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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05/31/2017 Council minutes COUNCIL MEETING MAY 31, 2017 The Council Meeting of the Council of the County of Kaua`i was called to order by Council Chair Mel Rapozo at the Council Chambers, 4396 Rice Street, Suite 201, Lihu`e, Kaua`i, on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 8:30 a.m., after which the following Members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Arthur Brun Honorable Mason K. Chock Honorable Ross Kagawa (present at 9:46 a.m.) Honorable Arryl Kane shiro Honorable Derek S.K. Kawakami Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Honorable Mel Rapozo APPROVAL OF AGENDA. Councilmember Kaneshiro moved for approval of the agenda as circulated, seconded by Councilmember Chock, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. JADE K. FOUNTAIN-TANIGAWA, County Clerk: The next item is the minutes. MINUTES of the following meetings of the Council: May 10, 2017 Public Hearing re: Resolution No. 2017-25, Bill No. 2645, and Bill No. 2646 May 17, 2017 Public Hearing re: Bill No. 2647, Bill No. 2648, and Bill No. 2649 Councilmember Chock moved to approve the Minutes as circulated, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. COUNCIL MEETING 2 MAY 31, 2017 There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to approve the Minutes as circulated was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: The next item is the Consent Calendar, C 2017-125. CONSENT CALENDAR: C 2017-125 Communication (05/05/2017) from the Mayor, submitting his Supplemental Budget Communication for Fiscal Year 2017-2018 and Proposed Amendments to the Budget Bills, pursuant to Section 19.02A of the Kaua`i County Charter. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: We have one (1) registered speaker. Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to remove C 2017-125 from the Consent Calendar, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to receive C 2017-125 for the record, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: With that, I will suspend the rules. Mr. Mickens. There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony: GLENN MICKENS: Good morning Councilmembers. My testimony is about budget tax and waste. I will appreciate any of you responding to my concerns by E-mail or one-on-one since you cannot respond here. First, I want to thank this Council for refusing to increase our Real Property Tax, as the Mayor proposed. However, The Garden Island said that you proposed to take money from the Reserve Fund and from cuts in the budget to make up for the money that would have been generated from the raise in the property tax. From everything I have heard from Vice Chair Kagawa, Council Chair Rapozo, and everybody else, our County is broke. So why should where we take money from a depleted General Fund that is already hurting? I have heard that the Reserve Fund is supposed to have a ten percent (10%) or fifteen percent (15%) emergency balance in case of hurricanes or expected disasters. Even that money is not there. I fully support cutting excesses in the budget that are not needed, like raises for County employees making over one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), who do not need it, or by COUNCIL MEETING 3 MAY 31, 2017 simply finding the waste that our late Auditor, Ernie Pasion, found in his well-done eight (8) audits. I think all of you folks have a copy of this audit that I have before me. If you have not seen it, I will ask you to please get a copy, read it, and read it carefully. For years, a few of you members have heard me complain about irregularities going on with the roads resurfacing and repaving program, getting less asphalt concrete (AC) put down than what we are paying for. Only when Larry Dill became our County Engineer did our methodology change for the better and we finally started paving by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) or Hawai`i Asphalt Paving Industry (HAPI) standards, and we were getting the one and a half (1.5) inches of final overlay on our roads that we were paying for. I brought pieces of AC from our roads to these Chambers—Council Chair Rapozo and Councilmember Yukimura were here—that were one-half (0.5) to three-quarters (0.75) of an inch thick, not the one and a half (1.5) that we were paying for. I also met with mayors, engineers, and County members at sites where these practices were going on, and yet no one wanted to pursue or find out what was happening. I have these pictures that I would like you to take a look at. They are in color, so I could not get copies of them. When I asked these people who were now making sure that past irregular practices were corrected and why or who was responsible for them, I was told that they would not go there. When these practices were costing taxpayers millions of dollars, we should certainly be willing to investigate and find out who was responsible. I still hope that someone has the courage to get an answer and assure the taxpayers that no one is above the law. Whether it was the fault of the County, the contractor, or whoever, the matter should certainly be investigated. I showed you some pictures I took of Hauiki Road, which you have, where this road is cracking since an improper amount of AC was put down in October 2010, before Larry Dill became our Engineer. A rural road like this with minimal traffic... Council Chair Rapozo: Glenn, I am sorry, I have to stop you real quick. Is there anyone else wishing to testify? Seeing none, you may continue. Mr. Mickens: Thank you, Council Chair. A rural road like this with minimal traffic should have lasted twenty (20) years or more before repaving, but in five (5) years, it is deteriorated and will need work. That is inexcusable. In summary, I ask you and our Administration to fully investigate waste and improper action like this before taking the easy way out and raising our taxes. Look at Ernie's audits and make sure his recommendations have been complied with. He makes these recommendations all of the time and he puts the findings and what has been done. Have we seen that this action has been taken care of? If it has, I have not heard it. I have not heard the County Engineer come up here and read any of these things and show us where whatever Ernie recommended they agreed with, but I want to see this happening. Those audits cost the taxpayers a lot of money and were well-worth it only if his recommendations are activated. I have also given you an executive summary of what Ernie did when he examined our roads resurfacing for the fiscal year 2006-2007 and ask that you COUNCIL MEETING 4 MAY 31, 2017 please read it and his total audit of the County Capital Project Management booklet. I suppose I am basically asking you folks to take a good, hard look at these great eight (8) audits that Ernie did, particularly. I asked him, even before he became our Auditor, about the roads and what it was doing, and gratefully, he took it under consideration. It was one of the first things he did audit. I would really appreciate you folks taking a look at this. If I am wrong in what I am asking you, tell me that I am wrong or at least show me where I am wrong. If I am right, then go ahead and pursue what I am trying to ask you to do. It gets discouraging to sit here year after year, like "The Shadow," bringing certain things to you that need doing and they just seem to drop off the radar screen. Thank you. I appreciate it. Council Chair Rapozo: Glenn, Councilmember Yukimura has a clarifying question for you. Councilmember Yukimura, clarifying or restating question. Councilmember Yukimura: Good morning, Glenn. Mr. Mickens: Good morning, Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: You said that after Larry Dill came, changes were made. Do you have any evidence that we are deviating from the changes that Larry made now? Mr. Mickens: When that road was paved down there by the school, Olohena Road going up the grave, from the roundabout, going up there— when he paved that, he showed me and I was assured that we were getting proper methodology by doing it. Again, Larry was going according to HAPI and AASHTO standards, which we were not doing before. Councilmember Yukimura: Right, so this is an example of government actually hearing you, Glenn, and we thank you for raising the issues and making the changes that you felt were necessary, correct? Mr. Mickens: Larry is gone and that is my... Council Chair Rapozo: Again, the clarifying question, you answered it. Mr. Mickens: Yes. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Councilmember Yukimura: Has it continued? Council Chair Rapozo: He said "yes." COUNCIL MEETING 5 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Yukimura: Okay, very good. Thank you. Mr. Mickens: Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Anyone else wishing to testify? If not, I will call the meeting back to order. There being no further testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Rapozo: Any further discussion? I do want to say that, Glenn, we have had this discussion many times and the fact that you receive an answer that you are not happy with does not mean that you are not getting that answer. Larry Dill came up years ago and said, "Yes, we have been paving at one and a half(1.5) inch and we are going to convert to two (2) inches. We are going to follow the standards," which you said he did. He said we are also going to start putting shoulder work into the contracts, which they did. I think a lot was done. As far as the audit, I can assure you that we have been...it is in procurement right now...we are going to do follow-up audits on those audits, provided this Council approves it, but that is one of my intentions, which is to get those audits back on the floor, have the auditors come back and make sure that we are following up on the recommendations that were provided. That is in process right now, set the Administration now for the procurement of the auditors to come back, so that is going to be done. I guess it troubles me when I keep hearing, "You folks do not respond," but we do and that question has been answered numerous times, maybe not to your liking and maybe not to mine either, but it is what it is. At some point, the public needs to understand the limitations of this Council. We can ask the questions. The Administration is really the ones that are tasked with doing it. As far as I know and as far as I am concerned after the audit, I think Larry Dill did make those adjustments. We have not paved enough roads to see if it is working or not. That is the bigger problem. Anyway, I just wanted to make that clarification that those questions have been answered on numerous occasions. Any other discussion? The motion to receive C 2017-125 for the record was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: The next item is C 2017-126. Chair, there is an accompanying Executive Session with this one. Did you want to put that towards the end? Council Chair Rapozo: Yes. COUNCIL MEETING 6 MAY 31, 2017 Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: We are on page 2, C 2017-127. There being no objections, C 2017-127 was taken out of order. COMMUNICATIONS: C 2017-127 Communication (05/09/2017) from the Director of Parks & Recreation, requesting Council approval to accept and expend a donation in the amount of $50.00 from an anonymous donor, in appreciation of their continued use of the facilities at Po`ipu Beach Park: Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to approve C 2017-127, seconded by Councilmember Chock. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to approve C 2017-127 was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. C 2017-128 Communication (05/10/2017) from Michael A. Dahilig, Clerk of the Planning Commission, transmitting the Planning Commission's recommendation to amend Chapter 8, Kauai County Code 1987, as amended, to allow for the creation of a new University Zoning District: Councilmember Chock moved to receive C 2017-128 for the record, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: I think this comes up later on in the agenda. Is that correct? Council Chair Rapozo: That is correct. Proposed Draft Bill No. 2655 will be up later. Councilmember Yukimura: I just want to ask that we have a short briefing on it so that on first reading, people will know what it is about. Council Chair Rapozo: Absolutely. Mike is in the audience, so please make sure you are here when we do the bill. Any testimony on the communication? COUNCIL MEETING 7 MAY 31, 2017 The motion to receive C 2017-128 for the record was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. C 2017-129 Communication (05/11/2017) from the Mayor, transmitting for Council consideration, the cost items for the Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA) Bargaining Units 2 and 13 for the period July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019 based on an arbitrated award and in accordance with the procedures contained in Chapter 89, Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS), pursuant to Section 89-11 of the HRS and Section 19.13B of the Kaua`i County Charter: Councilmember Chock moved to receive C 2017-129 for the record, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? I see Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA) representatives here. Do you plan to be here for the whole day or as long as it takes to get to the bill discussion? Okay. With that, any further discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to receive C 2017-129 for the record was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item. C 2017-130 Communication (05/11/2017) from the Mayor, transmitting for Council consideration, the cost items for the Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA) Bargaining Units 3 and 4 for the period July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019 based on an arbitrated award and in accordance with the procedures contained in Chapter 89, Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS), pursuant to Section 89-11 of the HRS and Section 19.13B of the Kauai County Charter: Councilmember Chock moved to receive C 2017-130 for the record, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: COUNCIL MEETING 8 MAY 31, 2017 The motion to receive C 2017-130 for the record was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. C 2017-131 Communication (05/15/2017) from the Acting County Engineer, requesting Council approval to expend State funds in the amount of $254,861.81, from the State of Hawai`i Department of Health (DOH), and indemnify the State DOH, for the Fiscal Year 2018 grant cycle for the HI-5 Deposit Beverage Container program: Councilmember Chock moved to approve C 2017-131, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Council Chair Rapozo: Is someone going to be here to explain what this is? I am not ready to vote on this right now. I think with all that has been going on with the recycling and all of that, I think I need a little bit more than a letter. I have some questions. If this is not time-sensitive, I would ask that we move this over to the Committee and have that discussion in the Committee. Anyone else have some objections to that? Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: Can we just determine if it is time-sensitive? Council Chair Rapozo: Nobody is here and that is what frustrates me. They are asking for two hundred fifty-four thousand eight hundred dollars ($254,800) and they are not here. Councilmember Yukimura: Well, can we call them? Council Chair Rapozo: We go through this exercise every Wednesday and it is frustrating. Let us just defer this to the end of the agenda and move on. Councilmember Yukimura: Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: To the end of the agenda, so they come back when we are done, not when they come. It is too late. They missed the bus. When we are done with our agenda, they can come. Next item. C 2017-132 Communication (05/19/2017) from the Acting County Engineer, requesting Council approval to apply for, receive, and expend State of Hawai`i Department of Transportation (HDOT) Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds, in the amount of $600,000.00, to support a project in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and HDOT to relocate the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge Viewpoint from its existing location along Kuhio Highway, across from the Princeville Center, to a new location along Kuhio Highway, south of Kuhio Highway COUNCIL MEETING 9 MAY 31, 2017 and Ka Haku Road intersection, to provide safe access to and from Kuhio Highway, allow for more parking, and allow for an improved visitor experience with short trails, overlooks, and interpretive signage. Council Chair Rapozo: Move this to the end of the agenda as well. This is from the Acting County Engineer. I am not going to play that game. If it is not important for them to be here, we are moving it to the back of the agenda. Next item. LEGAL DOCUMENT: C 2017-133 Communication (04/25/2017) from the Acting County Engineer, recommending Council approval, of a Limited Right-of-Entry Permit with the State of Hawai`i Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL), to allow for the removal of approximately fifty (50) cubic yards of sand from the Anahola river mouth area situated at Tax Map Key (TMK) Nos. (4) 4-8-12:10 (por.) and (4) 4-8-18:028 and 29 (por.), for the filling and placement of temporary sandbags to stabilize the roadway until final repair can be done on Aliomanu Road in Anahola. • Limited Right-of-Entry Permit Council Chair Rapozo: Move this to the end of the agenda as well. This is another request of the Acting County Engineer, so we will move that to the end. Next item. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Next item is a claim, C 2017-134. CLAIM: C 2017-134 Communication (05/08/2017) from the County Clerk, transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kaua`i by Jeanette Bonilla, for damage to her property, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kaua`i: Councilmember Brun moved to refer C 2017-134 to the Office of the County Attorney for disposition and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: COUNCIL MEETING 10 MAY 31, 2017 The motion to refer C 2017-134 to the Office of the County Attorney for disposition and/or report back to the Council was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: On page 4 are the Committee Reports. COMMITTEE REPORTS: PLANNING COMMITTEE: A report (No. CR-PL 2017-07) submitted by the Planning Committee, recommending that the following be Approved as Amended on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2647 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 8, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO ZONING MAP ZM-PO 300 (CIRI Land Development Company, Applicant) (ZA-2017-2)," Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. BUDGET & FINANCE COMMITTEE: A report (No. CR-BF 2017-05) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommending that the following be Received for the Record: "BF 2017-01 Communication (05/15/2017) from Budget & Finance Committee Chair Kaneshiro, transmitting the proposed increases to, deductions from, and other proposed amendments (plus/minus sheets) to the COUNCIL MEETING 11 MAY 31, 2017 Mayor's Fiscal Year 2017-2018 Annual Operating and Capital Improvement Projects Budgets," Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. A report (No. CR-BF 2017-06) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommending that the following be Approved as Amended on second and final reading: "Resolution No. 2017-25 — RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE REAL PROPERTY TAX RATES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2017 TO JUNE 30, 2018 FOR THE COUNTY OF KAUAI," Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. COUNCIL MEETING 12 MAY 31, 2017 A report (No. CR-BF 2017-07) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommending that the following be Approved as Amended on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2645 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2017 TO JUNE 30, 2018 (Fiscal Year 2017- 2018 Operating Budget)," Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. A report (No. CR-BF 2017-08) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommending that the following be Approved as Amended on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2646 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2017 TO JUNE 30, 2018 (Fiscal Year 2017-2018 CIP Budget)," Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: COUNCIL MEETING 13 MAY 31, 2017 The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. A report (No. CR-BF 2017-09) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommending that the following be Approved on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2648 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. B-2016-812, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2016 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2017, BY REVISING THE AMOUNTS ESTIMATED IN THE SOLID WASTE FUND (SRF Loan Repayment - $17,595.00)," Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. A report (No. CR-BF 2017-10) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommending that the following be Approved on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2649 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. B-2016-812, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2016 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2017, BY REVISING THE AMOUNTS ESTIMATED IN THE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FUND (Housing Agency, 3920 Haoa Street, #113 Purchase)," COUNCIL MEETING 14 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the report, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion? Is there any public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for approval of the report was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Motion carried. Next item, please. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: The next item is Resolution No. 2017-25, Draft 1. RESOLUTION: Resolution No. 2017-25, Draft 1 — RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE REAL PROPERTY TAX RATES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2017 TO JUNE 30, 2018 FOR THE COUNTY OF KAUAI: Councilmember Kaneshiro moved for adoption of Resolution No. 2017-25, Draft 1, seconded by Councilmember Chock. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion for adoption of Resolution No. 2017-25, Draft 1 was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR ADOPTION: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL— 6, AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL— 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL — 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL— 0. Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. COUNCIL MEETING 15 MAY 31, 2017 BILLS FOR FIRST READING: Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2655) — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 8, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, TO ALLOW FOR THE CREATION OF A NEW UNIVERSITY DISTRICT (County of Kauai Planning Department, Applicant): Councilmember Chock moved for passage of Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2655) on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for June 28, 2017, and referred to the Planning Committee, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: Are we going to get a briefing right now? Council Chair Rapozo: We can. Councilmember Yukimura: I thought that was the plan. Council Chair Rapozo: Let us do it. I will suspend the rules. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. MICHAEL A. DAHILIG, Planning Director: Good morning Councilmembers. Mike Dahilig, for the record. The bill that is being transmitted from the Commission to the Council is reflecting the establishment of a new zoning type, not a zoning map change, but a new zoning type. The zoning district that is being proposed is being called the "University Zoning District" to reflect the changes that potentially may come from a request from both the Kaua`i Community College (KCC) and Island School. They are currently undergoing a process with the Land Use Commission (LUC) to change their State Land Use District designations from Agriculture to Urban. When we looked and evaluated the uses that are allowed underneath the current zoning ordinance, as well as some of the uses that are being entertained as part of the Lihu`e Community Plan that was passed about a year and a half ago, the current zoning districts do not seem to comport with the type of mixed-usages that would naturally accompany a university activity like at KCC. So what we have done is looked at what other counties have employed as an option for creating these types of campuses and we modeled this particular ordinance comparative to what the County of Hawai`i does for that area. What we are proposing for the Council's review is the establishment of this district. If the Land Use Commission does approve KCC and Island School's petition to change from Agricultural to Urban, what will likely happen is they are going to come to the County for a map change, and we are trying to get ahead of the potential application for a map change, because at this point, there is nothing that really fits the bill for what they are proposing before the LUC. That is why we are just establishing the district right now and asking for that authority, and if and when COUNCIL MEETING 16 MAY 31, 2017 they do come in for County zoning, this would be in place to have that map change reflect the University Zone. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: Thank you, Mike. It appears that you are being proactive and I appreciate that. I did not quite understand your opening statement about not a new zoning, but a new zoning type. Mr. Dahilig: Yes, we are not establishing anything on the maps. In order to create and perfect county authority to get permits and build, you need to have the map designated, as well as the zoning type defined. So we, at this point, are only asking for the zoning type to be defined and not any map changes. Councilmember Yukimura: Do the map changes follow? Mr. Dahilig: The map changes will follow. Councilmember Yukimura: So what you are saying is that you are creating a new zoning type within the district of Urban? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Councilmember Yukimura: And it is going to be called "University Zoning District?" Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Councilmember Yukimura: And you are defining the uses that can occur in this University District? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Councilmember Yukimura: Assuming this is approved, then you will be creating a map type and Council approval is not necessitated for that? Mr. Dahilig: Council approval will be necessary to change the maps, but what it does is it opens the opportunity for KCC and potentially Island School to once they get their Urban designation to come before this body and request a map change. Councilmember Yukimura: Yes. When you were talking about map change, I was thinking about the color or the map designation that will be identified on the map what is in the University District, but that is really not something that we have to approve. COUNCIL MEETING 17 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Dahilig: It will be, because right now, that land is designated Agriculture on the County-level. It will have to be changed if the Land Use Commission does move it to Urban. So that discretionary policy authority comes from this body. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. I understand that they have to come and get a zoning change, basically. Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. But the coloration or the depiction on the map is not something we approve in terms of what looks like University District. Mr. Dahilig: It will be. Councilmember Yukimura: It will be? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Councilmember Yukimura: Together with the application for Island School and KCC? Mr. Dahilig: A separate application will follow, yes. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. Does this district allow student housing, dormitories? I see it right here. Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Councilmember Yukimura: I know that the college at least has an interest in developing student housing, which will be a plus for all of us. Mr. Dahilig: Right. The mention of student housing is primarily why we feel uncomfortable recommending a type of existing usage for a map change, because it does not encompass the myriad of integrated uses that university campus typically entail. For instance, another example is the bookstore; that is a clear retail use. These are the types of things that you want to have as part of an overall campus plan and provide for better campus planning versus piecemeal permitting. Councilmember Yukimura: Because then all of the needs can be met on campus and you would reduce the traffic. COUNCIL MEETING 18 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Dahilig: It is a potential, yes. Councilmember Yukimura: Does it provide for sufficient transit accommodations or transit infrastructure? Mr. Dahilig: What this particular zoning type does is it allows the Council to have that spatial analysis in the map change process, and as part of those conditions, can naturally flow to address certain transportation impacts, et cetera. At this point, that is why this particular zoning type is only being prescribed, but the type of analysis you are discussing would come as a consequence of the actual map change discussion before the Council. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. Does this Bill allow for other areas on the island now to consider zoning district, for instance, just hypothetically speaking, Kapa'a High School, maybe there is a satellite university that wants to establish itself in that corridor—does this set a precedent for that to occur in the future? Mr. Dahilig: It sets the ability for them to come in and apply, but the discretionary zoning policy would still have to come back to this body for that permission. So they would have to convince this body why the types of uses that are allowed in that zone would be allowed for a particular area. This body can say, "You know what, that does not make sense. We do not want to give you the university designation." Again, it is not incumbent on it being freely applied; it really is a consequence of whether the body chooses to do so. Councilmember Chock: Okay. Council Chair Rapozo: Mike, can you give us like a hypothetical one? Let us say this scenario where KCC decides that they wanted to build a dormitory, should this thing pass; how does that work? What would be the process? Mr. Dahilig: Is that presuming that there is a map change? Council Chair Rapozo: I am sorry? Mr. Dahilig: Is that presuming that there is a map change? Council Chair Rapozo: Assuming this passes? COUNCIL MEETING 19 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Dahilig: If that passes and they get the designation on the map... Council Chair Rapozo: But how do they get the designation on the map? Mr. Dahilig: They would have to come and apply one more time and go through a zoning ordinance. Council Chair Rapozo: To the Council? Mr. Dahilig: To the Council, yes. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Then they get the zoning change? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. If that does come into fruition then what would happen is they would have to go through the normal environmental entitlements, like 343, and those types of things. They would come and apply to our department for a permit to construct the dormitory. Council Chair Rapozo: If it does not pass, then what is the process? Mr. Dahilig: The process right now is that they have to apply for a special permit if the LUC does not grant the designation, the change. They would have to potentially apply for a Variance Permit and they would have to apply for a Use Permit and a Class IV permit. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? Councilmember Kaneshiro. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Did we model this language off of any other county or some type of district? Mr. Dahilig: Yes, this was modeled after Hawai`i County. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Okay. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Chair. Does this prohibit workforce housing or assisted living facilities? Mr. Dahilig: We tried to make it narrow to distinguish housing that would support the operations on campus versus housing that is meant COUNCIL MEETING 20 MAY 31, 2017 for enterprise usage. The type of housing that is prescribed for Residential is either dormitories or faculty rental housing. There are provisions that allow for broader housing usages, but that would be required through a Use Permit, which is an open public hearing and discretionary permit. Councilmember Kawakami: One of the other colleges is running into housing issues right now, as far as not being able to fill with students. Are they not considering just going out to workforce housing to allow non-students? Mr. Dahilig: The only one that I am aware of that is running into that problem within the university system is Maui College's housing project, and this is just my own personal assessment, but the housing project was actually designed across Ka`ahumanu Highway out on Maui and was actually more than one-quarter mile from the campus. So it created a natural barrier both for pedestrian and accessibility reasons. So the housing that was developed is actually not on the campus of Maui College. So that potentially is why as a business model they are looking for opportunities to be able to sell out their units, but I think that is why they are running into absorption problem is the actual spatial location of it being more than one-quarter mile away from the actual campus. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Chairman. Council Chair Rapozo: What is the definition of a guest and boarding house? I see that you have dormitories, which is self-explanatory, resident's house, faculty, multi-family rental housing—what is guest and boarding houses? Mr. Dahilig: I think those are phrases that are defined in Chapter 8 already in the definition section. Council Chair Rapozo: Why would KCC need a guest or boarding house? Mr. Dahilig: Well, I know that in previous discussions, they had raised concerns about being able to bring in visiting faculty. That potentially is why that is there to address the short-term needs of visiting faculty on campus. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Well, I guess we can have that discussion in the Committee. Any other questions for Mike? If not, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Anyone wishing to testify? COUNCIL MEETING 21 MAY 31, 2017 There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Rapozo: Any further discussion? If not, roll call. The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2655) on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for June 28, 2017, and referred to the Planning Committee was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR PASSAGE: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL— 6, AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL— 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL— 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0. Council Chair Rapozo: Next item. Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2656) —A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE APPROVING A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT FOR BARGAINING UNITS 2 AND 13 BETWEEN JULY 1, 2017 AND JUNE 30, 2019: Councilmember Yukimura moved for passage of Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2656) on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for June 28, 2017, and referred to the Committee of the Whole, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Rapozo: Roll call. The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2656) on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for June 28, 2017, and referred to the Committee of the Whole was then put, and carried by the following vote: COUNCIL MEETING 22 MAY 31, 2017 FOR PASSAGE: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL — 6, AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL — 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL— 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL— 0. Council Chair Rapozo: Next item. Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2657) —A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE APPROVING A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT FOR BARGAINING UNITS 3 AND 4 BETWEEN JULY 1, 2017 AND JUNE 30, 2019: Councilmember Yukimura moved for passage of Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2657) on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for June 28, 2017, and referred to the Committee of the Whole, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Rapozo: Roll call. The motion for passage of Proposed Draft Bill (No. 2657) on first reading, that it be ordered to print, that a public hearing thereon be scheduled for June 28, 2017, and referred to the Planning Committee was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR PASSAGE: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL — 6, AGAINST PASSAGE: None TOTAL— 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL — 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0. Council Chair Rapozo: The next items, Bills for Second Reading, Bill No. 2645, Draft 1 and Bill No. 2646, Draft 1, I am going to ask that we take that up when we have all seven (7) members here. So let us go to Bill No. 2647, Draft 1, please. There being no objections, Bill No. 2647, Draft 1, was taken out of order. COUNCIL MEETING 23 MAY 31, 2017 BILLS FOR SECOND READING: Bill No. 2647, Draft 1 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 8, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO ZONING MAP ZM-PO 300 (CIRI Land Development Company, Applicant) (ZA-2017-2): Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to approve Bill No. 2647, Draft 1 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: In the Planning Committee last week, I used certain words to describe CIRI's action, asking for a Visitor Destination Area (VDA) designation and leaving out one lot, so as not to come under the affordable housing requirement. I spoke too soon and without sufficient forethought and I want to publicly apologize for my choice of words which was unkind and unjustified. I continue to believe that an affordable housing contribution should be made, but the developer's actions were not as described. CIRI's action was reasonable, given the current requirement of thirty percent (30%) of the number of market units that would have been triggered with a proposed inclusion of the 10th lot in the VDA. I can see how CIRI would consider that requirement as too onerous. Many people would agree. In fact, I have been working with the first Affordable Housing Advisory Committee to reduce the thirty percent (30%) turn-key requirement to something more workable. I will be writing up the recommendations for a presentation shortly. Mr. Belles and Mr. TenBruggencate were doing their jobs when giving their clients advice as to how to avoid the current requirement, because once triggered, there was no negotiating to something more reasonable. With that said, we are in the midst of a housing crisis that is affecting many local families, causing suffering and unraveling the social fabric of our community. According to the General Plan update, we have a current need for one thousand four hundred (1,400) homes mainly in the one hundred percent (100%) of median income and below. This number will grow to nine thousand (9,000) units over the next twenty (20) years. I strongly believe that if developers like CIRI do not contribute their fair share towards affordable housing, we will not be able to solve the problem. Over the last fifty (50) years, much of the affordable housing has been provided by plantations, Kilauea, McBryde, Amfac, Gay & Robinson, and Grove Farm, and large landowners, such as Alexander & Baldwin (A&B), Kukui`ula, Grove Farm, and Princeville. In the last thirty (30) years, much of the affordable housing has come from the latter group as conditions of entitlement. Many families living in Puhi today are beneficiaries of Grove Farm's affordable housing requirement and I want to acknowledge Grove Farm for its contributions. This demonstrates the importance of landowner developer contributions, which should also apply to today's high-end resort developers in appropriate proportion. Land development is a discretionary privilege to be granted by government only when it advances the COUNCIL MEETING 24 MAY 31, 2017 general welfare. Vacation rental or resort development raises the price of land and housing to a level unaffordable by most people on Kaua`i, especially those with low incomes. When basic needs are not met, the negative impacts on the community affect everyone. In order for high-end development to advance the general welfare, it must, at the very least, offset its negative impacts on the community. A contribution to increase the inventory of affordable homes is fair and necessary to offset a development's negative impacts and meet the General Plan and zoning requirements that the granting of entitlements advance the general welfare. I do not think most people realize the immense increase in value that will be given to CIRI with the stroke of a pen and four (4) Council votes. By voting to include nine (9) lots in the VDA, we will allow the high-end houses that will be built on those lots to be used as oceanfront vacation rentals, instead of simply first or second homes. This means they will likely be occupied many more days in the year than housing used only as a second home. The annual income potential will increase by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The resale value over a non-VDA status will also increase and contribute to the growing cost of land and housing in the Po`ipu-Koloa area. Many private dreams will be advanced. But how, without a contribution to affordable housing, will the general welfare be advanced? It appears for a variety of reasons, including a defective and inconsistent law, which this body is responsible for, we cannot require an affordable housing contribution as a condition of approval. CIRI has not volunteered to make such a contribution. Without an affordable housing contribution, I cannot support this Bill. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none, roll call. The motion to approve Bill No. 2647, Draft 1 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR APPROVAL: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Rapozo TOTAL — 5*, AGAINST APPROVAL: Yukimura TOTAL— 1, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL— 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL— 0. (*Pursuant to Rule No. 5(b) of the Rules of the Council of the County of Kauai, Councilmember Chock was noted as silent, but shall be recorded as an affirmative vote for the motion.) Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. COUNCIL MEETING 25 MAY 31, 2017 Bill No. 2648 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. B-2016-812, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2016 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2017, BY REVISING THE AMOUNTS ESTIMATED IN THE SOLID WASTE FUND (SRF Loan Repayment - $17,595.00): Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to approve Bill No. 2648 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Rapozo: Roll call. The motion to approve Bill No. 2648 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR APPROVAL: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL — 6, AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL — 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL— 0. Council Chair Rapozo: Next item. Bill No. 2649 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. B-2016-812, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2016 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2017, BY REVISING THE AMOUNTS ESTIMATED IN THE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FUND (Housing Agency, 3920 Haoa Street, #113 Purchase): Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to approve Bill No. 2649 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: COUNCIL MEETING 26 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: Roll call. The motion to approve Bill No. 2649 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR APPROVAL: Brun, Chock, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL— 6, AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kagawa TOTAL— 1, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0. Council Chair Rapozo: Can we go back to page 2, C 2017-131? There being no objections, C 2017-131 was taken out of order. C 2017-131 Communication (05/15/2017) from the Acting County Engineer, requesting Council approval to expend State funds in the amount of $254,861.81, from the State of Hawai`i Department of Health (DOH), and indemnify the State DOH, for the Fiscal Year 2018 grant cycle for the HI-5 Deposit Beverage Container program. Council Chair Rapozo: There is already a motion to approve and a second. Councilmember Brun. Councilmember Brun: Chair, being that the people from Hanalei was here earlier, could we have them first instead of making them wait? We do not know how long this item is going to take. Council Chair Rapozo: I do not know if this would take that long. Councilmember Brun: Okay. Council Chair Rapozo: I just want to get an explanation. It looks like this is a change order. I will suspend the rules. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. LYLE TABATA, Acting County Engineer: Good morning Chair and Members of the Council. Lyle Tabata, Acting County Engineer. Our request is to receive and expend these funds to support the State's HI-5 program. Every year, they fund the County to employ employees and oversee the HI-5 program. Allison can give more details if you have questions. COUNCIL MEETING 27 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: Well, I am reading the documentation that came with the request and it says, "Statement of contract funds, original contract," price two hundred fifty-six thousand seven hundred ninety-nine dollars ($256,799), previous adjusted contract price seven hundred twenty-six thousand dollars ($726,000), amount of this change is one hundred ninety-two thousand dollars ($192,000). So the net adjusted contract price is now nine hundred eighteen thousand dollars ($918,000). I am looking at this documentation and it is saying one hundred ninety-two thousand dollars ($192,000)...your request is for two hundred fifty-four thousand dollars ($254,000). Maybe you can start with explaining that. ALLISON FRALEY, Public Works Solid Waste Program Development Coordinator: Allison Fraley, for the record. So the one hundred ninety-two thousand dollars ($192,000) was last year's grant and there were some carryover funds last year that basically the budget was the same last year, around two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000). This is the fifth modification, 2018, for this agreement with the State to have this oversight of the HI-5 program. Council Chair Rapozo: The original contract to the current contract is significant. What is that? Is that because of the annual extensions? Ms. Fraley: Yes, our annual renewals. This particular contract started in 2014, so this is the fifth modification. I am sorry, there was another modification that did not include funding. Sorry about that. This is the fourth year of this contract. Council Chair Rapozo: So the two hundred fifty-four thousand dollars ($254,000) is State money, correct? Ms. Fraley: It is State money. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Ms. Fraley: They require us to do some regulatory work, which is to go to the redemption centers and to the retailers and do a certain number of inspections every month to make sure everybody is following the law correctly. We also fund two (2) redemption centers in remote areas, so it is pass-through; we get the funding from the State and fund a contractor. It is a competitive-bid process. We take complaints from the public about the law, and then we pass that information on to the State. We pass out HI-5 collection bins. We have them in parks and we pass them out for special events and parties. We go into schools and educate about the HI-5 program, recycling, and things like that. There is a scope that was attached for your review. COUNCIL MEETING 28 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? Councilmember Kaneshiro. Councilmember Kaneshiro: What is our cost to run the Certified Redemption Center (CRC) at Kekaha and Koloa? Ms. Fraley: Our cost is three hundred twenty dollars ($320) per event and there are two (2) events per week for each location. The total budget is in here. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Does the seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000) cover all of the costs to have the CRC? Ms. Fraley: Yes, to have those two (2) certified redemption centers. Those are the two (2) in the remote areas, Kekaha and Koloa. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Okay. But we have more redemption centers than that though, right? Ms. Fraley: Correct. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Is that on our dime? Ms. Fraley: No. When the law passed and everything started back in 2006, what the County's strategy was is let these redemption centers pop-up privately before we start subsidizing them. So we have a lot the privately-operated redemption centers, like in Lihu`e and Kapa`a. Councilmember Kaneshiro: But we do pay for those, right? Ms. Fraley: We do not. Those are privately run. The only two (2) we pay for—we do not pay, the State does—is Kekaha and Koloa, because once the program started, there was just nothing out there. That is part of our contract with the State is to make sure that there is an even distribution of places for people to go. Councilmember Kaneshiro: So the amounts we are paying for is like the Kmart green bin or something? Ms. Fraley: Yes. So that is the non-redemption drop-off program; the Kauai Recycles program, yes we pay for that, places where people do not get money back. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Okay. COUNCIL MEETING 29 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. Any public testimony? If not, I will call the meeting back to order. Further discussion? There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to approve C 2017-131 was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:0:1 (Councilmember Kagawa was excused). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. C 2017-132 Communication (05/19/2017) from the Acting County Engineer, requesting Council approval to apply for, receive, and expend State of Hawai`i Department of Transportation (HDOT) Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds, in the amount of $600,000.00, to support a project in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and HDOT to relocate the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge Viewpoint from its existing location along Kuhio Highway, across from the Princeville Center, to a new location along Kuhio Highway, south of Kuhio Highway and Ka Haku Road intersection, to provide safe access to and from Kuhio Highway, allow for more parking, and allow for an improved visitor experience with short trails, overlooks, and interpretive signage: Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to approve C 2017-132, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Chair, we have one (1) registered speaker. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. I will suspend the rules at this point and get the presentation from the Administration, and then we will take public testimony after that. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. Mr. Tabata: Morning Chair and Members of the Council. Lyle Tabata Acting County Engineer. Our request before you is for the County of Kaua`i Department of Public Works to apply for and receive Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds, of the Map-21 program of the Federal Highways. The request is in the amount of six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) to support the late Senator Inouye's project, which was to improve the Hanalei lookout. We are partnering with the United States Fish and Wildlife, Department of Transportation, and the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge group to improve this area, as was stated. We have a presentation, but I will let the Deputy Planning Director and Office of Economic Development Director talk a little. As you can see, we are a team up here and we are all working together to hopefully realize the late Senator's dream. COUNCIL MEETING 30 MAY 31, 2017 KAAINA HULL, Deputy Planning Director: Good morning Chair and Members of the Council. Just to give some background, the County of Kaua`i have been meeting with the United States Fish and Wildlife, as well as members of Senator's Inouye staff when he was serving, as well as members that served on his staff and continued to usher the project through for several years now. Ultimately, the project is to relocate the existing Hanalei overlook where it is currently is, across from the Princeville Shopping Center, to a site that is a little bit south of the Princeville entrance. The main reason for this is there are serious reservations and concerns about traffic safety in the area as the current overlook is being overly congested and sometimes that traffic impacts both congestion, as well as safety concerns on the highway. In discussions of relocating the overlook, there have been multiple agencies and parties involved in the discussion. In the past year and a half, the discussion has ramped up to specific project parameters for this area. Ultimately, we began looking at this specific area with a considerably larger site that is on the proposed application right now. It was inclusive of potential extra stalls for possible transportation alternativ.es for the County of Kaua`i, as well as meeting the needs of parking for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Ultimately, those originals proposals, we began a year and a half ago. We are significantly more expensive than what you folks have today. Those originals proposals would generally...we were searching with the group for an extra two million dollars ($2,000,000) to three million dollars ($3,000,000) shortfall, which we just could not find the funding. A lot of times, the US Fish and Wildlife folks were knocking on both the State and County's door. The State Department of Transportation, because of the congestion and safety issues was able to identify and provide one million dollars ($1,000,000) for the project. Unfortunately, the County of Kaua`i just did not have and when we looked in our coffers, as far as providing partnership funds just really did not have it, in particular, make up the shortfall of two million dollars ($2,000,000) to three million dollars ($3,000,000). Somewhat at the eleventh hour, in order to secure and utilize the funds that Senator Inouye had established so many years ago, U.S. Fish and Wildlife has come back to us to state that they significantly reduced the project size and project cost, and roughly equating about two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000). They are short essentially six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) to seven hundred thousand dollars ($700,000), for which the County of Kaua`i still really does not have funds available for them for the project, but in looking at various grant opportunities, there is this TAP grant that is doled out from U.S. Highways, but ultimately is given to the State Department of Transportation to give to municipalities for any multi-modal projects, as well as potential overlook products. In looking at this potential grant, U.S. Fish and Wildlife pointed out that we can apply for that grant, which are Federal moneys and contributed to their already secured two million three hundred thousand dollars ($2,300,000) to essentially get the project passed the finish line. It would require really no project management on our side, it just is literally working as a sister agency to help facilitate the finalization of this project. I want to upfront apologize for the last minute referral to you folks. I know that generally you folks are going to want to have time if you have additional questions and we are here to COUNCIL MEETING 31 MAY 31, 2017 answer those questions if you have them, but I have to be honest that the application deadline is June 15th. We would be looking for action from this body today. I want to apologize for having it sent to you folks at such last minute, but ultimately, we got the proposal a little over one (1) month ago. We did want to take some time to verify with both U.S. Highways, as well as the Department of Transportation that did a twenty percent (20%) match required for this grant. We could use already dedicated State or Federal funds. So there is a match requirement, but we had to verify that we would not have to spend any of our moneys to meet that match requirement that has been verified. We only verified that roughly two (2) weeks ago. We were able to get this grant proposal to you folks as quickly as we made that verification but that is essentially the deadline we are looking at today. I do not know if George has anything else to add, but at the end of the day, it is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife project. So as far as the TAP grant and its administering, we can answer questions like that, but we have U.S. Fish and Wildlife here to present the actual overall Hanalei overlook project as a whole to you folks. Mr. Tabata: Just to add to that, the reason why I am here is because the application for the grant has to come through the local agency, which is the Department of Public Works. Our role is to apply for the grant, and not quite that we are not going to have involvement; we need to steward the Federal Highways process, which involves paperwork, passing the paperwork and the money through the local government to get to the project. Council Chair Rapozo: So you would have to manage the grant and the contract? That would be our function, obviously. Mr. Tabata: Yes, that would be our function. Council Chair Rapozo: Can the State not apply for this grant? Mr. Tabata: A local agency, which is the County, needs to apply for the grant. Council Chair Rapozo: So the State cannot? Mr. Tabata: No, not in this instance. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: So the Department of Public Works is going to oversee the building of this project? Mr. Tabata: We will oversee the administrative process of this grant. COUNCIL MEETING 32 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Yukimura: Well, there is six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) in this grant, but it is going to be added to...what is the amount? Council Chair Rapozo: Two million three hundred thousand dollars ($2,300,000). Councilmember Yukimura: Yes, so who is going to coordinate the budget? Mr. Tabata: We will take care of this TAP money. Councilmember Yukimura: I understand, but who is taking care of the... Mr. Hull: Councilmember Yukimura, the overall project management will be with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: So the transportation hub, as you folks have outlined here, can you explain how it is being planned in relation to any future or potential shuttle services? Mr. Hull: Which slide are you referring to? Councilmember Chock: I am just looking at the picture that says...it does not have a... Mr. Hull: Okay, so that is part of U.S. Fish and Wildlife's presentation. As I stated earlier, in our initial discussions, there was a possibility of a larger project, which could possibly encompass a transportation facility that could be used for bus purposes and/or say a shuttle. That was in preliminary discussions, which ultimately, the funding just is not there. The potential, should the acquisition happen, the land is there for expansion, should we be able to later on, or should I say should U.S. Fish and Wildlife be willing to expand it and incorporate a transportation site, but that is not the current proposal right now. Council Chair Rapozo: What is the current proposal? This is what I am looking at, exactly what Councilmember Chock asked about. Mr. Hull: The current proposal is in what Lyle sent over to you folks, which attached to the back is a map, a much smaller site than COUNCIL MEETING 33 MAY 31, 2017 what is in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife presentation. They can go more detail into it. There is possibilities in the future for that, but that is not part of the actual two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000) that is proposed right now. Councilmember Yukimura: Can we have U.S. Fish and Wildlife come up? Mr. Tabata: Yes, they will be here to do the presentation. Can we allow them to do that? Council Chair Rapozo: Please. I am more interested in what this will do, not what is proposed for down the line, thus transportation and terminals. I want to know what this money, and really, for me, the most important thing is what is the County's obligation? I am not sure why the State could not apply for this money. I am sure the feds can explain that, but it is not like we do not have enough things to do on this island that we have to go and manage an additional two million nine hundred thousand dollar ($2,900,000) contract. I think that is where my frustration is. Can you please state your name for the captioner as you come up? MICHAEL MITCHELL, Deputy Project Leader for the Kaua`i National Wildlife Refuge Complex: My name is Michael Mitchell. I am the Deputy Project Leader for the Kaua`i National Wildlife Refuge Complex here on Kaua`i. I would like to introduce Heather Tonneson, the Project Leader of the Kaua`i National Wildlife Refuge Complex, and Alex Schwartz, our Regional Transportation Coordinator from Portland, Oregon, our regional office. Thank you again for this opportunity to speak today briefly about the proposed new Hanalei overlook. The proposed site, as we know, but for the folks at home, is adjacent to the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, which is the tan color there. It is located on the mauka side of Kuhio Highway between Kapaka Street, which is the church of the specific area, and Ka Haku Road, the main entrance into Princeville. A little bit of additional history on this project is that we have been working on this project since the late '90s and more so into the early 2000s. There was an Environmental Assessment (EA) published in 2004 with public testimony in that effort. The project was restarted, as Ka`aina mentioned, in 2015. We had a public meeting in March of 2016 to look and present the feasibility study of this project for this project. Very briefly, the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge is part of a complex of wildlife refuges that includes two hundred (200) acres at Kilauea Point and two hundred forty-one (241) acres in Hule`ia Valley up river of Nawiliwili Harbor. Both Hanalei and Hule`ia Refuges were established the help recover the Hawaiian Duck, Coot, Moorhen, and Stilt, and now Nene, which an emphasis on Koloa Maoli recovery, because the north shore of Kaua`i and Ni`ihau are the strongholds for the genetically pure Hawaiian Duck. These places are cornerstones for that effort. It is estimated that Hanalei Refuge provides forging habitat for one-third to one-half of all of the pure Hawaiian Ducks left in the world. In regards to the management of our wetland refuges, we are hoping that we will have a draft of our Comprehensive COUNCIL MEETING 34 MAY 31, 2017 Conservation Plan ready for public review this fall or winter. Other goals for the Hanalei Refuge are environmental education, interpretation, wildlife viewing, and preservation of cultural heritage. We support approximately one hundred nine (190) acres of taro farming, which also supplies habitat for these rare birds. Existing overlook is located, as was mentioned earlier, just past the Foodland main entrance on the mauka side of the highway. The pullout is less than half an acre and is owned by both the Hawai`i Department of Transportation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service. The existing pullout has a beautiful view of the valley, but can be chaotic at times due to its capacity. There are approximately seven (7) available parallel spots here, but cars do not often or do not always park parallel, as you can see from this photograph. The proposed new site will have two (2) to three (3) viewpoints, also with beautiful views, and in addition to giving a good opportunity for the refuge to tell its story of what we do and why we do it, along with the cultural and historical history of the valley. This new site we hope will benefit the community in a few key ways that Heather will touch on as she describes the proposed project. HEATHER A. TONNESON, Project Leader/Refuge Complex Manager for the Kaua`i National Wildlife Complex: Good morning Mr. Chair and Councilmembers. Again for the record, my name is Heather Tonneson. I will continue talking about the Hanalei Viewpoint Project overview as it stands today. Currently, we are working on acquisition of the property for the proposed site. We are also working on finalizing thirty percent (30%) design for the proposed basic site improvements. As Ka`aina talked a little bit about, we currently have around two million three hundred thousand dollars ($2,300,000) for project completion available and we have estimated that we need just under three million dollars ($3,000,000) for the basic site improvements, which I will talk a little bit more about here in a moment. If the TAP application is approved, we would only need just less than one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) to complete the project with the basic site improvements, as included in the design that I will go into in a minute. This new site and improvements will better accommodate for the existing level of visitation. Some traffic counts were done in 2016 at three (3) times in the day and it estimated that there are approximately four thousand five hundred (4,500) visiting the site per day. The basic site improvements do include acceleration, deceleration, and left-turn lanes that will allow for better ingress/egress from the new site. The majority of daily visitors to the existing site now are folks that are stopping off the highway on their way to Princeville, Hanalei, or other surrounding communities. As we all know, there is a projected increase in visitation to the north shore in the future, which is why this project and other roadway improvements, such as Safe Routes to School and traffic calming are needed in Hanalei. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will work with the community on interpretative elements that will provide visitors a good introduction, too, and appreciation of Hanalei and communities beyond before they get there. This project will also help to fulfill the late Senator Inouye's vision for this place and continue the partnership between the County, State, and Federal government for possible future transit hub options, if COUNCIL MEETING 35 MAY 31, 2017 funding and maintenance support become available from the partners. This new site will allow additional opportunities for education and interpretation of the otherwise closed Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge. Giving people a place to connect with the refuge and resources it protects without going down to Ohiki Road or other stops in or on the way to Hanalei. The project's final design and construction will be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in partnership with the National Park Service, so there will be little impact on County staff. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will maintain the site initially and can work with partners on potential maintenance support in the future if there is a proposed expansion of the project at a later time. So this is the design for the basic initial site improvements. The project, as it stands today, I discussed, just under three million dollars ($3,000,000) for this site design project completion. We plan to address any security concerns by constructing a privacy wall there on the right-hand side next to Mr. Field's property. We also plan to only have daytime operating hours and construct a perimeter fence with a gate along the highway there, and then have also regular law enforcement patrols by our refuge law enforcement. This site design accommodates for parking for approximately twenty-two (22) cars. The site can be gravel or paved...the parking lot, I should say, can be graveled or paved, depending on the funding that is available. It accommodates for two (2) scenic viewpoints, as you can see with some compacted gravel paths heading down, overlooking the valley floor. There will be available easy highway access, and as I discussed, the highway improvements by the Hawai`i Department of Transportation would accommodate for deceleration, acceleration, and left-turn lanes. There are no toilets planned with the site improvements; however, we are leaving the option open to have some sort of toilet facilities if money or maintenance support is available to do so. Lastly, this site also designs for the stormwater drainage system. Council Chair Rapozo: I have a quick question, just before you move on. You guys plan to do all of that with two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000)? Ms. Tonneson: Two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000) is the current estimate for this design as show on the screen. Council Chair Rapozo: Design and construction? Ms. Tonneson: Yes, project completion? Council Chair Rapozo: Really? Wow. Do you folks send your own contractors and builders or do you use local? Just compared to the projects that we do here, like road improvement project, two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000) do not really get you much anymore. I am just looking at the extent of what you folks are planning. It just does not seem like two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000) is sufficient. COUNCIL MEETING 36 MAY 31, 2017 ALEX SCHWARTZ, Regional Transportation Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Good morning. My name is Alex Schwartz. I am with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Thank you for your question. Currently, we are using a cost estimate based on thirty percent (30%) design drawings that were prepared by J. Uno & Associates, Inc. of Honolulu. In that estimate, we have a design and estimated contingency built in. Your question is a fair one--the costs are rather expensive to do a project of this nature. We have spent a lot of time looking at this site in great detail to come up with methods and materials of construction that are going to be economical for a project of this sort. As we move forward in the completion of the design process, we will update our estimates and we will exercise, if needed, additive alternates during the bid award and construction process to ensure that we are able to put a project on the ground that meets the budget that we have. As far as the project delivery, as Heather said, we will be working with the National Park Service, Denver Service Center, to bid, award, and manage the construction that would be a public bid through the federal contracting process. So we would receive and open bids, and then if needed, exercise the additive alternatives, again, to meet the budget. We are, I will say, very confident in this project and the resources that we have been able to secure at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move forward. Council Chair Rapozo: Should the cost of this project exceed the two million nine hundred thousand dollar ($2,900,000) estimate, who pays for that? Where does that money come from? Mr. Schwartz: That is a very good question, thank you. What we would do is in the bid package have a base bid, and then look at additive alternates or deduct alternates so we can kind of scale the project appropriately to match the available funding. Mr. Mitchell: In other words, we could have just one overlook, one lookout instead of two, so we can take items off of this to meet the funding level. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. So I guess the question is the County would not be on the hook for any contract overruns or anything like that? Mr. Mitchell: That is correct. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Thank you. Ms. Tonneson: So getting back to the cost estimate and what has already been obligated, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has obligated one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000) for the design and construction of this project. As Ka`aina talked about, and as in your proposal, you will also see there has been other contributions: one million dollars ($1,000,000) has COUNCIL MEETING 37 MAY 31, 2017 been pledged from HDOT for the highway improvements and additionally, there are some funds from the Legacy Funds from Senator Inouye. Some of that money has already been spent for the thirty percent (30%) design that has been completed so far. Again, our remaining fund balance is two million three hundred thousand dollars ($2,300,000) at this point. Given the continued projected budget decline, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is unlikely to get any additional funding for this project. However, again, we have enough currently to acquire, finish design, and do initial site improvements, given the option to include certain elements or not include certain elements, depending on what the final estimate actually comes in at. This design that we currently have, so this one up here on the screen, you will see the overlay of the potential for the expanded design that would accommodate a transportation hub and interpretive hale. The design that we had with the twenty-two (22) parking stalls that we just saw previous is also the design that you see as far as the actual paved surface there. It leaves the option open to expand the parking lot to accommodate for a park and ride and shuttle stop, an interpretive hale and restrooms, an additional scenic viewpoint trail, so for a total of three (3), you see two (2) up there now, and/or a multi-modal trail to the existing viewpoint, which would come off to the left there, going out towards the existing viewpoint. Councilmember Yukimura: Do you mean a "multi-use path?" Ms. Tonneson: Yes, so bike and pedestrian. These additional expansion options could be accommodated if additional funding and maintenance support becomes available from our partners in the future, but is not currently proposed at this time. To wrap up here and give you a summary of our timeline and our next steps, we are currently working on finalizing our thirty percent (30%) design, and then we are going to be beginning our one hundred percent (100%) design, hopefully next month. We are also working on our Section 106, our National Historic Preservation Act Compliance, as well as our National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and Supplemental Environmental Assessment Compliance. I apologize because there is a typo here on the slide. We actually expect that the National Environmental Policy Act and Section 106 compliance will be completed closer to February of 2018. One hundred percent (100%) design should be completed around February of 2018, and then we hope to break ground and begin construction in fall of 2018. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appreciate the partnership from the County, HDOT, and assistance of Senator Hirono's office to make this project happen. With that, I will go ahead and wrap up and take any questions you all might have. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Real simple question, are there any photos of what the proposed view plane will be as compared to what the current one is? It is obviously a different location. That taro patch view is... Mr. Mitchell: Yes, the challenge with that is that you have to step over to Mr. Field's property to see the majesty of that view. The site, specific COUNCIL MEETING 38 MAY 31, 2017 to this map, is we have to open it a little bit to get the great view. We have walked down in there, but we do not have a picture like this yet because we have not opened it up. Council Chair Rapozo: Yes, if you took a picture, you would only see bush. Mr. Mitchell: Right, you would see some bushes and it is not as nice, but one view is up the valley and one view is a little bit over to the west where you can see the bay. Council Chair Rapozo: What about the taro patches? That is the signature, not the mountain or the ocean. (Councilmember Kagawa is noted as present.) Mr. Mitchell: Yes, one view is very similar to this up the valley where you can see the taro patches. Ms. Tonneson: Chair and Councilmembers, this is a picture of the new site. Again, as Mike describes, it has not been cleared. But we plan to leave a lot of the existing vegetation there to screen from the view down in the valley. We have heard from community members that that is a big concern. They do not want to see a building or a lot of people standing there looking down at them. From some of our taro farmer permittees, that is a concern as well. We have planned to leave a lot of the existing vegetation for screening, as well as to landscape some additional vegetation for screening. Council Chair Rapozo: I have one last question. What happens to the old lookout, the existing lookout? Ms. Tonneson: That is also a good question. There were some initial discussions to close-off the existing viewpoint to vehicular traffic, but to leave it open to bike and pedestrian traffic. We did just recently hear from some community leaders that they actually would like to see the existing viewpoint remain open. So I think it is a discussion point that we are going to need to revisit with HDOT primarily and see if there are some potential middle ground solutions on that one. Council Chair Rapozo: I do not know how you would get middle ground; it is either "yes" or "no." I guess for me, and maybe it is just my old school mentality, but to me that is the picture of Hanalei. Again, to expect us to do this today when we have not heard from the community is really, really difficult. Councilmember Yukimura. COUNCIL MEETING 39 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Yukimura: Actually, the Chair asked one of my questions, which is what about the old lookout? If you spend three million dollars ($3,000,000) on this project and everybody still goes to the old lookout, what gain do you have? There needs to be a clearer understanding of what is going to happen with that lookout. Does anybody have an answer? Ms. Tonneson: Yes, thank you. Again, we thought we had made a decision to close-off the existing viewpoint, but because of the recent concerns that were raised, we would like to take that back to the partners to have that discussion again and see where we land on that. But U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is open to the option of leaving the existing viewpoint open to vehicular traffic. We are definitely certain that there would be bike and pedestrian traffic, but again, I feel that HDOT needs to be in on that decision. It is not going to be just up to us, since they are owners of the existing viewpoint. Councilmember Yukimura: I see the safety issue, but if you are not going to solve the safety issue with this, if people are still going to go to that other lookout, then you have not achieved one of the main purposes of your project. So that is one question I have. The other is these TAP moneys are supposed to be for alternative transportation and your design seems to really accommodate the automobile, rather than alternatives. Have you consulted with the transit agency? We are working with you on a shuttle plan for the K`ilauea...I mean I know that you have been involved in the planning process and it is not best practice for us to have to turn into a place and go out. We are trying to get all of our stops on the main highway and I do not see anything in your plan for that. The cars, if it is a park and ride, can come in, but for the transit, we cannot keep going into Coconut Plantation and Safeway Shopping Center because it is not best practice. We want to be efficient for our ridership and get them from place to place. It would seem that the best place for a transit long-term would be right on the main highway, but that is in your turn-off lane going to Kilauea. Then of course, you put it across the street. I do not know what the best alternative is, but it looks like the plan has been made without those considerations. Mr. Mitchell: May I speak to that? Thank you, Councilmember Yukimura, for that question. In the thirty percent (30%) design, which we are not specifically talking about today—that is additional—but our goal was to try to get buses in and out of this site as quickly as possible. So to put the bus turnaround, that rectangle in dark there is a future bus loading and unloading, if this project expands. So the idea was always to try to be as close to what you were describing as a "just-off-highway" offloading. Councilmember Yukimura: Then you would make the turn-in, and another out for the bus. Are you talking about the public bus or are you talking about visitor buses? COUNCIL MEETING 40 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Mitchell: Both. Councilmember Yukimura: Well, you do not want to mix visitor buses with transit buses and you do not want to mix transit bus with a lot of in and out car traffic. So this is just me as Transportation Committee Chair, but I am sure the transit agency can give you much more professional advice about how you develop if this is going to be a park-and-ride or someplace where the public bus is going to come. Right now, if it is not for your short-term plan, I want to know how that ties into the bus stop that is presently there. If people park here and use it as a park-and-ride, they are going to cross the parking lot and a lot of in and out traffic and walk a quarter mile—I do not know how far it is—to the present bus stop. Nobody seems to have thought through that whole transaction. Mr. Schwartz: These are excellent questions and I think I might be able to address some of them for you. Councilmember Yukimura: Please. Mr. Schwartz: Going back to the beginning when you asked about using the TAP funds for a project of this nature, it is an eligible project for TAP funds. Councilmember Yukimura: I know it is, but I want the actual purpose to be met, even though the legal purpose is being met. Right now, I do not see the other modes really considered here, transit, walking and biking. This looks like basically a parking lot for cars. Mr. Schwartz: Well, I can address some of your concerns regarding the vehicular/pedestrian circulation of a potential expansion of the project, which again, is not anything we are proposing today to expand the project beyond the initial relocation of the viewpoint. We worked for a long time in cooperation with County staff with experts, engineers, and transportation engineers. What you see there is a plan that I believe does well to separate the various uses and provide a very efficient circulation system for potentially a shuttle bus system, as well as you can see there is a drop-off there that would be for private tour buses. Councilmember Yukimura: Can you use the pointer? Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura, can you let him finish? Councilmember Yukimura: I was just asking him if he could use the pointer. COUNCIL MEETING 41 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: You are interrupting him. Mr. Schwartz: Thank you. The circulation would work like this in a future expansion. Buses and vehicles would all share the same travel lane into the site. At this point, buses would be able to queue here. There is room, I believe, for two (2) buses to queue here: one (1) at the shelter and one (1) here. There is also a bypass here. Private vehicles could continue and find a parking space here. Any tour buses or large groups would have a separate loading and unloading zone here. The circulation is such that we have designed it for the turning radiuses for all of the various buses and for vehicles. Regarding your concern about the time it would take a shuttle bus to circulate through the site, that is why we have kept all of these facilities over here towards the front. It is a safe way for people to get on and off the bus after parking a vehicle, coming to this transit stop, as well as being able to enjoy the interpretative and educational facilities. GEORGE K. COSTA, Director of Economic Development: George Costa, for the record. If I could add, the transit department has been involved with the planning of this and they have provided their input on the circulation. The long-term vision is to buildout this facility that provides parking, bus, and a multi- modal path that goes back to the existing overlook to the Princeville Shopping Center. When you consider available land for an overlook close to Kuhio Highway, you are pretty much looking at it right here. There is not much land available in Princeville with a willing seller to provide land that can accommodate all of these different features. I know it is not perfect, but it does address quite a few of these options. Councilmember Yukimura: Could I have the pointer, please? Mr. Costa: I can send the Council pictures. I met with Jim Fields, who owns this property and adjacent properties and was able to take photos from his property, which is adjacent, has an opening, and you can see the view down. It actually looks right down towards Haraguchi Rice Mill and the taro fields. Councilmember Yukimura: Excuse me, George, can I ask my question? Mr. Costa: Let me just finish. So the view would be looking down the valley towards... Council Chair Rapozo: George, hang on real quick. What is the question, Councilmember Yukimura? Councilmember Yukimura: My question is it seems like you would put a public bus shelter somewhere here, people can drive their cars into here, and then COUNCIL MEETING 42 MAY 31, 2017 walk and the bus at least going this way does not have to come in here and deal with all of the pedestrian crossings over here or that kind of thing. I asked the transit agency...anyway, it would make much more sense to have the Kilauea-bound bus shelter somewhere here in the long-range. I do not know what the remedy is for one that is going that way. You may have to turn in here. If the bus has to turn in... Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura, I interrupted George for your question. Councilmember Yukimura: That is my question. Why is it not being considered here instead? Mr. Hull: Ka`aina Hull, Deputy Planning Director. Just for the record, the future bus loading proposal that you folks see right now, I just want to clear the air that it was provided there as one of many potentials, should an expansion be done for this project. Ultimately, the vast majority of discussions we are looking at, the larger site, were focused on funding. How do we find the funding for this site? In no way shape or form should it be expanded, that would be the final bus location shelter. Councilmember Yukimura: Well, you have shown all of the parking here, so I would like to see future transit considerations. Councilmember Kagawa: Chair, come on, this is kind of hard to take. Point of order. Can she just wait until they finish answering the question before she interrupts? It is very rude and I find it very unbecoming of this body to do this at a council meeting. Council Chair Rapozo: That is why when we started the discussion, I asked for the specific plan for what this funding would accomplish, not the dream of what the feds want to do twenty (20) years from now. I am really not interested in that, because obviously you folks do not even have enough money to finish this plan, and you folks are talking about transit hubs and all of this stuff. I want to know, simply, if this gets approved today, what do we get for it? Does it mean that we are going to create some walking lanes and close the whole lookout, which I do not support? What do we get with this grant, assuming we get no more money, because it sounds like we are not going to get any more money, what do we get with this application if we approve it? We get the grant and the six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000), what does the County of Kaua`i get? That is what I want to know. Not the drawings of what we want to see if we get more money. Councilmember Yukimura: I want to know how the transportation alternatives are being accommodated. My other question is I understand there is the Kaua`i Path and other citizens are working on a north shore path. Is there a COUNCIL MEETING 43 MAY 31, 2017 multi-use path connection down to the valley? We all know that following the main highway around that hairpin curve with very... Mr. Hull: To that point... Councilmember Yukimura: I am just asking my question whether that is in the plans as well. If so, how? Mr. Hull: To that point, Councilmember, none of this is in the plan. This is just potential future, and to the Chair's point if we could direct it back to the original proposal, there are potentials, and should it be expanded, whether we are applying for another grant later on or if it is on a Capital Improvement Project list, that discussion will be had in the future. Quite frankly, there is no transportation-specific facility involved in the proposal as it stands today. There is no expansion as it stands today. There is no connection to the multi-modal concerns that some of the north shore community groups are doing. Quite frankly, they are worthy discussions to have as we move forward, should we move forward on expansion. But what you folks have today is a very simple proposal of, and to the Chair's point of what does the County get, right? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife can discuss their options, what they are seeing, and how they can facilitate their traffic. At the end of the day, the County of Kaua`i Administration looked at partnering with these folks to relieve congestion and safety concerns on the highway. Basically, as they pointed out, there are four thousand five hundred (4,500) cars visiting this a day and roughly several hundred thousand visitors accessing an existing overlook that has serious congestion and safety concerns. To alleviate that, the County said, "We can partner with you folks. At no cost to us, we can apply for these federal moneys, and if given, we can essentially work as a sister agency to funnel these moneys to this very modest and small project at this time." Council Chair Rapozo: How many accidents at that location? Anybody know? Mr. Costa: I do not have that number. Mr. Mitchell: To my knowledge, documented, zero. Council Chair Rapozo: I keep hearing the word "safety." Sometimes the safety hazard causes the safe measures. It causes people to drive slow. That is just the way it is. Mr. Mitchell: Right. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kaneshiro. COUNCIL MEETING 44 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Kaneshiro: I was just going to suggest that if we keep talking about this, if we could go just one (1) slide back because I think that is the proposed site improvements, so we do not need to keep talking about the walking paths, the future bus loading, or the future parking. Councilmember Yukimura: Excuse me, Chair. This is part of the agenda and part of the presentation. The Kaua`i Community Performing Arts Center, because they did not think about the future when they were doing the present, they never left any way for expansion, which is a critical need right now and there is no way to expand. When we plan for the immediate, we also need to look ahead at the future. You have done that with these parking lots for the cars. So my questions about the future connections to the other modes, I believe, is a legitimate and important one, because if you do not put it in the plans now then it becomes much more difficult and much more expensive to do, sometimes prohibitively so. Mr. Mitchell: May I answer? I agree with you that future vision is necessary to speak directly to Mr. Chair's question about what does the County get now? I think from my point of view, this is an opportunity to get many of the visitors that are coming up, for instance, that are coming from Po`ipu and they come to Kilauea Point, we are not open until ten o'clock and they keep going and they want to stop. So they are looking for a nice view and an opportunity. This might be one of the first spots. We, as the greater community, because we are hoping to get community involvement in what sort of message do we want to give visitors before they come down in the valley. How do we want to talk about the respect and the care for the sensitive resources and such? It is also an opportunity, too, as Project Leader Heather said, to try to keep people off of Ohiki Road, to let people get an experience of this valley without encouraging them to go down on the one-way, Ohiki Road. Also, I think this idea of a placeholder is important, so I think the County gets, right now, the cooperation from us to have a placeholder if you want it. Council Chair Rapozo: How many community meetings have you had pertaining to this project in the north shore, Hanalei, and Kilauea? Mr. Mitchell: Before my time, there was a public process with the environmental assessment or there was public... Council Chair Rapozo: I am talking about true community meetings that we could get the community's input that, in fact, they were told that you are going to remove the existing view plane. Maybe I am just overreacting, but how many community meetings have we had? Mr. Mitchell: So 2003, 2016, and then we have had multiple community leader meetings. COUNCIL MEETING 45 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: Open community meetings and public hearings where the general public would come? Mr. Mitchell: Two (2). Council Chair Rapozo: You had one in 2003? Mr. Mitchell: One in 2003 and one in March of 2016. Council Chair Rapozo: So really one in the last two (2) to three (3) years. Mr. Mitchell: That is correct. We are planning in July to have a public meeting to present the thirty percent (30%) design. So we are planning one in a couple of months from now. Council Chair Rapozo: Any more questions? Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. The Po`oku Heiau is to the right, correct? Mr. Mitchell: Yes. Councilmember Chock: Have you folks done any cultural assessments in relation to the heiau for this property? Mr. Mitchell: We have not because the distance...we do need to do another Section 106 Consultation, the distance and separation...the directly answer your question, no, we have not. Mr. Costa: In addition, all of those concerns raised by Councilmember Yukimura—this process started with all of those concerns being addressed. What you see there from the highway, the ingress/egress is all from the Department of Transportation and their expertise, their knowledge, that design. The original plan...what you are looking at is the original plan of our larger facility, a larger overlook with multi-modal paths. As members from U.S. Fish and Wildlife mentioned, because of the funding concerns, that was scaled down to at least accommodate the overlook, the highway, ingress/egress, and some limited parking for now. Also, utilizing the funding that Senator Inouye had set-aside and you have a willing landowner who is willing to sell his property, and to address future concerns. Otherwise, I do not know of any other property that overlooks Hanalei Valley that would be available for such a facility in a location that you could have safe ingress/egress. Council Chair Rapozo: Have we acquired the land? COUNCIL MEETING 46 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Costa: I am sorry? Council Chair Rapozo: What is the status of the land? I heard earlier that we have the land, and then I heard later in the discussion that we have to get land acquisition. Do we own that land? Mr. Mitchell: No, we do not. We are in current negotiations with Jim Fields. We are working on the agreement now. We just spoke with him recently. He is a willing seller and we are working on details. Council Chair Rapozo: How does that get funded? Mr. Mitchell: That funding is from the legacy from the public Highways lands fund that was originally Senator Inouye's effort. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there enough funding in those funds to pay for whatever Mr. Field's property is? Mr. Mitchell: Correct. Council Chair Rapozo: What is the price of that land? Mr. Mitchell: That is a good question. Right now, our realty division is discussing terms of the sale or possible donation. I cannot honestly answer that question. Council Chair Rapozo: Maybe it is not appropriate to discuss it right now anyway. Is it on the market? Mr. Costa: No. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Mr. Costa: He is willing to do this project and it is way under market price. He is only making that available for this project. He has two (2) lots next door and a third one, I believe he dedicated Po`oku Heiau to the community, but he has one (1) lot adjacent to this and another one that already has a house coming up. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am assuming that since this is coming up now that this is a priority from some member of our congressional delegation, so what office have you folks been working with? COUNCIL MEETING 47 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Costa: It started with Alan Yamamoto, who was with the late Senator Inouye. Now, it is with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and Alan Yamamoto is with Senator Hirono's office. They have toured the site and have been here a couple of times. So we are working with Alan Yamamoto and U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Councilmember Kawakami: Is there a deadline where the money that was appropriated lapses and disappears? Mr. Mitchell: Alex can speak directly to that. Mr. Schwartz: Alex Schwartz, for the record. That is a great question. Yes, there is. We are currently working with the Hawaii Department of Transportation and Federal Highways and Senator Hirono's office to extend what we call the "legacy funding" that Senator Inouye have secured many years ago. I should just say that they are just waiting for an updated project schedule from me, and once that is submitted, we expect the extension of the funds to be approved through the anticipated completion of construction for the project to relocate the viewpoint. Councilmember Kawakami: But the original question is when does it lapse currently? If we do not get the extension, when does the money lapse? Mr. Schwartz: It is at the discretion of Federal Highways. Councilmember Kawakami: Okay, so it open-ended currently? Mr. Schwartz: That is correct. Councilmember Kawakami: Okay. The other question is right now, the County's position is just as an applicant, as pass-through, somebody that has to turn in the application. If we are successful, we get the money. The deadline is June 15, 2017 for this current go-around. Has the County applied for any other projects for this TAP funding so that we are not cannibalizing one of our own projects? Because it is competitive. Mr. Tabata: No, we do not have any applications. Councilmember Kawakami: Okay, so the current process is if we decided to turn this down...the project still goes as far as U.S. Fish and Wildlife's position, it is just less the six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) that was possible through this TAP funding, and then the TAP funding goes to a different item since we do not have any other projects that we applied for. COUNCIL MEETING 48 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Tabata: I believe you are correct. Councilmember Kawakami: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Councilmember Yukimura: I have a question. Council Chair Rapozo: Go ahead. Councilmember Yukimura: Why do we not have other projects to apply for? Mr. Tabata: This program is typically for smaller scale projects and many of our projects that are already on the books and in motion are already funded and we need to typically be shovel ready. So we have studies going on for other multi-use bike projects in process right now. For example, the west side path between Waimea and Kekaha, and from Hanapepe Town to Salt Pond Park. Those are presently in the planning and development process with those set-aside funds that we applied from the Department of Transportation. When these become complete and we go to design, then that would be the time when we would be able to apply for funds. Councilmember Yukimura: What is the potential connection to a multi-use path on the north shore, if any? Mr. Tabata: It was discussed in many of our discussions, but because of the shortfall of funds, it is not feasible right now. Councilmember Yukimura: I know it is not feasible. Mr. Tabata: It can be discussed. They work with the community. Councilmember Yukimura: Excuse me, Lyle. Is there actually a potential path going down from this site into the valley that could, in the future, be turned into a multi-use path? Heather, I think you mentioned that. You said multi-modal, but I think what you were referring to was a multi-use path. Am I incorrect? Ms. Tonneson: Thank you. Heather Tonneson, for the record. It is not shown here on this diagram that you see, but there was some discussion initially about an option to have a multi-use path that connects from this proposed site to the existing viewpoint with also an option, a primitive trail down to the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge on the Kuna side that would be to a demonstration pond down there. There may be some connection in the future to Hanalei Town, but we did not get that far into discussing those options. COUNCIL MEETING 49 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Yukimura: But there is an old service road from this site or not? Ms. Tonneson: There is a powerline easement that goes down into the refuge, so that was discussed as a potential option for a path that would go down the hill into the valley. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? I just have a couple of questions. You mentioned that the refuge law enforcement would be responsible. Do we even have that here on Kaua`i? Ms. Tonneson: Yes, the refuge complex has one (1) law enforcement officer that patrols all three (3) refuges and going in between sites also keeps an eye out for anything else that is going on. Council Chair Rapozo: That person would be charged with...you talked about a gate at night, possibly closing that. So that person...obviously, you only have one (1) person. How do you plan on dealing with that? Ms. Tonneson: Yes, Mr. Chair. Hopefully, it would be an automated gate, maybe a better design than we have at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, but yes, automated would be preferred for the gate to be open and closed at certain hours on a timer. Council Chair Rapozo: One more, also looking down the road, is there any discussions about charging entry for this location? Ms. Tonneson: No, Mr. Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: What about accessibility? Has this been designed to address people with disabilities who need accessibility? Mr. Schwartz: That is a wonderful question. I appreciate that. Yes, this site will be designed using all the applicable federal accessibility standards, which would be under the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA), which is quite similar to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as well as the pathways to the viewpoint, and other things would be designed using the federal outdoor accessibility guidelines. COUNCIL MEETING 50 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Yukimura: Very good. So in the map in our docket, you have dots along here, but it is not shown in this map that we are looking at. What are those dots? Ms. Tonneson: Thank you for that question. Those dots, we initially discussed some type of vehicle barriers surrounding the parking lot. Again, due to costs and maintenance considerations, we are thinking that there may be a number of options that could be some type of bollards or vegetated barrier. So we decided to take that out because it essentially implied it would be some sort of small fence or something like that and we had not necessarily agreed that that was the best way to deal with that issue. Councilmember Yukimura: What that does is put a barrier between the grassy area and pavement, and if people actually, which I believe they could, park their car and then go to the bus stop, the present bus stop, to have all of these barriers does not make sense to me. Even right now, to go through a parking lot is a problem, especially if you are disabled. Thank you for the explanation. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? Councilmember Kagawa. Councilmember Kagawa: I just have one for George. I just wanted to make sure that the administration costs or the administrative work that needs to be done to support this project is not going to require any additional labor to the County. Mr. Costa: Maybe Lyle can explain that better, but just from the Office of Economic Development, we manage over one hundred forty (140) grants, so I would not see that being a problem. Councilmember Kagawa: Is there an estimate of how much hours we expect are going to be needed to be spent on this grant? Do we have sufficient manpower that can do the job? MICHAEL MOULE, Chief of Engineering: For the record, Michael Moule, Chief of Engineering Division in the Department of Public Works. We have not done a detailed estimate of how many hours this is. It is not a significant amount. What we are talking about here is managing the funds, the processing of payments, and that sort of thing. We do this on a regular basis for a dozen projects probably that we are going through at any given time. The really time consuming stuff for us on projects is managing the consultants, the design, and the construction, which is entirely being done by U.S. Fish and Wildlife in this case. So we do not anticipate a significant concern for us. It is a routine thing for our fiscal office in partnership with my Engineering Division without any worries about increasing costs. If we COUNCIL MEETING 51 MAY 31, 2017 were doing the management for the consultant and design then it would be a whole other story, but we are not. Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. Who is the registered speaker? Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Carl Imparato. Council Chair Rapozo: Welcome back, Mr. Imparato. I have not seen you in a while. CARL IMPARATO: Aloha Councilmembers. My name is Carl Imparato and although I am the President of the Hanalei to Ha`ena Community Association, I am speaking today on my own behalf. The area from Hanalei to Ha`ena is suffering greatly from the enormous uncontrolled expansion of tourism. We are suffering adverse impacts in many ways, but today, I only want to talk about public safety. Tourist traffic in Hanalei overwhelms our roads and our parks. Traffic on Kuhio Highway now routinely backs up all the way from the Hanalei Bridge to Hanalei Town, making it close to impossible to have safe, rapid evacuation of the tsunami zone. The extra traffic as well creates delays, frustration, and all of that has resulted in dramatic decreases in road courtesy and significant increases in speeding and unsafe driving in Hanalei Town, particularly near Hanalei Elementary School. The only plausible reason for these problems is the massive increases in tourism and tourist vehicles over the past few years. There has been a twenty-six percent (26%) increase in average daily visitor count between 2010 and 2015 and another six point five percent (6.5%) for the first four (4) months of this year, compared to last year. So unless something is done to manage the future growth of tourism, things will only get worse. It is clear that this new Hanalei Valley overlook would be another tourist attractor for the north shore. We do not need another tourist attractor, unless the benefits to the community would clearly outweigh the burdens of the additional tourists and their vehicles. In this particular case, I believe you have the ability to help make that happen. You can help mitigate negative impacts here. The Hanalei to Ha'ena Community Association is currently developing a Safe Routes to School and Complete Streets plan for Kuhio Highway in Hanalei. It is a plan that is going to need support from the County, and more importantly, it is going to need cooperation and support of the Department of Transportation for traffic calming measures and possibly for the dedication for some of the DOT's right-of-way to pedestrians and bicyclists. Given the Department of Transportation of Honolulu's institutional mindset and hostility towards traffic calming, this could mean a very steep, uphill fight against the DOT bureaucracy. This funding request that is before you today would make the County a partner with both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Hawai`i DOT in the Hanalei Overlook project. Because the County would be bringing both its credibility COUNCIL MEETING 52 MAY 31, 2017 and basically six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) to the overlook project, the County Council has the ability now to ensure that the project will benefit not only tourists, but the community as well. I have another paragraph or two, but should I come back? Council Chair Rapozo: I am not sure if there is anyone who wishes to speak. Mr. Mickens wants to speak. Yes, Mr. Imparato, you are going to have to come back up. Next speaker. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Glenn Mickens. Mr. Mickens: For the record, Glenn Mickens. I guess I have a couple of questions. I did not hear an answer to Council Chair's question of total costs for this project. If two million nine hundred thousand dollars ($2,900,000) is for design costs...I think I heard the gentleman say it was thirty percent (30%) of the total and this total project would be someplace in the ten million dollars ($10,000,000) or more project, I presume? We did not even hear what the cost of the land is going to be yet. They do not know that. So if we start adding these figures up, we are talking about a lot of money. Over the years, as a visitor and resident of Kaua`i, I have never had a problem getting in or out of that beautiful view sight, so do we really need an extravagant project like this to take its place? As Carl was saying, traffic is a huge problem now and we are going to make another tourist attraction and make it even bigger? I thought the one we had was fine. Again, no matter where the funds come from, whether they are grants or what they are, the money is our money, tax money. Is this project really a necessity? What will be the total immediate and long-term cost to the Kaua`i taxpayers? I did not hear that. Is this very costly project a real necessity at this time with all of the other important problems that we have now? I do not think so. If the people were asked this question, what we want to take care of in this island, I do not think adding another extravagant, Taj Mahal project down there would be the answer. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Anyone else wishing to testify? If not, Mr. Imparato. Mr. Imparato: As I was saying before, I believe that you can help with our other problems by letting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Transportation, and the County Administration all know that in return for supporting this project and the TAP funding request, it is your expectation that they should mitigate the project's adverse growth inducing impacts by making best efforts to work with the Hanalei community to improve bridge courtesy and road safety from Hanalei to Ha`ena, and to fully support the traffic calming, speed reduction, and other measures that we are going to need in order to implement a community-supported Safe Routes to School and Complete Streets plan for Hanalei. I know in talking with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife people, they COUNCIL MEETING 53 MAY 31, 2017 have indicated that they are willing to make that kind of a commitment to help us on that and I think that with your urging and the County Administration, that we can hopefully get the Hawai`i DOT to help out. For that reason, I hope that you will indicate your support for giving a message to the project participants when you consider voting for the TAP funding. That finishes my formal comments and I wanted to just make a few other comments based on what I heard today. As to the old overlook, the reason that some of the community members have said we would like to keep that open is because the proposal is to close this new overlook on off- peak hours and evenings. There needs to be a way for people to basically have view in other hours of the day. We have been urging that the old overlook be maintained and kept open. If only during off-peak hours, for example, when they close the gate on the new overlook and open the gate on the old one. Secondly, we disagree strongly as to whether there is any need for this based on safety concerns. There has been no history of accidents over there and my personal belief is that the congestion actually slows down traffic a little bit, it is a good thing. That is neither here nor there because I think that the benefits of the project stand and fall on their own, regardless of safety. As I said, I do support the project personally and I know some other community members support it as well. Hopefully, this will be a mechanism for us to bring together the parties to push Hanalei Hawai`i DOT on doing the right thing for helping us deal with congestion and a Safe Routes to School project along Kuhio Highway in Hanalei. The final comment is that I do believe that the question of the bike path down into the valley ought to be kept separate from this because this project has its own merits and there are a number of us who do not believe that there should be a bike path down into the valley. That would just basically be something primarily for tourists. I do not see many other people are going to be using it. Thank you again for your time. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you, Carl. Councilmember Yukimura, clarifying question? Councilmember Yukimura: Yes. Carl, I am not clear what you mean by this project will help the DOT and US Fish and Wildlife support traffic calming and Safe Routes to School. Could you clarify that? Mr. Imparato: This is actually just a hope that...we talk about hard power and soft power, that by having this collaborative effort between the County, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Hawai`i DOT that the County and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will put pressure on the DOT as partners in this project to being more receptive to eliminating the negative impacts that this project is creating by being receptive to supporting the traffic calming measures that we are proposing for Hanalei. It is just basically saying by having the people work together... Council Chair Rapozo: I think he answered your question. COUNCIL MEETING 54 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Yukimura: Could you provide those traffic calming proposals for us? Council Chair Rapozo: You can do that in writing. Councilmember Yukimura: Yes, of course. Mr. Imparato: In terms of timing, we will be doing that in the next month or so. Councilmember Yukimura: Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: We have to take a caption break. There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 10:32 a.m. The meeting reconvened at 10:44 a.m., and proceeded as follows: Council Chair Rapozo: Any further discussion? Councilmember Kagawa. There being no further testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Councilmember Kagawa: I would like to thank the U.S. Fish and Wildlife for coming with this proposal and trying to find a better alternative to what appears to be a dangerous situation with the current overlook. But apparently, there have been no accidents. So it is not as dangerous maybe as it is perceived to be. There are ways to make it safer, just talking with Michael Moule and maybe we can work on having that option looked at immediately to make that one safe in working with the State Department of Transportation Highways. There are ways to make the existing safer if we put some commitment from the State in there. The other thing is that this is another way of looking at gathering Federal funds for Kaua`i. We always try to get as much Federal moneys as we can for our island. I think a lot of times we wonder, all of our working class people with their social security and federal income taxes, they pay maybe twenty-five percent (25%) to thirty-five percent (35%) of their income, going to Federal taxes and you wonder, "What do we get in return?" Like yesterday, I was reading the news and that missile defense test that we did yesterday costed the Federal government two hundred forty-four million dollars ($240,000,000), just like that to do a test. Though, it is an important test since North Korea is acting crazy. When you think about it, how do we garner funds from the Federal government here to improve our island and certainly we want to do as much as we can to improve our island using Federal funds. I think what some of the speakers said in being concerned with the concerns of the Hanalei community, I would say that it is probably the whole north COUNCIL MEETING 55 MAY 31, 2017 shore local community. You want to gather information from them on how we can best deal with this situation to make it better for everyone. I do not think it will really add too much tourists. I think the tourists are coming, regardless of any improved lookout. I think they are here and it is a problem; too much of them are in cars. Definitely, I do not think they are going to add really significantly. I think they are already here; they are significant now. It is a problem. I think I will be supporting...I am hoping that Senator Hirono's office can...since they are kind of working together with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, they can work together with them and make sure that we garner community input more frequently than one meeting and just trying to make sure that if we proceed further that we have done all we can to make sure that we are not creating a situation that will turn to be something bad, because I think the intentions are all good. If the intentions are good, let us work with the community and let us make it better or as best as we can. Thank you, Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation, to all agencies involved. I will also be supporting this request. However, I do, like some of the testimony that has been expressed today from the public, have some concerns. My concerns are, first, the fact that these legacy funds have been around for a long time now, I think I am disappointed that it is coming to us so late in this discussion. This is not a new item, and what I have been presented to today, at least from the County's standpoint, is a not a holistic view of how it is it truly can support the needs of the community. What I am talking about are our local residents. So I do not like being rushed on it. I also think that the adverse growth question needs to be addressed wholeheartedly. For us to kind of just skip around what the true needs are, I think, is an issue and we need to change it. Everything from the traffic and walking paths, those things, if we are not in discussion with it at an early stage, not only here at the County, but with the community, I think we are actually going to run into some issues. One community meeting...well, two...I do not really count the 2003 one, but one in 2016. So I would urge that we continue that outreach because these things can escalate very quickly if you do not involve those voices in the community and work with them. I look forwards to that and I will ultimately support this today. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kaneshiro. Councilmember Kaneshiro: I am just going to say that I am comfortable with the project and will support it. I see it as an improvement to the area. I am sure history would tell if you look at how many visitors have visited the current overlook that the numbers have grown year-after-year and I do not see the numbers getting any smaller. When you look at a project like this, where there is a bigger improvement and it will be able to accommodate more people and a bigger car parking area that is safer, I think it is an improvement for the area and that is why COUNCIL MEETING 56 MAY 31, 2017 I will be supporting it. I am also glad that it is not going to take much County resources. That is always a good thing. Again, it does come down to partnerships and working together. Here is a situation where the County is putting in a little work, but we are not necessarily getting a benefit to ourselves, but it is a benefit to the island; it is an improvement to the island. I think everyone will be happy with it once it gets through. I am comfortable with it and I will be supporting it. Council Chair Rapozo: Anyone else? Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also will be supporting it. I think it is a great improvement. That panoramic view is an iconic view and when you look at some of our lookouts, Pali Lookout across the State, Waimea Canyon Lookout—I would compare that view over Hanalei Valley to any one of those other views. I also think it is a great tribute to Senator Inouye. He was very instrumental in preserving the way that Hanalei looks today. Whether it was work with the bridges and work with the farmers down there, he played a huge role in maintaining the character that Hanalei has or has tried to maintain to have. Once again the County's role in this—I do not know if there is some hesitancy, because right now it seems easy that we are just the applicant. So we just want assurances to make sure that if there was any shortfall that we would not be on the hook. It does not sound like we are going to be on the hook. Moving forward, I hope to see this project get more community input. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Councilmember Brun. Councilmember Brun: For me, I will also be supporting it, and the same with them, community input is what is kind of showing a red-flag. Usually, if you do not have community input then that means it is pretty much, "This is what I am going to do. Too bad." I do not think you folks are doing that and I think it is a good project. When we passed there, it looks like a safety hazard, but no accidents. Still, we can do this and change things. Hopefully, we can move forward get together and get back to "Friday night lights." Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: I want to thank U.S. Fish and Wildlife for spearheading this project for many years. It takes a lot of time and effort to do a Federal project. I believe it will be an improvement, but I hope that there would be some thought on how to handle the existing lookout. I want to ask that there be very concerted multi-modal planning in finalizing the design of this project, especially careful transit planning. If there are thoughts of future partnership an expansion, we need to anticipate that in the plans for the first phase. I hope that there will be a lot of thought. I also hope that our Transportation Agency will be giving good input on this matter because the proper functioning of the public transit is going to be so important to the north shore, and the work that has already begin COUNCIL MEETING 57 MAY 31, 2017 in partnering between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Transpiration Agency and the work on the north short shuttle is going to be very important to both agencies. I hope that there is very careful coordination there, as well as the other modes. TAP funding, defined as "transportation alternatives," includes pedestrian and bike facilities, infrastructure projects improving, non-driver access to public transportation, enhanced mobility, community improvement, and environmental mitigation. We can fulfill the purpose of the TAP funding. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other comments? Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize, but the other thing I just want you folks to have some consideration of, and I know it is fairly controversial, but when I drive past that lookout, I primarily see it being used by tourists. I know the topic came out whether they were going to be user fees or proposed fees, but if we are going to be considering commercializing that area by allowing tour buses to one day go through or just knowing that this is going to be heavily used by tourist—as a traveler myself, when I go to a national park or to other State parks, there are ways that I need to pay into that maintenance, and I would strongly consider that now in the post-Senator Dan Inouye days where funding is very thin, that some of that burden of cost should be borne by the visitors that actually use it. I do not have any kind of firm statistical data and how many tourists versus locals, but just passing it by, it seems to be more heavily used by tourists. I do think they should pay into the maintenance of that lookout. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other comments? My comments are not meant to offend anybody from the Federal government or State government, but I, in all good conscious, cannot support this request. Our job is to receive these requests, put it out on our table, get community input, and make a decision. This is a major project. They will shut down the old lookout and we do not have an opportunity to even get a pulse from the north shore community or from the island community for that matter. To come here and say, "Hey, we need this because the application deadline is the 15th of June," knowing that we cannot do our due diligence in that short amount of a time really puts us in the spot, "Are you going to take the money or not?" That is not appropriate. I think there should be a little bit more courtesy on that. This project is not a new project; it just did not pop-up. If you look at the eligible uses of TAP funding, you cannot tell me that this project on our island takes priority over many other projects that we could use TAP funding for, for Kaua`i. Again, because there is money available, we are going chase the money. We do not know much about this project, other than we have some conceptual, proposed improvements, and we do not know what we are getting, but we are going to do it because we do not want to lose the money. I think that is the wrong way to do things, but that is just me. This project involves Highways, the Department of Public Works, and Transportation, all of these entities, but we have COUNCIL MEETING 58 MAY 31, 2017 not heard from them. We heard comments that, "Yes, we spoke to them," but we have not heard their side or their ability to work with the Federal government to even work with those folks and come with some kind of solution. We had one community meeting in 2003, which I do not know what the results of those were. That was fourteen (14) years ago. Then we get one (1) day to approve this grant request. We talked a lot today about the visitors, tourists, tour buses, and all of these things, but what about the local residents? What about the local community that uses that? When I have visitors that come from the other islands, we use that place. But the emphasis was on, "We have to make it so that tour buses"— Mr. Imparato was talking about this possibly helping Hanalei—that would be in every tour guide book about this fabulous location that is going to draw a ton more tourists down to the north shore. If you think this is going to help—Mr. Imp arato, I respect you tremendously, but I disagree. It will create more traffic coming down to the north shore when you have these kinds of amenities. Again, we do not know what the view plane is. They said, "We are going to kind of leave the natural landscape," but we do not know what the view is. What we have out there right now is seen throughout the world. That is Kaua`i; that lookout is Kaua`i. We are going to block it off? I do not care what they said here today—you are not going to take away what is considered an unsafe situation and build this safe situation, but leave the unsafe situation there. Really? The reality is if this is built, then the old view plane will be taken away. I do not like gates. Why do we have to talk about putting gates and deprive people of their right? I am talking about local people, not talking about the tourists. I am talking about our local people. Why should our local people be deprived of the opportunities to stop by our view planes and our landmarks? I do not think it is right. I think if this played out, I probably would support it, but I have not gotten to that point. Really, to come here and say that we need it today, I think, is unfair and does not give us the opportunity to provide our constituents with reasonable due diligence, and I think that is our job. I do not want to be the ugly man, but I am the ugly man today because I do not feel that I have done my due diligence, I do not know enough. Obviously, if we want to go after six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) because it is free money, let us go get them, then it is what it is. I keep thinking about Moi Road in Hanapepe. Those people have been begging for a pedestrian walking path and biking path up Moi Road in Hanapepe, and every year, we tell them, "No more money," yet, when I look at the TAP funding eligibility, to me anyway, that is something we should go after. But, no we are choosing otherwise. Really, if the feds cannot come up with six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) throughout their entire budget, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or National Park Service and they have to resort to the County putting in a grant, then we have got some serious issues. We really do. The motion to approve C 2017-132 was then put, and carried by a vote of 6:1:0 (Council Chair Rapozo voting no). Council Chair Rapozo: Next item. COUNCIL MEETING 59 MAY 31, 2017 Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: The next item is Legal Document, C 2017-133. LEGAL DOCUMENT: C 2017-133 Communication (04/25/2017) from the Acting County Engineer, recommending Council approval, of a Limited Right-of-Entry Permit with the State of Hawai`i Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL), to allow for the removal of approximately fifty (50) cubic yards of sand from the Anahola river mouth area situated at Tax Map Key (TMK) Nos. (4) 4-8-12:10 (por.) and (4) 4-8-18:028 and 29 (por.), for the filling and placement of temporary sandbags to stabilize the roadway until final repair can be done on Aliomanu Road in Anahola. • Limited Right-of-Entry Permit Councilmember Kagawa moved to approve C 2017-133, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Councilmember Kagawa. Councilmember Kagawa: Can we get whoever is going to be in-charge of this to explain? Council Chair Rapozo: The rules are suspended. Can we get somebody up here to discuss what this is? There being no objections, the rules were suspended. Mr. Tabata: Good morning Chair and Members of the Council. Acting County Engineer, Lyle Tabata and Michael Moule. We are asking for approval for a Right-of-Entry Permit with the Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL) to increase the working area of the repairs that we are in design presently and permitting, to fix the erosion alongside a section of Aliomanu Road so that we can correct the repairs. Councilmember Kagawa: So basically, we are going to take about fifty (50) cubic yards of sand from that river mouth area and we need the Department of Hawaiian Homelands approval? Mr. Tabata: Yes, we need to harvest sand to temporarily place sandbags along the roadside to prevent further erosion right now. Councilmember Kagawa: Then when we are done are we going to bring the sand back? COUNCIL MEETING 60 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Tabata: No, the sand stays. The bags will deteriorate over time. Councilmember Kagawa: Give me an example, I do not know what a cubic yard looks like. Is that like a truckload? What is fifty (50) cubic yards? How much is that? Mr. Tabata: So we get these fiber bag sacks and I guess you could say that they are each about the size from that table square and about four (4) feet high. Councilmember Kagawa: How much of those would we be filling up? Mr. Moule: This is Michael Moule. I am the Chief of Engineering. This one is about twelve (12) or fourteen (14) bags to place along the roadside. Councilmember Kagawa: Twelve (12) or fourteen (14) of those big bags? Mr. Moule: Yes, there are a couple of them out there now and we are planning to place twelve (12) or fourteen (14) more. I think a typical dump-truck is twenty (20) cubic or twenty-five (25), so you are looking at two (2) to three (3) dump-trucks. Council Chair Rapozo: You know the green bins that you see, the rubbish bins... Mr. Tabata: Yes, about that size. Council Chair Rapozo: Is that six (6) cubic yards? Mr. Tabata: That is three (3) cubic yards. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay, so I guess you can figure it out by envisioning those. Councilmember Kagawa: So seventeen (17) of those green rubbish bins. Mr. Tabata: Yes. Councilmember Kagawa: Is there any negative consequence to the Anahola river mouth area when we take these fifty (50) cubic yards? COUNCIL MEETING 61 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Tabata: No, because the sand has come from this area and migrated down towards the river. Councilmember Kagawa: Oh, it came from the area? Mr. Tabata: Yes. Councilmember Kagawa: That is where the build-up is. Mr. Tabata: We have done this several times since this erosion first took place, I believe in early 2003/2004. The project has been ongoing because of all the permitting issues because of the potential to do work in the ocean. So I believe right now, we are working on a design that does not go into the ocean, and I think we are just finishing up those permits. Councilmember Kagawa: Okay. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. Can you elaborate on this? My question is what are the long-term solutions to this road that has been chronic? I want to ensure that we are not just coming back to the same solution in repairing this. We talked about more inland and I want to be clear about what it is we are going to be doing. Mr. Moule: Thank you for the question, that is a very good question. This is the temporary fix. We are still working on the long-term fix for this project for this eroded area. At the very first page of the documents we sent to you, we show the schedule for that project and what we are finalizing right now, the consultant is finalizing the supplemental environmental assessment for that and that will include essentially reconstructing the road, roughly at its current location. This is the plan right now. We had to go through this environmental assessment in order to look at various alternatives based on the requirements for permitting for this. So once we finalized the EA, which is scheduled for October of this year, we are working towards finalizing the permits by next April, and then going to construction by roughly October 2018, is the plan right now. The plan for that right now is a permanent revetment of slope with large boulders that would keep the road from getting eroded away, while also not creating a seawall effect that creates problems down the coastline. Probably most similar, although not exactly the same, is what you see along Kekaha Beach, where the rocks are placed at a slope there. So it does not just bounce off of that, it just slopes up and comes back more like a natural slope. At the time that that project is constructed, any sandbags that are remaining in place at that time would be removed. The sand might be left right there at that point. I also mentioned that the supplemental environmental assessment talks about the long-term sand replenishment program COUNCIL MEETING 62 MAY 31, 2017 potentially for this area, which again, the idea would be to take the sand from where it being removed now in the area of this eroded roadway and being accreted or dumped essentially at the river mouth. So that is something that is also discussed in the EA and the details of that have not been finalized of course, but that is something that we would be looking at as a possible long-term solution, both for keeping the Anahola river mouth from being clogged and also keeping sand in this area to keep this area from continuing to erode, long-term revetment. Councilmember Chock: Has the encroaching sea-level been taken into consideration in future mitigation? Mr. Moule: That is right. Yes, the fact it is potential sea-level rise is being considered, this has been done by a consultant who are very strong experts in this kind of ocean engineering. We feel very comfortable with the design that the alternative...this is the preferred alternative in the supplemental EA, which will be out later this year, it will be finalized later this year. Council Chair Rapozo: Any other questions? Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have we identified the source of this erosion problem? Historically, that area did not have such a bad erosion problem. Have you identified any source? There are people that live down there that have a theory on what the source of the erosion is. Mr. Moule: I am not aware of any specific... Councilmember Kawakami: A seawall fronting a property that may or may not be legal? Mr. Moule: I know that there are...I have heard...I do not know the details of this because this is not an area that we have any regulations as the Department of Public Works, but I have heard that there are walls of sorts that have been built by residents in the area that may or may not have been permitted. Again, I do not know the details of that. I will say that based on the general engineering information that I know and especially the information that we get from our ocean engineering experts, we are working on this that, yes, any time you do harden with a seawall of any type, that can potentially cause erosion down the coast. But this is not something that is under our purview as the Department of Public Works. Councilmember Kawakami: Whose purview would it be under? Mr. Moule: The State. COUNCIL MEETING 63 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Kawakami: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Council Chair Rapozo: Would it not be under Planning's purview? Mr. Moule: It may also be under Planning's purview as far as putting something...if a wall was put in the shoreline, it might be a Special Management Area (SMA) issue for Planning. Council Chair Rapozo: I think it is. Mr. Moule: I do not know the answer to that question. Sorry. Council Chair Rapozo: I do not think it rests solely...like I said, the State obviously has a duty and a responsibility and they have ignored it over all of these years, and honestly, the County has, too. That wall was built illegally. The problem is what do you do? Do you remove their wall? Then that house falls into the ocean. We are in kind of a rough spot right now. It is tough to do what you folks are doing, but either that or we just erode away. It is just an unfortunate deal out there and I think the cause of that was, Councilmember Kawakami, no doubt because of the construction of that illegal wall. Any other questions? If not, thank you. Any public testimony? Seeing none, I will call the meeting back to order. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to approve C 2017-133 was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Rapozo: Can you read us into Executive Session? I believe that was the only item we had left. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: We have to two (2) Budget Bills. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Let us go with the Budget Bills. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Okay. We are on page 6, Bill No. 2645, Draft 1. BILLS FOR SECOND READING: Bill No. 2645, Draft 1 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2017 TO JUNE 30, 2018 (Fiscal Year 2017-2018 Operating Budget): Councilmember Yukimura moved to approve Bill No. 2645, Draft 1 on second and COUNCIL MEETING 64 MAY 31, 2017 final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro. Council Chair Rapozo: This is on the Operating Budget. Did you want to make your comments now or at the next Bill? Let us just do it now, then we can get through the CIP. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to testify before we move forward? Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Chair, we have one (1) registered speaker, Ana Mohamad DesMarais. Council Chair Rapozo: With that, I will suspend the rules. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. ANA MOHAMAD DESMARAIS: May I give an appreciation individually to every Councilmember? Council Chair Rapozo: You can do whatever you want in six (6) minutes. Ms. DesMarais: Okay. Vice Chair, I appreciate your strong spine and making really difficult decisions and being courageous on that, coming forward and digging deep, even though there is heat for that. That is an important quality so thank you for bringing that forward. Councilmember Kaneshiro, thank you so much for your fiscal knowledge, your responsibility and understanding of what needs to be done in the decisions that need to be made for the benefit of the community. Councilmember Chock, I really appreciate your community involvement and it truly shows that your heart is aligned with the majority of what the community's needs are. Chair, I love how you so frankly speak on the children and the need for bringing them into a future, especially with comments on your daughter and how being a parent has really shifted and broadened your journey. I love how you are going deep into the issues outside of these walls. I appreciate that. Councilmember Kawakami, I love how you go into the community and you are in an outreach perspective. I have seen you a few times out there, so I feel that you are in-touch, especially with your circle and the needs of the community. Thank you for speaking on that. Councilmember Yukimura, thank you for your endless efforts and your long list of achievements and your continuation to make sure that there is no taking advantage on this soil. I appreciate so much all of the effort that has been exhaustively spent on this area. Councilmember Brun, I love how in your platform it was a very important aspect for you to consider the drug and alcohol abuse situation that has happened here. I do want to have an invitation be extended, maybe with being a man of God and you have spoken how the church does want to touch on the homelessness and all of these issues, if there could be a community outreach for all of this to participate on that as well. Thank you for bringing that forward to the table. COUNCIL MEETING 65 MAY 31, 2017 What I would like to talk about, as far as the Operating Budget—I would have come earlier...it is just the whole thing shifted...I was watching on the webcast. So I get that I have another three (3) minutes after this. Just quickly touching on CIRI, I know that is not going to change any of the votes and it was legal, every motion, and I understand the need to vote and past this on. I do appreciate the two (2) Councilmembers that voted on principle with this. I just wanted to clarify that I was never discussing their constitutional right to land; it was just their use of the VDA, and how in very general terms, I feel that there needs to be more discussion on this specific use of land and how it can participate in the advancing of the community as a whole with the profits generated from this. I know there has to be a new section created for this to happen, but just like there is State tax and Federal tax, there should be a County tax, which can include visitation tax from the visitors from the airports. Also, any profits made off the land, a portion of the profits. I do not want anybody to feel attacked or antagonized that I am trying to in any way not taking from the rich and give to the poor, but just basically equalize what is happening on this soil and have it be a just movement for our future, so that we are all included and the playing field actually gets evened out with this. Any tourism, any VDA, or any companies using the air, land, or sea to gain profits can have a portion of these profits that can be discussed by the Council as to what would seem fair to request, and that can go into this budget sense where it can be used for basically providing the real needs of the community that have been overlooked by the sense of having mainlanders afforded opportunities to buy up land and raise the prices, and those opportunities are not equal to the opportunities afforded to the islanders causing the disparity. I love that there is a university zone situation being discussed, and if it can go from a community college into an actual university, four-year degree so that students do not have to leave the island, have costs go there, and be able to receive the degrees necessary in order to have this opportunity to be at the level that are in the Operating Budget. Salaries would be a beautiful step forward into helping even out the situation here. So is that understood pretty much? Yes? Okay. I do want to say that I know I spoke when the bill was presented in the public hearing and in the committee, and I am here now and I understand that you have seen me alone, but I am not alone; I am representing many of the community members that are not able to come forward. Whatever needs to happen in order for you to truly understand that I do represent this larger body than just myself, I will provide that for you. Just please be clear and open with me in how we can effectively move forward together. I am very comfortable having conversations with anyone and I will knock on anyone's door in order to involve the entirety of the situation. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. May I ask you who is in the back of the room with you? Ms. DesMarais: These are my children. Council Chair Rapozo: Can you introduce them real quick? COUNCIL MEETING 66 MAY 31, 2017 Ms. DesMarais: This is Luca and Sophia. Council Chair Rapozo: Hi, thank you for coming today. Ms. DesMarais: Thank you for letting me have them with me. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify? Seeing none, I will call the meeting back to order. We will have discussion at this point. What we will do is because it is the budget comments and it is very difficult to get your comments in a five-minute period, if there is no objection, I will allow ten (10) minutes, up to no more than ten (10) minutes to get your comments across. Because that is there, if you do not have ten (10) minutes, do not create ten (10) minutes of testimony. For those that have a lot to say, I did not want to cut anybody off. If there are no objections, we will go with that. One opportunity with ten (10) minutes, and then we will get through this. With that, who wants to start? No one? Councilmember Kaneshiro. There being no further testimony, the meeting was called back to order and proceeded as follows: Councilmember Kaneshiro: I will start then. First off, I want to thank the Administration, my fellow Councilmembers, and the County Council staff for all of their hard work and patience to get through another budget. We all know how long and grueling the process is, but we understand its importance. We were faced with many challenges this year. We had one million four hundred fifty thousand dollars ($1,450,000) reduced in Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT), we had increase in collective bargaining, and we had increase in the County's portion of the employer retirement system that we had to pay into. We hear very often from the public to cut costs, be more efficient, and concentrate on core services, and I think the question is what are we willing to sacrifice to do that? To put it into perspective, I have heard our salaries are a large portion of our budget, and to tell you the truth, salaries and benefits will continue to be a large portion and it will probably continue to grow. When you are looking at salaries and benefits, if we are not willing to cut warm bodies or vacant positions, then the only costs we can cut are variable costs, costs such as repairs and maintenance, training, travel, and those types of things, which end up getting squeezed. Your salaries are not going to decrease; they are going to continue to increase. So we are going to continue to see a high cost of salaries and benefits in the future. During the budget, we have seen us eliminate a position through attrition where the person left, the position was vacant, and we did not fill it, only to hear complaints about a reduction in service and lack of convenience, in which the position was put back in. Everything comes with a cost. If we focus on core services, which we have heard a lot and eliminated, say, Housing, Elderly Affairs, and Economic Development, we would save roughly four million dollars ($4,000,000) out of our two hundred million dollar COUNCIL MEETING 67 MAY 31, 2017 ($200,000,000) budget, not that I want to cut that. Again, there is a cost to that. We can kiss the ninety-unit Kaniko`o Rice Camp Housing Project goodbye, we can kiss the forty-four-unit Kolopua Project in Princeville goodbye, and we could kiss probably the future Lima Ola Project goodbye if we did that. Although services and activities we offer to our elderly to stay healthy and active, we could kiss that goodbye. All of the grant-in-aid that Economic Development provides, kiss that goodbye, which we did cut a lot of grant-in-aids for Economic Development. My point is that with everything we do, there is a consequence. Housing does do a lot of stuff for us, Housing brings in a lot of money, and Housing does a lot of affordable houses. Elderly serves a lot of people on our island. Those are the considerations that we need to make when people say to concentrate on core services. I think we do that, but we also look at what do these other services provide and are they worth it? For me, I think they are worth it. So that makes it very difficult to find cuts in our budget. Speaking about consequences, I guess I would be remiss not to mention my disappointment in straying from our recently passed resolution relating to our Reserve Fund. The policy we pass was to give us a clear target and to help us make sound financial decisions. Although we were able to reduce the number we were chasing from three million six hundred thousand dollars ($3,600,000) to one million six hundred thousand dollars ($1,600,000), the fact still remains that our expenses exceeded our revenues this year. Rather than increasing our revenues to match our expenses, we raided our Reserve Fund, essentially our savings account. Our expensed exceeding our revenues is a small indication of what to come. It is inevitable that the gap between those two (2) will continue to grow. It sets a very bad precedent to ignore policy. We cannot keep raiding the Reserve Fund as our solution to balancing the budget. One day, there will be no reserve or savings account to raid and we will be in a very bad financial situation. It is similar to kicking the can down the road. What is our responsibility? You look at an example, I would say, at Coca-Cola Company. If Coca-Cola Company said, "We are not going to raise our soda cans from twenty-five cents ($0.25) ever and we are just going to cover our expenses with our savings," where would they be now? They would be gone. They would raid their savings and go broke. Then their only other option would be to increase the price of their can. The jump they are going to have to make to make up for all of their loss is a huge jump. I kind of compare it to biting an apple. Do we want to take in small bites or do we want to swallow a huge apple? If we cannot show the discipline to adhere to our policy when facing a one million six hundred thousand dollar ($1,600,000) deficit, what will we do when that number continues to grow? Do we do it again? What happens if the numbers doubles or triples that amount next year? I believe that the gap will get bigger. Enough on that, as far as...I thought I only had five (5) minutes, which I probably would have gone over already, but again, it all comes down to how responsible we want to be and our policy, how we want to adhere to it. For me, my vision and my goal was to reach that target reserve balance. Any additional money that goes into it, we use it for important projects. We hear that roads is a very important project that we want to address, but we need to get our savings account established first. That is the way I would run my own personal finances and that is the way I want to run the County COUNCIL MEETING 68 MAY 31, 2017 for finances. You be financially stable first, then with the extra money you have, you can use it for all of the other projects you want. As the Budget & Finance Committee Chair, that is my goal to gets us to in future to be able to meet our reserve target, and then spend any extra money on the things that we need to spend on. Obviously, we do have a big backlog in expenses and we cannot possibly raise taxes to cover everything that we need to now. Again, it is taking either that small bite of the apple or swallowing it whole, which for me, I would rather take smaller bites of the apple. In looking and facing possible tax increases, I also looked at the type of tax breaks that we do offer to our residents that own houses. We do have a bunch of tax relief programs and if anybody is listening, I would encourage them to look into them if they have not. We have a regular homeowner's exemption of one hundred sixty thousand dollars ($160,000) off the bat. We have age exemptions of one hundred eighty thousand dollars ($180,000) and two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000), which equal to almost a five hundred dollar ($500) to six hundred dollar ($600) reduction in your Real Property Tax bill, just based on your age. If you are over sixty (60) years old or over seventy (70) years old, that is the reduction you get. I do not get to it. I will need to wait a while to get that type of reduction. There is also additional exemption based on income, an additional one hundred twenty thousand dollar ($120,000) value of reduction. Then there is very low-income tax credits and home preservation limits, which cap taxes at three percent (3%) of your gross income. We also did an assessment cap last year and there is also disability exemption and disabled veteran exemption. When we do face these difficult decisions, it is very difficult to go to the public and say, "We are going to increase your taxes." When push comes to shove, we need to do what is right and we need to think about the future. We cannot only get past the budget we have now. We need to think about what is going happen in the next budget? What is our deficit going to be in the next budget? What are we going to have to do? We have to kind of eat away at it. For me, it gives some confidence knowing that we do have these relief measures in place. So if people do have a difficult time, we have all of these measures in place to try to alleviate the financial difficulties with any tax increase. Again, we were not just looking at tax increase for Homestead, but were looking at an across-the-board increase to all of the categories. Again, in the end, I respect the decision of the Council. I know we are going to be watching the budget carefully throughout the year. It is always interesting to do a budget and see what happens throughout the year. I know we all will be looking at what types of transfers are made during the year, what type of money bills come in during the year, and how close people got to the budget that we tried to create. I have all the confidence in the world that we are going to make the right decision and we are going to think about the future. With that, I will leave it on a happy note that I have confidence in our Council and we will do what is best for the County. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else? Councilmember Chock. COUNCIL MEETING 69 MAY 31, 2017 Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Chair. I will be brief because I think I have said a lot and do not want to be redundant in this process. First of all, I wanted to thank all the Councilmembers for their deliberation throughout this process. Every year, since I have been on the Council, this has been a real task and I think that ultimately everyone at the table has been thoughtful and has contributed well. I think that probably it was the smoothest budget in some ways that I have been through and I think more aligned around the table in terms of understanding what the core issues are and focus on those. I want to thank our Budget Chair, who kept us on-task and focused as well on what these core issues are. At the forefront of this discussion, before we started, several of the key issues, and I will just read them here since Council Services is outlined, that we really had to take into consideration through this budget-making decision process was, one, the State legislature's decision to decrease the County's share of TAT revenue; number two, the fiscal impacts of the imminent collective bargaining agreement negotiations for all of our bargaining units; and then number three, the Mayor's proposal to increase Real Property Taxes across the board by nineteen cents ($0.19) per tax class, which would have raised an additional three million six hundred thousand dollars ($3,600,000); all of this while trying to balance and create a budget for our County that is not only balanced, but also reflects a healthy organization, and what I am talking about is in regards to our preservation of our reserve. So ultimately, I guess the word that comes to me when I am thinking about how I approached this budget and the outcome that we ended up with, for me, was about discipline. I went into this budget really with an interest and intent to make concessions where necessary in order to achieve two (2) things: one, to limit any tax increases, and two, to ensure that we have a healthy organization with a healthy reserve. Some comments earlier in public testimony today talked about us needing to get to that fifteen percent (15%) to twenty percent (20%) suggested. I think our goal here was thirty percent (30%), so I think that we are actually on track to that thirty percent (30%), but after the outcome, we were a little bit behind schedule now. In doing so with this year with the hope that everyone at our table would look at these expenses objectively as they came up. The concessions...I had a hard time with, but just said, "You have to suck it up and you have to cut wherever we can." I certainly have direct connections and passion for things like the men's conference for arts and culture on Kaua`i and I voted to deplete them, to get rid of them, for the sake of balancing this budget. In fact, my intent was to support as many cuts as possible in order to not raise taxes. I voted for virtually any cut that was not focused on core services or were in overlap of previous budget, meaning if we had a project that was three (3) years in the making and we needed to follow through on it. Also, anything that was acted upon by the Administration that would have otherwise undermined the ongoing or close to finish of these vacancies or projects that were invested in previously. In the end, what remained was a shortfall of one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000), so the choice was to raise taxes of course or go against the commitments and the policy that we had created in sustaining a healthy budget to follow the recommendations of the Government Finance Officers Association in building a reserve. So when faced with this COUNCIL MEETING 70 MAY 31, 2017 decision, for me, my priority was to solidify our health. I based this on our County's statewide efforts to retain the share of the TAT and send the message to our arbitrators that we need to be disciplined with our Reserve Fund and not compromise the financial stability. In the end, I was pleased, although I did not receive exactly what I wanted, sort of like a "win-win" situation for me. If one did not work, at least we were getting some good outcome here, and the outcome was that we were not going to raise taxes. So while I am hopeful that we will reach our goal of thirty percent (30%) reserve, I am pleased that we will not have to raise taxes for our community this year, for the public. With that being said, I really am skeptical about our future, as I think that there are forthcoming expenses that we have not really thought about or have answers for. Those increases include increases in the Employees' Retirement System (ERS), Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB), and collective bargaining increases. I look forward to really trying to look long-term before looking about how it is we are going address those things, because I think the hill is a big hill for us to climb. For me, I think it is really a question about clarity of shared outcomes or shared agreements. I am not talking about just this body, all seven (7) member, but along with the Mayor, to determine what is our priorities here and what we can agree on are the highest priorities so that when we continue to deliberate every year on these tough decisions, we know that we are clear about what is most important to us on this island and for the people of Kaua`i. Those are my statements. Thank you, Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else? Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: I want to start out by commending and thanking our Budget & Finance Committee Chair for his leadership. Hi Arryl, I just want to thank you for your leadership, which I feel the way you facilitated our budget meetings allowed for all of the individual strengths to come forward, and yet, you kept us on track in terms of time and focused. I appreciate that. I also appreciate all of my colleagues around the table. I thought there were moments of real synergy and we each bring strengths and weaknesses, and when we can collaborate on our strengths, it is a real powerful thing. We certainly have very difficult problems that need a lot of powerful thinking, so I appreciate that. I also want to really thank our staff, our budget team, which is really enables everything that we do in the budget and I want to especially acknowledge our Deputy Clerk who has led the County budget team for several years now. His commitment to constant improvement of process has really made it easier each year for all of us and allowed us to do better decision-making. Thank you to Jenelle and Yvette, too, who are part. It takes all of our staff because they have to support the budget team, too, and take things that the budget team has to set aside. Also to the clerical that supports all of us, thank you very much. I also want to thank the Mayor and the Administration because they have improved a lot over the years, too, and certainly have a yeoman's job to do. Mine will be a silent vote on the Fiscal Year 18 Operating Budget. I will not vote against the budget before us today because it is COUNCIL MEETING 71 MAY 31, 2017 much better than the March 15th budget submitted by the Mayor, in part, because the Mayor and his team did not have all of the information we have today and there are some good things in budget before us and I want to honor the hard work that all of us have done. However, neither will be an affirmative voice vote for the budget, because while there are some good things in it, it does not reflect best practices in budgeting, nor does it address the priorities that I believe are important to our community and to the future. In short, my vote will be a silent vote and I will be casting an affirmative vote, but with reservations. I, too, am disappointed that the majority of the Council voted to violate our reserve policy only a few months after adopting it. We cannot have a sustained budget, which is what the welfare of this community depends on if we do not adhere to our reserve policy. I agree with the Budget & Finance Committee Chair that there is going to be an ever-widening gap; it is not going to be easy next year, unless we look at new revenue sources. We would not have had to increase real property taxes had we passed a year ago to the quarter percent (0.25%) excise tax, which would have allowed us to balance the budget and address some really pressing concerns, like transit expansion and repair of roads. I really was concerned about cutting eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) from the road resurfacing. It makes no sense because it is such a critical need and it is just kicking the can down the road onto future generations and increasing the costs. Everywhere I go these days, I see County roads deteriorating. Just a block from here, Pua`ole Street, and many of the older Molokoa streets have cracks and grass coming out of the pavement. I am glad that the money we did approve will address Koloa Road, but there are a lot of other roads, islandwide, that are becoming the next Koloa Road, because of the eight hundred thousand dollar ($800,000) cut. Additionally, part of the two million dollar ($2,000,000) came from reducing the County Auditor's budget by five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000), cutting out the Auditor's salary, office, and personnel support, reducing the Auditor's salary. In my opinion, the action was penny-wise and pound-foolish, because it lowers the probability of finding a qualified person who could help the County become more efficient and effective in delivering County services, which in turn would cut costs. In my opinion, the County has given up on the vision of excellent internal auditing and all of the benefits it could bring to the County. This action has thwarted the intention of the Charter. If we want to remove the office, we should have placed the proposal on the ballot, and if it passed, then defund the office. As it stands, we have, by our action, starting to remove the Auditor position without a vote of the people. I also was disappointed that proposals for addressing climate change and expanding Saturday bus services were not approved. I guess I want to say one thing about the future budgets and it touches upon what Councilmember Chock has said. What bothers me the most is that between the Mayor and Councilmembers, the elected leaders of the County, there is no strategic plan underlining our budget process. We laud the Kaua`i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) for their tremendous progress on behalf of the rate-payers, and I know the colleague to my left, Councilmember Kawakami was head of the strategic planning committee of KIUC. KIUC is successful, partly because they have a very clear strategic plan that they update periodically and they follow it and they budget COUNCIL MEETING 72 MAY 31, 2017 according to it. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has a plan that is tied to their budget, and I have here the Queen's Health Systems, their Native Hawaiian Health Program Report. They have a strategic plan tied to indicators that tell them whether they are achieving their goals or not and we really do not have that as a County, which makes it hard for us to keep track. Are we really achieving the main goals that we need to achieve in order to not only just address present needs, but prepare for the future as well? I am hoping that perhaps we can attend to this in our next budget working with the Mayor and County agencies to create a strategic plan that will give us a better basis and hopefully an easier basis for making our tough budget decisions. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else? Councilmember Kagawa. Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reality is that we are not tapping...well, we are tapping part of the Reserve Fund that goes against our reserve policy, instead of having thirty percent (30%), which accounts to about forty million dollars ($40,000,000), we now have thirty-eight million five hundred thousand dollars ($38,500,000) in there. So we are very close to our targeted goal, but the key factor is that the reason why we did that was we felt that we should not increase real property taxes. For some of us, it is not something we feel is a foolish decision. All you have to do is go to monsterworldwide.com and you will see that Hawai`i is the second highest state in the nation for taxes behind California. What does that tell you? That tells you that the taxes are already to the max. Working families are taxed to the max. Yes, it appears that, well, the same report says that the County property taxes in Hawai`i are amongst the lowest in the nation. However, when we represent our constituents, we look at the whole picture. We are number two in the nation. That means our state income taxes and our state general excise taxes are the significant problems for our taxpayers. Per capita, the general excise tax per person now in Hawai`i accounts for two thousand three hundred ninety-four dollars ($2,394); it is an estimated figure, two thousand three hundred ninety-four dollars ($2,394), just the four percent (4%), every time you spend one dollar ($1), it is four cents ($0.04). If you are a family of four (4), joint income of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), this is how your taxes look: Federal income taxes is going to be about fifteen percent (15%) or fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000); your social security taxes for your husband and wife will be another fourteen thousand dollars ($14,000), because you pay half and the Federal government pays half, FICA taxes—that is twenty-nine thousand dollars ($29,000) out of a one hundred thousand dollar ($100,000) going to Federal taxes—gone, thirty percent (30%). For the State, if you are in the ten percent (10%) bracket at one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) joint return, they are going to take ten thousand dollars ($10,000) more from you in the State income taxes, plus the two thousand three hundred dollars ($2,300) that I talked about, per person, which is two thousand three hundred dollars ($2,300) times four (4), another ten thousand dollars ($10,000). So we are talking about twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) in State COUNCIL MEETING 73 MAY 31, 2017 taxes, thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) in Federal taxes—that is already fifty percent (50%). Now, the County is going to take...if you had a four thousand dollar ($400,000), we are going to take another one thousand dollars ($1,200) from you in property taxes, plus another two hundred dollars ($200) to three hundred dollars ($300) more per car that you have and you have two (2) cars. When is it enough? When is it enough for the taxpayer? We are going to say that we are worried about our reserve? When are we going to worry about what the taxpayers' reserve is? I thought that was what we were elected for? To represent the taxpayers, the "Joe Schmo" who is working hard who cannot testify today? Those are the people in my circle that I talk to everyday that praised me when I told them that I did not raise their property taxes, "Thank you." They expect us to know the full picture, not only because the property tax is small, so we can tax you folks more. That is not the equation. The equation is what is in their total income? They are getting nailed. Fifty percent (50%) and more is already gone to the County, State, and Federal taxes. Out the door. That is not even counting utilities, food, and college. That is why I justify my vote and why I think other members here justified our votes, to take a measly one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000) out of a forty million dollar ($40,000,000) reserve. That is why I said in two (2) words to the Administration, "So what?" The mistakes that the Administration has made over the years do not show me that they putting in from their end, while they are pointing the finger at us for not keeping with the forty million dollars ($40,000,000). Look at the mistakes with the recycling thing, that costed us two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) plus another seven hundred thousand dollars ($700,000); nine hundred thousand dollars ($900,000) just like that, because they did not listen and get enough good information to do a recycling contract. They go with a brand-spanking new guy from the mainland, listening to all of his theories of how he can help the island and what? Total flop. Those are the things that concern me. I think the Administration needs to worry about their job and let us do our job. We represent the taxpayers. When the taxpayers tell us that we tax to the max and that we cannot afford any more taxes going out and we want you folks to trim your budget...I think we tried to do our job. I proposed over five million dollars ($5,000,000) of cuts to this budget. A lot of it came from Police and Fire, but how do you cut County government? You have to cut the biggest ones. Police and Fire, it was written in the Auditor's report that they are the problem area that N&K CPAs sees as our County in being sustainable. I brought up all of my figures. Both of their budgets in the last ten (10) years have doubled. What are we going to do? Are we going to keep letting them double every year? Every ten (10) years, we are going to let them double? So in ten (10) years, each budget is going to be sixty-five million dollars ($65,000,000) to seventy million dollars ($70,000,000)? That is not sustainable. That is going to be one hundred forty million dollars ($140,000,000) in ten (10) years if we keep letting them go. As some point, we have to put the brakes and we have to say, "Hey, this is the amount we are going to give you and that is what my cuts made." They still were going to get, even if I cut my four million dollars ($4,000,000) from Police and Fire, they still were to get about six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) to seven hundred thousand dollars ($700,000) more COUNCIL MEETING 74 MAY 31, 2017 than they had last fiscal year. That is not an unreasonable cut. I did not give them the same amount they had last year. I would have given them still a little bit more, but not the two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000) more or whatever that they are now having. I think those are the kinds of decisions that at some point this Council is going to have to make. Are we going to go for number one in the highest taxed state in the nation or are we going to try and control our expenses and try to tell the unions, "Hey, this contract is breaking our back. We are either going to have to give pink slips or what have you, unless we can negotiate a better deal for our taxpayers." I think it is to the point where we are going to break the camel's back. We are in serious times and we need to make serious decisions about where we are going forward, because from what I see here, the average working family cannot take anymore. It is not the County of Kaua`i's fault; the State of Hawai`i have the lowest property taxes in the nation. I do not know about the car fees...I think the car fees are a little high probably, but as far as the property tax, lowest in the nation. But combined with the State of Hawai`i, we are number two in the nation, the worse. I think it is not so easy to raise property taxes on hardworking families. Regarding roads, let us see us pave roads going forward. Please, Administration, let us stop with this beautification projects and let us pave roads. As Councilmember Yukimura said, let us get into Molokoa. Those grass speedbumps are an embarrassment. People pay a lot of property taxes. We should not have roads like that. We have a lot of property taxes. Let us pave roads and stop with all of the nonsense beautification projects and let us pave some roads. Then when we have leftover money, then let us do the fluff and the improved bikeways and walkways, but though we have them now. On Hardy Street, we had walking paths and bike paths...we had them, but we made them better. We neglected paving roads. We said we had "matching." Well, let us match something like Anini Bridge that was falling down. But no, we waited until it actually fell down and now we are going to do it. We have to do it before it falls down. Thank you, Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Chair. I would like to share the same sentiments as my colleagues at the table and give my gratitude and aloha to the Budget & Finance Committee Chair. I know he had a daunting task during daunting times. I really felt that this budget was an exercise in compromise. I know sometimes compromise can be defined as "not everybody is totally happy and not everybody is totally mad" and I would say that is the current state of mind that I am in with this budget. I would like to apologize to the Budget & Finance Committee Chair. I know that he exercised fiscal responsibility and knowing that at some point in time we cannot continue to kick the can down the road. As prices goes up, like everything else, the need to pay more will go up. However, I could not support in good conscious any kind of tax increase, knowing that I was not willing to compromise on a certain number of items. I know there were numerous cuts proposed to public safety, like Police and Fire, that I was not willing to compromise COUNCIL MEETING 75 MAY 31, 2017 on. So for that, I apologize to my colleagues for not willing to cut that type of departments. I can tell you that when you take a look at the State of Hawai`i and an island like Kaua`i, when more than half of our children qualify for free or reduced lunch when most people cannot uphold to what financial experts recommend that each person have at least six (6) months of expenses as cash reserve in their own house. I do not know too many people that have what the financial experts recommend, six (6) months of expenses, as cash reserves. I know that we set a policy of thirty percent (30%). I felt that we did do our best collectively as a body to bring that number down to a number that was manageable. Here is the art and science of politics—there are a couple looming things that I was not willing to increase taxes on. There is still a chance and an opportunity, and even though it is just a chance and an opportunity, that is still a chance and an opportunity where our state legislature is going to cool down, go back, and try to address rail, and in addressing rail, there still are talks about addressing the transient accommodations tax appropriations to the counties from the ninety-three (93) to the one hundred three (103). They are still talking. I was not willing to increase taxes with that still looming on the horizon. I felt that dipping in slightly reflects what our constituents need to do every day with their budgets. We are on an island where our kids are on borrowed money that usually spend a bulk of their time out of college repaying college loans. Like I said, more than half of our kids qualify for free or reduced lunch. Many of our constituents work more than one (1) job just to sustain. We have kids that are moving out-of-state that really have no dream of coming back, not because they do not want to; it is just that they do not see an economic future on this island. With that being said, Mr. Chairman, I apologize for not willing to do what I think was intended to be the right thing to do, the responsible thing to do. Like I said, there were numerous departments that I was not willing to compromise on. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else? Last chance. Councilmember Yukimura: Councilmember Yukimura: If repaving our roads is really important, we have to give the Administration the money to repave it. We cannot just tell them, "Go repave it," but take away eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) from it. So we did not take eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) from those beautification projects, we took it from our road resurfacing project. Taxpayers are not taxpayers just because they pay taxes, they are taxpayers because they need services. Our job is to provide services, but we have to provide the budget to provide the services. So that is why we need probably an extra source of income and if we had passed the one-quarter percent (0.25%) excise tax, which was ($0.25) on every one hundred dollars ($100) spent, which would have also been paid for by visitors for every one hundred dollars ($100) they spent, we would not have had to raise property taxes this year. So I am hopeful that we will get a chance with the negotiations on the rail for that...unless we do not need roads, we which we all do COUNCIL MEETING 76 MAY 31, 2017 need. We cannot not pave our roads. The more we delay it the apple gets bigger and bigger to swallow. (Councilmember Kagawa was noted as not present.) Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else? With that, I am going to refer to my laptop because I do not want to get off-base too much. This is one discussion where I can stray quite easily. I know Councilmember Yukimura talked about a strategic plan—she used KIUC and OHA as examples, which I would agree with, but the difference is that they choose their Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and we do not. It is not like we have that upper hand over the CEO. We set a strategic plan with our Clerk, because if she does not follow along, then we fire them. We cannot do that with the Administration. I just wanted to make that clarification. To really compliment or agree with what Councilmember Kagawa said earlier, I do not think our taxpayers should be paying for the mistakes and incompetence of the Administration or this County. You do not tax them because we cannot do our job properly, and I think he talked about a couple of situations that costed us money, whether it is in fines or penalties, that I do not think the taxpayers should have to foot that bill. So that is just my preface. The first thing, again, like everyone else, I want to thank the entire staff, everybody in this office for their wonderful work, the County Clerk and the Deputy, and all of our staffers here. During the budget session, they are just running around like chickens without heads, trying to accommodate Councilmembers, as well as the public. So much mahalo to the staff, and of course to the Administration, who is very responsive. I can remember the days we never got our responses from budget questions until after the budget. That has changed and I appreciate their efforts and the budget team across the street. Of course, Committee Chair Kaneshiro did a great job, came into this Council and got handed that committee. I am not sure why, but he was handed that committee and he has done extremely well. I want to thank Committee Chair Kaneshiro, as well as all of my colleagues around the table. Finally, I want to thank the public. There are a lot of people out there that watch these things live and E-mail us during the budget proceedings or contact us afterwards. Obviously, it makes it a lot simpler when we get input from the community. What would I give ourselves as a grade? I would say I would give a B- or C+ for this session, for two (2) reasons: number one, we were able to avoid tax and fee increases. The majority of the Council supported that no taxes be raised. Yet, I believe we could have still made more cuts. I believe that if we had followed through...discipline is a very strong term and I have heard that term used quite a bit today, but if we had the discipline to cut more, then we would not be looking at raising taxes as well. That word goes both ways. We can discipline to not raise taxes or to raise taxes. A bunch of challenges—I think the overall complexity of the budget and administrative process, I think just that in itself, the size of the budget document is a ton of pages that we have to go through, and the ability for the Administration to really manipulate that budget without our knowledge...I think we saw several examples of that during this budget through reallocations, COUNCIL MEETING 77 MAY 31, 2017 relocations, taking this position and putting it there, and creating new divisions within divisions without our knowledge, and it was only during the budget process that it gets exposed and we are kind of like, "Wait a minute, time out." So that causes some problems for us, as well as numerous line items that are inserted that we obviously...there is just no possibility for us to go through each line item in the time provided. We saw significant changes and we heard it several times that they are working with the unions, significant changes in our County structure on how we do business here without any community or public input. That is a challenge, in my opinion. We saw mistakes. We saw duplicate funding items. We saw same items showing up in multiple departments that creates basically an over-budget. You are padding the budget. Whether it is intentional or not, there is no excuse for it. That allows that department to have extra money and we found it just by accident. It makes you wonder how many of those mistakes are still in there. How many of those mistakes or errors are in their today, accounting for a lot of money? We do not know that. It seems like every year, we use last year's budget as base budget, but we simply is copy and paste and increase where we think we need more money and kind of leave alone the other line items. That causes, I think, a lot of unnecessary expenditures. That is why the lapse at the end of the year is so great, because of that. That is just one of the challenges that we have to deal with. Now, the external actions beyond our control, you heard about the reduction of the TAT. I am hoping that Councilmember Kawakami is correct. I had a Hawai`i State Association of Counties (HSAC) meeting yesterday and there was some talk about a special session. Whether or not they discuss TAT or just the rail is yet to be seen. I am hoping that we do get that portion back. Lifeguard immunity might come with some extra cost as well. We do not know yet. We do not know until we get sued. That is more than likely to happen, once unfortunately... we cannot get away from people getting in trouble at the beaches. Fear of the unknown—this year, we had a very difficult time trying to communicate with the legislature. No one knew what was still going on and I think that was a big problem and a big challenge. I really do not think that the counties were a priority at the legislative session this year. I think they were more interested in restructuring leadership and trading horses for that, rather than focusing on the constituents. That is just my personal opinion. Of course, collective bargaining causes a challenge as well. The overall rising cost of government, like toilet paper, electricity, and all of those things that we have no control of that we have to fund every year. That is just one of the challenges. Accomplishments—well, obviously we have a balanced budget. We were able to reduce some of the expenditures, not as many as I had hoped for. I introduced a ton of positions that were vacant for hundreds and thousands of days. If we had removed all of those positions, we would have seen a significant increase in revenue or "savings," I should say. But the Council did not feel that was appropriate and that is just one of the things we have to do. When we talk about compromise...I am not happy about that, because I think my total...all of the positions over one hundred twenty (120) days were amounted to over two million dollars ($2,000,000). I think we ended up saving six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000). So the one million four hundred thousand dollars ($1,400,000) that could have been applied COUNCIL MEETING 78 MAY 31, 2017 remains in the budget today in funded positions that are not filled and I think that is something that we really need to be conscious of. No or fee increases, and of course, I think the dialogue between the departments, as Councilmember Yukimura said earlier has gotten a lot better. Going forward, somebody, and it cannot be this department, it has to be in the Administration because we do not know their day-to-day operations and we do not know their needs, but somebody needs to do a line-by-line review of their budget. That tedious review is necessary because we have items in that budget that no longer apply, but sits there, carries an amount, carries a value, and costs the taxpayers. At the end of the day, what happens is that they did not use that money for that purpose in the budget, but they find another way to use it in some other means. Again, that happens within the department without the Council or the public ever knowing what happened. That needs to be looked at. Only the departments in the Administration can do that. They need to task their department heads with going through their individual divisions and departments and clean up that budget. I can guarantee you that we would be surprised with what we would free up in expenses. As far as the Council, we need to continue to scrutinize our spending and make sure that when we talk about spending money that we are in the people's connection to make sure that those spending amounts are valid and necessary. We also have to continue to do the countywide and look for ways to do more with less. This Council has done that; Council Services has done that. Our County Clerk, Jade, and her staff, has done more with less. We have cut positions out of here and we have not filled positions that went vacant. We are not an employment agency. This County is not an employment agency where, "We have a vacancy. Let us fill it with somebody we know." That is not how this game works. If we do not need the position then we do not hire. I am sorry, because I know a lot of people want County jobs, and I appreciate that, but the bottom line is that if you do not need it, then do not hire it. Like I said, we have done it here in a very small scope here in Council Services and that should be duplicated across the street at the Administration. We need to improve communications. I think we saw in the last few months several instances here when the departments came across some issues and we had no idea. We come across it by accident when we read a spreadsheet. In looking at the transfers just dated May 5th, we are looking at some transfers from the Solid Waste Division and they are saying that they need money into the regular overtime account because they have hired in anticipated overtime at the refuse transfer stations and refuse collection operation because of vacancies, like illnesses and so forth. Anyway, there is a lot of work to do in that front. We just have to have a better unified strategy with the legislature next year and we have to make sure that we focus on our needs and not our wants, and I think that was covered by every one of us here today. This County has to learn to be proactive, identify issues, and fix them, rather than wait for it to break. I think the bridge example was stellar. With that, the motion is to approve. Roll call. COUNCIL MEETING 79 MAY 31, 2017 The motion to approve Bill No. 2645, Draft 1 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR APPROVAL: Brun, Chock, Kagawa, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL— 7*, AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL— 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL—0, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL—0. (*Pursuant to Rule No. 5(b) of the Rules of the Council of the County of Kauai, Councilmember Kagawa was noted as silent (not present) and Councilmember Yukimura was noted as silent, but shall be recorded as an affirmative vote for the motion.) Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Next item. Bill No. 2646, Draft 1 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2017 TO JUNE 30, 2018 (Fiscal Year 2017-2018 CIP Budget): Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to approve Bill No. 2646, Draft 1 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Councilmember Chock. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion? Public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to approve Bill No. 2646, Draft 1 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR APPROVAL: Brun, Chock, Kagawa, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL— 7*, AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL— 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL— 0, RECUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL— 0. (*Pursuant to Rule No. 5(b) of the Rules of the Council of the County of Kauai, Councilmember Kagawa was noted as silent (not present) and Councilmember Yukimura was noted as silent, but shall be recorded as an affirmative vote for the motion.) COUNCIL MEETING 80 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: With that, can you read us into Executive Session? I think we can finish this up before lunch. EXECUTIVE SESSION: ES-905 Pursuant to Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS) Sections 92-4, 92-5(a)(4), and Kaua`i County Charter Section 3.07(E), the Office of the County Attorney, on behalf of the Council, requests an Executive Session for the Council to consult with the County Attorney regarding the Council's release of the County Attorney Memorandum/Opinion Tracking Number 17-0197 dated February 16, 2017, and request dated February 2, 2017, for Written Response Regarding Google Transit, and related matters. This briefing and consultation involves consideration of the powers, duties, privileges, immunities, and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate to this agenda item. Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to go into Executive Session for ES-905, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: Chair, I just wanted to ensure that there is justification for the public to understand what that is in making this request for Executive Session on this item. Council Chair Rapozo: The Executive Session is to discuss the release. Basically, we are going to go in there and ask the County Attorney if there is any problem with us releasing this opinion, which we could probably do out here. If he has no problem, I do not have a problem. I will leave that up to you folks. If you folks are satisfied with a verbal "yes" or "no" from Mr. Trask, then we do not have to go into Executive Session. If you want to discuss the opinion itself before we release it, then we need to go in. Councilmember Yukimura: I think if the answer is "no problem" then we do not have to talk. If the answer is, "Yes, there is a problem," then we need to go in to understand it. Council Chair Rapozo: Mr. Trask, can you come up please? Councilmember Yukimura: We are just following a process that we have for releasing opinions. Councilmember Chock: Thank you. COUNCIL MEETING 81 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: With that, I will suspend the rules. Mr. Trask, very simply, do you believe there is an issue with us releasing this opinion? Mr. Trask: Aloha. For the record, Mauna Kea Trask, County Attorney. We sent the communication per protocol and articulated our reasons, and it was... Councilmember Yukimura: I have not seen it. Mr. Trask: It was transmitted May 18, 2017. Councilmember Yukimura: Okay. Mr. Trask: We will just rest on that. With that, there is nothing more to say. Council Chair Rapozo: Okay. Mr. Trask: It is up to you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura, did you need some time? Councilmember Yukimura: Well, what was the answer? Was it "yes" or "no?" Mr. Trask: Well, it was to you. If you want to waive attorney-client, I can read it. It is just conservative release. As you know, generally if you waive privilege, you potentially waive privilege to all matters related thereto. Councilmember Yukimura: That is the one you give us every time? Mr. Trask: No, it was a little bit different, but I do not want to get into details. We did talk about this briefly on the record previously. I do not recall when, but I was asked the question on the floor. Councilmember Yukimura: I cannot achieve my goal short of releasing the opinion. Mr. Trask: I guess I just would ask, what is your goal? That is what I wanted to ask in the back. Councilmember Yukimura: I want to get another third party opinion. COUNCIL MEETING 82 MAY 31, 2017 Mr. Trask: So you want to hire special counsel to get an opinion? Councilmember Yukimura: No, I just want to share it with some people. Council Chair Rapozo: So you just want the Council to say it is okay to release this? Councilmember Yukimura: Yes. Council Chair Rapozo: I do not have a problem with that, Councilmember Yukimura. I think every opinion should be public if you ask me, but that is my own opinion. Does anyone have a problem with releasing that opinion? Mr. Mickens, do you have a problem with that? He is the eight Councilmember. We need to have his okay. Does anyone have an objection? No one? Okay. Let us do this, I need a motion to receive the Executive Session item. Councilmember Chock moved to receive ES-905 for the record in open session, seconded by Councilmember Yukimura, and carried by a vote of 7*:0:0 (Pursuant to Rule No. 5(b) of the Rules of the Council of the County of Kauai, Councilmember Kagawa was noted as silent (not present), but shall be recorded as an affirmative cote for the motion). Council Chair Rapozo: Now, let us go back to C 2017-126. COMMUNICATIONS: C 2017-126 Communication (04/24/2017) from Councilmember Yukimura, requesting Council consideration, for the public release of the following County Attorney opinion regarding Google Transit: • County Attorney Opinion dated February 16, 2017 and Council request dated February 2, 2017 (Tracking No. 17-0197) Councilmember Yukimura moved to approve C 2017-126, seconded by Councilmember Brun. Council Chair Rapozo: Any discussion or public testimony? There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony. There being no one present to provide testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: COUNCIL MEETING 83 MAY 31, 2017 Council Chair Rapozo: Let us do a roll call. We need five (5) votes for the release. The motion to approve C 2017-126 was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR APPROVAL: Brun, Chock, Kagawa, Kaneshiro, Kawakami, Yukimura, Rapozo TOTAL — 7*, AGAINST APPROVAL: None TOTAL — 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0, RECSUED & NOT VOTING: None TOTAL — 0. (Pursuant to Rule No. 5(b) of the Rules of the Council of the County of Kauai, Councilmember Kagawa was noted as silent (not present), but shall be recorded as an affirmative vote for the motion.) Council Chair Rapozo: That concludes today's agenda. Thank you very much everyone. Have a great weekend. ADJOURNMENT. There being no further business, the Council Meeting adjourned at 12:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, II ligli 1 JAD . FOUNTAIN-TANIGAWA County Clerk :cy