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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/16/2021 Council minutes COUNCIL MEETING JUNE 16, 2021 The Council Meeting of the Council of the County of Kaua`i was called to order by Council Chair Arryl Kaneshiro at the Council Chambers, 4396 Rice Street, Suite 201, Lihu`e, Kaua`i, on Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at 8:31 a.m., after which the following Members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Bernard P. Carvalho, Jr. Honorable Mason K. Chock Honorable Felicia Cowden Honorable Bill DeCosta Honorable Luke A. Evslin Honorable KipuKai Kuali`i Honorable Arryl Kaneshiro Council Chair Kaneshiro: Good morning. Today's meeting will be conducted pursuant to Governor Ige's Supplementary Emergency Proclamations with the most recent relating to the Sunshine Law being his Twenty-First Supplementary Emergency Proclamation dated June 7, 2021. For the record, we have no registered speakers today for any of our agenda items. APPROVAL OF AGENDA. Councilmember Kuali`i moved for approval of the agenda, as circulated, seconded by Councilmember Cowden. (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any questions or is there any discussion from the Members? The motion for approval of the agenda, as circulated, was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. MINUTES of the following meeting of the Council: June 2, 2021 Council Meeting Councilmember Kuali`i moved to approve the Minutes, as circulated, seconded by Councilmember Cowden. COUNCIL MEETING 2 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any questions or is there any discussion on this item from the Members? (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve the Minutes, as circulated, was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. INTERVIEW: CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION: V. Pamai Cano — Term ending 12/31/2021 ELLEN CHING, Boards & Commissions Administrator (via remote technology): Good morning, Ellen Ching, Administrator for Boards & Commissions. I am pleased to introduce to you, Pamai Cano, the Human Resources (HR) Manager for Kaua`i Coffee. As the manager, she directs, supervises, and coordinates all HR functions. This includes ensuring compliance with all policies, union contracts, as well as State and Federal laws and regulations. In other words, she deals with the "soup to nuts" of HR. Pamai is an established leader in the Human Resources field. She brings a wealth of knowledge that spans twenty-three (23) years in a variety of industries. First starting with the Grand Hyatt Resort & Spa, Ke`aki Technologies, and Harris Corporation at Pacific Missile Range Facilities (PMRF), and Koloa Landing. She is a proud graduate of Kamehameha Schools and Santa Clara University, where she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Economics. In her free time she likes to decompress by exercising, reading a magazine, or watching television. She is a news junkie and her passion is noodles, saimin, Chinese noodles, or pasta, "000dles of noodles." Human Resources is a dynamic field. Every year there are many changes that must be incorporated coming from State and Federal regulatory changes and court rulings. I look forward to Pamai joining the Civil Service Commission and I am grateful for her willingness to volunteer her time and talent. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Thank you for the introduction. Pamai, do you have anything to add to that? V. PAMAI CANO (via remote technology): I am happy to be here this morning and looking forward to answering any questions you may have for me. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Thank you. Are there any questions from the Members? Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: Hi, Pamai. How are you? It was nice working with you some time ago on the Work Force Investment Board and the Youth Council. Having that experience with you, I understand that you very well know and grasp all of the types of business that would be before the Civil Service Commission. Have you COUNCIL MEETING 3 JUNE 16, 2021 worked with unions at the Grand Hyatt Resort & Spa? Do you have union employees there? Ms. Cano: Yes. I have worked with Local 5, International and Longshore Warehouse Union (ILWU), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and I actually worked with Hawaii Government Employees Association (HGEA), and United Public Workers (UPW) right after the hurricane, I spent time working at Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital (KVMH). Councilmember Cowden: Yes. We are thankful that you are willing to do this. What motivated you to decide to help us? Ms. Cano: To be honest, it was the power of suggestion. Someone asked me to consider it. As you know from having served on the Youth Council, I am open-minded and I really believe that in our community, especially, all of us have to do what we can, so I am very open-minded to it and willing. Councilmember Cowden: Thank you so much. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions from the Members for Pamai? Is there any discussion on Pamai? I just want to say thanks Pamai. I have known you a long time. I did not know you graduated from Santa Clara University, which is the same University that my wife attended. I have known Pamai for a long time, ever since "back in the day" she was really close to Aunty Stella, who I was really close to and I have always had a great relationship with Pamai. I think she will be awesome for this position. Council Vice Chair Chock. Councilmember Chock: I want to thank you, Pamai, for volunteering and providing some service to the County. I appreciate your contribution and look forward to working with you in any capacity, so if there is anything we can do just let me know. Imua. Ms. Cano: Absolutely, thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: Pamai, you bring a wealth of experience to the table. We have "talked story" many times and it is great to see you again. Welcome aboard and I know you are going to be a big asset to the Civil Service Commission, so thank you for stepping to the plate. I look forward to "talking story" with you later. Mahalo. Ms. Cano: Thank you, me as well. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: I just want to reiterate what my fellow Councilmembers said, thank you so much and we are excited to have you aboard. COUNCIL MEETING 4 JUNE 16, 2021 Ms. Cano: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there anyone else? If not, thank you Pamai, we will be voting on this at our next meeting. Ms. Cano: Okay. Have a great day. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Thank you. Next up is Communications. COMMUNICATIONS: C 2021-139 Communication (05/13/2021) from the Life's Choices Kaua`i Coordinator, requesting Council approval to apply for, receive, and expend grant funds in an amount from $25,000.00 up to $75,000.00, from the Motion for Justice initiative by the Vera Institute of Justice. This grant funding will support plans to re-shape prosecution in the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney by re-centering the focus on racial equity, establish criteria to accomplish a measurable reduction in racial disparities, increase understanding of the history of racial injustice within the criminal justice system among deputies, advocates, and administrative staff, implement a people-centered program that respects and promotes a focus on non-white values/history, and focuses on restorative justice and ho oponopono (a Hawaiian cultural practice focused on healing and accountability). Councilmember Kuali`i moved to approve C 2021-139, seconded by Councilmember Cowden. Council Chair Kaneshiro: We received written testimony from Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). Do we have any questions from the Members on this item? Councilmember Cowden. I am not sure if Justin or Theresa is going to be speaking on it. Just give us a brief overview of why we are going for this grant, what the grant does, then, we will open it up for any further questions. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. THERESA C. KOKI, Life Choices Kaua`i Coordinator (via remote technology): Good morning, Council Chair and Councilmembers. Can you hear me? Councilmember Cowden: Yes. Ms. Koki: We have this opportunity to apply for this Motion for Justice Grant. It aligns with the vision and mission of the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, Justin F. Kollar. We are very fortunate to be partnering with a lot agencies out there, mainly Hale `Opio and of course the YWCA, which always has this racial equity. Now, we are looking at the criminal legal system where a lot of our data shows that our Native Hawaiian population, even our youth, are arrested, or adults are incarcerated, so we want to work in reducing that. Basically, this grant is going to be used towards education and other things, but our partner is Hale `Opio. We COUNCIL MEETING 5 JUNE 16, 2021 are going to be using their program. Also, we are going to be working with adults in the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: I was really excited to see this effort. I have spoken with and called attention to a number of our ki ai, who are very concerned about not being treated fairly. Is there going to be training of prosecutors? I think what we need more of is to have training of police officers and prosecutors to understand how history was not taught correctly for a long time. Now that we have translated many of these documents, we have a better understanding. Is that part of the vision of this? Ms. Koki: Yes. We are training our police officers and the prosecutors who are all on-board with this movement, if you will, and the vision of the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, but there will be training. Basically, this grant will be focusing majority of the funds towards training. Councilmember Cowden: Will there be a committee? As Committee Chair for Public Safety & Human Services Committee, I would love to see more of an ad hoc advisory from the community that is disproportionately targeted. Routinely, people will tell me how certain laws are applied against them, whereas, other laws are not applied against whoever. Most of these conflicts are over land issues or is more politics than crime. So they need to be handled criminally, where there should be some sort of a civil violation of sorts. For example, quiet title to the land is a theft. It is a theft in a way, so there is a whole lot of quiet title to the land,which creates generational damage. When there is resistance, people get criminally charged. We saw that Office of Hawaiian Affairs ) a study OHA didwhere we have a disproportionate amount of ( people of Hawaiian ancestry incarcerated or adjudicated. Then typically their sentences are thirty percent(30%)longer than similar charges against other groups. The evidence is overwhelming, that there is a deep need for this, and I am highly interested in being kept apprised of or helping to bring people to the table who might be good to have in this conversation, because I think it is anger that criminalizes so many of our high capacity emerging generation. We really need to do some things rightfully, so I am curious how this is going to be meaningfully expressed. Do you have any more information on that? Ms. Koki: The only thing I can say is that part of the education is going to be focused on land, but it is going to be focused on non-serious conduct crimes. Every grant has rules of what we need to do. We have met with them a couple of times virtually. I am sure there is going to be a group of people, not necessarily a committee that is going to sit there and have another meeting, but there will be a group to plan this out. We have already met with Hale `Opio and have discussed this with the YWCA, so we will make sure that we keep you informed and included as the Public Safety & Human Services Committee Chair, Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I would like to make a suggestion. I will send suggestions of who might be good to include, because if everyone who is included has some official job where they are well paid and they are in a stable position where COUNCIL MEETING 6 JUNE 16, 2021 they are in alignment with the dominant culture, I think we will miss the mark. It is really important that we have an inclusion of the people who are passionate about a different perspective. So if we only have people who work for a State agency or a nonprofit or something like that where they do not share the experience, I do not think we will get the right outcome. Ms. Koki: Okay. We will make note of it and I am sure Justin is aware of community members who should be involved. But we will take your suggestions as well. Thank you. Councilmember Cowden: Great. Thank you. I will request a meeting. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Council Vice Chair Chock. Councilmember Chock: Good morning, Theresa. Ms. Koki: Good morning. Councilmember Chock: Thank you for writing this, I appreciate it. It is much needed and of course, I am very passionate about working with our youth, particularly our kanaka, who are suffering. I wanted to get some clarity on one of the aspects that is being written about ho oponopono. Is there a specific school or practice that it is coming from? Is there a haku leading this particular effort? The only reason why I ask, is that I am part of a group that is trying to preserve the practice in the last five (5)years, so I am curious who I can connect with and collaborate with on that piece. Ms. Koki: Please. We do not have anything yet, because we did not want to plan too far, in case we did not get the grant. But please, we were going to consult with you about that. Councilmember Chock: Mahalo. Yes, I am happy to. I think it is really important from a spiritual aspect being able to ground some of these needs for families. I will mention, on Maui a judge that is within our pa has taken the lead at putting together a more formal program. There are some emerging collaborations that we can work on that can be very helpful. Particularly, 'Aha Kane has taken on that role. I will circle back with you and hopefully we get this and we can move forward on it. Mahalo nui. Ms. Koki: Okay, thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: Thank you, Theresa, Justin, and the entire office for pursuing this grant, it really does seem admirable and certainly much needed. In the grant application, it looks like one of the goals of the program says, "Reduce systemic racial disparities by at least twenty percent (20%)." I am wondering, maybe this is something that gets flushed out more during the process of working with the Vera Institute of Justice, but I wonder if you had any more data or information of what a twenty percent (20%) reduction looks like, what is that twenty percent (20%) actually COUNCIL MEETING 7 JUNE 16, 2021 measuring, is that incarceration rates and on what kind of timeframe are we talking o about here? And the twenty percent (20%) goal is great, it certainly should be working towards it, just wondering more about what it means. Ms. Koki: I am not going to take credit for writing this grant. I am going to defer that question to Jamie, who is our grant writer for the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. We all did a little, but she was the main person. Councilmember Evslin: I am sorry. It was not in your folks'application, it was in the description of what the program is hoping to achieve. On page 3 of the campaign application. JAMIE D. OLIVAS, Grant Coordinator (via remote technology): Aloha, this is Jamie, Grant Coordinator. The grant application was combined with a bunch of help from attorneys and Justin, our Prosecuting Attorney, so I am going to have to defer the question and ask him to respond to that if you could have that written. Councilmember Evslin: That would be great, no problem at all. My guess is that it is something that would get flushed out as you go through the process. It is okay if you folks do not have a firm answer on it right now. Ms. Olivas: This is an initial application. Again, like Theresa mentioned, we put it together really quickly and was not sure whether or not we were going to get it granted. We had an initial meeting and tried our best to put it together. So far, I have had one type of communication with them. My role, as far as the grant is to gather the statistics and so that is what I am focusing on. Councilmember Evslin: Great, thank you. Maybe just as a quick follow-up, I know that part of this is to help improve data collection and statistics within your folks' office. It would be great if at the end of the program, if you folks receive the grant, that we could get an update on the statistics and some concrete goals for how those are going to improve over time. Thank you. Ms. Olivas: Yes. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i. Councilmember Kuali`i: Aloha. My question might be for follow-up, too. When I was reading through this, there was a question that you answered as a part of the grant about the biggest challenges for implementing the diversion program and how you would address the challenge and it said, the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) and public school buy-in and decreasing implicit bias as the challenge. Then the"addressing it" was to provide resources and trainings on implicit bias, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging principals. Maybe I should already know this, but I was curious as to what belonging principals was. That is something I can submit in writing and follow-up if you do not have that right now. Thank you. Like Councilmember Evslin, I am interested in seeing the data—seeing the numbers before and after, as far as what this has accomplished. Maybe help us go after COUNCIL MEETING 8 JUNE 16, 2021 even further resources to continue doing the work as I think it is critically important. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: I just had one question, Theresa. Would this grant tie in to the Camp Agape Program for kids/youth in that particular area? Ms. Koki: Since COVID-19, I believe the Camp Agape Program has been cancelled, but like I mentioned earlier, we will have a lot of partners participating in here. I am sure we could see if they wanted to partner when they come back online. Also, I wanted to mention the assessment center plans for the treatment center will be a big part of this, because that is where we have...instead of the kids getting arrested and going to court, they will have a civil citation like they do with the program on O`ahu, and have them go through programs like Hale `Opio's Teen Court instead, so they do not have a mark on their record, or get sent to the Hawai`i Youth Correctional Facility. The assessment center plans will play a big part in this non-arresting of our children and having them have a civil citation and a referral to a program that fits what crime, if you will, that they committed, or infraction. Councilmember Carvalho: Okay. I look forward to more data and statistics on those programs. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: In your answers, when it says, "What do you foresee is the biggest challenges to implementing this diversion program and how would you address the challenge?" It says, "eliminate school resource officers from schools and replace them with diversion counselors." So diversion counselors would not be a uniformed police officer? Is that what this says and would it have a different structure? Ms. Koki: Yes. That part of the grant was from Hale `Opio's perspective. We have to both send in our expectations of this grant and those are the plans that Vonn Ramos has for the Hale `Opio program. When we find out what our budget is or what the amount of money that they are going to award us, because they have already indicated that they will award Kaua`i with these funds at the meetings we had prior to sending in the application. So we will see how far that funding can go to have these changes in the schools. Councilmember Cowden: What was KPD's reaction? It was during the time when I was the Chair of the School Community Council at Kapa'a High School when they started having the school resource officers. Ms. Koki: I think right now, we do not have any in the schools because of COVID-19. The way that COVID-19 has occupied KPD where they have to be at the airport and do other things, so we do not have any school resource officers. I know some people like it, because just having the uniform on campus makes the kids know that they are safe, as well as less crime, less calls into dispatch, but at COUNCIL MEETING 9 JUNE 16, 2021 the same time, if the children get arrested and start going through the system, I think diversion counselors are a good idea. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I have no objection to that at all. I was just curious if the police were on page with it, but we can ask them too. Ms. Koki: Again, we did not know if we were going to get this grant or not, so we did not bring in the Chief of Police or the resource officers, but this is Hale `Opio's idea on what they anticipate their biggest challenge and how they are going to address the challenge. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I am very open for that and have experience with children basically leaving school over a classroom temper tantrum that ended up with an arrest. So it can go from something that should be easy to address to something life problematic, so I can see where that would be a good suggestion. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions from the Members? Is there any final discussion on the item? Councilmember DeCosta. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Councilmember DeCosta: Good morning, Theresa, nice to see you. I want to say good morning to Jamie who is a friend of mine. I am very passionate about this subject. I have been a teacher at Waimea High School for ten (10)years prior to coming to district and I have seen the School Resource Officers (SRO's) on campus and they do provide a very safe environment. Also, an environment to assist with our juvenile crime and they are not always the ones making the arrests. I have seen them practice counseling at the same time. "Big props" to our police department and our police officers. I wanted to discuss our Kaua`i Police Activities League (K-PAL) and if any of this grant will go towards that. I know K-PAL reaches our Native Hawaiian community out towards Anahola and that area. The children were well taken care of when I was coaching K-PAL. I believe Mark Ozaki was running it and Jeremy Makepa was coaching Anahola. When reading this, it focuses on non-white values/history, I specifically read it here, and the reduction in racial disparities. I think a lot of it starts with what happens at home, how the parents perceive what is going on in the community, and even as far as all of us adults sitting here today, it is how we treat each other and how we role model the good behavior. So it should start with all of the adults in our community. The grant is a great idea, but I want to speak to our constituents out there, it is how we treat people regardless of the culture we come from. We use respect from adults all the way down to children. I think that is a non-fundable grant. It does not cost anything and I believe we set a better precedence for our youth growing up on Kauai. Thank you, Theresa. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there anyone else? Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: I want to thank you folks again for pursuing this grant, it is really important. I know that it is focused on injustice within the criminal justice system, but when we are talking about systemic injustice there are COUNCIL MEETING 10 JUNE 16, 2021 issues at every level. If there are any opportunities for us, as policymakers, to be engaged in this process with you folks, we could possibly be looking at other realms outside of criminal justice system. I do not expect to be on any committees or anything, but any opportunity for engagement or involvement, if you folks do go forward with this grant, would be appreciated, because I think it is important to be looking at this from every level and using whatever tools we might have at our disposal as Councilmembers. Thank you again for pursuing this really important grant. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: I would want to echo what Councilmember Evslin said. I think this is all different layers and I want to thank you for pursuing this and I will say that I have a steady diet of people who are upset with the system for how it is imbalanced to our Native Hawaiian community. So with each one of them that has raised it to me this past week, I read this grant application and this agenda item and there has been a pause, "Wow, really. Thank you." Is the reaction. So I am pleased with the direction this takes. I am excited to help wherever I can and excited to help be a bridge, because it is more than just learning how to be compliant with what is often the path to success. It is important for all layers to be able to understand what is the source of the frustration, and when people are understood it takes that emotional tone of anger down a couple of notches. Theresa, you have been very involved for decades in helping to stop addiction, which I see as the symptom and not the cause, and the cause is systemic anger, so this is a step in the right direction and I thank you for that—Jamie, Justin, all of you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there anyone else? (Written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve C 2021-139 was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. C 2021-140 Communication (05/21/2021) from the Director of Economic Development, requesting Council approval to apply for, receive, and expend State funds, in the amount of $150,000.00, from the Hawai`i Tourism Authority, to be used for expenditures focused on taking action related to the priorities of the Kauai Destination Management Action Plan, and to indemnify the Hawai`i Tourism Authority-State of Hawai`i. Councilmember Kuali`i moved to approve C 2021-140, seconded by Councilmember Carvalho. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any questions from the Members on this item? Councilmember Cowden. We received one written testimony from the Kauai Board of Realtors and we have no one to speak on this item. 1 COUNCIL MEETING 11 JUNE 16, 2021 Councilmember Cowden: Nalani, thank you so much. I have been pleased with the direction of the Kaua`i Destination Management Action Plan (DMAP). I know that the State has threatened underfunding of this organization. Of this one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000), what would be our priorities? I know we do things like the Mokihana Festival and how would it be amplifying awareness of the Hawaiian culture rather than exploitation, empowerment of preserving and perpetuating the Hawaiian culture, as opposed to exploiting it. That was what I saw that was a big part of the Kaua`i Destination Management Action Plan and the residential community not just one specific culture. Can you speak to how this one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) would be directed and utilized? Thank you. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. NALANI K. KAAUWAI BRUN, Director of Economic Development (via remote technology): This one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) is from their last budget. The funds are to target a Kaua`i Made Product program. Actually, there is a plan to work with Rice Street Business Association to open up a Kaua`i Made focused product store. We have a lot of Native Hawaiians that have Kaua`i Made products, so that is one way to help them economically. So Kaua`i Made focus program is fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). The second part of the program,which is the other one hundred thousand dollars($100,000), the other one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) is money floated over as we are watching what is happening with transportation. One of the big DMAP items was to change the way visitors travel here. It is very irritating to the residents to have traffic and this was one way to try to mitigate what is happening and because we are coming out of the pandemic, there is no time like the present to try to get something done. Basically, we have the one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), we have not specified where it is going to go other than it is going to support whatever shuttle systems go in place to move visitors instead of have them rent cars directly from the airport. Currently, private companies are doing it, so we do not want to get into the way of that and start our own shuttle. We want them to do it and just see what the needs are going forward. As we have known from Hanalei Initiative at the North Shore Shuttle, there were other needs outside of them starting the shuttle. We have learned a lot from that process, so now we are working with the partners to see what it is they need to get things done. I think they have already started their shuttles out to Po`ipu, it is a reservation system working in conjunction with the taxis, Ubers, Lifts, and the Speedy Shuttle programs, and the rental cars—all the options that are out there. This is just another option that we want visitors to see as a great way to travel. Hopefully, someday some of the rental cars will start to satellite their operations out into the Visitor Destination Areas (VDA) instead of everything coming out of Lihu`e. Councilmember Cowden: This will support that Energy Transportation Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP), if I have the acronym right. Ms. Brun: Yes. Councilmember Cowden: It will support that grant where we were picked as one (1) of eleven (11) remote locations in the United States (US) to try and find a way to rethink our traveling. COUNCIL MEETING 12 JUNE 16, 2021 Ms. Brun: Yes. The ETIPP program is going to help this program. One of the focus areas of the ETIPP program is they are going to look at how visitors are traveling and help give us good data to feed to the private industry on how they can really make it work, so that we can sustain it long beyond the pandemic. Councilmember Cowden: That hits our goal with our Destination Management Action Plan well in that one of the overwhelming aspects of many visitors on the island is how it impacts traffic. Ms. Brun: Yes. Councilmember Cowden: This is less of a cultural element, but is a relief of the burden of the industry, in general, to all of the population. Ms. Brun: Yes. We are working on E.2, which was one of the recommendations to continuously examine the movement of visitors around the island, and H.1, which was to expand the Kaua`i Made Products program. So those are the two (2) DMAP items that we were working on with this funding. Councilmember Cowden: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: What is ETIPP? Councilmember Cowden: Energy Transportation Initiative Partnership Project. Ms. Brun: It is basically to help figure things out, so it was not money. I cannot tell you the acronym because I do not have it with me. Councilmember Cowden: Ben Sullivan did that and it was exciting to have access to some of the best of our advisors in the US to help us figure out a better way to not be so dependent on individual cars for everyone all the time. Ms. Brun: That is one part of the program. They also look at energy infrastructure on-island. Basically, they are giving us services to look at and they bring a wealth of data and information from other areas that we can utilize. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: Thank you, Nalani. This was super exciting. I read this and I was jumping for joy yesterday. Before I ask my question, I just want to say, Councilmember Cowden I am surprised you are using this really long acronym. I have never seen you use an acronym before. Councilmember Cowden: Because I cannot remember it. Councilmember Evslin: We are the ones who always got scolded for using acronyms here. This is great to see Hawai`i Tourism Authority (HTA) directing funds towards this. Hopefully, as the Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT) gets COUNCIL MEETING 13 JUNE 16, 2021 restructured and HTA revisits their own mandate, I really hope that we can get a lot more of this, in that we need sustainable sources of funding for a shuttle and these types of things and not just a one-time surge, but it is a great start. Just a question or a pitch maybe, the two goals here; one, is trying to restructure how we get people around and two, is creating this hub for Kaua`i Made Products. Hopefully, we can combine those. I live in Lihu`e and I walk and ride my bike and see tourists constantly stuck walking from the airport to their hotel or I do not know where they are walking, but they are walking everywhere and it would be nice if we could have a shuttle that could pick them up and not only shuttle them to hotels, but had an option while they wait for their Uber to drop them in the center of Rice Street near this Kauai Made store where they could buy their souvenirs when they get off the plane or get a coffee or beer from Kauai Beer Company. It is just a better place to wait for their Uber than walking miles through Lihu`e. Seems like a fantastic opportunity here. So to turn that into a question, is there any discussion of trying to have that shuttle go directly from the airport to this place or do you think that could be beneficial at any capacity? Ms. Brun: Actually, they are testing out shuttle routes now. They just started one where the shuttle goes from the airport to Po`ipu. Basically, it is a reservation system, it is not on-demand at this point. Then today, they are starting the shuttle that goes from Po`ipu to Kapa`a, that includes Lihu`e, to try and move visitors around that do not have cars. So they are slowly incorporating shuttle-by-shuttle to see if it can work and so far it has been good. Councilmember Evslin: Awesome. I guess what I am trying to get at here is instead of just going from the airport to hotels, or in these places that might be smaller resorts without a shuttle service and it is three (3) hours for an Uber wait, instead of having them walk to their destination, that quick 10-minute shuttle to Rice Street is a better place to walk to let them support local businesses. Ms. Brun: I will mention that. Councilmember Evslin: This is really exciting, so thank you folks. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: Just a follow-up on that. When we are saying "they,"who are "they"? Is it private shuttles? Are we using our buses? Are we going to use our buses? We want them all to be private. There are enough vans out there on the island. I know a month ago, people were scrambling to try and find a van to create shuttles. Do we have those vans? Ms. Brun: Speedy Shuttle is still operating at their maximum. I think that is owned by Roberts Hawai`i, but Polynesian Adventure Tours is the new player for the shuttle system. They have jumped in with their knowledge of what they have learned with the Hanalei Initiative on the North Shore and they have started their own shuttle. I think Roberts Hawai`i is looking at it too. So we are just standing back to see where they need support and letting the marketplace do its thing. Councilmember Cowden: Great. COUNCIL MEETING 14 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions? Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: Nalani, it ties into the "big picture" from before with the infrastructure and now we are finally getting the shuttle service to come in and complement some of the infrastructure that has been completed and continues to be completed. I want more information on the Kaua`i Made store. The location is right here in Lihu`e. Where is the location? What is the whole concept of that again? Ms. Brun: This was working with the Rice Street Business Association. They have located a spot on Rice Street, I think it is the old Escape Room area they were looking at, which is closer to the County buildings. Basically, it is not going to be "manned" by a lot of people, so it is low-cost, but it is heavily online. They are going to have a virtual view of the store, so you can see it before you come. You could virtually order if you want versus going in there. They want to tie it into a lot of the events that happen in Lihu`e to introduce it. They have a big marketing plan going and they are working with a lot of the Kaua`i Made teams here to make sure that is the focus of the store. So there will be other members and they will all be affiliate members, so they will help pay for that store, but Kaua`i Made is going to be the focus. Councilmember Carvalho: I think that is great. Also, to tie into the Rice Street, Councilmember Evslin and I have walked with the youth along Rice Street and they can use their phones to get information on the museum, so it all ties into this "big picture" of that experience, which hopefully will move into different parts of our island. For now, I think it is great that we are complementing all the work that has been done in different ways. Great job in getting the grant going. Ms. Brun: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i. Councilmember Kuali`i: Hi, Nalani. Thank you for this work. I think it is important. I have a question getting back to transportation. I know you said that the Kaua`i Bus is not part of the plan for shuttling, but I do know that the bus does go to the airport and that some tourists use the bus. I think that we should just make sure the bus is being supportive in however they can be, because I heard that there is a rule that you cannot bring big luggage on, but some drivers might give a little aloha and let it slide and there might be a way where they can keep it in their area or on their lap, and just to apply it consistently to everyone. It still is an option that some tourists are choosing to use. Ms. Brun: As part of that ETIPP program, we are also looking at public transportation. So you are right, it is all about how all of these different elements intersect and interact with each other. The Kaua`i Bus has been wonderful. They have been feeding us information, so that we know exactly what the need is and we are seeing the depletion of need as a new thing comes online. So they are a big part of this. We need the Kaua`i Bus to be our partners in this and they are. COUNCIL MEETING 15 JUNE 16, 2021 Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember De Costa. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you, Chair. Hi, Nalani. Ms. Brun: Hello. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you for all you do. I believe we do not say thank you enough. This is sort of a discussion, but I will tie in a question. I was excited, Councilmember Carvalho and I went to see Lima Ola in `Ele`ele and the vision for that city and the commercial kitchen jumped out at both Councilmember Carvalho and I. This commercial kitchen would assist with our Kaua`i Made store where locals could produce their product out of this certified kitchen and I see the "big picture." Hopefully, we will have one of those in the Waimea 400 and having a walkable/bikeable layout like Po`ipu. We had a meeting yesterday and it was very refreshing to see Kaua`i moving in that direction. Councilmember Kuali`i just sparked a"light bulb," I think we do not want to step on the toes of our private sector with shuttling our tourists, but I like what Councilmember Kuali`i said, that we need to have the Kaua`i Bus in place if need be, so our tourists feel comfortable in case they cannot get a car, there is an alternative transportation without the high cost of a taxi or uber. So the more we can support it and let our tourists know that having a rental car is not culturally-friendly to our local people, because we are getting back to work and our traffic...so just supporting that. Thank you, Nalani. Ms. Brun: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions from the Members? Is there any final discussion? Councilmember Evslin. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order and proceeded as follows: Councilmember Evslin: Thank you, Chair. I want to reiterate my excitement for this. I do think the rental car shortage is a huge opportunity for us to rethink transportation in a way that has not happened before. It has shown a couple of things, one is that tourists will pay more money for vehicles, that there is way to distribute the benefits of tourism more here and that local families are renting cars for five hundred dollars ($500) a day, and yet tourists are still coming and still paying that kind of money for a vehicle. Also, tourists are willing to walk more than we would have guessed. I drove to Po`ipu the other day and saw tons of people walking on the side of the street from their hotel to the beach, because they cannot find a car. This benefits residents with fewer cars on the road, it benefits residents in the possibility of making money renting a vehicles, and it gives us this once in a lifetime opportunity to try and rethink how we are getting people around. I really appreciate HTA, Office of Economic Development (OED), and you folks for jumping on this opportunity to try and make it happen at this moment. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there anyone else? Councilmember Cowden. COUNCIL MEETING 16 JUNE 16, 2021 Councilmember Cowden: I think we have fortuitous timing at many levels. Somehow this morning I was able to get to work without much and a brand new roundabout in Kealia, "shout out" to the Department of Transportation for that. Kind of building on what Councilmember Evslin said, I have spoken to visitors who have been using our bus, because they could not get a car. They are actually happy, because it is up high with a big window and their reaction was quite pleased. They commented on how nice our bus drivers are, which has always been my experience when I take the bus. The other thing that I think is fortuitous for how we are trying to figure all this out when these people are basically Airbnb their cars making money off the industry. They are having to take the bus themselves, so they are taking the bus to get back and forth to work, because they are renting their car making more money doing that than they are going to work. I think it is good they are getting the opportunity to ride and experience the bus. I would love to see and will ask for, but if we keep numbers up on how many people ride the bus every day. I am curious to see if we are tracking it, because when Councilmember Kuali`i is asking questions about holding your luggage, that has long been a problem. I will pick tourists up that are sitting at the bus stop with their luggage over the years, because the bus will just pass them by. If these buses are not that full, maybe we create a little area to have luggage on it, like a rental bus, that might be good too. You could think about it. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there any further discussion from the Members? (Written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve C 2021-140 was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. C 2021-141 Communication (05/27/2021) from the Acting County Engineer, requesting Council approval to apply for, receive, and expend State recycling grant funds in the amount of$45,000.00, to be used by the Department of Public Works, Solid Waste Division, to support Electronic Waste (eWaste) Recycling for Fiscal Year 2022. Councilmember Kuali`i moved to approve C 2021-141, seconded by Councilmember Cowden. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Do we have any questions from the Members? Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: When I read what you sent to us, this is basically the cost of promoting the awareness of when this is essentially radio, newspaper advertisement, and flyers—that is the forty-five thousand dollars ($45,000) to get people to be aware of where to do it? There being no objections, the rules were suspended. COUNCIL MEETING 17 JUNE 16, 2021 ALLISON FRALEY, Solid Waste Program Development Coordinator(via remote technology): Yes, Councilmember Cowden. This is Allison Fraley from the Solid Waste Division. That is correct. Our program itself is funded by the County under Puhi Metals Recycling Program. Residents can take electronic waste six (6) days a week to Puhi Metals. We just want to get the word out there, because we do have the one (1) location, so make sure that everyone is aware. We receive this funding from the State every year to be able to promote this. One of the highlights of this program is that we do a school program where we have a contest in the schools, so the children get to go to the site to see where the electronic waste is captured and readied to be shipped out to get recycled. Councilmember Cowden: Thank you so much for doing an excellent job at trying to encourage recycling and the knowledge of how much high value metals are actually in all that eWaste. Thank you for doing the work and for writing the grant, because if people do not recycle, it is a waste for all the rest of us. Thank you. Ms. Fraley: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions from the Members? Is there any final discussion? There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order and proceeded as follows: (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve C 2021-141 was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. C 2021-142 Communication (05/27/2021) from the Executive on Aging, requesting Council approval to receive and expend Federal funds, in the amount of $642,681.00, and to indemnify the State Executive Office on Aging, for the provision of Title III services of the Older Americans Act, which includes supportive services, congregate meals, home-delivered meals, preventive health programs, and the National Family Caregiver Support Program, for the Federal Fiscal Year 2021 that began October 1, 2020 and runs through September 30, 2024. Councilmember Carvalho moved to approve C 2021-142, seconded by Councilmember Chock. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Do we have any questions from the Members? Is there any final discussion from the Members? (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve C 2021-142 was then put, and unanimously carried. COUNCIL MEETING 18 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. C 2021-143 Communication (05/27/2021) from the Chief of Police and Mark Begley, Assistant Chief of Police, Patrol Services Bureau, requesting Council approval to purchase non-budgeted equipment with Fiscal Year 2021 unexpended funds in the amount of $403,356.00, which will fund sixty-two (62) replacement mobile radios with preinstalled encryption software and installation of encryption software upgrades on forty-three (43) current mobile radios. Councilmember Kuali`i moved to approve C 2021-143, seconded by Councilmember DeCosta. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Do we have any questions from the Members? Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: Do we have Assistant Chief Begley? Okay, Chief Todd Raybuck. Can you provide a simple overview of this and I have a question and a comment. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. TODD G. RAYBUCK, Chief of Police (via remote technology): Good morning, Honorable Chair, Vice Chair, and Councilmembers. Chief Raybuck, for the record. Happy 30th birthday, Councilmember DeCosta, nice to see that you finally have reached into your thirties. This morning's request is to seek approval for the use of the four hundred three thousand, three hundred fifty-six dollars ($403,356) of unexpended funds to continue KPD's efforts to upgrade our portable and mobile upgrades, so in the future they could be encrypted. KPD along with support from our partners from Kaua`i Emergency Management Agency (KEMA), have been working to encrypt our radios for the last several years. This is a trend in law enforcement to upgrade our equipment for a variety of reasons as outlined in the memorandum from Assistant Chief Begley to the Council. Today's requests should complete our upgrades and make our system available for encryption in the future. Councilmember Cowden: I have comments/questions. I was surprised I have a little bit of"push back." Some people were not happy with this choice. I will say, as being a friend of a broad base of the community even fifteen (15) to twenty (20) years ago, I would be surprised at how anyone could listen to what the police were doing. Some of my crowd that I know who are kolohe, they listen in, so they know what the police are doing. So if you are going to make a bad choice, best to do it when you know the officers are going in the other direction. I remember fifteen (15)to twenty (20) years ago thinking, "Wow, that is a pretty big weak link." People know when the officers are either busy doing something else or coming in their direction, so people could change their behavior. Good to change their behavior, but not good in terms of stopping a bad trend of chronic crimes. I am not suggesting I am hanging with people who are doing crimes, but I would sit there and be blown away at what an exposure of process it is. So I support the idea of not tipping your hand at cards when you are trying to stop burglaries. Do you have any comments on that? Is that consistent with your reasoning for wanting this? COUNCIL MEETING 19 JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. Raybuck: Councilmember Cowden, thank you for your comments. Honestly, as we have seen technology evolve, it has exposed law enforcement to further exposure to what our plans and responsibilities are, as well as what our response is to crimes in progress and our enforcement strategies. People have been listening to scanners for decades, but technology has evolved, people can listen to police radios now over their cell phones, while they are in a car, it is not uncommon for criminals to utilize. In the past, they would use lookouts that would sit on a corner two (2) blocks away and utilize communication to let their cohorts know that the police were approaching. Today, any cell phone can access open communications of police radios, so it not only puts our officers in jeopardy in their response, because the criminals know their location and when they will be there. It also puts our public in danger, because it also allows criminals to operate freely knowing where our police officers are and where they are not. So the encryption services will allow us to perform our services to the community in a more protected way. So not only can we appropriately respond to crimes in progress, but also not allow those persons looking to conduct criminal behaviors know the whereabouts of where our officers are. As we know on our island, KPD is the only primary law enforcement agency responding. It is common knowledge where our officers are assigned and how many officers we have on the road, so a person could easily deduce the level of availability of our officers by listening to the scanners and then take advantage of the lack of resources to respond to commit crimes. So encryption will allows us to eliminate that possibility for criminals to continue to monitor our activities and utilize that for their gain. Councilmember Cowden: I do not see an economic breakdown here. Are we going to get forty-three (43) different radios for four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000), so is it ten thousand dollars ($10,000) per radio or is most of it for having this software piece and maybe fifty percent (50%), then partner it with radio, so when we get new radios, is it ten thousand dollars ($10,000)? How does that break down? Mr. Raybuck: My apologies, I do not know the specific breakdown per radio. They are quite expensive. Our portable radios average about six thousand five hundred dollars ($6,500) to seven thousand dollars ($7,000) a piece, so it is not cheap equipment. The breakdown as you have mentioned includes the upgrade of our older mobile radios. We have been replacing radios along the way, as I have mentioned earlier, to upgrade those into a position where we could encrypt the radios in the future. So this would allow us to upgrade the remaining radios that have not been currently upgraded, as well as the leftover portable radios that we still need to upgrade as well. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I did see I did my math wrong. Council Chair Kaneshiro: It is sixty-two (62) new and forty-three (43) upgrade. Councilmember Cowden: Yes, so one hundred five (105). Good. Thank you. COUNCIL MEETING 20 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember De Costa, then Councilmember Evslin. (Councilmember Chock was noted as not present.) Councilmember De Costa: Hi, Chief. Thank you for the birthday wish. I let my beard come out a little bit, so I do not look thirty (30), I did not want to make you look too old. Thank you for all you folks do and I want to say thank you to Mark Begley, I have only heard positive things throughout the community and through his patrol unit with all his men, so morale is great in that division. I am very impressed. I also wanted to thank your Department with the search and rescue that went on that I was able to be in the briefing with Mr. Cabo. I was very impressed with how KPD assisted with the search. We did not find him yet, but a big thank you. I grew up respecting the police, in fact, I grew up being scared of the police and I think that is what made a lot of our youth listen. Today, I think our youth is not afraid of the police. So I do not think the police need to intimidate the youth, but it is good that we show mutual respect and I believe it is happening, so thank you very much. Our news media has a little bit of a concern, they have a scanner, they listen to where the crime, traffic accident, fire, or wherever something has happened and they go and take pictures or have more accessibility to inform the public. I am just asking, are we going to still, maybe not ensure, but I am looking for a word, if my Councilmembers can help me, are we going to ensure that the news media still has access in case there is a traffic accident at halfway bridge. How do we get that onto KONG Radio? How does the Garden Island Newspaper get a picture of that crime or scene or something of that sort? I am just looking out for those constituents of that category. (Councilmember Chock was noted as present.) Mr. Raybuck: Thank you, Councilmember DeCosta. If I could answer that question before you proceed. Across the nation there is a concern by media outlets about the encryption of police radios and access to the media. As far as how will the media know about these events; first, our dispatch sends out E-mails, we update a telephone number that immediately is accessible to the community and the media regarding accidents, so they can obtain that information immediately without the use of police scanners. As far as critical incidents and updates on other information, we have a public information officer and we do push out information via our social media alerting the community, and thereby via also the media, about events that may be occurring within the Department that the public may need to be notified about more rapidly. Right now, while we do not have a policy in place about how we will respond, I am certainly open to entertaining requests by the media and then we can cross that bridge about whether or not that decryption of the radio services would be available to them. Councilmember De Costa: Okay, thank you for that explanation. The last question I wanted to ask, I know when there is a traffic accident scene and it could involve a crime if it were drunk driving or something along those lines, we do have somewhat of a congested situation with tow trucks getting to the scene ahead of time. I know we have a policy in place where dispatch calls the tow truck. Will the radios with the encryption device be able to control that situation better? COUNCIL MEETING 21 JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. Raybuck: I wish it would. The problem that we have with congestion about accidents is infrastructure not radio communications. The challenge as we all know, we primarily have two (2) lane roads encircling the island, so anytime there is a major accident on the roadway, it shuts down and affects all traffic. It not only affects, unfortunately, the tow trucks' capability to get to the scene, it also delays and impacts the response of our first responders, our firefighters, and emergency workers that are responding to provide medical assistance to those who are involved in the crash. It would make me no happier to have KPD be able to resolve the problem of the congestion at an accident scene. We do our best to try to clear those roadways as quickly as possible, except when there are severe injuries and it requires more of an investigation to eliminate that, but the significant factor in why our roadways are congested is infrastructure, and as the conversation earlier took place about the volume of traffic on our roadways contributes to that. So the encryption will not mitigate it one way or the other. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you for the explanation Chief. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: Thank you, Chief. My only experience with the police scanner was when I used to get driven to school in a carpool, one of the parents had a police scanner about thirty (30)years ago, and I thought you folks had encryption long ago, I did not realize people could still listen in and it is shocking to hear that you can get an app to listen in. My question is, are there any downsides to encryption? Why did it take so long, is it the cost of it? Mr. Raybuck: Yes, it is very costly. I think we have spent nearly a million dollars ($1,000,000) already through our upgrades both in software and equipment. As I have mentioned earlier, many of these upgrades have been available because of KEMA support in building our infrastructure and availability for that. Some of it is technology, ensuring the technology is there to provide the encryption services. It used to be a lot more complicated and costly, but as technology is advanced it has become more affordable for us. But it is critical today, as we see in events all across the country. Unfortunately, social media provides a platform for people to prepare and respond however they choose in critical incidents or in protests and things like that. So encrypting and protecting the police communication is not only important for our safety, there is that other piece that we did not mention earlier and that is protecting people's confidential and sensitive information. The Federal law requires KPD to protect people's individual data, meaning dates of birth, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, and things like that. Today's age of identity theft is rampant. People can go online and take advantage of people. Unfortunately, part of the process that we need to utilize in policing is, we often broadcast people's sensitive information that could be intercepted and used to create new victims of identity theft. So we have a responsibility also, in encrypting our radio and protecting the sensitive information of the people that we have contact with in the field. Councilmember Evslin: That makes total sense to me. I am just surprised that we are not encrypted yet. Will there be any issues for cross agency COUNCIL MEETING 22 JUNE 16, 2021 collaboration if there is a disaster communicating with Kaua`i Fire Department (KFD) or is that at all still possible? Mr. Raybuck: I apologize, I could not hear what you were saying. Councilmember Evslin: Are there any issues with cross agency collaboration in a natural disaster when you need to be coordinating with KFD or other agencies that might not have encrypted devices? Mr. Raybuck: I think I heard you ask about cross agency complications caused by encryption. The answer is, no and maybe. No, KFD and our emergency professionals would not be impacted by encryption, as they operate on different channels that we would not encrypt. There are other entities like Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) and the Sheriffs Office that utilize our KPD. Certainly, we would need to look at what their capabilities are, as far as operating on our encrypted channels. What many agencies have done and what we will consider looking at as well, is having a non-encrypted channel that would allow for that cross communication platform among all the entities, in the event it was necessary. Councilmember Evslin: Great. Last question, what happens to the old radios? Do you folks sell them or keep them? Mr. Raybuck: The older radios that are not encryption compatible will be phased out. We have been doing that over the last couple of years already, so many of these radios were already due to be replaced in the future. The approval of this will allow us to do it in a much quicker fashion. Councilmember Evslin: I believe a few months ago, we were talking to KFD about trying to get a Staffing For Adequate Fire And Emergency Response (SAFER) grant to replace a bunch of radios. I do not know if they ended up receiving that grant and if there is any way (from my understanding, it sounds like they were using old radios,) if there were some capacity for sharing these radios that you folks are replacing if they do not receive the grant just putting that out there. Thank you. Mr. Raybuck: I do not know what radio frequencies and what radio equipment the Fire Department utilizes nor do I understand that transition of communication radios back and forth, but it is certainly something that we could look at if our replacement radios are due to be replaced and if they work for KFD, it is something we could explore. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: This last question is simple. I appreciate the request to do something that seems to be evident is long overdue—how we needed it ten (10) or fifteen (15) years ago. How soon, when we say "yes" today, will this be implemented? COUNCIL MEETING 23 JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. Raybuck: Obviously, supply is part of it. I cannot tell you how long it will take us to receive the radios. Then the actual upgrades will take time. Then software upgrades. The expectation is that we would be able to complete the encryption by the end of the year, but there are a lot of variables in that. So that is our goal, to have it encrypted by the end of the year. Councilmember Cowden: Okay, I thank both yourself, Assistant Chief Begley, and whoever else might have been a part of moving in this direction. Thank you both so much. Mr. Raybuck: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions? Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: I have a quick question. Chief, is there any cost or need for training involved in this whole process? Mr. Raybuck: Training would be very minimal. Typically, what occurs is, once the encryption goes live, it comes down to ensuring that our officers are on the proper frequency for the encryption services. In my past experience, when my former organization went to encrypted radios, the officers knew right away if they were on the wrong channel, because when they keyed to microphone they just got feedback and they did not hear anything being broadcast. So it would just be ensuring that our officers are aware of what the encrypted channels are. It should not take more than fifteen (15) to twenty (20) minutes of roll call training to ensure that they are familiar with that. Councilmember Carvalho: Okay, thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions? Is there any final discussion from the Members? Councilmember Cowden. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Councilmember Cowden: I have a quick comment. I just want to say, I am pleased that we are making this change and it is really important to keep both our community and our officers safe. So I can only see where this is going to benefit both. When we are looking at the media, I appreciate all the work they do and social media is so fast, you typically know right away when there is an accident in a way that we never used to know. I am sure there is a way to bridge past that block. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: I will say briefly that I am in support of this. It certainly does seem overdue. It does sound like from the conversation that we had, that the only potential downside could be not getting word out quickly enough to media, but I want to give a "shout out" to your Public Information Officer (PIO) who does a good COUNCIL MEETING 24 JUNE 16, 2021 job of getting information out. I am often checking social media when there is traffic and the KPD social media page does a great job of getting that information out. I do not necessarily see that as a downside here, so keep up the good work. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there anyone else? (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve C 2021-143 was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. C 2021-144 Communication (06/08/2021) from the Managing Director, requesting Council approval of the following: • Apply for, receive, and expend the first allocation of assistance for State, Local, and Tribal Governments— Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the United States Department of Treasury, in the amount of $7,021,034.00, appropriated by the U.S. Congress as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, to be used to support urgent COVID-19 response efforts, replace lost revenue, support immediate economic stabilization for households and businesses, and address systemic public health and economic challenges; and • Apply for, receive, and expend, at the request of the State of Hawai`i, ARPA Non-Entitlement Unit Funds from the United States Department of Treasury, in the amount of approximately $3,783,402.00, to be used for non-entitlement units for local governments smaller than 50,000 in population. Councilmember Kuali`i moved to approve C 2021-144, seconded by Councilmember Cowden. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Mike, if you just want to give us an overview of the money and how you plan to spend it. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. MICHAEL A. DAHILIG, Managing Director (via remote technology): Good morning, Council Chair and Members of the Council. Mike Dahilig, Managing Director, for the record. Again, we appreciate the opportunity to engage in dialogue previous to this memorandum that has been transmitted to the Members related to moneys that are earmarked to the County of Kaua`i via the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. There has been a lot of attention paid to this tranche of funding relating to support for State and Local governments,particularly in light of the economic downturn that has beset the country as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. These funds are meant to provide support in areas that we believe are of gaps that need to be filled, COUNCIL MEETING 25 JUNE 16, 2021 as a consequence of the economic conditions that have been created by the pandemic. Just as a brief explanation, the County has been earmarked approximately fourteen million dollars ($14,000,000) over two (2) Federal Fiscal Years to be given in two (2) separate tranches of approximately seven million dollars ($7,000,000) a piece. This is largely in part due to calculations made on the County's population, as well as other factors that I wish I could explain, but are related to Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) standing, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) standing and metrics, and things that relate to the population characteristic of the island. What we have proposed to the Council and transmitted is a proposed budget that focuses not on necessarily making up for lost revenue in the County's General Fiscal Year, rather it looks at a forward-facing program towards the public to support those things that we see are emerging or are having large gaps in our community as a consequence of pandemic conditions. Also in the memorandum, at the last minute we had to include a request to apply for, receive, and expend, but we do commit to coming back to the Council for the dialogue on that tranche of funds in the amount of approximately three million seven hundred thousand dollars ($3,700,000)is money that is considered part of the non-entitlement unit portion of the State and Local government assistance. This was news to us that was given by our Director of Finance via conversations with the State Budget and Finance Directors where populations of less than fifty thousand (50,000) across the nation were earmarked a lump sum to be given to the State as a pass-through to support these communities. The unique thing about Hawai`i is that Hawai`i does not have any local government unit that is smaller than a county. While on the mainland you do see townships and boroughs that may be in less than fifty thousand (50,000) population—we do not have any of those types of communities here. The word from the Budget and Finance Director is that these moneys will be earmarked to the counties of Hawai`i Island, Kaua`i, and Maui for disbursement of that non-entitlement unit funding; however, we do not have the full extent of what exactly needs to be done, mechanism-wise, to receive these funds as a pass-through to the State. However, we do understand that the State, based off of calculations, has about three million seven hundred thirty thousand dollars ($3,730,000) as the amount that would be received by the County of Kaua`i for the first Federal Fiscal Year to be spent for similar activities as the direct funding that 1 we have proposed a budget to you folks for. Council Chair, I know that the budget in front of you has about sixteen (16) budget line items that relate to the expenditure plan. I am happy to either go through them line-by-line or I am able to answer any questions in whatever fashion the Council is seeking to get information from the Administration in regards to the expenditure plan. One other thing I do want to mention is, the memorandum that I did send over inadvertently did not add the words receive and expend for the first tranche of funds under the seven million dollars ($7,000,000) and I am going to clarify for the record that the request that we are asking for is to apply for, receive, and expend the first tranche of money that is a direct allocation to the County of Kaua`i. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmembers, we have the form in front of us, do we have questions on individual items? Mike, can you share this on your screen? COUNCIL MEETING 26 JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. Dahilig: I can share it from my screen. Council Chair Kaneshiro: If you have the proposed budget worksheet. Mr. Dahilig: Are you able to see that, Council Chair? Council Chair Kaneshiro: Yes. It is small. Mr. Dahilig: Hold on. Is that better? Council Chair Kaneshiro: I do not think we need to go through it line-by-line. We will leave that up on the screen for everyone to see. We have that in front of us. I will take questions from the Members, if you have questions on any line items. Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: I have two (2) that are related relative to housing and two (2) questions that are related relative to job placement, then two (2) relative to elderly. If any of my fellow Councilmembers want to jump in on any of these, I want to leave that open so I do not dominate here. First, I will look at these housing ones. There is permanent supportive housing construction for two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000), then houseless support for one hundred seventy thousand dollars ($170,000). Can you give us a little bit of context for both of those, please? Mr. Dahilig: I am happy to do so, Councilmember Cowden. With respect to the permanent supportive housing construction line item, the one difference between the American Rescue Plan Act funds for State and Local assistance, and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was received by the Council last year, is that moneys for this particular appropriation can be used to construct affordable housing developments in order to delay some of the effects of houselessness due to the economic downturn. We have seen some relative success with our first project related to the housing emergency declared by Governor Ige back in 2019, relating to the construction of the Kealaula Project, where we were able to achieve a reasonable price point per unit, while also providing opportunities for supportive services around that transitional step for people to have a place and a roof over their head, in line with "housing first" objectives. That is where we see this as an opportunity to have these funds continue to pay forward rather than having it be simply an operational expense for our Fiscal Year. We believe that these moneys can chip away at the inventory deficit that we have in this particular area of support that is needed, so that is where that earmark is meant to support. At this point in time, we do not have a specific location, but we believe we have a couple of candidate locations that could meet the objective of being able to provide pretty quick connectivity to our infrastructure and reduce the cost of off-site construction that would be needed to support this type of development. So we are looking for things that have parcels that are "plug and play" ready to be able to move very quickly like we did with Kealaula. With respect to houseless support, we have seen a lot of success with the Housing Agency and being able to be more active in the outreach. We see the one hundred seventy thousand dollars($170,000)as flex funds for our Housing Outreach Coordinator COUNCIL MEETING 27 JUNE 16, 2021 to be able to rapidly deploy resources where needed. She has been a staunch advocate for being able to get resources for these individuals that are in need of support. We think that providing this flex funding for her to go out and get the resources she needs to help these people of our community, we think that is a down payment in being able to ramp up some of her objectives as she goes out into our community in outreach. Councilmember Cowden: Thank you so much. That is great. Council Chair Kaneshiro: I will take any more questions on these two (2) items regarding housing; it is the Permanent Supportive Housing Construction of two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000) and the Houseless Support of one hundred seventy thousand dollars ($170,000). Do we have any other questions on those items from the Members? Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: Hi, Mike. How are you? Thank you, again, for all you do as Managing Director. I know we spoke briefly about this, but will some of those funds be earmarked for a potential homeless campground, if you would come across land from a large landowner or if we would come up with something of our own, can we earmark some of this funding to create a place where we could relocate or advocate for our homeless? Mr. Dahilig: Happy birthday, Councilmember. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you, Mike. Mr. Dahilig: One of the things that we are continuing to pursue is trying to find a candidate site for the initiative that you approached us with concerning pairing job training in the agricultural field with houseless support. We are needing to still be able to find the site for where moneys would be appropriately earmarked to support such an initiative. At this time, we would not suggest that the moneys, at least in this tranche of funding, would be appropriate for that particular initiative, but yet, we have three (3) other tranches of funding that are coming down the pipeline, which is again the three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000), another seven million dollars ($7,000,000) in the next Federal Fiscal Year, as well as another three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000) tranche of funding in Federal Fiscal Year two (2). We believe there is more than enough room to bring that online as the plan behind something that matures, where we have a landowner that is willing to partner with the County with approval of whatever regulatory agency is necessary to be able to get this up and running. I would mention that one of the difficulties in standing up something quickly is that the statutory waivers that were provided under the Governor's Proclamations are starting to be eliminated. We have seen that with the elimination of Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS) 103D as a waived statute. Right now, emergency procurement is no longer allowable in this form, so there are some breaks being put in by the Governor's Office as a consequence of these waivers being eliminated. So it will take some time to mature that plan, but we are happy to engage in those planning discussions with you, Councilmember DeCosta, and be able to get a piece of property that will suit that initiative. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you for your clarification Mike. COUNCIL MEETING 28 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i. Councilmember Kuali`i: I am very happy and I think we all are, to see a big chunk of this money, a considerable amount being put towards affordable housing and transitional housing. For all of these moneys, the seven million dollars ($7,000,000), I know you said fourteen million dollars ($14,000,000) over two (2) Fiscal Years, so seven million dollars ($7,000,000) this first Fiscal Year. According to the funding from the Federal, does it have to be expended within this next Fiscal Year? Mr. Dahilig: That is not entirely clear. We are with the understanding that if we can show evidence of spend down of the full seven million dollars ($7,000,000), then we can go in for the second tranche. But there is also some language that seems to indicate that we have to wait for one year after asking for the first set of funds, so I do not have a clear answer on that. What I will do is send a question to the Office of the County Attorney to try and get clarity on what exactly is the Treasury's guidance on that, because we have conflicting information on when exactly is the trigger for asking for the second tranche of money. Councilmember Kuali`i: By chance, do you know about the two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000) for Permanent Supportive Housing Construction? You mentioned Kealaula, so the County had a particular investment in Kealaula, was that around the same amount? Is this intended for one (1) project? Mr. Dahilig: The one difference in this case is that the moneys for the wraparound services are not included in this construction estimation. Given the price point of what we have reached at Kealaula, and that is not including what we are seeing as cost accelerations in the materials markets for construction, we still believe we can hit a price point relative to the same price point that we had at Kealaula due to the fact that each unit did need to put in some degree of off-site infrastructure and bear some of that cost. So that is one distinct difference in this line item, is that it does not include, unlike the State moneys that were given last time that provided opportunities for wraparound services to be paid for out of the same grant. One of the things to also consider is that approximately seven hundred thousand dollars ($700,000) of Kealaula was used as moneys that were not expended as part of Fiscal Year 2020 Emergency Funding and we came back to the Council for dialogue on pushing that money out towards building an additional six (6) or eight (8) units. I need to do a little bit of math, but it was approximately one hundred forty thousand dollars ($140,000) to one hundred sixty thousand dollars ($160,000) a unit by the time that we were done with the overall project. Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you. The two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000) could do a good amount in the second project, if you will, of this type and probably in the range of twenty-five (25) to thirty (30) units. Mr. Dahilig: Twenty-five (25) units would be a stretch, but I think that a goal of at least twenty (20) would be a fair target. COUNCIL MEETING 29 JUNE 16, 2021 Councilmember Kuali`i: My only other question on the other one, the one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) for Houseless Support; I heard you say "flex funding," so would this be open to whatever we need in this area? Mr. Dahilig: Our Houseless Coordinator tends to understand the nuance needs on the ground and should be given the ability to respond in a quick manner rather than trying to set specific initiatives. We understand that houselessness is a dynamic issue that does not provide a one-size fits-all solution. So that is providing support funds for her to resource and be nimble in her innovative approach towards dialogue with the community—at least put some tools in her bucket to be able to chase down what she needs a lot quicker than having to run up and down the chain as normal. Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Council Vice Chair Chock. Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. Just a follow-up, I think this is starting to put into perspective what we can achieve, so I appreciate the questions here. Some of the reports I am getting out of Lydgate is that we still have about fifty (50) or so unhoused people, half of them have serious health conditions and we are not even talking about Salt Pond and some of the other areas that we need to deal with. To put this in perspective, less than twenty (20) homes or shelters or transitional housing—there is still a big population, it is one small piece of it and I applaud the effort, but I really think that one hundred seventy thousand dollars ($170,000) and the focus on the continuing services that our coordinator needs, is key in helping us to maintain and move these programs forward. My only request is to be able to match these services with the numbers that we are dealing with, so we know how these funds are being directed and can get a better picture of what the need is moving forward. Mr. Dahilig: I acknowledge it, Councilmember Chock. I will also add that in anticipation that more funding is coming down the pipeline, we have already started to engage with Kaua`i Economic Opportunity (KEO) and looking at our homeless shelter that is currently across Kealaula and trying to add capacity there. We are already moving forward with sewerizing to that facility and taking it off of a cesspool, which will allow us to double the capacity. Hopefully as the next tranche of funds evolves, so we can get into dialogue about how we can ask the Council for their concurrence in using moneys to support that operation, considering that as you have mentioned the numbers that we are seeing demand us to look at our existing facilities to see where we can add more capacity where we are able. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: Thank you, Mike. For the non-entitlement three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000), are you folks going to come back with another draft budget for that or is the intention just to put it in these categories? COUNCIL MEETING 30 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: One moment Councilmember Evslin. Mike, can you remove the screen share? Then we will be able to see Councilmember Evslin. Thank you. Councilmember Evslin: Are you going to come back to us with a draft budget for the three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000) or allocate it to these categories after-the-fact? What is the intention there? Mr. Dahilig: Our intention is to come back to you folks and dialogue and collaborate on the expenditure plan for that additional tranche. As we went through the prioritization process of the seven million dollars ($7,000,000), it would have been a lot easier to have the three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000) at hand. We still do not understand the timing as to when we are going to be able to obtain those funds from the Treasury via the State or however the State sets it up with the Treasury Department. So rather than hold up the process on earmarking, we believe that moving forward and asking for the seven million dollars ($7,000,000) at this point makes sense. Then coming back to you folks for the three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000) and engaging in another dialogue in that stead would be how we would approach it. The one benefit this time around is that we are not "under the gun" like we were with CARES where we had to burn down funds very quickly. I believe this process of us putting together a budget and calling out different ideas actually provides a better expenditure plan, so we want to keep that same philosophy going forward with the additional tranche of funds. Councilmember Evslin: Okay, great. I know we have talked about it, but I was hoping you could explain the dollar funding for the cesspool conversion program. Mr. Dahilig: The unfortunate thing is that the Treasury guidance, although it is many pages, still does not hit on every single type of situation or possible expenditure. We know that during the budget process there was discussion about wanting to make more investments in cesspool conversion particularly with EPA funds that are on the table. So there are some questions raised in an inquiry with the Office of the County Attorney whether or not this would be an allowable expenditure under the Treasury's guidance. We sent a question to the Treasury to see if they would respond to this money being supportive of the disbursement of what is another Federal program; however, we have not received a response yet. What we have done in lieu of that is dollar-fund a line item for the Housing Agency to potentially move up to one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) in the contingency over to that fund when we do get some positive indication that we can spend the money in that respect. That is our intention if we do get a positive sign from the Treasury. Councilmember Evslin: Great. Thank you. That is the only question I have. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions on the cesspool conversion item? Let us stick to that line item for now. Council Vice Chair Chock. COUNCIL MEETING 31 JUNE 16, 2021 Councilmember Chock: Thank you. I will just add, Mike, I am looking at that question to the Treasury. I attended the water and sewer infrastructure questionnaire today with National Association of Counties (NACo) and the Interim Final Rule (IFR) suggested that necessary investment was definitely within that category of use of funds, but there is the discrepancy between the use of Administration and the cap. It sounds like it is possible, it is just the details of how those two (2) line items overlap that I think needs to be clarified. So hopefully I can get a response on my end. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there any other questions on the cesspool conversion? If not, Councilmember Cowden, we can move to another line item. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I am going to put two (2) in the collection, because they are similar—the Rise to Work for one million one hundred thousand dollars ($1,100,000), will that be an extension of the existing Rise to Work jobs or will there be a reapplication required? Also, comment on the County job placement support for two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000). Mr. Dahilig: With respect to Rise to Work and I will also briefly touch upon the philosophy behind providing support for nonprofits in this budget. What we do know is, as the economy recovers, the for-profit businesses are going to get the first wave of reinfusion of liquidity based off of economic activity, and then the nonprofit sector, which is reliant on the for-profit sector and the Government sector to provide support for those activities is going to lag a bit, simply because of the ability to roll over the amount of tax liability to nonprofit entities and instead support those agencies in that manner. We see it is important for the Rise to Work program to continue for those not-for-profit agencies, so that is where the 12-week extension is meant to support those businesses that are nonprofit that also right now, at this point in time, have existing employees that are on their payroll as part of the previous Rise to Work program. This is meant as an extension, not as a reopening of that. I know that I have committed to getting a list of these individuals—I am still working on that, so I will have to get that over to you folks as a separate communication. But just in response to your question, Councilmember, that is what the intention is for that particular line item. With respect to County job placement support—one of the interesting things that we are seeing in the economy is that there is a high demand for employees, but at the same time there is not many people who are actually seeking employment. We expect that to change at some point when the Federal"kickers" do roll away and also when you are starting to see some of the safeguards relating to eviction moratoria and those things come into play where people will now have to start getting real firm lines of employment and income into their households. This money is meant to backstop our current operation. We are in some dialogue and discussion right now with the State WIOA office regarding the program and we do have some contractual issues that we are working through in terms of the arrangement with them. This money is meant to make sure that the County staff that are providing the service presently at Hale Kokua, will continue to keep that shop open and to ensure that once job seeking opportunities are going to be in demand, that the employers and the prospective employees have a place COUNCIL MEETING 32 JUNE 16, 2021 to be able to shake hands and meet that objective of getting gainful employment for those that do not have employment right now. Councilmember Cowden: Thank you. I have a follow-up on that. I do not know if there is a matrix that we follow where we see how many people are leaving the island. I have personally assisted with a few people who have had to leave—it has not been easy for them, because they do not know where to go. They go somewhere and I know where they go, but it is unfamiliar areas to them. I am curious as to how much of our workforce is being economically driven off the island. I know in the early 2000's when Pamai and I were both on that Workforce Investment Board, we dropped our unemployment high rates, because we simply got rid of those people who did not have a job—we did not try to get rid of them, but we lost them. I think that is what is happening now. I see all over the place, restaurants that are closed for a day or are closing early. The gas station in my town is closing early and no longer has someone out in the booth—they just cannot find people to work. Do we track the exit of people? I do not know how we would. Is there any matrix that we look at of the workforce for who leaves? Mr. Dahilig: This is one of the opportunities where I have to say, Councilmember, I do not have a response to that. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Mr. Dahilig: I may have to come back to you and try to sort through whether we have data that is able to address what you are asking for, because I do not know of anything off hand that I think would highlight or address your question. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. At least for the record, for us to be recognizing workforce is leaving. It might be that we could look at how many new driver's licenses from fresh residents are being applied for, and I do not know when people who leave here get a fresh driver's license somewhere else, if that comes back to our Motor Vehicle Division. But I do, anecdotally, see an influx in and an influx out. People coming in mostly are bringing their own jobs with them. It is good for our economy, but it is not good for our workforce. So I think it is good for us to be able to anticipate and think about that, because when we are applying a next tranche of moneys or whatever way we might be doing it, the more we have our finger on the pulse of what is happening in our employment sector is important. I thank you for both of these areas of funding that are needed. Mr. Dahilig: Okay. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there anyfurtherquestions on anyof those items? Rise to Work, County job placement support, or the nonprofit economic loss support grants from the Members? Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: Not on one of these items, but a general question. COUNCIL MEETING 33 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Yes, we can start a new line item or a general question. Councilmember Kuali`i. (Councilmember Chock was noted as not present.) Councilmember Kuali`i: I am not sure if you said it, Mike, but on the five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000)for nonprofit, I was not sure if we were on that one. Is there a breakdown already or is there some kind of RFP process. Do you have intentions of where it is going to go or how is that going to breakdown? Mr. Dahilig: In terms of the five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) for nonprofit economic loss support grants, again, our focus on support here has been largely tuned to the nonprofit sector due to their lag in the economic recovery side. We envision this disbursement of funds to largely track what we did with the small business boost grants, as part of the CARES disbursement last summer, where a fixed amount would be available first-come, first-serve for any nonprofits that come in and apply for it given a show of economic need and economic loss. So we did that through our local credit unions as a means of being able to have those funds administered and disbursed and we are looking at something similar where it would be in like stead with the boost grants that provide a fixed amount for businesses small and large to be able to recover some loss. Councilmember Kuali`i: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: I spoke to you earlier about the agricultural assistance grant and I am hoping that two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) can be sponged again in the upcoming three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000) that we receive. I do not want us to forget food security. I know tourism is back. I know we are excited about shops open and up and running, but let us not forget what the pandemic taught us. (Councilmember Chock was noted as present.) Councilmember DeCosta: We ran out of food, our shipping prices with Matson, Young Brothers, and Sea Land is thirty-eight percent (38%) higher now, and prices of lumber. I want you folks to remember that food security is still a passion for all of us and I would like to see funding to continue at that realm, especially with our smaller community farms. Thank you, Mike. Mr. Dahilig: Acknowledged, Councilmember. Just in response, I would say that in following back after our conversations with Nalani who will be administering the oversite with these moneys, at least with this tranche of funding, we are looking at specifically trying to support health upgrades with small farmers to be able to have them be ready to sell to our food service industry. It seems to be that is a specific gap right now from that farm to table assembly line of getting things from our local farmers into food service, whether it be big or small establishments. So that is where they are going to be focusing on trying to get these COUNCIL MEETING 34 JUNE 16, 2021 folks to a point where their safety measures are up to health standards, so that they can get their products farm to table ready for purchase. Councilmember DeCosta: Are those funds earmarked for new and upcoming small community farms or is the two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) expunged already? Mr. Dahilig: In terms of being expunged, we still have not targeted specifically the number of farms, whether they would be new or existing. We suspect it would be predominately focused, at this point, at existing, but I would have to check with Nalani whether or not this would also be an invitation for those who want to start up farm operations to receive assistance as well. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you, Mike. Mr. Dahilig: Sure. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin, then Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Evslin: Thank you. I will bring my question around to a specific item. How set in stone is this budget? It seems like most of these could be relatively set. The one that seems like it is based on an unknown would be Emergency Operations Center Ongoing Response. Hopefully we get to seventy percent (70%) vaccination rates and we can wind down our response quickly, but that seems like a relative unknown. Do you folks have the flexibility to reallocate based on us winding that down or how is that going to work? Mr. Dahilig: If during this expenditure period it does not seem that we need the moneys in the emergency operations center response line item, we would work to try to reallocate it amongst the other line items for that support. We would not go out of the bounds of the current set of fifteen (15) items that are on the table right now, similar to how we would treat a normal budget transfer. Councilmember Evslin: Okay, thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Do you have a follow-up question on that? Councilmember DeCosta: New item, but not a follow-up. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: The two (2) elderly support; there is Elderly Mental Health Support and Elderly Food Support, so together it is two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000). We just had six hundred forty-two thousand dollars ($642,000) grant item that is ongoing, which is split over four (4) years, so I am recognizing that. But when we are doing this elderly support, are we including the houseless population where about half are elderly? In this past window of time the Agency on Elderly Affairs has reached more than they normally do to that community; COUNCIL MEETING 35 JUNE 16, 2021 would this be supporting that community as well or why did we select elderly support for this tranche? Mr. Dahilig: In the inception of trying to craft the proposal to the Council, we reached out to each of the different agencies that we know were forward-facing at this juncture in continuing community response for the pandemic. This is what Kealoha and her team recommended to us to be included in that. They sought to still have a maintenance of effort in mental health support, where currently we have CARES funding that is supporting EAP access for our kupuna that has served to be very critical in providing an ear and resources for that area for our kupuna especially throughout the pandemic, which has been very isolating in nature. So that is meant as a sustainment of effort and that would be the same for the food support. As you have mentioned, Councilmember Cowden, there has been a surge of need across the board with their existing food programs. This is meant to back stop and maintain a level of service they believe reflects the current surge in asks, so that is where this would not necessarily be an expansion of any particular program, rather just a maintenance of what they have been able to put in place this last March. Councilmember Cowden: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Do we have any other questions from the Members on these elderly items? We will take a caption break, then we will come back to Councilmember Kuali`i with a follow-up question on the elderly and keep going. There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 10:30 a.m. The meeting reconvened at 10:44 a.m., and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Kaneshiro: Welcome back. Councilmember Kuali`i has questions regarding the elderly line items. Councilmember Kuali`i: I know you said a little bit about it Mike, but I know earlier today we voted on six hundred forty-two thousand six hundred eighty-one dollars ($642,681) for the Agency on Elderly Affairs and that was also American Rescue Plan moneys. A lot of it went to different things like supportive services, congregate meals, home-delivered meals, and this was to expand their existing programs to reach more of our elders. I do not know what their wait list is like, but I did submit a follow-up question. So along those lines, you said these moneys are more flexible, not necessarily specifically for those particular programs. Will the money still go there or is the County doing it directly like food boxes? How is this the same or different? Mr. Dahilig: Early on in the pandemic we launched food box programs to help pair our local farmers with kupuna that could not leave their homes and provide them sustenance during that early pandemic period. That program has evolved over time, but still would be in that food box type of approach where those who are still receiving some services from the Agency on Elderly Affairs due to the pandemic would be continued on in that manner. With respect to the ARPA moneys that were specifically set as part of the Title III funds—that is a different COUNCIL MEETING 36 JUNE 16, 2021 program, but it is meant as a more sustained expansion from what I understand. In terms of how long that waitlist is, we will keep an eye out for the communication and we will also try to elaborate in more detail how the food support program will integrate with this additional funding from the ARPA. Councilmember Kuali`i: I have something that is very specific. I do not know if the food boxes, in working with the farmers...I know it included fresh vegetables and fruits, but I do not know if it included poi, but I think for some of our kapuna who are especially needy, it would be good if we could include poi, too. Just putting that out there. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any further questions from the Members on these elderly line items? If not, we will move on to new line items. Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: I like the poi idea. That is good. While we are at it, let us add organic grass-fed beef also, so let us not stop there, Councilmember Kuali`i. You always impress me. Mike, K-PAL Youth Mental Recovery Support Programs for the three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000). Do we have a K-PAL position through KPD or was that defunded? Mr. Dahilig: My understanding is that community policing includes K-PAL programming and it may not necessarily be a specific position that is dedicated based off of the way that Chief Raybuck has organized that office, but is included in the different community policing programs that they do. Our intention in the pre-dialogue with the Councilmembers were that there was a desire to see more resources pushed towards our youth in terms of their ability to recover from the pandemic. We see this as a way to enhance some of the K-PAL programing, so this would not necessarily be to fund the position, rather to be able to have that community policing core be able to have more tools at their disposal to support our youth as we get back to normal. Councilmember DeCosta: I understand that Mike, but three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) is quite a large amount of money and I am just asking that question, because prior when I coached K-PAL with Mark Ozaki, it was a designated position through KPD. I am asking now, if the Chief is listening, do we have a designated position right now through the budget of KPD with K-PAL and this is additional funding or does this funding support the position? Mr. Dahilig: Let me be clear in terms of that. If you look at the agency that is responsible, it is our office, so it is not meant specifically as an earmark for the police department. We know that there are other initiatives that are on the lines of leadership development and those types of things that could help with youth mental health recovery support. We just saw that a partnership with K-PAL would be an opportunity to provide resources that way. Our office's intent behind this would not be to provide money for additional positions—that would be our intention. Chief Raybuck, if he is on the line, can elaborate more about how they are currently set up, but given that the funding is not earmarked specifically for the police COUNCIL MEETING 37 JUNE 16, 2021 department and moreso for our office to handle—our intention is not to add another position. Councilmember DeCosta: Okay. Can the Chief answer that question for me? K-PAL will currently be up and running and do we have a designated officer in that K-PAL position? Council Chair Kaneshiro: The Chief may not be on. He might not be at his desk. Councilmember DeCosta: Okay. I guess we can find that out later. Council Chair Kaneshiro: We can send a written request to the Chief on that. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: I have a follow-up. Some of our youth mental health assistance went to a skate park in Kapa`a—boy is that a success. I would say the mental health of the kids running around on that looks pretty high emotional tone. It is unbelievable how much joy is bouncing around that concrete. Could this youth mental health recovery support end up partly in another skate park moneys, because we did have some left over in our parks money? (Council Chair Kaneshiro was noted as not present.) Councilmember Cowden: We are looking at Waimea or somewhere else. I know there was a thought towards `Ele`ele. A lot of the Lima Ola work underway is not ready yet. (Council Chair Kaneshiro was noted as present.) Councilmember Cowden: So it could be things like that, as well. I am not trying to narrow you in to doing a skate park right now, but that could fall under that money too, is that right? Mr. Dahilig: At this juncture, we do have the normal CIP budget for Fiscal Year 2022 moneys for skate park development. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Mr. Dahilig: So our focus would be to use those moneys that are actually in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget for any type of additional skate park construction. It does not necessarily exclude it for potential future expenditure, but our intention with this was not infrastructure, but rather programing. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. COUNCIL MEETING 38 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: Mike, I wanted to ask a question about K-PAL. Is it still the plan to house the program at the stadium? The facility part that we were talking about having that structure and having it more of a location area. Mr. Dahilig: We are looking at something at this juncture that, at least from the dialogue with individual Councilmembers, it seemed like there was a need to more rapidly push support programs out to our keiki. So we were not looking at this from a standpoint of construction, rather things that we can rapidly get out there to support some of those gaps that are being articulated to us. Future tranches of funding does not preclude expenditure on that, as long as we get clearance from the Office of the County Attorney, but we think at this go around given what we are hearing, something that we can get out of the gates quickly is what we are after. Councilmember Carvalho: Okay. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions for any other line items? Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: Grant Management Overhead/Contingency Year 1 for KEMA for two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) beyond the emergency operation center ongoing response of one million dollars ($1,000,000). What is that two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000)? Mr. Dahilig: Just like with the CARES Act budget, we did need administrative support to ensure documentation and throttling on expenditures to be in line with the Federal requirements mainly things like ensuring or following Chapter 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations on expenditure of money, et cetera. The amount, as mentioned previously, includes one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) that is being held in there in case we get a good read from the Federal government on cesspool conversion, of which one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) of that would move into the cesspool conversion line item and we would be left with only one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) in overhead, which we would envision only involves, at best, one (1) individual having to sort through with all the compliance and reporting that is going to be necessary to use these funds and maintain good standing with the Federal government. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any other questions from the Members on that line item? If not, are there any further questions? Councilmember Kuali`i. Councilmember Kuali`i: Mike, is that generally allowed as an administrative fee of sorts for managing the entire funding? COUNCIL MEETING 39 JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. Dahilig: We are trying to keep it as low as possible, because we are trying to push as much money towards programs rather than overhead—that is our objective. Some places may charge up to ten percent (10%) overhead and we are trying to keep it to one percent (1%) or two percent (2%) on our end and we think that we are able to do so given the amount of effort that was needed to maintain the CARES money. Councilmember Kuali`i: That is exactly what I was going to say. I often have seen the administrative fees are around ten percent (10%), so this is definitely much lower. But you are putting it towards programs as much as possible—that is really important too, thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: Since we have people listening, I briefly want to note there is adolescent drug treatment support for two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) and domestic violence prevention grants for one hundred twenty-one thousand dollars ($121,000). Do you want to speak to the adolescent drug treatment funding? Mr. Dahilig: As we continue to look at transitioning the center back to usage as an adolescent drug treatment center, which Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami has committed to do, and the pandemic threw a wrench in our intended plans, the moneys that are coming from the Legislature are a sign of commitment to ensuring that "kick start" moneys are there to get that center up and running. We feel it appropriate that we also take same like funding. Because the State legislature used ARPA funds for that earmark, then for us, we should also contribute to the cause, so that is where the two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) in drug treatment support is meant to pair with the State support that Senator Kouchi and the Legislature was able to put in this year's budget. Councilmember Cowden: Okay. Just for clarity, that was one million three hundred thousand dollars ($1,300,000), I believe, that came from the State. So that would be putting one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000) to help launch the adolescent drug treatment. Thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: I was wondering if Nalani is still on. The two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) on the nonprofit economic loss support for local grants; can you educate us on that? Mr. Dahilig: I do not see Nalani on the line. Would you like me to answer the question or would you like me to see if I can call her in? Councilmember DeCosta: Either way. I would like to know where that money will be going and what nonprofits are going to be benefiting. COUNCIL MEETING 40 JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. Dahilig: I am sorry, you were on mute. Councilmember DeCosta: I would like to know, is this a lump sum going out to different nonprofits? How do we allocate it? How do they qualify if it is nonprofits? What nonprofits? Mr. Dahilig: Like we did under the CARES Act, when we did it for all businesses, we provided what was called the boost grant, which was a fixed amount of money that was given to each business or company that showed a degree of economic loss, so it was a fixed amount. We are looking at trying to restart that program just for nonprofit entities that are qualified under the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 501(c)(3) Code. It would be a fixed amount that would be given as a boost, not necessarily based off of the size of the organization or a particular type of economic loss. So it is restarting a program that we had last summer, but instead, this time, we would be focused on nonprofits. Councilmember DeCosta: Okay, I will send an E-mail to Nalani to follow-up. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Council Vice Chair Chock. Councilmember Chock: Just a follow-up on the adolescent treatment center line item. Thank you for providing clarity on what its intent is and I am glad the County is investing in it as well. I know you folks are in discussion and I have had some meetings recently in terms of us progressing the treatment center forward; have we come to a resolution on that item, so we can anticipate the use of these funds? Mr. Dahilig: At this point in time, we are proceeding as if we are in normal course. We have engaged in discussions with Hawai`i Health Systems Corporation Leadership on the center. We remain committed to seeing that the County remains a partner in being able to get the center up and running. What we will say is that, at this point in time, we have no intention to respond at any juncture to calls to have the center revert back to a private entity without cause. Until this turns into a legal claim or legal demand, we will come to the Council with that information through our attorneys if that becomes a critical issue where a claim or some type of specific performance lawsuit may be demanded upon the County. Councilmember Chock: Thank you. My hope is that it does not move in that direction as you have mentioned and that there is a resolution that can be obtained, so the pass-through to get the center up and running is reached. Based on your response, it does not seem like that is the direction it is going. Mr. Dahilig: Our intent is to stay focused on the kids. We have no interest in getting "bogged down" in anything that would impede the progression of being able to find the best formula to get this up and running. But like in any multi-agency or multi-entity dynamic, there are differences of opinions. What I can say for Mayor Kawakami has always been consistent, is that the center will be used for an adult and adolescent health care purpose at this point, as part of the COVID-19 pandemic—it was never meant as a permanent usage. We need to transfer COUNCIL MEETING 41 JUNE 16, 2021 that particular operation out of that center at a point where we have a sustainable plan to be able to get something financially up and running. That is where I think the funds both proposed here and the moneys that are being proposed as part of the State's legislature budget to the Governor are meant to provide that kick-starting opportunity to have whatever entity would come in to run the center—have the kick-starting funds to get critical mass and up and running. As we have seen with the past two (2) attempts at requests for proposals through our procurement process, the original idea and the commitment that was made to not have the center draw on additional State taxpayer resources is not something that is tenable. So it is important for us to recognize that and move on from that initial presumption and provide support where necessary. So we see this two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) as moneys in recognition of that model that cannot work as initially envisioned where the center would be self-sustaining. Councilmember Chock: Thank you. I hope that we can move this forward quickly and expediently for the sake of the kids. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: I am glad the County is committed. First hand, I do work for the Department of Education and I have been involved with the group of adolescent who needs that drug treatment center up and running. We had to relocate them to Kaua`i High School at a portable, which they originally had a classroom at the drug treatment center. Now, I believe, going forward, next year, we have them at three (3) different schools. Waimea, Kapa`a, and Kaua`i High Schools where they will not be altogether. So we are spreading our resources out. I know the building is being used for adults, but I believe it is a far cry from what it was first set out to be. We need to work together to make it happen. The kids have already been impacted, especially at the high school level. I was able to go in a classroom to teach these kids and they are the very ones who need to be in a facility like that with the mental health services, with the educational platform, and all the different entities. I am really glad the County and Mayor Kawakami are committed. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: I just wanted to follow-up. The intent of the adolescent center is really about the youth, and you mentioned that earlier. We had numerous discussions on this project and I think there was never any intent to put one over the other, we are just trying to make it work, make it fit, make it happen. I am not trying to cause any kind of conflict, if you will, and I am hoping working together, we can continue to dialogue and talk about it. Once we get into any legal issues—you folks know that it causes all of this stuff and avoids—so I am hoping that as a Councilmember, we can continue to work together and make this center work sooner than later. It is very important. It is not about others and you know this. I just wanted to mention that and continue to work closely with the Administration to see how we can really come up to a solid continued plan. We have a plan in place, from what I understand, so I look forward to more conversation and not having to take any legal action, but really work it for the betterment of our youth who really needs this facility tomorrow. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. COUNCIL MEETING 42 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any further questions from the Members on any of the items? Is there any final discussion from the Members? Councilmember Chock, then Councilmember Kuali`i. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. First, I want to thank you, Mike, the Office of the Mayor, and the Administration for having this dialogue prior to this meeting to discuss and collaborate with the Council to come up with this budget and I can see some of these requests have been really taken to heart and included—the youth mental recovery and cesspool conversion, to note. In comparison, I will share with my colleagues, I know there are other counties who are fighting over these funds that are not much, but they are fighting over it nonetheless to a degree where ten percent (10%) to twenty percent (20%) is being reserved by the Council. I think that limits the community and County, in general, when we lack the ability to collaborate, so I want to thank and acknowledge that. I also want to shed light on moving forward, there is this and another round of it that we might be able to take a look at, and of course the three million dollars ($3,000,000) that was identified. None of this that we are looking at here today would have been possible if, one, the reserve was not there for the shortfalls. Also, we have done well with our Real Property Tax because of the market in itself, so we have not had to deal with that shortfall there. That being said, I think the County has a lot of priorities that we need to and should be looking at to address. I think one was mentioned by Councilmember DeCosta, certainly food security, which is identified in this is something that I think we should continue to look at. To me, that qualifies not only in industry development, but also to be looking at a way to pivot new industries and supporting those ideas that we need to take into consideration to be more sustainable and more renewable from the economic standpoint. The other part that came to light to me on the call today with NACo was that these funds can actually address some of our existing challenges infrastructure-wise, in particularly flood mitigation. So the County is right in the midst of hazard mitigation plans. This ARPA funding can go towards flood management and I think it is a big issue. I know it is a jurisdictional issue that we have struggled with and whatever funds we had from the last 2018 floods have been dissected and torn apart. I think we need to cross this bridge, so to speak, sooner than later, in identifying roles and that requires us to put some funding to come up with strong plans on how it can take care of our flooding issues, because I think that is on the horizon that will come back to "bite us in the butt," if we do not take a look at it. I am mentioning those things as opportunities that we can look at as a County and address for future funding. I will be supporting this. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Kuali`i. Councilmember Kuali`i: I just wanted to say thank you for this and the breakdown for the way it is. I am appreciative of the moneys going towards supportive housing and houseless support. I am looking forward to hearing more, as soon as you have more information on the three million seven hundred thousand dollars ($3,700,000). Lastly, when Council Vice Chair Chock asked a question about the adolescent treatment center, I think we received more information than just what COUNCIL MEETING 43 JUNE 16, 2021 this one hundred thousand dollar ($100,000) line item represents, but I will say that since Councilmember Carvalho and I have been working with you, the Mayor, and the community in moving this forward, I am very confident that we are at a place now that the overall direction part is done, the day-to-day managerial negotiation part is what is left and I have every confidence in the Mayor and yourself, Managing Director, to work with HHSC and with the new nonprofit Kaua`i Adolescent Treatment Center for Healing (KATCH) on what final steps need to be put in place, so we can get the treatment center up and running as soon as possible. I am happy the Department of Health is supportive and ready to transition away from serving as the isolation center fairly quickly so that can happen. If you need any additional support from us, please let us know. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Carvalho. Councilmember Carvalho: I wanted to thank Mike and Mayor for this budget. I totally support it. I really appreciate the outreach to all of us individually to have discussion on it before. The agricultural part is a big part—all of it is very important, I like the layout, but the agricultural part that we had further discussion on, duplicating Aina Ho`okupu 0 Kilauea, that kind of setting in different parts of our island, and the farm to table—that kind of thinking, maybe more support that way through the agricultural part of this discussion. Of course, the adolescent part, working together to make it happen. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk line-by-line and have healthy discussions. Mahalo for that and I look forward to more positive outcomes in all of these areas. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: First of all, I do want to echo that I appreciate that we have had the Reserve Funds available, so we have been able to have this collective choice to push this tranche of ARPA funds to the broader community. I think we need to keep an eye on inflation when we are seeing taxes going up. Soon, we are going to see our bills go up proportionately, because across the islands, the nation, and the world, everything is going up, so the value of money is less and we have a challenge with that. I want to speak to what Council Vice Chair Chock has said about flood mitigation. Councilmember Carvalho and I have been working on trying to bridge that gap of division between departments of the different layers of government on our rivers—that is important to me. I feel like all of this is reasonable, of course it would be wonderful to have a lot more money, because there is lot more things that need to be addressed. On the adolescent drug treatment facility, I have a deep interest in that and as Committee Chair for Public Safety & Human Services Committee, I am a little stunned that this has not been brought to me for a conversation—I want some inclusion. I am going be looking closer at this issue as we are struggling through it, but hopefully we will be able to find a way to get this up and functioning rapidly. I am glad for the one million three hundred thousand dollars ($1,300,000) that we did get from the State, because that was a big part of the impasse that we were dealing with. So I am supportive of this and it will be interesting how we will handle the three million seven hundred eighty-three dollars ($3,783,000) and the rest. Thank you for the work you have done, Managing Director Mike Dahilig and everyone involved. COUNCIL MEETING 44 JUNE 16, 2021 Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember Evslin. Councilmember Evslin: I just mostly echo what my colleagues have said in that I really appreciate this proposed budget. I appreciate the work that you folks did with us beforehand and the collaboration on it. I think we were lucky in so many ways on Kaua`i and the smart policy and the heroic efforts of our community kept COVID-19 at bay, so we were able to avoid those negative health impacts, but the other tremendous costs of the pandemic—costs on the community, mental health, et cetera, cost on our businesses we did bear and that was disproportionately often to the elderly, youth, businesses, nonprofits, and houseless. So I really appreciate both the CARES Act and this ARPA money in really trying to push all of that out to the community. I know there was a clear policy decision that you folks had here between trying to refill our Reserve or using this to push it out to the community and when I think the community wore the cost of smart and necessary policy, it was important to push this out, so I really appreciate that. Again, obviously none of that would have been possible if we did not have a strong Reserve—also, my appreciation to former Councils. I want to advocate a little bit as we move forward with the three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000), I know that you folks have or are trying to figure out ways to help businesses in that gap group in some capacity. From my perspective, a lot of the Federal relief money came too late, so the businesses that really needed it ended up going out of business. Then the second tranche of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding was so huge, the Small Business Association (SBA) relief money that can refund restaurants loss revenues for 2020, but that does not help all the places that already went out of business. I think as we are talking about gap businesses that did not receive relief, they are really those who went out of business already. I do not know how to structure this, but if we were trying to figure out some gap relief funding, it would be possibly start-up capital for any business that went out of business in 2020 or early 2021 that did not get Federal money; maybe getting a small County grant towards some start-up relief could go a long way. My other small pitch for that next tranche of funding would be to echo of what Councilmember Cowden was saying regarding the skatepark. For me, part of the lesson of the pandemic was realizing the importance of outdoor public spaces that is such an important place for our community to build community and healthy physical and mental health in these spaces. Often, what the shutdown showed was the lack of vibrant outdoor public spaces here. The skatepark coming out of CARES Act was a good example of what this money can go towards, which I do not know what the word Councilmember Cowden used, creating bundles of joy or something in that concrete park, but hopefully we can look at trying to allocate more money toward mental health, but towards physical infrastructure, especially because we have a longer time period to spend the money down, it would be great to see more vibrant open spaces built with that. Anyway, that is all, I appreciate the effort and the collaboration here. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Councilmember DeCosta. Councilmember DeCosta: Thank you, Councilmember Evslin. You almost took the words right out of my mouth and said it even better than I could have COUNCIL MEETING 45 JUNE 16, 2021 said it. I just want to echo again, Mike, Mayor, thank you for being transparent from the get-go with this budget proposal. The prior meeting that we had answered a lot of the questions. I am impressed when we spoke to Mike and mentioned a couple of different areas like the one million dollars ($1,000,000) that comes from the Emergency Operating Center and the two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) that is an additional to the grant management overhead. There will be some funding that may not be used. I need to echo what Councilmember Carvalho said, the food security, Council Vice Chair Chock, I cannot reiterate it more. Granted we slated money in this for small farmers for farm to table and getting their product from their farm certified, washed, and in the market, but we have not put money towards animal raising or farming. We have models out there and I speak a lot with Council Vice Chair Chock, our taro farmers have great community taro projects like Waipa and Uncle Preston Wan in Ha'ena where they work in the taro patch and get to take home taro—it is a different philosophy than raising vegetables and selling them at the farmers' market. We need to create a sense of community and I am hoping the next three million eight hundred thousand dollars ($3,800,000) can be earmarked to create animal community farming. In dialogue with Council Chair Kaneshiro and Councilmember Cowden, having our homeless become ranchers to have a purpose to have a place to live while farming and ranching. I am hoping that can be a dream come true, so please keep us in mind on the next round of funding. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there any final words of discussion? Councilmember Kuali`i. Councilmember Kuali`i: Just the last point, Councilmember Cowden talked about being stunned that this was not brought to her attention. I will say that it was not brought to Councilmember Carvalho's or my attention by the Administration, but in fact it was Councilmember Carvalho and I who initiated...once we saw the article in the newspaper about the repurposing of the center, we initiated trying to get back to where the original purpose was. So we thought it could involve a Resolution or any other policy, so obviously because of Sunshine Law, we are limited to two (2) Councilmembers pursuing any type of issue, so that is how it came about. Along the way we met with the community and the Administration and things have developed and now we are getting to a place where it is about to go back to where it originally started. It only seems like people are left in the dark, because I believe the Administration is at a place now, where after they make their final negotiations and figure exactly how it will take shape, then I would say to Mike, it would be an appropriate time to come before the Council and give us an update on what the plans are, how it is going to come to fruition, and how we are going to deliver to our community how it is intended and always wanted. Thank you. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there anyone else? If not, I just want to say I appreciate this money coming in, it is an extra ten million dollars ($10,000,000) to our County, which is a big amount of money for our County. As the accountant in me would say, let us put all this money into the Reserve, but at this time, stimulating the economy, assisting with mental health in the community, providing funding for housing and homeless, and mitigating the negative impacts that the community has felt from COVID-19 last year and going into this year, are definitely much more pressing than my desire to have a healthy Reserve fund. This money coming in is COUNCIL MEETING 46 JUNE 16, 2021 going to be needed to help stimulate the economy and get things going. I will continue to look at other ways to help build our Reserve back up, but at this time, I think these priorities are more pressing than replenishing our Reserve. I am happy in the line items that you have proposed and these are all items that are much needed. I think all Councilmembers and everyone in the community recognizes that these are the items that the community is asking for, needs, and wants, so I am appreciative that we are spending the money towards these items. Councilmember Cowden. Councilmember Cowden: I just have a little bit more to say. I realize right now we are speaking to the three million seven hundred eighty thousand dollars ($3,780,000) as well, when we vote on this, we are accepting both, right? So we are accepting one open, correct? Council Chair Kaneshiro: We are accepting to apply for, receive, and expend the seven million dollars ($7,000,000) and the three million dollars ($3,000,000), but as the Administration said, they will come back to us with a plan on the three million seven hundred eighty thousand dollars ($3,780,000). Councilmember Cowden: Okay. I was hoping we had some input on that. I am pleased and think all of us would like to help our houseless community. There are a lot more than who are just in the parks, so I am very proud of Kealaula and we could build another one, as Councilmember DeCosta is saying. The people themselves are saying community first is ahead of housing first—a lot of these people have a bonding from their hardship. So Councilmember Kuali`i and I are going to be going to O`ahu, and I have been working with the Waimanalo and Waianae groups to look and see how we can be building on both. Twinkle, who is the head of the Waianae group, has a statement that I thought really resonated as accurate with me and that is, "what is needed is a little kuleana to wake up people's mance." Whether it is a farm or ranch, one of the things that makes them so good together as a group is that they take care of each other—that is something I see. A lot of times they turn down opportunities not because they do not want to follow the rules, but because they do not want to leave each other. So when people have different injuries or disabilities, they are able to support one another. I am excited that we are all looking at how we can help these communities and come up with a cost-effective way to be able to spread that money further and farther. We need to be taking a look at that, especially if we have happier outcomes as a result. I am very thankful that I hear the resounding interest in this, and I think that we are going to see, if we are not careful and do not create solutions, if all we are doing is creating a house, what we really need is to create solutions, because my concern is there will be more displacement as we are seeing national trends for wholesale buying of single-family homes by investment organizations. So a family is not just competing with other families, they are competing with big financial institutions for buying housing. We are going to have to out create that problem and that lines up very well with food security, wood, building, we have trees that we could cut and reuse, there are a lot of ways that we could be more resilient, and that creates that kuleana to help create the mina. I like the direction that we are going. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Is there any further discussion from the Members? COUNCIL MEETING 47 JUNE 16, 2021 (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding this agenda item.) The motion to approve C 2021-144 was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. Next item. CLAIMS: C 2021-145 Communication (05/28/2021) from the County Clerk, transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kaua`i by Dylan DePue, for damage to his property, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kaua`i. C 2021-146 Communication (06/01/2021) from the County Clerk, transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kaua`i by Donald S. Greer, for personal physical and punitive damages, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kaua`i. Councilmember Cowden moved to refer C 2021-145 and C 2021-146 to the Office of the County Attorney for disposition and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Councilmember Kuali`i. Council Chair Kaneshiro: Are there any questions or discussion from the Members? (No written testimony was received and no registered speakers requested to testify regarding these agenda items.) The motion to refer C 2021-145 and C 2021-146 to the Office of the County Attorney for disposition and/or report back to the Council was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Kaneshiro: The motion is carried. That concludes the business on our agenda. Not seeing or hearing any objections, this Council Meeting is now adjourned. ADJOURNMENT. There being no further business, the Council Meeting adjourned at 11:29 a.m. Respectfully submitted, JA ►. FOUNTAIN-TANIGAWA County Clerk :jY A