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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-16-2009 Council Meeting Minutes COUNCIL MEETING December 16, 2009 The Council Meeting of the Council of the County of Kauai was called to order by the Council Chair at the Council Chambers, Historic County Building, 4396 Rice Street, Room 201, Lihu`e, Kauai, on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 9:42 a.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Dickie Chang Honorable Jay Furfaro Honorable Daryl W. Kaneshiro Honorable Lani T. Kawahara Honorable Derek S.K. Kawakami Honorable Bill "Kaipo" Asing, Council Chair APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Mr. Kawakami moved for approval of the agenda as circulated, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and unanimously carried. MINUTES of the following meetings of the Council: Council Meeting of November 18, 2009 Council Meeting of December 2, 2009 Public Hearing of December 2, 2009 re: Bills Nos. 2336, 2337 and 2338 Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the minutes as circulated, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro, and unanimously carried. COMMUNICATIONS: Chair Asing: Next item please. PETER A. NAKAMURA, COUNTY CLERK: Next matter is communication C 2009-388. C 2009-388 Communication (08/28/2009) from the Environmental Services Management Engineer, Department of Public Works, transmitting for Council information the Final Report from the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection (MACES), dated May 2009. Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, I'd like to suspend the rules and turn it over to Donald. Go ahead, Donald. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. DONALD M. FUJIMOTO, COUNTY ENGINEER: Donald Fujimoto, County Engineer. TROY TANIGAWA, ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES MANAGEMENT ENGINEER: And Troy Tanigawa, Environmental Services Management Engineer. Mr. Fujimoto: Okay, I...I'd like to, Council Chair and Honorable councilmembers, I'd like to really convey my appreciation for this opportunity to COUNCIL MEETING - 2 - December 16, 2009 update you on our landfill siting process. As you all know, this is not a...a...a simple and easy thing to do. And we were very fortunate to find a very systematic, objective way of at least identifying important criteria from the community, and this is what we call the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Landfill Siting. And again, today we're very lucky to have our consultants to actually take you through the process. And with that said, Troy will introduce you to... Mr. Tanigawa: Troy Tanigawa, Public Works. We have representatives from R.M. Towill Corporation, Brian Takeda and Jim Niermann. We have a person from Resolutions of Hawaii who helped facilitate these meetings, Dee Dee Letts. We have a person from SMS Reshe...Research who contributed to information in the study, Jim Dannemiller, and finally Mark White from Pacific Waste Consulting Group, who also contributed to the study. So, we have a PowerPoint presentation that they're going to be using to discuss the information today. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Before we start, Councilmember Furfaro. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. This is a question for Public Works. Since the item we have is a communication letter from the Mayor, it's only a communication letter, could you tell us, before we actually get into the PowerPoint, what is your expectations of the process going forward? Mr. Fujimoto: Okay, our primary purpose today is to inform the councilmembers of the process that has brought us to this point. And I...again, as we go through this process, it...it...it is becoming apparent that the...the primary purpose of this study was really to solicit the community values and concerns through an advisory committee...group, and it's not meant to be the exhaustive final in-depth analysis. In fact, based on the available resources and the time of the...that they had to do this report, I think they did a commendable job, but it is being...becoming apparent that there's other issues out there that we...we need to address. And so, what our objective today again is to inform the councilmembers on the process and...and really just to bring you up to speed on where we are today, and...and how we got to this point. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, the reason I asked that question and I...if I may, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: In reading the executive summary here, it seems the consultant is also suggesting that we might be doing some further studies parallel to some of the other sites, almost simultaneously. Is that one of the goals? Mr. Fujimoto: Yes, as part of the environmental studies, it...it will consider the other sites. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, thank you for ans...answering those questions. I'm fine for now, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Any other questions, councilmembers, before we start the process of having the administration show us their PowerPoint? Okay, with that why don't we go ahead with the presentation. COUNCIL MEETING - 3 - December 16, 2009 (Councilmembers relocating.) Chair. Asing: Okay, with that, go ahead. You want to introduce yourself for the record, please. BRIAN TAKEDA, R.M. TOWILL CORPORATION: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Brian Takeda. I am with the firm R.M. Towill Corporation, and I have with me the facilitator which assisted us in working with the community. Her name is Dee Dee Letts. And to begin, I'll let Dee Dee open with a few comments and then I will take over and provide the contents of...of what we presented to the community. Chair Asing: Thank you. DEE DEE LETTS, RESOLUTIONS HAWAII: Good morning. My name is Dee Dee Letts, again, President of Resolutions Hawaii. My role... Chair Asing: You want to...you want to pull that mike closer to you, please. Ms. Letts: Okay. My role was to help design and facilitate the process of the Mayor's Advisory Committee. I'm also facilitating the public meetings that are currently going on. With the slide show, the intent of the public meetings that we're working on is two-fold: (1) to have everybody understand the process that happened and why...where we ended up with that process, and (2) to get from them a list of issues that we really need to look at as we go forward with the process as the county goes forward. We start the meetings, really, with kind of welcoming, going over the agenda with everybody and then because there is quite a bit of the slide show as you'll see, we ask community members to spend a few minutes giving us issues that they feel it's important that the presenters cover in the presentation. So we try and get those up front so we can cover them in the presentation and we don't have to go back and forth. As that happens, then the presenter is trying to adjust their presentation to issue those...to address those concerns. From the last meeting and what we'll be doing tonight in this meeting is because the community was so helpful in the last meeting, we want to make sure they understand (1) what we heard and that we are taking it forward to work on, and (2) so that they can think of issues that didn't come up last time because the more issues we have early, the easier it is to do a really good job in assessing various sites. So what we heard really, some...some social scientists who were really helpful, some correction to our terminology. We had said adouble-blind process, it's a dual blind process. I'm not a social scientist. The main thing was that the conso...the social scientist did admit that the process did what the process was intended to do, which was take the NIMBY elements out of the final ranking of the sites, and that's all the Advisory Committee was charged with, was ranking the sites. There were also concerns about the data that was used for environmental justice and that we needed to take another look at that and update the census numbers that were being worked with which is a...a valid comment that we'll be looking at. There was also a...very proud of the people that came out. There were also several of them that stood up and said, we're always going to need a solid waste landfill if we don't change our habits because we're the reason that we need a landfill, and so that was really refreshing to hear that, taking responsibility for their role in creating the need for a landfill. They...the comments basically covered some on the Mayor's Advisory Committee, environmental justice, agricultural use COUNCIL MEETING - 4 - December 16, 2009 of land, which there've been significant changes in some areas since the committee finished its work; a lot of comments on the impact to Kauai Coffee, which will be looked at; ownership and land acquisition comments; and recycling need comments. So we'll start tonight's meeting by recapping those to again let the community know we did hear what they said; it is down to be looked at as the process goes forward; and what would be most helpful tonight is to hear things that aren't already on our list so we have a more exhaustive list. And at that point, I will turn it over to Brian and he will start the presentation. Mr. Takeda: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Takeda: The County of Kauai is badly in need of a new landfill site. The exis...the existing Kekaha site has a limited volume of space available and this means that this site will eventually become exhausted over the next several years. Current and future proposed steps to improve the handling of mu...of municipal solid waste include planning for increased recycling, refuse reuse, and other measures including waste incineration, transshipment and other technologies. But even with these steps in place, and even with other forms of waste handling that will improve the efficiency of using landfills, the county will still require a landfill facility. It will require this because even with recycling and the use of alternative technologies, there are some forms of waste that cannot be further transshipped, recycled or reu...reused. And for these forms of waste, a landfill is still the most efficient means of handling Kaua`i's municipal solid waste. And the second reason is that in the event of a natural or man-induced disaster, there will be the immediate need for waste disposal to aid in the recovery effort. And without the presence of a landfill to handle the waste, the recovery effort would be severely hampered. The slide I am presenting shows the current schedule that the county is currently working against. The top bars indicate the present life remaining within the Kekaha landfill and its three cells. This schedule shows an...the anticipated exhaustion of space by 2017. The bar chart on the bottom shows the steps and the effort that would be required for a new lanc...landfill siting effort. This includes everything from selecting the site, planning and permitting, land acquisition, all the way to final permits, procurement and construction of the facility. This slide is simply added in order to address ADA requirements. I'm going to press on and move on to the next portion of the presentation. Understanding that the county requires a landfill, we turn next to two important issues. The first involves wha...what are the major requirements in selecting a landfill and the second involves what did the Mayor's Advisory Committee do as a part of its work. Volume 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 258 governs the development, operation, and closure of municipal sanitary landfills. This federal regulation is administered by the EPA and delegated to the State of Hawaii Department of Health. There are six criteria that owners and operators must comply with, and in very summary fashion, these involve not placing a landfill within approximately 10,000 feet from the end of any major airport runway; not locating a landfill within a 100-year flood plain unless it can properly allow for the continued flow of storm water; a landfill may not build or expand into wetlands unless certain other conditions associated with the development are met; a landfill must also not be built within 200 feet of any major COUNCIL MEETING - 5 - December 16, 2009 fault zones; and similarly, landfills located in a seismic impact zone must demonstrate that the facility and all of its constituent parts have the ability to resist the effects of ground motion; and finally, the sixth criteria out of RCRA D involves the construction of facilities within unstable areas and that it must accommodate various contingencies that include debris flow, sinkholes, rock fall potential, and liquefaction of soil. Other regulatory criteria that comes out of the EPA and the State Department of Health are fairly numerous and these involve the ability to have a program to detect and prevent the disposal of regulated hazardous waste, demonstrating that sufficient amount of cover material is available, that vectors including insects, rodents, mosquitoes, or other animals or insects capable of transmitting disease to humans can be properly controlled through the use of cover. These other factors involving explosive gases, air quality, access, storm water runoff, leading all the way down to groundwater monitoring and protection are fairly standardized. There are a number of associated regulations in state law that cover it, including regulations of the County of Kauai, Department of Public Works, as well as for groundwater from the State of Hawaii. Principally for off-shore water quality, it would be Chapter 11-54, State Water Quality Standards. The last two criteria involving closure and post-closure care and financial assurance relate to the de...the need to have an operator demonstrate that he has the financial wherewithal to be able to afford the approximately 30 years of environmental monitoring of a landfill site that will be required, including the handling of any potential leaks or other incidents that may occur from the landfill site. The consideration of all of these factors were used to establish identification of the sites currently shown on the map before you. I note that this particular map has seven sites. There is an eighth site that is located immediately south of the Maalo site and...and that site is called Kalepa. With these sites as its starting point, the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Landfill Site selection or MALLS was formed by Mayor Baptiste in 2007 to advise him on selecting Kaua`i's next landfill site. A 15-member advisory committee established a series of criteria that they felt best represented community interests and concerns from each of the five districts they represented. The committee understood clearly that their task was not to be an exhaustive evaluation of all factors necessary for siting a landfill. Rather, their assignment was to represent each of the five communities they came from and that the evaluation of the technical requirements for a landfill are very specific and contained in regulations such as the Resource, Conservation and Recovery Act as well as EPA and other De...Department of Health requirements. The committee was tasked with reviewing the eight alternative sites using community-based criteria that included community environmental and land use; economic and technical concerns and issues. The process it used contained a number of steps. First, the community reviewed existing information that had been undertaken to investigate Kaua`i's next landfill site. Principally they looked at two studies that were done in 2001 and 2002. Next, the committee investigated other information related to the technical requirements for a landfill. After reviewing these items and the other items that I had previously indentified, the committee next moved to develop its 26 community-based criteria which are shown in the next two slides. Rather than read all of this, this is also COUNCIL MEETING - 6 - December 16, 2009 available in...in the handout of the PowerPoint presentation that you have before you. And these are criteria 1 - 13, and the next slide shows criteria 14 - 26 with the last criteria becoming the landfill capacity or life of the site. The work of the criteria included identify...identifying the criteria that would be used to rank the sites, agreeing upon the measures that would be used to score the criteria along with its weights, ranking the alternative landfill sites, and then making other recommendations related to environmental justice and host community benefits. The following two slides show the criteria as it was weighed by the committee. If we look at slide 19, it shows that the major weights that were assigned were primarily to criteria number 13, the location of the site relative to the State of Hawai`i's underground injection control line (UIC), and this line essentially establishes those areas within the island where groundwater resources are to be protected and no landfills would be sited mauka of the UIC line. The second criteria is number 1, 20 and 18 were...the next highest rated and these relate to population density near a prospective landfill site, the cost of developing the site, and the haul distance from major municipal solid waste generation areas that would need to go to the landfill. This next side...slide shows the relative rankings of the remaining criteria going from a weight of 4 all the way to a weight of 1 and that would be criteria number 23, access to fire prevention. Slide number 21 shows a summary of the information used to prepare criteria 13 for evaluation. And again, this goes back to the UIC line and we note that there are three possible point values that are possible, and this would be the final bullet point. One point would mean that the site is inside of the UIC line. Two points would indicate that the UIC line passes somewhere through the property boundary of the site, and the third point indicates that the site is outside of the UIC line, thereby making it a better site for a landfill. So in other words, the higher the score the more favorable the site would be for a landfill. For illustrative purposes, this map shows the boundary of the UIC line, which can be seen along the edge of the coastline, and you can see that it...it varies depending on what part of the island that you...you are on. This next slide shows how the data was provided and created for one of the example sites, and in this case it was Kalepa and its location relative to the UIC line. As shown, the source of the data is provide...provided by indicating that existing data sources were used and how the point value was determined. And if I may, I do have a pointer so I can point these...specific locations out. The data source would be indicated on this line and how the point value was determined is indicated on...on this line. And in this example, it shows the...it indicates the relative to the location of the UIC line and that the basis for the data consisted of Department of Water Supply hydrologic information. This next example is for criteria number 1 and it identifies population density as it appears in the report for the Pu`u O Papai alternative landfill site. And again the data sources are identified along with how the...how the site was scored. Data sources in this example come primarily from U.S. Census data and that the data for the block groups from the landfill are located within one-half mile of the site. COUNCIL MEETING - 7 - December 16, 2009 One of the things that we wanted to note regarding the work of the MALLS is that their...their work truly becomes very valuable to us and the groundbreaking work that they have initiated enables us to have far greater insight into the issues of community concern that must be considered in evaluating landfill sites. In addition to these, we must also evaluate socioeconomic, botanical and faunal, archeological and cultural, and the technical issues that will all play a role in helping the county with its decision making. Agriculture and important agricultural lands was also considered by the committee to be an important issue and that we should not undertake activities that might have an undue detrimental effect. Concerning the recent classification of IAL lands by the State's Land Use Commission, it's important to know that the work of the committee extended throughout 2008 and early 2009. By December of `08, the committee had concluded its evaluation of community-based landfill siting criteria and was engaged in the preparation of its final report. And at the same time, we know that after this period the LUC rendered its final decision regarding IAL in March of 2009. This next slide provides a summary of the work of the MALLS, that the basis for their studies included two reports previously performed by Earth Tech in March 2001 and June 2002, that the original plan to evaluate eight landfill sites and any additional sites was provided, it was determined that the prior studies did a very good job of site evaluation, but that the committee also recognized that they did not have the technical expertise to propose any new sites. We note that one of the sites, Kumukumu, was removed due to incompatibility of its changed zoning designation, but that the list of 26 criteria provided by the committee will become an important part of assessing each site from the point of view of the community. Again, simply a map showing all of the eight sites that were evaluated. And what I'd like to do at this point is turn over the discussion to Dee Dee Letts, who will describe a little bit more about the process that we used as we moved from identifying the criteria, and then measuring them, and then ranking them. Ms. Letts: Okay, my role, again, with the advisory committee was a process role, so I'm sticking strictly to the process that they went to. Again, the site identification, Brian's covered very well. We worked from the existing studies that were out there as far as the sites that had already been identified. Criteria development, I have to say the committee was excellent. They took their job really seriously. I could not have worked with a better group of folks to actually try and represent everybody's interest. They spent a lot of time talking from a community perspective of what is most important from a community perspective when you look at...at landfill. The preservation of the water source for this island, as you saw, came out number one. That was a big concern of theirs. Closeness to residences, displacement...they worked through...they developed and worked through the 26. These 26 weren't ideas that were handed to them by the consultant. These are ones that they asked, they proposed, they agreed on and then the consultant helped them come up with the base information and the scoring numbers. They also felt that certain criteria they would score on a 0 to 4 basis and other criteria they would score on a 1 to 3 basis because they wanted to put more weight on certain criteria from the very beginning. So they came up with that scoring process. The process that resulted in trying to take the...what we call the NIMBY element out of it was that after they had finished developing the criteria and after they were comfortable with the information source for the criteria, those worksheets, basically they looked at 8 x 26 worksheets, you know. They looked at COUNCIL MEETING - 8 - December 16, 2009 worksheets that were going to go to all the sites, so it's 26 worksheets, but in the end there were 8, one done for each site, so 7. And once they were comfortable with how the point value was assigned and where the information was coming from based on what was available out in the community, we basically kicked the county and the consultant out of the room, and they went through a process of deciding of the 26 criteria, which ones were more important. And as you saw, they came up with a ranking of 10, a weighting factor of 10, then 9s where they had ties, 8s, 7s working on down the line. At that point, the folks in the room and myself were the only ones that knew that number. The consultant then went and took the 26 criteria and applied them to the 7 sites and brought the results of that back to the committee without the site names attached so that when the committee talked about whether they were comfortable with the way the criteria was applied and what it looked like and went through all those multiple sheets, they didn't know which sheets applied to which site. So, again, the consultant didn't know what the weights were that the community had added. The community didn't know what the sites were when they were asking their questions about how the criteria was applied to the various sites. Once the committee was comfortable with how the criteria was applied to the various sites, then the...right there in the room, the weighting factors were given to the consultant and we all sat around and recalculated together to come up with a final ranking of the sites. And that is the ranking that was in the final report. I also think you were handed the introductory letter to the final report that was signed by all the committee members, that talks about how...their feelings about how things should move going forward based on the fact that they were working with old information and that there's more study that needs to be done. And basically they then...that was supposed to be the end of their process, then the Mayor asked them to continue to look at environmental justice and host community benefits, and they agreed to stay a while longer and look at those issues also. So there are recommendations on that or discussion on that in their report also. Again, your committee did a really phenomenal job and was very serious about doing their homework and...and taking their charge very seriously unlike...I work with a lot of advisory committees and I really commend them for their work. Mr. Takeda: Thank you. The two additional issues that were looked at by the committee that involve environmental justice and host community benefits will be...we'll give you a short capsule summary of each of those. For environmental justice, I'd like to call Jim Dannemiller, President of SMS Research. JIM DANNEMILLER, PRESIDENT, SMS RESEARCH: Thank you and good morning. Chair Asing: Good morning. Mr. Dannemiller: The environmental justice component was essentially handed... BC, VIDEOGRAPHER: Talk into the mike, please. Mr. Dannemiller: The environmental justice component was...was handed down to us from the federal government. I think I'm...and it has...it has several objectives. One is to avoid, minimize and mitigate the effects of COUNCIL MEETING - 9 - December 16, 2009 environmental or environmental effects on majority (sic) populations and low- income populations, also to ensure that those people get to participate in the selection of sitings for various facilities that government agencies might decide to site, and finally to prevent a...a denial of the...of the benefits of those facilities from reaching low-income people and minority populations. Strictly speaking, the...the County of Kauai is not required to use the environmental justice as a...as a part of the site selection system, but it seemed like to...to sort of keep in the spirit and intent of why environmental justice was set up and also because even though it wasn't part of the funding process, one could still get sued under the...under the law, that it seemed like a good idea to include it in this particular situation. So we did. The law was set up to reflect pretty much what goes on at the national level and that's basically the...the system that we used. We first of all broke the whole county down into its census blocks and then using 2000 census data, we looked at the numbers of people of each one of the...of each nine ethnic groups that reside in each one of those census blocks, and the number o£..of persons below the poverty level in each one of those census blocks, and then we scored them. There's a total of 47 census blocks on Kauai, and of those forty-seven, twenty-seven of those or 57% are, as it says in our work, EJ areas which means there's an issue there. Of the twenty-seven, twenty-one of those were identified as having disproportionately high representation of one or more minority ethnic groups as defined by the federal government. Two of those block groups had disproportionately high representation of low-income persons and four of them had disproportionately high representation of both, one or more minority groups and poverty conditions. Applying those, we came up with these as the scores for the eight land...possible landfill sites on Kauai. The slide shows the name of each one of those sites, the block group that...in which the site exists, the environmental justice classification status of each one, and the...the reason for that status. So if you discover that virtually six out of the eight have some Environmental Justice concern and (inaudible) we discovered that Kalepa, Kekaha Mauka, K`ipu and Maalo are areas where there's a disproportionate representation of one or more ethnic groups, that Ku...Kumukumu was an area where only poverty was an issue and that for Pu`u O Papai, the...both of them were an issue. Two of the issues, which is Koloa and Umi Street...Umi site, had no environmental justice component. What we do about that? Next slide. If...if a site has no environmental justice issue, then it's...there's no point to assign, it's okay to continue with whatever siting might occur along with any other measurements that are taken on that site. If it does have an environmental justice consideration, then two steps are initiated, the first being that if research is done within the community to find out what it is that the community would like to see happen as a mitigation for that...that facility being sited there, and then the second step, those mitigations, having been identified, are presented to the community to allow them to choose which of those they would like to have done. And that was the environmental justice system that was applied for this process. Mr. Takeda: Thank you. Mark White represents Pacific Waste Consulting Group. His...his portion of the study really begins to look at assuming that you have an environmental justice issue at a site, what are some of the mitigations that you can do in order to address having an EJ issue. MARK WHITE, PACIFIC WASTE CONSULTING GROUP: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Council. Host community benefits have been used in a num...number of areas on the mainland to address the disproportionate share COUNCIL MEETING - 10 - December 16, 2009 of the environmental impact that people located near a landfill site might have compared to the rest of the people in the...in the region using it. In my own city in Sacramento, my own council district, we have all of the solid waste facilities in that district and the city has talked about putting a host benefit fee on the charges at those facilities to help repair the roads and do other things. They're still talking about it; they haven't gotten anywhere, but this has been used extremely successfully in other counties. One of the counties, for example in Washington, that has a large landfill whose folks don't pay any property taxes because the host community benefit is sufficient in that situation that it pays their taxes. That is quite different than your situation, however, in that they're bringing waste to that site from places as far away as Alaska, California and others, so it's outsiders paying. In your situation, that wouldn't be the case because you're not bringing waste from anywhere but on the island. However, it seems that opportunity to allow community needs that maybe can't be supported by the county's budget to be addressed through fees paid by everybody, small fees, at the landfill in addition to the cost of disposal that raise sufficient revenue to provide money to do things, and the classic is people talk about is a new swimming pool. Well, there may be a lot of road repairs or maybe a lot of other things...parks and other things that are needed in the area. The things that are needed often are intended also to address the impacts of the landfill. We've listed three of them here. Windblown litter, for example, coming off of improperly covered trucks going to the landfill; landfill odors -when you dump a new load, very often you may have an odor which you can't get rid of till you cover that; visual impacts -the landfill is going to be, unless well hidden by a hill or something, it could easily have impacts from the road that maybe could be improved upon with good landscaping. I would add to this list traffic impacts. Those kinds of impacts can be improved by additional signals or turn lanes or such, which may not be in the budget for the landfill, but a host community benefit is one way to raise the moneys to be able to take care of these kinds of things. The key element is, however, that as the landfill is being siting...as the siting process is going forward, some assessment be made of the interest of the people around the landfill and what kinds of things might be done. I mean, a survey, for example, as Jim talked about that would address EJ issues, but also potentially look at what kinds of things people see in that area as being problems that have been going on a while that maybe don't bubble to the top of the priority list for whatever reason because everybody's, we know, is competing for the same tax dollar. This may be a way to identify the things that would be of most interest to people, to then form some sort of a community action committee to enable the community...community to interface with the folks in administration and yourself in deciding the landfill to develop a program prior to the landfill actually being started in construction so that they know something is going to happen to benefit their community as well as in having to put up with this absolutely essential public facility. We all live next to absolutely essential...at least I do. I've lived next to a freeway for 30 years. That's the way it goes; I chose my house there. We don't have any benefit. We never will have any benefit, but if there's an opportunity to provide that benefit when something is started, it may be a way to really facilitate the siting of a really essential public facility. We've identified in the slide some parts of the process and I won't repeat those because they can be, you know, easily read. I'm here to answer your questions. Chair Asing: Thank you. COUNCIL MEETING - 11 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Takeda: Okay, thank you, Mark. At this point in the presentation that we provided, we moved on to helping to answer the next question that comes up and that really revolves around what are the county's requirements for an EIS and what would it include. And again, this goes back to how do you select the next landfill site for the County of Kauai. The contents of the EIS itself are really geared toward addressing environmental disclosure as promulgated in H.R.S. Chapter 343 and it begins to look at, in much more detail, environmental, social, and technical issues involved as part of the selection. These other details that will all be a part of the process involves once again, RCRA D Criteria as established by the EPA. Getting ahead of myself a little bit. Let me just show the next slide. It will also begin to exami...examine other County of Kauai requirements including landfill life or capacity, as well as a range of other EIS issues that include the comments that came out of the work performed for the Mayor's Advisory Committee and in this regard, it will use data that was not available to the committee at the time that the report was prepared. So to put this into context, I think initially we...we indicated that the Mayor's report was never intended to serve as a final decision-making document for the selection of a landfill site. But here, because of the amount of representation from the community that we received regarding what they consider to be important, those factors are now going to be utilized in the analysis of a couple of things. The first involves not simply the landfill sites themselves, but we will also be looking at alternative technologies and these will run the range from municipal composting to plasma arc incineration as well as waste transshipment which the City & County of Honolulu is presently attempting to undertake. And this slide shows that at the end of our presentation that we are coming before the community to ask them to help participate in the process by sharing with all of us the relevant environmental issues and concerns that they feel should be represented as the EIS is being prepared. And the notes which we have taken down is available for public review on the County's Department of Public Works website and...and to date as Dee Dee has indicated, we received approximately 60+ comments. I believe the number is 64. There are 7 different categories in which comments were received and I believe it is a very healthy start. And I would like to thank the council for bearing with us and allowing us to make this presentation. Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, councilmembers, you want to take a seat? With that, councilmembers, any questions? Councilmember Furfaro. Mr. Furfaro: Yes, I have a...I have a series of questions that I would like to get some clarification on the overall mission of this report and I'll go back to what I pointed out earlier. The report says, this is on page 2 of the executive (inaudible), it says, due to the closeness of some of the scores, it is apparent that further detailed evaluation of the sites be performed. Now, do I sense that that means there have been items that have come up for additional scoring categories, such as do we have a willing seller? Mr. Takeda: I believe what was meant when we prepared that portion of the report is that the...the basis for some of the decision making that includes information on how the site is being used, such as the aerial photography that we relied upon to evaluate some of the sites was taken at a fixed point of time and this spread throughout eight different sites and were we to go back with the COUNCIL MEETING - 12 - December 16, 2009 benefit of additional time and resources, a much better level of detail describing what's actually going on at the site and whether or not there is active cultivation going on, all of those would become disclosed and described and factored into decision making. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Well, you know that's...that's pretty much where, you know...when do we enter into any discussion with the 7 landowners. Well, there's not 7 landowners. There's the State, there's Grove Farm, there's A&B, there's only a handful of...at what point do we go forward and start making queries about their willingness to sell? And the reason that question to me is so important is this county has limited resources, we know this cost is on the horizon, and we have a very limited time table. That time table is directed at the year 2017, the must complete time. If we pursue, you know, any site, we're going to have to deal with the Land Use Commission. We're going to have to fund an EIS. We're going to have to deal with possibly an unfriendly condemnation. We're going to have to deal with the DO...Department of Health on some mechanisms of certification, whether some sites need to be lined more than others. We need State Ag approval and that even becomes more complicated as the lands in question here are now part of the Important Ag Land Dedication. I mean there seems to be a number of items that will consume a...a lot of time...a large consumption of time while we have our must complete date. I would think that that would have some weighing and might actually trigger some conversations with other landowners at this point who are more willing. When it comes to the business portion of it, I see site...I think it's in Kumukumu what...was dropped because of certain approvals that were given by Planning and could expose us to some additional cost if we pursue that site. But you know, the...the site we have right now currently identified as the prime target employs 170 people during peak season. Seventy of them are regular full-timers. It also has...and that's a very important item right now, any loss of jobs. We also have issues of the loss of infrastructure because those lands currently have irrigation systems, retention basins, barns for equipment, and they have other types of revenue from the Visitors Center. So, is there going to be an additional category put in there for loss of business, loss of jobs, which are very important right now? And we find ourselves in a situation where that all gets added to the cost of acquisition which is on your list. You would not only have the land appraisal, you would have to then potentially think that this landowner will pursue loss of their capital investments and they might even layer that with another example of loss of potential revenues because they are a...a profit center right now. And...and I guess I'm asking, are those kinds of things now in the hands of...of the consultant and the administration to add some additional criteria and if they are, does this mean that we should be identifying maybe at least two or three sites to further study those questions before we come up with a final recommendation. And I would like the consultant to...to answer me because we have limited time with you today. I can always talk to the administration about these questions I've just posed. Mr. Takeda: I'd like to condition my response. I can answer part of your question. And I understand your question to mean will we consider factors such as loss of income, the potential destruction of a business, the potential impacts to residences that live in the area, not just from the direct effects of having a landfill but the indirect effects associated with a loss of a site that may provide someone's livelihood. The answer to those questions is yes. Those will be evaluated. The...the primary means that we will use to evaluate those kinds of factors will be through a so...socioeconomic impact assessment. Mr. Fujimoto: Councilmember... COUNCIL MEETING - 13 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: Let me see, if I...if I may pursue with the consultant, yeah. You know, there are certain things here in the way the...the scores and the criteria and the weighing factors are put there and one of those also indicates to me is additional scores... If you want his time, that's fine. I would like to have his full attention, so. If...if someone was within a half a mile of a residence, there was a score. But if you were within three-quarters of the space of a residence, there was no opportunity to consider that for the weighing factor. And I ask these questions because the scores in many cases, especially with one and two and three and four, are very close. Mr. Takeda: Mm-hm. Mr. Furfaro: They're very close. So, was...was that something that should be revisited? Mr. Takeda: I...I understand your question to be how is it that we arrived at the selection of a distance of say a half a mile... Mr. Furfaro: Right. Mr. Takeda: ...as a cutoff. We...we arrived at that distance by looking at prior studies and reports and I also want to mention that there's nothing magical about the half a mile distance. But it is important to try to establish some...some cutoff point beyond which people either feel very uncomfortable that it's closer than that distance or that it's okay if it's farther than that amount. In...in working with the committee, that was the basic rule of thumb number that we arrived at. If I may qualify just one point about the half a mile distance and it is to state that it is a relative distance meaning that depending on what is done in the way of mitigation, you can certainly address impacts related to windblown litter as well as to odor control as well as to addressing view plane impacts. Mr. Furfaro: So, the premise is that we could landscape the area, we could build a knoll, we could put up some shields and so forth, but the reality is that's the score you gave. The half mile was the...the cutoff. Mr. Takeda: That...that is correct. Mr. Furfaro: You know and it kind o£..when I raised like on number 26 the landfill capacity of the site...please understand I'm just trying to understand this scoring part...we have sites that have in your report that indicate anywhere from 28 years of life to 40 years of life. But on the score, they all get 3. So my question is if everybody's 3, the score might as well be zero. If we're going to pursue a site and in the next presentation coming up we have to have a site and I think we don't disagree with that, wouldn't we want this decision to be one that lasts the longest? And yet the criteria says 3 for everyone. But the evaluation criteria on these certain sites go from anywhere from 28 years to 40 years. I would think we would give something that has 40 years pretty much the...a differential in the score. That...that's what I'm trying to understand here. I think the citizens group did a very...very good job, but they did some portion of the scope in criteria and the consultant did apply the scores. Mr. Takeda: Mm-hm. If...if I may re...respond to that comment. Mr. Furfaro: I would like, I would like to hear that, please. COUNCIL MEETING - 14 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Takeda: In...in discussing it, say we're having aface-to-face discussion a...as we are and we're looking at the issue before the county we need to have an important new landfill site developed and we know that landfill sites are very difficult to establish and to permit, and so therefore, we both agree that they should be the maximum life that is possible, not...notwithstanding anumber of other factors, but certainly we would want to have the longest life possible. Mr. Furfaro: So we agree on that. Mr. Takeda: In...in...in this discussion for example. The...the difference when you look at the report is that that discussion was held by a group of 15 individuals and they were thinking not just of the landfill site itself and its capacity, but they were also trying to consider how do we...how do we fairly give a...a weight to all of those factors looking at each of them equally and then applying those weights. And so what you see as far as the landfill capacity or site life being given the weight that it received was the result of that...of that exercise. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Now, I just want to say again, I think the citizens committee did a very good job. In fact one of the members is the godfather to my oldest daughter. They did a very good job. But I read in here on page 24 the committee also recognized that .further detailed evaluation would be done on these site recommendations especially in the area of the environmental impact assessment. So I'm back to my original question. If that's what we told the group, that's what's in your report, are we going to look at all of our financial goals being focused on one EIS or are we going to identify two or three sites and do them parallel with some of these new inquiries that I've made today? What...what are we doing? Mr. Fujimoto: I...I'd like to answer that because that's outside of the scope of his contract, his...and again... Mr. Furfaro: But Donald, this is his report. Mr. Fujimoto: Yes, yes. Mr. Furfaro: Their narrative. Mr. Fujimoto: And that's where his contract ended, was the recommendation. And...and after that we are going through a process of trying to get a planning consultant on board and...and that is exactly our plan is to evaluate several sites. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, so we're back to one of my earlier questions and I'll certainly give you the opportunity to expand on that. Going forward and looking at some of the business issues that I brought up, the jobs issues and so forth, we might actually look at two or three sites going forward? Mr. Fujimoto: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Are we budgeted and funded to do those kinds of studies... Mr. Fujimoto: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: ...for multiple sites? COUNCIL MEETING - 15 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Fujimoto: We are still in the negotiation process with the consultant. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Will part of that be an opportunity or are we currently talking to or searching for a will... a willing seller? Mr. Fujimoto: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, well since this is just a communication today and I guess we're going to end up receiving it, I'll leave my questions at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair., Chair Asing: Okay, let...let me do this, councilmembers. It is the intent of the Chair to have a motion to receive the item, but this is not the end. In receiving the item, what we will be doing is we will be taking questions from councilmembers and we will send those questions over to the administration so that we can get some answers. So, we don't expect you to answer all the questions today because we will be sending questions over so that we can get answers and concerns that we have as councilmembers. So I just want all the councilmembers and the public and the administration to know what the intent is. Mr. Furfaro: May I ask just one more question? Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: One more que... Donald, many of the consultants have referred to the...the window dressing for a particular site to have a host community benefit. Is there another part of the administration that is looking at the incidentals that make something like that work to come back and present to the council because currently we do not have a host community policy. Mr. Fujimoto: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, we have Councilmember Kaneshiro and then Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is directed to Donald. And Donald, hearing what I've heard you say to our Vice Chair Furfaro that there are ongoing process that still needs to be done, possibly with some other sites, then for me personally then at this point it's premature for us to say that we're looking at a specific site or there was a recommendation made by the administration for a specific site. Isn't it true? Mr. Fujimoto: Not necessarily. Again, siting a landfill is probably one of the most difficult tasks anyone will have including this body. Mr. Kaneshiro: I understand that. Mr. Fujimoto: And part of the process is coming up with a systematic way of starting to site a landfill. And... and I think we would all agree that without a process like this, without some community input on...on determining what is important in siting a landfill, just...a...any site selected would...would have strong resistance which...which people would say was purely arbitrary. We're COUNCIL MEETING - 16 - December 16, 2009 trying to eliminate that...that issue of arbitrary. We're trying to have a form of systematically looking at a landfill site for this island. And I believe this process provides that foundation. Mr. Kaneshiro: But at...what I'm trying to get at is that it seems like the administration has come to a conclusion that this is the site... Mr. Fujimoto: Well... Mr. Kaneshiro: ...we've chosen for, you know... Mr. Fujimoto: My...my understanding is that the administration is supporting the recommendation of the study... Mr. Kaneshiro: Okay, well... Mr. Fujimoto: And...and...as...as... Mr. Kaneshiro: I haven't heard that on the record and now you're saying they're supporting what this study has shown, which, you know, it's...we all agree. I know that a lot of work's been done in there. But at the same time, it..it is not concrete that this is what the administration role has taken. Mr. Fujimoto: Yes. I...I think the perception everybody...the miscommunication, Iguess, is that people think that we're at the end. We're not. We're at the beginning of the process. Mr. Kaneshiro: Okay, and...and that's what I wanted to hear because I...I see this, you know...I see this study as a real thorough study with the participation that we had from the advisory group, the consultants and so forth. I got some issues about some points here and there and so forth, but we won't even go into that. But what I...I needed to hear is that, you know, there are ongoing process that we still need to do after this study, what...you know, what came up through the advisory committee and also through the...through the study that was done that there probably are more issues that we need to look at and compare this to several other sites. Is that correct? Mr. Fujimoto: Yes and...and I think I'd like to echo what our consultant said is that the value of this report is to identify important issues that the community felt should be evaluated in the...in the process, in the environmental study process. Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you, Donald. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Cou...Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Yeah, just let me...let me start by saying that I appreciate the work of the committee and the consultants. I attended some of the meetings. I appreciated the way it was structured and the attempt made to...to make it as a clean and as objective as possible, but it's a very technical kind of thing and obviously going to come under intense scrutiny. And I've had an opportunity to read, not every page, but quite a bit and I have some specific questions for the consultants about just really a couple of issues, particularly on criteria number 3. The...because there was discussion earlier regarding displacement of residences COUNCIL MEETING - 17 - December 16, 2009 and/or businesses, and I just want to understand that better. With the understanding that I have that committee weighted the criteria but the ranking was done by the consultant. Is that correct? Mr. Takeda: That...that is correct. Mr. Bynum: Okay, so...and because again the scores are so close, a change of one or two numbers would change the outcome of first, second, third rankings. And so, in number...all of the sites in criteria 3, which is displacement of residents and/or business including agricultural business are either ones or threes. And so I wanted to understand how that ranking was determined because...so for instance, Kalepa is a one and a low score here means a less desirable site. Is that correct? Mr. Takeda: That is correct. Mr. Bynum: So, what is the issue...just starting with Kalepa, what is...where...what's being displaced there that would cause it to have a ranking of one? Mr. Takeda: I can describe the methodology that we used across all of the sites and what we did was to look at the actual TMKs and then for SMS Research to take a look at what kind of businesses were on record on existing databases that could be impacted from any kind of use of that site. And on that basis, thereby formulated whether or not it would be a lesser or a greater impact. And of course, doing this type of exercise, using a fairly quick turnaround, the data source was from materials that could be easily obtained and does not take, for example, the place of more thorough study that would return to just this kind of issue. Mr. Bynum: I'm...I'm sorry. Would you repeat that last sentence? I... Mr. Takeda: Sure. Gallery: Can you speak louder, please? Chair Asing: You want to pull the mike up closer, please? Mr. Bynum: Sorry. Mr. Takeda: What I was saying was that when...when you hear of a committee process like this one, you're looking at multiple criteria. And what you are really trying to do is to use the equivalent quali...quality level of data across each of the criteria. And so what this means for the Kalepa site in the example criteria that you identified is that you...you will...you will use data that is readily available from tax map key data services. You will go to property data that tells who may own the property as of its latest update and who is using the property in whatever capacity. So doing this across the board, you arrive at a set of data that will not be a substitute for what you will do in an EIS process. Mr. Bynum: Okay. So, I don't know. I mean, the...this is an area where I know the public's interested because a number of the sites are...I think all of the sites are on agriculture...zoned agricultural land. The sites that have fallow, that are not currently being used for active production have the same COUNCIL MEETING - 18 - December 16, 2009 score as the Umi site that is involved in active production. And that kind of just has the flace...face validity. People say, hey, how can this rate the same as this when this is actively involved in active agriculture, and this site is not. I guess, if you just go by zoning, you'd come to that conclusion, but that may not measure what...what it is we intended to measure here, huh? Mr. Takeda: That's correct. Mr. Bynum: So, and if you'll bear with me just for a minute, so basically you just went on zoning and the TMK? Mr. Takeda: I don't have the specific criteria in front of me, but there is a basis for each of the criteria that were identified. What the methodology was and they are stated in the actual individual data sheets. Mr. Bynum: Well, I just think that's a reasonable concern that regarding this one...and as I said because the numbers. are so close, and, you know, one...change of one number with the weighted criteria would change the outcome. The other question I have is about the Kumukumu site that was dropped from consideration. When it was dropped and I heard that, I almost immediately said, what's up with that, you know. Why is this being dropped from consideration. And so I understand the answer was that there was a rezoning on the same property into agricultural subdivisions. And so I just want to know a little bit more about how that decision was made. Was that the consultant's decision to drop it? Was it the administration's decision? Mr. Fujimoto: It was the...I'd like to answer that. It was the administration's recommendation to remove that based upon the fact that the Kumukumu site just got their zoning for the ag...ag subdivision. And...and basically, by that process, the...the site no longer was compatible for consideration due to the high cost of proceeding if we did proceed with that site. And...and to...to have held back that process and not allowed the zoning to happen, then we were looking at a taking issue. Mr. Bynum: And I'll just pose a question then...it's been posed to me. So basically we said, the zone...the zoning and status of this land has changed and makes it less... Mr. Fujimoto: No longer compatible, correct. Mr. Bynum: Couldn't the same argument be made of the Umi site, that the status of that land has changed by being designated IAL? Mr. Fujimoto: Well, again, we don't know enough about that. We are proceeding with finding out what can and cannot be done with that site. Mr. Bynum: And then, just to close this, I also heard the answer that of course moving forward the administration's intent is to examine more than one site in terms of ongoing evaluation and I agree with what you said, Donald, that this was...how do you do this? I mean, it's...it's a...something that has to be done as objectively and as carefully as possible and I know that this kind of a study and citizen involvement is a good start and...and an important aspect, but, you know, it's also important that we scrutinize some of the outcomes the committee...you know, I accept the findings because I like public process of the weighting of that COUNCIL MEETING - 19 - December 16, 2009 criteria, but it's appropriate I think for us to understand how the ratings were done and to question about whether there might need to be another look at that. That's the point I want to make, so thank you very much. Chair Asing: Okay, any other questions, councilmembers? Mr. Furfaro: I just... Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: I just have afollow-up and a confirmation along the lines of Mr. Bynum's thinking. The administration does realize that this site, as designated as important ag land, will require LUC acknowledgement. It will require state agricultural confirmation that it can be taken out. Okay, so that's...and would your consultant agree with that too? Mr. Takeda: I would. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any other questions, councilmembers? Councilmember Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara: Yes. This is (inaudible) question because Councilmember Bynum was specifically asking... BC, Videographer: ...mike. Ms. Kawahara: Oh...sorry. This is a specific question on maybe a problem with one of your reports, either on Maalo or Kalepa. There are the same exact businesses being displaced that were identified and they're in different areas. Is that... Mr. Takeda: Which criteria number would that be? Ms. Kawahara: 3 and 3. Kalepa 3 and Maalo 3. Because I was going through what you had on here for criteria and data sources as Councilmember Bynum was speaking about and I...and I just noticed that these are the exact same pages probably. Mr. Takeda: Some...some of the data sources were...were very similar across the board. Sometimes the same data source crossed multiple criteria. Ms. Kawahara: These are two separate locations though, right? Mr. Takeda: Yes, they are. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. I guess, I'll bring it...I'll take it with...up with them later because these are very specific names and they're both in two different areas. Okay, thank you. Chair Asing: Okay. Any further questions, councilmembers? Mr. Furfaro: I do, I'm sorry. COUNCIL MEETING - 20 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: So in the rating when it comes to displacing businesses, a business that just perhaps leases some land for an activity could be rated as a valid business and place? Mr. Takeda: What I'd like to do is actually ask SMS to help me answer that question. Mr. Dannemiller: I'm sorry, can I hear your question again? Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Chair Asing: Yeah, you want to come up, please. Mr. Furfaro: Come up to the mike and I'll...while you're coming up, I'11...I'll ask the question again, which has been posed by myself, by Mr. Bynum, and by Councilwoman Kawahara. In the rating and the scoring of an existing business on this parcel, if those lands are subleased out as an active lease recorded, would that be an indication that we scored them because there was business on those... Mr. Dannemiller: If there was a business there...if there was a business there located physically... Mr. Furfaro: That...that had a lease... Mr. Dannemiller: That would...they would both be counted the same. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Mr. Kaneshiro: Just afollow-up to that. Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Kaneshiro: Then it's not necessarily how many workers are really working on that parcel. It's just because... Mr. Furfaro: There's a lease. Mr. Kaneshiro: The lease. In other words, there's six leases on this possible site. Because there's six leases, you're displacing six leases, rather than 100 people. Is that correct? Mr. Dannemiller: The number of employees wasn't entered into this system at all. Mr. Kaneshiro: Okay, all right. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you for that follow-up, yeah. COUNCIL MEETING - 21 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Kaneshiro: Yeah, I just wanted...I did see that in this...in the report and it did point out that because of the six leases that is the displacement of the businesses. So I wanted to be clear on that (inaudible). Mr. Furfaro: I re...I remember reading... Mr. Kaneshiro: Yeah. Mr. Furfaro: ...about leases. I didn't know where. Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. With...with that, I want to thank you for the report. I just had one follow-up question and let's see if I heard it right. I believe in your presentation you mentioned that the process had been either completed or nearly complete...completed before it was found out that the IAL designation was made for that area. Am I correct? Mr. Takeda: Yes. Chair Asing: Okay, I wanted to clear...I thought I heard that and I said, did I in fact hear it, and thank you for that clarification. Okay, what...what we'll do is, members, I'll call the meeting back to order. There being no further questions, the meeting was called back to order. Chair Asing: And if the councilmembers want further discussion, fine. If not, what I'd like to do is entertain a motion to receive with the...with the understanding...with the understanding that we will be sending questions over to the administration and it'll appear again on the agenda because we expect to get answers from the administration. So with that said, what I'd like to do now is to open it up to the public for public comments. So, can we have the first speaker up from the public, please. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair... Chair Asing: Is... Mr. Nakamura: We have a... Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Nakamura: ...registered speaker, John Harder, followed by Ken Taylor. Chair Asing: Thank you. John, please. JOHN HARDER: Good morning, Council Chair, and members of the council. Chair Asing: Good morning. COUNCIL MEETING - 22 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Harder: My name is John Harder. I'm the chairman of Zero Waste Kauai and we have some...some comments that we would like to make on the...both the process and the development of a new landfill site. I've sent email to the council, email (inaudible) copies of my testimony, though it's available to you there. While Zero Waste Kauai understands the short-term necessity to provide adequate disposal capacity for the county's waste, we feel that the county has failed to expeditiously plan for its future waste disposal needs and in addition failed to develop an effective means of reducing the growing volumes and toxicity of the waste requiring disposal. This failure to address...adequately address the county's long-term waste management requirement will...will result in increasing capital and operation costs for waste management, negative impacts on the local environment, and a continued high level of impact on the host community. The Hawaii Revised Statutes 342G, the Integrated Solid Waste Management Act, established a waste management hierarchy which ranks landfilling as the lowest priority. Approval of increased landfill capacity while the county struggles to increase its current diversion rate of 25% seems contradictory to the priorities of the Act, especially as...as the county has failed to faithfully implement the diversion elements contained in the original county integrated solid waste management plan developed in 1994. It's our recommendation that in compliance with state law, the design, construction and operation of a new landfill anywhere on Kauai be conditional upon requirements that the county aggressively pursue all means of reducing the volumes and environmental impacts of the material currently being disposed of through reduction, reuse and recycling. Specifically, an environmental review of the new site should include a discussion of issues such as the lack of adequate staffing for existing diversion programs, the need for adequate on-island processing capacity (that is the construction of a Material Recovery Facility), the need to expedite the complete diversion of a broad range of organics including green waste, bio-solids, and food wastes from disposal. These organics are the main cause of leachate generation in landfills and one of the main causes of groundwater contamination. And the implementation of a wide range of source reduction legislation. Also, any review of a new landfill site should address the cost benefits of requiring double composite liner to provide an additional barrier to any potential groundwater contamination. Mr. Nakamura: Three minutes, Mr. Chair. Mr. Harder: Strict adherence to the state's waste management hierarchy and... Chair Asing: John, that was three minutes... (Inaudible.) Mr. Harder: Okay. Chair Asing: That was three minutes, but go ahead and finish up, yeah. COUNCIL MEETING - 23 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Harder: Strict adherence to the state's waste management hierarchy and the expeditious implementation of diversion programs prior to developing additional disposal capacity should be an essential part of the review process of any proposed site. In addition, the cost of development of the proposed new landfill in the Kalaheo area, including required infrastructure, necessitates that the county protect its investment by conserving valuable airspace. Building additional disposal capacity without a corresponding development in the diversion capacity makes little eco...economic sense. Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you, John. Councilmember Furfaro. Mr. Furfaro: John, I wanted to thank you for your testimony. You know, our integrated solid waste management plan is on the...is the next agenda item. I do want you to know that although you sounded criticizing this council, it was this council that pushed for the concept of a MRF and I appreciate your two correspondence, Iguess, one at 7:06 this morning and one at 6:58. Are those the two you're referencing? Mr. Harder: The...I will... Mr. Furfaro: Is there...is there more... Mr. Harder: I will make the other one later when we talk about the integrated solid waste management plan. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Thank you, John. Can we have... Ms. Kawahara: I have a question, Chair. Chair Asing: You have a question? Go ahead. Ms. Kawahara: Sorry. Thank you for your testimony and it's very helpful. The part I have a question on is the recommen...is the recommendation from Zero Waste that design, construction and operation of a new landfill be conditional upon requirements that the county aggressively pursue all means of reducing. Is it your testimony that they cannot be done in parallel because we're going to...we're all aware of the time...time constraints we have and I don't...I want to know if you're saying we can't do one without doing the other as testimony. Mr. Harder: No, they...they should be done concurrently. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Harder: Yeah. Ms. Kawahara: So that's... Mr. Harder: I think that the commitment to one...to a landfill is necessary. I agree with what the consultant said up there. We...we will for the fore...foreseeable future need landfill capacity. However, by aggressively implementing diversion options as we move ahead on the landfill siting, EIS and all COUNCIL MEETING - 24 - December 16, 2009 those processes, could conserve 2-3 years capacity at Kekaha. We could stretch out the time frame that we have available to build this new landfill if we really aggressively purtu...pursue diversion. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank...thank you very much. Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Councilmember Kawahara, you...you answered a question I mostly wanted to hear is that you're not saying with your testimony don't proceed with siting a landfill. And, you know, we saw the timeframes up there today. And so I agree with you that we need to very aggressively pursue source reduction and...and diversion because there's no breathing room in that time sche...schedule, and that's one way we can get some breathing room. And then if we do that, when we site the landfill, the question is, you know, maybe that's the last one we ever have to site on Kauai. You know, is it going to last 20 years or 100? And that will depend on how aggressively per...we pursue these other things. So, I...I appreciate that clarification. You're not saying we...don't site it, but it should be contingent upon and linked to a commitment to aggressively pursue these other elements that we'll discuss later today, right? Mr. Harder: Yes. Mr. Bynum: Okay, just want to...thank you. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Can we have the next speaker, please? Mr. Nakamura: Next speaker is Ken T...Ken Taylor. Chair Asing: Good morning, Ken. KEN TAYLOR: Good morning, Chair and members of the council. My name is Ken Taylor. I first want to thank the community members that worked on this ranking process and the other staff and...and so on. I think they've done a pretty good job as far as they've gone. Again, I...I would also agree with the questions that have been asked by councilmembers the...this morning, and the comments that John made. I do believe that recycle, MRF, composting component is a very important part of this whole process and it should be moving forward posthaste to g7ve us some more time as well as it'll make a big difference in the type and...and...of...of landfill that...that we do move forward with. I...I really believe that since the rankings are so closely relate...and there are some questions about how different ranks were given to certain situations that acost-benefit analysis of each of these sites be done because that would...that would clarify all of these issues of concern and I think short of doing acost-benefit analysis, we're being very foolish to think that we're going to address all of the issues that are coming forward. EIS touches on some of it, but there's still a lot of area that is not addressed without doing the cost-benefit analysis. Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Do you have any other registered speakers? Mr. Nakamura: Next speaker is JoAnn Yukimura. Chair Asing: Good morning, JoAnn. COUNCIL MEETING - 25 - December 16, 2009 JOANN YUKIMURA: Good morning. Council Chair, members of the Council, JoAnn Yukimura for the record. Season's greetings and all the best to you and your families during this Christmas holiday, although you don't have a holiday yet. After this one long meeting, I remember how it used to be. Anyway, every problem today was caused by some action or inaction in the past. And the problem that we're addressing today was caused by the county paying lip service to Zero Waste for 15 years while doing very little to actually implement such a system. The way out of both this problem that we're facing on the agenda today and in the long range is an aggressive zero waste program and I...I really want to affirm what John Harder has said. And it is a...you know, we've been doing this landfill siting for at least 10 years. If we had done, concurrently with this process, an aggressive zero waste site, we would have many more years left on Kekaha and we wouldn't be in the corner that we're in right now. And...so I say this because the county is not pursuing this concurrently. Otherwise, you would have put in place a recycling coordinator to work all this past year on an aggressive diversion program, but nothing is really happening because we're spending time on this process and on some waste-to-energy study and a premature curbside recycling, and we're not focusing on the real solution. That's basically what I want to say, but I just want to say one more thing. You know, the few points' difference in this study makes the ranking irrelevant. Because if you consider that if there were a willing seller, all these fine distinctions and methodologies would fall away. You would go right to the site where there's a willing seller because all of these sites, while they have some differences, would probably meet the minimum requirements of a landfill. And...so you...you know, I really think we have to begin with the end in mind and the end in mind is a zero waste system, which includes a landfill. The landfill is part of this and so we need to do that, but the priority and the importance of how we spend our time and money would be very different if we kept that really clearly in mind. Any questions. Chair Asing: Yes, I have. Ms. Yukimura: Sure. Chair Asing: I...you're not saying we shouldn't do what we're doing now, are you? Ms. Yukimura: I'm saying, you shouldn't do what you're doing now because what you're doing now is just doing landfilling and you're not doing zero waste. If you did a really...if...if even two years ago we had done aggressive zero waste, we might have a MRF in place right now or...certainly a municipal composting facility. These are not, you know, long projects to...to do. But because we haven't kept our eye on the ball and kept our focus and we get distracted with things like totally impractical waste-to-energy ideas, we haven't kept our focus and when you have a tight timetable, you have to be really focused and you have to put your scarce resources where you get the most leverage and because we haven't been doing that we get deeper and deeper into a corner. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any questions? If not, thank you very much. Is there anyone else who wants to speak? Tom? Good morning, Tom. TOM SHIGEMOTO, ALEXANDER & BALDWIN REPRESENTATIVE: Good morning. For...for the record...is this on...for the record Tom Shigemoto representing A&B. I'm here to...to support Kauai Coffee, who is, as you know, a subsidiary of A&B, just like A&B Properties is, and Wayne Katayama is kind of shy, so he asked me to represent the company. Seriously though, we're here to COUNCIL MEETING - 26 - December 16, 2009 register our opposition to the site selection. We're here to protect our...our interest, our agricultural interest and...and so I'm...I'm basically here to say that the councilmembers raised very, very good questions this morning and I'm sure the consultants and administration will be taking a closer look. One very key component to this whole process, I think, is, as JoAnn has just pointed out, is finding a willing landowner and because we have to do what we have to do in opposing this site, you know, we...we...we apologize, but again, we don't think that this is the proper site for the landfill. There was a...there was a slide showing the...the timeframe to accomplish the...the landfill in seven years. I saw the...the land acquisition component or line item being after permitting and...and if you don't own the land, you can't apply for a permit. And before the county can actually, you know, acquire the land if...if we are unwilling, you're going to have to condemn, is my guess, and that process is going to take a while, and then the subdivision, and then the permitting once you are successful in...in condemning the property. So, just from that one perspective, I think, you know it...it might be...be prudent for the administration to really start making and talking to different landowners about their willingness to accept the landfill and/or even a (inaudible) or a MRF to give the Kekaha landfill more life. That's all I have to say and I thank you, councilmembers. I thank the administration and the consultants for...and the Mayor's Advisory Committee because I understand there...there was a lot of work put into the process. And there's really nothing to criticize about the process. I think it's just really the criteria, the rating, and how all the sites were ranked. Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any questions, councilmembers? If not, thank you, Tom. Mr. Shigemoto: Thank you. Chair Asing: Is there anyone else in the audience who wants to speak? Glenn? Good morning, Glenn. GLENN MICKENS: Good morning, Kaipo. No caption break yet? Mr. Kaneshiro: We started late. Mr. Mickens: Thanks, BC. Very briefly if I heard correctly, the administration stated that nothing has been finalized as yet in siting the landfill. And yet, all the public has heard is that the Umi site has been specified on a weighted basis as the number one pick, so why has this site even been picked as number one if so many of your unanswered questions by Jay, Tim and Daryl in particular, remains to be addressed? And I would agree that that Kalepa site would be a much more attractive place for the landfill over an area that has been...has a fine ongoing ag business in operation. So why was Kalepa or other more isolated areas not weighted higher. If I'm wrong in the words I heard from the administration, I'd be happy to hear this. But I...you know they keep on saying that everything is ongoing, there's nothing been finalized and yet all the pa...you know, what the Garden Island states and what I've heard is, you know, the site, that's the number one site. And as Tom said, you're going to have a bundle of headaches I imagine going down there and condemning that land and other things. So, why not places like the mountainous areas around here and state land or something where there's nothing around there or where, you know, like in California they take gulleys and things fill them in, build golf courses on top of them after they finish with the...with the landfill. Anyway, that's my testimony. Thank you, Kaipo. COUNCIL MEETING - 27 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Thank...thank you. Tim? Mr. Bynum: Yeah, I just want to clarify...want to make sure that earlier I asked a question about weighting criteria at Kalepa. I was not making any judgment about that being a superior site or anything like that. Mr. Mickens: Sure. Mr. Bynum: And just...I believe that you know we had a committee, they did the rating, it's a valuable part of the selection process, you know, and administration has confirmed with us that as we move forward at examining sites, we're not putting all our eggs into one basket and we're going to be looking at alternatives. And so you know, what we're at, as Donald said, is this isn't the end of the process; it's the beginning. But the reality is the study identified that as the most beneficial site based on the criteria list and that's why we're looking at criteria. I just wanted to make sure that, you know, I'm not endorsing any site. Mr. Mickens: Sure. Mr. Bynum: And I don't think any of us are. We're part of the process. We're asking questions. That's... Mr. Mickens: Well, I...I just made the statement about Kalepa because I do think that would be a very good site. The Kumukumu place, obviously that would have been a good site, but I understand there's a subdivision going to be built up there and you'd have problems with that also, so. Mr. Bynum: I know that this is a very complex matter and you know I want to be through the whole process before I come to judgment, so. Thank you (inaudible). Mr. Mickens: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else? Good morning. CIRA CASTILLO: Good morning. My name is Cira Castillo and I want to thank what I've heard from the councilmembers today. I think you're going in the right direction and I also...the committee, the community members that worked on this, if you read the minutes and you read what they're trying to say through this process, I think it speaks very clearly exactly on the second page where Councilman Furfaro was speaking to. This isn't what the administration said on page two. This is what the committee said. Mr. Furfaro: The Committee said, yes. Ms. Castillo: That's, you know, and I thank them for that. And when you're going through these processes, the things that come out in these weightings, you already did a couple of them. One is like the cost of the site acquisition. When I read this, what I understood, they're not talking about the price of buying the land. This was actually the price to develop the land. So...but it's...I...I think that's what I understood when I read it. One of the issues is that we're not able to ask...the public hasn't been able to ask any questions of the consultant so we're dependent upon you to ask those questions. Another example of this is the cost of operations. This...this cost was based on an amount that was determined by operating the existing landfill, and they take that dollar amount and COUNCIL MEETING - 28 - December 16, 2009 they apply it to the acreage that has been identified with each of these sites. So clearly a site that is 127 acres is going to have a price that's going to be higher than one that's 77 acres. And so what did...what did we really, you know, what's the conclusion that you come to on the cost of operations when you're applying this kind of a math to things? The cutoff of the...where we've gone a half a mile instead of three-quarters of a mile. That extra quarter of a mile -and this isn't a NIMBY issue, I'm just trying to talk about how data has been applied here - it brings into over 350 residents that are affected by for example the Umi site by a quarter-mile difference. It makes people almost think...I...I have a hard time believing that the committee, the public came up with these types of things. I would say that they were given information and provided with information. Like how would the committee know. anything about the UIC line? I mean, it's...we all know how technical that is. And then if you analyze these papers further, you'll find, for example, that landfill site that...capacity that amounted to a net zero is one of the highest...gives ahigh criteria. It's a net zero, but it's high criteria. And I don't think the process and again not citing this committee, the committee didn't...the committee did everything they could possibly do. But I am citing a problem with this process because the public was not involved and I don't know the answer, but maybe someone can answer this for me. Were these committee meetings sunshined? Mr. Nakamura: Three minutes, Mr. Chair. Ms. Castillo: But when I look at the...and so informing...then, so if they're sunshined, they meet the letter of the law. How was the public informed of these meetings? How...how were we really informed? Because if I look at the minutes from the meetings, I don't see one meeting that has anybody from the public attending it. So, I would just question that this true, you know, participation is taking place. And the next...the last thing I'll say is that the item you're taking up next, the integrated solid waste management plan outlines very specifically a whole process for siting a landfill. And so you have the integrated solid waste management plan that has a complete process for siting a landfill and then you have this other consultant who is not implementing that process and he...it's like they're doing the siting light, if you know what I mean. Like we have...they asked the committee of community members who are based on geographic things to participate in this process and that was...that was the qualifications and they laid this on them, this responsibility on them. When the Kumukumu site was eliminated, the consultant or the administration asked those committee members, oh well, would you like to put a new site in? This is what was asked. It's right here in...in the minutes. And they said we...we don't have any expertise, any ability to name a site. And it's...it's almost being unfair to these committee members, these people...the...to have...have the burden and responsibility for doing this whole process and then turn it out into the community. And if it wasn't for their minutes, the ones that Mr. Furfaro spoke to, we wouldn't even really get their sense and their feelings. A final example I'm going to give you is on the...the com...the committee members said over and over again they believed the weight of tonnage is what's important and what this report evaluated was the distance between a landfill siting and a transfer station. And the committee member... Chair Asing: You've exceeded the three minutes, but you want to finish up, please. COUNCIL MEETING - 29 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Castillo: Okay, so this to me is another example how the committee spoke very clearly and believed that tonnage transportation should be a valued measurement. But for whatever reason the consultant and the county said, no, we're going to do it on miles of distance. So, I think you're on the right track. I think we...it sounds like you hit a restart button on what sites might be selected and I'm very glad to hear that. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Chair Asing: Is there anyone else? Yes, go ahead. Mr. Chang: I got a question for Cira. Cira, can I ask you a question. Ms. Castillo: Sure. Mr. Chang: You...you made mention of (inaudible). (Inaudible. ) Mr. Chang: You made mention of siting light. Ms. Castillo: Yes. Mr. Chang: You said, siting light, you know what I mean. Can you explain what is siting light, please. Ms. Castillo: Yes. In the integrated solid waste management plan, it has...it...it's a...a very specific process that is cited. And for example, there should be a task...number one step: task force formulated. Under the components of that task force, there would be a committee that would have represent...representatives of the community. But there are many other components that the integrated solid waste management plan says should be on a task force. This is a very big decision. The breadth and depth of what we're talking about here should have a lot of input and not just 15 people from the community because of geographic locations who were really good people...burd...carrying the burden of this responsibility to speak for the whole community. So that's what I mean. I don't think the process that has been delivered in this report is equal to the decision and the complexity of the matter. So that's when I say it's light. Chair Asing: Thank you. With that what I'd like to do is call the meeting back to order. Oh, we have one more speaker. JEREMIAH KALUNA: Mele Kalikimaka a me Hau`oli Makahiki Hou to all of you. My name is Jeremiah Kaluna. I live in `Ele`ele and you have awakened my insides. I discussed this (inaudible) with people in Kalaheo, the west side, throughout the island, and as you know I...I have some experience about landfill and everything else. I've talked to some of you before. The thing I wanted to thank you for today...I was going to speak, I was going to give you a lot of things to think about, but with the Chairman's decision to not make a decision then this isn't the time. I just wanted to thank you for what you're doing. I think that taking an action that has looking into more things (inaudible) that the committee wanted that was really good because I too read all of it and I thank the wahine for presenting it COUNCIL MEETING - 30 - December 16, 2009 because it involves cost. As you know as a former engineer, cost is the bottom line. And anyway, I just want to make sure, thank you for what you're doing and we on the west side approve it. Thank you very much. Chair Asing: Thank you. Is there anyone else? If not, what I'd like to do is call the meeting back to order and let's have a 5-minute caption break. Okay. Ten minutes, I'm sorry. There being no one else wishing to speak on this matter, the meeting was called back to order. There being no objections, the meeting was recessed at 11:35 a.m. The meeting was called back to order at 11:47, and proceeded as follows: Chair Asing: The council meeting is now called back to order. With that what I'd like to do is entertain a motion to receive with the understanding that we will be sending questions over to the administration. So, councilmembers, have your questions, work with staff and we'll send a communication with the questions over and then it'll appear again on the agenda at a later period. Mr. Furfaro moved to receive C 2009-388 for the record, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item, please. Mr. Nakamura: Next matter on page 1 of the council's agenda is communication C 2009-390. C 2009-390 Communication (10/30/2009) from the Environmental Services Management Engineer, Department of Public Works, requesting Council approval of the September 2009 Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan (ISWMP Update). Chair Asing: Thank you. Can I have a motion to receive. Mr. Chang moved to receive C 2009-390 for the record, seconded by Mr. Furfaro. Chair Asing: Councilmembers, do we want some update or we'll just take this on the resolution? Peter, we're going to take this on the resolution? (Inaudible.) Chair Asing: Why don't we just do it now, then, receive it now. All those...any discussion? The motion to receive C 2009-390 was then put, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: At this time, Mr. Chair, if we can go to page 6 of the council's agenda for Resolution No. 2009-71. RESOLUTION: Resolution No. 2009-71, RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE INTEGRATED SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN UPDATE FOR THE COUNTY OF KAUAI COUNCIL MEETING - 31 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Thank you. Can...can I have Donald up first please. The rules are suspended. With that, Donald? There being no objections, the rules were suspended. Mr. Fujimoto: Donald Fujimoto, County Engineer. Again I'd like to thank Council Chair and the members of the council for providing us with this opportunity to update you and also I'd like to thank the council for your invaluable support in...and solicit your continued support to approve this mandatory requirement to adopt this updated Integrated Solid Waste Plan. Here today we have Allison Fraley and Bob Craggs to give you the formal presentation. And again I'd...before we start, I...I'd like to commend our consultant, who is a...a nationwide leader in the solid waste management aspect and their recommendation actually brings us above the national standards of 35% diversion if we were to implement this whole plan. Also, these estimates, I believe, are conservative estimates and I'm very encouraged to know that we...we are embarking on a very serious plan to...do a lot more diversion. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Fujimoto: With that said... (Inaudible.) ALLISON FRALEY, SOLID WASTE PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR: Good morning, councilmembers. Chair Asing: Good morning. Ms. Fraley: For the record, Allison Fraley, Solid Waste Program Coordinator. Mr. Furfaro: Good morning. Ms. Fraley: Good morning. So, this agenda item is in reference to the final Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan which we forwarded to council and has also been made available to the public through our website and is also at the libraries. We did a press release to inform the public that the final plan is out and we are asking for your adoption. So here I have Bob Craggs from R.W. Beck to make a presentation about how we developed the plan and also how...what that plan elements are along with what we've been doing on these...in these areas so far. So I'd like to turn it over to Bob Craggs of R.W. Beck. ROBERT CR.AGGS, R.W. BECK: Thank you, Allison. Good morning, except it's almost good afternoon. Chair Asing &councilmembers: Good morning. Mr. Craggs: And happy holidays to all of you, and I guess it's the day to talk solid waste and recycling here in Kauai County. So for better or for worse, I guess we'll be talking some more about that. So I'll try to be concise and do my best here to answer your questions. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I've had a chance to talk with some of you over the time that we've been working on the COUNCIL MEETING - 32 - December 16, 2009 solid waste plan. As Allison said, the goal today is to provide you with an...an overview of the plan including the recommendations and we're asking for your adoption. So with that, we'll go to the first slide. Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Chair Asing: Yes, yes, go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: From the September draft until now, have we addressed the MRF? Mr. Craggs: In...in terms of... Mr. Furfaro: Even confirming that it needs to be identified and placed into our capital project budget. Mr. Craggs: I've had discussions with county staff about the costs associated with the MRF. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, but it...do we make that statement in the revised plan? Donald seems to be shaking his head. Ms. Fraley: Yes, it's in the plan. Mr. Furfaro: It's now in the plan. Thank you, Allison. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Craggs: Thank you, councilmember. The next slide, please. Oh, I guess I do it myself. Great, thank you. The presentation will address the following: the planning purpose, goals in the process-when you do any type of planning effort, it's important to understand what the objectives are, then an overview of the plan recommendations, which we've divided basically into three parts. What we term as upstream diversion and by diversion that means diversion from landfill disposal, and some of the previous discussion you had about the landfill actually...as I mentioned this will align very well because we'll talk about some of the proposed programs. The second segment of the presentation is the downstream management after you have upstream diversion from landfill disposal. The third segment will be on the financial impacts, and then the last piece will just be summarizing the next steps. So as Donald alluded to, the purpose of the, what I'll refer to as the ISWMP, that's the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, the purpose and the functions around doing the plan, so you can understand why a plan is being developed and what your expectations are, first of all, as was alluded to again in the...in the previous discussion, is that state statutes require that the county update its plan every five years. So the process was initiated in part as a result of that. The plan in and of itself as you all have had a chance to look at provides a roadmap or encompasses what the vision is for managing solid waste going forward. It's similar to other planning documents in that it captures what that vision is. And as stated here, the intent is not to be explicit necessarily in terms of implementation because obviously as councilmembers, implementation is a mult...multi-year proj...project or process, requires financial support and staffing support, so there...there...so therefore there needs to be some flexibility. So please keep in mind that...that the COUNCIL MEETING - 33 - December 16, 2009 plan itself provides a roadmap and it identifies program directions. And as Allison alluded to, because the process was amulti-month process, the county has begun implementing some of these programs that have been referred to in terms of diverting waste from the landfill. So that's the purpose. With any type of planning document you need to have a goal. This was the goal that was formulated through discussions with the Solid Waste Advisory Committee. The Solid Waste Advisory Committee was appointed by the Mayor at the beginning of the process. It encompassed a rane...a range of interest similar to your landfill siting task force, and I worked closely with staff and we had a number of meetings where we facilitated discussions to get input from the various interests. As this lays out, the goal of the Solid Waste Plan is to develop a financially feasible plan for the residents and visitors of Kauai that maximizes waste diversion, which you've heard that already a couple of times today, ensuring access to adequate disposal capacity, which we've also, I think, heard acknowledgement that we need to maximize diversion, but we also need to have disposal capacity and protect the health of the state. So, again the goal...the assumptions that underline this goal are that we're going to recommend essentially programs that will maximize diversion and we're going to address, as I talked about, downstream management as in having adequate disposal capacity. So this was the goal that provides the overarching view for developing the plan. The next slide gives you a sense really of how we tried to come up with the outcomes of the plan. My graduate school teacher calls this a Venn diagram; I never was quite sure what Venn meant. It's a bunch of circles with an intersection, and the intersection represents basically the plan outcome. And as you can see here, each of the circles represent those that are providing input to developing the plan. Why is that important? Well, it gives you a sense that the outcome is facilitated through the SWAC, which is the Solid Waste Advisory Committee; input from residents and businesses - we had a series of public meetings as well as opportunities to comment on the plan; county government -both yourselves in terms of the feedback that you provided through the process as well as the staff; and then R.W. Beck through its expertise. So, if you think of the intersection there as ultimately the plan outcome and recommendations. So the planning process, as I mentioned, was amulti-month and I guess that's not fair, it was amulti-year process. I was joking this morning that I think I'm a little bit grayer than when I started here. So, I'm...I'm not suggesting that as a result of the planning process but some time has passed. So the planning process, as I mentioned, has encompassed workshops, county council workshops. We had a workshop at the beginning of the process a number of months ago and a couple of other workshops that I had a chance to present and answer some of your questions. We had a set of public meetings, four to be exact. We had nine Advisory Committee meetings and then throughout the process we developed what we call issue papers and those are just the very sections of the plan itself. We then submitted the draft plan to the Department of Health. As I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, there's a regulatory requirement that the plan itself be developed and then formally approved by the DOH. And the plan was revised based on the DOH's comments as well as...as additional comments from the county. And then a public review process was also undertaken and I had a chance to participate with Donald and Allison and Troy in that...in that process where we presented the plan in an informational meeting. We took questions and we also had a formal public hearing. And I'll just point out that the appendix in the plan, Appendix C, actually has a summary of those comments and you can quickly go to a table there that gives you a sense of COUNCIL MEETING - 34 - December 16, 2009 what some of those key issues are. And...and...and Allison took the strong initiative to develop that in a summary fashion so you would get a sense of what some of those concerns are. And then lastly, the final plan. So the planning criteria itself fall out from that planning objective or goal that I laid out. This is, again, as a result of some of the facilitated discussion, and as a planner by trade, this to me is important even though a lot of folks say, well, let's get to the meat of what the plan includes. But it's important to know how you're going to define success because when the consultant goes away, you need to be able to go back to what these goals are and say, did we achieve these goals. Increasing landfill diversion: You...you...you understand that from your discussion this morning on how critical that is because that has a lot of different impacts, from financial impacts in terms of when and how you develop a landfill to also basically managing waste as a resource. Minimizing the cost to county and customers: I myself in my spare time am a city councilmember and I understand the...the piece of the cost. So, it's a smaller community, but we address those same kinds of issues. So, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, as well as staff, as well as myself are sensitive to that issue. Establishing a direct relationship between services and rates: What does that mean? Well, solid waste, you're providing a service to your residents and having a direct relationship between what the... that cost is to the scope of that service is critical, so folks understand better what that service is that they're being offered. Promoting sustainability: For the last couple of years, sustainability has really got a lot of visibility in a lot of different circumstances and the way that we term it these days and you can use this if you haven't heard it before, it's called the triple bottom line. You basically look at social, economic and environmental benefits. If you want a sustainable public policy or sustainable program, it needs to address the triple bottom line. How does it address the economics, the environmental and the social. Supporting small businesses: Based on the geography and the location, it's very important to integrate this with the economy. And then lastly, increasing participation in the diversion programs. The reason that the last bullet is different than the first bullet is that to maximize diversion, you've got to increase participation. So you may have a recycling program now, which you have a good one, but you want to increase the amount of participation so you can maximize the diversion. So that's why that's part of the planning criteria. The first step in doing a Solid Waste Management Plan is what's in the solid waste stream. And the previous couple of times I had a chance to speak with all of you, we had this slide up here and I realized it may be somewhat difficult to look at. It's basically a pie that represents the various components within the solid waste stream. The biggest piece of the pie there is paper. My message is that paper...there's alot of paper that's being disposed, and I'll be clear. This is what's being disposed at the landfill. And the way this information was determined is we did a waste composition study which actually meant part of the time we had staff in the field that, believe it or not, sorted trash. They looked at the trash that came in at the Kekaha landfill. So the message here is that if you look at the biggest pieces of the pie that are being disposed, it's paper. Somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of that paper could be recycled. The purple slice of the pie is food waste. Those are organics. Organics, as Mr. Harder referenced in his testimony, can be managed and can be composted. Yard waste is also up there; that's a big piece of the pie. Much of that can be converted, can be composted. Some of the plastics which compose a large portion of the waste stream can also be recycled. So, again, the message here is this is what's being disposed. To maximize diversion, we can promote recycling associated with some of those materials if we can determine programs to get it out of the waste stream. COUNCIL MEETING - 35 - December 16, 2009 The challenge with developing an integrated solid waste management plan is that it's not just one program. You have to balance the various programs, the various challenges with what's in the waste stream, and as you all know, the costs of doing that. A comprehensive solid waste management system includes both what I termed as upstream and downstream. So what's upstream dis...upstream diversion? Typically that's source reduction, that's recycling and that's composting, but what it means more specifically is those that generate waste, you, your families, businesses here on the island, you do something, you take some responsibility and try to divert that material from being landfilled. The downstream diversion management is how to manage what's left. If we've maximized our source reduction and our recycling programs and our composting programs, we're still going to have a portion of the waste stream that's going to need to be managed downstream. So we looked at downstream management options and as it says here, including processing, recovery and landfilling of some of the residuals. So, the plan as proposed has upstream and downstream diversion. It does include a section on siting a landfill because the plan does include the acknowledgement that you need to have a landfill even if you maximize upstream diversion. So as Allison mentioned, there are a number of programs that have been implemented and the way that the staff and I thought it would be good to present this is talk about the recommendations, which is part of the roadmap, and then talk about what is presently being initiated, (1) so you're aware of it, and (2) so you understand that you're beginning those steps to try to maximize diversion and there's a...recommendations in here that are being suggested to go the next step. Source reduction and education is the first piece of upstream. What source reduction is it's telling you that instead of...for example, instead of buying a large number of items, for example, that have a lot of packaging, you go buy it in bulk. That would be a decision that you make specifically as a consumer to reduce the amount of packaging that's thrown in the waste stream. Other examples include promoting a reuse network and we've got a website base because of obviously all the online capabilities, reuse different waste between companies. Backyard composting - basically instead of sending that yard waste out or taking it to the...for collection or as you do here take it to the transfer station, compost it in your backyard. Instituting a pay as you throw program which is back to my fee for services concept and I'll talk about that in more detail as we get farther down in the...in the presentation. School curriculum -you all know about how either your children or your grandchildren talk about recycling. I mean you hear about recycling from...from them and waste management issues into the school curriculum is a great place to promote education. And then consider source reduction ordinances, which you've all...you've done that and recently, as reflected in the next slide, you've actually addressed that. The second bullet talks about how you passed an ordinance banning the distribution of non-recyclable single use plastic bags. That is an example of source reduction. It's an example of the implementation of the source reduction initiatives and it's captured in the plan. The first bullet talks about county recycling staff, conducts recycling education in the schools. Allison and...and Troy and their staff are promoting recycling education in the schools as was pointed out. And then thirdly, in terms of other waste to reduce...to...to promote source reduction is to use basically recycled content, shopping bags as opposed to plastic bags or paper bags in COUNCIL MEETING - 36 - December 16, 2009 the grocery stores. And the county through a grant that was provided by...by the county has purchased some reusable, recycled content shopping bags. And Allison mentioned to me that you had the kick-off event and how many did you say were distributed? Ms. Fraley: Well, we partnered with more than 20 stores to distribute them for us at the stores where people are actually doing the shopping. But on a couple Saturdays ago we had an event at the county building where we gave away a thousand bags in two and a half hours. So we saw there was a lot of public interest in, you know, using these bags at the stores. Mr. Craggs: So that's source reduction. That's the first component. So as you can see, the solid waste plan has a roadmap for that particular method and you've gone...you've begun to go down the road, if I can use that analogy, to promote source reduction. The next piece which has been given a lot of discussion throughout the...the planning process is recycling. This is a summary of the recommended rec...residential recycling programs, residential as in focusing on basically non- businesses, which is single-family households and other residents within Kauai. Implementing acounty-wide residential curbside recycling program: The county presently offers refuse collection. The plan suggests you sh...that the county should implement a curbside recycling collection program. Not to say that the drop-off program isn't effective, but back to my message at the beginning of the presentation to maximize diversion, we strongly recommend and so does the Solid Waste Advisory Committee that you implement a curbside program. As I also mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, this is to offer some direction, there is some...some proposed implementation details, such as the frequency of the plan, which is every other week. We also talk about what you would collect. If you are familiar at all with the City & County of Honolulu's curbside program that they recently implemented, they are collecting mixed recyclables which basically means fiber and containers in the same cart. What the plan suggests is you should consider that type of program, so it's a...a mixed recyclables container collection program. The second piece of it, which was also already mentioned in the previous discussion is, all right we're collecting these recyclables, this is an island community, how are they going to get processed? Well, the recommendation in the plan is to develop a, what we call, MRF, Materials Recovery Facility or recycling facility in layman's terms. That facility would be developed to process those materials. You presently have a resource center now that has the ability to collect some materials, but it doesn't have the ability to process the materials when they're in a comingled form, as in the paper and the containers as I mentioned. So the recommendation is to develop a MRF. There's various ways to do that. Right now we're having the same discussions with your neighbors in Maui as in okay, does the county build it? Does the county contract to have someone build it? Does the county build it and then contract for those operations? There's a variety of options. But what's critical is that you have processing capacity here. The third recommendation is to institute pay-as-you-throw fees to encourage source reduction and recycling. PAYT is just the term that the more you throw out, essentially, the more you pay. Now there's all kinds of hybrids of that and what we've suggested in the plan here is that you provide a standard service level and once as a resident you end up having more than that, say for example you...you have one cart and if you have a second cart, then you would pay for that second cart. COUNCIL MEETING - 37 - December 16, 2009 I'll just be clear. We di...we have not specified the details of the implementation relative to what the price would be for the second cart, what the size of the carts would be, but we've provided some direction in terms of what apay-as-you-throw program would include. However, the plan does suggest that you implement specifically a residential user fee. All of your solid waste services for the most part, excluding some revenue from the landfill, are paid for through county taxes or the revenues through the various county taxes. What we're suggesting is...is that to tie your services to fees or fees to services that you should implement a solid waste residential service fee. The plan recommends you consider that and the level that we stated was X12 per household per month. So that's residential recycling. What's been implemented? Again the good news because we're talking about obviously programs that involve time, effort, staff, etc. is that the county has purchased and Allison has worked very effectively in distributing bins for different types of programs and more specifically parks, beaches, schools and non-profit organizations have these HI5 recycling bins. You gotta have the bins or you won't be able to collect the materials. The county is planning a pilot curbside program. To know what works best for Kauai residents in terms of curbside program, you need to have a sense of who will participate, how many folks will participate. You know, what's unique about this community is the drop offs and the transfer stations. So, we're...we're recommending and supportive of this type of approach and you've already undertaken some planning, and Allison's been doing some of that planning. And then thirdly, the HI5 Program. The good thing is that the HI5 Program helps divert materials. It helps maximize diversion and as this slide suggests, there's been a total of eight additional locations that have been provided to collect the HI5 materials and Allison informs me that six of those are basically privately developed and two of them were developed through the county's support. But the bottom line is that if you have a convenient place to take your redemption containers, then they'll be collected. So those, again, are things that have been implemented, and so the plan is to move forward specifically as I mentioned with item number two which is the curbside recycling program. Bioconversion, I always get a lot of...a lot of jokes from councilmembers saying, what the heck is that; it sounds like a medical term. Well, it's really composting. It's basically taking the organics and converting it into something that's reusable or...or a by-product or in this case, if you take green waste, food waste and biosolids, those materials can be composted into a basically soil conditioner and other types of reusable pro...products. If you recall, in the slide where I showed the pie chart with the materials that compose what's being disposed, if you add yard waste or the green waste total to the food waste total, you'll come up with 20% of your disposed waste stream is made up of green waste and food waste. So if you can divert a lot of that material, then you're going to maximize diversion. So the recommendation in the plan is to develop a centralized composting facility. Again, there's multiple ways to do that. You can...the county can develop it and operate it. The county could contract to have it designed, built and operated by a private contractor and the county could provide essentially the land. It could be done next to the existing landfill or a new landfill, but the point is that you have a centralized composting facility to manage those materials. And then promote food waste to animal feed program to local farmers and restaurants, that's a...that's a present program and we're just suggesting to build on that. That in and of itself would not be adequate to divert all of those materials. COUNCIL MEETING - 38 - December 16, 2009 Additional recommendations are to implement a curbside green waste program. You heard me mention that you have transfer stations and drop-off programs. You have a...a very effective program at diverting materials at the transfer stations through the green waste program. But to maximize diversion, you need to do it curbside. And so we're...so the plan recommends implementing a curbside green waste collection program. In conjunction with that and later on in the presentation we talk about...you're making now essentially a transition from manual collection to automated collection and by going to automated collection of refuse, it puts the county in a good position essentially then when the time is right to implement curbside green waste collection. Once that's implemented, the recommendation is to ban the disposal of resi...residential green waste. If you look at other communities, and there's many U.S. communities that basically have curbside green waste collection programs, they will ban the disposal of green waste to maximize what's being set out at the curb. We recommend you do that only after you implement the program. Obviously if you don't have an alternative for collection, you don't want to necessarily ban it at the homeowner level. We do also recommend banning the disposal of commercial green waste at the transfer stations. Again, you want to basically encourage the commercial...commercial businesses to take their green waste to existing composting facilities or to a centralized composting facility, which is more cost effective in the long term. So that's the other piece of the...what we would call the upstream management. And, as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, we have upstream management, we have...we have downstream management, and we have the cost. Part of our plan also encompasses working with the staff and working with the SWAG and others to look at the existing infrastructure. So, briefly the recommendations include also updating the transfer station infrastructure. The transfer stations, as I mentioned, are...are used and are a significant part of your existing collection, processing, transport system and they're in great need of being upgraded; redesigning them to accommodate the establishment of the appropriate drop-off facilities. If you implement a curbside recycling program, you may or may not include glass because glass incorporated in the curbside program makes it more difficult to handle. So you may want to encourage folks to take their glass, if it's not HI5 glass, to the drop-off facilities and if it is HI5 glass to the drop- off facilities that have redemption centers. So in short, the transfer stations are a significant portion of your infrastructure and they need to be basically upgraded and managed appropriately. What about commercial recycling. Well, interestingly enough what's being disposed at the landfill, more than 50% of it is generated by businesses. And for most of you, that's probably not a surprise. But for a lot of the clients that I have a chance to talk to, the focus gets so much on residential recycling, residential recycling that we sometimes kind of lose the big picture. So it's important to talk about this and what you all...also already have in place. The recommendations include creating a business recycling position in the county and I'll talk about that piece of it in a moment. Ensuring compliance with the cardboard ban: You may not...you may not know, but you already banned the disposal of corrugated. And I can say during the number of months that I've been coming here, I've actually seen a larger number of corrugated containers at all the restaurants that I've frequented. So, I truly believe that it's becoming much more critical to the recycling program. Requiring businesses of a certain size or type actually to develop recycling plans: Some other communities actually will target specific businesses that generate a lot of one...one kind of material or another. For example, if you're a restaurant, you typically, especially if you serve liquor, then you generate a lot of glass and so consequently some communities say they don't just necessarily ban glass, they COUNCIL MEETING - 39 - December 16, 2009 would say if you're this kind of business of this size, then you need to basically generate a plan that explains how you're going to do it. So that way...then the county understands how basically they're being a good corporate citizen when it comes to managing their waste. License all of the refuse haulers and establish minimum service requirements: Your staff here at the county generally speaking, a few exceptions, do not collect refuse and recyclables from businesses. You have haulers that do that in the private sector. What this suggests is you need to license them and you need to establish standards. So, if I started a business tomorrow here in Kauai, I would know that the haulers are required essentially to provide X, Y and Z service, and that can be as broad or as specific as you would like. And then lastly, and this was part of the, what I would say, the iterative planning process, what about construction and demolition debris? Unfortunately, the economic downturn has had a significant impact across the U.S. in terms of the amount of growth both on the commercial and residential construction side. Like you I'm hoping that that will turn around very soon and especially here I know how important tourists and the economy and growth is overall. The importance of that to construction and demolition debris recycling is once...once you see a turnaround, you see those number of visitors coming back here that were at the levels before the economic downturn hit, you're likely going to see some additional growth, both in terms of the remodel part of the waste stream as well as the new construction. It's a growing piece of the waste stream in...generally in good economic times and it needs to be addressed, and the plan does address diversion of those materials. So again, what has the county done? We've started down that road. You should be, again, happy that some things have been done. The county has hired a business recycling specialist. That person's role, Allison could talk about in more detail if you'd like, but I understand you've also had some discussions about it at the...at the council level. The resource center is operating again. It's providing some support to recycling programs and there's an addi...there's additional level of education that's supporting the ban of OCC which is old corrugated containers from being landfilled. So those are some...some things that have been done in terms of moving forward with the commercial recycling piece. Some other pieces of recycling that makes Kauai very unique in Hawaii in...in...in the broader picture is the culture. The culture includes a lot of holidays and celebrations and those involve special events. Those involve a lot of people in the same place, so we need to take advantage of the fact that there should be an infrastructure set up to promote recycling at those locations. In addition to that because of the number of visitors that you have come, like myself, that come into the airport, you know stay at hotels, the focus needs to also be on essentially promoting additional recycling and source reduction, you know, within the hospitality industry. Provide access to collection containers when you go into the airport, you know the recommendation by the SWAC was certainly 100% you need to have some very visible recycling containers. Develop recycling education and a recognition campaign for all those businesses that do their right thing and offering technical assistance to promote recycling, which is part of the business specialist's role. So what has been done again? Well, the county has purchased the HI5 collection containers as I referred to before and Allison had conveyed to me that those are being loaned out for use at the special events for those materials that are HI5 materials. Technical assistance is be...being provided by staff to foster recycling within the business sector and then initiating a recycling awareness program, again to target some of those vacation rentals. Those particular areas COUNCIL MEETING - 40 - December 16, 2009 where there are more long-term stays, where you work directly with the landlords to try to promote basically the installation or...or providing containers for recycling. Other what we call problem materials in the waste stream that need to be addressed that the plan includes is what's called electronics and household hazardous waste. As you all probably know, the state has passed new legislation on the electronics management. So the recommendations, when the plan was put together, was to establish a once a year electronics collection and recycling event, as well as to develop a permanent facility to basically receive household hazardous waste and electronics. And for those of you that aren't sure what household hazardous waste, it ranges everything from paints to anti-freeze to pesticides that you may put on your lawns, but they're essentially small quantities of materials that you would prefer not to be put in the waste stream. So what has been implemented? The county has sponsored two annual electronic waste recycling collection events, which is something again that...that Allison has apprised me of and...and I've been working with you all long enough that I...that I know that's been a focus. And then as I outlined, the state has actually passed new electronics legislation. It's called producer responsibility legislation where if you're manufacturing these types of electronics, the manufacturers have to take responsibility for assisting and setting up collection infrastructure, and we were careful in the words that we selected here. We called it recycling options. And there's two pieces of it that are being implemented. As of January 2010 it covers computer monitors, laptops, desktops and printers, which again gotten a lot of visibility in terms of being able to recycle those. And then in January 2011, it would focus on...it would...televisions would also be added to that list. So from what I understand, the counties are all actively implementing programs and anxiously waiting to see how effective the infrastructure will be that's set up to collect those materials. Some of the other problem materials that it's important to talk about, which you all as residents I think address, propane tanks and if you change your own oil, motor oil filters, they can be accepted now at the transfer stations for recycling. Those items can be recycled. Compact fluorescent bulbs, batteries and packing foam blocks, again those are considered more hard...hard to or difficult to recycle type products. There's a group of retailers that will take those back. Those are called basically take-back programs. Again it's more of a producer responsibility type o£..type of program where if you sell it, you need to be involved in taking those back and being linked into the recycling infrastructure. And then lastly, which is a...a very unique program which comes back to tying in waste management to what I would say small businesses here in Kauai, is there's a pilot recycling going on that you can take used cooking oil from your home to the Lihu`e and Hanapepe transfer stations, where it will be taken by a local entrepreneur who will process it and then it's being reused as fuel. And from Al...what Allison told me, the demand is greater than the supply, so go home and start bringing it to the transfer stations. So as you can see, there's some problem material programs that have been implemented. So I...I appreciate your patience and time associated with all of those. There's a lot of components, but the staff and I thought it was critical to outline not only what the plan recommends but what you're doing because of the importance of the timing associated with this particular plan and our request for it to be adopted. So, maximizing re...reduction, recycling and composting: In summary, the upstream diversion projects at minimum a 35% diversion rate. I use the word minimum because we've had a lot of discussion around, okay, R.W. Beck how did you come up with your 35%? We've talked about it a lot. We've done what we do as COUNCIL MEETING - 41 - December 16, 2009 a consultant and we basically made an estimate based on looking at actual programs at other locations. This is a target number. We're not suggesting that you're capped at 35%, but we're also being very realistic. So in short, by year five in the planning period, if you do all of the things that we've suggested in the plan, we're saying that you would have a 35% upstream diversion recycling. Secondly, the diversion rate is projected to increase through the implementation of those recommendations and just to kind of put them in...in...what are some of the key things in terms of diverting the largest quantities, it's...the composting piece is important. I talked about if you look at that pie in terms of the quantities of materials that are in the waste stream, the yard waste and the food waste, if you can divert those materials, that'll have a dramatic impact on waste diversion. Landfill disposal bans: Again, you do disposal bans only when you have processing and collection infrastructure so what's key there is to get the haulers who haul materials from the businesses on-board and are supportive of the programs and to have processing capacity in place, and that may be a MRF and that's part of the recommendations. Single stream or mixed materials recycling: Back to the curbside recycling program and then pay-as-you-throw program. Businesses and residents will maximize source reduction and recycling if it's convenient and it's cost effective and there's financial incentives to do that. The pay-as-you-throw program is to tie the fees to the scopes of the services to promote those. And that's why the plan includes the pay-as-you-throw component. In these tough times for counties and as I mentioned as a city councilmember, I just had to go through the process of cutting programs, in addition to looking at staff and what's the right level of staff, and it's very difficult. And...and I don't envy you at all. But one of the things you need to do is to make sure your programs are efficient in their delivery and the...the department now is presently looking at what is the most efficient way to deliver refuse collection services. And as the second bullet suggested is...as it suggests is phasing in automated refuse collection. All that means is that you have staff now that pick up the materials curbside and put it in the truck. Automated means you have carts, you still have staff to drive the truck, but the materials go in the carts and then there's automated equipment that gets the materials into the carts. It's more cost efficient to do that from a variety of perspectives, not just because it takes less time in some instances to do it, but it's also good for the workers because of some of the potential workers' compensation issues. And then upgrading the transfer station materials handling: If you handle the materials, there may be some additional capital cost, but over the long term, there's operational approaches that may be more cost effective. So again, recommending enhancing efficiencies is focusing on how you can manage the materials more cost effectively. The second piece of the presentation, which is much shorter than the first piece by the way, is on the screening criteria for alternative technologies. The bottom line is for downstream management, if you want to have an integrated solid waste plan as I outlined, once you've maximized diversion, it...it's our opinion and the SWAC's opinion that we needed to look at other ways to manage what's left over. That's simply what downstream management is. So, in the planning process, we looked specifically at what are some of the technologies that are out...out there to do that. So after we divert at least 35%, what we have remaining how are we going to manage that? Well, there's all kinds of black boxes that people will try to sell you that they'll take waste and they'll do X, Y or Z. It's fair to say I've been in the business a long time. I'll tell that to anybody. So, the bottom line is if you're managing your budgets, and you're relying on your staff and the consultants to make the right decision, then you need to have some criteria, and that criteria is...are these items. Does it apply to your waste stream? We talked about how do COUNCIL MEETING - 42 - December 16, 2009 we get to what's in your waste stream and we've done that study and we have a sense of what's in there. What's the commercial status? In other words, there's all kinds of processes that will take waste and they...they can change it...they can process it or convert it into fuel or compost by-products or other things. And I'm not suggesting the processes don't work, but is there facilities that are commercially operated, where they take large quantities; its cost...it's within the cost parameters and the outcome is that indeed they generate ethanol or they generate energy of some sort; they generate electricity or steam or compost by-product. So one of the criteria is what is the commercial status or are there commercially operated facilities in the U.S., and then the risks, technology, environmental and financial. You all know as councilmembers that if you support CIP programs, you build a new wastewater plant and you ask Donald to manage it, there's certain risk associated with any kind of CIP program in any kind of project. The technology, is it the right one? Will it work? What are the environmental ramifications? What are the financial risks? Is it going to come in within budget? Is the consultant going to do her job to make sure they come within their budgets? And then lastly, the waste diversion potential: There's a lot of dollars that could be put forth basically to do the downstream management, so what kind of diversion are you going to get out of it? That's certainly important. Again, these are criteria that were put in front of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, discussed with the staff prior to that and agreed upon in terms of their application. So, we went through the process and we looked at a variety of technologies. Some of the things that I talked about, anaerobic digestion for example, that generates energy and compost by-products. We looked at gasification, which especially here you may have heard about gasification facilities in Japan that have been used. We looked at gasification as a...as an option. We applied the criteria through our discussions and what is being recommended after going through the process essentially is awaste-to-energy facility to manage the downstream piece of your system. Again, that's after you maximize source reduction, recycling and composting. This aligns with the concept that waste is a resource. It can be managed. You have energy issues here, specifically, which was part of the discussion to displace all of the fuel that's imported here into Kauai. This particular approach, if you choose to do that, displaces some of that. The specifics that are in the plan talk about how much waste. Well, the county collects some waste, the private haulers collect others. The recommendation in the plan is right now you collect a certain portion of that waste, you should focus on that piece of it. If you choose to look at what the private haulers are collecting and have it directed to the facility...to your waste-to-energy facility, based on a U.S. Supreme Court case that was handed down in 2007 called Oneida-Herkimer and it's referenced in your plan, the County of Kauai, based on that plan, could direct waste that's basically generated anywhere on the island to a facility like this if it met a couple of specific qualifications, including that the facility is publicly owned, that you have it in a pl...in a plan like this, that that's something that's important for you all to do, and that your rationale for doing that is based specifically on the right reasons, which include environmental reasons and potentially even to finance your solid waste management system. So I only mention that in detail because it's something that when I was here before I didn't have a chance to talk much about and...and it's referenced in the plan. To be clear, the recommendations in the plan suggest only focusing on your portion of the waste stream that you presently have control over as the county through the curbside collection of refuse. But that's not going to take care of all of the waste. You're still going to need the landfill. The plan says landfill for residential and commercial non-combustibles, ash from the land...from the waste-to-energy facility itself, construction and demolition materials (that's what C&D is) and then certainly disaster management debris. The plan acknowledges COUNCIL MEETING - 43 - December 16, 2009 that the present landfill can be expanded. There's information in there that I believe is consistent with the present expansion. It also talks about, as one of your representatives from the public mentioned, there is a section in there that talks about siting. I'm not intimately familiar with your siting process, but I can tell you that the siting section in there highlights a very similar process, from what I understand. And the plan also talks about the need for a new landfill, to basically manage the material going forward and you say why. Well again, you've got upstream, you've got downstream, and then you still have to basically landfill the residuals, and so to meet the planning goal which talked about having adequate capacity, that is a piece of the plan. A waste-to-energy facility is an expensive capital investment. There's no argument about that. These are some of the attributes or descriptive pieces of it that are outlined in the plan. The amount of materials that would be projected to be received in 2013, again I'll just re-emphasize, excuse me, in year five of the plan are 40,500 tons. That's based on projections that were made. Again, it's focusing on the amount that you as the county would be collecting and directing there. It...it does not include the quantities that would go there if you decided to implement basically a flow control ordinance and direct all of the materials. Development costs are $46 to $52 million. The operating costs are $8 to $9 million. Those are based on industry experience in developing...in...in doing planning projects like this throughout the U.S. It's also based on actual facilities and what those costs have been. There's an estimate there in terms of the amount of energy that would be produced. It's very...it's a conservative estimate, but it certainly reflects what you would see as a sizable amount of energy that could be generated, 18,200 to 20,200...that should be...megawatts per hour of energy, it actually should be kilowatt-hours of energy. So that's not correct. In si...to put it in simple terms, it's basically 3 to 4 megawatts is what would be generated through this kind of facility. The tipping fees which is all important is $121 to $139 per ton. That...that's a...a dollar amount that incorporates the cost to develop it, the cost to operate it, and then you offset that by the revenues from the energy that's produced, which is incorporated in the estimate. And then we're projecting that you need...that you would need 6 to 8 acres of land to be able to do that. So, all of your discussions about landfilling and a new landfill site, obviously this is part of that process also. You'd have to have a...have to have a location for that. Again, I'll just reiterate that the Solid Waste Plan provides a road map. The waste-to-energy facility is part of the downstream diversion recommendation. The plan provides you with an overview on the benefits associated with that. Obviously it's up to you to choose how it's implemented and when it's implemented based on both staffing and financial support. The landfill initiatives that are included are a lateral exp...ex...expansion has been initiated to extend the life of the landfill. Again, back to what's been done, that's...that's been done. The permitting...you know when we started doing the plan, there was concerns about the expansion. The expansion has taken place. The second piece is the siting process, which you know very well where you're at with that process, and that's underway. Again that aligns itself very much with what the plan recommends. So if we roll together the upstream and the downstream programs, you implement those programs, and you say to yourself what does this mean to Kauai County in terms of diversion. This slide tries to give you a big picture version of that. The plan is a 5-year planning document. The number one goal that was listed was to focus on landfill diversion. I talked about maximizing source reduction, recycling, and composting. By year five, the green or turquoise bar chart there COUNCIL MEETING - 44 - December 16, 2009 represents the quantities of materials that would be diverted, which is approximately 89,000 tons per year. That would actually exceed the roughly 65,000 tons per year that would be disposed. The 89,000 tons per year is composed of, as I mentioned, both maximizing source reduction, recycling, and composting, as well as diverting materials through the downstream management. If you broke that out in two parts, the total amount of maximizing source reduction and recycling and composting through upstream diversion would be over 50,000 tons per year. The remaining would come from basically implementing the waste-to-energy program. I'll just mention again that the focus of the recommendation is on presently only on the downstream management piece on what you presently are able to control. So the last piece of the recommendation is well, Bob, that's fine, what does it cost? And there's a significant amount of cost analysis that was included essentially in the plan. I'll just mention to you that there's an appendices that includes a Cost of Service Study. It talks about the baseline program and what I thought was most appropriate to do today with the support of staff was just to give you a frame of reference. The cost presently is in the $30 to $35 per household per month range. What this graph shows you is the cost per household per month. As a councilmember myself, I want to know what it means to individual households as constituents. What this graph suggests is by year five if you implement all the programs, you would be at $85 per household per month. Yes, as councilmember Bynum said, ouch. Mr. Bynum: Ouch. Mr. Craggs: What is also interesting though that is not reflected here is if you just continue going down the present path without implementing all those programs, you can expect that your costs are going to continue to go up. You know as well as I do you're in the process of determining whether to site a new landfill. If you choose not to do that, you still have to find some alternative. So the cost will continue to go up. It will be near $45 a ton per house...or $45 per household per month if you choose basically not to implement any...any of the programs that we've talked about. So in short, it's a significant investment. Now, what's key here though is how do we generate more revenues and we're trying to look at this again as a roadmap for the future, and more specifically, as I think you all talked about this morning, is looking at both managing waste and the cost in a manner where it looks more like a...a utility. Well, you need to increase the landfill tipping fees, which has been done recently. The cost to dispose needs to be more in line with what the fees are. That in and of itself is not going to be enough, but that generates some additional revenues. Enhance program efficiencies: You need to have more efficient programs which as we've talked about you're beginning that process. Instituting a fee to pay for a portion of those costs: Again I realize that an additional fee is still an additional cost to your households, but it does tie the services more directly to a fee itself. The plan recommends $12 per household per month as a means in which to offset those costs that I outlined on the previous slide. And if that fee was implemented, it would be implemented in conjunction with limiting the number of carts of materials that you could set out for collection. So in that sense you would be promoting source reduction and recycling. That ties into the last bullet implementing the residential pay-as-you-throw program once all residents have access to curbside diversion programs. In short, we're suggesting implement the programs so residents and businesses have options and then implement a different approach to paying for it. And the pay-as-you- throw program then would be linked to where you go. COUNCIL MEETING - 45 - December 16, 2009 What have you done already? As I mentioned, you've in...increased the fees at the landfill and that's...I think that's my term, but (inaudible) poised to implement the automated refuse collection program. And what...what we mean by that is...is that there's been some study that's been done; there's been some cost analyses that's being looked at; there has been equipment that's been looked at. So you're in the process of moving forward and that's critical, again, to enhancing efficiencies which means over the long term to having a more cost efficient program. So those are the three pieces basically of the plan itself maximizing source reduction, recycling, and composting or upstream diversion; downstream management which we've talked about the recommendations associated with that was two-fold, the waste-to-energy component as well as the landfill component; and then the cost. And I'll just re-emphasize again that this is a roadmap for the future. It's a living document, but it provides enough detail that would be very helpful in terms of assisting you in...in determining what's the best way to go forward with implementation. So the plan was submitted in its draft form and the Department of Health needed to review it because they ultimately need to basically approve the plan. So what were their comments? In summary, as this slide says, all the components are...were there that were required by statute. With support from the staff and the SWAC and all of the interest at stake, the draft plan was well received. The county was encouraged to maximize waste reduction and .recycling, which you probably heard more than any other word today, but the DOH mentioned the same with some other minor corrections. And Mr. Mayor, I'm almost finishing up here. I saw you look at your watch and rightly so. So, those changes were addressed. Ms. Fraley: Former Mayor. Mr. Craggs: Excuse me. The...the draft plan was submitted for the 60-day public comment period as was outlined that's required by statute. That was from April 9 to June 9 and then, as I mentioned, I had an opportunity with support from the staff to make essentially a presentation of the plan and then with the assistance of the staff we gathered information via the public and there was a formal public hearing. Again I'll just point out again if you didn't hear me before that Appendix C has a summary of all of those issues that were raised and there were 49 testimonies that were received and testimonies as in information that was provided. And so therefore you can...you can get a sense of the public's response. Next steps, the s...the county council is to review and as I've said a couple of times and as both Donald and Troy mentioned, we need you to adopt the plan. Once the plan is adopted, then it goes to the DOH for final approval. Per statute, we've gone through all of the steps as we understand them to approve the plan, and to develop the plan. We feel very confident that it addresses all of the key issues as we outlined and I'll just reiter...reiterate that it provides a good roadmap. Before I close, I want to thank specifically the staff for all of their time and effort in shepherding this and I...and I would like to...to convey to you that the Solid Waste Advisory Committee should be thanked for all of the time and effort. I mentioned a number of meetings that they attended. They've followed this process very intently. There was a variety of interest that were represented. The plan itself includes the names of those individuals and consequently I think it's very important that their efforts are acknowledged. COUNCIL MEETING - 46 - December 16, 2009 So, with that I'd like to close by suggesting that in the time that I've been able to spend here, I really feel like I have a very good understanding of the importance of the environment to Kauai and to Kauai County. And before we were actually retained to do this work, I had a chance to look at some of the documents and one of them was your Vision 2020 Planning Document. And so this particular, basically piece from that document, to me, underscores the plan and underscores your values, our environment is our economy, it's our natural capital and the basis of our economic survival and success. So to say that it's just the environment or it's just the economy is not accurate. They are intertwined and you need to understand that and I think your planning document that we're presenting to you today aligns with that. So again, thank you for your time and I'll do my best with Allison's and Donald's help to try to answer any questions if you have any. Chair Asing: Thank you. BC, Videographer: Check your mike. Chair Asing: Can I have a show of hands how many people want to speak on this item. One...one? Two? Two people. Oh, okay. Why don't we do this then and it's a timing issue, you know. We have some contract issues and we got some timing issues on what happens after lunch, so I'm trying to put the pieces together. With that, why...why don't I have councilmembers ask questions. I would hope that you kind of limit the...the question because, you know, this is a first reading, going out for public hearing and it'll come back to the committee and we can ask all kinds of questions and if need be, we can get all those responses back from the...the administration. So, why don't we do that. Okay, go ahead. Mr. Bynum: You want me to proceed now? Chair Asing: Yeah, go ahead. Mr. Bynum: Mr. Chair, I'm going to not ask the questions that I have that are directed at the administration and just focus on questions I... Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Bynum: ...have for the consultant and I'll try to be really quick. How many communities are you aware of that have no trash fee? Is that an anomaly here on Kauai or... Mr. Craggs: You...you'd be surprised. There...there are a number of them, but it's...it's...it's fair to say that there are...there's really a trend to move towards having some types of fees and probably the...the best answer, Councilmember Bynum, would be to say that in Hawaii, Maui County is the only county that has a solid waste residential fee. However, the City & County of Honolulu is seriously debating it, from my understanding, and then to your question directly, I don't have a specific number, but I can tell you that it's...it's more than 10. Mr. Bynum: But...but generally don't most communities have trash fees. Mr. Craggs: Most...most communities have multiple sources of revenues. COUNCIL MEETING - 47 - December 16, 2009 BC, Videographer: Can you move closer to the mike? Mr. Craggs: I'm sorry. Most...most communities have multiple sources of revenue outside of just a...a tipping fee. To give you an example, where I live there is a solid waste fee, but it's actually on the property taxes. So it says solid waste fee and it's listed on the property taxes, and that's based on the state enabling legislation. Other communities will do as is being essentially proposed here, the local government, you know, basically will implement that fee directly without the state enabling legislation. Mr. Bynum: Okay, yeah because you said we're proposing a $12 fee some time, I hope sooner rather than later, but our current cost is $35 going to $85. So...and...and I think the public's kind of sheltered from that reality by not paying any fees and having it folded into our General Fund. But regarding biosolids and composting, I've visited some composting facilities and I haven't gotten a clear answer to this. I know the one community I visited was very high valued to a lot of farmers that have soil amendments, but the biosolid...including biosolids put some heavy metals and the EPA regulates that. Are the soil amenities that are produced in composting that includes biosolids, do they meet the criteria for organic farming and maybe you know, maybe you don't, but... Mr. Craggs: It's a very good question. Not all biosolids are...are created equally and what I mean by that is that some have more trace metal issues than others. The way that it's addressed, Councilmember Bynum, is to...to compost you have different permitting requirements and as you go from green waste to food waste, the permitting requirements become more stringent and more specific as far as managing the process. When you go from food waste to biosolids, they become more stringent in terms of what is required, both in terms of how the materials are managed, how much testing, and how the process is handled. You know, as they say, managing the bugs in the composting process. There are facilities that take biosolids and the...the outcome is that you could use, from what I understand, from what I have seen, you can use the by-product on...for organic farming. Mr. Bynum: Okay. Mr. Craggs: Before you would move forward with that here, the recommendation would be a couple things strongly, to test the biosolids, have discussions with compost processors, and then run some tests and pilot tests in terms of mixing as...as composters call it the recipe, what's the right recipe. And on Maui they...they've done some of that also and it's a good source, as you probably know, of information. Mr. Bynum: Okay. I thought you said... Chair Asing: Councilmember, how many more questions you have? Mr. Bynum: One more. Chair Asing: One more and...who...who... Mr. Bynum: Because this is our last opportunity at the council... Chair Asing: Hang on, hang on. Jay, you have some questions? COUNCIL MEETING - 48 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: No, Mr. Chair. I think because this is going to be in the form of a resolution... Chair Asing: Yeah. Mr. Furfaro: It will go out to a public hearing. Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: I have no questions for the consultant. Chair Asing: Oh, okay. I kind of want to hold off on...on questions (inaudible)...we...we got all kinds of timing issues. We got executive session, we got certificates, we got lunch... Mr. Furfaro: Public hearing. Chair Asing: We got public hearing and all of that is timed, timed in the sense that 1:30 p.m. is the public hearing period. I mean we have no...lunch by...by contract we have to provide our staff with lunch. So I think with all of that said, why don't we not do the questions now and we can catch you at...to get the information that we need when we get back from the public hearing and when it goes to committee. And I...I don't think we're going to...our timing is just going to be all off. Mr. Craggs: And Mr. Chair, I can...I can basically address questions that...that councilmembers have in writing... Chair Asing: Okay. Mr. Craggs: ...if you email. I can do it through staff. I...I will be here through noon tomorrow if there's another time that members would like to ask questions. So whatever's best in terms of your meeting. Chair Asing: Okay. Yeah, it's a combination between, you know, all of us here and yourself and the public that I'm concerned about. Do I...I need to kind of give the public an opportunity too because as soon as we come back from lunch it's public hearing and that's...that's atime issue. We...we...we have the time for that and then we have the certificate. That's a time issue too. Then we have the executive session. Because we have attorneys coming from Honolulu, that's a time issue too. So, why don't we do this then, why don't we have the public come up and give the public...time to make their comments. So with that John or JoAnn or... Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Chair, can I reiterate as well for the public that is in the audience... Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: ...just like our tax schedule and so forth, this will be done in the form of a resolution. Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: So in that public hearing on the resolution, the public will have an opportunity to speak again. COUNCIL MEETING - 49 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Chair Asing: Go ahead, John. JOHN HARDER: Yeah, thank you, Chairman. Yeah, I...I do recognize your time constraints. Again, I have submitted testimony to the council and I don't feel I really need to read the whole thing through again. If there are any issues or questions, I can probably address them at the public hearing. In addition, I just wanted to comment listening to the presentation, Bob's presentation on the plan, each time I've heard it or reviewed it, it's gotten better. And except for a few small elements I feel very pleased with the...the plan as proposed. Again, as I commented on the landfill, I think the essential thing is implementing the plan, not having the plan. And it looks like the administration within the limits of their budgetary abilities right now is...is starting to implement it. And this may mean spending more money at a time when money is tight, but it will pay off in the long run. So, I...I would like to commend the...the administration and the council for going through the revision process and...and putting together what I think is a...a pretty good plan. I do have li...as I said I mentioned I do have some concerns. I will write them up and get them to you before the public hearing regarding some of the issues in the plan. But I think other than that if you have any questions for me, I'd like to answer them now. If not, you guys can go on to your lunch. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. Mr. Furfaro: And John, thank you for the testimony. We'll read through it. Chair Asing: We appreciate that. JoAnn? JOANN YUHIMURA: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the council. JoAnn Yukimura for the record and I'll try to keep this brief too. Just two...basically two points and let me say that I'm glad you're going to be asking questions. I would like to ask that any questions asked and any answers back be posted on the web or somewhere so that people can also get to know what the dialogue is so that we can prepare our testimony for the public hearing. So, you know, the...the disadvantage of you doing it Internet or even off-line is that the public won't... Chair Asing: Okay. Ms. Yukimura: ...be part of the discussion. And one of the main questions I think should be asked is why 35% diversion rate when Maui is going with 60, when San Francisco is achieving 70, and...and when the Big Island has rejected waste-to-energy and is integrating...is...is actually adopting zero waste completely as part of their integrated solid waste management plan. So I...I think that's an important question to ask and have answered. And then on the financial impacts on the second to last page of the...let's see, sorry...okay, it's num...on page 16 of the PowerPoint presentation, I...I think we've been told that the cost per household if the plan is implemented is $85 per month. Did you hear that? And if the plan is not implemented it's $45 per month. I think the question should be asked if zero waste is implemented as a much bigger percentage of diversion, you know, a hybrid plan where there's 60% to 70% diversion, what would the cost be. That's a really essential piece of information. And so I...I hope that you'll ask that COUNCIL MEETING - 50 - December 16, 2009 because as I said...oh and then...and I wanted...do...reiterate what John has said about plan implementation because there's some...you know, the county has begun to implement the plan, but it's...it didn't follow the task force siting process, but it's following the waste-to-energy you appropriated or I think $150,000 was appropriated for waste-to-energy study and not...no money for recycling coordinator. So, it's following...there's some parts of the plan being followed and other parts of the plan not being followed. Curbside recycling part of the plan is not being followed because you're not putting in place a MRF, apay-as-you-throw, and all those things that would make curbside recycling successful, and then you're doing curbside recycling first before all of these things. So, if we're going to have a plan, it needs to be followed, and I...I think questions need to be asked about this if...if the plan is already so-called being followed. Thank you very much. Chair Asing: Thank you. Is...is there anyone else? KEN TAYLOR; Chair and members of the council, my name is Ken Taylor. I...I think this is a good start, but I don't see how in the world that all of these recycling options will be carried out without having a recycle coordinator involved in the process and staff's doing a...a good job, but at...doing what they can do. But their time is limited too. And in order to make a plan like this move and move efficiently, it's going to require a coordinator to...to put it all together and get out into the community and... and... and get the community involved and make it work and move forward. So, I hope in your process you will require that...that position be implemented. Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Kawakami: (Inaudible) you know, one point. Chair Asing: Yeah, you have a question? Go ahead. Mr. Kawakami: You know, in reference to the recycling coordinator, if I recall, it...it wasn't a lack of support behind the intent of a recycling coordinator. The reason why I didn't support sending money there is because there was no intent to fill the position and at this point in our dire economic state, I mean, I...I didn't feel that it was prudent to put money behind something when you had the administration saying that they had no intent on filling the position. That is why the money didn't go there. Now I think I made a statement saying, when you guys are ready to have a recycling coordinator, come back, and you know, we can put our money where our mouth is. So the intent was not to support the position. The intent was there was no intent on filling it, so why are we going to sprinkle money on something to send a message. Mr. Taylor: I appreciate that. Mr. Kawakami: (Inaudible.) Mr. Taylor: And I just say that if we're going to move forward with this, the time is now to fill that position. Chair Asing: Okay, okay. Ms. Yukimura: (Inaudible.) I...I do recognize that the council was...I mean when I was speaking, I'm speaking about the county administering the plan, which is an administrative function. But councilmembers need to be COUNCIL MEETING - 51 - December 16, 2009 asking questions of the administration. Why won't you fill the recycling coordinator if you are committed to a diversion process that we need, not only for the long range, but for the short range as well. Mr. Kawakami: And that quo...that question has been posed, you know. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. Mr. Kawakami: The question has been posed... Ms. Yukimura: Well, you know... Mr. Kawakami: ...to certain individuals and you know. Ms. Yukimura: Well, it needs to be posed again and again and perhaps more funding should be given to do the work of the plan if they're not going to put in place the proper staffing to do it because you won't get good implementation... Mr. Kawakami: Yeah. Ms. Yukimura: ...unless you have that. Mr. Kawakami: Okay. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Okay, I'd like to call the meeting back to order and let's have a motion to approve on first reading, schedule public hearing... Ms. Kawahara: Chair, Chair. Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead. Ms. Kawahara: Question on the process. Chair Asing: Go ahead. Ms. Kawahara: Will...will we have the consultant available for questions... Mr. Furfaro: Actually, Lani, if I can... Ms. Kawahara: ...at the future...at future meetings. Mr. Furfaro: I believe he said he's going to make himself available.. . Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: ...to the councilmembers by email. I did not hear the answer to your question. COUNCIL MEETING - 52 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Kawahara: Yes, my question is will we have access to the consultant after this meeting. Chair Asing: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: And...on...on a, you know, public forum... Chair Asing: No. Ms. Kawahara: ...like this. No. Chair Asing: No, the answer is no. Unless, are you going to be here this evening? When...when do you leave? Mr. Craggs: Mr. Chair, I'm here until noon tomorrow. I...I...I'm available anytime the rest of the day. Chair Asing: Okay, if...if the councilmembers want, you know, fine, we'll put that at the end of the agenda. Ms. Kawahara: So, my... Chair Asing: Is that the...the feel of the council? Ms. Kawahara: I feel that there should be a more public process with the questions that we have for...for the consultant and I want to know if he's going to be on... Chair Asing: Okay. Ms. Kawahara: ...payroll for us to have him come back. Chair Asing: Okay, let's do it this way. Thank you very much. I'll call the meeting back to order. The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Chair Asing: And let's have a motion to move this item to the end of the agenda. Mr. Furfaro moved to have Resolution 2009-71 moved to the end of the agenda, seconded by Mr. Kawakami, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: We'll break for lunch and come back at...Peter? Mr. Nakamura: We're...we're back in 45 minutes, which will... Chair Asing: 45 minutes. Mr. Nakamura: Which will be 1:55 p.m. Chair Asing: 1:55 p.m. Mr. Furfaro: I...I do want to remind the council if we can come back exactly at that time because I have the Planning Department making a presentation on a very delicate item. COUNCIL MEETING - 53 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: I know. Mr. Furfaro: So. There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 1:12 p.m. The meeting was called back to order at 3:04 p.m., and proceeded as follows: Chair Asing: This council meeting is now called back to order. With that, Mr. Clerk, can we have the next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, we are on page one of the council's agenda on communication C-389. COMMUNICATIONS: C 2009-389 Communication (10/01/2009) from John Holt, President of RC Holsinger Associates, P.C., requesting agenda time to present the Audited Financial and Single Audit Statements of the County of Kauai for Fiscal Year 2008-2009. Chair Asing: Thank you. What I'd like to do is that I'd like to suspend the rules. John? There being no objections, the rules were suspended. JOHN HOLT, PRESIDENT, RC HOLSINGER ASSOCIATES, P.C.: I would like... Chair Asing: Good afternoon. How are you doing? Mr. Holt: Doing very well, thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Furfaro: Nice to have you here again. Mr. Holt: Good to be back, thank you. Chair Asing: By the way, thank you for the...the audit and why don't I just let you have the floor. Mr. Holt: Thank you. As stated, I'm John Holt from RC Holsinger, the independent auditors for the County of Kauai. And I'm here with my manager, Dr. Vivian Viar, who was in charge of the field operations. It seems kind of fitting to present this report to you today. As Kauai High School celebrates their victories, I think there's a lot that you guys have to celebrate as well. The report reflects the adoption of a new accounting regulation that was issued. It's been adopted two years early. There's a lot of work to be done on that and we'll go over the reasons for that because it provides a lot of transparency and additional information that would be very useful and helpful to you. I want to congratulate you as well. The Government Financial Officers Association, which reviews the report that's submitted by the Department of Finance, has given it a Certificate of Excellence, which is your 13+~ consecutive year for receiving such an award. I also want to congratulate you for the operating results. This is very tough economic times and we know what the economy and the current economic climate is like, and your operating results were...were favorable. So I think these are a lot of things to COUNCIL MEETING - 54 - December 16, 2009 celebrate and to congratulate you on. Due to the interest of time, what I would like to do would be to go over just some of the main aspects or changes in the report. What I'd like to do would be to point you to places where you can see what those changes are and then you can go back and reference them later on for any detail or additional questions that you may have at a later date. Specifically, if you can turn in the Audit Report, which is the Comprehensive, it's a...it's a thicker report, if you can turn with me to page 45. I'm just going to ask that all you do on that page is dog-ear it at the top because that's where all the definitions are and I'm not going to read over all the definitions of the new accounting regulation. The required implementation date would be for dates after June two-thousand and...would be for June 2011 and you've adopted it in June 2009, so we're adopting it two years early. What I'd like you to do as well, would be to turn to page 45. Chair Asing: Wait, we started with... Mr. Holt: Oh, I'm sorry we're on 45. I'd like you to turn to page 27. Page 27 is basically the balance sheet for the county. And the change which is different this year than in prior years is when you look at a balance sheet that's broken into basically three categories: your assets, your liabilities and then what's remaining, which is your fund balance. And that fund balance now is broken into different information than it has been before. Before we had restricted assets, unrestricted assets, and we now have these different categories whose definitions are on page 45. Here we have a summary of that information. As we look at page 45, we can see that the fund balance for the General Fund is $54,000,000. That's up from $45,000,000 last year reported on a fund accounting basis. And then what GASB 40...GASB 54 tries to do is it tries to say of that 54, what is available. And so it's broken into these different categories. And you can see here it says we have some committed dollars of $9.7 million. We have assigned dollars of $11.5 and we have unassigned dollars of $32.8 million. Now that information of itself is not all that helpful unless you flip to the footnotes that explain it in more detail, which is on page 76. And this is where you really start to see the benefit of the changes that have been implemented. The fund balance is broken into new categories. Even though we have a fund balance from an accounting method that says we have assets greater than our liabilities, that doesn't necessarily mean we can do something with them. First, there's a category called nonspendable. What's nonspendable? In this definition, for example, something that you already have spent is nonspendable, like prepaid. If you paid for...just a simple example would be a...your insurance policy. You paid for an entire year, on accounting we take one-twelfth of that per month and so the timing doesn't necessarily fall in your fiscal year, but you have that fund balance. It's an asset that if you canceled your policy, you'll get your money back, but chances are you're going to keep...keep your policy. So that's an asset that you have that you can't spend. You can't spend money you've already spent, so that's like a prepaid. Or in there we also have the loans receivable. You can't spend money you don't have. And that's what the loans receivable represents. We don't have the cash, we don't have the money, we intend to receive it, but we don't have it, so we can't spend it. The restricted represents money that is restricted by a third party, somebody outside of the county. An example of that is when we receive the money that we need to use to pay back our debt service, our bonds. That's money that we just can't spend for general purposes. It's been restricted externally by a third party and the COUNCIL MEETING - 55 - December 16, 2009 county cannot spend that money. Another example there and we'll talk about it in a little bit more detail is the landfill closure and post-closure cost. That's money that you've collected as part of the customers payments that goes toward post-closure landfill cost. So that money gets set aside and restricted for use. The committed is broken up into several different categories...departmental categories. The...the amounts here that are committed are those amounts that basically we've referred to in the past as encumbrances. Moneys that you've committed to spend but you haven't spent yet. And so if you could look at that...the total that we have for the General Fund of $9.7 million, okay what I'm going to ask you to do at this point is I'm going to ask you to turn to page 34. And this would reflect another change, not required by GASB 54, but the Department of Finance decided to implement because it provides more operating information for you. As I said at the onset, at the very bottom if you look at the third column, last year your fund balance in the General Fund was $45 million. It increased by $8.9 million where your revenues that you've received exceeded those expenditures that you paid out by 8.9. So it looks like we had a very good year and our fund balance increased to $54 million. Mr. Furfaro: May I ask a question with that? Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Looking at this for the first time. We have the 9.7 on the encumbrances and we are showing on the...on the Non-GAAP shortfall of $845,269. Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: But the fund balance went up. Mr. Holt: Correct and so... Mr. Furfaro: Is that correct observation I made? Mr. Holt: That's a very correct observation, yes. Mr. Furfaro: So... Mr. Holt: So what this statement is trying to show is that even though we have an accounting that says that our fund balance increased by approximately $9 million on, which is an accounting rule, on a budgetary basis, which is how you manage, we have encumbrances, we have obligations that...that we've committed to during the year, during the normal course of our operations of an additional $9.7 million. So on a budgetary basis, which is that Non-GAAP column, we actually have a shortfall for the year of $850,000. Mr. Furfaro: Right. Mr. Holt: So on a $116 million budget, you guys were able to operate it close enough that you were just over expenditures by $850,000. Before in the prior year, there was only one column here. That Non-GAAP column... Mr. Furfaro: Yes. COUNCIL MEETING - 56 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Holt: ...was the column that was here. So...and this year the Department of Finance has broken it out in order to show the accounting number, which is what I was showing you earlier on page 27, your encumbrances of the 9.7 so that you can actually see where you stood on a budgetary basis for the end of the year. And then the pages that precede page 34, starting on page 31, is all the detail by budget line item of where those encumbrances are in case you wanted to see what your variance is. So you can see what the accounting number is, you can see what the budgetary number is, and that...that's one of the reasons why the Department of Finance decided to early implement GASB 54. It's because it will show you what is really available, not just from an accounting perspective, but also from an operational perspective. Mr. Furfaro: Okay and so on...on page 76, I...I just want to note then $11 million that is there as the total assigned also includes...it ensures...it...it shows a provision for self-insurance. Mr. Holt: Yes. Back...back now to page 76, I explained what the nonspendable, the restricted and the committed categories are. But the assigned value, the assigned category are those amounts that are intended to be spent within the next year. And so the first item that we have...we have one item there called self-insurance provisions. Mr. Furfaro: Right. Mr. Holt: So we've assigned money for our self-insurance and the other thing that we have assigned dollars to is our surplus that we have in the budget...excuse me, a surplus that we have in our fund balance can be used in the current fiscal year, the 2010 budget year, and this is one of the ways you balance your budget. So the moneys that are intended to...to be used this year from the...from the surplus will be used to be spent next year, while this current fiscal year and the budget... Mr. Furfaro: Understood. I just wanted to make sure I was interpreting this correctly, so. Mr. Holt: The...the other thing that is assigned is if you have a special revenue fund or a fund that has a particular purpose, that whole fund balance is basically assigned. It's to be used for that particular purpose. So those are the two areas you have in your assigned is moneys that are intended to be spent in the next year as well as those that are intended to be spent for a particular purpose. Mr. Furfaro: Do we refer...do we refer to the particular purses...purpose as a restricted amount? Mr. Holt: Well, it's technically referred to as an assigned amount. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, okay. Mr. Holt: There's just a...the restricted is a third-party restriction because that's been restricted internally and you have flexibility to change that. That's why it's called assigned. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. COUNCIL MEETING - 57 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Holt: Restricted is more permanent. Mr. Furfaro: Now, now, now I understand, so we're...we're assigning that amount but the reality is showing 854,000 shortfall. The reality, if we wanted to change that number we could. Mr. Holt: Well, the 850 that we're short... Mr. Furfaro: Without taking... Mr. Holt: ...is...is...is in the past, okay. The assigned balance is into the future. Mr. Furfaro: Right, but what I'm saying is we ended 845,000 short. Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Mr. Holt: On a budgetary basis. Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Mr. Holt: Then of that 54, those that aren't in any other category, that aren't restricted externally or internally or intended to be spent is the unassigned. So of that 54, you can see how quickly we get down to only 32,000,000 of your general fund balance is really available for future purposes. Mr. Furfaro: Because we're taking off the 11 million 535. Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: Right? Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Yeah, okay. Mr. Holt: That...that is a lot of information to...to digest, okay, and that's why I just wanted to point to you where to go to look in more detail on these items. That's a...that's a major change. The...because this is being early adopted, there really isn't any literature out there that is written to give you the guidance that is normally there. There's a lot of training. We've attended a lot of training. The Department of Finance has attended that. We've consulted with GASB upon the presentation of it. We've consulted with GFOA and we also consulted with the industry accounting standard manuals called PPC to make sure that our presentation was within their expectations since there aren't any that have been published yet. So that...that's why I say this is one of the things to congratulate yourselves on. I think this is a...an example that will be used. As far as I'm concerned you're the first island that has adopted this, and so you're leading the way here. COUNCIL MEETING - 58 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: It's just the way it comes out on paper showing the...the negative, it raises the question, so how did the fund balance grow? Mr. Holt: From an accounting perspective... Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Mr. Holt: It grew by the 8.9 because under accounting rules we cannot expense an encumbrance because the goods or the services haven't been... Mr. Furfaro: Haven't been delivered, yeah. Mr. Holt: So that's the difference between budgetary and accounting. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you for that explanation. Mr. Holt: While we're back there on page 76, if we can flip over a few more pages to page 71. This was a new accounting rule that you early adopted last year on other post-employment benefits. The county is part of the state agency's plan, The Hawaii Employer Union Health Benefits Trust Fund. It's a multiple employer defined benefit plan and it provides for the medical, dental, vision and life insurance benefits of the county employees. When...when the plan was early adopted, an actuary report was performed on July 1, 2007 and on page 72 at the bottom, you will note that the unfunded obligation that you have to your retirees and your present employees is about $131 million as of July 1, 2007. The accounting standards require at aminimum a bi-annual report from the actuary. That report is...primary responsibility is with the EUTF and that's currently in process, and it has not been issued. And so I can't tell you where you currently stand; we cannot include that within your financial statements. And that will be a...a finding as GFOA reviews your report that you're out of compliance with GAAP, with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. It is our recommendation that...that you would speak with the EUTF to have them modify their date to let's see something like a January 1St date instead of a July 1St date so that the actuary reports can be completed by the time the audits are done. By the time this...by the time their report is done, this report will be...be issued and there'll be a three-year gap in the reporting and we're only allowed atwo-year gap. Mr. Furfaro: Now, may I ask a... Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: Now I was of...on the...of the impression that we agreed...the major increases in our operating cost were the fact that we acknowledged that we needed to get to 100% of the benefits line versus what the other counties and the states were doing. And therefore, when you see over a period of years our operating cost grew in some percentage of 10 or 12 percent, it was based on the fact that we agreed to fund these...this benefit line 100% and that's what we're doing. Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Right. COUNCIL MEETING - 59 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Holt: Right. Mr. Furfaro: So what are we not in compliance with since we, I think, are the first county or municipality in Hawaii that has decided to fund our employee liabilities totally. Mr. Holt: Correct and...and that is something that we point out in the middle of the...of this page 72. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, I'm sorry I didn't get to read everything. We just... Mr. Holt: Right. Mr. Furfaro: ...got the books earlier, so. Mr. Holt: In...in the middle there on page 72, it's reflected that both the county and its component unit, the Department of Water, is fully funding it's OPEB obligations. Mr. Furfaro: Got it. I see it now. I see. Mr. Holt: And yes, you are the only county or state entity to be fully funding its OPEB obligation. Mr. Furfaro: This is a conscious decision we made two years ago and... Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: It is very important for citizens when they look at our operating line to see the biggest portion of our growth in our operating expenses is the fact that we funded those employee benefits 100%. Mr. Holt: Right, right. You funded them at 100% and I don't have last year's report, but from memory it appears...I believe that your...your pay- as-you-go method that you were using was approximately $4.5 million and you're currently funding, based upon an actuarial 30-year amortization, $11 million. And so it was a significant increase between the $4.5 and the $11 million. And...and you are fully funding it. Mr. Furfaro: Right. Mr. Holt: So operationally, you're doing what you need to do. Operationally, you have made the commitment to fund it at 100%. From a technical accounting perspective, the...the way that that should be reflected in...in the report is...is a little bit...is off. We need to be showing what the 2009 unfunded liability is and I can't do that. The only thing I can show you is that your unfunded liability based upon an actuary report is from 2007, three fiscal years old, which was $131 million. But you've made two years of payments. You paid in $11 million in the first year; you paid $11 million in the second year, and so your...your actuarial funded...unfunded liability is actually less than the 131, but we aren't actuaries. We're just CPAs. So we can't tell you what that number is. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. COUNCIL MEETING - 60 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Holt: And that's...that's where the...the deficiency is from an accounting perspective. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you for that confirmation of what I knew we did. Chair Asing: You have a question? Oh, okay, Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Just to put this in more lay terms. We made a decision as a council to bite the bullet now to put us in a better financial situation n the future. Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Bynum: And not have a time bomb that blows up at some future council... Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Bynum: ...by underfunding and so it's a decision that was tough for us to make, but it was a fiscally prudent one and I think we should be proud of it and I think the community needs to understand that, you know, we're...we're paying our obligations now as opposed to delaying the pain into the future which is just, you know, a...a...a good management about not creating a crisis for our community in the future. But apparently some of our sister counties and our state are creating that crisis. Mr. Holt: Right and when you figure the amortization of that is over a 30-year period, what you're fiscally doing now is a legacy that you're leaving to your children and grandchildren. Mr. Bynum: I like the way you put that because too many political decisions seem to steal from the next generation as opposed to paying our share...fair share now and so, thank you. Mr. Holt: One other change that you'll see on the financial statements is that on pa...if you flip with me to page 77, we have what is called a prior period adjustment. Usually a prior period adjustment comes from when there's been a change in the accounting policies or principles that have been applied and since we have moved $5.7 million, we thought that we would bring that to your attention. As GFOA reviewed your report, as I mentioned, you've had a Certificate of Excellence for 13 years. For the last 15 years, whenever you collected money for people who were paying for post-closure cost of the landfill, we record it as a liability. GFOA has determined that the more technical way to record that liability in the funds statements is to .only record those amounts that are due within one year of payment and not the amount that you've been collecting to maybe close that landfill which might be 20 years from now. Mr. Furfaro: No, it's 7. Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: It's 7 years from now. COUNCIL MEETING - 61 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: John, let's hold off just a little while. We need to change the tape. So hang on. There being no objections, the meeting was recessed at 3:30 p.m. The meeting was called back to order at 3:32 p.m., and proceeded as follows: Chair Asing: The meeting is now called back to order. John. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. Mr. Holt: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're on page 77 of the report and we're discussing why we have a prior period adjustment, why we're changing what your fund balances were in the prior periods. We were discussing that the amounts that were received from customers for the payment of the post- closure cost that were being collected, why those are not being recorded any more as a...as a liability for the post-closure cost. And that's because the accounting rules for this type of fund indicates that only those payments that are going to be made within a year are recorded as a liability. With the adoption of GASB 54, what has been done is the amounts that have been collected have been moved from the liability and they need to be shown as a part of a fund balance. We could either put it into a fund balance or we could put it into a trust fund. However, technically the requirements for a trust fund aren't there and can't be met, so the moneys have been moved down to the fund balance as required by accounting and we've called it restricted because those amounts are restricted to be used for the post-closure cost. So at the very bottom of page 57, excuse me, at the very bottom of page 77, you can see that initially we had 0 in restricted. We've moved over the 5.7 that we have collected and so the fund balance has increased...the beginning fund balance has increased by 5.7 just by an accounting change. So, when you look at your total fund balance and it's increased, you just have to keep in mind that part of it is just an accounting change and not true dollars or economic sense. Mr. Furfaro: You know this line is a perfect example of my earlier question. Some of this is identified as restricted. Others is...identified as being assigned. Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Can you visit...can you visit that for me one more time? Mr. Holt: Sure. So the...the restricted amount is that amount that's been shr...restricted by a third party which is basically our agreement that we have with our customers... Mr. Furfaro: (Inaudible.) Mr. Holt: ...for the post-closure. The committed, the $1.7 million are those amounts that we have encumbered, we've committed to, transactions are in progress, some type of contract, but we haven't...the goods haven't been received or the services haven't been performed, so we don't have the...the economic liability there, but we have the commitment because we're in the middle of a project. And then the assigned is really the remaining part of the fund balance because this is a special revenue fund. And all the...all the moneys that are in the Solid Waste Fund need to be used for solid waste. We can't use that for the General Fund purposes. So the rest of the fund balance is assigned. COUNCIL MEETING - 62 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: Thank you for that explanation again. Mr. Holt: I...I believe with the understanding now of the changes in the fund balance, the changes to the beginning balance, that you'll have...and the changes to the budget to actual statements, that you'll have time to look at the financial statements in more detail and you would have any questions. I believe those detailed questions would be great for the Department of Finance, who would be able to answer them in...in more detail. Chair Asing: Okay, Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Yeah, just if you could back up just a little bit because this is different than last year. So for instance... Chair Asing: What page you... Mr. Bynum: I'm on page 76. Chair Asing: Okay. Mr. Bynum: In the committed you said those are where we actually are under contract. We haven't...or we... Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Bynum: Like we have a bid...a contract out. We are... Mr. Holt: You could have a purchase order out. You could have a contract out. Mr. Bynum: So that's why a lot of this appears to be CIP type of things, right? Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Bynum: And they are the ones we actually have the bid and procured all of that. Mr. Holt: You're in the middle of redoing a road. Mr. Bynum: Right. Mr. Holt: You're in the middle of redoing a bridge. Mr. Bynum: We just haven't paid all the bills yet. Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Bynum: So the money's still with us, where the assigned is where because there's a big chunk of change here in CIP, these are the projects we've identified. The money is available for these projects, but we...they're not under contract yet. Mr. Holt: Um... COUNCIL MEETING - 63 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Bynum: (Inaudible) the CIP... Mr. Holt: U...usually with the assigned, I believe those would be under contract, yes. Mr. Bynum: Assigned? Mr. Holt: Yes. Tho...those are amounts that are intended to be spent. Mr. Bynum: Intended? Mr. Holt: Intended to be spent, yes. Mr. Bynum: Committed means we have a contract in...in the works. Mr. Holt: Yes, committed is the next step up. Mr. Bynum: Right and assigned means we intend to (inaudible) contract. Mr. Holt: Intend...correct. Mr. Bynum: Okay, thank you. Mr. Holt: They're...they're...they're various...various levels of commitment. Mr. Bynum: This is really actually quite helpful. Mr. Holt: Yes, as we addressed this with the Department of Finance, we felt that this was a much better presentation. This is one place where we think they got it. They, the accounting regulators, got it right. Mr. Bynum: Mm-hm. You know I...it answers ques...the kind of questions I've asked before, you know, just...I can just come and look and get the answer without having to call up Wally guys and say, hey. Okay, so I...I like this. Thank you. Mr. Holt: Are there any other questions on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report? Chair Asing: Councilmembers, any questions? I don't have any question, but I have a...a comment. Thank you very much for what you're doing and I guess I looked at it and what I thought we had, we didn't have, and thank you for your explanation. Okay. Mr. Furfaro: I would just like to say though, there's some terminology we have to get... Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: ...adjusted to, but it is much clearer. COUNCIL MEETING - 64 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Holt: Right. Mr. Furfaro: And it also looks, if I can give some praise to the operating departments, it looks like they've managed expenses quite well and that is one of the reasons I wanted to talk about the employee benefit liability because we did over the last two years, it looks like we've jumped in operating cost, but the reality is the decision we made a couple years ago about accruing for lack of another term, assigning 100% funding for those... Mr. Holt: Right. Mr. Furfaro: ...is...is really the big difference. Mr. Holt: Right. Mr. Furfaro: And it's going to pay off in the long run. (Inaudible.) Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Furfaro: Very nice job. Mr. Holt: The next report that I would like to turn your attention to is the Single Audit Report for the County of Kauai. I will not go into a lot of detail on it but want to give you an overview, and the reason why I'm not going to go into a lot of details, again I think there's congratulations to be had here as well. Several years ago there were significant findings and much attention was given by the council to get those findings resolved. And last year when we did a report those number of findings dropped to four and this year the number has dropped to two. Mr. Furfaro: Two. Mr. Holt: And really the finding is really one finding, but affects both the program as well as the financial, so there's really just one finding that is there. Because of the attention that council has given to it, because of the attention that the department heads are putting to it, and with the diligence that the employees are also doing, the findings are being resolved. We were impressed by their...their diligence even...normally afinding that we have is this paper wasn't signed for this document or this certification was missing from the file and normally there's always some of those that are missing from files. But, for example, the Department of Housing worked diligently to find all of those items that we had requested and if it appeared that one was missing, they took the time to find it and make sure that it was there. And so, that's a very difficult finding to get rid of and that one is gone. The one finding that we basically have is that some drawdown reports were not being filed timely. That was basically due to a state employee who was retiring and they just needing to get together to work out the reconciliation between the submission to the federal government for the reimbursements because it was a joint with the state. And actually that was resolved before the end of the fiscal year. However, in the Single Audit rules, we need to report any instance of noncompliance, but of...the results from management indicate that it has been resolved. We also go back over the prior year results and look at those and audit COUNCIL MEETING - 65 - December 16, 2009 those to see if the procedures that they put into place are effective and operating, and those procedures were in place, and that's why those findings have been removed. Mr. Furfaro: If I may add some editorial to your comments for those that are new here. It is very good news to be down to the two conditions that we talked about. But six years ago when we started with this, we had 22 to correct. We set up a schedule; we went through them as a procedure. We got to 17 the year before, then down to 12, then 8, and it's really good to see we're down to 2 now, so. It's appropriate praise to give to the administration. They've been focusing on it. I know when we first had an opportunity to speak as you being our new auditors, you had an opportunity to go through all... Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: ...of those worksheets that I had prepared, so this is very good news. Mr. Holt: A...a challenge that you have ahead of you is the stimulus money or the ARRA money that you'll be receiving. The...for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, no ARRA money has been received or expended. And so our Single Audit Report does not reflect any of that ARRA money. One of the things that you need to be aware of is that all the ARRA funds that you receive are considered a major program. All major programs that are ARRA funds have to be audited. June 30, I believe it was $39.6 million of ARRA funds were approved. Various contracts/proposals were approved by the council. That represents, let's see, this Single Audit Report has about $79 million worth of federal funds that were expended. And so the amount of money that you had approved as of June 30th is about half that. And so our audit work is going to proportionately increase in size. Mr. Furfaro: Understood. Mr. Holt: And if everything's a major program, everything's going to need to be tested. Now though we weren't required to...to audit any ARRA funds because none had been received during the audit period, because moneys had been received during the calendar year that we were actually there, we took the opportunity to take a look at whether or not there might be any potential findings or any potential problems. We noted that the government requires that the ARRA funds be separately segregated and separately reported. And the Department of Finance has set up a way to separately track and monitor those funds. Reporting needs to be done on a quarterly basis and the first quarter that was due was on October 1 and you guys timely filed those reports. There's been a lot of training and a lot of effort that's been going forth out of the Grants Division to make sure that these rules are being followed. So although we haven't audited it, I'm just saying that the inquiries that we've made appear to be positive and people appear to be giving it the attention that needs to be done, so... Mr. Furfaro: Let me thank you for taking that initiative to take a look at what controls are in place and in fact those funds are in separate accounts. Thank you very much for taking that initiative. Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Yeah, I'd like to echo that and sounds like it's proactive because you know it's coming up, right, so. COUNCIL MEETING - 66 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Holt: Yes. Mr. Bynum: And then just to clarify something you said a minute ago, 79 million in the current audit of federal funds or... Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Bynum: ...thereabouts and then you mentioned 36 million of ARR,A funds that is coming. That's not half of that. That's in addition to... Mr. Holt: Correct. Mr. Bynum: Right. So, that's good news for Kauai that those funds are going to be expended and help fuel jobs when we need them, but you know, I...I mean this is...feels really good that you and the administration are being proactive and...because one of my concerns has been do they have adequate staffing and are we capturing all those funds. And the best I can tell, they are, you know, aggressively pursuing the funds that are available. And then to hear from you that they're adequately, you know, setting up mechanisms to account for them is...is really good news to hear. So, thank you. Mr. Furfaro: I have one more question along those lines. Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Furfaro: What is...what is appropriate under your existing contract that might allow us to amend any work on these new funds? Mr. Holt: I believe that we would need to request a change order for the increase in scope... Mr. Furfaro: Right. Mr. Holt: ...of...of the work. And as...as we get closer toward actually auditing those funds and know how much money has actually been drawn down, the other thing that is kind of hampering us right now from trying to give an...an estimate is that the guidelines for the audits are still in development. Mr. Furfaro: And you are aware of under a charter amendment introduced by the council, the voters of Kauai created an Audit Department for us and we do...we do have a couple great individuals there. But I assume there might be some discussions about a change order with Finance and with them that would... Mr. Holt: Our contract is with the County of Kauai and so I...I guess our...our contract's with the council and so we would just need to work through...since you've created the additional department...he would be issuing that change order. Mr. Furfaro: I want to thank you for acknowledging that the contract you enter...entered into is with the council, but I'm just asking about the dialogue if there's a change order. Would that include some discussion with Finance and with our Audit Department? Mr. Holt: Yes, I...I think that the...we were pleased to see that the County of Kauai and its electorate has decided to elect an internal auditor. COUNCIL MEETING - 67 - December 16, 2009 We believe that that strengthens and enhances internal controls. An internal auditor can look at things that we don't look at. We deal with materiality. We deal with strictly accounting results, financial results, where an internal auditor can look at a lot of different things. They can look at budgetary things; they can look at operational things. And when...when the position was...was created and the office was filled, we met with the...the department, the internal auditor to open up a dialogue of how we can work together because there are things that the internal auditor can do that we can use as part of our audit, depending upon what they are, that will help us rely better on the internal controls and maybe even limit some work. One of the things too that might be done in the dialogue that we could have with the Internal Audit Department as well is to discuss any type of auditing that they have been doing throughout the year on those ARRA funds. If they are choosing to audit the draw downs or the quarterly reports or some of the information that is being submitted, then we would need to look at their work papers, look at the procedures that they have put into place, and to see if we can rely upon any of the work that they have done. So, there's a way that we can work with the internal audit department as we talk about a change order and what the scope of our work or their work could be. Mr. Furfaro: I just asked that question very publicly because the way it works in our charter is the fact that the audit department now presents before the new year a list of projects that they will be working on. If the council wants any additional, we'll have to submit it by way of resolution. But they kind of identify those areas that they want to address and with this...moneys, this federal moneys, I just want to make sure, they're in the audience today, they hear we got to get that on the radar screen, so thank you. Mr. Holt: Any questions on the Single Audit Report? Chair Asing: Okay. Mr. Holt: We would like to thank the council for being proactive, for adopting new accounting policies, for being fiscally responsible and managing the process. We would like to thank the Department of Finance for their efforts in pulling together the information, the reports. We'd like to thank Miles Tone for the...a lot of the effort that he's done just to make this happen, being willing to take on a...a major challenge, a major adoption of a policy that you don't need to do on the year that you're...that you're retiring is magnanimous. And we'd like just to thank too the department heads for their cooperation on trying to get things in timely. You guys have...the council has set a very aggressive timetable as I had mentioned last year to get the audit reports done and out the door timely. It was a very aggressive schedule this year with adopting new policies and accounting regulations. And so, we'd just like to say thanks to all those that have been involved. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Bynum: Thank you. Chair Asing: Any questions? If not, thank you very much. Is there anyone in the audience who wants to speak on this item? Being none, I'm going to call the meeting back to order. COUNCIL MEETING - 68 - December 16, 2009 There being none wishing to speak on this item, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Chair Asing: Can I have a motion to receive. Mr. Kawakami moved to receive C 2009-389 for the record, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Thank you again. Mr. Bynum: Thank you. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. Chair Asing: Appreciate it. Mr. Clerk, can we... Mr. Furfaro: Thank you very much. Chair Asing: Can we have the next item please? You want to take a caption break? We need to take a caption break now, thank you. There being no objection, the meeting was recessed at 3:52 p.m. The meeting was called back to order at 4:13 p.m. Chair Asing: The meeting is called back to order. With that, Mr. Clerk, can we have the next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, if...if at this time if we can go to page 4 of the council's agenda for Legal Documents, the bottom of page four communication C 2009-400. LEGAL DOCUMENTS: C 2009-400 Communication (11/13/2009) from the Director of Housing, recommending Council approval for Consent to Assignment re: the Pakui Housing Program Subrecipient Funding Agreement, Contract No. 4752, dated February 7, 1994 between the Association of Retarded Citizens of Kauai dba The Arc of Kauai and the County, wherein The Arc of Kauai desires to assign the contract to Easter Seals Hawaii, a Hawaii nonprofit corporation. • Consent to Assignment (Pakui Housing Program Subrecipient Funding Agreement) Chair Asing: Can I have a motion to approve? Mr. Chang moved to approve the legal document attached to C 2009-400, seconded by Mr. Furfaro, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next legal document on the top of page 5 is communication C 2009-401. COUNCIL MEETING - 69 - December 16, 2009 C 2009-401 Communication (11/23/2009) from the Director of Housing, recommending Council approval of the County's ACRAnet recertification with indemnity provisions, to obtain credit reports on County Housing mortgage loan participants, and to request the County Clerk's signature. • ACRAnet Client Recertification for the Kauai County Housing Agency • ACRAnet Client Service Agreement - Mortgage Reporting ("Agreement"), by and between Kauai County Housing Agency and ACRAnet, Inc. a Nevada Corporation. Mr. Chang moved to approve the legal documents attached to C 2009-401, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, if we can also, on the top of page 4 for approval, go to communication C 2009-397. COMMUNCATIONS: C 2009-397 Communication (11/16/2009) from the Executive on Aging, requesting Council approval to receive and expend the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA) for Medicare outreach and assistance for Medicare Part D, Low Income Subsidy (LIS) and Medicare Savings Programs (MSP) grant, and indemnify the State Executive Office on Aging, in the amount of $3,464.00, to cover funding from November 15, 2009 through May 31, 2011: Mr. Furfaro moved to approve C 2009-397, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, for approval also, C 2009-398. C 2009-398 Communication (1 U23/2009) from the Environmental Services Management Engineer, Department of Public Works, requesting Council approval to accept a donation of approximately 200 cubic yards of cold plane paving material from Grace Pacific Corporation valued at $12,650.00, for use at the new Kekaha Redemption Center site. Chair Asing: Motion to approve? Mr. Kaneshiro moved to approve C 2009-398 with athank-you letter to follow, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next matter for approval, Mr. Chair, is C 2009-399. C 2009-399 Communication (12/02/2009) from the Director of Parks and Recreation, requesting Council approval of the Ho`olokahi grant application from the Hanapepe Youth Baseball Association for $6,500 to purchase and erect two (2) new batting cages, four (4) safety nets, and to relocate one (1) existing batting cage at Hanapepe Kato Field in Hanapepe: Mr. Bynum moved to approve C 2009-399, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. COUNCIL MEETING - 70 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Last matter on page 4 for approval is communication C 2009-380. C 2009-380 Communication (08/3U2009) from the Director of Finance, requesting Council approval to write-off thirty-one (31) finalled (inactive) sewer accounts and one (1) finalled sludge account totaling an uncollectible delinquent amount of $63,457.78, pursuant to Kauai County Code Section 25-14.3. Chair Asing: Motion to approve, please. Mr. Furfaro moved to approve C 2009-380, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, if at this time we can go to the bottom of page 3 of the council's agenda for communication C 2009-396. C 2009-396 Communication (12/10/2009) from Derek S. K. Kawakami, Chair, Public Safety/Energy/Intergovernmental Relations Committee, requesting the Administration's presence at the December 16, 2009, County Council meeting for a discussion of possible projects, bills, and/or other issues to be addressed as part of the County of Kauai 2010 Legislative Package. Chair Asing: With that Gary. I'm sorry. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. GARY HEU, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Good afternoon, Chair. Chair Asing: You can just give us a...a short briefing. Mr. Heu: Yeah. Members of the council, I believe what has been circulated to you is a communication that was sent over today in response to a request to...for the administration to be present to discuss the county's legislative package for the upcoming session. And just as...as some background for councilmembers who may have not...may not have been here for previous legislative sessions, what...what's happened in the past is that HSAC has always, for as long as there's been an HSAC, has put together a statewide package which I believe you folks voted on al...already relative to initiatives that a...to be included in that HSAC package and then that was one avenue for the counties to put their...their issues before the...the legislature. Separately what we used to do is councilmembers as well as the administration would have a discussion about bills that we wanted to submit as part of the county's legislative package. What has happened over the past couple years is that an organization by the name of the Hawaii Coun...Hawai`i Conference of Mayors has become a lot more cohesive as a...as an entity and this year...I...I believe last year and then this year is the second year that...that HCOM is putting together a package of their own. So, the...the mayors from the various islands have...have submitted various initiatives for consideration to go up as part of that HCOM package. My understanding is that that package hasn't been finalized yet. But I've been in discussion with the mayor and at this point in time there's nothing that's been submitted in that package that he wishes to put forward separately or duplicate as part of our county package. So, COUNCIL MEETING - 71 - December 16, 2009 it...it appears that what we'll probably see on an annual basis as we start to prepare our legislative package is we will see bills going up via HSAC and bills going up via HCOM, and if there is some Kauai specific legislation that is not carried forward in...in either one of those packages, then I would anticipate that it would hit this floor for discussion to be included in the Kauai specific...Ka...Kaua`i County package. Having said that, this year the administration has no bills to submit as part of the Kauai specific package to the legislature, which leaves us with the...a second component of the package that...that we usually prepare, and that is CIP requests via the...the legislature. And over the years, our philosophy in terms of how we address our CIP request to the legislature has...has transitioned, has morphed. We used to come up with a package of oh, maybe 10 to 12 projects...CIP projects that...that we would submit up for consideration and every once in a while we would get one approved. And so a few years back we started to strategize a little more about the types of projects that we put forward. I'll be quite frank with you, there are...there are members of the legislature who believe that the county should be funding their own CIP projects, that the counties have the ability to raise their own revenues, and the counties have the ability to...to float their own bonds, which we...we do have that ability. And so they don't feel any great obligation to...to consider some of our projects. However, we believe that we can make a case for some of our CIP projects having a...a state nexus and as...as an example, when we, a few years back, we went in for funding...matching funding for our rubberized track at Vidinha Stadium and...and part of the rationale there was that...that facility is heavily used by the Department of Education in support of their athletic activities, likewise with the lighting retrofit for...for Vidinha Stadium for the purposes of supporting, you know, our Friday night football games, high school football games. So this year, you know, it...it was a little more challenging as...as we were going through our potential CIP projects and...and the two sources that...that I drew from are (1) our approved CIP list...listing, so those projects for which this body approved during our last budget session. And then also, as you folks are aware, we are making preparations for an upcoming bond sale and we will be coming forward to...to this body to have a discussion and...and get approval for projects that we want to include in the...in the upcoming bond sale. So that was the second source that I went to to try to look for projects that might appropriately fit our needs in terms of submission for legislative funding. So, what you have before you is...is a cover letter and an attachment that identify four projects that we felt could fit the bill in terms of having a good state and county nexus. And so I'll quickly go through them and what you'll see is that there...there is a project cost that's identified at the bottom of the description of each project and what we're basically asking for is a fi£..for 50% match from...from the state. Just...just to let you know, just to refresh your memory, last year we...we submitted two projects. One was the Waimea Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade that was to the tune...we were asking for a match of $6,000,000 from the state and the other one was a request for $950,000 to support our efforts to improve the emergency bypass road down in Wailua. We did not get approval for funding on the Waimea Wastewater Treatment Plant, but as you folks know, subsequently we've gotten ARRA moneys and state revolving fund moneys to address that particular capital project. They did...the...the legislature did approve the $950,000 for the emergency bypass road; however, those funds have not yet been released by...by the Governor. So, we're still trying to...trying to work on...on that to get that done. So, the...the four projects for this year are (1) 'Aliomanu Road reconstruction and protection for $1.5 million; (2) the Kapa`a New Park (Stadium) improvements fora $500,000 match, (3) an item called Open Space/Park Land COUNCIL MEETING - 72 - December 16, 2009 Acquisition and we've identified $4 million of matching funds that we'd like to request of the State Legislature, and the last one is the Kilauea Agricultural Park Development and the...the re...the funding that we need to complete that work is $2.6 mil and so we're requesting $1.3 from the State Legislature. There's an additional $1.4 million in construction cost that we are seeking EDA approval on. So, those are the four projects and I...I can go into a little detail on...on...on some of these projects. Let's see, the 'Aliomanu Road Reconstruction and Protection, we have a situation out on 'Aliomanu Road that I'm sure, you know, a lot of you are aware of, where over the years we've had erosion and that erosion is encroaching on...on our roadway. And so we currently have a consultant, Oceanit, who is doing the...the planning and design work for...for that project and what we're asking here is for construction dollars. And the construction dollars would be used to (1) build a...a revetment that would in the future pro...protect that roadway and then (2) to reconstruct the...the section of the roadway back to its original condition. For the way we see it is the nexus is the fact that we believe that we should actively engage the state in any of our shoreline issues because we think that shoreline erosion and shoreline issues are a joint concern of the...the state, local government, as well as...as the federal government. So, whenever we have an opportunity to embrace them on one of these types of projects, we...we feel that that's the appropriate thing to do. So that's the rationale that we...we will use to, you know, request funding of...of the legislature. I don't know if you folks want me just to go through the list... Chair Asing: Yeah, go ahead. Mr. Heu: ...and then you guys can ask questions later. Whatever you folks would like to do. On Kapa`a New Park, the Stadium Improvement...Stadium Improvements, this is an ongoing project and as you folks know, this was a...this was a project that Mayor Baptiste, you know, initiated and unfortunately, he was not able to see all the way through and so we are looking at finishing that project now. It's estimated that the...the funds required to finish the...that particular project...let's see...is...is a million dollars, so we're asking for fifty per...50% matching, $500,000 from...from the state. And again, this is primarily for...to construct locker room fac...facilities. Currently the...when...when the teams use that field, they're using the National Guard Armory facility across the road and it's not an ideal situation. And you know, Kapa`a or the Kawaihau District being the most populous district on the island and not having a...a facility for...for its local teams, it just seems like this is the right thing to do. And again, we believe that the connection here with the state is the fact that this is seen as the Kapa`a home, you know, home field. Waimea has Hanapepe, Kauai High School has Vidinha to call their home...home field and...and likewise Kapa`a will now have this Kapa`a New Park Stadium. So, again that's a $500,000 request of the legislature. The next one is an Open Space/Park Land Acquisition line item. And for the purposes of the discussion on the floor today, I...I've left the...the narrative fairly generic. By the time we...we...if we all...if we collectively decide to move...move ahead on...on...on the request for these projects, we will have to be a little more specific in our...as we...as we turn the language into...to a...a bill which requests this funding. But as you folks know, there are, you know, between the Kauai Public Land Trust, between the Open Space Commission, there are many people who have many wonderful funding ideas in terms of how we...we're able to spend COUNCIL MEETING - 73 - December 16, 2009 our Open Space and...our Open Space funds. And so, you know, I think what this represents is a real commitment on...on the part of the county to, you know, take some significant action to...to acquire, you know, some of these lands. You know, whether it be public access ways, whether it be expansion of park facilities. So what we will probably do when we...when we put this in...in bill format is...is show the legislature categories o£..of acquisitions that we're interested in and we may add some specific examples in terms of how we would use those...that funding. Let's see...and the last one is the Kilauea Agricultural Park Development. We...we did meet with some of our legislative team to discuss, you know, some strategy in terms of how we propose projects and this is one of them that there appear to be some interest on...on the part of our legislative team. As you folks know, this...this particular project total is $4 million for development cost and we are asking for $2.6 million from the...I'm sorry, we're asking for $1.3 million from the State Legislature because the funding required currently is $2.6 because as I had stated a little earlier, we...we are attempting to seek EDA...an EDA grant for $1.4 million to support this particular project. So, tho...those funds would be used as I've...I've described here, you know, basically to...to do grading work, to install waterlines, to construct a reservoir, to install exterior windbreaks and internal fencing, just the...just the infrastructure required to support the proposed activity out there at that ag park. The nexus with the state is that, you know, the state is very interested in expanding use of our...our ag lands and...and supporting agriculture and specifically the University of Hawaii, Tropical Ag College is interested in some of the incubation opportunity or incubator opportunities at...at this particular development. So, again, those are the four projects that we were able to come up with and we're asking, you know, we're proposing that to the council and hoping that you folks will support that. You know, there...there's obviously never been a guarantee that even with a really strong state tie that, you know, funds will be appropriated for this county, but you know, we have been I would say fairly successful, you know, probably within the last six years in, you know, getting some of our projects approved by the state and as one member of the legislatu...legislature said, if you don't ask, then you don't receive. So, so we try to take that, you know, walk that...that middle li...that middle line, that fine line between asking for the world and asking for what we believe is reason...reasonable. So, anyone has any questions? Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Heu: I'd be more than happy to try to answer them. Chair Asing: With that Councilmember Furfaro. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Mr. Heu, thank you for the presentation. I've got really just three questions. When do you think the administration is going to be prepared to show us the potential bond float. Mr. Heu: Very soon. I...it's unfortunately...it's unfortunate that we weren't able to...to get it on an agenda prior to your last meeting of this year. But we've been working with council staff to make sure that we're able to...I'm...I'm hoping that we can have some sort of discussion, timing-wise some time in January is what...what I'm...what I'm hoping. COUNCIL MEETING - 74 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: Okay, I...I...I would appreciate that because, you know, 60 days after that we're then into budget. Mr. Heu: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: On the Kilauea piece, question two, as you know a lot of that initiated...initiation was started by the council and we went out and...and funded the study. But the study showed us, you know, three different proposals. One proposal plan was $4 million; one proposed plan was $3.2 million, and one proposed plan was $2.6 million. Sounds like the administration is kind of settled into the lower of the three options? Mr. Heu: Not, not if we are proposing $4 million. Mr. Furfaro: Are we proposing $4 million or $1.3? Mr. Heu: The 1.3...the 1.3 is a 50% share of the 2.6. Mr. Furfaro: Right and we used...2.6 was the minimum amount of the three plans. Mr. Heu: Yeah, and I apologize for the confusion, but if you look at the narrative for Kilauea Agricultural Park, you'll see in parentheses, it says the estimated project total is $4 million. Mr. Furfaro: Yeah. Mr. Heu: Yeah. So...so that's the total. The 2.6 is funding that we are seeking. We're actually...we've actually got a placeholder with EDA right now for 1.4 which would... Mr. Furfaro: Okay, that clarify... Mr. Heu: ...total the 4,000... Mr. Furfaro: (Inaudible.) Mr. Heu: ...4 million, I'm sorry. Mr. Furfaro: That clarifies it for me because... Mr. Heu: Okay. Mr. Furfaro: You know we had the choices of the Cadillac, the Buick and the Chevrolet. Reading the dollar amounts, it seemed like we were focused on the Chevrolet, so. Mr. Heu: Yeah, in...in reality it's more the Cadillac and... Mr. Furfaro: It's more at the higher end, okay. Mr. Heu: ...based on a lot of community input. COUNCIL MEETING - 75 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: And do I assume, as you talked about...well, regardless, I mean it's always good to have a cadi...the Cadillac to ask for because you just said too that you've had legislators say...tell you, you don't ask, you don't receive, right? Mr. Heu: That's right. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, now you also said that our focus is going to be on shoreline projects with the state and so forth. By looking at this on 'Aliomanu as the high priority, do I assume we're going to be pursuing Pono Kai in the bond? Mr. Heu: You know, we...we've had internal discussions on that and it made the discussion list, but what we're hesitant to do is...is commit construction dol...you know request construction dollars for projects that we're not ready to go with yet, you know. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. So, do we have all the design and the scope funding in place. Mr. Heu: Yes, that...that's my belief and that...and that...that's what we're trying to work through right now and... Mr. Furfaro: Okay, because I...I...I heard it a little different from members of your administration the last time we talked about Pono Kai. Mr. Heu: In terms of construction dollars? Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Mr. Heu: Yeah, and...and...and so, you know, it's...we've gone through a number of iterations and again, in our final assessment we felt that it was premature to be requesting the construction dollars. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, but we are focused on the scope and the design? Mr. Heu: Yes, for...for Pono Kai as well as Moana Kai. Mr. Furfaro: Okay, thank you, those are my three questions. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any other questions? Councilmember Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. Thank you, Gary, for the synopsis. Mr. Heu: Sure. Ms. Kawahara: Regarding the Open Space/Park Land Acquisition portion of your request, I'm not sure, did I hear you mention or will you be...or will you... Open Space and Park Land Acquisition, did you mention anything about using the Open Space Commission studies and reports that have been submitted in the past? Because I didn't hear you mentioning that when you said you were going to be developing this more specifically into what kind o£ . . Mr. Heu: Yeah, I...I think... COITNCIL MEETING - 76 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Kawahara: ...projects you're looking at. Mr. Heu: You know I think right now the Open Space Commission, I think they are getting ready to finalize their...their priority list, their new priority list. You know, they...they...they go through the...this annual iteration of reviewing the various potential acquisitions and then they submit that up for...for...for administrative and council review. Based on their last prioritized list...listing, Ithink Black Pot was their...their number one...was their number one proposed acquisition and I don't have them memorized, but they were also looking at Salt Pond expansion. There's an Ev...Evslin property down in Waimea and then that piece of property close to Brennecke's down in Po`ipu. You know, they...they...they have other recommendations as well including Kauapea Beach Carson's Beach, Papa'a. Yeah, so...so what I was going to...as...as I was saying what...what I was proposing to do so as not to...I want to give the legislature as much specific, you know, information as they need to be able to make a determination as to whether they'll fund that line item or not. But I also don't want to lock us into something that, you know, we ultimately may not be able to make happen. So, I...I want to...I want to preserve some flexibility there for...for the administration and the council to be able to make certain determinations in terms of how those moneys will ultimately be spent. But yeah, certainly we're not going to pull something out of, you know, left field to...to fund out of there because there's already any number of good...you know, sites that have been identified. Ms. Kawahara: Okay and I appreciate that because yes, you do want that flexibility but for us just at the county level, I wanted to know that you were going to be drawing on those reports and that experience and all of the work that they've already done. And I...and I wanted to be sure to hear that from you. Mr. Heu: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you. The other question I had and this is the last one, actually there's going to be two questions. Periodically us in Kilauea, we get news releases about conserving water in Kilauea. So I was wondering...we're going to go...we're on record saying that we want to use money and get money for the installation of waterlines and a construction of a reservoir for the Kilauea Ag Park for potable water that's going to be used, potable or potable. Mr. Heu: You know...I mean, I think that's a good question. I think we could...I could probably arrange for a briefing either for individual councilmembers or for the council specific to the water issue in Kilauea. I...I'm not necessarily prepared this afternoon to have that kind of discussion... Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Heu: ...and I apologize for that. Ms. Kawahara: No, because it was part of the report that came up...was water issues and the issues with, you know, not having that reservoir available anymore and... Mr. Heu: Yeah, they...they...they...yeah. Ms. Kawahara: And what kind of water was going to be used. Mr. Heu: Mm-hm. COUNCIL MEETING - 77 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Kawahara: Okay. I appreciate your re...response and I hope to maybe set up some time with you. Mr. Heu: Okay. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. Mr. Heu: Can do that. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Chair. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any other questions, councilmembers? If not, tha...I'm sorry, go ahead Councilmember Kawakami. Mr. Kawakami: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Gary, thank you for coming up with this list. When is the propo...when do...are we going to propose to...to get this approved-and submitted to the leg? Mr. Heu: I think the action that would probably be most appropriate at this point in time is to approve the recommended projects as proposed by the administration and then, in the past, it's kind of been like a shared responsibility, but I think if the council is okay with it, we can go back and have our staff draft up the actual bill and then I guess we'll get further guidance into how that would actually be submitted to the legislature. I...I know the...I know that staff...staff from the leg has been inquiring about the various county packages. So, we probably want to do that as...as quick as possible. So we basically take what you see here and just turn it into the...get it in the proper form to submit as a...as a bill requesting the funding. Mr. Kawakami: Gary, you know on H...on HCOM side, I got to see some of their bills and one was EUTF. Mr. Heu: Mm-hm. Mr. Kawakami: I believe, if I'm not mistaken, it was in line with HSAC's proposal also. I mean that's the one we approved too to push for. That's basically to get a board member from the counties so that the counties can be, you know, represented at EUTF. Mr. Heu: Mm-hm. Mr. Kawakami: You know, if that's the case i£ ..if, you know, if HCOM has a similar proposal, HSAC has a similar proposal, then maybe one (inaudible) may want to add onto the Kauai one. I mean if we go in collectively, I think there's a lot more juice, but that's something you guys can toss around. Other than that, you know, thanks for coming up with this package. Mr. Heu: Yeah. Mr. Kawakami: And you know, I know it was a challenge finding CIP projects. And in light of this economy, it takes some bravery, yeah, to go up and ask for money on top of saving TAT too, but... Mr. Heu: Yeah. COUNCIL MEETING - 78 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Kawakami: ...we gotta do our jobs and we'll be okay. Mr. Heu: In fact I...I think when we met with the legislative team we were a little surprised at the response we got in terms of submitting because the...in a previous year, this was maybe three or four years back, what we did is we actually didn't submit any Kauai specific, Kauai County specific CIP projects, but what we did was we supported State Department of Transportation highways projects that were going to benefit our community, both the Kaumuali`i widening as well as the road widening out on Kuhio Highway. And so that particular year, we didn't submit any CIP from Kauai County but rather used that opportunity to support the state projects. So, we've handled it many different ways in the past. Chair Asing: Okay, Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: (Inaudible) that prompted a question. I like the strategy o£..of having a state nexus and a 50% match and, you know, I think that a few years ago when we didn't, you know, I think that's gotten the legislators attention that...our credibility in terms of asking ha...has improved over the last few years with that strategy. Do you agree with that or... Mr. Heu: I...I agree because clearly, you know, I think some of you have been down there when the Mayors make their...give their message to the...to the joint...at times it's been the joint money...what I call the joint money committees and...and boy, I mean some of those requests coming out of some of the other counties are for specific county projects and...and there's usually a lot of questions asked and some of that stuff isn't that warmly received. But you know for Kauai, you know we've...you know, we've always been very grateful for the le...to the legislature for what they provided us and again, I think even having individual meetings with certain legislators on those money committees I think, yeah, there is acknowledgement that...that Kauai doesn't go overboard in what they're asking for and...and they like that idea that there is that kind of connection. Mr. Bynum: Yeah and it's almost...almost like...like you said, the other counties get scoldings and get hammered and we didn't. So our credibility's...hey, we didn't get hammered and we were successful with some of the requests, so. Mr. Heu: Right. Mr. Bynum: I just was curious if...if you shared that opinion that doing that nexus and being more targeted and not so broad was a...was a good strategy and I think it is and continues to be, so thank you. Mr. Heu: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any other questions, councilmembers? Yes, Councilmember Kawakami. Mr. Kawakami: You know, just a point too, you know we just had our last HSAC meeting and you know, I posed a question to the Executive Committee and asked them how many of the other counties have their own legislative package because I was giving the Kauai report and I said that Kauai has a county legislative package. And none of the other counties are coming COUNCIL MEETING - 79 - December 16, 2009 forward with a package. And so I think that says volumes about our hustle. You know what I mean? It'll work if you work it. So, work and then that's what we do. You know, we work hard and we're going to be ahead of the game so, thanks. Chair Asing: Great, thank you. Mr. Heu: Chair, you know I'm not...you know again, I...I...I can see a motion to...to you know approve this, but I...I guess I want to address Councilmember Kawakami's suggestion of the EUTF bill. I'm not sure what the best way to handle that is because this is the last council meeting, you know, of the year and I'm not sure if there'd be some kind of motion that says that if it...if it's appropriate that the council authorizes administration to include in the package, you know, the EUTF bill as part of the Kauai package. I...I...I don't know how we would do that. Chair Asing: I...I would be a little bit hesitant in doing that. Mr. Heu: Okay. A...and, you know, the thing is that it's not...it's not that that bill...that bill won't be, you know, adequately represented because it will go up through HCOM and it will go through HSAC and you know, the Mayor, if he feels it appropriate, can even add that into his message to the money committees when he gets up there, you know. Even though it's not part of our package, he can still lend his, you know, support for it as he makes...as he does his message. But, however, the council chooses to approach that. Chair Asing: Go ahead. Mr. Kawakami: You know, I don't want to just do things on the fly, so I mean, you know I don't even know if it's possible. One...one possibility, thinking outside the box, is you know HSAC was going to send a letter to HCOM anyway to tell them, you know, we should be getting together to see where we can find common ground. Mr. Heu: Right. Mr. Kawakami: And move forward on proposals unanimously together and...and show a sign of force with the counties, and you know, maybe what's more appropriate in...I don't know if it's going to be possible, but maybe a joint resolution between HCOM and HSAC would be in line. I don't know if it's ever been done before, but just so we're not doing things on the fly, but... Chair Asing: Okay. Mr. Kawakami: ...we can talk story about that later on. Mr. Heu: Mm-hm. Chair Asing: Yeah, I'm sure that's possible and you know, HCOM is...is really new so I...I think that's a good way to go. With that, any other questions? If not, I'll call the meeting back to order and have a motion to approve. Mr. Heu: Okay, thank you. There being no further questions, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: COUNCIL MEETING - 80 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro moved to approve C 2009-396, seconded by Mr. Bynum. Chair Asing: Thank you, Gary, for all the information. Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Gary. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Gary. Mr. Chang: Thanks, Gary. The motion to approve C 2009-396 was the put, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: With that, County Attorney, please. There being no objection, the rules were suspended. Mr. Furfaro: Excuse me, just procedural, did...did we ask for public testimony on the last item. Just...I don't see anybody here but I... Chair Asing: Yeah, no, no, I...I didn't. Mr. Furfaro: No. There was only one guy (inaudible). Chair Asing: Yeah, well, un...unless the individual comes up and asks to be recognized, then... Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Chair Asing: It's not a problem. Okay. ALFRED B. CASTILLO, JR., COUNTY ATTORNEY: Council Chair, Councilmembers, good afternoon. Al Castillo, County Attorney. Going on ES-413, ES-414, and ES-415. I will be addressing 415. I will be addressing 415, but let me read the...the request. ES-413 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4) and (8); and Kauai County Charter §3.07(E), the purpose of this executive session is to consult with the Council's legal counsel to receive legal updates, overviews,. and recommendations for purposes of obtaining Council approval of proposed settlement of a workers' compensation claim, and evaluate employees' ability to return to work. This deliberation and/or decision making involves matters that require the consideration of information that must be kept confidential as, inter alia, it concerns significant privacy interests. The significant privacy interests relate to a medical history, diagnosis, condition, treatment, or evaluation and which, pursuant to state or federal law, including Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, are protected from disclosure. ES-414 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4), (6) and (8), and Kauai County Charter section 3.07(E), the purpose of this executive session is to provide the Council a briefing on Michael G. Ching v. Kauai County Council, Civil No. 05-1-0080 (Fifth Circuit Court); County of Kauai, et al. v. Office of Information Practices, et al., Civil No. 05-1-0088 (Fifth Circuit Court) and Raymond L. Chuan and Walter S. Lewis v. County of Kauai et al ,Civil No. 05-1-0168 (Fifth COUNCIL MEETING - 81 - December 16, 2009 Circuit Court) 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. ES-415 Pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes Sections 92-4, 92-5(a)(4) and (8), and Kauai County Charter Section 3.07(E), the Office of the County Attorney requests an executive session with the Council to provide a briefing regarding legal issues related to the regulation of transient vacation rentals and the proposed adoption of Bill 2298. This briefing and consultation involves the consideration of the powers, duties, privileges, immunities and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate to this agenda item. Chair Asing: Thank you. What I'd like to do is call the meeting back to order and have a motion to move into executive session. The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, just...Peter Nakamura, County Clerk, for the record. Just on Executive Session 413, which the county attorney just read, after checking with the County Attorney's Oflice and with the County's Third Party Administrator, they were...they said it would be all right to defer this matter until the January 6 meeting. So that's just 413. Chair Asing: Okay. Well, thank you for saying that. Since that is on the record, we will be moving into executive session for 414 only at this time. (Inaudible. ) Chair Asing: Okay, okay, great. Okay, with that said, can I have a motion to move into executive session for ES 414 and 415. Mr. Bynum moved to convene in executive session for ES 414 and ES 415, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Thank you, we're going to move into executive session. There being no objections, the Chair recessed the meeting at 5:05 p.m. The meeting was called back to order at 7:40 p.m. Chair Asing: The meeting is now called to order. With that, Mr. Clerk, can we have the next item please. RESOLUTION: Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, we're back on page 6 of the council's agenda on Resolutions, the continuation of discussion on Resolution No. 2009-71 which is a resolution adopting the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan Update for the County of Kauai. Chair Asing: Oh, okay. With that, I'd like to suspend the rules. Donald. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. COUNCIL MEETING - 82 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Good evening. Mr. Craggs: Good evening. Chair Asing: With that, councilmembers, the rules are suspended. Questions, councilmembers? Ms. Kawahara: I have questions. Chair Asing: Go ahead, Cou...Councilmember Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara: I do have questions. Thank you and thank you for having them come back. Chair Asing: Sure. Ms. Kawahara: I know it's the...we're at the later part of the evening, but I did have questions because my understanding is this is the last time that we'll be able to address Mister... Mr. Craggs: Craggs. Ms. Kawahara: ...Craggs, himself, before we go to public hearing. So, I had specific questions about the plan, and how you got to this...to certain numbers and specifically because the hearing was on May 12...public hearing was on May 12 and there were at least two questions that came up that a lot of people made the same comment on that I wanted you to be able to address here. Mr. Craggs: Okay. Ms. Kawahara: And that was the 35% diversion in the...in the plan is too low and diversion could be much higher and if you could please explain that. It is also...I wanted to let the public know that it's in Appendix C, but as you know, we're...we're going to be broadcasting this, so I think it's beneficial for us to be able to do it in public here. So if you could address that issue about why the 35%... Mr. Craggs: Of course. Ms. Kawahara: ...was used in the diversion rate. Mr. Craggs: Thank you for the opportunity to address it, Councilmember. In developing the goals associated with the plan, we had a discussion with the Solid Waste Advisory Committee and the staff. BC, Videographer: (Inaudible) mike, please. Mr. Craggs: Okay. BC, Videographer: (Inaudible.) Mr. Craggs: Sure. BC, Videographer: Okay, good. Mr. Craggs: Is it...is it on? COUNCIL MEETING - 83 - December 16, 2009 BC, Videographer: Yes. Mr. Craggs: Some plans have quantitative goals in terms of the amount of diversion which is...there was some reference to that today. Other plans talk about basically maximizing diversion based on programs and actual program implementation. The basis for the 35% is grounded in actual. program implementation that R.W. Beck has been involved in and what's taken place in the industry. The reference to having higher diversion rates and specifically zero waste comes with some other communities in the U.S. that have undertaken that. In instances where that's been advocated as a goal, their diversion levels are much, much higher than Kauai County's. So they're starting at a different place. The primary reason for the 35% diversion is based on projections that are in the plan for implementing those key upstream diversion programs that we talked about. And as I mentioned today and maybe I didn't articulate it well, it doesn't mean that after five years you wouldn't exceed the 35%, but we had to come up with what I would consider, Councilmember, a reasonable projection within in the five-year planning timeframe. And I think if you boil it all down to what the...the...the primary issue is, it's if you implement a curbside recycling program, how much are you going to divert and in my conversations with some of the folks that spoke today and we've talked frequently throughout the planning process, that's where the difference in opinion exists. But we stand by what we're proposing. We think it's defensible. We think, more specifically, it's realistic considering where...where Kauai County is presently at. Does that help, Councilmember? Ms. Kawahara: Yes, it does. Mr. Craggs: Okay. Ms. Kawahara: I would...I'm glad you were able to defend... BC, Videographer: Can't hear you. Ms. Kawahara: Oh, I'm glad you were able to...you're comfortable defending that because it is...it is quite low and I'm sure that people will...are expecting it to be higher and... Mr. Craggs: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: ...and in that expectation, this leads to the question of the waste-to-energy... Mr. Craggs: Of course. Ms. Kawahara: ...in the five-year. Mr. Craggs: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: The question that comes up that I've received is have you considered in the waste-to-energy portion and looked into the proposals in Maui and the Big Island, their request for proposals and what they found when they looked at a...a WTE facility. Was... Mr. Craggs: Yes. COUNCIL MEETING - 84 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Kawahara: Have you looked at that? Were you...were you made aware of it and how did that factor in if at all because it is a local, you know, a local parallel... Mr. Craggs: It is. Ms. Kawahara: Where...whereas sometimes where you're getting your numbers are from other places and maybe not exactly like Kauai. So I was curious about what happened and if you went out and got those proposals and looked at them because I think they finally determined that was a significant barrier...the WTE was a significant...had significant barriers and the operating costs would be far greater than what you might have estimated in your report. Mr. Craggs: When we put our cost estimate together, we...we used industry information. There's essentially two primary vendors of waste-to- energy, Covanta and Wheelabrator, and those were...are two firms that are...have been involved in projects here in Hawaii. For example, Covanta has been the operator and partner with the City & County of Honolulu ever since their H-Power facility was developed. And actually R.W. Beck was involved in assisting Hawaii County in evaluating the proposals in...in Hawaii County. So, we're familiar with those costs. In this environment, it's really challenging to determine what those costs are going to be because of the economic downturn. At the time when the estimates were provided initially, we were very comfortable with it. I'm still comfortable with ultimately the development cost and the operating cost and ultimately what you see as the proposed tipping fee of $121 to $139 per ton. It's also fair to say that most waste-to-energy facilities that have been developed are larger than what we're talking about here. However, there are at least eight facilities, again on the mainland, that are operating that are sized between 2 and 5 hundred tons per day. And they are operating well and the technology for waste-to- energy has evolved and as I mentioned in the presentation that I made earlier today, just to set a criteria to make the determination on which technology was. preferable and waste-to-energy has the greatest commercially operating status historically, which means the technology is proven. Again, it doesn't mean the other technologies don't work, it just means in terms of managing your risk, that's why we would recommend it. So to your question directly, we did take those into account, but reasonable people can disagree, so. Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Mr. Craggs: There...there's certainly a disagreement about that. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. So when you took them into account, how...what...what caused you to...to not come to the same...to come to the different conclusion. What, in their report, was different in your mind that made you come to the conclusion that it was something that was feasible economically? Mr. Craggs: Well, I...I also have a different perspective on what took place in Hawaii County. I've heard characterized here a couple of times that basically it was scuttled because it was too expensive. That isn't necessarily the case from...from my perspective. There was a change within the decision making body similar to this in terms of whether to support waste to energy at that point in time, and then there was also some challenges with negotiating the agreement with the chosen vendor. So whether it's economically viable comes down to the factors that we evaluated here: Is there an adequate quantity of waste, does the technology COUNCIL MEETING - 85 - December 16, 2009 work, and what is the competitive alternative. So, in other words in places like Wyoming, for example, where it costs $15 a ton to dispose of waste, waste to energy doesn't make sense. Here in Kauai, it's my understanding with the new landfill, per ton cost will be over $100 a ton. So therefore, you should consider it for that reason and then, Councilmember, the other reason is as mentioned this afternoon is the energy piece. Because of the energy situation that you have here, displacing ener...displacing imported fuels really makes sense to consider. Whether it's the biomass project that Donald was telling me about earlier today to waste to energy, all of those, we think you should consider and this is one of those that we would recommend you consider. Ms. Kawahara: And it is...it is a consideration and it is further down in the process... Mr. Craggs: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: ...in the five-year plan according to this. And it is...it's not a recommendation, but it's a...it's a...something to look at. Or was it a recommendation? Mr. Craggs: Well, as I...as I tried to characterize today, the plan is a roadmap... Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Mr. Craggs: You're in charge of implementation. The...the roadmap has...has what we call a downstream management component and we were charged with looking at which downstream management component we would recommend and out of those options that were there during our analysis, we think that's one you ought to consider. However, I certainly am realistic and I understand the budget challenges you all have. But if you're going to develop a landfill that's going to ultimately cost over $100 per ton to operate and to develop, it makes sense to look further at this as an option because of the benefits. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. I think about two more questions... Chair Asing: Go ahead. Ms. Kawahara: Okay and I appreciate it, his time because like I said you're...you're here for just now. In the memo...I hope you know what this one is...the memo from...is that you, Bob, Robert Craggs? Mr. Craggs: That's me. Ms. Kawahara: So you should know. It says that... Mr. Craggs: Can you tell me the date of the memo. Ms. Kawahara: Apri12, 2009. Mr. Craggs: Okay. Ms. Kawahara: And it was in response to key questions... Mr. Craggs: Oh yes. COUNCIL MEETING - 86 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Kawahara: ...and additional information requested by the council and staff. Mr. Craggs: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: The feasibility point for WTE, waste-to-energy relative to increased recycling diversion and you gave us a...a...a sister memorandum on that, I think, for a minimum size. Mr. Craggs: I remember that... Ms. Kawahara: (Inaudible) to go together? Mr. Craggs: Yeah, I do. Yeah, I remember the discussion at the...at the council level because the discussion was R.W. Beck, is there enough waste that would be remaining after maximizing diversion that would meet a "minimum requirement." And I...in the memo I suggest that there are 200 ton per day facilities that are operating. I talk about the waste flow here and as I mentioned, we were looking at the...at the county's controlled waste. Ms. Kawahara: Right, county controlled. Mr. Craggs: And as I also mentioned this afternoon is that one of the things that has changed since...since April '07 is that if the county chooses to, you could actually direct all of the waste from the county to this facility if necessary. But to that point, it ba...basically the point is that there are 200 ton per day facilities operating and we're projecting that there would be adequate quantities available. Now, where the disagreement again comes is maximizing diversion. As you heard today, some folks believe that if you divert more then there won't be 200 tons per day available. The other disagreement is in terms of projecting how much the waste stream will grow and in our plan, we've made some projections on the growth in the waste stream. So if you disagree with the assumptions, that's how you would get to the conclusion that you wouldn't have enough waste. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: When you build any kind of project like this, you don't build it just to fit the waste today, you build it to fit the waste stream in the future and so that was accounted for also. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: So the memo... Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Mr. Craggs: Councilmember, I'm sorry, I went round and round, was to address the question of R.W. Beck is to...basically what's the...what's the threshold level and we think 200 tons per day is reasonable because there are commercially operating facilities at 200 tons per day. There's one an hour from my house that just expanded from 200 to 500 tons per day. It's been operating for 15 years. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. It's...and the last part of the memo, it says that we, the county, will need to address the issue of assuring the flow of solid waste COUNCIL MEETING - 87 - December 16, 2009 to the waste-to-energy facility. My question to you is how big an issue is it to assure that flow in your mind as our consultant and as a professional in the field with the studies that you had and the experience that you know of at other places? Mr. Craggs: Well, it comes back to what you design for. It's...it's imperative that you basically have a good handle on the flow of the waste that goes to the facility, and that the facility it designed for any "seasonal fluctuations" you may have. So specifically, if you design it for only the waste that's generated and collected by the county staff, then you need to have a sense on if there's some seasonality associated with it. If you design it to take all of the waste within the county, then you have to have, as I mentioned, you have to develop basically an ordinance that directs the flow of the waste that's hauled by the private haulers to the facility and so my reference to assuring the flow of the waste stream is...becomes even more critical... Ms. Kawahara: Very critical. Mr. Craggs: ...if you design it that way. Now just to give you an example, again the City & County of Honolulu has had issues with their haulers because they charge a tip fee in the $90 range and they require essentially the waste to go to their waste-to-energy facility or they direct it to the landfill, and they're in the process, as you may know, in...in addressing the shipping of the waste, which was as a result of some of that concern. But they too, just as a...as a...a frame of reference, I've looked into basically assuring the flow of the waste and under Hawaii law, what kinds of issues they need to address. So, to your question directly, it becomes more critical if you try to direct all the waste. It's still critical if you're...if you're just taking the county collected waste. But if you're collecting the waste, it's just a matter of knowing what you're collecting and getting it to the facility. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, two questions related to that. When you say we did not conduct what-if scenarios to isolate new programs independently of one another, is that meaning that you didn't...you wouldn't isolate whether we were at 35% diversion, 45, 50%, whether or not we...WTE is still feasible? Is that what that statement means because... Mr. Craggs: Yeah, I'm not sure of the context of that, but I can... Ms. Kawahara: Because I thought that might have been what it was, that you...you weren't able to or did not do any kind of analysis as to at what percentage rate, how high we could go and that... Mr. Craggs: No. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: The...this refers specifically to coming up with the cost information for individual programs. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. For the 45 to 86...45 now and 85 if we implement everything. Mr. Craggs: What...what this is referring to is if you want to know specifically the cost of a program like green waste collection. If you want to COUNCIL MEETING - 88 - December 16, 2009 understand the cost of green waste, you can say well I'm going to implement it without having an automated collection system in place. You're going to have to (inaudible) automated collection system in place so you have trucks so you can share those trucks in doing both programs. So, what we're saying is that when we get our cost estimates, we assumed that the costs were interrelated because the programs were interrelated. It didn't have anything to do with the diversion. Ms. Kawahara: Oh, okay, okay. Mr. Craggs: And I...and I say that because... Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. Mr. Craggs: ...this is within the bullet related to the cost information. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you. And I'm glad you mentioned seasonality because that was another issue that...that I wanted to be sure... Mr. Craggs: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: ...we covered because you did aone-week study of the waste stream. And...and according to this, you said that that is the best practices versus where people do it maybe four times a year. And I understand, of course, that we don't have the same issue of seasonality, but we do have different...different waste streams at different times. And I'm wondering how you were able to...do it. Mr. Craggs: Address that? Ms. Kawahara: Address that... Mr. Craggs: Yeah. Ms. Kawahara: ...difference in...in for, you know, for the week versus trying to make sure you hit anomalies. Mr. Craggs: It's a very good question. Ask it all the time. Ms. Kawahara: Yeah and it...it was important. Mr. Craggs: Because...because...because it...intuitively Ithink you need to have a good explanation. The way that we approached it is...is based on again the industry approach and there's actually what they call ASTM Standards for doing it which basically supports the statistical methodology. Now, in lay...layperson's terms, we may have only been out there and sorting the materials for a week, but we looked at the quantities of waste that went into the landfill over a broader period of time. So in other words, we were out there determining the composition based on our sorting that week, but in terms of the quantities, we worked with Donald's staff to get information in terms of how much waste goes to the landfill on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, annual basis. So, we got a sense of how much variation there is and there really wasn't very much. To your point in terms of the change in the composition, our results have medians and ranges. So there's a confidence interval, in other words a high and a low. So if it was 36% paper, there's a high and a low or a range which is the COUNCIL MEETING - 89 - December 16, 2009 statistical confidence or what I like to say in the political arena, it's the margin of error. You took a poll. So when you were running for election, if they po...if they took a poll and you were up by 5 percentage points, then there was a margin of error o£..of plus or minus something depending on how much you did. But in...in all seriousness, we're confident in...in what was provided. The larger the margin of error, the larger the high and low range; you can see that with some materials. But if you do enough samples, then you'll narrow that down. So, there may be some variation is what I'm trying to say, but the variation is within those confidence intervals and we feel...feel pretty strongly that that's the case and there are details...detailed tables that I can provide to you if you would like... Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: ...beyond what's in the plan. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, I might do that. Okay and then one last question because you brought it up and it actually encapsulates my whole question on waste to energy. The margin of error in your recommendation when it's 35% diversion and the waste-to-energy project coming on in five, you know, having that option in five years, what's the margin of error that we can't meet the 200 tons per day? Mr. Craggs: Well, I think...the way that I'll answer that question is...is that you should monitor the growth in the waste stream over the five-year period of time. Ms. Kawahara: The growth and the diversion. Mr. Craggs: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: There is a significant amount of cushion in the tonnage numbers. I'd have to go back and calculate it, but what I'm suggesting is that if you divert a higher percentage, your waste stream will still generate an adequate quantity to develop the 200 ton per day facility. But I can't give you a...a specific quantitative number without looking at it more specifically. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: But there is some...there is some conservative nature and we need to do that. I mean, when we make these kinds of recommendations... Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Mr. Craggs: They have to be defensible. If you divert 75%, then you don't need awaste-to-energy facility. It's that simple. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Craggs: But in the next five years, I do not see that as very likely. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. COUNCIL MEETING - 90 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Craggs: So I would strongly recommend that you monitor what takes place as you go forward. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you for your time and your willingness to answer... Mr. Craggs: You bet, good questions. Ms. Kawahara: ...my questions, and again, they were from the public comments and responses that I wanted to be sure came out in this...in this arena. Mr. Craggs: Yeah and I'll just...I'll just restate as you mentioned that. Appendix C, there's a summary of all of the comments as well as, with Allison's he1p...Allison Fraley's help, I tried to provide answers... Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Mr. Craggs: ...written answers to all of the key questions including the waste-to-energy questions. Just...just to provide some more data (inaudible). Ms. Kawahara: Okay, I really appreciate it. And thank you, Chair, for that time. Chair Asing: Okay. Any other questions? Councilmember Furfaro. Mr. Furfaro: Yes, to Councilwoman Kawahara... BC, Videographer: Check your mike. Mr. Furfaro: To Councilwoman Kawahara, those were all very good questions. For some of us, we do understand the...some of the other variables that you did not mention. For example, the waste-to-energy piece on the Big Island, I think in our last discussion, one of the hurdles was the fact that existing they have no collection system on the Big Island, and securing the waste stream was a component and if you remember, I think we had this conversation as... Mr. Craggs: I recall. Mr. Furfaro: ...one of the...one of the things that might have create...created this revisit on their part because they would actually have to de...you know right now they depend on citizens to go to collection sites... Mr. Craggs: Transfer stations like you folks. Mr. Furfaro: Yeah. So that...that was one of the questions. The other one I think in discussing a starting point at 35% diversion from a standpoint of forecasting financial cost, it was better to be conservative in the beginning in projecting that and giving us some room to grow is...is the way I recall it because we would have to budget as such. COUNCIL MEETING - 91 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Craggs: And also what plays into it is the growth in the waste stream offsets the percentage. So in other words, we're projecting a growth in quantities, you know, from the roughly 25,000 to 54,000 tons. So then it comes back to again how much does the waste stream grow? And we've made some projections in the plan itself in terms of growth and that's where some of the...some of the disagreement is coming from. Mr. Furfaro: Yup, and then also, you mentioned it, about us having an ordinance, but there was a case you re...you presented to us where it was determined in court that the public control of the...of all of the waste and the waste stream on the island could, in fact, be cleaned by ordinance and it could stand up in court. Mr. Craggs: U.S. Supreme Court, April 2007 decision Oneida- Herkimer and it's listed in the plan in a couple different places, which is the basis for that. Thank you. Mr. Furfaro: And Councilwoman, I want to thank you for asking those excellent questions that some of us had a little preview a couple years ago, so thank you. Mr. Craggs: Maybe more than you wanted to. Mr. Furfaro: Maybe. Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Mr. Chair, I just want to reiterate that I...I have generated a list of questions, but I think they're more appropriate for the administration, so I'll do that at subsequent meetings. But one last question for our consultant and i£..in case I don't have an opportunity, I've seen you present a number of times over the last three years and I appreciate the clarity of your answers and your thoughtfulness and... Mr. Craggs: Thank you. Mr. Bynum: ...and the work that you've done for the County of Kauai. I think it's very helpful. But you know, in recycling some of the things we recycle can be seen as commodities and it looked like the price fell out from under those commodities in the last couple years. I visited a MRF in Oregon and the guy was saying, man, a couple years ago we...we were...we were really doing well with selling plastic, particularly white paper and you know, they had actually resorted their paper into white and other because they were getting such a return. He said, but now we're having to pay people to take the plastic away. We're not getting anything for it. Has there been any rebound in that now and... and would you speculate what the future might bring? Mr. Craggs: Speculation, I like that. The...the short answer is that the prices have rebounded. Pretty much when the economic downturn started last year in the fall, when consumers started purchasing a whole lot less, recyclable materials pricing decreased dramatically and then when most of the commodities moved to historical lows and then as I would say about February of '09, Councilmember, they have started to rebound and we just did some analysis for one of our other clients and corrugated...old corrugated containers and newspaper is now back to pretty much where...where it was historically. It's not back to where it COUNCIL MEETING - 92 - December 16, 2009 was prior to 2008, October 2008, when it was at historical highs. So they are like commodities where it's volatile pricing, but the...but the direct answer is it's much better than it was and in all around the country in December and January, processors were asking to be paid to take anything. Mr. Bynum: So that's kind of good news. There has been some rebound and... Mr. Craggs: It...it is. And plastics also has rebounded and so some of the other materials. Mr. Bynum: And...okay, thank you very much. Mr. Craggs: You're welcome. Chair Asing: Okay, any other questions? Councilmember Chang. Mr. Chang: Thank you, Mr. Craggs. (Inaudible) actually is a kind of a little bit of a weird meeting because as I look at the clock, it was about eight hours ago that you started your presentation, so I'm sure we're throwing off the viewing audience right now about where we are, so I'm going to ask a couple questions and I don't believe you answered it. So if you did, just remind me that you did. When we talk about that diversion, we were talking about realistically 35%, but of course it could be more, that was conservative. You know like was it either Maui or the Big Island, but one of the other counties had a goal of about 70% and that's what some of our people are...are looking toward or asking. We had a projection of about five years down the line that diversion being about 35%. Do we know what those other counties were...what was their timeframe to achieve that 70% diversion? Mr. Craggs: I'm going to answer it by saying that Maui County Solid Waste Plan set a goal of 60%. It's my understanding the recycling rate, though, is comparable to yours. They're just in the beginnings of implementing a curbside recycling program. And in terms of how they got the 60%, I would debate that. It...it appears from where I sit that they picked that as a goal and they're going to try to get there, but I don't see how they're going to get there in a five-year period of time. So, Councilmember, to your question specifically, I don't believe it's clear for Maui when they thought they would get to 60%. I don't believe that the goal was for them to get to 60% in five years, but that's the goal that they've selected. Mr. Chang: But our realistic goal is realistically... Mr. Craggs: 35%. Mr. Chang: ...35% in five years. Mr. Craggs: Yes. Mr. Chang: Okay, so if we're starting our process now, you also mentioned at the end of the road in five years it'll cost approximately $85 per household? COUNCIL MEETING - 93 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Craggs: If you include the waste to energy as part of that program, then the total diversion would be 65% because you would add in all of the waste to energy that's diverted. Mr. Chang: Okay, so how do we justify to the residents that down the line we got these programs going on that's great for Kauai, but it's going to cost you $85 a month in five years? Mr. Craggs: Now that's the question, isn't it? That's...that's a...the tough question. In recommending the pla...in the plan in its recommendations, at the heart of that is to maximize diversion to the extent possible before you implement the waste-to-energy component. So through the iterative process that we've taken and several of you have mentioned this is we want to implement a recycling program as soon as possible and a MRF as soon as possible to see how much we can maximize and see if R.W. Beck knows what it's talking about. The $84 per household, I don't know that I can answer that question for you. It...it is going to be a costly venture to do that. I would just reiterate what I said this afternoon that if you don't do anything, your costs are still going to go up to over $45 per household per month. Mr. Chang: Okay and that could be a question we could leave for the administration because there's a lot of...you know households or multi- family homes with just one person at the home or you know, you might live in a subdivision that the maintenance is included so green waste is diverted some other way, you know, so there's a lot of different variables. I just wanted to, you know, make sure that when we were talking about the residences, everybody has a different story and that 85 is not going to add up with one family circumstance, another, so I just was trying to clarify that justification because that's not even across the board. Mr. Craggs: Yeah and that...the per household cost is...is just a way to bring it down into, as I mentioned, more lay person's terms. The detailed costs are in here in terms of the absolute cost for operations and staffing, etc. But it's fair to say also and your point is a good one, it's also how you count, as they like to say. I mean there's...there's materials that may be...being diverted that we just haven't been able to count. You know, for example, one of the discussions I've had with Allison, for example is the composting facilities here, what are they reporting that they're actually receiving and diverting and she's concerned that the information may not be as accurate as it could be in reflecting all that which is received. So, I think your point is a good one. It's also how...how it's counted and that sh...that's part of, I think, the staff's role and responsibility in their undertaking. Mr. Chang: Okay, thank you. And again, thank you for clarifying because you know eight hours ago, looking at a presentation, then we get into it a bit, and then a little bit of this, little bit of that and then boom, we don't see you again for eight hours, so I just wanted to kind of refresh because some people that are probably tuning in are getting thrown off with everything that was going on the agenda... Mr. Craggs: I understand. Mr. Chang: ...so thank you... Mr. Craggs: You're welcome. COUNCIL MEETING - 94 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Chang: ...for answers, mahalo. Chair Asing: Any more questions, councilmembers? councilmember Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara: I just...one more question because it came up in a testimony we received today and I'm wondering if you had it. Engineering Solutions, we had a Kauai Energy Summit, I guess, last week here and do you know the question already? Mr. Craggs: No, I...I...I was aware of the Energy Summit...that the Energy Summit was taking place. Ms. Kawahara: Okay and it's...this is a testimony, so it's...it's public testimony and I just wanted you to be able to address it. There was somebody called Paul Scott of Engineered Systems on Oahu that discussed the not very stellar successful waste-to-energy facilities happening and they're not being built today that are being successful. Let me repeat that. There are no new successful waste-to-energy facilities being built today and...and of course I would like to hear your input on that. Again, it says no new successful waste to energy. Mr. Craggs: Sure. May I ask...may I ask, you said Paul? Ms. Kawahara: Paul Scott of Engineered Systems on Oahu. Mr. Craggs: And is...is...is his company a consulting firm? Do they promote plasma arc gasification? Ms. Kawahara: I don't know. It's a good question. Mr. Craggs: Okay. Ms. Kawahara: But I was wondering... Mr. Craggs: Sure. Ms. Kawahara: ...because you know my reason for asking the questions. My reason...that's avery good question...my reason for asking so many questions about waste to energy is...my biggest fear and you as a councilmember would also have that fear is that...that we're going to end up having to run out of waste and pay them...pay them to...for waste that we don't have. Mr. Craggs: Oh, and it's back to the question you had previously in terms of waste assurance. You wouldn't go forward and develop awaste-to- energy facility unless you had adequate waste and you're able to direct that waste as we talked about. You know, to...to...development of waste-to-energy facilities, as I mentioned, there are several that are operating of this size. There are several expansions that are taking place today as we speak in the northeast, in Florida, in the upper Midwest, those are expansions to existing facilities. And as I mentioned the key issue is...what does it compete with? If it...if your...if it cost 25 bucks a ton to landfill, no councilmembers going to vote...most likely no councilmember would vote for awaste-to-energy facility. If it's much more competitive than the 80, 90 or 100-ton per range and there's the commitment to divert, then it...it becomes more of a...more of a realistic solution. COUNCIL MEETING - 95 - December 16, 2009 Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you very much. Mr. Craggs: (Inaudible.) Chair Asing: Councilmember Chang. Mr. Chang: So, where on the mainland? You mentioned a couple cities. There's awaste-to-energy plant, they might not be doing good in their state, but is it...could it be considered feasible that other interstates for a short drive could help support that waste to energy because my understanding is most of the waste-to-energy plants or many of them are economically unfeasible and many of them will face ex...excessive, unscheduled maintenance. Mr. Craggs: Well, I... Mr. Chang: Hence a...hence a large cost, especially being on a small island like Kauai. Mr. Craggs: It's fair to say that there are some that have operational challenges, but there are commercially operating facilities, Councilmember, and there are several facilities that it's economically feasible and they don't have a significant amount of unscheduled maintenance requirements and my recommendation again would be is to talk to the folks with the Solid Waste Division in the City & County of Honolulu about their facility and some of the challenges that they had. I mean one of the things that we do all the time is have individuals like yourself go see these facilities, you know, and...and also we encourage you to network. I mean obviously to make a prudent decision you need to have a...a real sense of what it's going to look like, what are the challenges, is the consultant telling me, you know, the right issues, discussing the right issues. So, I would disagree with that statement. Mr. Chang: Okay. Chair Asing: Any more questions, councilmembers? If not, thank you very much. I'd like to call the meeting back to order. Mr. Craggs: Mahalo and happy holidays. There being no further questions, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Chair Asing: And I...I'd like, councilmembers, to make one comment. I believe I made this comment before, but I'll do it again. You know about 15 years ago, I sat in a...in a council meeting and across of us in the council meeting was two individuals that came and gave us a presentation. In the presentation the...the information that was given was that there is this new system that they were going to use to take care of all of our waste problems and we will burn it and they...they threw a piece of metal about this size on the table and they said that used to be an automobile and this is what we can do with your waste, and I never forgot. Of course, after that presentation we had about two or three more of that same type of presentation. Today I don't know what has happened. I assume that and I'm not going to mention the name of the company or anything like that; that's not right. I just put this out as caution to everyone because, you know, everybody sells different products they represent, so. But I never forgot that. And I...I will tell you this. I picked up that piece of metal about this size and it was COUNCIL MEETING - 96 - December 16, 2009 extremely, extremely heavy. And so there's...there...there must have been some truth to it. It was not false, but you know, I don't know what the weight of that was, but it was heavy, extra, extra heavy. So, anyway, food for thought. With that the meeting is called back to order and I believe we're going to have a motion to schedule public hearing on January 21, 2010 and refer this to the Public Works Committee. Am I correct? Mr. Furfaro: That's correct. Chair Asing: Okay, got it. Can I have that motion, please? Mr. Furfaro moved to schedule a public hearing for Resolution No. 2009-71 on January 21, 2010 and that it thereafter be referred to the Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, we're back on page...on page 2 of the council's agenda on matters for receipt. For receipt are communica...on page 2, communications C 2009-391, communication C 2009-392, and communication C 2009-393. COMMUNICATIONS: C 2009-391 Communication (11/23/2009) from the Manager and Chief Engineer of the Department of Water, transmitting for Council information the Department of Water's Quarterly Financial Reports as of September 30, 2009, as per County Charter, Section 17.03A: Mr. Chang moved to receive C 2009-391 for the record, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. C 2009-392 Communication (11/27/2009) from the Director of Finance, transmitting for Council information Period 4 Financial Reports -Statement of Revenues as of October 31, 2009: Mr. Chang moved to receive C 2009-392 for the record, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. C 2009-393 Communication (12/04/2009) from the Mayor's Executive Assistant, requesting Council consideration and confirmation of the following appointments and reappointments to various Boards and Commissions for the County of Kauai: (1) Board of Review (Real Property) Lisa Wilson -Filling an unexpired term ending 12/31/2010 Russell Kyono -Filling an unexpired term ending 12/31/2011 (2) Board of Water Supply Roy Asao Oyama - 2nd complete term ending 12/31/2012 (3) Board of Appeals (Building) Dennis Aquino -Filling an unexpired term (Fire background) ending 12/31/2011 Gerald Nakasone - 1St complete term (At-large member) ending 12/31/2012 (4) Board of Ethics Warren Perry - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 Brad Nagano - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 COUNCIL MEETING - 97 - December 16, 2009 (5) Charter Review Commission Mary Lou Barela - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 Jan W. Tenbruggencate - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 Charles Patrick Stack - Filling an unexpired term ending on 12/31/2010 (6) Civil Service Commission Roy Morita - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 (7) Cost Control Commission Lawrence Chaffin, Jr. - Filling an unexpired term ending 12/31/2010 Dirk Apao - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 Russell Wong - 1St complete term ending 12/31/2012 (8) Liquor Control Commission Gerald Shigemi Matsunaga - 2nd complete term ending 12/31/2012 (9) Planning Commission Camilla Chieko Matsumoto - 2nd complete term (At-large member) ending 12/31/2012 (10) Police Commission Rowena Tachibana - 2nd complete term ending 12/31/2012 (11) Salary Commission Charles King -Filling an unexpired term ending 12/31/2011 Sheri Kunioka-Volz - Filling an unexpired term ending 12/31/2010 Mr. Chang moved to receive C 2009-393 for the record, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Council Chair, just one note. We have one testimony submitted for communication C 2009-393 and I believe it was the same piece of testimony submitted by Mr. Rob Abrew this morning. So he asked that it be circulated for this meeting. Chair Asing: Okay, thank you. Okay, can we have the next item please. Mr. Nakamura: On page 3, communications for receipt, communication C 2009-394. C 2009-394 Statement of Condition of the County Treasury as of September 10, 2009: Mr. Chang moved to receive C 2009-394 for the record. Chair Asing: I...I believe we're going to refer this to the... Mr. Furfaro: Yes, I...I had hoped we'd refer it to committee. Chair Asing: Yeah, will you with...withdraw the motion? COUNCIL MEETING - 98 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Chang withdrew the motion to receive C 2009-394 for the record. Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead, Jay. Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2009-394 to the Budget & Finance Committee on January 13, 2010, seconded by Ms. Kawahara, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next matter for receipt on page 3 is communication C 2009-395. C 2009-395 Communication (12/09/2009) from Vice Chair Jay Furfaro, transmitting a written follow-up to his oral declarations at the November 25, 2009 and December 9, 2009 Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee Meetings of a possible conflict of interest regarding Bill No. 2332 because he is on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity, and will abstain from voting and recuse himself from this item. Chair Asing: Can I have a motion to receive? Mr. Kaneshiro moved to receive C 2009-395 for the record, seconded by Mr. Chang. Chair Asing: Any discussion? All those in favor...I'm sorry, go ahead. Mr. Bynum: I just wanted to add the word possible, possible conflict of interest is what the thing says because I thought Mr. Furfaro was being very cautious with this particular one and that's fine. Mr. Furfaro: Well, I...I think I'm being cautious, but I think when you review your packet there's actually a position taken by Habitat of which I'm a Board member, so... Mr. Bynum: Okay. Mr. Furfaro: I felt that...that was the appropriate thing to do. Mr. Bynum: Right. Thank you. Chair Asing: Any further discussion? The motion to receive C 2009-395 for the record was then put, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: We're on page 5 of the council's agenda, Mr. Chair, on claims, communication C 2009-402, claim filed against the county by Joanne Elizabeth Bellis and C 2009-403, claim filed against the county by Sarah M. Reyes. CLAIMS: C 2009-402 Communication (11/24/2009) from the County Clerk, transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by Joanne Elizabeth Bellis for damage to her vehicle, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County COUNCIL MEETING - 99 - December 16, 2009 of Kauai: Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2009-402 to the County Attorney's Office for disposition and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. C 2009-403 Communication (12/4/2009) from the County Clerk, transmitting a claim filed against the County of Kauai by Sarah M. Reyes for loss of liberty and personal property, embarrassment and humiliation, and false arrest, pursuant to Section 23.06, Charter of the County of Kauai: Mr. Furfaro moved to refer C 2009- 403 to the County Attorney's Office for disposition and/or report back to the Council, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next matters for approval are committee reports from your committee on Budget & Finance on page 5, committee report CR-B&F 2009-24, CR-B&F 2009-25, and on page 6, committee report CR-B&F 2009-26. COMMITTEE REPORTS: BUDGET & FINANCE CONIlVIITTEE REPORTS: A report (No. CR-B&F 2009-24) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommended that the following be approved: "C 2009-380 Communication (08/31/2009) from the Director of Finance, requesting Council approval to write-off thirty-one (31) finalled (inactive) sewer accounts and one (1) finalled sludge account totaling an uncollectible delinquent amount of $63,457.78, pursuant to Kauai County Code Section 25-14.3," Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. A report (No. CR-B&F 2009-25) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommended that the following be approved on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2337 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 5A, KAUA`I COUNTY CODE 1987, RELATING TO LIMITATION OF TAXES ON PROPERTY USED FOR LONG TERM AFFORDABLE RENTAL," Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2337, Draft Z) A report (No. CR-B&F 2009-26) submitted by the Budget & Finance Committee, recommended that the following be approved on second and final reading: "Bill No. 2338 AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. B- 2009-691, RELATING TO THE CAPITAL BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2009 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2010, BY REVISING PROJECT DESCRIPTION IN THE GENERAL FUND (Affordable Housing - $1,000,000.00) COUNCIL MEETING - 100 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro moved for approval of the report, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. (See later for Bill No. 2338) Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next item for approval on page 6 are resolutions. The first resolution is Resolution 2009-72. RESOLUTIONS: Resolution No. 2009-72, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL APPOINTMENT TO THE CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION (Mary Lou Barela, First Term): Mr. Kaneshiro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2009-72, seconded by Mr. Bynum, and carried by the following vote: FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 6, AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kawakami TOTAL - 1. Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution 2009-73. Resolution No. 2009-73, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL APPOINTMENT TO THE CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION (Jan W. Tenbruggencate, First Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2009-73, seconded by Mr. Chang. Chair Asing: Any discussion? Roll call... Ms. Kawahara: You know I just wanted to say one thing. Chair Asing: Sure, go ahead. Ms. Kawahara: That I appreciated the caliber of the volunteers that we got for this. They're excellent and I can see that their commitment was to the community and that they would be very, very strong people on the Board. Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further discussion? The motion to adopt Resolution No. 2009-73 was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 6 AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kawakami TOTAL - 1. Chair Asing: Thank you. Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next resolution for approval is Resolution No. 2009-74. COUNCIL MEETING - 101 - December 16, 2009 Resolution No. 2009-74, RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION N0.2008-07 TO REPLACE AND CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT OF A MAYORAL APPOINTEE TO THE CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION (Charles Patrick Stack, Partial Term, replacing Matilda Yoshioka): Mr. Furfaro moved to adopt Resolution No. 2009-74, seconded by Mr. Chang. Chair Asing: Any discussion? Mr. Chang: Yes, Mr. Chair. Chair Asing: Yes, go ahead. Mr. Chang: Now that we've approved all three, I just wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank Mary Lou Barela, Jan Tenbruggencate and Charlie Stack as we all unanimously want to share our aloha to them and wish them well in their endeavors. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further discussion? The motion to adopt Resolution No. 2009-74 was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 6, AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kawakami TOTAL - 1. Chair Asing: Thank you. Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Chair, on the following resolutions, Resolution No. 2009-75, 2009-76, 2009-77, and 2009-78, if we could request that the council defer this pending interviews being scheduled. Chair Asing: Thank you. Can I have a motion to that effect? Resolution No. 2009-75, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL REAPPOINTMENT TO THE POLICE COMMISSION (Rowena Tachibana, Second Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution No. 2009-75, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Resolution No. 2009-76, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL REAPPOINTMENT TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION (Camilla Chieko Matsumoto, Second Term, At-Large): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution No. 2009-76, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Resolution No. 2009-77, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL REAPPOINTMENT TO THE BOARD OF WATER SUPPLY (Roy Asao Oyama, Second Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution No. 2009-77, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. Resolution No. 2009-78, RESOLUTION CONFIRMING MAYORAL REAPPOINTMENT TO THE LIQUOR CONTROL COMMISSION (Gerald Shigemi Matsunaga, Second Term): Mr. Furfaro moved to defer Resolution No. 2009-78, seconded by Mr. Chang, and unanimously carried. COUNCIL MEETING - 102 - December 16, 2009 Chair Asing: Next item please. Mr. Nakamura: Next matter on page 7 are Bills for Second Reading. The first bill for second reading is Bill No. 2337, Draft 1. BILLS FOR SECOND READING: Bill No. 2337, Draft 1 - A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 5A, KAUA`I COUNTY CODE 1987, RELATING TO LIMITATION OF TAXES ON PROPERTY USED FOR LONG TERM AFFORDABLE RENTAL. Chair Asing: Thank you. Before I entertain a...a motion, I am going to re...recuse myself from participating on this item here. I...and the reason for it is I was in the program at one particular time. I pulled out of the program. I mean I don't need to go through the reasons behind it, and because I pulled out of the program I felt that it was not a conflict because I'm not in the program. But I feel that it would not be right for me to vote on it because I...I was a participant prior and therefore, I will not be participating. So, I will turn it over to Vice Chair Furfaro for action and I will leave. (Chair Asing was noted recused from the meeting on Bill No. 2337, Draft 1.) Mr. Furfaro: We have some correspondence being passed out at the moment regarding this. Mr. Nakamura: Mr. Vice Chair, we have one piece of testimony that was submitted by Harold Matsunaga being circulated at the moment. Mr. Furfaro: Is there any commentary since we received testimony? Mr. Bynum: Can...could we get a short recess? Mr. Furfaro: We're going to take a 5-minute recess. There being no objections, the meeting was recessed at 8:29 p.m. The meeting was called back to order at 8:38 p.m., and proceeded as follows: Mr. Furfaro: Okay, we're back from a recess and I do want to ask with this Draft 2337 if there's any discussion by the members? Councilwoman Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Ms. Kawahara: Yes. As the bill stands, right, we...the amendment was that there was not going to be a 5% and no refund, right? Mr. Furfaro: This...this basically says... Ms. Kawahara: The current one. COUNCIL MEETING - 103 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: ...that from the end of this meeting, if it passes, until December 31, because we have no subsequent meetings, this provides an opportunity for people to reapply for the base year. It does do that. If we do not pass it, that window of opportunity closes. It is one of those particular situations that...then those applicants can pursue aone-time, aone-time reinstatement by filing before January 31, 2010. Now it has those similar provisions, but it does not, it does not address a refund mechanism. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, okay. Mr. Furfaro: But without it passing and it's, quite frankly a little bit of a dilemma based on some of the absent members at the present that it's at least allowing people to go back to their original base year. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, okay. Mr. Furfaro: Without it, there is no other opportunity and obviously, I...I supported the refund mechanism. Ms. Kawahara: Right. Mr. Furfaro: But that amendment didn't pass. Ms. Kawahara: Okay. Mr. Chang: Vice Chair, I'm sorry. Ms. Kawahara: Yes. No. And I...I too supported the refund mechanism. Mr. Kaneshiro: Point of order here. The... what we have on the table is not a refund point at this time. If I may, Point of Order. We have the current bill which is basically, you know, stating the facts that... Mr. Furfaro: Thank you, Mr. Kaneshiro, for reminding of...us of that, but I too did make comment about the refund mechanism. I tried to clarify this and Councilwoman, you still have the floor. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. Mr. Furfaro: But the reality is because it is our last meeting, without having this pass, there is no opportunity for people to reapply to the base, and I want to keep the discussion on...on those notes based on the fact that we don't have an amendment to discuss at the meeting here. But the key part is it does go back and allow people to refile for the original piece. Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. Mr. Furfaro: You're quite welcome and you still have the floor. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, okay, okay. So I...I understand that this passing today will allow for people to go back to their original base year for this one- time opportunity and other issues that came up in discussion of this bill previously cannot be discussed. So we're only looking at a bill that allows them back in at the base. COUNCIL MEETING - 104 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Kaneshiro: Correct. Mr. Furfaro: And here's the other, here's the other option. Ms. Kawahara: And...and...and does not recognize anything, any other kind of recognition of what has been provided in the past. Mr. Kaneshiro: That's correct. Mr. Furfaro: (Inaudible.) BC, Videographer: Check your mike, Jay. Mr. Furfaro: We end up with a...a no on this bill, the reality is it doesn't allow anybody to apply. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, and it also...the same thing is true because a majority would have to do whatever it is if we wanted to change it and a majority of five is...four. Okay, so that's...I want to be clear on too. Okay, thank you for clarification. Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Bynum, the floor recognizes you. Mr. Bynum: I kind of have a separate issue and I may need legal help, so I'm glad to see our County Attorney still with us. I...I just...earlier I sand that I respected the decision you made about recusing yourself and I also respect the Chair's decision to do that, and I think in both instances it's with an abundance of caution because, you know, however, the Chair voted on an amendment last time which is now part of this bill and so...and now he's recused himself. So I don't know if that impacts his vote on the amendment last time. And I...I haven't seen this circumstance and so... Mr. Furfaro: It is a...it's a very strange circumstance we're in right now all the way around. But if you'd like...if you'd like to have a discussion with the County Attorney... Mr. Bynum: I just don't want us as a body to get in trouble. I don't know if the County Attorney would have any guidance on this issue. It's kind of unusual because members recuse themselves but they voted on the amendment that made the bill. Mr. Furfaro: And I understand your point and I want to make a clarification. I do not think it's the same because when I recused myself I had actually taken a position as a Board member. I understand your question, though, we're recusing ourselves now when no longer in the program, yet it came through committee that way. But the piece I wanted to...there's...there's no way we can change this or fix this bill at this date and time. What is really on the table is the fact...is people get at least an opportunity to sign up at the old base. Mr. Bynum: Right and I clearly want that to happen, you know. Mr. Furfaro: And it is a dilemma. COUNCIL MEETING - 105 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Bynum: And I would...so just let me sort this out in my own mind. I want to honor the...the majority that made a decision last time, but I also want us procedurally not do something that would cause us a problem, so... Mr. Furfaro: Understood. I just wanted to point out the difference in my recusal. Mr. Bynum: Right, right, right. Ms. Kawahara: Yeah, yeah, yours is different. Mr. Furfaro: Mine is different. Mr. Bynum: So, I'm not trying to...I'm not trying to use this situation as an opportunity to...to change the will of the council, but I want to make sure that we're legal. Ms. Kawahara: So can we request...do you want to request... Mr. Furfaro: Well, I...I'm going to share with you as we are open right now one of the reasons I supported the old amendment but supported the bill is because I believe the filing is important. There is nothing that procures...precludes any member from introducing a...amend...not an amendment, a new bill to the...to the long-term rental in future council meetings. The...the question here is getting people to register at the old rate. Mr. Bynum: Right and I...I'm ready to vote for the bill in its current status for that reason if we're on sound ground doing that. So, is the County Attorney available to answer some questions? Mr. Furfaro: I think the County Attorney went to get a microphone for that. Mr. Bynum: Okay. Mr. Furfaro: So I just want to finish our discussion and make sure we all understood there's nothing that procu...precludes any of us in January in doing something. But this is the last meeting of this year and it has a December 31 registration of applications. Now, Mr. Attorney, may I recognize you, if you would like to participate in this discussion. There being no objection, the rules were suspended. Mr. Castillo: Yes, for the record, Al Castillo, County Attorney. I...I...I...it's my opinion that the discussion is going really off the map. What's be...what's before you is this bill and the mechanics of people recusing themselves, it's not relevant to the me...to this bill and discussion should be on the bill itself and anything outside of that wou...you know, it's...it's not a...not really appropriate. Mr. Furfaro: I appreciate those comments from the County Attorney. I want all the members to know I will restate what I said here. We are in a dilemma. I do not want to see the date pass and the year end that people cannot register. I want to remind you again that there's nothing here that precludes any of COUNCIL MEETING - 106 - December 16, 2009 us to introduce something in January with the group that does register. And so I want to say one more time, I'm trying to pull us back to this item and there are no past or active amendments on the table, so. Mr. Bynum: May I ask a question of the County Attorney? Mr. Furfaro: Mr. Attorney, I'm going to let Mr. Bynum address a question to you. It's your prerogative in the response as it relates to this bill. Mr. Castillo: Okay. Mr. Bynum: Okay, I just want to make sure you understand my question. I concur with Councilmember Furfaro. I want this bill to pass. I honor the vote that happened here last week, right, and that was the will of the majority. I honor that. But the Chair voted on that amendment and now he's recused himself. So is the bill good that we can vote on it right now. Mr. Furfaro: Let me say this again. Mr. Kaneshiro: Point of order. Mr. Furfaro: Point of Order. The amendment and the voting in the past is...is not what's on the table here. The...the...what's on the table is Bi112337. Mr. Castillo: And that is...just for clarification. Yes, that... Mr. Furfaro: You have the floor, I just wanted... Mr. Castillo: That is...that is absolutely correct. You know, what may have happened in the past is...is...right now, it's information that you have, but as far as this body right here and now is the bill, discussion on the bill, and your vote on the bill. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. The meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Mr. Kaneshiro: As a member of the committee, I request the Chair call for the vote. Mr. Furfaro: Okay. Is there an opportunity here to call for the vote and if anybody would like to state anything prior to the vote here, I'll give you a minute around the table. If not, I'm going to call for the vote. Mr. Kaneshiro: Oh, sorry. Ms. Kawahara: I think. I would like to say something. Mr. Kaneshiro: Let me, let me make a motion... Mr. Furfaro: Let's get the motion. Ms. Kawahara: Oh, a motion. COUNCIL MEETING - 107 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Kaneshiro: ...to approve first. Mr. Kaneshiro moved to adopt Bill No. 2337, Draft 1, on second and final reading and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Mr. Chang. Mr. Kaneshiro: Now we can... Mr. Furfaro: Now, I'll recognize you. Ms. Kawahara: I concur with...with everything that's been said here and I...I see this dilemma, and I think Councilmember Bynum's questions are legitimate because of how we got here. But...but I'm ready to vote because of this 12...December 31 deadline. But it is an interesting...it's very interesting, I think, how we got to this point. Thank you. The issues. Mr. Furfaro: I do believe there are...there are a few of us that concur with your comments, but again I want to say there's nothing here that precludes any of us from doing something in January. The issue here is making sure the window is open for people to register to get back in the program right now. Mr. Bynum. Mr. Bynum: I intend to vote for this bill because it was the will of the majority that it be in this form. The only question I asked earlier is just to make sure we're clean, you know. Mr. Furfaro: We...we all heard your question and we heard the answer from the County Attorney. Mr. Bynum: And so, yeah, I'm not trying to make any attempt to change the bill and take advantage of the Chair's recusal. I just want to make sure we were on sound legal basis moving forward and because I do want people to have relief even though I was unable to prevail with my opinion last time, I do want to support the bill, so people can apply and stay...get reinstated to the program. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you for those comments and I think even after it came out in this form, it was probably acknowledged that we all wanted to see the opportunity for people to reregister. That's why it passed unanimously, so. Your point is well taken and my feelings are similar. Mr. Kaneshiro. Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. You know as even Mr. Matsunaga indicates here on his testimony, he says here that he wants to really thank us for us giving him the opportunity to continue to provide affordable rental with this tax relief. So, I want to make it clear that we have written testimony here from people that are in the rental business that are doing affordable rental that supports this current ordinance that we have before us. And again, you know, there are some other issues that I believe Mr. Matsunaga brought up, but we won't discuss that here. It has nothing to do with the current program that we have here, but in some way it may affect, you know, some of the rental, affordable rental owners through some of the hard policies that he indicated here, but I only say that because it's...it's a written testimony here. But again, he...I want you to know that he fully supports this current bill as the bill has been proposed before this body this evening. Thank you for that opportunity to express that. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Mr. Chang, would you want to share anything? COUNCIL MEETING - 108 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Chang: Ah, yes, I'm ready to cast my vote. Mr. Furfaro: Very good and again, I just want to bring people's attention to the fact that this one time...this is for an application for this one-time reinstatement at the original tax base year for which they had and that's the key part. So, with that note I'm going to call for the vote. Mr. Clerk, could you call for the individual votes. The motion to adopt Bill No. 2337, Draft 1, was then put and carried by the following vote: FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro, Kawahara TOTAL - 5, AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kawakami TOTAL - 1 RECUSED & NOT VOTING: Asing TOTAL - 1. Mr. Furfaro: And on that note we can acknowledge the Chairman perhaps coming back in the room. Do we...do we have anything to read while we wait for the Chair's return? Mr. Nakamura: Excuse me, we're back on page 7 of the council's agenda on the planning bill for second reading. This would be Bill No. 2338. (Chair Asing was noted present in the meeting.) Bill No. 2338 - AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. B-2009-691, RELATING TO THE CAPITAL BUDGET OF THE COUNTY OF KAUAI, STATE OF HAWAII, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2009 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2010, BY REVISING PROJECT DESCRIPTION IN THE GENERAL FUND (Affordable Housing - $1,000,000.00): Mr. Chang moved for adoption of Bill No. 2338 on second and final reading, and that it be transmitted to the Mayor for his approval, seconded by Mr. Kaneshiro. Chair Asing: Any...any discussion? Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: I...I just want to make sure I'm very clear here. This...this is the million dollars? Mr. Kaneshiro: Correct. Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Okay and I just want to backtrack that originally we had a presentation by then Council...Mayor Baptiste which this money was earmarked along with the possibility of infrastructure improvements... Chair Asing: Yes. COUNCIL MEETING - 109 - December 16, 2009 Mr. Furfaro: ...for I think the seven parcels that the state had indicated they might be willing to convey to us. But since not much has happened on that, this is giving us the option to do both land acquisition and/or improvements for anything we currently have. Chair Asing: I believe so. Mr. Kaneshiro: Absolutely. Mr. Furfaro: That's correct, right? Okay. Thank you. Chair Asing: Okay, any further discussion? Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Chair Asing: Go ahead. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you, Chair. My question was for the one million, we're...we're changing...revising the project description but to spend it, they'll still have to come forward to...to designate what that one million will be used for. Chair Asing: Yes. Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Mr. Kaneshiro: Correct. Ms. Kawahara: And we would have a say of what that project was or how...if it's spent. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Furfaro: And...and if I could add to that, that was one of the reasons the right-of--entry was requested in the previous change, so if they looked at specific lands, they could make a fair assessment of what they need to come back to us with. Ms. Kawahara: Okay, thank you for your clarification. Chair Asing: Thank you. Any further discussion? The motion to adopt Bill No. 2338 was then put, and carried by the following vote: FOR ADOPTION: Bynum, Chang, Furfaro, Kaneshiro, Kawahara, Asing TOTAL - 6, AGAINST ADOPTION: None TOTAL - 0, EXCUSED & NOT VOTING: Kawakami TOTAL - 1. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Nakamura: The last matter on page 7 is executive session item ES 413 where there was a...a request to defer this matter until the January 6 council meeting. ES-413 Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4 and 92-5(a)(4) and (8); and Kauai County Charter §3.07(E), the purpose of this executive session is to consult COUNCIL MEETING - 110 - December 16, 2009 with the Council's legal counsel to receive legal updates, overviews, and recommendations for purposes of obtaining Council approval of proposed settlement of a workers' compensation claim, and evaluate employees' ability to return to work. This deliberation and/or decision making involves matters that require the consideration of information that must be kept confidential as, inter alia, it concerns significant privacy interests. The significant privacy interests relate to a medical history, diagnosis, condition, treatment, or evaluation and which, pursuant to state or federal law, including Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, are protected from disclosure: Mr. Bynum moved to defer ES-413, seconded by Ms. Kawahara, and unanimously carried. Chair Asing: There be...being no other...do we have any... Mr. Kaneshiro: Personal privilege, Mr. Chair, please. Chair Asing: Oh, my apologies, yes, go ahead, Councilmember Kaneshiro. Mr. Kaneshiro: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year, and especially to our staff too for all the hard work that we've done for this year. And again, to the people of Kauai to have a real good new year and we'll see you back here in 2010. Mr. Furfaro: Thank you. Ms. Kawahara: Thank you. Chair Asing: Thank you. Mr. Chang: Can we all... Chair Asing: Any...Cou...Councilmember (inaudible)...yes. Mr. Furfaro: Just raise...just raise your hand. Mr. Chang: Thank you for this opportunity to have this personal privilege. Earlier...in earlier, like earlier... Ms. Kawahara: Twelve hours ago. Mr. Chang: Councilmember Kawakami and Councilmember Kawahara recognized themselves as being rookie councilmembers, and I too are one of the class of nineteen ninety...2008. Mr. Furfaro: You were giving yourself some seniority, huh. (Inaudible.) Mr. Chang: I've been around...I've been around for 18 years. No, I wanted to just say it's been a...it's been a thrill; it's been a great, great year; and...and thank you to the staff and...and certainly to my fellow councilmembers. It's been a great, great time. I want to wish you and yours and anybody out there on the island of Kauai to be safe, drive safe, take care the kids. Thank you for donating to the less fortunate, but it was a great, great time, and I want to wish COUNCIL MEETING - 111 - December 16, 2009 everybody a happy holidays. I know that we're on a break from this point on, but I will call and write you folks every day because I'll definitely miss all of you. Thank you. Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Merry Christmas everybody. Mr. Chang: Merry Christmas. Chair Asing: Merry Christmas. A...any... Mr. Furfaro: Yes. Chair Asing: Councilmember Furfaro. Mr. Furfaro: I too would...I too would like to wish the people in the County of Kauai a very happy holiday season and a merry Christmas. I would also like to thank the staff, in particular all of you who have worked very late on this last council meeting for this year, but certainly want to thank you for everything that you've done in 2009, and I wish you and your families the very best and to my colleagues here at the table as well. Thank you. Ms. Kawahara: One last one. Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara: Yes, I want to wish our staff and my fellow councilmembers a very happy holiday and a safe holiday and a special thank you to the staff that helped...helped me get up to speed to where we are today, and thank you to the councilmembers that were able to help with that too. Merry Christmas everybody and I hope you have an enjoyable holiday. Chair Asing: Okay, well, let me close it by, you know, acuring...echoing all of the councilmembers for their hard work, thank you to staff, just thank everybody, and to all of you in the viewing public, merry Christmas. Have a good, happy, safe year and see you next year. Aloha. Mr. Bynum: Aloha. Mr. Chang: Hau`oli Makahiki Hou. Ms. Kawahara: Yes. Chair Asing: The council meeting is now adjourned. Thank you. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m. ~Sp ctfully submitted, PETER A. NAKAMURA /wa County Clerk