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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021 SC 01-27 Draft Meeting Minutes.pdf Page 1 of 19 COUNTY OF KAUAI SALARY COMMISSION PIIKOI BUILDING, 4444 RICE STREET, SUITE 300 LIHUE, HAWAII 96766 DRAFT MINUTES OF THE COMMISSION’S FIRST TELECONFERENCE MEETING JANUARY 27, 2021 ATTENDANCE Chair Trinette Kaui and Commissioners Robert Crowell, Leland Kahawai and Patrick Ono EXCUSED Commissioner Laurie Yoshida. Also, present Boards and Commissions Administrator Ellen Ching, Support Clerk Mercedes Omo and Deputy County Attorney Andrew Michaels. Invited guests: Fire Chief Steven Goble, Police Chief Todd G. Raybuck, Director of Parks and Recreation Patrick Porter and Director of Public Works Acting County Engineer Troy Tanigawa. MEETING CALLED TO ORDER AT 9:00 A.M. Chair Kaui: Good morning everyone. Welcome to our monthly meeting for the Salary Commission. First item of business, we would like to do a roll call. ROLL CALL TO ASCERTAIN QUORUM Chair Kaui: Mercedes, roll call, please. Ms. Omo: Yes, Chair. Commissioner Ono, Commissioner Crowell, Vice Chair Rainforth and Chair Kaui. Mr. Ono: Present. Mr. Crowell: Present, I am here. Vice Chair Rainforth: Present. Chair Kaui: Here. Ms. Omo: Okay, for the record Commissioner Yoshida will be signing when she is done with her meeting. Chair Kaui: Okay. FYI, I am not sure if you folks received the email from Ellen. Commissioner Kahawai resigned and he will be serving on another commission. We would like to thank him Page 2 of 19 for serving with us and we will miss him. So we just wanted to Mahalo him for the time he served on the Salary Commission. Mercedes, do we have any public testimony? Ms. Omo: None, Chair. APPROVE OR AMEND THE MINUTES OF OCTOBER 28, 2020 MEETING Chair Kaui: Okay, if not we are going to move on to the approval of our meeting minutes of our Open Session on October 28. Does anybody have a chance to review the minutes that Mercedes provided, and if yes, does anybody have any comments, corrections or suggestions. Mr. Ono: I think it was well done and it really brought back the meeting clearly for us in her review so I move to approve. Chair Kaui: We have a motion to approve the minutes of October 28, 2020 meeting. Do I hear a second? Vice Chair Rainforth: Second. Chair Kaui: Okay, we have a second by Vice Chair Rainforth. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries 4:0. Okay, our next item is Business SC 2020-4 BUSINESS SC 2020-4 Discussion and decision-making on submitting a Salary resolution establishing the maximum salary caps of certain County officers and employees included in Section 3-2.1 of the Kauai County Code for Fiscal Year 2021/2022. (a) Fire Chief Steven Goble (b) Police Chief Todd G. Raybuck (c) Director of Parks and Recreation Patrick Porter (d) Director of Public Works Acting County Engineer Troy Tanigawa Chair Kaui: I believe this is the last of the Department Heads that we will be hearing from, so I would like to thank of them for putting together their presentations. I know a lot of them are busy and I know most of them have county council meetings today, so again, we would like to thank the Department Heads. We are going to take the agenda a little bit of out order. We will be hearing from our Acting County Engineer Toy Tanigawa, Director of Public Works, then we are going hear from Fire Chief Steven Goble, then Director of Parks and Recreation Patrick Porter and last, but certainly not the least, our Police Chief Todd Raybuck. Troy, thank you for coming before us. You will have the floor. Mr. Tanigawa: Thank you Chair. I am going to share a screen with you folks. It is our basic organization chart and I believe you have this information as well. Page 3 of 19 I will just use this as a guide as I go through the various services that the Department provides. Is my screen coming up okay for you folks? Chair Kaui: Yes. Vice Chair Rainforth: Yes. Mr. Tanigawa: I will start with the auto maintenance and motor pool division. This division provides passenger vehicle and heavy equipment repair and maintenance services for the various county agencies including our Department, which includes the motor pool cars and police vehicles as well. This division is also responsible for procurement of replacements for those vehicles and any procurement required for repairs, as well as serving and that type of things. The next division is the building division. This division is currently in charge of review and issuing of building permits and also code enforcement related to vertical construction. This division is also responsible for various projects within the Department. The police station was one of the building division biggest projects and the county’s fire station. Currently, the engineer and project manager had projects like the TIGER Project including the Rice Street striping, the various side streets that include striping and painting improvements, signage and paths connecting various areas. From the Civic Center back to Hardy Street, Rice Street and other amenities that came under that project. The bike path project are also within this division. These projects are complex because it involves federal funds and there are a whole lot of plethora’s that come into play to remain eligible for federal funding. The next division is the engineering division. Under this division, we have various services from grading, grubbing and compliance reviews. This division also provides other regulatory flood plain type of review services mostly impacting new developments. We also have a project management section that oversees development and construction of various road improvement projects. Currently, the biggest funding mechanism under this division projects are the state transportation improvement program where we get federal funds to construct improvements on various roads. One notable project that is ongoing is the project to construct improvements on Maluhia road and Kōloa road. Some of you may have encountered our traffic management components in that area. This division also manages bridge improvements. Basically, the bigger higher cost complex road improvements projects are managed under this division. The next division is the road construction and maintenance division. Primarily, road maintenance type responsibilities including the mowing of shoulders, maintain right-of-ways to address trees hanging into the right-of-way, down trees that have fallen unto the road, potholes. I think many of you have encountered potholes that frequently popped up after a storm. So those are the things that are managed under this division. One notable item is the G Fund Program that have been managed under this division since its inception – roughly two and a half years. Many of you have probably seen the crack and surface seal projects that have popped up in many subdivisions, typically those roads are in better shape having less traffic. So that preventive maintenance type of projects were pretty effective in those areas. The more heavier traffic roadways, the collector roads typically have to be resurfaced. Page 4 of 19 A lot of the bad roads for example, Olohena road and before the Maluhia and Kola road projects went into construction, the roads division actually hired under contract Maui Kupono Builders a local paving company to go in and mill and fill the worst spots on the roads that were experiencing base filler and very frequent large potholes, to at least improve the ride until the real project can come into mobilization, and so that is our roads division. Next is the solid waste management division. This division provides various waste disposal Services from operating four transfer stations spread across the island. We also have under this division curbside refuge section, our biggest clientele are our residents, our residential areas, but we also have commercial accounts and there is a fee structure for each type of account residential versus business. We operate the island only municipal solid waste landfill at Kekaha. This division also handles our recycling programs, recycling drop-off sites are spread across the island and there are also recycling programs provided at our transfer stations. We have vendors coming in to hull away different types of materials that are diverted from green waste to scrap metal and other hard to dispose of items such as batteries, used motor oil, those types of things. Finally, we have the wastewater management division. This division is responsible for delivering sewer service to the various neighborhoods in different areas of the island. We have a treatment plants in Waimea, ‘Ele‘ele, Līhu‘e and Wailua and those various treatment plants have the infrastructure to collect wastewater from residents and businesses in their district. That is pretty much, in a nutshell, the type of services that are provided by our Department. I will open it up for any questions. Chair Kaui: Thank you Troy. When I was looking at the matrix of all of the different divisions (wow) it is a huge division, so thank you very much. From nuts to bolts, you guys operate it all. Commissioners, do you folks have any questions for Troy? Troy what is the amount of employees total under this division. Mr. Tanigawa: I think we have just over 400. I am not sure about that but I can get the exact number for you folks. Chair Kaui: No, I think that is good enough – just a ballpark. I know for the auto maintenance you guys take care of all of the motor vehicles because I know at one point in time, the Police Department had their own mechanics who would take care of their own cars, but now you folks Have the entire fleet for the whole county. Is that correct. Mr. Tanigawa: That is correct as far as automobiles. The Transportation Department for the bus they have their own mechanic to take care of their busses and I believe that the Fire Department has someone to address their needs, but the majority of the other heavy equipment and passenger vehicles that the county has on inventory is maintained under the auto-shop. Chair Kaui: Okay, Commissioners if you folks do not have any questions, we would like to thank Troy for taking the time of your busy schedule. Feel free to reach out if you have any request to the Salary Commission. We are here for you folks. Mr. Tanigawa: Okay, thank you. Page 5 of 19 Chair Kaui: Thanks Troy. Okay, do we have the Fire Chief on? Chief Goble: Yes, I am here. Chair Kaui: Good morning Fire Chief Goble. Nice to meet you. Again, thank you for coming. I know that you folks are all busy today with county council meetings, so thank you, in advance for preparing your presentation today. You may go ahead and take the floor. Chief Goble: Great, thank you everybody and good morning. Pleasure to, at least see some faces or at least some initials of folks that are on the Commission here. Thank you for the opportunity to steal a little bit of your time this morning. Thankfully, my commit to the council has already been completed this morning, so we were able to manage both tasks today. I just want to give you a quick overview of the Fire Department. I am going to try to do the same thing that Troy was able to pull off, so I will see if I can pull it off as well by sharing my screen. Chair Kaui: Okay, Chief we can see it now. Chief Goble: Okay, you can see it. I don’t dare go to the slide presentation mode because my computer does odd things that when I do that, but hopefully what you see in front of you now is kind of a little bit confusing matrix for our staffing. But at the end of that day, what this tells us is that overall we are authorized for 213 positions between the Fire Department side of things and the ocean safety bureau. We currently have some vacancies out there, fifteen of those are position of ours are vacant at this time, twelve of those are firefighter ranks. We just had a big wave of retirements as folks have seen all across the county. So we are working with administration for approval and ultimately process through our recruits to kind of refill the operational positions that are out there. On the fire side of things there are 153 authorized – currently we have 140 that are on staff (again) looking for an opportunity to refill those positions that are out in the fire stations due to retirements. On the ocean safety side there was 60 authorized positions of which 58 of those are currently Filled. One of our towers out there which is Kē’ē Tower is grant funded and so I just kind of noted that on the bottom of that chart. As we work through this, I will give you a little bit of a graphic presentation of where we are at, in general the Fire Department is essentially split-up into sections. We have what we consider our support services under our deputy chief and then we have on our operations side our assistant fire chief. On the support services side of things those are the things that happen behind the scenes – all of the administrative support, all of the technical support, training support all comes from this side of the house. We do have a deputy chief that oversees all of that and then we have what we consider is our administration bureau, ocean safety bureau, prevention bureau, training bureau and we do have as Troy noted our fire equipment folks. We have a couple of mechanic folks that keep up with our fleet needs. For the administrative side, this is essentially our HR and fiscal services and that is headed-up by our administrative services officer with a couple of accounting folks and support staff allocated to that division. Ocean Safety (again) is one of our operational bureau that falls under this side of things because there are some administrative pieces as well headed up by our bureau chief of Page 6 of 19 ocean safety. They split their operations into three different districts, the north district, east district, then the south and west districts are combined together. They have a couple of folks that are dedicated to training. Training in this bureau is incredibly important in keeping our life guards certified, up to date which includes their first-aid training, CPR, AED and their life guard requirements falls under that team. We have our prevention bureau. This bureau is charged with inspections, investigations, plan review and what we call our community risk reduction. So from the inspection side this is the physical inspection of building improvements and new construction to ensure compliance with the fire codes. Plan review is also of that process…that plan review is exactly that, it is looking at blue print drawings, submittals for construction projects to ensure compliance with the correct fire codes. Our community risk reduction program is our preventive piece that we engage with the Community. Some of you may be familiar with the fire escape…what they call the Sparky Trailer, which is a piece of equipment that we take around to all the schools to engage young people in fire prevention and also (fire) how to get out of your home should you have a fire in house. So those kind of things make-up our community reduction. It also includes our engagement with elderly affairs for fall prevention; this is also our community outreach for CPR. There’s been a big push for what we call the “Stop the Bleed Program” this is kind of a hostile multi-casualty incident…the active shooter kind of response to train our folks, engaging our folks with CERT Teams, things like that fall into this category. We like to be proactive on the front end. We recognize that the best outcome are from the incidents that never happen so if we can use a little bit of prevention on the front end to prevent incidents from happening that is the best outcome that we can hope for from our fire response and ocean safety related issues. The investigations is the other piece of that. We do have a team of trained folks that conduct fire Investigations…this is the origin and cause piece of the fire investigation, and so when somebody has the misfortune of their residence catching on fire or business, something of that nature, our teams can go out and do an investigation to determine what the cause of that was. We use that information for a few things, we partner with the Police Department so if there is criminal activity or suspect there is criminal activity we partner with the Police Department to follow through. We also use it in a proactive way and an example of that would be late in the summer we saw a series of fires that all had a similar related cause. We were targeting these surge protectors that people string together in their homes, so of that was for improper use, some that were poor pieces of equipment that had come into disrepair, and we use that information to feed our community risk reduction team as well. We will target messaging around things that we discover in our investigation process. In addition, in our prevention bureau, we also have our training bureau and this is the group in charge of maintaining our mandatory training pieces, our quality improvement training all of those things that make-up our team capabilities out there in the field. This is a busy group. We do everything from training our teams to be good firefighters, good EMT’s and delivery for medical services. We are constantly working with them to identify future leaders in the organization and giving them supervisory training so those kind of things falls into this category as well, we have a Page 7 of 19 training captain in there and two of our firefighters III’s are assigned to our training cadre to deliver that to our crews. Lastly, we have the fire equipment division we have taken on responsibility for managing most of the needs for our fleet and we certainly do rely on our partners in transportation and in public works to assist on some of the bigger jobs, but we have a lead fire mechanic and a fire equipment mechanic that is responsible for maintaining our fire engines, our smaller brush trucks that we have and a number of our ATV’s that are used to access remote areas. The ocean safety team have jet skis they use and trailers and all of those kind of things that fall into their area of responsibility. Therefore, that is the team that supports all of those needs from an equipment standpoint. Again, support services is kind of the general overall piece that supports our operations in total. So let us switch over to the operations piece, this looks like a whole bunch, but in reality there are eight fire stations out there and we are separated into three battalions. Based on work schedules we have Battalion I, Battalion II and Battalion III they all work different days in the rotation on our operation side. Strategically placed our fire stations out there, each one of them has a fire captain, each one has a fire fighter III which is our apparatus operator and then they have a combination of either firefighter II’s which are specialists. Specialists are deployed with our teams from the Līhu‘e station and from Kaikea. Līhu‘e is the rescue specialists, those are the folks that do the helicopter rescues, trail rescues those kind of things. The Kaikea station is our hazardous materials response station and so the specialists there are hazmat certified technicians for hazardous materials related. Those folks are cross-trained; there are not just rescue specialists and they are not just hazardous materials technicians, there are also firefighters and they are deployed in that role much more frequently than they are in their specialty roles. There are also firefighter I’s those are the folks who are pulling hose, treating patients and doing those kind of things. Again, eight of those stations each in a different part of the island, all the way from north covering all the up to the west with the Waimea station. One thing that I did forget to mention is with the ocean safety team they are similarly deployed to our lifeguard towers, we have eleven of those scattered across various beaches across the island. They also got a roving station out in Wanini that does not have a tower currently, but we have identified a need out there for some presence so we put a couple of folks in a pick-up truck to monitor the activity in Wanini. Then there is also three what they call Roving Jet Ski patrols, this is a new addition for us and it has been an invaluable resource. We assign folks onto jet skis in each one of the districts to rove between beaches. So this gives us coverage on beaches that do not have towers and it also allows a quicker response to those situations where the jet ski is the right tool to effect a rescue in bigger surf or other conditions that warrants that. When we put this on…may be over a year ago, but as soon as we put this resource on it was not until half a day that we had an issue that required jet ski response and we were able to effect the rescue quickly, safely and very effectively. So that showed us the value of that resource and we continue to deploy with it. I think that is what I have from the Fire Department. Again, 213 authorized positions of which five of those are currently funded through a grant. A little bit about that, these are the positions out of Kē‘ē Beach. Those positions have historically been funded through the state since that is a state beach or a state park that we are operating in. In the 4th quarter of the fiscal year last year, the state discontinued funding for Kē‘ē but we were able to pick-up the funding through the county through a different grant and we do have continued coverage for Kē‘ē through this fiscal year and we are looking for solutions going Page 8 of 19 into next fiscal year. Just a note about the staffing at Kē‘ē Beach. That ends my presentation. If there are any question I would be happy to entertained them. Chair Kaui: Okay. Any questions? Mr. Ono: Chief would you mind going to the second slide again. Chief Goble: I jumped the gun and pulled it off. I guess this is what was submitted. We did get authorization to fill our deputy chief positon which has been vacant for a little while. Based on some needs with the current commitment to the emergency management function for our Covid response we did seek and received authorization or approval to fill this position. So this is a little bit of a restructure. Mr. Ono: That was the only reason I asked to take a quick peek again on the second slide. Chief Goble: Is this the correct one? Chair Kaui: Is that the one, you wanted to see, Commissioner Ono. Mr. Ono: Yes, thank you. Mr. Ono: I got it. Thank you very much. That is the one that I missed. That is all I have. Thank you. Chair Kaui: Are there any more questions for Chief Goble. If not, again we would like to thank you. That was a great presentation. Thank you for all that you folks do. I know that you folks not only put out fires, but most of the time are responding to medical calls. You know, we have been blessed in our family to have the firefighters respond to my mom who was sick. So, thank you very much, I really appreciate it. Mr. Ono: So the positions would be three, correct, that we review, the Fire Chief, Deputy Fire Chief as well as the Assistant Chief right? Chief Goble: The two appointed positions for the Fire Department would be the Fire Chief and the Deputy Chief. The Assistant Chief is not an appointed position it falls under civil service. Mr. Ono: Got it, thank you. Chair Kaui: Thank you so much Chief for your time. Chief Goble: Thank you all. Have a great morning. Chair Kaui: You too. Okay, up next is the Director of Parks and Recreation Patrick Porter. Patrick are you on. Mr. Porter: Yes, I am here. Page 9 of 19 Chair Kaui: You can go ahead and start, please. Mr. Porter: I will do the same thing Troy did. I have just a general organization chart that I can share. Okay, this is our basic Org Chart for the Parks and Recreation Department. We have seven divisions within the Parks and Rec Department and then we have our administration section. I guess I will start with our largest division, which is the parks maintenance division. Basically, they maintain all of our parks and stadiums and also all of the green belts and vegetation around\ all the county facilities, not just parks but all facilities that is considered a county asset. For example, the parking lot at the Civic Center that would fall under our parks maintenance division. Therefore, that is our largest division and it is broken up into east district and west district. The next one is the facility maintenance, which is a little bit different on Kauai. All of the facility maintenance for the County of Kauai fall under the Parks Department. Our facility maintenance division does not only service parks and whatever assets that are under parks, it’s all county. Meaning any county facility ranging from fire stations, police stations, civic center, neighborhood centers. That is where our trade workers are like our carpenters, electricians, plumbers they all fall under that division. The next one is our recreation division. This is where all of our neighborhood centers fall under and all of the activities that are run out of the neighborhood centers as well as the county’s pools. We have eleven neighborhood centers island wide, two pools and our seasonal programs like our summer and winter programs. Currently during Covid, there is not much going-on with the neighborhood centers so we repurposed that division to play more of a role in the Covid response on the social services side. We ran food distributions out of our neighborhood centers and we had our recreational staff, staff all of those whether at the neighborhood centers or elsewhere or making a large drive through. So our recreational staff has really done well. Next, we have our planning development division. This is where all of our park planning is. All of our major park renovations and developments fall under this, division and we have planners, projects managers in that division. Kapa‘a Ball Field - BB Football Stadium is a good example. We are re-doing the stands, putting in a press box so that Kapa‘a has its own stadium that can play at all levels from youth to high school. Next is our fiscal division. The difference with our fiscal division is that our park rangers fall under that division as well as our parks permitting office. Then we have the Wailua golf course. It was closed for a little because of Covid but we were able to open it back up to get some good play out of that place. Our last one is our Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall. Just like recreation the convention hall has taken on a huge responsibility under this Covid response where the Kauai Incident Management Team has identified the convention hall as the staging area for the County’s response. It is a technical tem under the incident command. Right now, Lenny Rapozo the county’s staging area manager for the incident management team and all of the supplies, resources and equipment is being stored at the convention hall for the Covid response, and we also have a vaccination program going on out of there and also Covid-19 testing. So is has taken on a different role at this time. That is all of our divisions. Page 10 of 19 Are there any questions? Chair Kaui: Patrick, how much employees are under that division. Mr. Porter: Under our whole Department? Chair Kaui: Yes. Mr. Porter: For full-time workers in all of the divisions we are just shy of 200 full-time Positions, but when we are fully staffed during our seasonal times we can reach to about up to 250 employees at any given time. Chair Kaui: Thank you. Any questions. Ms. Ching: Chair, this is the Administrator. I think the Commission would like to hear about the Director’s role during Covid-19. Mr. Porter: Prior to this county life I was with DLNR where I ran the Mullen Fire Program and while I was there, I gained a lot of experience with the incident command system. So when Covid happened because of my background in ICS I was asked to serve on the management team. My position on the management team is the Operation Section Chief, which carries out all of the operations and program stuff. I am doing that half the time and going back and forth with the parks office and the EOC. Under the ICT, it is not just county it is state and county collaboration and we work with DOH. Chair Kaui: Thank you for stepping up and doing that I appreciate it. Any more comments or questions. Mr. Ono: Thank you Patrick for your service and your oversight and connection with our pandemic impact with not only the additional responsibilities and the oversight of the vaccination program and the testing sites. I have seen them both, so thank you Patrick. Mr. Crowell: I have just a quick question Pat. Your facility maintenance personal you folks take care of all of the police stations and fire stations also. Mr. Porter: Yes. Everything that is considered a county facility and a county asset it is our responsibility to maintain it. Mr. Crowell: Thank you. Chair Kaui: Ellen did you have a question. Ms. Ching: I wanted the commissioners to know that our Director is being very humble because he has been handling Covid for a while. I just wanted the commissioners to know that. He has a tremendous responsibility for the Department as well and they are really at the forefront of the county’s response regarding Covid. Page 11 of 19 Chair Kaui: Thank you Ellen. Okay, we will let you go. Thank you for doing a great job we really appreciate it. Mr. Porter: Thank you guys. Chair Kaui: Aloha. Okay, moving on to our agenda. We have last, but certainly not the least, Chief Todd Raybuck. Chief are you on. Chief Raybuck: I am. Good morning Chair. Chair Kaui: Good morning. Okay, you have the floor. Chief Raybuck: Thank you. Thank you Commissioners for allowing me the opportunity to Come back today. It has been just over a year I think or just about a year since I was before you. I will give you a little bit of an update on that process and where we are on that. It has not moved in the timeline that I had hope it did, but I will definitely give you an update on that in just a moment. I will give you an overview of our personnel as well as personnel that are assigned. I will start with the number of employees that we have here in KPD. In all, I have 236 authorized positions of those 236 authorized positions 162 of those are in the sworn area, sworn being our commissioned police officers, the gun carrying individuals. Of the 162 authorized, I have a 151 current employees in the sworn status so that leaves me with a vacancy of 11. Now, that is great news and I want to highlight the great work our background team has done and our training team because without them we would not be where we are today. Just about two years ago we had roughly 25 – 26 vacancies today, we are down to about 11, and in July I anticipate save any attrition until now and then that we may be fully staffed for the first time ( I think) in decades in our commissioned rank. So, we will keep our fingers cross, we had a lot of folks coming out and testing and we are testing right now, if any of you Commissioners are interested in a new career path I can certainly hook you up with HR and get you the written exam and the physical exam underway. We would love to have you with your depth of knowledge here at KPD as well. On the civilian side we have 73 authorized positions of those we have 54 filled so 19 vacancies on the civilian side of those 19 vacancies 12 of those are part-time or grant funded positions, and so we continuously are looking at recruiting in those areas. The remaining 7 that are there are full-time positions some of them are in active recruitment right now because they are priority positions that we need to fill, and some of them are on hold due to our hiring freeze. Our current actual employee count is 207. I will share my screen with you and give you a high level overview of the Department. The Police Commission obviously is the top of the organization that is comprised of seven volunteers commissioners much like yourselves just on a different commission. Then under the Kauai Police Department Police Commission is the Chief of Police and then we are broken down into three different bureaus and then the Office of the Police Chief. I will give you a little more of a detailed look at our organization. Do you have the one with the blue boxes now or are you still seeing the original one that I put up. The first one still? Page 12 of 19 Vice Chair Rainforth: Yes. Chief Raybuck: Okay, let us get rid of that one. Am I back no on your screen? It looks like it. Do you have the one with the blue boxes now? Chair Kaui: Yes. Chief Raybuck: Okay. Perfect. The first area that I will show you is the Office of the Chief of Police obviously it is broken down into the chief of police and then the deputy chief of police. As you recall when I was before you last year one of the challenges we had was filling the deputy chief’s position is the salary inversion, and so I would like to thank you again for your support and allowing me to offer a solution for your adoption of the solution and the county council’s approval of that solution to be able to if I hire from within to the chief level, then that deputy chief would retain their salary as an assistant chief. Currently, I had hoped that we would had been able to fill that position by now due to a variety of different reasons that has not been possible, but hopefully in the near future we will start to see some movement and opportiunty for me to fill that position. Also, under the chief of police is the criminal intelligence unit, the office of professional standards and that includes both our internal and external complaint investigation folks as well as CALEA or the accreditation team. The accreditation sergeant that helps us to remain nationally accredited. The criminal intelligence unit right now is merged with our vice unit to assist them with the investigations due to some manpower and staffing shortages we have. Typically, the criminal intelligence unit assist with the JTTF or the Joint Terrorism Task Force with the FBI as well as any type of public integrity type of investigations that may need to be investigated here on the island. Then underneath the chief of police we have bureaus, those bureaus are the investigative services bureau, the patrol services bureau and the administrative services bureau all of those are headed by an assistant chief. The investigative services bureau that I mentioned is headed by an assistant chief and then their second in command is their police captain. That bureau is comprised of the vice narcotic unit which is self-explanatory, they are responsible for the predominate drug investigations that we have. That is the job of our crimes lieutenant who oversees and the special focus lieutenant, those positions…those sections I should say oversee all of the follow-up investigations for our major crimes. So, anything from property crimes to homicide and anything in between so that is what they investigate, and then we have a crime lab unit and that is comprised of four criminalists who are very well trained highly technical positions that assist the Department in collection of evidence at crime scenes and for the assistance in obtaining evidence or establishing DNA in certain incidents. So if you recall, the tragic helicopter crash we had which seemed like forever ago, but I think that was just last year, the helicopter crashed unfortunately the way we had to identify the remains of the victims in that crash was through DNA analysis. Because our crime lab has the equipment it needs…the specialized equipment for rapid DNA testing as well as the technological experience we were able to identify all of the victims quickly and be able to help to bring some closure to those victim’s families by identifying them. Had we not be able to do that in-house that information or that DNA samples would have had to be sent out to an exterior laboratory could have taken us weeks to identify those victims. So, a very, very beneficial unit within our organization. Page 13 of 19 We also have a couple of dogs in the Department and two of those are K-9 narcotic dogs that assist us in the detection of illicit drugs in different areas. We deploy those throughout the island in different types of investigations and we also have a dog that assist us with tracking missing persons. Under the patrol services bureau, this is the meat and potatoes of the Police Department. It is where the majority of our folk; my staffing is assigned. The patrol services bureau is also headed up by an assistant chief…if I can recognize them, the investigation bureau, the Assistant Chief is Bryson Ponce. The patrol services bureau Assistant Chief is Mark Begley. Patrol services is the front line, they are the backbone of the Police Department and it is divided into three different districts. The districts are broken up in patrol these are the areas where the neighborhood police officers are. There is a district in Līhu‘e, a district in Kapa‘a or Kawaihau and then a district in Waimea. Those are the police officers when people call 911 or the non-emergency number the officers are deployed out of those three districts. We have an administrative lieutenant, which oversees the intrical parts of our organization that are not normally seen by the public, but sometimes the public is aware of. They oversee cellblock, which is our temporary holding facility. We have the capacity to hold…well we have six jail cells so we do have the capacity to hold whom we need. Most people are in and out within 24 hours and so they are released pending investigation, bailed out or transferred. Under that area we also have the dispatch center, which is a critical resource for our valley…I am sorry our island, 27 years in living in the valley and I am so sorry about that, sorry folks. I know I am on an island. The dispatch center is responsible for taking all calls. They do not just handle police calls, they handle calls for the Fire Department and EMS as well, so you can imagine they are pretty busy each year taking all those calls in. Then this the traffic safety section and they are responsible for exactly what it says, assisting with traffic safety. The majority of their time is spent on addressing problem traffic areas and then of course responding to major traffic accidents where there is substantial injury and or potentially a death at the scene. The last but not least is the administrative and technical bureau. Patrol is the backbone and ISB is…I do not know how to describe ISB, I should have thought about this before I started to wing it, but the ATB is really the heart of Department and I say that because this is the big support bureau, in this bureau is headed up currently by Assistant Chief Ke. He is our newly appointed Assistant Chief. He took over that bureau after we had a retirement in that area. So, Assistant Chief Ke and his team are responsible for training which is obviously a critical component especially today in the policing world. Training is critically important for us to provide to our employees and then what we have what we have titled is the research and development area. These are the folks that look at the different types of programs and services that are out there to continuously see if the Department is looking for the best technology and equipment to provide to our employees. Underneath those areas is our community relations and KPAL. As you folks know, because of Covid all of our…just as Chief Goble had mentioned and Director Porter had mentioned many of our community outreach programs have been shuttered due to Covid so the community relations KPAL has been shuttered currently. Our school resource officers while the schools have shut Page 14 of 19 down we used them for the Covid response as well and until we see things get back to normal we will see those things come back into fruition. Then we also have our records and evidence section, which is under research and development. This area is where every bit of evidence and paperwork are housed, tracked and disseminated; it is a huge undertaking and it is also is our firearms section. Not listed on here, unfortunately, is our fiscal and personnel section. The fiscal section is comprised of Daurice Arruda who is my fiscal officer and her team. They are just incredible; the amount of work that they do to make sure our employees are paid, but also to keep our Department on track to make sure we doing everything we need to do on the fiscal and HR side…a lot of moving pieces and they are a hardworking and dedicated team. I will open up the floor any questions that you may have. Chair Kaui: Thank you Chief. Commissioners do you have any questions or comments for Chief Raybuck. If not, thank you so much Chief. You folks are doing a great job and we are here for you if you need anything so, please feel free to reach out if you need anything from the Salary Commission. Thank you, Aloha. Chief Raybuck: Thank you Chair. Aloha. Chair Kaui: Thank you everybody for your patience. The presentations were all great and I think that the county is in good hands. We are going to move on to our next item on the agenda. SC 2021-2 Discussion and decision-making on the Commission’s future meetings for Calendar Year 2021-2022. Ms. Ching: Chair. Chair Kaui: Yes. Ms. Ching: This agenda item and the next agenda item is rather related. If the commission could entertain a motion regarding the salary resolution so we can have a discussion for this year at least that will help set-up the commission for the next item on the agenda. Chair Kaui: Okay, with that said we are going to open it up for discussion on the salary resolution for 2021/2022. Any comments. Personally, I think with all that has been going-on especially with Covid and the fiscal status of the county, I do not think it would be prudent for us to be asking for any increases. May be with all of the different presentations we have heard over the last couple of months maybe we could at least work on the different departments and then going forward look at salary increases. It is up to the commission. Mr. Crowell: I think for this fiscal year; I am not sure and I will leave to Ellen, but if we are not going to recommend anything, do we still have to draft a resolution and submit it to council? Mr. Rainforth: No. Page 15 of 19 Ms. Ching: My understanding is you do not have to. However, just an a formality, I think it would be good for the Commission to have on the record a vote either way so that I can communicate with the administration and council. Because they are preparing to go into budget so either way – just to have a definitive direction from the Commission on its intention would be good. Chair Kaui: Okay, we need a motion on the floor. Vice Chair Rainforth: Chair Kaui. Chair Kaui: Yes, Vice Chair. Vice Chair Rainforth: I move that the Salary Commission submit a letter to the County Council indicating that the Salary Commission has no plans thus far to submit a resolution. I would like to leave it open that if a need came up, we would not have shot ourselves in the foot saying that there would not be a resolution. Chair Kaui: Okay, we have a motion on the floor from Vice Chair Rainforth to communicate to the County Council that thus far, we have no plans for any salary increases. Do we have a second on his motion? Mr. Crowell: I second the motion. Chair Kaui: Okay, we have a second from Commissioner Crowell. Any discussion. If not, I am going to call for the question. Those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Opposed. Hearing none. The motion carries 4:0. Ellen, will you be willing to draft a letter to the County Council to that effect? Ms. Ching: Yes, I will draft something to the County Council and cc Mayor Kawakami to that effect. Chair Kaui: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you Commissioners. Okay, with that we can move to the discussion and decision-making on future commission meetings. Right now, we have been meeting on the fourth Wednesday’s. I do not know if we should leave it up to the new chair to decide. I am not sure if Wednesday’s works for everyone. I know that Council meets on that day. Ellen, how do you feel about having meetings on the same day as Council. Is there a conflict. Ms. Ching: It has been problematic with having the Department Heads show-up at a meeting. I did not want to disrupt the Commission especially since we are at the end of the presentations. But going forward it would be best to change the day of the Commission’s meetings. The other thing that I need to bring up is that our entire office has been pulled into KEMA Operations whereas half of our time is spent working in KEMA. Page 16 of 19 If the Commission does not have any plans to do a resolution I would want to see if the Commission is willing to go on hiatus if you are not going to put forward a resolution. Chair Kaui: Commissioners any thoughts on regarding Ellen’s recommendation. Should we meet quarterly rather than monthly. Vice Chair Rainforth: Chair Kaui, I was thinking that we should schedule a quarterly meeting because we can always skip, the meeting if there is no business comes up. Chair Kaui: Okay. Ellen did you want to say something. Ms. Ching: Yes, that would be very good for us. In fact, that would be helpful for us especially for right now. Chair Kaui: Okay, understood. Commissioners Ono and Crowell, do you have any comments. Mr. Ono: I do support that and I understand where we are at this moment and the need for us to prioritize. We spent a lot of time talking with the individual Department Heads so would it be good for us to somehow look at a summary (maybe) of some keys points just to make sure that only we have a position accurate, but also those direct reporting numbers, the maximum and current salaries and may be establish something to make sure that as we go through the process we are able to achieve a sense of accuracy. Chair, may be going forward we can move towards quarterly meetings like Vice Chair Rainforth had just suggested. Is that something that we consider? Chair Kaui: Ellen, do you want to comment on that? Ms. Ching: Yes, absolutely. I would like to circle back to Commissioner Ono because I am not clear as to what type of information you want, but I can follow-up with you about it and I will make sure that the Commission gets it as well. Chair Kaui: Okay, thank you. We can look at a date in March or we can leave it up to the new chair to select a date. Whatever works for you guys. Mr. Crowell: We are going to have to elect a new Chair. Chair Kaui: Yes, we are going to do that toda y. Ken Rainforth is our Vice Chair so does, he move up automatic. Is that how it works? Let us pick a date for now. How about Tuesday, the 23rd of March. Vice Chair Rainforth: I am retired so I am open. Ms. Ching: Yes, that date works for us. Page 17 of 19 Mr. Crowell: March 23 is good for me. Ellen, am I still on the Commission on that day? That will be my last day on the Commission. Ms. Ching: Yes. Chair Kaui: You termed out. Mr. Crowell: Yes. Mr. Ono: Ellen and Chair, Tuesday’s are difficult for me because I manage our operations on Tuesday’s. Chair Kaui: What is a better day for you? Are Thursdays a better day? Mr. Ono: Yes, Thursdays are a much better day. Chair Kaui: How is March 25 looking for everyone? Ms. Omo: I have Police Commission on that day. Unless, you can meet later in the day. Ms. Ching: What about Fridays. Mr. Ono: I have barge operations on Tuesdays and Fridays. Mondays are our executive and management meetings. I am sorry. How late can we have our meetings on Tuesdays around 2 p.m. but 3 p.m. would be better. I do not want to put the strain on the Commission, but it is hard for me because I run the operations. Mr. Crowell: What about Wednesdays on non-council days. The third week of the month. Ms. Ching: If we have the meetings on the day of Council’s committee meetings, it should be fine. Chair Kaui: Can we have the meeting on March 31. Ms. Ching: We can do it on March 31. Chair Kaui: Okay, everyone is available. Let us schedule our next meeting for March 31, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. Okay, let us move on to the next item. SC 2021-3 Election of Chair and Vice Chair for Calendar Year 2021-2022. Chair Kaui: Do we have nominations from the floor for Chair. Vice Chair Rainforth: I proposed Laurie Yoshida. Mr. Crowell: I second Laurie’s nomination. Page 18 of 19 Chair Kaui: We have a motion on the floor by Vice Chair Rainforth to nominate Commissioner Yoshida as Chair and a second. Discussion. If not, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Opposed. Hearing none. The motion carries 4:0. Do we have a nomination for Vice Chair for calendar year 2021/2022? Vice Chair Rainforth: I move to nominate Trinette. Mr. Crowell: Second. Vice Chair Rainforth: If you have a hard, I will withdraw my nomination. Chair Kaui: Okay, Vice Chair Rainforth has withdrawn his nomination. Mr. Ono: I need another year. (Laughter) Chair Kaui: I will serve as Vice Chair if nobody wants to do it. Vice Chair Rainforth: Trinette. Chair Kaui: Yes. Vice Chair Rainforth: I will be willing to be Vice Chair again if you do not want to do it. I cannot nominate myself. Chair Kaui: And I cannot nominate either right. Mr. Ono: Vice Chair Rainforth, I appreciate that because it would be a little difficult for me because this is my first year. Therefore, I would like to nominate Mr. Rainforth as Vice Chair. Mr. Crowell: Second. Chair Kaui: Any discussion. If not, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Opposed. Hearing none. The motion carries 4:0. Thank you Ken for stepping up. Ms. Ching: Chair can someone let Laurie know. Chair Kaui: I will call her up and let her know about the meeting date as well. Ms. Ching: Thank you. Chair Kaui: Do we need an executive session? Page 19 of 19 Ms. Omo: No. Chair Kaui: I would like to thank all of you for supporting me this last year. It was a tough year so I appreciate it and I appreciate everyone for turning up at these meetings because I know everyone is busy. Does anybody have any comments before we adjourn the meeting? Ms. Ching: I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank everyone for being able to stay on track last year and this year. It was been an interesting year and a challenging one. Thank you. Chair Kaui: I need a motion to adjourn the meeting. Vice Chair Rainforth: So moved. Mr. Ono: I think also as Commissioners we would like to thank Ellen and Mercy for your support and allowing us to get that information so we could move forward. And to Trinette for keeping things together. I truly appreciate that. Chair Kaui: Thank you. Mr. Ono: So, thank you. Thank you all. Chair Kaui: Okay, we have a motion on the floor to adjourn the meeting. Do I have a second? Mr. Crowell: Second. Chair Kaui: Thank you Bob. This meeting is adjourned. Submitted by: Mercedes R. Omo, Support Clerk Approved as circulated on: Approved as amended on: _______________________________ Laurie Yoshida Chair-Elect Kauai Salary Commission