Health that they are willing to help with the
design side of it also. So the goal is to do the design and construction and those things will
then just show up in the loans within our Operating Budget.
Councilmember Cowden: This is one of the few areas. This is almost
revenue-neutral, right? When we see the expenses is that coming out of General Fund?
Mr. Kagimoto: It is both. We have Sewer revenue and General
Fund support.
Councilmember Cowden: Is the Sewer revenue reflected on this anywhere?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: The Sewer revenue is in the very beginning. They
get about $9.6 million in revenue. But the Wastewater expenses are almost $11 million. So
there is a $2 million gap, which they get, which is fed by the General Fund.
Councilmember Cowden: So we are looking at the differential right here.
Okay. Right here.
Mr. Tabata: Lyle Tabata, Deputy County Engineer. I would
like to add that Wastewater does provide services to the General Fund entities. For instance,
they provide septic tank maintenance for everything from the west side of the island, ending
just at the Hanalei Bridge. So we do not take care of anything beyond the Hanalei Bridge
because of capacity of our vehicles. Everything before that, they provide the services. So we
call it an exchange for the General Fund. Also, we provide the effluent from the Wailua
Wastewater Treatment Plant to the golf course. Although there is a fee, there is no real
transaction that occurs.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for the
work that you do.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: As far as our system, the $2 million gap...we
would love to fill it; is there underutilized areas that can get sewer or that it is easy to get
sewer? Is there any way to close that gap between our revenue and our expenses on it?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, there are various ways of getting more
customers. The one that is sort of happening right now, and I think it has been a while since
the County has really put out their own project to expand our own collection system—the
way we have been gaining more customers is based on development. So if there is Kohea Loa
or Lima Ola or those different kinds of projects, they will construct the sewer system and
then convey it over to us to own, operate, and maintain. As far as getting new customers...I
guess, when we get to through our facilities plan, there will be discussions as far as what we
should do. There is the 2050 deadline for all of the cesspools to be removed. So there are,
planning things that we need to do to figure out certain areas that we can help...things with
the shoreline going down the highway and we do not sewer within the block of the highway.
There are other potential pockets, possibly Kekaha, possibly the lower Hanapepe Heights
sections, since the upper portion is already sewered. So there are a bunch of areas that are
within range of our existing collections system that we can grow and we just need to go
through with the planning.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Thank you. Thanks for that.
Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Follow-ups. The one on the planning side, is there
a master plan of some sort that guides you folks when we are trying to look into maybe
installing lines in existing neighborhoods?
Mr. Kagimoto: We do have an existing facility plan that was done
for each collection system. So what we are doing within this budget—and we will talk about
it in the CIP—we got approved to do another round of the facilities plan. Because it is
basically looking at, I think ballpark...a 10-year window. So those things that they kind of
identify...it will include things like planning, so we can stay ahead of possible areas that we
will need to accommodate higher capacities for our treatment plants so we can stay ahead of
the expansion of those kind of things, just be all inclusive of how we are going to go about
replacing or repairing certain things within our facilities and those kind of things.
Councilmember Evslin: On that note, how have you folks in the past
funded expansion within an existing neighborhood? I know it has not happened for a long
time, right. What was the model for that when it has happened?
Mr. Tabata: So you are correct, Councilmember Evslin, that
we have not done expansion. The majority of the reason for not expanding is we relied on
developers coming in to provide the infrastructure to expand versus the County to go out and
create expansion. So this is something that we would have to investigate. I know there are
funds available through the SRF program. However, as is evidenced in our huge push to
replace a lot of equipment in the plants—and we thank the Administration and Finance for
helping us create an avenue where we are financing these replacements to at least that
program—The facilities need to be corrected first and capacities reestablished. So part of
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what Chief Kagimoto is saying is that our facilities have fallen into disrepair and we need to
get them back to the designed capacities so that we can expand. So one of the plans that we
have completed was 'Ele'ele. It is a plant that is ripe for receiving more flows and as he
mentioned, we have this section of Hanapepe Heights that has the design. We need to look
at it closely and price it to today's costs because I believe that design was completed in the
'80s. So we have to revisit that and look at how we can then finance it. We can either use SRF
or we create a district, create a finance district. There are different avenues to finance.
Councilmember Evslin: The finance district is like a property tax
surcharge or something?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Evslin: My understanding is Community Development
Block Grant (CDBG) money in other larger municipalities can be used for Wastewater
expansion. Is that ever a possibility?
Mr. Tabata: The community needs to qualify under the CDBG
program.
Councilmember Evslin: To my other follow-up question, you mentioned
septic pumping; is that septic pumping from the County?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. Only for County facilities. So that is all of the
County parks, the County neighborhood centers, Solid Waste transfer stations...yes, just
County facilities, not private stuff.
Councilmember Evslin: I have one new question, which I can ask after if
there is no follow-up.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i is first.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Position No. 1851, vacant since May 7, 2017,
Operator IV. What is the status? Recruitment? Hiring?
Mr. Kagimoto: For that one, I guess to give a better
understanding of our organization. At each treatment plant, we have five positions. The first,
the top two, which is the Working Supervisor and Operator IV, both require a Grade IV
license. Part of it is you qualify to take the test, then to get the license, you need years of
experience; it is not just over time to grow into it and you have to pass the test. We have one
of our, I guess another person within our division used to be in Operations as an operator
and she has qualified and passed the Grade IV test. Right now, she is also moved over to the
chemist side and we have chemists doing a bunch of water quality testing. At the moment,
she is a chemist and she is wanting to get the comfort and experience and just broaden her
knowledge and experience. At this moment, we are kind of holding that position open to see
if she does want to basically move back into operations. So that is why that one is vacant at
the moment.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: So can you define for me what "holding open"
means? Do you have an idea to what period?
Mr. Kagimoto: She just passed the test. Let us see...I think it was
this past October.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Is she interested in the position?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So you could be recruiting and hiring her into that
position?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: When?
Mr. Kagimoto: I think part of is just depending on what her
interest is. So what we try to do is we try to hold them, I guess promote our folks within. So
what happens when we have these kinds of vacancies...we are in discussion with her to make
sure this is something for her and something she wants to do it, and if she does, then we will
go ahead and open recruitment for her.
Councilmember Kuali`i: In the meantime, how is this person being paid?
In another position?
Mr. Kagimoto: What do you mean? She is a chemist at the
moment.
Councilmember Kuali`i: The position is vacant.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: When she gets her license and what have you, you
may promote her into that position, so that will free up another position. So currently, she is
in another position?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So that would just lead to another vacancy.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Do you have any idea whether that will happen in
the next 60 to 90 days or beyond that?
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Mr. Kagimoto: So we have, talked to her within...so she got her
Grade IV license in October and this is probably four...six months we have spoken to her
about it maybe three times. So now is probably a good time to check back in again and see
what her feelings are for that position. Otherwise, I guess the idea is that we would
still...because if you are not already working at a wastewater treatment plant, nobody from
the outside, unless you are working at a private treatment plant, will have those. To keep it
open...so if it is not her, if somebody else qualifies and passes the test, then we can promote
that person.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Obviously, the budget shows the position fully
funded.
Mr. Kagimoto: Sure.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So if she is not going to start on July 1, 2019, you
should reduce the budget. Whatever your plan is.
Mr. Kagimoto: Okay.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Two questions—one, we have discussed this a
little bit in the past but right now, my understanding is if you are on sewer, you are paying
a monthly fee no matter the size of your household and there has been some discussion on
looking at the barriers of trying to transition to water use and my understanding is that there
was some progress on that front. So maybe you folks could talk about what the barriers were
and how we can move in that direction.
Mr. Kagimoto: With our existing billing system, yes, it is a very
manual process. So that is essentially the reason why we are just doing the flat rate. It is just
way too time-consuming and difficult to be able to do it on a volume basis. Lyle has helped
us with entering into discussions with the Department of Water. So we are kind of working
with them to see what possibilities we have of either getting the data easier from them or
working with them to do it. But we are in our CIP budget we did get some money towards
evaluating a new billing system. So whether we do it in-house and upgrade our thing, that is
basically the direction we are going is to be able to do more volume-based because that is one
of the bigger concerns of our customers.You could be one person in a home and your neighbor
could have a family of six and you are both paying the same rate. So we are working towards
getting a volume-based rate.
Councilmember Evslin: Yes, thank you. I am excited to see where you folks
will go with that. Final question, how many houses on Kaua`i or what percentage of the homes
do you folks service?
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Mr. Kagimoto: I guess just in terms of customer accounts, we are
about 20% of the Department of Water. So ballpark about 20% of the island. There are big
pockets of Kauai where we do not service. There are some of those that are actually serviced
by private utilities, one owned by Aqua Engineers that is next to Puakea golf course, they
service half of Lihu`e and through Puhi. There is a utility in Po`ipu, there is a utility in
Princeville and other smaller package systems and then I guess, rest of the island I would
say...I do not know...maybe more than half of the island on their own, like either cesspool or
septic system.
DONN KAKUDA, Civil Engineer: Donn Kakuda, Civil Engineer VI. Just to
give you a more round number, I think we have 3,500 residential accounts and about 1,500
commercial accounts in that range.
Councilmember Evslin: How are we trending? The majority of new homes
on Kaua`i have been built on Ag land or Residential, is that percentage heading down? Have
most new homes been built with septic systems and not on sewer?
Mr. Tabata: We have to investigate that. It depends on if it is
on Ag land, it is not connected to a developer's project...most likely it is not connected.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Wastewater?
Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: I think the overtime budget is showing $390,000
and that breaks down to the overtime of$115,000 and standby pay for call-out at $275,000.
That is the same as it was last year, and last year you utilized all of that funding for that
purpose.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. For the most part, I guess I will have to look
back to see, what was last year's?
Mr. Tabata: I guess the issue with the standby is whether or
not they are called we have to pay them a stipend for being on-call.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay.
Mr. Tabata: So it is a fixed cost, and the variable is the amount
of hours if they do get called to come to the plant that they spend to remedy the problem.
Councilmember Kuali`i: So this budgeted amount is expected costs based
on the contract and what you are scheduling.
Mr. Tabata: Historically.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: And probably would have been spent in the prior
year?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. So we have, based upon the last three years,
we have been cutting down that budget.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I think historically they have been higher. They
have been around $411,000, $433,000, and $436,000. Then the last two budgets were in the
$390,000 range and we will not know what they are going to have by the end of this year
until it is done.
Mr. Kagimoto: Looking at historical trends, what Lyle was
saying, the standby is what we can basically count on and that is what we can quantify. The
overtime is based on having emergencies and things that are a little more unpredictable.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: This bad debt expense from 2018...and it looks
like no bad debt expense recently...is that accumulated over the years for non-payment?
Mr. Tabata: The Division had done an extensive search into
looking at recovering and getting customers up to current status in their receivables. There
was that one that we came to Council for last year, the commercial account, which is no longer
exists. So on our Attorney's recommendation, we wrote the debt off.
Councilmember Evslin: That was just one account?
Mr. Tabata: Two accounts.
Councilmember Evslin: So that was it? What about personal home
non-payment, has that not been an issue?
Mr. Kagimoto: That is still something that we are working
towards getting better. There are other delinquent accounts. For that one, they were closed
for some time prior to 2010, I think. So for those ones we are just basically trying to move
forward to get them off the books. As far as going forward, what we are doing, is evaluating
our current ones. We are working together with the Department of Water as far as looking
to...so right now our process is when you have a delinquency, and I forget the dollar amount,
when you get over this threshold, we basically will file and put a lien on the home. That sort
of has been the extent of what we have done historically. Our Ordinance and the Water
Department allows for the water to be shut off. We are looking into it to get a better grip of
those things. So yes, it is a work in progress that we are trying to tighten up on.
Councilmember Evslin: Is that the reason we do not see those here
because they have not been totally written off yet?
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Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Just a slight follow-up on that one. So when we
see an amount that big, $292,000—I am presuming we probably would never get into that
much trouble again with one or two accounts, right? Somebody has really been egregious and
keeps getting service?
Mr. Kagimoto: So part of the things for these ones is on the
commercial accounts, they are billed based on volume. So depending on their water usage, if
it is a restaurant or what not, some of those bills can get pretty high, pretty fast.
Councilmember Cowden: I see.
Mr. Kagimoto: So that is how some of these bills can get really
high.
Councilmember Cowden: That was a hotel, right?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Cowden: So that would get pretty high pretty fast.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, and I think that what generally happens is
even when we have a lien on it, different people who are owed money...they sort of like are,
"We are not that high on the priority list," I guess, I will say. So there are times where even
when having the lien on it, we still end up with non-payment at the end of it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay.Any other questions for Wastewater?If not,
we will move on to, I believe Wastewater has a General Fund also. Auto Maintenance items.
It is on page 350. Any questions on their Auto Maintenance? Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: This is in regards to your narrative. You
mentioned not being able to fill the manager and electrician positions. Is that due to, getting
applicants? What is the root cause of that?
Mr. Kagimoto: Well, for those, there is not a position available.
We are trying to work, on getting them. For us, the first big help we got from the
Administration was to get more money and hopefully we will work towards getting those
other positions.
Mr. Tabata: I guess to add to that, electricians and plumbers
are hard positions to fill. We are working with HR and starting this journey to create a
County apprenticeship program. Hopefully, that will yield us being able to build from within,
and when we are ready to launch the program, we can ask for funding. So we had in prior
years two plant electricians in Wastewater and we are never, ever able to fill two. So one was
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taken away from us a few years ago and was never reinstated. So we kept trying to find a
way to do this, and even the Building Maintenance group, which has transferred; Parks
Maintenance lost electricians and were unable to fill, too. So we are looking at this filling
from within.
Councilmember Chock: The other thing I was thinking about was in the
narrative, you talk about, that position, without it at least the flexibility of it. We stand to
actually not avoid some of these spills.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, that is a real concern.
Councilmember Chock: Because we have that position. One. We need
more. So I guess the question is really from an emergency standpoint; do we have any leeway?
Any flexibility in contracting out on-call for these kind of purposes? Because this is going to
save millions of dollars and the environment in terms of a spill; should we not have that kind
of leeway?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, at least in the sense of dealing with things
whether it be after-hours or on the weekends or whatnot, our first call would be to our
electrician and if not then yes, we have money in our budget there intended to hire out
electrical services. It is not a standby thing. It is as issues come up, we will go ahead and
address those. For us, the main thing is that level of stress when things do come up within
our division that are handled. So for instance, if we have an issue with an electrical pump
and cannot get there quick enough or get an electrician on-site and all of that stuff, we are
mobilizing our line crew and bypass pumps to make sure we are doing all that we can to keep
services operable and not have a spill.
Councilmember Chock: Where is that in your budget? Contractual
repairs?
Mr. Kagimoto: I think there is one specifically for...yes...you are
right, it is within contractual repairs. There is a line item for Contracted Electrical Repairs
within that account. It is on page 345.
Councilmember Chock: Perfect, thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Wastewater? Is this the
first time we are starting to purchase equipment through the budget rather than...I know
we have all of these pumps...we had them before.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. I think the big shift with this year is the move
towards doing leasing. So we traditionally have our equipment and we still continue to have
some, depending on the type of equipment and life the expectancy, there were decisions made
to move some into leasing to help us, to basically be able to purchase more equipment this
fiscal year.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: With this leasing, typically, those would have
been repair&maintenance (R&M)items?As you upgrade the wastewater facilities you would
add in those type of bond funds? Where would these usually be?
Mr. Kagimoto: I think we want to be at a point that we will do the
facilities plan and we can plan and do a whole bunch of these things. So that we can actually
put them in the design. We are doing a CIP project and let us say we upgrade one of our pump
stations and replace the pump within that project we can fund that through the SRF loan.
That is the goal where it is the best way for us to spend our money. That is where we
ultimately want to be. For right now, because we are playing catch-up, there is some
equipment that it cannot wait until we go through the whole planning, design construction
kind of thing. Hopefully, the goal is we are doing these to make sure that we maintain our
services right now. We catch up with all of our facility plans and those things and then we
are at a point that this number in the future should be purchasing less equipment,
replacement situations, and probably more into CIP projects.
Mr. Tabata: Chair, if I may add—so if you look at the list, the
majority of the listed equipment previously, we were only leasing back vehicles. But because
these pieces are pretty much at the end of their useful life, we are looking at it as an
equipment purchase and if you look at the dollar amount...during my days in the private
industry, we would look at this as capital lease of new equipment replacement that is going
to give us a minimum 15-year life.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: For the items that you are expensing in R&M
equipment, are those more short-term type of equipment or are those equipment that
eventually we are going to see us moving towards?
Mr. Tabata: I believe they are more short-term. They are more
on the use every day, whereas, most of these are generators. The tertiary filter is a larger
expenditure for a capital investment in the plant. If you look at some of the other pieces, they
are smaller pumps and not as long a useful life.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions for Wastewater?
Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just a comment, I just noticed here that in the last
six years that only two employees have left; that is pretty impressive. So good job to all the
work you folks are doing to retain qualified staff.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, I guess I cannot say enough, our folks really
do take pride in their work. I think when a lot of our folks are hired or when they apply to
work in Wastewater it is probably...just honestly, part of it just trying to get into the County.
Then, I do not know if they are thinking this is a career for them at the time, but I think a
lot of folks, when they come aboard, they realize the stigma that generally you are working
with waste. When they get into it and they actually do the work, we are running an industrial
treatment, and it is instead of making other products or treating other products, ours is
waste. But there is a lot of chemistry involved, mechanical stuff, electrical equipment and a
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lot of skills that are gained from working. There is a lot of pride because they know the things
that they are doing behind-the-scenes to prevent spills or to protect the beaches and all these
things. So there is a lot of pride and job satisfaction.
Mr. Tabata: To maintain their licensure, they need to earn
continuing education units. So that is extra commitment on their part. We provide the
classroom environment and the training, but it is the actual effort on their part to maintain
their license.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I want to congratulate you on that. It seems like
you are more effective than some other departments on it. It seems there are so many other
places that need wastewater treatment, hotels, and whatnot. Do you have any extra sense of
why you are able to retain people from the outside coming in? I mean that seems like there
would be a demand to take them, too. What are you doing right?
Mr. Tabata: It is management. Give him the kudos. Since
Jason has taken over, he has brought a sense of pride to the division. He has shown that he
will address personnel issues immediately and follow a process so it becomes bulletproof, so
to speak. He has done a lot to help us turn the Wastewater Division into a place where you
want to come to work, in spite of the perceived perception. But I think Jason is creating a
team over there in the division that can become a showplace for us. So we are helping him
now with the facility and making the facility...I walk around the plants and I see the big
change. I can see the landscaping is well-maintained and before it was just grass and weeds
growing all over the place. They take pride in facilities. That also ties into retention, yes.
Councilmember Cowden: Well, good. Thank you so much.
Mr. Kagimoto: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If no further questions, we will move on to Solid
Waste. Thank you.
Mr. Kagimoto: Thank you.
Mr. Tabata: It is my pleasure to introduce...I believe he did
one presentation already...but our new Chief of Solid Waste, Zahid Kahn and he has Allison
with him. I will let him introduce himself and give you his brief overview of the division. Go
ahead.
ZAHID KAHN, Chief of Solid Waste: Thank you, Lyle. Good afternoon, Council.
Thanks for the opportunity to come in front of you. As Lyle said, I will first talk about the
Solid Waste Division. The way I see the Solid Waste Division is that it has three main
sections. That means three main functions. One is waste diversion, our goal is to keep
materials away from our landfill. So that is reuse, recycling, that is where Allison comes into
play. We have a recycling rate of 43% and our goal is to increase that rate. The next division
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is waste disposal. In waste disposal, here comes the landfill. We have the Kekaha landfill
that is our active landfill. We also have a closed landfill, Halehaka landfill, we have to
maintain that correctly thirty years and beyond. We are going to be building a new landfill
probably seven to eight years down the road when Kekaha reaches its capacity. We have four
transfer stations. We are going to be doing some upgrades. So those are some major CIPs.
The third section is the waste collection, where we collect waste from residents. That is
basically the overview of the division. Some of the improvements we are planning to do over
the next couple of years is we want to improve safety, because safety is first. We are working
on our processes and procedures. As you have noticed, we have some major capital projects.
We are going to be building new landfill transfer stations. We want to improve our project
management processes. We will be adopting the Project Management Institute (PMI) so we
can do better with project delivery. We started to apply LEED principle where we clean out
unusable or not value-added items. So it starts from listening from people on the floor. So we
had our first all-hands meeting. We want to hear from everybody. So we learned from them
to see how we can improve processes. To do that, we have to improve communications. So
that is our goal is to improve communication, customer service. We want more financial
stewardship. To do that, we are asking questions to our consultants. Whenever they propose
a design, is it best design? So we challenge the, basically. So we are trying to build leaders,
because in the Solid Waste Division, there are 69 employees and five vacant positions. We
have a number of supervisors. We are trying to improve the leadership skills and the goal is
to improve morale within the Solid Waste Division. That maybe we can do what the
Wastewater Division is doing so that we can retain our employees longer. Those are some of
the things that we are working on going forward. For this presentation, I will talk about some
of the areas where there are some major changes. One is for the Kekaha landfill—we
increased our budget by $90,000—that is for the gas collection. We had that at the top of our
list for the landfill. So we have to collect gas from every square inch of the landfill, so that is
why that increased. For the Halehaka closed landfill, their electrical system needs repair.
Last year, we went out to contract, but the market condition is such that we did not have
enough funding.As a result, we requested $200,000 more. For the Kekaha landfill, we looked
for opportunities to save some costs. Instead of upgrading both scales, the decision was to
upgrade one scale. That is where there is a reduction of$200,000. The biggest-ticket item is
$500,000 to transport contaminated soil from Puhi Metals Recycling to the Kekaha landfill.
When the lateral expansion happens on the very bottom, there will be a base layer. So that
would be using the contaminated soil. So there are a couple more increase, one is for the
green waste processing. We are asking for $110,000 more. It is because the cost of doing
business is much higher on the island. It is the same reason for the commercial recycling
$112,000 more. So those are some of the changes. I will be happy to answer any questions
that you might have.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: You mentioned 43% diversion rate, that is 43% of
our entire waste here and that includes green waste?
ALLISON FRALEY, Solid Waste Program Development Coordinator: Yes,
green waste is the highest number. I am sorry, Allison Fraley, Programs Coordinator, Solid
Waste Division. Yes, we track diversion—both what the County diverts through all of our
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recycling programs and commercial diversion. So we do surveys with businesses to find out,
for instance, what is being back-hauled by the big-box stores back to the mainland? And
things like that. So right now, it is about 42%.
Councilmember Evslin: How are we trending on the number? Are we
improving on that?
Ms. Fraley: It has been at that rate for about three or four
years.
Councilmember Evslin: And you mentioned the challenges about recycling
and the need for more money for commercial recycling.
Ms. Fraley: Well, for commercial recycling, I have to say the
reason that increased is because that is for 14 months of service. We are going to extend that
contract into the next fiscal year and then negotiate a new contract at that point. So that is
why it is just two extra months worth of funding for that program. The commercial recycling
program is we contract for all the cardboard, all of the HI-5 materials that come into the
certified redemption centers. They get processed by Garden Island Disposal, our only
commercial recycler on-island. Businesses that are recycling they do not have to pay,
recycling is free for businesses.
Councilmember Evslin: Where does plastic waste end up going?
Ms. Fraley: The plastic waste right now is going to Taiwan.
Councilmember Evslin: Does it impact our bottom-line if the price of
plastic is fluctuating?
Ms. Fraley: No, right now, those contracts are negotiated in
advance. So if the commodity loses value, then the contractor has to "eat" those costs,
basically. It is a very volatile market. They are always looking to market everything. But
right now, the market is low. It has been higher in the past, but the China situation has
definitely made commodity values low the last two years.
Councilmember Evslin: Final question, you said commercial recycling is
free, but there are other solid waste commercial users who pay per ton, right?
Ms. Fraley: What I am saying is free to the customer. So
businesses do not have to pay to recycle, the County is picking up the tab for that. That is
what I am saying.
Councilmember Evslin: But that is throwing trash away that has a
commercial account, the landfill will have to pay for them.
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Ms. Fraley: Yes. It is an incentive to recycle and then helps
support some of our programs such as a cardboard ban at the landfill. So businesses do
not...they can sell their cardboard for free, because they cannot dispose of cardboard.
Councilmember Evslin: What about commercial food waste? Is that also
free to dispose?
Ms. Fraley: We do not have any programs for food waste.
There is a lot of pig farming that is happening, where businesses are giving away food to pig
farmers. So that is technically free to them, instead of throwing it as trash.
Councilmember Evslin: And then the final question, the $110,000 increase
for green waste processing, will that result in any service improvements? Or that is just
strictly the cost of doing business is increasing?
Ms. Fraley: Well, it is two things. We do anticipate more green
waste being recycled next year and we are renegotiating contracts. So the contract price could
be higher. So we are putting in a cushion for that, in case that is the case.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me first thank you for
the presentation, I appreciate you integrating the LEED principals in culture. I think it is a
good direction and one I have been looking for in Solid Waste in response to some of the
capacity needs. My question is around the half a million dollars requested for soil
contamination soil removal, Puhi Metals Recycling. So prior to you, in the past we have had
a line item necessary for this clean-up and mitigation. I am curious, my question is really
around is this part of the past clean-up effort or are we looking at new issues that are arising?
Mr. Tabata: Councilmember Chock, Lyle Tabata, Deputy
County Engineer. This is the clean-up of the clean-up.
Councilmember Chock: Okay.
Mr. Tabata: This is the final. We have been holding it off until
the lateral construction started. As Zahid said, this will be used as the bottom layer on top of
the liner.
Councilmember Chock: So this is what we had in reserve all the time.
Mr. Tabata: Exactly, yes.
Councilmember Chock: And was waiting for.
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
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Councilmember Chock: Thank you.
Mr. Tabata: The time has come.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: The one vacant position in Solid Waste Disposal is
9827 Civil Engineer VI,vacant for nine months, salary of$72,528. What is the status of filling
that position?
Mr. Kahn: About two weeks ago, we had interviews and we
interviewed a couple of people, because Solid Waste is a very specialized field. It is very hard
to find somebody with a lot of experience. So there is one potential candidate that HR is
working on. So it is possible we could fill that position in the near future.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I have a general question. In looking at the total
revenue we get from Solid Waste and our total expenses, disposal collection, recycling—is
there any way to close the gap? I think it is about a $12 million loss every year...and I mean
this year. Do you see any other options? Is there cheaper more efficient ways to get rid of
trash somehow?
Mr. Kahn: I can share my experience from King County,
Washington, where I worked before. King County's, solid waste division is fully self-funded.
In fact, it pays $11 million to the general fund every year for the landfill.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I will stop you there, just switch the budget and
do that? I would love to hear some of the ideas, how they are doing it. I think it is a big climb
for us as an island to get there.
Mr. Kahn: I think this is my own opinion, which is one of the
things we can do is at the transfer station, people can dispose of for free. If we start looking
at some of the tipping fees there, that could help us with gaining some revenue.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Follow-up? Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Well, I have a concern with that one, because
people will just throw stuff into the bushes. That is what happens is people throw their
rubbish on the side of road somewhere if it is too expensive. So we have to be a little careful
with that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It is tough, we are a small island and we are going
to try to collect more solid waste fees and there is only a limited amount of people that we
can spread it over. It is ultimately the residents and commercial operations.
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Mr. Kahn: Some other ideas would be...we are looking at how
we manage our landfill. For example, we can improve compaction because right now the
compaction...what it is we can improve it by getting some modern equipment that will give
us more airspace so there will be some savings in costs.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Is there a way to go back and compact older areas
that we have landfilled to get more space? Is it only moving forward any new areas that we
are putting material on our or maybe we have a covered one that is completed. If we bring in
this modern compaction machine, then we can get 25% more out of this space?
Mr. Kahn: So actually, what I have done in the past is what
is called preload. So if we put, let us say more soil or more weight, it increases the settlement
rate. So that gives us more space. So that could be done with doing the preload it takes two,
three years to gain more capacity.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Oh, so if we went back and premeasured our
heights we might have a little lower.
Mr. Kahn: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I have a very basic question. Halehaka—I do not
know where that landfill is. Are you saying we have one that is...
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It is by the Puakea Golf Course.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If you go from Nuhou Road and you try to hit Puhi
Road...I guess Kipu Bypass Road...Not really drive by it, but it is on the right side of the
road.
Councilmember Cowden: When we are looking at our transfer stations,
have we gotten to that yet? Is that in here?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Transfers is under recycling.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Collections.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Or Collections.
Councilmember Cowden: So on the transfer stations.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Oh, sorry. Collections.
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Councilmember Cowden: I know that we have talked a little bit about
maybe trying to put some covering on them, so that the rain does not fall into it and create
as much effluent. Is that something on this year's agenda? Are we looking to make that
improvement there? Is that cost in here?
Mr. Kahn: We are in the process of design. So we are 10%
design and that design will include that cover and we are hoping to start construction next
year, hopefully we will start with Hanalei first.
Ms. Fraley: That is a CIP project.
Councilmember Cowden: That is CIP, okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Out of curiosity, what was the diversion rate in
King County?
Mr. Kahn: Pardon.
Councilmember Evslin: What was the diversion rate in King County?
Mr. Kahn: 57%.
Councilmember Evslin: How do we compare, our 43% is good to me. How
do we compare with other places?
Mr. Kahn: So part of the reason I think King County is
higher is because they have curbside collection of recyclable materials and they also have
very extensive programs and construction and demolition (C&D) Diversion is another one.
Councilmember Evslin: Right now we have a zero-waste resolution calling
for 70% by 2023. How do we achieve that?
Mr. Kahn: Well, to me, that seems like that would be a very
ambitious goal to meet within this timeframe. But we should strive to maximize it.
Councilmember Evslin: Is the low-hanging fruit food waste?Where can we
really make up those numbers?
Mr. Kahn: I think it is C&D.
Ms. Fraley: Yes. Low-hanging fruit would be C&D. It could be
some organic waste. Legislation would be another way that we would be able to get more
increase in diversion, and so those are some things that could be done.
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Councilmember Evslin: Just when we are talking about diversion, do we
have any idea what diversion ends up saving us in the long-run for every pound that does not
go into the landfill? What are we saving on landfill costs?
Mr. Kahn: That depends on the waste requisition. For
example, C&D does not decompose. If we can divert C&D, that gives us most benefit for the
costs. Whereas, for organic materials, it will decompose over time, it reduces the volume.
Councilmember Evslin: What is C&D?
Mr. Kahn: Construction and demolition debris.
Councilmember Evslin: Alright. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i or Councilmember
Cowden, I think while we have everyone here, we are just talking in general about our waste
and we have not hit numbers yet. I think we are just talking in general how we are getting
rid of our waste and what is cost of our waste is?Any other questions?We can ask questions
on Solid Waste disposal. I have a question on the landfill scales. I know that has been an
ongoing issue for a while. Do we currently have scales that are working or is this item going
to fix the scales, one scale that is not working? I know it has come up in a lot of budget
meetings. I just wanted to know what the status of it is today, and what the solution is.
Mr. Kahn: At present, we have two scales. I believe one is
fully functional and the other one needs some repair. The previous plan was to fix both, but
then decided that we just need one scale. So what is proposed in the budget is to repair one
scale.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Did we have issues with being able to calibrate it
or calibrating the scales to weights?
RICK RENAUD, Solid Waste Superintendent: Rick Renaud, Solid Waste
Superintendent. I think was it contract, yes. We had some issues, I think we resolved them
and we are able to calibrate now.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay.Any other questions from the Members?Let
me try to find my last question. I have one on loans. Maybe not. It is okay. I did not write my
notes good enough. Any other questions? If not, we will move ahead. We will move on to
collections, from disposal to collections. Before we move on from disposal, we will move to
collections. Any questions on collections? Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I have heard a number of concerns on our
collections system. One is that when you drive behind the trucks, you can see the little bits
of stuff coming out of the top, when the piece is open. Sometimes it tends to leave waste on
the side of the road, just small little pieces. I do not know if there is any cover that goes in
there or not? I do not know enough about the design of the truck and then another one has
been a complaint from the people who work on the truck. I want to be very vague about where
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those complaints have come, but it used to be when they would grab it, when they would
literally pick up the garbage things they knew who had bad chemicals, right? That maybe
they were painter surfboard shapers or something but now it all goes into the top, and it all
just mixes those chemicals in somewhat of a soup in the truck and that there are health
concerns about that mix. Do you from King County know of any way of dealing with that,
because there is no real way of knowing how we mix all of that chemical fluid?
Mr. Kahn: So I will answer part of it, and then I will direct it
to Rick. So in Seattle, Washington, they have a program they call "trash patrol"...they have
appointed people who go around and inspect people's trash and that one is of the reasons that
they want to make sure in trash there are things that should not be there. That is the way
they solve that. For the first part of your question, Rick can you answer, please?
Mr. Renaud: Rick Renaud. What is the first part again? Of the
chemicals?
Mr. Kahn: The design.
Mr. Renaud: Oh, the design. What you are talking about there
is a window on the top of the hopper there is a pack assist door that should be down when
traveling between the dump site and their last pickup. So I am assuming in route to the
transfer system the door must have been left open.
Councilmember Cowden: Maybe that is what it is. But you can drive behind
the truck...you can see the little bits. So the people a lot...who clean, we have volunteers who
clean the sides of the roads, and they really pointed out to me the little small pieces of
rubbish.
Mr. Renaud: Okay.
Councilmember Cowden: I started to pay attention. So there is a door. So
maybe it just gets forgotten to be closed?
Mr. Renaud: Yes, and I am assuming it might be our rollup
truck or commercial rollup truck, those also just have a net. It is not a taut net or very tight
on the container, so to speak. It is something that I have noticed some things fly off from
commercial haulers, too. Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions? Councilmember Kuali`i.
Councilmember Kuali`i: For vacant positions, Position No. 1879,
Equipment Operator III, vacant since August of 2018. What is the status of recruitment?
Mr. Renaud: We have a list of candidates ready to go. We are
just waiting on performance or practical tests with HR.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: So for the list of candidates, do you foresee filling
the position within 60 to 90 days?
Mr. Renaud: Yes.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Okay. Next, Position No. 1010 is newly vacant,
Refuse Collection Equipment Operator.
Mr. Renaud: The job announcement went out, we have a list of
candidates. We are just waiting for...I think it is going to be an in-house promotion.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Then we have 958, Solid Waste.
Mr. Renaud: It has been challenging for us. The job has gone
out...958 and 959 jobs have gone out previously and we have had a couple of people resign to
move to the private sector, but we have a list of candidates and we are just waiting to do the
practical tests.
Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: In regards to Other Services, "Transfer Station
BMP—Hanapepe, Lihu`e" was the number in the budget last year. Did we not complete it
last year or this year?
Mr. Renaud: No, we did not. We are still in the process. We are
just about ready to go. So part of that money is not only for Hanapepe, I think it is for other
transfer stations also.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. And Lihu`e. As far as the automated refuse
trucks, I noticed our lease-years went from five years to seven years and I know it reduces
our costs on the front-end and over the years. Do those trucks last seven years? Usually, our
leases are five-year leases.
Mr. Renaud: I think on the average, our trucks last six
years...we have been stretching that out to eight.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Because I would hate for us to be leasing them
longer than the life of the truck. I would hate for your payment plan to be longer than the life
of the truck. Any other questions from the Members? If not, we will move on. Any questions
for Recycling? Lihu`e Transfer Station—what is going on with the recycling contract on that?
Ms. Fraley: You mean the Kaua`i Resource Center? Reynolds
Recycling is going to be relocating from Nawiliwili Harbor to the Kaua`i Resource Center and
we put out the news release...I believe it was yesterday. They are starting operations on
April 4th. They will be open every day except for Wednesdays and Sundays, working 9-5 with
lunch from 12-1:30 as a concession operation. So they are actually paying the County to use
the space.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: So there would no longer be recycling at
Nawiliwili?
Ms. Fraley: Correct. They are relocating, yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I am noticing the grant-in-aid for $25,000. What
does that go towards?
Ms. Fraley: $20,000 is for Kaua`i Community Recycling
Services (KCRS) to do the non-HI-5 recycling at the Kilauea HI-5 Redemption Center. That
allows businesses in that area to pay HI-5 cardboard or wine bottles or whatever their
generating to a spot for free recycling, at the same time that they are doing 11I-5 recycling.
Also for next year is a budget request for $5,000 for grant-in-aid to Surfrider Foundation.
That would assist them with managing some of the waste that they are not able to do on their
own. I will give you an example that would be like large tires and boat bumpers that they
pull out of the ocean, and then also to load and dispose of the nets that they get, which they
get quite a bit.
Councilmember Cowden: In the containers? Filled two containers?
Ms. Fraley: Correct?
Councilmember Cowden: Our budget helps to pay for that to go to O`ahu.
Ms. Fraley: No, actually they are going to be disposing of that
at Kekaha landfill. There is a waiver, our legislation allows for waivers for disposal of
community clean-up projects. So that is not the cost we are talking about, it is the cost of
actually recycling those boat bumpers and loading the material into the containers.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. We used to use the glass and crush it and
put it in the roads. Are we still doing that?
Ms. Fraley: Yes. All the bottle glass, which is the majority of
what we capture through recycling programs because there is an incentive with the $0.05,
that all goes to California to be reprocessed into new bottles. The non-HI-5 glass gets put in
a glass crusher at Garden Isle Disposal. That gets crushed to spec and it is used to for mud
abatement, backfill, landscaping projects, things like that.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Fraley: You are welcome.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
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Councilmember Evslin: Am I reading this correctly? It says $1 for a
building lease?
Ms. Fraley: When we put a dollar in it is...so when we put a
dollar in, so that fund, that line item can be used and we can pull money from other accounts
if we need to use that line item sometime during the year. If we have savings in other areas,
we can transfer funds there.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: The building lease item is for what again?
Ms. Fraley: Yes. What is this one? It is not a lease. I think it
is...I am not sure. I am so sorry.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It is on page 321.
Ms. Fraley: Yes, I know. Does it say lease though? I can get
back to you on that one. My apologies. Our spreadsheet is different. We do not plan on leasing
any buildings.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members? I have a
question in general regarding green waste and our recycling programs. So something like
green waste, the cost of green waste is $1.6 million. If we were to calculate the number of
tons of green waste we are diverting versus putting into the landfill, are we paying more
money to divert it? Obviously, if we keep putting green waste in the landfill then we are
shortening the life of the landfill, but on a cost-to-cost basis, does it cost more to divert green
waste away from the landfill versus putting it into the landfill?
Ms. Fraley: It costs less for green waste. All the programs
have different costs per ton, but green waste is one of our least expensive programs. The cost
we pay to the contractors is about $60 a ton. We do have other internal operating expenses
for green waste, but this is what we are showing in the budget for green waste.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I was just curious. Of the recyclable materials,
which ones are more expensive to divert?
Ms. Fraley: Metals is about the cost...the price we pay for our
metals processing is about $128 a ton. That handles all the metals on the island. We have to
accept tires...they are banned from the landfill and we are paying about $9 on average for a
tire and we collect about 16,000 tires a year through our programs and some of those are
really big tires. So that is why the average cost is high. Kaua`i Recycles drop bins—that is a
high-cost program, a residential program. We have about 2,000 tons a year that we accept
through that program and it has kind of been at that rate for quite a while. That is at a higher
cost program at about $400 a ton. Then the commercial recycling is the same as landfill
disposal or less, it is $113 a ton. Household hazardous waste diversion is very expensive, but
we keep that hazardous waste out of the landfill so we do those programs twice a year and
the actual tonnage cost is in the thousands. But it is something that assists us in keeping
hazardous waste out of the landfill. We are planning a new textile recycling program that we
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put in the budget. We are really excited about that. It is also like a reuse program and we are
working with the Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) on O`ahu, it is part of Salvation Army.
So we are going to be helping the thrift stores accept things that they cannot really use once
they go through it. We will have a surplus of reusable mostly textile items, textiles, like
clothes. That we will be able to ship to Oahu. They will get reused there and if not there,
shipped to other countries that could use them. That is about half the cost of landfilling and
when we did our waste characterization, we saw that textiles is something that could be
easily be diverted through a simple program like this.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just expanding on that, when you say half the cost
of landfilling. What is the cost per ton?
Ms. Fraley: Our tipping fee is $119 and we did a study when
we increased to that rate of 50 a few years ago. That is what we suspect there are...there are
a lot of costs to add into there. We calculated that as the true cost, but it is probably higher.
We did another analysis. We will probably do an analysis in our Integrated Solid Waste
Management Plan update, which we are working on getting a consultant at this time.
Councilmember Evslin: To build on Chair Kaneshiro's question, now that
I have the $119 figure had my head, which of our diversions are actually less than that?
Ms. Fraley: So it would be our home composting program,
green waste...metals processing is right there...commercial recycling and the textile
recycling...that is about it.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Ms. Fraley: You are welcome.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We get a lot of questions like, "Can we do curbside
recycling pickup?" There is a cost to that.
Ms. Fraley: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: There is already a cost just to our recycling centers
that we have around the island. If we were to end up picking up the recycling, it is an even
bigger cost, just based off of our collection. How much do we pay to collect trash from the
homes?Any other questions from the Members? No? Do not let them off that easy.
Mr. Kahn: Thank you.
Ms. Fraley: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We do have Solid Waste Roads Maintenance, and
again, that is their allocation to the General Fund for General Fund items. We have Auto
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Maintenance. Are there any questions on those? If not, we will move on to CIP. Do we need
a five-minute break to stretch our legs? Let us take a ten-minute caption break right now.
We will try to power through CIP.
There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 2:48 p.m.
The meeting reconvened at 3:09 p.m., and proceeded as follows:
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Welcome back. Our final item for today is the CIP
Budget for Public Works. Wade, thank you for providing a spreadsheet on the Solid
Waste—Public Works—CIP items. If you want to go through, we have the order already and
we will start with Wastewater and briefly go through the projects and maybe explain the new
ones.
WADE LORD, Executive Assistant to the Mayor: Great. Thank you, Chair.
Wade Lord, for the County of Kaua`i. I am the CIP Program Manager. I work with the various
departments on Capital Improvement Projects. Just briefly, the work this year with the new
Administration was done in a way to attempt to bring private sector efficiencies to the
processes. We made several changes this year in the way we approach it, and the way we are
going to be going forward with it, which include just the outgoing requests from the various
divisions to make sure that their projects dovetail with the General Plan Update and the fact
that the projects needed to be cost-effective. We were looking to not go out for bond fund loans
this year. So in order to do that and to achieve that, we had to look at repurposing moneys.
So part of that initial work was to do a look-back at projects that were either open, were
closed, and just had not been resolved yet, and/or projects that had not moved forward. So we
asked each of the various project managers to give us detail on those open-ended projects,
and from that, we were able to save some moneys and repurpose them. It does not mean that
the projects are not valuable. We still feel that many of them are and we feel that the timing
is such that if you are going to be out borrowing money you need to deploy it and allocate it
because we are paying interest on it. What we did was we have redeployed the money,
reallocated for projects that are either in the planning stage or ready to go. So when there is
a project that maybe has three phases to it, you have planning, design, and construction—we
may be looking in the CIP budget to fund one portion of it, knowing that there is going to be
separate tranches later as the project moves forward. So with some of these projects, will you
see them again in future years as they move through the process. With that, we will go ahead
and get started with Wastewater. The Wastewater projects this year were really high-priority
for the Administration, because of the condition of the system and Jason Kagimoto our Chief
is here to provide color and detail on the various projects. There are several areas of need and
so we asked Jason to prioritize his projects, and we then took some of those projects, and
allocated funding for work, again, that was in planning stage and other projects that were
lower-priority, that were not health and safety-related. We moved those off for future years.
With that, I will go ahead and introduce Jason to talk to you about the Waimea R-1
Wastewater Distribution Plan, the facility plan, which is new, and that is a look at our
complete system to analyze it from top to bottom to understand where we are at and what
the needs are going forward, so we can take appropriate measures; rather than waiting and
being reactive, we are looking to be proactive. As it loads to the sewer collections system
upgrades, Jason will talk to you about details of that but we have got some lift stations in
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East Kaua`i that are obsolete. They are made up of multiple mechanical components, some of
which can be replaced now with newer components with submersible pumps that do not
require an elevator. Some of our stations actually have to have both a pump and elevator for
someone to service them. So this new technology allows the Wastewater Division to create
that without having to buy two separate mechanical systems. The Wastewater improvements
renovation that Jason will talk to you about relates to the ocean outfall at Wailua and that
system and how we are going to manage that and try to abandon use of the outfall. Then the
Wailua emergency manhole upgrades—in their evaluation, they found two manholes that are
in disrepair and need to be improved, upgraded, and repaired in order to carry some of the
loads.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Jason, if you want to go line item by line item,just
briefly explain the project. I know you have the status, but I know we just got this right now.
So none of us had a chance to kind of read it but if you can give us an overview, maybe line
item by line item? Can you explain, if it is an ongoing project? Is it going to be done this year
or if it is a project that may be longer than this year?
Mr. Kagimoto: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will just go down the line, start from the top
and go down.
Mr. Kagimoto: The first one, as Wade mentioned, is Waimea R-1
distribution system. So that project is essentially going to allow us to be able to provide R-1
water to the Waimea community by building storage and distribution systems. So we can
water the Waimea athletic field and Waimea Canyon Middle School. There are a bunch of
things that still need to happen, but essentially what we are trying to do...we will be doing
storage, which is pressurized tanks which will be at the treatment plant site, and pumps to
pressurize that to allow us to get the distribution to the park. That project is currently
ongoing. Actually, we have grant funds that have been given to us by the EPA, and the
County had a match. So as you can see, the grant funds were roughly $715,000, and our
match, $585,000. So the grant funds basically need to be spent by the end of November, this
calendar year. Our consultant is already moving forward and we should be building out a
couple of distribution system upgrades in the next month or two.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Any questions on this Waimea R-1
distribution system? Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Quick question. Does the Department of
Education end up paying for that water in some fashion in the end?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. The way our Sewer Ordinance reads is that
for R-1, it is a negotiated price. There is a clause in there that essentially has to be cheaper
than other sources, I guess. So we will be charging for that water; at this moment, we do not
have a set rate, though.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
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Councilmember Cowden: I am sorry, what is "K/J"? It says "working on
scope and fee K/J."
Mr. Kagimoto: That is abbreviation for our consultant Kennedy/
Jenks.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. It says wastewater, but this is really
freshwater that you are putting out there, right?
Mr. Kagimoto: So when we treat the water that are treated
effluent, there are different levels of recycled water. So yes, that would be our water treated
effluent.
Councilmember Cowden: Treated effluent. Okay. Alright. Thank you.
Mr. Kagimoto: That would be similar to the same type of water
that we currently send to Hokuala to water the golf course, that same quality of water.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions on this? If not, we will move
on to the next item.
Mr. Kagimoto: Okay. Let us see, that would be "Wailua NPDES."
A bunch of these projects are all tied in because there has been a several-year process. There
is been different sort of like phases of the project. We initially got the National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. It kind of outlined the compliance schedule
for us to be able to meet our nutrient limit, which we are putting out into the ocean, that is
why there is a bunch of different projects. Essentially, the project that we are currently doing
right now is we and our consultant are designing the soil aquifer treatment basin. That will
be just mauka of our treatment plant. It is going to be...so our treatment plant is right next
to Lydgate Beach Park. Between our treatment plant and Leho Drive, just mauka of it, we
will be putting in a soil aquifer for treatment basin. Essentially, that will be the way if we
have water that we cannot send to the, does not meet the R-2 recycled water standards that
we cannot send to Wailua Golf Course, we will be putting this water, sending it to the basin
that is the alternative that allows us to abandon the ocean outfall.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: What is "NPDES"?
Mr. Kagimoto: "National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System" is a permit put out by the Department of Health.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Alright. So I am glad that you are working
on that one.
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Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. Within that compliance schedule, there are
definitive milestones that we need to hit. Right now, we should be...we will be done with
design in this year and next fiscal year we will be bidding out the construction of that.
Councilmember Cowden: So that means at that point we will no longer be
putting that effluent into the ocean at all?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
Councilmember Cowden: Good.
Mr. Kagimoto: To clarify, that is our backup disposal but our
primary use for R-2 water, is to send it to the Wailua Golf Course.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Just curious, what portion of the water goes to the
backup outflow? How often does that end up getting utilized?
Mr. Kagimoto: So for this one, in the recent past, we have had
issues with our outfall being sanded over. It is in an area that is impacted by onshore waves
and tides and those type of things. So we use the outfall three days a week and that allows
us to sort of make sure it is functional if and when we need it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions on this line item? If not, we
will move on.
Mr. Kagimoto: Okay. The next one would be the Wastewater
Facility Plan. So for that one, we will be evaluating the four different collection systems that
we have—that is the Waimea, `Ele`ele, Lihu`e, and Wailua areas—and essentially that will
lay the map for us going forward for the next 10 or so years. That will essentially look into
planning population kind of growth and it will look into the existing condition of our systems,
doing condition assessments and those kinds of things to basically lay out a plan. So when
we do go ahead and do these CIP projects, we have the bigger-picture in mind. Also, we are
basically trying to get out of this reactionary stage and we can stay ahead of a lot of these
things and do more on like a CIP-level where we can fund it with SRF loans. So that one will
be a project for next fiscal year.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on that? Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: I know you just explained it, but $1 million for
Wastewater Facility Plan—so that includes actual on-site assessments of the equipment or
is that just a consultant doing...could you offer a little more detail on what it is?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. It will be, comprehensive enough that it will
get down to the level of in this fiscal year we will make these upgrades to this portion of the
facility, which will basically portion out different projects. So it might say"change or upgrade
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the head works at this specific plant in this year." So can you map out the plan as our budget.
So it will get to the level of talking about projects and what will be included in them.
Councilmember Evslin: Is the reason it is expensive because it involves
on-site inspections to figure out what is aging?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, because it is, so we will have to be evaluating.
So that will be the four treatment plants, the 20 pump stations, 50 miles of collection systems
and they will basically have to kind of like incorporate all of that, look at asset information
as in the age of it and condition of it. Do we have the proper redundancies?Where we are at,
sort of looking at, are there specific developments that are going to come on, especially like
affordable housing that we need to make sure that we have capacity at the plants? If we do
not, then what kind of roadmap do we have the plan to be make sure we are ahead of those
things to accommodate them? So it does seem like a lot of money, but because it is so
comprehensive and involved, I guess, is the justification for it.
Councilmember Evslin: Do we have a current plan that we are operating
under?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. We have a current plan that was done, so
there are four different plans, one per different area and it is at the end of the plan's life.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: So when we look at the four plants that we have,
would we say Waimea is in best condition and perhaps Wailua is in needing the most care?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. I think that is fair to say.
Councilmember Cowden: So I have not seen the other two really, Lihu`e and
`Ele`ele, right? So is Lihu`e better or worse than `Ele`ele?
Mr. Kagimoto: So I guess as far as the treatment plant
conditions...because there is a multitude of things that will maybe factor into which is best
or worst. Yes, for Waimea, it was upgraded in early 2000. So that is the most recently
upgraded and newest-looking plant and on the leeward side which because you do not get the
trades and all of that stuff, the condition of the equipment and what not, it has...it lasts
longer. Like you mentioned, Wailua has been a while...we did have in 2000...I guess five
years ago, we did modifications of the treatment plant. We have two other projects that we
are looking to do bigger stuff. When you look at it physically with the onshore trades there
and it is close to the ocean, there is a lot of corrosion and deterioration that has happened. So
building-wise, and appearance-wise, we definitely have some ways to go to bring it up to a
nicer-looking standard.
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Councilmember Cowden: I am not so much concerned about how it looks, I
am concerned about how long it will last and trying to get, a gauge—is `Ele`ele closer to
looking like Waimea or seemingly like Waimea or more like...
Mr. Kagimoto: Both of those plants are old. The `Ele`ele plant, I
would say, is at least 50 years old, and I would say what Lihu`e is probably at least that old,
too. But both of those treatment plants just in terms of its performance, we do some projects
that are currently ongoing that will help. But the overall performance of those plants are
good.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I know the Wailua plant...probably the far
reach is up there at Mahelona and the system up there is weak, as far as I understand
Mahelona. When we are looking at this plan, does it just look at the plant itself or does it look
to the stretches of the lines?
Mr. Kagimoto: All of the lines look at capacity and possibly
servicing different areas and things like that. I guess for the Kapa`a area what I would
assume is when we are doing the facility plan, we would be looking at what would it take to
extend the sewer system to service other areas?If we did that, what kind of sewer flows would
that be? Does our collection system as it stands right now have enough capacity to do those
things?
Councilmember Cowden: So this million dollars goes to a contractor and it
is not $250,000 per plant; it is collectively for all four?
Mr. Kagimoto: I guess we will have to decide on how to procure it
because I think there are different ways to look at things. If you do one consultant, and then
we do it for all four, then that is one way to do it and you would have consistency. You would
have some benefits in that. If you did four different consultants or maybe two different
consultants doing one or two each that would also possibly give different perspectives that
will also allow more work to be done in parallel, versus one consultant trying to do it four
different directions or work on four different at the same time. So I guess we have not
specifically looked at that. I know for the other facility plans that we do have, they were done
by the same consultant. So I guess we will evaluate it when we get down that road.
Councilmember Cowden: So we are at the very beginning stages. Have you
not decided who is doing the work yet?
Mr. Kagimoto: No. What will happen is that next fiscal year, we
will put out the professional services request and we will have to evaluate resumes and go
through the whole selection committee.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any further questions on the Wastewater facility
plant? If not, we can go to the next one. I think you explained this one when you were up
earlier.
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes, the Sewer Collection System upgrades. As
Wade mentioned, of the 20 pump stations we have if I had to guess, probably about half of
those have elevators, which are a maintenance issue. The elevators are old. We are having a
hard time finding replacement parts for them and whatnot. So we are looking to make some
improvements to a bunch of our pump stations. We have two in design already right now. So
this is kind of like extending that program to look to put...instead of a dry...or a can
underground area where we have pumps that cannot get wet and then there is a pipe that
reaches into the wet well, or underground tank that pumps out the wastewater. What is being
more common now in the industry is to use submersible pumps. Instead of having this
underground pump, you are basically putting the pump in the wet well and that is the way
it is met. So that would eliminate the need for the elevators and all of that stuff. So it is a
better operation for our folks, who do not have go up-and-down this elevator. It is easier to
maintain because you do not have this restricted space and all of that. So then there are other
things that typically our approach has been to work on one pump station at a time. When you
have 20, it is a pretty drawn-out process, right? So there could be issues with other pump
stations that will happen before we get to them. With this approach, what we are trying to
do is try to take care of the priority needs at several pump stations. So some of them, for
instance, for the wet wells more or less underground concrete tank. Because of it being
wastewater and because of the conditions of gassing of sulfuric acid and what not, there are
liners on those and the liners have a certain life before they fail. That is the point, we are
trying to do various upgrades at different pump stations.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Wade, these are all repeat items? The
Wailua emergency manhole upgrades that is on here, but it is not funded.
Mr. Lord: Yes. I apologize for that. We are having some
trouble with our spreadsheet and some corruption. It is in the budget. The manhole upgrades
of$200,000.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Wait, what is that?
Mr. Kagimoto: It just did not get into this spreadsheet.
Mr. Lord: It disappeared from our spreadsheet because of
the corruption.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Oh, so there is supposed to be numbers there.
Mr. Lord: $200,000 is the number. For the next one, the
Billing System is just $200, yes.
Mr. Kagimoto: The other way to look at it in the Capital Budget.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes, the Excel file is corrupted, not government
corruption, right?
Mr. Lord: Yes, not government corruption. File corruption.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Do we have any questions on either of those?
Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Quick question on the Wastewater billing system
upgrade, that is what could potentially move us in the direction of billing based on water use?
Mr. Kagimoto: Yes. The other big benefits that we are trying to
do as far as providing customer service is the biggest complaint we probably get is...or not
necessarily complaint but the biggest request we have is to get auto bill pay. So that would
be upgrading that system to get auto bill pay, which will be a much easier way for our
customers. It seems like we are probably the last utility that does not have it already offered
for our customers. The other hopeful thing is also that monthly billing. Right now, we do
billing every other month. So hopefully we are going to be doing volume-based billing, auto
bill pay, and monthly billing and that will be very big upgrade for our customers.
Councilmember Evslin: Awesome. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Any further questions for Wastewater? If
not, thank you.
Mr. Kagimoto: Okay. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will move on to Auto.
Mr. Lord: Okay, great. Our Chief is out on vacation.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: There are only two items if you want to talk about
the fuel management system item.
Mr. Lord: Yes. As I understand, it is an ongoing project and
it is one that allows for these. It allows us to do tracking and management of the fuel system.
Mike is familiar with it.
Mr. Tresler: Michael Tresler, Department of Public Works.
Fuel management system is an ongoing installation of equipment and replacement and
replacement vehicles and so forth. The second project is the fuel tank project that is it is still
on hold as we you go through countywide proper permitting and compliance (PCC) analysis
for all of our fuel tanks. So we will be doing that project, but right now, we need to finish that
process first and I think we are doing it internally. That is the update on those two.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. I know the Hanapepe fuel tanks has been on
the list for a while.
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Mr. Tresler: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on either of these items from the
Members? Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Michael, forgive me, what does "AIM" stand for?
Mr. Tresler: I have no idea. It is the brand of the fueling
system. Basically, what it does, it is a hardware put into the car and it allows our fuel system
to collect data. As they fuel, not only how much they fuel, but information from the vehicle
itself, like mileage, and so forth.
Councilmember Cowden: So what is its main goal? Is its main goal that we
are not stealing fuel or looking for efficiency?
Mr. Tresler: It is all of the above. Collecting information from
these vehicles on an electronic basis as a fuel. So we are getting that information every time
they fuel, mileage, and so forth.
Councilmember Cowden: So we would see between one tank and another
tank the mileage was vastly different? Maybe some of that gas was taken?
Mr. Tresler: Possibly, yes.
Councilmember Cowden: That was a problem?
Mr. Tabata: Lyle Tabata, Deputy County Engineer. It was a
finding by our auditors back in 2010, and not only was the findings for Highway Fund use,
but also our fuel system. So we had an antiquated fuel system and the new system we brought
on allowed us to have this interlock between the vehicle and the pump.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: "Automated Information Module (AIM)."
Mr. Tabata: Yes, so you cannot fuel your vehicle until the
electronic connection is made between the fuel pump and the vehicle.What we had previously
was undocumented use of fuel.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Mr. Tabata: So people would go to the pump and start filling
up?
Councilmember Cowden: Their friends'...
Mr. Tabata: Cans or whatever and with this mechanism now,
you cannot do that.
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Councilmember Cowden: So this is predominantly an internal control. We
can analyze things, but it is safeguarding against bad practices.
Mr. Tabata: Exactly.
Councilmember Cowden: Thank you. That helps me to understand.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: This is for something that goes on the vehicle or
something that goes on the...
Mr. Tabata: On the vehicle itself.
Mr. Tresler: There is a system that it communicates with.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Because I know when they did that audit, they
found the system we are using at the fuel tank was faulty and would not even take correct
readings of the tank. So the system alone could not keep track of whether people were taking
more or less gas. But I know we switched that system and this is to put on the individual cars
that go and have fuel added.
Mr. Tresler: We previously had a Gasboy system. So this is an
upgraded newer and better system.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: So when we put this piece on the car or the vehicle
and then we get a new garbage truck or whatever else, do we take that piece out and put it
on the new one? Can we use it again and again? Does it go away when we are done with the
vehicle?
Mr. Tabata: It can be transferred.
Councilmember Cowden: It can be transferred. Okay. Just curious. Thank
you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions from the Members?If not, we
will move on. Next is Solid Waste. We have two items if you just want to go through the two
briefly.
Mr. Kahn: Zahid Kahn, Chief the Solid Waste Division. The
first one is NPDES compliance and these are for all four transfer stations. The reason for
those projects...we had some orders of non-compliance and these projects will address all of
these non-compliance issues. Currently with this project, are at 10% design and our goal is
to move to 60% design later this year, and next year, we want to start construction of some
of the measures that are in item defined in the design so that we are not in violation of the
NPDES permit.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Are we working with the State on that one as far
as our timing and are they okay?
Mr. Tabata: Yes, and SRF funding.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Any questions on that? Next item.
Mr. Kahn: The next item is actually our new landfill. The
phase that we are working on right now is to negotiate that scope of work with the consulting
firm called R.M. Towill and we are at the beginning of the negotiation phase. The contract
would be negotiated in two phases. The first phase would be planning work that involves
land transfer and rezoning and phase 2 would be going through the design.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Any questions on this line item?
Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: If that is $1,916, that is remarkably low. Is this
some tiny down payment?
Mr. Kahn: No. I think it is an Excel glitch that we talked
about because I wish it were that cheap.
Councilmember Cowden: What is the real number? I cannot imagine...
Mr. Zahid: No it is not, unfortunately.
Mr. Tabata: We are renegotiating and when we know the
number, we will go to the State to get the SRF loan. The preliminary number there...we do
not want to divulge because we are negotiating a price right now.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, but it is substantially more than this?
Mr. Tabata: Yes.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. That makes sense.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions? If not, thank you.
Mr. Kahn: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Move on to Building.
Mr. Lord: Before we go to Building, one thing I did want to
mention is that as part of our delivery of CIP, Zahid is a certified instructor and published in
project management. So he is offering classes to our engineers and project team at the County
and he went through his first couple of sessions and has another one coming up. So we are
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really grateful for him to be there with his PMI, which is one of the leading project
management institutes in the Country.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Can I attend?
Mr. Tabata: Sure.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Can you send me an invite? I would like to
learn. I may be a lot more prepared to help.
Mr. Lord: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Thanks. You are up, Doug.
Mr. Haigh: I would just like to say I attended Zahid's first
class and even an old dog like me learned some new tricks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Again, if he could just, we are going to quickly go
through the line items, just give us, brief information on the line item. If we have questions,
we will ask them, and if not, we will keep moving on.
Mr. Haigh: Okay. The first project listed, Koloa Fire Station
improvements; actually, this is a carryover when maintenance was still with the Building
Division. This project is being managed by Brian Inouye and Brian Inouye is currently with
the Parks & Recreation Department. So I am not familiar with where that is...Kaua`i Fire
Department helicopter hangar project. We are very...
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Doug, Koloa Fire Station improvement, what was
that, to make it longer so it could fit the fire truck?
Mr. Haigh: I believe it is more of a maintenance project. It is
probably roofing, painting, that sort of work. But as I mentioned, I am not directly involved
with it. So I am not sure what the scope would be. But it is not an addition. If it was an
addition, it would probably be coming to me as a bigger project. $200,000 is more like a roofing
and painting type of project and considering the age of the facility, it is about right. It is time
to do that, definitely. Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay.
Mr. Haigh: Kaua`i Fire Department helicopter hangar
pad—for that project, we are very close to being able to go out to bid. Actually, we have
multiple funding sources for this. So we will see different items listed, but they all combine
to make the one project. Hopefully, within the next couple of months we will be able to go out
to bid on this project.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions from the Members on this? If not,
we will move on to the next one. Just completed.
Mr. Haigh: Well, it is closed out and actually there is a new
budget item for this now, at the very bottom, in the CIP budget it is shown, but not in the
spreadsheet.
Mr. Lord: Right.
Mr. Haigh: It is not on this spreadsheet.
Mr. Lord: No.
Mr. Haigh: Okay, so I will not talk about it. For the
Adolescent Treatment & Healing Center, we are very close to completion and expect that
project to be completed construction in May and we have already eaten up some of this money
here with some change orders. We have some more changes to go I am not sure how much of
that money will be left over when we are done with the project.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on that? Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Finished in May. Do you know when it will be
operational?
Mr. Haigh: We are building the facility and I was actually
planning on calling Purchasing to see where they are with the Request for Proposals (RFP)
on that project. I am not aware of where they are at on that project.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: You are saying we are on-budget'?
Mr. Haigh: Correct, for this project, for construction.
Councilmember Chock: Yes. Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions? If not, thanks. Next one.
Mr. Haigh: Real Property counter renovations—we went out
to bid and there was not enough funding available, so this project has been canceled. I am
not sure if and when the Administration will look at providing full funding for this.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: It says "project complete."
Mr. Haigh: We did the design work. We completed the design.
We went out to bid. It exceeded available funds. So the improvements have not been
completed. Maybe sometime in the future it will come back up on the list. Also, the champion
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of the project moved on to different employment. So that may have changed the desire. Auto
shop improvements—we are out to bid right now for adding a storage mezzanine for the auto
shop. We will be providing a storage mezzanine and lighting improvements, energy efficient
lighting improvements. Bids open next week and hopefully we will be able to start
construction within a couple of months.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Is this at the Transportation Agency?
Mr. Haigh: This is the Lihu`e Auto Body Shop, which is the
one by Kawamura Farms.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: This has been a project that has been on the list a
year or two and this is to help them when they came and presented this earlier, having more
room, having more space to do work.
Mr. Haigh: It is been on his list for a long time. We are happy
to finally be able to...interesting thing, we did a similar mezzanine a couple of years ago for
the police, so we have the model of what would work well, so that has gone pretty smooth so
far.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Next.
Mr. Haigh: Kalaheo Neighborhood Gym—we just opened bids
for that. We had a problem in the first bid the low bidder was considered, the bid was
unresponsive. They made some major mistakes how they put the bid together and then the
second bidder far exceeded our available funds. So we re-bid the project, which ended up
being a good thing because the current low bidder is right at our estimated amount, which
was not the previous one and we are right now working on recommendations of award and
hopefully we will in construction within a couple months on that one.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Any questions?
Mr. Haigh: Just to add a comment on this, also, we were able
to get a State grant. We are actually hardening the gym so that it could be used as a hurricane
emergency shelter. So that is a good thing.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Next one.
Mr. Haigh: Kaua`i Police Department—Kapa`a
Substation—For this one, we have just entered into contract with the consultant to do
preliminary design and permitting and that would be planning permitting, zoning permitting
and we are going to be moving forward within a couple of months. I believe I submitted the
draft contract to the County Attorney and waiting for their...actually that one we may have
gotten...well it has not been executed yet, but in the process. So this is a project I mentioned
earlier today where we will be having public meetings to get community input on the location.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: As far as community input on the location, I
thought I heard we were having a hard time getting this location.
Mr. Haigh: My understanding is that it is moving along well.
We are working with Mahelona. We are working on getting a license agreement. It was
almost fully executed and they had some change in management and they asked for some
more information. I believe that Police are...that everything was kind of in place. Public
Works has not been involved in the land negotiations. That has been done by the Police
themselves. So I really do not know the exact details but from our meetings my
understanding that they did not consider it a potential problem.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Thank you. So we are moving to Mahelona and we
are moving out of the Armory, is that the plan?
Mr. Haigh: That is the plan.
Councilmember Cowden: And that is because the Armory...we just did that
because the bid was too low?
Mr. Haigh: The armory is in the tsunami evacuation zone.
Councilmember Cowden: That is low, so you want to be up high?
Mr. Haigh: Yes. Ideally, you do not want to be there when you
have a tsunami warning to have the Police be able to fully function where they are.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. I was not sure if we were still moving forward
on this because we also had in the bond previously construction for the new substation and
those numbers were all over the place. What is the plan on this?
Mr. Haigh: Well, we are moving forward with the planning,
the permitting so we will get that step done and then we will be ready to have a much better
idea what the construction cost will be. At that time the decision is made, when we have the
right to actually proceed with construction. As mentioned, they are currently housed at the
old armory. So they do have a place. But once we go through the further planning and
permitting, we will have a good idea what the actual costs will be, and then that will be the
time to make the decision of when to start the actual construction.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Did we not do work at the armory building also?
Mr. Haigh: Yes. Well, we did some asbestos tile removal there
and I believe Parks was working on reroofing the building. But of course that building...if
the Police move, Parks & Recreation would love to have it as a site to provide recreation.
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Mr. Lord: This is part of our process that we were talking
about in the beginning, where we are trying to deliver projects on-time and on-budget. To
understand budget and costs, we have to go through these things with a more methodical
approach. So what Doug is doing through the planning process is he will be able to really get
their arms around what the facility is going to look like and then be able to do some better
cost estimations than what were done in the past.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If we do a new substation, are we going to need
more Police staff there? Is it going to be a big substation? Is it going to be a small,
neighborhood type substation, like Koloa Neighborhood Center where they are just in a small
room?There is going to be financial impacts to it and I did not have a clear indication in the
past of what we were looking at. Just off the building sizes and how big the facility was going
to be was huge and expensive. If the Administration wants to pump the brakes on it or kind
of see if we keep Police at the armory building or are we going to actually go full-blown and
put them at Mahelona? I would like to hear a little more direction on it.
Mr. Haigh: We did a detailed site evaluation process with the
previous consultant looking at four different sites. One was at Mahelona, one at the armory
and the other was by the Kapa'a Middle School. That is when we looked at the size of the
police substation. They were looking at a significant operation there. The Police have now
given us the idea, a set of plans of a substation that was built on the Big Island, and this is
kind of ideal for what we want. Of course, there are some revisions to make it work better for
them. So we have a basic plan we are looking at. It is a significant police substation. It is not
a minor police substation. We are talking holding cells, you know? It is a significant facility.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I think timing is a big thing on it and we do not
even have enough police officers to begin with. So if we are going to be building a bigger
facility that needs more employees...I do not know...Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Lyle, when was the license agreement executed?
Mr. Haigh: Actually, there was an older one that was
executed. They are in discussions, and the discussions, my understanding, are positive. But
they want to get the final plot plan and the information. So we need to go through the
planning process to develop further documentation. I believe that will be used to finalize the
license agreement. Like I said before, I do not have the answers on that.
Councilmember Chock: Okay. I guess my concern is, it comes first...to
invest this amount of money and not have a license agreement that clearly articulates what
it is...we can expect as a future site. It is a little bit of a concern for me. Obviously, this
Council has not seen the new license agreement. It is in the works. What I am hearing you
say is, as part of this agreement, this work that you are outlining here needs to be completed
first.
Mr. Haigh: Not all of the work. Some of the work involved in
this contract needs to be completed in order to finalize the license agreement. The County
Attorney's Office and KPD would be much better able to give you the specifics on that.
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Councilmember Chock: Okay, I will follow-up on that. Thanks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. I thought at one point the deal between us
and Mahelona was not going to go through at all. So I was kind of surprised to see this on the
bond.
Mr. Haigh: The last letters I saw it looked positive to me. But
then again, as I mentioned, the County Attorney's Office and KPD would be much better to
answer your questions on that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. I guess from my standpoint, I want to make
sure we get the land first before we start spending money on plans.
Mr. Lord: This is part of the bonds—so the funding is
actually in place for this part of the project...certainly, you make a good point.
Mr. Haigh: We are actually in contract already to do this
work.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay, any further questions on this item?The last
item. Project complete?
Mr. Haigh: Historic County Building—I believe that one is
complete. But I thought I saw another item on the bond for that. I am not sure. I have not
been involved on any new work being requested there. I cannot answer for that. It has not
been assigned to the Building Division yet. So I will skip it. There is a project that we are
working on that is not on this list and that is the Kaua`i Police Activities League
(KPAL)/Police Training Building/multi-purpose room.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: $300,000.
Mr. Haigh: Yes. We are looking at hiring a consultant to do a
user need and permitting, conceptual design and permitting for this project. So we are just
at the beginning of consultant evaluations. So within 4 to 6 months, we should have a contract
in place and start work on that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Any questions on that? If not, that is it for
Building. We will move on to Engineering.
Mr. Haigh: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Engineering is the last one. So pressure is on you
Mike. It is 4:00. If we can go through each one, kind of, just give us a brief description. If we
are able to combine items, let's combine them.
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Mr. MOULE: Michael Moule, Chief of Engineering Division,
Public Works, for the record. Alright, so we are going to go through all of the items on the
list, right? Not just ones that are changes, right?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. I think some of the new Councilmembers
were not here also, so they may not know the description of some of these, so if you can go
through them briefly, we can try to get through them.
Mr. Moule: Okay, I will do what I can. First project, Hanapepe
Road resurfacing is a Federal Aid project to resurface and restripe Hanapepe road, pretty
much the full length of Hanapepe Town, from the highway back to the highway, and that
includes changes to provide pedestrian walkways along the street. This is part of the County
match for the project. Federal Aid project.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay, good. Any questions on that? We will move
on.
Mr. Moule: The next one is Kawaihau/Haua'ala Mailihuna
Complete Streets Safety Improvements and this is also a Federal Aid project. The project
adds the "peanut-about" or roundabouts that sort of is shaped like a peanut at the
intersection of those three roadways, and some sidewalks and crosswalk improvements in
that vicinity near the three schools: Kapa'a High School, Kapa'a Elementary School, and
St. Catherine's. That is the County match again.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on that one? I know we get a lot of
comments and questions about that intersection, but it is in our bond. Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: As I recall, there was also discussion on sidewalk
as it up that side, the side road. Is that Haua'ala?
Mr. Moule: There is no sidewalk on Haua'ala Street, except
for a very short piece, just down to the entrance of St. Catherine's. We originally had that in
the plan for this project but the amount of work necessary for that, given the narrow
right-of-way and topographical constraints. We do not have plans for sidewalks for this
project now in that area. We have plans for sidewalks in Mailihuna, where none exist today,
and on Kawaihau Road, but not Haua'ala, except for a short piece.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Thank you. Next one, Puhi Road.
Mr. Moule: Puhi Road Phase 2. You may remember that we
reconstructed a portion of Puhi Road a few years ago. This is the second phase of that, from
Kaneka Street to Haleukana Street, and again this is the County match, which is up again a
couple lines down, and is a County match for a Federal Aid project on that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: Is that $795.49 amount accurate?
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Mr. Moule: That is not the full County match. It is part of the
County match.
Councilmember Cowden: That is...that is correct for our purposes today?
Mr. Moule: For that, three lines down is another Puhi Road
Phase 2. I think there is another one on the next page.
Mr. Lord: It has to do with the buckets of money and where
the funds come from. Each one gets separately identified.
Councilmember Cowden: So that is accurate for that piece?
Mr. Lord: Yes.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions on Puhi Road? We will move
on.
Mr. Moule: The next one is Twin Reservoirs, two defunct
reservoirs in the Kapa'a area next to Olohena Road, Waipouli Road, and Hauiki Road. The
County owns what was the dams essentially.The roads form some of the dams for that...those
old reservoirs and we are working with several private landowners who also own some of the
land that the reservoirs are on to decommission those. It is kind of moving slowly, because
we are having a lot of trouble getting...not a lot of trouble...some trouble getting all the
property owners moving on that effort. But the idea is to update the FEMA maps, and
eventually move towards decommissioning those and eliminating those as possible
reservoirs. They are already empty. We are just trying to make it so that they would not hold
water in a big rain storm in the future.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Chock.
Councilmember Chock: Do the roads stay in our jurisdiction or do we
relinquish those as well?
Mr. Moule: No. The roads portion is the portion that we own
that have formed the dams. We would keep the roads...no plans at this point, but there would
likely end up being some sort of culverts for the water to pass through in the future
underneath our roads. We would end up owning those as well. Nothing has been designed
yet, but that is the concept.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Did we skip Aliomanu
Road?
Mr. Moule: Oh, I did. You are right. Sorry. I saw that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: We will get back to Aliomanu Road right after
this. Councilmember Cowden, you have a question on the Twin Reservoirs?
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Councilmember Cowden: It was on Aliomanu Road?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If there are no more questions on the Twin
Reservoirs, let us go back to Aliomanu Road.
Mr. Moule: Yes, that was my fault. I saw the other Puhi Road
and moved on to the next one. My fault. Aliomanu Road is a project to repair the road where
it has been damaged by the water in that location.
Councilmember Kuali`i: It is delayed so the funding has been repurposed?
Mr. Lord: That is correct. There is a perpetual easement
with the Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL) that they got to a...we have to obtain
and two permits, and that is a lengthy process. Right now, rather than hold that money up,
we thought it would be better to repurpose it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions? Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: The seawall portion, has that has not been built
yet either?
Mr. Moule: Nothing has been built at this point and what is
proposed is not really a seawall. It is more of a slope revetment that has less impact on
neighboring properties than a vertical seawall as far as changing how erosion occurs
elsewhere. That is the current concept plan and design.
Councilmember Evslin: Would that be the County's first type of "not a
seawall, but a seawall"?
Mr. Moule: I think it would be the first that I am aware of
near the road. There are similar existing boulder revetments like on Lawa`i Beach for
example that are somewhat similar where there are rocks that are sloped as opposed to...but
it is not as engineered as this, I would say.
Councilmember Evslin: I know we talked about this a little bit before. My
concern is still...I worry about heading down a path building seawalls, and I know this one
is a little more unique and that there is not a...surrounding areas will not be impacted
because it is rocky shoreline instead of beach on either end. The idea to me of building a
seawall there and an inch of the road back...when sea level rises it does not seem like a great
one in terms of solution for the area. I know you folks have worked hard to identify other
potential places for that road, unsuccessfully. Hopefully we can continue trying to be creative
in that area.
Mr. Moule: Yes, understood. Good point.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay, next item, Kilauea Road, Kolo Road.
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Mr. Moule: This again is a little complicated. It is funded,
there is effort by...there is Federal Land Access Program (FLAP). FLAP Funds, are funds for
access to Federal land. In other words, the Kilauea Lighthouse is a Federal asset. They did
a project to plan for improvements of pedestrian/bicycle access to the lighthouse and what we
are trying to do is combine that with resurfacing safety improvements on Kilauea Road for
the County's currently existing asset because their design for the bike and pedestrian
improvements may involve fixing the roads that makes us do it all at once. These funds are
for design to do the County portion to supplement the Federal funds that are being used to
design the pedestrian access portion specifically to design a potential roundabout at the
intersection of Kolo Road and Kilauea Road.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions from the Members on this? If not,
we will move on to the next page, Koloa Road Safety Improvements.
Mr. Moule: Koloa Road Safety Improvements. This was a
project that has been complete and it existed to install guardrails, rumble strips, and minor
roadway realignments to improve the safety in an area where there have been several serious
crashes 5-10 years ago...10 years ago at this point. The project is complete. There is just a
little funds left in here as we...where we had to...in order to add more guardrails we had to
move a power pole, because the power pole was in the way where the guardrail had to go and
make it easier for the Department of Water to put in a replacement pole to hold up the other
pole and we are working on finalizing that easement now and just a little bit of money left
for our consultant to finalize that, that is it.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Next one.
Mr. Moule: On Wastewater improvements, this was under
construction—this is the project to create a force main from the park...the comfort station
which is a the park to an existing gravity sewer at Leho Road and that project is under
construction and it is actually moving along pretty well with completion late Summer this
year.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: So right now, those bathrooms are closed...was
connected to that little...there are two sets of bathrooms at Salt Pond, so one side is closed?
Mr. Moule: Yes, I believe. I do not recall exactly what
happened there. I know there was an issue with there being a bunch of unidentified lines
underground that we had trouble and broke a couple of supply lines or something. So one of
them had to be closed temporarily but I do not think it is intended to be closed the entire time
of the project.
Councilmember Evslin: But was there not issues with one of them?
Mr. Moule: I do not know the answer to that. I do not know, I
am sorry.
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Councilmember Evslin: So you do not know if that bathroom will stay
closed until this is complete?
Mr. Moule: I do not know, I am sorry. I was not aware of
anything (Inaudible).
Councilmember Evslin: That will bring both bathrooms down there onto
sewer?
Mr. Moule: Yes. That is the plan is the whole thing will be
sewer.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions? If not, lets move on to
Biennial Bridge Inspection.
Mr. Moule: This is a project that, we have every other year,
we inspect all County Bridges over twenty feet long. They are considered federal aid bridges
and there is a County Match to that. These are County Funds for that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: The County bridge inspections, anything under
twenty feet.
Mr. Moule: Yes. This is something that...this is a new
initiative that is really important. There has not been a program in the past for the County
to inspect smaller bridges and we think it is very important we have been talking about this
for a while, that we do these inspections we are identifying all those bridges and we want to
have a contract for a bridge inspection consultant to inspect County bridges that are smaller
than twenty feet that are not federal aid. So we can make sure we are repairing those in a
timely manner. Reducing the need for replacing bridges and also from a safety point of view
making sure that we catch any problems in advance.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on that? If not, next item.
Mr. Moule: So the next one is the TIGER Grant Project,
Lihu`e Town Core Revitalization Project to make changes to several roads in the Lihu`e Town
Core area, including Rice Street, `Eiwa Street, there is work ongoing now on`Eiwa Street and
the County parking lot and the path was built, almost complete now between Civic Center
and Convention Hall. Changes on Ho`olako Street as well as Kalena Street and Hoala Street
in Lihu`e Town Core area to largely to, to improve...help revitalize the area, add on-street
parking, provide improvements for pedestrian safety and actually safety for all modes on Rice
Street. This is a Federal grant program we applied for $14,000...excuse me $14 million grant
with a match of$2 million and these are some of the funds for that.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: I cannot remember, is this the remaining amount
of our $2 million or did we fund $2 million through other sources also? Are we expecting to
get...
Mr. Moule: I do not recall, but I believe the $2 million it is
already funded. It is not something we would be asking for in the future.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Just the last part of the 2 million.
Mr. Moule: I believe so.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions? Next item.
Mr. Moule: Hanapepe Bridge Repairs. This, this project is
really to do, repair Spalding concrete and other problems of the substructure of the Hanapepe
Bridge. The current project does not include the installation of the pedestrian walkway. That
was removed from the project due to historic concerns. So we are just trying to repair the
structure to protect the steel and other things in the structure. So that it can last longer and
not be deteriorating. Again, Federal project, this is a County match.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I do not know if this is appropriate, I have a
question about the Bridge. Can I ask a question about the bridge?I am always confused when
I go there. There is a road and there is a bridge that goes over. Is that the State highway and
we are talking a different bridge?
Mr. Moule: This is the bridge, the mauka bridge from the
State Highway. The State Highway recently closed their main highway bridge and put the
temporary bridge in. This is mauka of that, the smaller one-lane bridge on Hanapepe road.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If you go through Hanapepe Town.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay, yes, I know which one.
Mr. Moule: It is on Hanapepe Road not on the Highway.
Councilmember Cowden: So we are just making that one a little bit more
safe. Is that what we are doing?
Mr. Moule: It is really a preservation thing. We are
preserving the structure as it is.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Mr. Moule: Patching old bridges, since 1911, matching
concrete that has chipped off. Things like that.
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Councilmember Cowden: So we are just keeping it.
Mr. Moule: That is right.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Next item, Rice Street Crossing Improvements.
Mr. Moule: This is related to the TIGER Project. I believe that
these funds are being used for, sorry, for. I believe these funds are for the, what do you call
it? The wayfinding signs and those aspects of the project for the TIGER and Rice Street
improvement Project. What is listed here is not exactly correct.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: I am sorry, what, did you said wayfinding?
Mr. Moule: Yes, there is some elements of that for streets
gaping and wayfinding signs that have been effortly been done through the Planning
Department to provide signs to get to parking, and various aspects in the Lihu`e Town Core
area.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: What is wayfinding?
Mr. Moule: Sorry, it is a directional signs that help people.
Wayfinding signs. Signs that would, directional signs to parking lots, to things like that.
Actually, related improvements sort of streetscape enhancement it was where the idea is a
theme of signs and markers essentially that kind of highlight Lihu`e Town Core. If you recall
it was the design of the, the, sugarcane, I guess that would, that design being placed as
markers for both wayfinding and for identifying the place essentially of Lihu`e Town Core.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I am just kind of stunned that $146,000 for some
signs. How many signs are we getting for $146,000?
Mr. Lord: I think it, Councilmember, I also think it includes
some appointments, benches and trashcans, all of those associated what we call F&E that go
with the project.
Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Next page, last page.
Mr. Moule: Complete Streets Safety Improvements. These
are just funds that we use to supplement our Operating Budget for minor complete streets
improvements. A small amount of money for that.
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Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions? Islandwide? Next item.
Mr. Moule: Wa'a Road Drainage Study. This one is some
drainage concerns and Wa'a Road is just across the street here as it runs down to the
Nawiliwili Stream that water is going to run down the road and getting down to the houses
at the bottom of the hill and concerns of flooding. We are working with the Grove Farm
Museum. They are planning to change their, their... they want to rebuild the train and
connect that across Wa'a Road. So we essentially combined our project with theirs, because
any work that we do would affected by their work to rebuild the road to put in the train back
in. We are sort of waiting on them to complete their design, so we can add our funds so that
takes care of our portion of that, where we are draining the roadway next to the, next to the
train, essentially the train tracks.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions? Next item.
Mr. Moule: Kanaele Road Stabilization. Kanaele Road Slope
Stabilization is a project to stabilize the slope on Kanaele Road. It is the road that connects
from the Kapa'a Transfer Station back toward Hauala and Laipo Roads. You will see, if you
drive the road today you will see there is concrete barricades where the slope is starting to
fall. That one is well into the design process, and we are moving towards final construction
plans on that one. These are only part of the funds for that project shown here.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Next item.
Mr. Moule: Opaeka`a Bridge Replacement is a project to
replace Opaeka`a Bridge. Which is the iron bridge often called on Opaeka`a Road. That we,
we literally signed NTP the letter for the contractor and we are looking to get that started
soon. The official NTP will be going out in the next week or so, actual construction will not
start at least until the Pu'uopae Bridge is complete. We do not want to have both those
bridges closed at the same time because they are close to each other but the NTP allows the
contractor to start ordering the materials and all the long lead items it will be sort of a
construction start date later on.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on that?
Mr. Moule: This is a match for Federal Aid Project.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Where is that?
Mr. Moule: It is on Opaeka`a Road. If you go up to Wailua
Homesteads, and you go past the Country Store, continuing on, if you continue straight on
Ku`umou Road there, it is I think the next right turn after that is Opaeka`a Road and then
maybe you go down a quarter mile and then you come to the bridge. It is Opaeka`a Road
crossing Opaeka`a stream. They call it the Iron Bridge with the through troughs, yes that is
the one.
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Councilmember Kuali`i: It is the main connector between Ku`umou and
Olohena.
Mr. Moule: They are reloading the troughs, the troughs will
still be there when they are done. It is part of the project.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay, next one.
Mr. Moule: Niumalu Bridge Replacement. We are currently,
sorry, that is to replace the Niumalu Bridge. It is in the Nawiliwili area. It is a one lane
bridge by Niumalu Park and we are currently in the final stages of procurement for the
consultant to design that replacement.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any questions on that? Okay. Next item.
Mr. Moule: Islandwide Road Safety Program. Again, this is a
funding overall to, kind of like the complete streets one above, where we have ongoing needs
for safety improvements like we get requests for guardrails because there are no guardrails
on this road. We prioritize those and we add things like guardrail and other safety
improvements, stripping improvements as well relatively small enough for that.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay. Next item.
Mr. Moule: The Kilauea/Kolo Road we talked about so the last
one then, the Collector Roads Improvements, the match for the Koloa Maluhia Road Projects.
This is a project that we are, it is a very significant, primarily a road resurfacing and
reconstruction project. We are including some safety improvements like shoulder widening
and a roundabout at the intersection of Koloa Road and Kalanikaumaka as we discussed with
this body a couple of years ago or maybe a year ago now. Then some turn lane improvements
on Koloa Road as well near in Lawa`i near Lauohu Road and Epico Road for some left turn
improvements.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden.
Councilmember Cowden: I am presuming that includes the reflective
striping and little bumps and everything? People ask for that because it is curves and winds
and things?
Mr. Moule: Yes. We would put back the center lines stripes
and reflecting markers on the center line and the edge lines back on as well. Which are
missing now. They just put in some reflectors on edge lines on Koloa Road.
Councilmember Cowden: You did.
Mr. Moule: Well the Roads Division did that. But yes, it is a
stopgap measure until this project happens.
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Councilmember Cowden: Okay.
Mr. Moule: We will get the nice solid white line down again.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Any other questions on this one?And this does not
go into Koloa Town. I know we get a lot of questions about the intersection by Chevron.
Mr. Moule: It goes to that intersection, but it does not change
the intersection.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Yes, no roundabout or anything at that
intersection. It is just the one by the by pass road.
Mr. Moule: That is right. I think that, as you know, we have
talked to, well, newer Councilmembers might not know, but there was discussion about the
Lopaka Paipa connection between Po`ipu Road and the bypass road, which will help allow
more people to use Kalanikaumaka instead of come up Po`ipu Road. Which will help alleviate
the intersection there.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay, any other burning questions before we
finish?
Councilmember Evslin: I have one burning question.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin.
Councilmember Evslin: Someone just emailed with concerns about Weke
Roads drainage, I know it is not on here. Is that a concern on potential lack of drainage under
Weke Road?
Mr. Moule: As part of the emergency that we are doing or
elsewhere?
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: If you want, maybe we will send that question in
an E-mail and get it back. I do not want you just to answer off the cusp.
Mr. Moule: The answer really is that entire road is higher
than the land on both sides of it and has been that way forever. That is not planned to be
changed as part of the project. Although, we have in one area built a swale to carry water
towards...the best place to water as it crosses the road. But there are still areas on the mauka
side of that road that are lower than the road at and away from where we are currently
repairing the project.
Councilmember Evslin: I think she forwarded that concern to the
Administration also. So I am pretty sure I was just "cc'd" on the E-mail a couple of days ago.
I do not know, but if it gets addressed somewhere.
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Department of Public Works—Operating & CIP
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Mr. Moule: Okay.
Councilmember Evslin: Thank you.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Thank you. Let me be the first to congratulate
ourselves that we finished this in one day, it was long but our Monday meeting will be
canceled. Our next meeting would be on Tuesday, April 2nd, and it will be all other CIP
Projects.
Mr. Lord: Ahead of that meeting, Council Chair, after I
sweep up the remnants of my computer, I will rebuild a new spreadsheet that works. You
will have an accurate document.
Committee Chair Kaneshiro: Okay, Sounds good. So with that have a good
weekend and we will be back on Tuesday.
There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 4:25 p.m.