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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12/14/2017 Special Council minutes SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING DECEMBER 14, 2017 The Special 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 Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:34 a.m., after which the following Members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Arthur Brun (present at 836 a.m.) Honorable Mason K. Chock Honorable Ross Kagawa Honorable Arryl Kaneshiro Honorable Derek S.K. Kawakami (present at 8:36 a.m.) Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura (present at 8:52 a.m.) Honorable Mel Rapozo APPROVAL OF AGENDA. Councilmember Chock moved for approval of the agenda as circulated, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro, and carried by a vote of 4:0:3 (Councilmembers Brun, Kawakami, and Yukimura were excused). 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 Chair Rapozo: Next item, please. COMMUNICATION: C 2017-273 Communication (12/08/2017) from Council Chair Rapozo, requesting the presence of the Mayor and Managing Director, to discuss the Mayor's 2017 Holiday Season Administrative Leave memorandum to County employees dated December 7, 2017: Councilmember Kaneshiro moved to receive C 2017-273 for the record, seconded by Councilmember Kagawa. Council Chair Rapozo: Is there any discussion before I suspend the rules? Thank you to the Mayor and Wally for being here. Traditionally, the State and County gives their employees a day of Administrative Leave every year and that is really subject to the fiscal condition of the State or the County. Last year, this County chose not to grant the leave day because of the fiscal condition that the County was in. Mayor, I will let you explain, but this year the County Administration offered SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 2 DECEMBER 14, 2017 two (2) days of Administrative Leave to each employee in the County. With that, I will suspend the rules. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. BERNARD P. CARVALHO, JR., Mayor: First of all, Merry Christmas. Good morning, Chair Rapozo and Councilmembers. As you are aware, on December 7th, I notified all of our County employees that in appreciation of their hard work, I had granted two (2) days of holiday Administrative Leave. I further stated that it was my expectation that all offices and facilities providing services must remain open all day on December 26th and January 2nd. As such, holiday Administrative Leave could be taken any day in the month of December or January to ensure that there is no disruption in our operating hours and services. I understand that my decision to grant two (2) days of Administrative Leave versus one (1) day has prompted concern from certain Members of the Council, so much so that of course Chair Rapozo felt it necessary to call a Special Council Meeting today on this one issue. Regarding any concern of fiscal impact of two (2) days versus one (1) day, I will respectfully remind this Council that our employees received zero hours of holiday Administrative Leave last year. Further, during my tenure as Mayor, holiday leave was not granted in 2009, 2010, and 2011. I have also not forgotten that it was during my time as Mayor that our employees endured six (6) months of furlough in 2010. Over the course of the past nine (9) years, I have consistently asked our employees to do more with less, and every time they have delivered. They have gone over and beyond for me, and their supervisors; that includes each of you, their fellow colleagues, and their community and they have often sacrificed times with their families to do so, which is coming from that place, personally. Granting two (2) days of Administrative Leave is my small way of thanking our employees and showing my gratitude to everyone in the County for the work they have done and continue to do. I hope that they use this opportunity to spend a little extra time with their families, enjoying the holiday season. I want to reiterate that granting holiday Administrative Leave does not mean that service will not be provided, nor does it mean that work that is required will not be done. I want to thank the six (6) Councilmembers who took just a few minutes out of your day to discuss our concerns with me individually. I respect that you chose to speak with me one-on-one and I truly appreciate your feedback, I am open to feedback. In the end, it is truly my decision to grant Administrative Leave and I believe all of our County employees deserve that. That is my authority as Mayor and I just felt this was the time that looking to all of the different opportunities. I felt it was important that you hear from me directly on my reasoning for granting this Administrative Leave to our hardworking men and women of our County. Mahalo for your time and Merry Christmas. (Councilmember Brun was noted as present.) (Councilmember Kawakami was noted as present.) Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you, Mayor. First of all, let me just say that this is not about appreciating our employees because we all appreciate our employees tremendously. Also, I notice you said "certain Members of the Council"— SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 3 DECEMBER 14, 2017 unless some Members have changed their position that they spoke to me last week, seven (7) Members were concerned of this two (2) days. I am not sure what happened since then and if that has changed then that is fine. Mr. Carvalho: Can I clarify, Council Chair? They did have concerns, but at least I got to speak with them one-on-one like I wanted to speak with you one-on-one. Council Chair Rapozo: Well, I did speak to Wally. Mr. Carvalho: I wanted to meet with you one-on-one. Council Chair Rapozo: And that discussion did not go well. I will tell you where the disconnect is for me, what I see as the disconnect: number one, from the discussion I had with Wally, the Administration's position is that this is not a cost item. Is that true? Is that the Administration's position? Mr. Carvalho: Let me say this first—before I do anything, I surround myself with good people with good hearts and souls, and of that, I have four (4) former "Directors of Finance" around me: Wally Rezentes, Mike Tresler, Steve Hunt, and Ken Shimonishi. I check in with them. They are former Directors of Finance. I told them, "This is what I want to do." This has been a long time and I am ending my tenure as Mayor, it will be ten (10) years; I am thankful and appreciative. So when I talked to them, what I got apparently does not match up to what you got. So that is how I came to the conclusion, looking to the entire package, "Can I do this?" Yes, I can and this is why we are here. Council Chair Rapozo: I am not questioning your authority to do it. What I am saying is that there is a disconnect—I am not going to speak for other Members—but the discussion I had with Wally was that this was not a cost item that and that there was no cost associated with this. Let me finish. Mr. Carvalho: Okay. Council Chair Rapozo: I disagree because there is a cost associated with this, a tremendous cost. Let me also say and remind the Administration that on December 6th, this Council increased the General Excise Tax (GET) for the public that was not a popular thing to do. December 7th was when the notice of the Administrative Leave came out. I will tell you that if the Administrative Leave memorandum came across with one (1) day of Administrative Leave, we would not be here today. The problem is the two (2) days. I do not know of any County or State that has ever given two (2) days of Administrative Leave. I do not want this to seem like we do not appreciate our employees. To be honest with you, I wish we could give them five (5) days, ten (10) days, or take one (1) month off, but there are costs associated with that and I just do not think that it is fair for the public that on Wednesday they were told that we are going to raise your GET, and then on Thursday, all of a sudden we have enough funds to grant two (2) days of Administrative Leave. That is the problem I have. I will hear from the rest of the Councilmembers, but there was concern. I asked Mauna Kea and he needed some SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 4 DECEMBER 14, 2017 time to look into the real authority. This is a cost item in my mind. It is going to cost the County "x" amount of dollars and I know we received a figure of five hundred sixty-four thousand dollars ($564,000) from Wally for the two (2) days, but that is salary. That is not including the benefits...maybe it does...if it includes the benefits...it does not include when someone takes off in certain departments, you have to temporary assign people and have a replacement. Anyway, what I am saying is let us just use five hundred sixty-four thousand dollars ($564,000)—that is a cost to the County. Whether there is productivity or not, the bottom line is that there is nothing in the budget that shows this. It does not. There is no budget. It is a free day off and it is tough for me to sit here and say that I cannot support two (2) days, because I wish we could. I think if we were in a better financial situation and that we did not just come off with an increase of the GET, then things might be different, but how do we explain to the taxpayer that, "We need more money, so we are going to raise your tax," but the fact that it was the very next day, for me, was a very difficult thing. That is why we are here. People questioned why and I felt that it was necessary to put it on the agenda. I spoke to Wally and he wanted to meet me the following day, there was a posting deadline and I did not want to postpone this. It was either get it on the agenda or do a press release. I did not want the public to think that this body concurred with two (2) days of Administrative Leave. That is a huge hit. Maybe you do not see that, but I do. I look at it that way. I think the Members feel the same way. We will see because we will have some discussion, but I do not want the public to think that we are just saying, "Sure, give them two (2) days." I do not think we can...number one, that is a bad precedent to set. Number two, it is a cost item for me that I do not think we can afford right now. Anyone else? Mr. Carvalho: Can I clarify something? Council Chair Rapozo: Sure. Mr. Carvalho: First of all, it was really not my intention to tie the GET into this. I wanted to make sure that we finish that, whether it be before or after, we focused on the GET. It is very important for me as Mayor to leave the County with hopefully the support of the Council, which I am very thankful for, with the opportunity for the GET. That is no secret. I said that from before. I want to make clear that I did not mastermind it so that I am going to do this and then come the next day. I apologize for that if you took it that way, but that was not my way. It was just focus here and here. That is upfront. The second thing is that with the granting of the money...if we are going to get into the money part...you agree, Council Chair, that one (1) day is okay versus two (2), right? Council Chair Rapozo: What I am saying is that that has been the tradition and that has been the customary practice. Mr. Carvalho: So my question is do you agree with one (1) day versus two (2)? Council Chair Rapozo: I do not think we would have been here today if it was only one (1) day. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 5 DECEMBER 14, 2017 Mr. Carvalho: In my dealing and talking to our team, the cost of that one (1) day is the same or less than with the two (2) days and I will leave that at that. Two (2) days, the same cost as one (1) day. That is why I wanted to talk to you to clarify how we got to that. I am going to leave it to Wally now to explain. That was my understanding. We will have Wally explain that. WALLACE G. REZENTES, JR., Managing Director: Wally Rezentes, Managing Director. I did have a discussion with you, Chair, when I asked that you try to meet with the Mayor at the Mayor's request. To clarify, I did give you that number...the five hundred sixty thousand dollar ($560,000) number...it comes to about two hundred eighty-two hundred dollars ($282) a day, but I also discussed, and I believe you agreed, that that number was not a real hard number as I explained it. The reason why I said that was because we are still going to be open, we are still going to operate. We might have other days, like when there is vacation or otherwise instead of maybe five (5) people on the line, we will have four (4) and the production of that four (4) will have to make up for that loss, the person that is out. It was more of a production...I believe you used the word "production" loss potential, but because we were going to remain open, we are still going to provide the functions and carryout the duties and responsibilities that we would carry on any other given day. Chair, you mentioned that in the Police Department, that if the Captain leaves or the Assistant Chief leaves that everybody moves up—we did clarify with the Deputy Chief that they do not normally temporarily assign folks if it is just one (1) day. Usually, if it is three (3) or more, that is when they would do something along those lines. It is a number on black and white salaries, benefits, fully-loaded total, but the reality is that we are going to be operating and everybody else is going to have to help each other out to produce on the day that their fellow employees will be out on the Administrative Leave. Council Chair Rapozo: That is the disconnect because you see it as a productivity issue. Mr. Rezentes: Yet, you understood when we spoke. Council Chair Rapozo: No, I understand that, but I also believe there is a cost associated. When you look at our budget, every department has holiday and allocations of what we pay when someone is off, when someone takes a holiday off. This is not there. There is no accountability of this leave. Again, it is a tradition throughout this State that counties and state do a one (1) day. I totally accept the fact that last year, it was difficult and the times were difficult. This year, we are not in much better times. To go from zero to two (2) days, for me, is significant. I heard the Mayor's explanation and I respect that and I agree. I just do not think that we can afford to grant two (2) days per employee at a time where we are having some fiscal issues. That is all. Councilmember Kagawa. Councilmember Kagawa: Thank you, Chair. I think for me, to be honest, it is about when you decide to do the Administrative Leave, even if it is one (1) day, to me, it looks like and feels like a gift, so I believe that it needs the administrative, as well as the legislative side approval. I was kind of disappointed that we were not part of the process, at least to make it clean to the public and protect SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 6 DECEMBER 14, 2017 the taxpayers' interest that we did get both sides. My question is why did we not make that contact prior? When we do a money bill, even if it is for fifty dollars ($50), we need to do a money bill. This has a cost impact. Every employee does not have those days in their contract. Instead of having twenty-one (21) days of vacation for the year, they now have twenty-three (23). Using the Administrative Leave process is your prerogative, but I am saying that there is a cost impact, so I believe that there should have been legislative approval. Mauna Kea agrees with you folks that you folks did not, but I think we would not be here if we had just worked together and make sure that we work together on the solution. That is all. As far as working within the process, no law has been broken; Mauna Kea has confirmed that. I think going forward, every mayor should look at just eliminating this because I think people are fed up with government, all levels: federal, state, and county. They are just looking at us to do more with less and regardless of whether we appreciate employees or everything, I think it is cleaner to the taxpayer. To me, unless every taxpayer agrees that we should be adding days to our union members' contracts, I think it is not proper. I feel like it would be cleaner if we have the legislative side ratify your thoughts on Administrative Leave. (Councilmember Yukimura was noted as present.) Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Wally, thank you. Mayor, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to answer the phone call when I reached out. I think what we have is just a break in communication. Things could have been done better and more amicably if we had just reached out with the courtesy. I think the timing is bad, too. I want to make it clear to the public that this is a productivity issue. So we throw numbers out there, but we are not appropriating any additional funds to this. Philosophically, we can agree to disagree whether one (1) day versus two (2) days is the right thing to do, but I want to be clear to the public that legislatively, we have nothing in our power to take this decision from the Mayor away. What we can do is deny our staff the additional day, but that is something that we, as a body, have to decide upon. I want to make it clear that one, there is really nothing that this Council can do, in my opinion, except to vet the process very publicly. Moving forward, let this be a lesson learned. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Chock. Councilmember Chock: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you, Mayor and Wally, for being here. I think what you shared and the explanation you gave is really important. I will just echo some of what Councilmember Kawakami said that it is about public perception that I am concerned about and the timing, of course, is what caused some of this. When I was doing a workshop in the mainland, I received a call from Council Chair about what began about this post, "Hey, this is what is happening from the community's perspective," so it did become a concern from that point just in light of what is our role. This is totally within your purview and I totally respect it and understand it. Yesterday, we were talking about the General Plan and the words "public trust" came up a lot. What we were talking about is how it is we are fiscally responsible for our community's money and I think when you can SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 7 DECEMBER 14, 2017 spend the time to communicate that, it really makes us stronger and more aligned. I know all of us, and I really appreciate this, is we talk a lot about being a team, working together, working towards decisions together, and I think that is where, if any place for me, that could have been strengthened in this process so that we could honor everything. Really, not even dampen the great work that we are trying to acknowledge in the process of giving this gift to all of the County employees. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Anyone else? Councilmember Kaneshiro. Councilmember Kaneshiro: Mayor, thank you for being here. I know that we spoke and I raised my concerns, in general, why two (2) days rather than one (1) day? I understand, you said, "It is my authority and my purview. I have been here a long time and have not given them some days off in the past." That is your right to do. Of course, my other concern was mainly in giving the extra day, the additional cost. For me, I saw the additional cost as being not so much like the 40-hour per week people where someone is going to take off and you do not need to replace the person and you end up with four (4) people rather than five (5) people at the front desk. For me, I could see where Police and Fire might have somebody that takes off, then you need to fill that position and you have somebody go in and they have to work overtime. I am not sure if there is a way that Police and Fire have been able to mitigate those type of costs, but to me, that would have been the area where we would have saw the biggest increase in cost, because you are going to have an employee take off and those positions need to be replaced. We cannot have a beat go with one (1) less police officer or a fire station go with one (1) less fireman. I do not know if there is anything in place when it comes to this particular type of leave that says, "You cannot be bumping people up rank-for-rank or whatever it is." I know I expressed that as a concern. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Brun. Councilmember Brun: Thank you for being here. I guess when it first came out, like you said, I am new to this and I did not know that we used to give one (1) day. Just the two (2) days was kind of a surprise and we had it right after we raised taxes the day before. I sat down with someone from the Administration and had dinner and we kind of went over it all. My main focus was additional cost over the regular cost. I told you the same thing when you called me—that is who I feel bad for is the blue collar workers who get paid less. I am fine with giving them that. The department heads are the ones that are kind of sore because we just tried to give them raises, too, so that was my main concern in the whole thing. For the blue collar workers, they get paid thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) to forty thousand dollars ($40,000) and eight hundred dollars ($800) a month...with medical insurance...I really did not have too big of a problem with that, but I guess we had a lot of calls from the public about it. Just the timing was bad and everybody had knee-jerk reactions to it. Like you said earlier, it is up to you what you are going to do and whatever you decide is what you are going to decide. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kagawa. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 8 DECEMBER 14, 2017 Councilmember Kagawa: I just wanted to follow-up that I feel that why I want to see the County do away with this process, even the State, is that I see another unfair gift to the higher paid employees. For the Parks worker that is making the minimum twelve dollars ($12) an hour or something, you are talking about a hundred dollars ($100) gift per day under Administrative Leave, whereas you are talking about an assistant chief or battalion chief, you are talking about a four hundred dollar ($400) to five hundred dollar ($500) gift per day, because their salary is much higher. Again, we want to give to our one thousand three hundred (1,300) employees...I believe if you want to give a gift, we want to give the same gift to everybody because you do not want to discriminate. When you give a gift of Administrative Leave, what you have is the higher paid employees getting a big Christmas present and the Parks employee, the lower paid employees getting a baby present. It is too problematic and I believe that we should just do away with the process because it kind of stinks. Thank you, Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: I am sorry that I missed the earlier part of the conversation, but Mayor, you and I did talk and I appreciated your call. I think it is clear that technically it is your prerogative, but I think it is also our job to raise questions and express concerns. I think the issue of perception, because government has to have...in order to do its work well, has to have an image of integrity and consideration of taxpayers' money and I think that is a problem with doing something like this. I think the discrepancies that have been shown, what Vice Chair just pointed out, is an issue. That kind of backdrop was why I tried to reduce the GET from one-half percent to three-eighths percent just surely would show that we are only using really what we need and what we have plans for. It is just that type of stewardship of money. I am thankful that we have this conversation and I hope that factors in to how we make our decisions in the future. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Kaneshiro. Councilmember Kaneshiro: I want the public to be clear that this has nothing to do with GET. This has to do with the fiscal year 2018. The GET is not even going to be in effect until 2019 when the Mayor and his Administration is gone. I just want to be clear. Doing the GET does not mean that everybody can take an extra day off because the Mayor is not even going to be here to enjoy whatever money we get for GET and the GET does not go to the General Fund, it goes to the Transportation Fund. That money does not get to be spread out and give people bonuses or anything. I just want that to be clear with the public. Council Chair Rapozo: Councilmember Yukimura. Councilmember Yukimura: I appreciate that clarification, but that was not my point. My point was that we need to take only as much as we really need from people. That was the point that we stay within a very strict and frugal budget based only on what we need. It is an attitude and it is an approach. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 9 DECEMBER 14, 2017 Mr. Carvalho: Chair, we have our "Holly Jolly" across the street and all of our employees coming up, but I just wanted to quickly say that I have been here for a while; I have been a civil-servant for seventeen (17) years and I remember how happy we were when we got it, so whoever was Mayor at that time. Six (6) years as a department head now and had the opportunity to serve ten (10) years as Mayor. So I have been here and I understand. I understand the fiscal piece, but be assured that I checked all areas to make sure everybody is on the same page and I understand the perception. If there is a misunderstanding, I apologize for that as Mayor, but the intention was never to just "go for broke." It was well-thought out with the team and I just wanted to say that. Thank you for the opportunity for having me explain. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Same to you, Mayor. Any other discussion? I appreciate that the Mayor did speak to his team, he just failed to come across the street to talk to this part of the team and that is where the frustration and, in fact in some cases, the anger. As we go through these tough fiscal times, when we try to justify every penny spent, when the Charter requires the Administration to come to this body whenever funds are transferred from one department to another—there is always this checks and balances and in this case, you heard it from the Mayor, he felt that his employees deserved it and wanted to give these two (2) days. I agree. I want to give them two (2) and even three (3), but can we afford it? They claim that is it not a cost issue and that it is not going to affect productivity. I look at it differently. When you look at a corporation's balance sheets, you have to account for every single penny and that simply, in this case, will not be done. It is just two (2) free days, as Councilmember Kagawa calls it, "a gift" from the Mayor to the one thousand three hundred (1,300) employees of the County of Kaua`i. I saw this on Facebook, so I know that the Mayor portrayed it as it is one (1) Councilmember or six (6) Councilmembers spoke to me—well, I ran into the Mayor twice and he did not bring it up. I saw a Facebook post from a State employee that posted on Facebook and said, "Am I the only one overwhelmed by the County raising our GET on Wednesday and then giving every employee two (2) free days off on Thursday. If the State did this for us, we would be blasted in the media." That was the post. When I checked our staff and saw the memorandum...when I saw the memorandum...it comes over with a line for me to concur, I thought it was a typo of two (2) days, but it was not a typo. It was two (2) days. That is how this thing started. Why did I post it on the agenda? Obviously, I could not get through with the Managing Director. We had a disconnect because he felt that it was not a cost item, but I felt it was. In the spirit of transparency, I felt that we needed to have this discussion in the open. This is your money, not mine. It is not the Mayor's money. That is why we are here. The Mayor said that he has been here since seventeen (17)years—well, I have a been a civil-servant since 1985, almost my entire adult life and I love those Administrative Leave days, but that was back when we had money. Now, we do not. Let me tell you how we celebrate our employees at Council Services—like Councilmember Kawakami is buying lunch next week for the staff. That is how we thank our employees. All of us have purchased lunches and many times we just throw in money and we cater lunch here for our staff. That is how we thank our employees, with our money, not campaign money, not public money. We buy little gifts. Councilmember Kagawa's wife bakes all of the time. My wife bakes and everybody brings little things. That is how we thank our employees, with our own money. We do not do a money bill for five hundred sixty-four thousand SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 10 DECEMBER 14, 2017 dollars ($564,000) to give them free days off. I am sorry. This is not about whether or not we appreciate our employees, because we all appreciate the work that our employees do. It is just how do we do it, but I am having a very difficult time. That is why it is here. Any other discussion? Councilmember Kagawa. Councilmember Kagawa: First of all, if the Mayor sticks with the two (2) days and the point has been made that, "Well, Council, you can do what you want with your staff. You can hold them to one (1) day or no days." That is kind of a silly statement because we certainly are not going to have our twenty (20) employees not have what the one thousand two hundred seventy (1,270) employees are going to have. That is chaotic to even think that we restrict our employees when ninety-nine point nine (99.9) of the other County employees have been given this gift. Certainly, do not worry, Council Services Staff, you will have what all of the other employees have, the ninety-nine percent (99%) of the County. Secondly, this is a huge cost item. We talk about what are you going to do? Are you going to make noise about a problem or are you going to fix the problem? This is exactly what I am going to do, I am going to work on legislation. If it is Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS), I am going to look at changing it so that the Administrative Leave process is clear that it is only for emergency, public safety or health of employees, or patrons. Definitely not to grant an additional holiday for union employees that have signed up for contracts. They know they have twenty-one (21) days of sick leave, twenty-one (21) days of vacation, and sixteen (16)paid holidays. I will make sure that the language is clear. Yesterday, Councilmember Kaneshiro said, "Wow, we are in so much trouble with ERS. Why do we not have the employees that are going to be receiving the benefits start paying more instead of the County increasing our portion so much to meet the cost?" Mr. Williams said, "Well, the contracts will prevent us from changing the terms. We have to live with the contract." Just like when the employees sign up with their contract, they know exactly how much days off they have and they can budget that if the day after Christmas or the day after New Year's is important for them to have off, then they can take vacation. They only have nineteen (19) left for the rest of the year. We just have to do a better job. We want to appreciate our employees and there is a right way and wrong way of doing it and certainly I think the people of Kaua`i and the State of Hawai`i deserve a government that is fiscally responsible in these tough times. Thank you, Chair. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else before I take public testimony? Do we have registered speakers? JADE K. FOUNTAIN-TANIGAWA, County Clerk: Chair, we have one (1) registered speaker, Ken Taylor. KEN TAYLOR: Chair and Members of the Council, Ken Taylor. First of all, I am adamantly opposed to what the Mayor has done and for a couple of reasons. We continually hear that we do not have the money to fix our roads and that we do not have the money to do this or that, but we can give extra days off with pay. That is very troubling. Second of all, the Mayor apparently called each of you to convince you that this was the right thing to do. I think that is a violation of the Sunshine Law and should have never taken place in my opinion. I continue to hear over the years that you folks control the purse strings. You might not be able to SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 11 DECEMBER 14, 2017 control what the Mayor does, but you control the purse strings. If indeed you control the purse strings, then you should make it very clear that anybody that takes these days off will do it without pay. I think that is within your privy. If you are opposed to what the Mayor has done, show the people that you have got the political will to do the right thing and spend the money correctly. Thank you. Council Chair Rapozo: Anyone else? TOMMY PASSERELLA: Good morning everybody. Tommy Passerella. We are all on the same team here and work together. I look at that flag to the right and I say to myself, "Who truly owns this land? Who truly owns the money coming through this land?" The United States government has more than enough money to function fifty-seven percent (57%) of our money from the United States government goes towards basically war. This land in 1893 or so was basically based on those energies, an act of war was committed on these lands. Council Chair Rapozo: Sir, you have to keep it to the agenda item, which is the Administrative Leave. Mr. Passerella: Administrative Leave. Council Chair Rapozo: Yes. Mr. Passerella: You folks do not have enough money? Then go to the federal government. The roads should be paid for from the gas tax. Where is that money? All of that money coming through the airport, this is a County facility. There is not enough money? As far as the Administrative Leave, it is up to you folks. As far as saying you do not have enough money, come on. Do you know how much money comes through this land every day? You better raise your consciousness and look around, because this land is not owned by the United States government; this land is owned by the Hawaiian Nation, the Kingdom of Hawai`i. Council Chair Rapozo: Do you support the Administrative Leave or not? Mr. Passerella: Do I support it? Council Chair Rapozo: That is what is on the agenda. Mr. Passerella: Right. What I support is a true change from the top to the bottom, from the County government, to the federal government, to the State government. Council Chair Rapozo: You are not answering my question. If you want to testify, testify on the matter on the agenda, which is Administrative Leave that the Mayor granted. That is what this is about. Mr. Passerella: Right. I say that you folks wake up to the fact that it is way more than Administrative Leave. There is twenty-one (21) sick days SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING 12 DECEMBER 14, 2017 and twenty-one (21) vacation days, and they get a huge pension—no, I do not support it. Council Chair Rapozo: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify? Seeing none, I will call the meeting back to order. Further discussion? There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: The motion to receive C 2017-273 for the record was then put, and unanimously carried. Council Chair Rapozo: With that, there is no further business. This Special Council Meeting is adjourned. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the Special Council Meeting adjourned at 9:15 a.m. Respectfully submitted, 6 All JAD ' �-�� . FOUNTAIN-TANIGAWA County Clerk :ct