We do have Quorum. Aloha and welcome everyone to the fifth session of the Communications Reports and Council oversight committee. Today we are meeting at the Civic Center in Kailou Kono Hawaii. The time is 1 p.m. The date is March 18th, 2025. Joining me here today in Council Chambers. We have Council Member Houston, Council Member Onishi, Council Member Inaba, Council Member Conelli-Ekline-Felder, I myself, Ember Beck-Aviegas, Vice Chair for this committee. Excuse me, joining us from Hilo, we have Council Member Heather Kimble, and excuse today our Council Members Michelle Gellimba and council member Ashley Kirkowitz and council member Jennifer Coguata should be joining us soon. At this point we will transition to statements from the public. Mr. Clark. Thank you chair. Vice Chair Villegas. So we do have one testifier here in corner but before we go to Mr. Chalker, would ask Mr. Uracell if we have any testimony in courtesy sites or on Zoom please. Thank you Mr. Clark just confirming that we do not have any testifiers at your courtesy sites or view Zoom. Thank you, sir. May I ask Mr. Matt Chalker to come forward. Please testify in communication number 167. Thank you. You ready to go? OK. Just activate the microphone on the bottom there. And then please speak clearly into it. So we can have it for the record. And once you begin, you'll have three minutes. Please proceed when you're in. Great. Hi, I'm Matt Chalker. I'm the executive director of WIofire Safety Advocates of White Kaloah. And I'm here to watch the Hiko wildfire safety strategy presentation. We're really excited that this document exists. We're thrilled that they're taking us seriously and making some strategy. I've read every single word of the entire document and the thing that I'm really looking for and I would love for you all to ask questions about are some specific actions that present some really solid strategies and some, you know, assessments of the overall grid. But what I'm not seeing in it right now are specific plans for the Y-ColoA area very specifically. In Appendix B in it they identify, they have a list of all of the power lines in the entire state. The first three that are ranked as the most dangerous are all in West Maui, the fourth ones are the ones right next to Waikolo village. And I appreciate the enhanced fast trip mitigations. I appreciate the PSPS mitigations, but we want something more for our power line specifically. I mean, I want to know if there's a strategy for undergrounding them ever. I know that's going to cost 50 to 60 million dollars and 11 million dollars a mile, so that might not be realistic. But if there are other strategies such as laying them on the ground and conduit, we're all ears about that. We also want to hear some specifics about vegetation management in the area to prevent fires. people don't want their power turned off. I appreciate PSPS. It's going to block things. I'm sure a lot of people in Lahaina would appreciate it if that was on beforehand as well. But it also has impacts on the water supply and just people's well-being and their daily life. So something that we can come up with eventually afterwards. We're all ears and here to work on that and help participate in support. So that's why we're here and thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Actually, no, I'd like to take something out of order due to a scheduling and the need for for our presenters of communication 165. We could start with that one. Sure. Sure. order due to a scheduling and the need for our presenters of communication 165. We can start with that one. Communication 165, request of presentation by the Office of Sex Trafficking Research at Arizona State University Director Dominique Roe Sepowicz and Detective Sergeant Lawrence Joe regarding Hawaii's sex trafficking and human trafficking information report from from Councilmember Matt Connelly, Kleinfelder dated February 28, 2025. Chair, motion to close file on communication 165. It's been moved by Councilmember Connelly, Kleinfelder and seconded by Councilmember Onishi. Mr. Kleinfelder. Please move forward and introduce us to these wonderful folks. Thank you very much, Chair. So I've had the pleasure of working with Ms. Dominique Rosepowitz over the last, I don't know, maybe five or six years. She is a force to be reckoned with and she does a tremendous job both in her community and in ours. Today she has put together a presentation for us that Scott has helped her load up. Are you going to be on the computer with the presentation? Beautiful. So without a lot of process here, I'm just going to say it's been wonderful working with you, done tremendous work in our community in sex trafficking and exploitation. There's a lot flexing in our community right now, even given what's happening at the federal level. We had a whole discussion on ice this morning and that does lead us into exploitation of workers, which is a component of this. But mainly section of the community and the state and specifically to our county. We have some new members. If Dominique, please introduce who you have today. We'll run through your presentation. Yep, and anytime you guys speak, push your button on your mic, and then introduce yourselves the first time. So we all know who you are for the record, and then you guys can run through presentation and we'll do questions afterwards. Super. My name is Dr. Dominique Rousseau-Powicz. I'm a full professor at Arizona State University and I run the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research. I'm actually going to come back after my team introduces themselves. My name is Laura Somay. I'm a sergeant with the Tucson Police Department. I was actually born and raised on the island of Hawaii on the east side and I be on the side of the area. I'm going to be on the side of the area. I'm going to be on the other side of the area. I'm going to be on the other Hilo and it is really hard to hear because I've been on that side. So I'm Anne Charles and I'm the Executive Director of the Kymus Foundation and we have funded all of the research that has gone into and that you're going to hear about today as well as many other projects on the Big Island. Thank you. So what I'd like to do is give you a little bit of a history of our work. Thank you, Councilman and women. Thank you for having us. It's a great honor to be here. We're really here to be helpers to the community, bring awareness to a program that we think is really important. We started our work here in 2018 doing a number of different projects. I'm really trying to understand what sex trafficking looks like and Hawaiian, reflecting on some of the work that we're doing in Arizona and seeing what we could bring here. So some of the things that I do in Arizona, just as a reflection is, we place sex ads online, trying to see who's trying to buy sex from, people in your community. We have a study, which I'll tell you about, that we did here in Big Island. We try to be innovative in a problem that has existed for a really long time. When people are buying sex from children and adults in our communities, there's a lot of harm that happens. And the response that we have is to create innovative interventions. So we're working with our jails and prisons. We're creating therapeutic groups, trying to be helpful and smart about helping people heal. so they get off that kind of track and go into a life that's really pleasant and hopeful and they raise their children in a way that has a lot of heart to it. We look at who is being arrested for trafficking of especially children. We have research in that area. We look at traffickers in Las Vegas. I can tell you that on my research work with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, very often I hear in the text, in the communication from sex traffickers that they're gonna take their victim to Hawaii. And there are a number of reasons for that. We screen for children in a different, a bunch of different settings. We have a housing program called Phoenix Starfish Place, which is a housing program for sex traffic. Women and their children, it's 15 apartments, and I do all the clinical programming and the intakes. And then we look at, so we look at all of the areas of who's a trafficker, who's a victim, what makes them vulnerable, and who buys sex. So what's that triangle look like? And so the research that I'm going to talk about for the next few minutes is about kind of pulling that together here in Hawaii. So just as a definition to make sure that you know that trafficking does not involve any type of movement, the exchange of sex for something of value can be in the same house over and over. That's what a brothel is, right? or a game room here or a massage parlor, for example. So it's a person, any time a person is under the age of 18 and they exchange sex for something of value that's called sex trafficking by our laws. Once they turn 18, they have to show that someone is forcing them to do it or they're breaking prostitution laws. Prostitution is always involved in sex trafficking, but there doesn't always have to be a trafficker. So as a child, you can't buy a gun, you can't vote and you cannot sell sex. So anyone buying sex from a child is also considered a trafficker. And important to know sort of those basic details, we do have male, female transgender victims that doesn't seem to discriminate. So some things about Hawaii law that as we came here in 2018 and started to meet with people all over the islands, including your governor, including people working in this field, we realized that the federal law passed in the year 2000, but Hawaii did not adopt that law till 2016, which is why there has never been a sex trafficker convicted in Hawaii in any of the islands. And so some of that delay meant that there were some cases but they were charged with other things. But even since it passed in 2016 we have seen no convictions of sex traffickers in any island. And that is a distress. Partly is as a researcher we look at a problem through those arrests. That's one of the ways the proxies that we see how large a problem is. So it looks like there's no problem here because you don't have arrests. So some of the things that we are trying to do is build partnerships among islands, making sure that everyone working with kids, vulnerable adults, people who could be trafficked would get training and information so they can intervene. So here are some of our partners. The bottom two are Holenapua and Hope Services. I've also worked with Child and Family Service here in White Island on some of our research. So the way that we set up our research, I'm just gonna do a really brief review, is that we started meeting with people in 2018. We met with judges, we met with probation, we met with kids detention, we met with runaway homeless youth service providers, really trying to understand who's being trafficked, who are the traffickers and who are the buyers, and how can we intervene. So the very first thing we did was we placed some sex ads online. One was in Oahu and one was here in Big Island. So in Phoenix, when I placed an ad, about there are 250 other ads and and 45 individuals will call me when 24 hours. The ad that I placed here in Hawaii Island in 2018, there were two other ads, and 279 individuals called me within 24 hours. Big, big buyer market here. We then did a series of interviews. We interviewed 22 survivors of trafficking. Seven of them were family members of children and the 15 were adults. Those were women in prison, women in lots of different situations, people who are out of the life for a while. One of them asked me how she was supposed to stop doing the prostitution and the trafficking. She was trying to stop using drugs. She was trying to get her life together and And she went into the court to pay her fine. And she saw three of her customers in that courthouse. So the barriers to people changing their life and getting out of situations that oftentimes they're in from when their children has been really a challenge. We then started looking with Child and Family Service. We did a large survey. We surveyed 363 people on all five islands, and we found that 26% of those people reported, those were children, young as 12, all the way into their 60s, that 26.7% said they had been trafficked. So remember, no convictions, no one held responsible, so many, many victims that we were able to find. So in Hawaii Island, we did a study in 2022. We studied as many unsheltered persons that we could find through hope services. We trained all their outreach workers to talk to people about trafficking, and we surveyed them and we found that one third of the homeless persons that they connected with had been trafficked. We've done a number of studies in Maui. We're working with Substance Abuse Program, a shelter for women who are substance users and a youth program there and we're finding same numbers somewhere between 33% and 56%. So in Maui I started meeting with survivors of trafficking in 2013 and asked about what were the barriers to change. So a number of those women were in prison, excuse me, in the jail in Maui. They didn't have access to their identification. They didn't have access to bail. And they were there for many, they didn't have anything to come out to, which was one of our real worries. And then we started working in other places in Maui in 2025. We have built a new relationship, Sergeant Hove and I've been working together in Tucson, building, helping build that program, help getting grants, finding training. And we were actually supposed to train your police department here yesterday in Hawaii, Island, but it was postponed. So we'll come back in a couple weeks. On Thursday, we are going to Maui and we're training 60 members of their police department on how to recognize trafficking, what it looks like, how police can work together with social services to find some resources. So I'm just going to flip through a couple of these things that I think we're interesting about the research that maybe you would be interested in, that we don't have a track here. There isn't a stroll where people are walking in La Jure in not very many clothes in most islands and why in Oahu there are a couple of places. But really what it looks like is that there are there clubs that people have parties, house parties, in our hotels, here, game rooms, drug houses, lots and lots of access on your website. So Grindr, seeking arrangements, Tinder, all those exist here, and that's where people are finding other people to buy. And of course, massage parlors is a really huge concern for us, both for sex and labor trafficking. So here's some of the quotes that I'd like for you to take a quick look at. These are some of the things that our trafficking survivors said. These were women who were in a recovery program. So I'll give you a moment to read them. I'll show you read them. Show you read them. Let me read them to you. One participant who was a victim of trafficking said, you are doing it and thinking you are out smarting the sex trafficker because it isn't a big deal. and it's an easy way to get drugs. Another participant said you were doing it and thinking you are out smarting the sex trafficker because it isn't a big deal. And it's an easy way to get drugs. Another participant said you are doing it and thinking you are so smart, but a little piece by little piece of your soul is hurt and it gets a little darker. You are the one suffering. And finally, another participant said that her sex trafficking experience is having emotional spiritual and mental harm. It diminishes a person's sense of self, and it makes our hearter and harder to get out, and it breaks a person. So our goal, of course, is prevention. Make sure people know that this is happening, that there are people there, they're not the boogeyman, they're not people jumping out of the bushes. There are people that are known to them. 20% between 17 and 20% of traffickers here in Hawaii through my research are family members. So people related, people who are supposed to be taking care and are not taking care of that child. So there are some things that are of course unique to Hawaii island that are different from other places. It's a small place. People know each other, turning someone in, telling something is happening, similar to the hesitation to report sexual abuse. If you tell on someone in your family, will your family believe you? Will people stand by you and will law enforcement stand with you and help you prosecute that person? There aren't places to go. There is no place to run. So if a victim comes forward in Tucson, Arizona, we can send them to California to Texas. We can really easily get them to a place where they're safe. And that we know that the victims of trafficking in Hawaii Island are affected by drugs, by poverty, by needing things and wanting things. And so those pushes are very specific to generally young people, kids in special education classes, people who are vulnerable, people who have a family history of abuse, mom, maybe has been a traffic person. And then this year, again, we expanded our research to involve Sergeant Hove, who just stood up a new program, which is what we're asking for Hawaii Island, Hawaii Police Department and Maui Police Department to have some specialty detectives, some people working specifically on this and bringing them those skills. We're working to train community members. We had 100 people at Hawaii Community College on Friday, so students, faculty, but also social services, who many of them simply hadn't considered sex trafficking. They sort of thought that was people from other places. Maybe it was people who were brought here from other countries, but what we find is that it's Hawaiian children being trafficked by Hawaiian people and purchased also by Hawaiian people. We also know that as we build capacity, we're gonna need support. And we met yesterday with your mayor and we are talking about what are the building blocks of meeting the needs of victims. So prevention, hopefully nothing ever happens if we can get the word out and give kids and adults the skills to say that that's not something they want to get involved in and they can't be tricked into it or the other way when a person is identified and they are a victim of trafficking creating a system that can respond. So the impact of this research has been more than $5 million in resources for all different types of agencies in Hawaii. So we publish this research, we hand it out, you have it in front of you. And the hope is that your police department can get resources through the Department of Justice and ask for more resources specific to looking for trafficking victims, providing victim advocacy and services. So our goal is to help write those and much of this 5 million currently though was in Oahu and a little bit in Maui. So we're helping write grants and so on. We're providing, we've provided training and done and trained the trainers. So people here on Hawaii and on the other islands can do trainings specifically for schools, staff, social services, medical providers and, and state and county employees. This is our first trip to do medical. And then there have been some really lovely proclamations. I'm gonna pass this over to you, Anne. So we have a lot of implications from this research, and this is a lot. And I think back to seven years ago when we started started and the origin was my foundation, we went to a Wahoo and we were gonna fund a program called Pearl Haven. I asked them, tell me about sex trafficking, tell me about the statistics because I come from a background for 14 years, I was the chief of staff for a city council person. I wanna know what it looks like and they said, we don't know. We just know it exists. And that's kind of where we think you all are. You know it exists, but you don't know what it looks like. What does it mean to my community? And we said, well, then that's where we need to start. And so that's what we've been doing for seven years. Out of that comes things like the huge percentage that are your children. children that are being affected by this. The average age is 11. 11. It's the fact that the buyers are coming from your community. They're not tourists like we heard. They're not military. They're coming from your community. It's the fact that we're talking about people who are being abused because they're in foster care or their special needs. So it's your community that's being directly affected. So we come in with this research and I know from having been here that a lot of times people are say, oh, county council come and do this for me. That's not what we're here to do. We're here to say here's the problem. We want to be part of the solution. And we're telling you about it. And we're also telling you that we want to continue to look at things and continue to help you as best as we can. That's what we're doing here this week. We'll have trained what over probably 100, 150 people about it. And we want to keep doing that. So So some of the implications are that this is real and it's happening here that the victims and survivors of sex trafficking have had traumatic childhoods and they will continue to have trauma in their life because this is something that erodes your soul. It's not something you just jump up and say I'm going to get better from. And the longer that people are in this lifestyle, the less the chance you have of recovery or having a life. And so you as county commissioners must know that that will cost your system millions of dollars per person because they will stay in the system. They will be in your prisons, they will be in your jails, they'll be in your drug treatment programs. If we can cut that off early and prevent it from happening, we save everybody including the victim. We know that law enforcement officials throughout the system have been affected and they're trying to address sex trafficking. That's why we're here to educate and train them. What does it look like? Also parents, what does it look like? You know, When your child, all of a sudden, has phones and has more expensive clothes and is talking to people or I'm gonna go meet a 35 year old. There's a lot of red flags that should be happening. We need to be involved. Healthcare professionals. One of the things that we discovered is the, I don't get the term response. The sexual assault response. Sexual assault response. The issue here is that there's just a lot of problems and we need to take care of that. We need to look at it systemically so the mayor is saying, okay, let's take a look at those things and see how we can find the gaps in the system and how we can make sure that these victims are adequately responded to. School personnel, special education needs to help identify the victims and to get them into some type of help. Lack of services for violence, cultural factors, over representation of the native women and girls. We know more research is native but we also So, know that action is needed. Our first step is to offer to you everything that we have. The research that we have, the training that are already in place but we need to make it culturally appropriate for you so that it works for the people that are here. So that's all we are. We're not here to tell you this is the truth. We're here to say, this is what we know from the research and we want to help your community heal from what we see is happening. So I want to thank everybody for giving us this time today. We really appreciate it. We know it's, you know, it's a privilege to be here. Again, my name is Lauren Sovei, I grew up here. I just wanna impress upon you guys that we all have ties to the island. We understand that, you know, the island is all about Oana. It's a small community. It's a really special place. I grew up here and these two come here so often, they have houses here and family here. So it's really special to us and we understand that, You know, we are outsiders in the fact that we don't, we no longer live here, we don't see the day to day, but we just wanna help. I stood up the program in Tucson and that was with the assistance of the Kymist Foundation and Dr. Rosep, with ASU Stur. They've done a lot of research before I was onboarded with the program to understand Hawaii. And we just want to, we want to help, we want to help get the word out there. I have detectives that work this problem and 33% of their job is investigating cases. 33% is community outreach and education. You know, so and and then the other 33 is they're constantly working undercover to shield real children from real traumatic experiences and be that, be that barrier and we want to help get education out there and this community is so special I know once it's accepted once the message is kind of get some get some traction it is being pushed out there The entire community will embrace that because it is nothing but good protecting our children protecting Vulnerable populations getting the word out there, and really preventing, right? If you can prevent one victim from experiencing this lifestyle that really damages you for your entire life, the average life expectancy for a traffic person, I believe is seven years. So it is more dangerous to be a traffic person than to be a clerk at a liquor store or that's really comparable. It's a really dangerous profession with sexually transmitted diseases and beatings, kidnappings and all those terrible things that happen to you. So we know this is a special place and we wanna be a resource that doesn't come with any attachments or any costs. There's no agenda for us. We just want to help this community because it is truly special to all of us. And I do want to commend Matt here, Councilman, Kahnolley, Kleinfelder, for having the HEUNID. And I don't know if that's something that you could speak about about how important that was and how you're going to start it back up and how our community here can take this information and ask for things from the government, right? We can ask the governor for resources, but some of it is getting the community to agree that this happens here, that it's affecting disproportionately your native Hawaiian population who are the most vulnerable. And there's so many reasons for that. But the first step is saying this is happening. We want to make a change. We want to integrate some of this information. We can talk about this among ourselves and in our families. And we always talk about leaving every training or every information session with three things. Right? One, go home and talk about this with the people that you care about. Is this happening or your kids seeing this in their schools or people talking about trading sex for things? thing. So they're getting asked to go to parties to take their clothes off and someone will give them drugs because that's how it starts. It's not a kidnapping, right? It's a luring and a grooming. The second is talk to other people about it. Talk to your constituents, have a town hall. Say this is something that I'm hearing about it. I'm concerned about are there things that we could build in protections around our kids? This is not about, and I love the idea that my children are kind of free-range kids, kids that have lots of freedoms. But I need them to know what to do if one of their friends is approached by a person or they're approached by a person. So can we build those in and continue the beauty of this island and on the beautiful lifestyle? And the third is, how do we get people to talk with their wallet? How do we get them to help us build resources for victims? So currently in white- and on the beautiful lifestyle. And the third is, how do we get people to talk with their wallet? How do we get them to help us build resources for victims? So currently in a white island, are there therapists that are trained in trafficking? Are there programs that are able to respond? We've heard no over and over. We've done many years of training here now. I'm a clinician, a therapist. I'm happy to come and train. And I'll train anyone. obviously no one invites me to cocktail parties because this is what I talk about. But we really need to somehow integrate this information into this community so that traffickers say, I'm not going to lie, they're talking about this. I'm not going there, they're looking for me. They know what this looks like and those aren't good kids for to predate on. So thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Any closing comments? Do you have any questions for us? looks like and those aren't good kids for me to predate on. So thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Any closing comments? Do you have any questions for us? Thank you. I was a wonderful presentation. It was brief. I know I told you 30 minutes. Actually, we have 15 minutes and you really slimmed it down and you could probably fill four or five hours of conversation, but I think that might wear a stout a little bit. So I think for the race, this is a single conversation and presentation. I think just a few highlights that I have really taken to heart when you talk about the average age of a traffic person and you say 11 years old, what does that mean as far as the range? What is the youngest age that you're seeing in your research? So that's of children being trafficked in Hawaii Island. So that is from the Child and Family Service Study and the Hope Service Study combined. That means that the youngest was four, and the oldest in that sample was 17. And so to be 11 means that there was, we consider in that research that there was a lot of familial trafficking of the younger person. So that's where we see a parent, a guardian, sometimes a mom who's being trafficked. The trafficker will say, how much for your daughter or I'll give you more drugs or you don't have to sell sex as much if I can have someone have sex with your child. So that familial piece we're going to see more often in those younger ages that 4 to 12, 4 to 14. So those kind of numbers stand out to me because I have three kids, two of which are daughters. one the oldest being an HPD and the youngest being in her senior year in high school. But when I think about them as being four years old and being a number and a study like this, just bothers me. So the community, I think it's important. Number two was the biggest step was just accepting that we have this in our community. When I first came in the whole thing was whether it's happening or not. And your studies over the last what 10 years have just highlighted that it's not only is it happening, it's yes, it's how much and at happening? And to who? And so by this research being available to the public, you can highlight and you have highlighted where it's happening, who it's happening to, and what we can do about it, which is what Anne spoke to. And then Tab, a Kanaka from Hilo, born and raised in Hawaii Island, even if you're not here anymore. That doesn't detract from what you bring to the table. Your ability to interlink with our police department and bring the Hawaii connection in with your experience from the mainland makes you that much more of an asset in my eyes. So, I mean So at a personal level, this is something I really believe in. So thank you for cracking the, is it happening conversation? Just knocking that one out of the park. It's not that it's not, it's not a question anymore. Is it happening? It is? It's how we address it. To we've assembled a fine team now. And having the ability to walk into the mayor's office and the police department and start doing trainings and that's the next big step. What is that training? How does that relationship with HPD shaping up to this point? It's really, really good. So like you said, having those local ties when I met Ann and Dominique and I knew they were coming here, we started talking and I have a really good relationship with a captain over at HPD and then I was able to get some meetings set up with Maui and I think really because of those connections, right? Because I'm from here, I know what it looks like. This is still home to me. I plan to come back here when I'm done retiring over in the mainland. Because of those relationships, it was very well received. We got meetings with the assistant chief in Hilo. They were very receptive. We said, we will come back as many times as you need it. Because of those relationships, it was very well received. We got meetings with the assistant chief in Hilo. They were very receptive. We said, we will come back as many times as you need us to help you build that program, help you write grants. I mean, you can get these positions completely grant funded and it doesn't come out of your budget at all, right? New cars, new detectives, all funded. Very well received. set to train over 30 HPD members yesterday, but with the tragedy of the officer being shot, the manhunt we had offered. all funded, very well received. We were set to train over 30 HPD members yesterday, but with the tragedy of the officer being shot, the manhunt we had offered, hey, you know, this is a lot on your department and your community, let's table this, we'll come back in the near future where everybody is focused and ready to receive the information. And then on Maui later on this week, we leave today to Maui, we have over 60 people that are going to be attending that. And that's a building block program, right? It's not just we're going to come and throw a bunch of stuff and then walk. on Maui later on this week, we live today to Maui. We have over 60 people that are gonna be attending that. And that's a building block program, right? It's not just we're gonna come and throw a bunch of stuff and then walk away and forget about you. We wanna foster that, we wanna help start that program, we wanna help start that community intervention and that community trainings and awareness. But it's been very well received because of those ties that I have locally. And I think it's really, really help kind of push this forward. The research is there and behind it. And now the police departments are ready to get behind and really dedicate personnel to really specialize in this. Because it's difficult to recognize, you know, even people on the mainland a couple years ago where I'm from large police department, almost a thousand people, we had trouble recognizing what sex trafficking was. We knew what a pimple was and we knew what a victim was, but we still didn't really know how to define that and treat those people. And that's a really big piece. Can you talk about the runaway to runaways to a problem? Absolutely. So trafficking and and traffickers, they really pray on the most vulnerable population. And something that we found is pretty universal around the world in the United States anyway, is that our vulnerable children are missing from care, are runaway kids. A lot of times as a police department and we're very guilty of it in Tucson is that we look at a runaway kid and we think, oh, a bad kid they're just running away they're out of control they're going through their teenage years but we started asking why they're running away right why are you running away and we found a lot of them are being sexually abused at home a lot of them have you know drug dependency or their parents have drug dependency lack of food there's lots and lots of reasons kids are running away. That's the reason they're running away. But once they run away in Arizona and all over the country, you are willing to do a lot of things for things that are really, really simple, right? So our kids, we buy them clothes, we make sure they get to school, we make sure they have a place to sleep, they're safe. But these kids that are missing from care, these runaway kids because they have these vulnerabilities because they have all these needs. Traffickers are opportunistic, Traffickers are pedophiles, pedophiles are traffickers, and they'll see this young girl 15, 16, 14 years old, that might be sleeping outside or might be hungry, and they'll use that as it means. means oh you can you can my house. So I'll feed you or you can, you know, I'm your uncle now or whatever, and then before you know it, that turns into an exchange. While you've been living here for a month, you don't pay any bills, I've been buying clothes for you, come sleep in my room tonight. That's trafficking by definition, right? She's now trading something she needs in her life, that food that sheltered that safety for something this adult wants. So we find a really, really big link between the vulnerable... She's now trading something she needs in her life, that food, that shelter, that safety for something this adult wants. So we find a really, really big link between the vulnerable community, vulnerable population, especially with our runaway kids, because they are just naturally vulnerable. And it's really, really easy because they're younger, they're more naive, their brains aren't developed, and they have this need. And not so traffickers do. They look for what is that need that I can fill and I can pull you into my life. So in Hawaii, the research shows there are about 3,000 children missing. So are they missing? Are they run away? Those are kind of labels that are a bit difficult. There are kids, 3,000 kids you don't know where they are. Not all in Hawaii Island, of course. But if we categorize them all as leaving home because something terrible is happening, we also have to think about the lure, right? So, some older person says, come and be with me. You know, your mom will let you play Nintendo on night. You can do that here, right? This lure. I want to be with my boyfriend. He might be a little bit older, and I'm going to go live on the beach, right? we see all these different reasons that kids are leaving their home and once they're out of that protection we see this this very quick slide into exploitation. on the beach, right? We see all these different reasons that kids are leaving their home. And once they're out of that protection, we see this very quick slide into exploitation, right? That trickery. Yeah, you can stay here. I'll give you a phone. I'll give you some food. But this is what you're going to have to do for me. And so we are most concerned about those kids that are missing. The parents are reporting the missing, you know, 11 to 17. We are worried about them because that's where traffickers are going to look. Thank you. That what was accomplished in our first few months of interaction was actually getting a monthly runaway report from HPD. And the beauty of that is that you can start to look over this list and you see the repeat runaway. And I did the same thing when I see that runaway report, I'm like, I just kid must be, you know, they're naughty. But the other end of it is, why do you run away? And that question doesn't get asked a lot. Thank you for pointing that out. Because we see that monthly runaway report that comes to each of the council members as a communication. You're looking at a list of kids. A lot of those are repeat kids who are running away from something. And the other point you raise was how do we look at that as a county do our officers know to ask politely and to get the information out of these kids is are you running away from something or else we're returning them back to the same situation and we just perpetuating the cycle. And so the training piece is absolutely crucial and it's really good to hear that HPD is willing to take that on and work with all of you to make sure that one our officers, firefighters, EMS personnel, if they're responding to a call or they're seeing the same runaway child and they know how to ask the right questions, we might potentially be able to keep these kids out of the system or to get them the help they need, not just keep perpetuating the same thing, I don't think that we're helping. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm glad you brought that up, sir. So part of the training that we're going to be delivering the, you know, the first block deals with exactly that. I brought screening questions. Very simple. Anybody when you, when you recover a run when you take a run away report. What are you asking the person that reported right who has care of the child. There's a set of questions you want to ask, and that really helps the police department. And then when you recover that child, there's a set of observations you make, and then there's a set of questions you ask. And There's a set of questions you want to ask, and that really helps the police department. And then when you recover that child, there's a set of observations you make, and then there's a set of questions you ask. And based on those questions, you can really kind of get a look into why are they running away, what their experience was when they ran away. And then we also have a metrics, a screening, where we can say, if you've run away more than four times in a year or if you've been on runaway status for over 30 days or there's there's all these little pieces that we've identified that all linked to trafficking that make you a higher risk, and there's a point system that we use, and we can say, okay, we consider this child, a higher risk child for trafficking, for sexual exploitation. So anytime we contact that child, we make sure that we're asking those very intentful, you know, very those questions to make sure that we're covering those things and we're always protecting those children. So it's a great point that you're ran away and that is part of the initial training that we're going to be implementing with with both HPD and Maui PD is getting them those runaway pieces, those questions, showing them that model and then letting them bring that back home and make it their own, right? What that looks like for the PD here will be similar but it will be theirs and it will be centered around the Hawaii Islands. Beautiful. So I totally support this. The reason today, the Tavu Command was just to provide this once Once it's on here, it's recorded. And these minutes are punched out so people can go back and review. And hopefully, it just helps get the word out. But also, just promoting what you've done, Dr. Dominique, in our community, even though you're ASU, I really feel like you could be, you know, you definitely want to loss already. So keep doing what you're doing to the other council members. I hope you have questions today. Or if anything, you can draw on Dominique and her team as a resource for whatever you're wanting to do. She's just a tremendous force. So thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you for the information. Thank you for coming back and working with HPD. So like I said, we're like five years in UNI. So getting to this point was huge. It might seem like a small step, but having this administration take that step with you and for bringing in the tenant correct. And so I was naming your foundation again, K-MIS, K-MIS. It's a strange name. It's the Kamus Foundation, K-A-I-M-A-S, which means small village in Lithuania. So it's a family foundation. The founder has several homes on the big island. She loves the big island. And like I said, we fund not just that, but we just funded the Rainforest Zoo to be able to get there accreditation. So a lot of small things that we know aren't going to come out of federal or state budgets. We try to supply that, but we're really, really proud of what we do here. And one thing that kind of hasn't been mentioned or a little bit glossed over is part of the component is catching the perpetrator also. So that's one of the reasons why we feel it's so important with the police to be involved and the prosecutors that we're talking to as well. So they understand what the law is because a victim is not gonna come forward if they think that nothing's ever gonna happen to the person who's abusing them. So it's every step that we take is a step closer to our goal, but that as a component is to get the bad guys or people off the street. So you have a safer community. Great, great point. Thank you for reminding me. Yeah, no, thank you. I'm sorry, there's so much complexity to this. It's not a small issue. The fact that we have zero prosecutions to date, even after all the legislation that's been done regarding sex trafficking at every level of government is perplexing, through state at least. So yeah, and changing the conversation from let's focus on the people being trafficked as our, even though they're victims as our perpetrators of doing harm in our community to focusing on the folks who are actually hiring them as being the perpetrators is a huge shift. I do have to give Kudos to our HPD because they have been aggressively going after and doing stings and they've, I think they've at least in the last couple of years that I've been watching, they've gotten about 15 to 20 people, I believe, through those stings in community locally. That's big. So I love it. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the time. Thank you. Councilmember Kagiwata. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here and for sharing your panel with us. Couple things. The scenario that you mentioned at the very beginning very troubling, of somebody going into the courthouse to deal with some of these issues and seeing their traffickers there. What is gonna help with a situation like that? There are a number of things that need to happen. I think we need to make it not acceptable to buy sex in your community. To when you see the sex ads out there, you see that conversation or it's currently there's no reason for a person not to buy sex here. They're not afraid of being arrested. There isn't, it's a private, right? And so if you take away some of those things, for example, we have a number of massage parlors here and they're protected, they have, you know, things covering their windows, no one knows what's happening in there. If you can do things to make it less private, less secret, that that person is less likely to do it. So how can we disincentivize buying sex and trafficking people on your island is really important. So some of it is catching the people who are doing it. But how do we disincentivize it for the next group? The young 17-year-old who's thinking like, well, I'm just going to go find a stripper or I'm going to go buy sex. How do we dissuade them from that? How do we make it a culture that says we don't allow people to be bought and sold here? This isn't what we want for our young people, whether it's the, you know, male, female, doesn't matter. So I think the distance incentivizing. So what she said, that client said to me, and my interview, we said, you know, it's everywhere. It's our mothers and our fathers and our uncles and our cousins, everyone who's involved. And so how do we bring that out into the open where people have the freedom to talk about that? It's our mothers and our fathers and our uncles and our cousins to everyone who's involved. And so how do we bring that out into the open where people have the freedom to talk about that, to report it to someone they feel like can be helpful. And then of course the other response, can we get therapist trained and a response network. So a person says, I want to get out of this situation. What can I do? Great. Thank you. Following up on that and getting the word out and you're doing the training with the HPD, which is great. Do you have a similar training or something for our community organizations who are those oftentimes those first groups that may encounter these young folks and also may have the ability to, you know, report or whatever. Do we have some training or something we can offer them? So we've worked with Councilmember Matt on training in the community. We've trained Hope Services staff, Child and Family Services staff. Again, Friday we had 100 people. So we have continuously over the last few, done training. What we see a lot is especially in social services, people shifting in and out of positions. So if you don't do it regularly, it gets a bit lost. And I do think what Councilmember C'monney, Kleinfelter, said that was so important was that we have shifted recently, I would say, in the last two years from, it doesn't happen here or it happens to people that don't look like us. Two, oh my gosh, maybe it is happening here. Maybe all the people coming in to get, you know, food assistance. Maybe we should think about them or maybe the incarcerated women or people in recovery programs. Maybe there are where. So I think we're just starting to move in the direction of needing to train more and more. trainings for do have trainings for that. We've offered it a number of times. Kind of has been open to sending us, you know, bringing us back as much as we can. So yes. Okay. And then we spoke with the mayor. One of the things we said was that you also, and I know having worked in the system, having been, you know, what I did, that you have programs like your housing programs, your, you know, any type of food stamp programs, you have programs that if you train those people, they're going to see it. And it protects you from a liability perspective because you're actually rooting out things that are happening within in your own systems. And that's really important. And I think the more we talk about it, like Dominique was saying, the more we talk about it, and we make it commonplace to talk about it, we would love if any of you are doing a town hall, and you want to do it for parents. We'll come. There's a particular module that just talks to parents in a very caring way, but says here's the things to look out for. One of the things that we feel strongly about is making sure that it is culturally appropriate for this community. So we can say here's the general information. How do we make it also culturally appropriate for this community? Like I never came from a place where you talk stories. So the first meeting I went to and everyone was like okay we're going to talk story and I'm like, I don't even know what that is. But we need to figure out ways to also make this education appropriate for your community. Okay, thank you. And then I guess just following that train a little bit. If we have people recognizing and reporting and we get our police officers trained. Are we working with our prosecuting attorney's office and you say that we haven't had any cases prosecuted? Have we had arrests and then they weren't prosecuted or have we had zero arrests as well? Do you know anything about that? So I just back to the last question just for one moment. We actually work with a local organization called Holinapua and they are doing prevention work in the community, training specifically going into schools. They have a mentoring permit. It's beautiful. It's a really amazing program and they do a lot of training, but it's, you know, we're still in progress. From my understanding with the data that's available, is there have been no arrests specific to sex trafficking. So they might come into a situation and actually do you want to speak to that a little bit about when you make a decision about a charge? I'll talk to them. I'll say. So maybe they come in. Sorry about that. Maybe they come into a situation and it looks like a domestic violence. They're going to go forward with that domestic violence charge but they may not recognize, right? And now we're asking for them to recognize screening tools, techniques that we think that with the police training, the arrests will look different. They'll have the sex trafficking specific language, you know, taking the earnings of a prostitute, like there's language in it that's around trafficking, that will happen because of it. We have, I did meet with someone from your prosecutor's office, we would like to extend our offer to train and talk about language. We have a glossary that's very specific to trafficking and the culture of trafficking, that if they get evidence that's maybe a text exchange or something they might see online that they would recognize that's very specific to that world of trafficking. And so we think that this momentum is moving in the right direction, but currently, as far as I understand, and I haven't heard anything different, no arrests as well. OK, thank you. All right, and just a little bit of commentary here. I know that you emphasized prevention, and that, to me, is the most important, because it keeps us from having more victims, obviously. And when looking at this information, there are so many issues that affect the possibility of people getting trafficked in a lot of them, or the ACES, and the issues there, I think, yeah. For us to look at, are people being housed, are you being fed? Are, you know, those kind of things are really important in order to stem this, and, you know, right now, is a very precarious time for funding, federal funding, and other funding. So if those things get cut, and there's less prevention, I worry about this, you know, going even higher. So Thank you for being here today and thank you Councilmember Connelly Klein-Thelder for bringing this forward with that. I yield. Thank you chair Councilmember Onishi. Thank you Madam Chair I have a couple questions. I'm one of them is Don't see in here what you guys gave this presentation on is that legislation proposed legislation for state or county level. So we worked really closely with the Hawaii Commission on the Status of Women and I can tell you that your state level legislation is very strong. that you have very victim-centered trauma-informed legislation about if a person is arrested for prostitution and they're found to be a trafficking victim which nine out of 10 trafficking people in prostitution, 90% are identified as being trafficked, that that conviction is vacated. And that's the premier in the country, that's one of the best laws that we have. Arizona does not have that law. So your legislation has great protections and prosecutorial tools. It's the implementation of it. Okay, that's good to hear on behalf like on about the talking about the prosecutor's office. So there is a special project coordinator in the prosecutor's office. Have you folks dealt with that person? Okay, because then the person and before he used to be this guy Allen, Bartolome, but he got elevated to some other position. But they have the family violence interagency committee. Have have you folks talk to them? Because they have- That's Matt. Matt, how are they part of the meeting of the Family Violence Group? Intervention committee. Let's go back and double check. Okay, because they have like at one time, maybe between 30 to 50 partners. Okay, they meet once a month. It's the first Monday of the month, I think, right? From 11 to 12. Basically, it was a lot about domestic violence. But then there was this one person back in like 2010, 12. Her name was Evelyn Lee. She started to, you heard the mother? We know her, yeah. Yeah, so she, yeah, so she started to bring up and making aware about sex trafficking and about the younger generation, like the younger kids like high school intermediate. But for some reason, it never could take traction. You know like it's like, I don't know if at that time back then, they didn't take things really serious, right? Because I guess their focus was basically on domestic violence and how we can curb that. And so you have any comments on that? I do. Council member, Councilman, I will say that the good news is that your challenge is here and what you're saying is not unique, right? I'm from here, but I work in Tucson. The challenges that you're mentioning are the same challenges that I faced about two years ago. I was tasked with starting up our human trafficking unit, our heat unit, and prior to me taking over that position, our prosecutors weren't prosecuting child sex trafficking. In fact, I've had very heated debates with our prosecutors of what's appropriate to charge and what's not appropriate. Through training, through relationship building, through the police department, and the police chief getting behind it, through public education, through meetings like this, we've come such a long way we're charging a person a week into somewhere. We arrested a gentleman and I used that term loosely in October of 2024 and he's already he's already serving his prison term. You know so it's just a cultural shift. It's making people aware it's getting the the training out there. And we know Hawaii is not resistant to this problem. We know Hawaii cares about their kiki and the Ohana. It's just getting the training. It's getting the prosecutors on board. It's getting the police department to look at things differently to recognize what trafficking looks like. And then it's getting all the social service back in. So when somebody reports it like the woman walked into into court back then, who is she going to tell? You know, she tells the police is she going to get help or is the people in court just going to find out that she told? And there's no repercussions. So now she's just vulnerable and it just makes it worse for her, right? But changing that culture, getting prosecutors on board, it works. It takes some effort. but here I am two years Fast forward, but I was right here where you guys were, you know, so good. Thanks. Yeah, and like with the prosecutor's office They do also have the victims assistance program, right? And so they could be you know helpful to with the situation, right? And I just wanted to mention like, I was a real advocate about domestic violence because I've, new people who were victims and got killed because of domestic violence. And so I really reached out to prosecutors office in trying to establish something to make things move forward. And to me, everything was about studies, everything was about like workshops and so forth. But I told him we need to move forward because once we get these summits, which is great for you folks, that something that I can suggest is that once you get this done, this training, then we need to go to the next step. What is the next step after the training, right? And so forth. And that's where I think the council as a body can help you folks to move that forward. But that's what I did with the missing violence. We had the summits, they had all the partners come in, they all agreed upon what was their situation, what was needed and so forth, but they would always stay there and the next should be the same thing over and over again, right? So nothing would happen. So I got them where after they got what was the top priorities that they needed to work, we needed to work on. Then I got the legislators in and one was about laws laws because funding was very hard to get. And it's always like you guys know, how to get more funding to help educate or to get programs going, right? So I told him, okay, let's go to the opposite. Let's go laws. Let's see how more restrictive or how more the penalties can be higher, right? So one example was strangulation. In Hawaii, strangulation wasn't like suffocation. And strangulation was something lesser penalty. So we went to the legislature to change that and have it where strangulation or suffocation is a same charge, which is a higher charge, yeah. And so things like that that can help. And you know, if you folks have those ideas, let us know. And we can help, you know, lobby the legislature to change those laws. And like you say, but we do have strict ones, but can always make it more, right? Because you want to make sure if they ever get caught, they get punished, right? And if we can keep them in there for a long time, better for our community, right? And just the last thing I want to mention is that the way that the judicial system is, because of the holding correctional facilities, sometimes depending on the penalty, our judges can release them. And that's the part, because we had an incident where there was an abuse situation and was really bad, went to court the hearing and the judge let the person go on their own release and stuff like that, don't supervision or something. And so, prosecutors' office was really upset about that, so that's another thing we might have to kind of work into partnership, because we don't want them going back on the street, right? We want them be locked up so that they cannot affect anybody else, right? And Councilmember, that's part of the education piece, because domestic violence really intersects with trafficking. There is an intimate partner relationship a lot of times with traffickers and survivors, whether it's a classic PIMP in an adult case or it's a juvenile case. And a lot of the manipulation and a lot of the violence is exactly the same. Traffickers are extremely violent. Violent, and if there's one thing we know from my experience in policing and hurts to research, if a trafficker says something, they are going to do it. We've had traffickers in Tucson say, if you try to leave me, I'm going to kill you. And sure enough, the girl tries to leave, tries to break free of that life. Does it want to do it anymore? And the next thing you know, we're responding to a hotel for a homicide. So they're extremely, extremely violent, very manipulative people. So that's absolutely right. We don't want those people back on the street if we can. And then it also kind of highlights. When we started this, we looked at as kind of building blocks like consecutively, like first we look at this, then we look at this. We're at the point now where things need to happen concurrently because it won't do us, like you were saying, if we strictly work with law enforcement but we don't work with prosecutors or judicial, we won't get. So it's like all of a sudden we were like, okay, we know where we're going, we've got these steps and then it went. And so that's why we need your help is to give us ideas and also to say what can we do to kind of move this along. Right on. Thank you. Thank you very much. And like I said, I'll be there for you guys to help. So I'll give you guys my card later on. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay. Councilmember Kimball. I'm good. Thank you. Appreciate the discussion. Thanks. I'm good. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. required by the Department of Education to watch the movie Hawaii. She's an old, old movie. And as she's watching it, it's really, it's like a very Hollywood attempt at portraying early culture in Hawaii when you first had sailors coming in and know what that looked like. I'm watching the movie with her and about an hour in there is a completely growth scene of sailors trying to buy sex from local women who would who swam to the ship, topless in the movie and were all all smiles to greet the sailors, and then being raped later on by the same sailors after they drink and throughout their day. So there's a cultural component of this that's even built into our own department of education that we may or may not see as parents. That is, to me, completely wrong. I understood the educational piece and what was trying to be expressed by the education department as far as culturally where we're at, but to require our children to watch movies like that. Actually to me was perpetuating, sorry, not perpetuating perpetuating the problem because you're ingrained in them, this happened, and you're almost saying it's going to continue to happen in my mind, which I did not like at all. And I had to actually go back and reread all of the emails that led to why my daughter had to watch that movie as part of her education in middle school. And why on earth that was okay when it just shouldn't be. And it's an interesting, it's a requirement of them to watch this movie unless otherwise noted by the parents. Very interesting conversation, very via email to the teachers. But it's built in and it has been built in for hundreds of years and there's even a component that you you've touched on, which I think highlights how well you've documented what you're doing here, which touched on the demand for prostitution being traced back to Western intervention. And this need for men to come off of the ship, in the wailing industry to find women to exploit. And then actually having a kapoo put on Native Hawaiian women by the elite to protect the people here in response to what was happening. And so full circle, we've come back 100, 200 years now, and we are trying to go back to doing the same thing. So, it's an interesting kind of full circle look at what's happening where we stand today culturally. To Mr. Onishi, given that you were a governor's liaison, you might be able to help in different aspects in your previous role. But we did start a Hawaii exploitation and trafficking unit here. And as we progressed through our meetings, which was CFS, prosecuting attorney's office, I also came to learn that there is a separate meeting that's held. I would say a little bit higher up than myself just being a politician, but at the prosecution and more state level side, conversations that I really shouldn't be in. And that happens monthly with all of our non-profits, not all of our non-profits, but our service providers in the community of the state level, the DHS, CFS, all of these state-run organizations that are dealing with our POSCUEing Attorney's Office. And so there are working is is going on but I would love to see our passing attorney get a win for our state in nailing sex trafficking because again it's not that it's not a question of if it's happening it's is it happening it's happening and how are we going to address it and it can be addressed and we're right there so thank you again for coming into the improvising in this. We're definitely over 15 minutes. So and it can be addressed and we're right there. So thank you again for coming into the and providing this. We're definitely over 15 minutes. So, Chair, thank you for the latitude. You're welcome. And I yield. Great, thank you. I'll just quickly wrap this up. Also, wanna express my gratitude for your service. This is not an easy field to study and circumnavigate and the relationships and the stories that you have learned about are a burden to carry. So I just want to thank you for stepping up and stepping into those roles and love the connectivity with you with the Big Island and working together with ASU. I wanted to just throw out a couple of names here on the west side. There's an organization called Humanity Halle that's run by Kars Higginson and she started the nonprofit group and works with foster children and the stories she's shared with me of it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting because it's interesting shared with me of, it's interesting because we used to hear it called, you know, molestation or incest or sexual assault abuse, right? So this term of sex trafficking has changed that definition and I think it's also elevated it to a level of severity of understanding that this is a commercialized, commodified exchange, which allows for more legal repercussions. So thank you for that, because even I find with myself the concept of sex trafficking, people think somebody in handcuffs, you know, dragging them around versus manipulation and exploitation of resources for sex with a minor. I was happy to hear that you guys are working with child and family services, child protection services. I think all that's fantastic. It's tragic in places. I recognize also Arizona is a place with marginalized indigenous peoples and oppressed peoples suffering for generational trauma essentially. And that's what we have here in Hawaii. And I see the tie that that goes back to some of the cultural shine away from reporting. A friend of mine's father worked with Indigenous peoples in Alaska decades ago. And the levels of molestation were 100%. It's like it was almost just an expected right of passage. You were going to be raped or molested by a family member and you just kind of had to buck up with it, right? And I see that as a reflection of trauma and generational oppression and being undervalued and being disconnected from cultural wisdom and support and the collective benefit of an Ohana and a community and multi-generational families being connected so It's just tragic to me to see them socioeconomic repercussions to humans. And I also see a connection today. This morning we spent a long time talking about potential memorandums of agreement with ICE. And it to me the ironies of here we're trying to tell young people and people in general, please come and report to the police. And yet, then there's law enforcement there, and in the most marginalized communities, they run, they're vulnerable to then being pulled and deported. So I just, this is a hard work, but you have taken things that I remember, Matt and I talking about this issue and standing in the parking lot in Kona and people were enraged and all the claims and just all the different things, but you have navigated a process and provided the scientific information, the data, and created the programs and created then the pathway for identification for people to not just be like, am I? I don't know, I felt weird and you don't want to be the accuser if somebody's not, you know, there's all these things, but you've created the science technology and kind of the template for us to move forward as a community. So thank you. I'll give you my card as well, and I'd love to connect you to Karis because she has a lot of volunteers from a community that work with a number of foster children that she works with, and I know they could really, really use your support and guidance and the specialized training. So thank you so much for being here for the work that you do. It is a heavy lift. It is an emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical burden, but you're carrying it and you're teaching us all. So thank you for that. Oh, our pleasure. You guys travel safe to Maui, okay? We got you out of here in time. All right. With that, all those in favor of closing file and communication 165, please say aye. We have seven members in support with Council Members Kirkwitz and Gellimba excused. On to communication 35.1, please Mr. Clark. So any testimony of your communication 35.1. Hearing none, communication 35.1 is the quarterly affordable housing report on October 1 through December 31, 2024. From housing administrator Kehualani Amkosta dated February 28, 2025, transmitting the vote report for soon to section 11-19 of the Hawaii County Code. Can I get a motion? Motion to close file and communication 35.1. It's been moved by Council Member Connolly E. Kleinfelder and seconded by Council Member Kagiwata. Do we have Miss Costa? Yes we have the office of housing. Okay. Okay fantastic. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hi. Hi. All right so I'm here to present Communication 35. It's our affordable housing quarterly report. There are three reportable items that you have in your communication list of the developers in possession of excess affordable housing credits and there is no changes to that list since our last reporting. There is a summary of current affordable housing inventory and you do have an updated list in your communication. I also just want to point out that we have our affordable housing dashboard updated live on our website and that's a really really good resource for for all of our affordable housing projects, existing and those in pre-development construction. And then the third reportable item is an accounting of significant actions taken under Chapter 11 and with that we are excited to report that we have 200 new rental units added to our inventory. Those two projects are the elderly veteran, Hale, Nahale, Kua, Hale Nakoa in Hilo on Coivistry. and then also Kalhalei Ke Kulaoka formerly Kaloko Heights over there on West Hawaii, and so those are 200 total units. We also include in this report, although it's not a part of the chapter 11 reporting, but it's at the request of council. We have two exhibits around emergency and transitional shelters and also permanent supportive housing, substance abuse treatment facilities, medical respite care facilities, or skilled nursing and rehab facility facilities. Those two exhibits are also part of this report. Thank you, Administrator Costa. Questions from the Council, Council Member Hinaba. Thank you, Chair. Administrator for the Colo PolPohite's project. Can you just give us a quick update as to if all units have been open for moving or where we are with that project? Yep, all units are open for moving. We're in the process of, well, so it's a private project. So the property managers of the property are doing lease-ups. There is a significant number of project-based vouchers on the property. So those are section 8 vouchers that are permanently placed on those units. We have about 75 project-based vouchers there. We're probably over 50% now of lease up of those units and we've expedited lease up to try to help move families in quicker. The section 8 process is a little bit slow so we've expedited that recently. Wonderful, thank you. Yeah, great addition and update for this quarterly report. And then this report has been kind of an evolving format. So just prior to the next quarterly report, wondering if you folks might be open to putting in a QR code here to the dashboard so that if folks happen to go and reference this communication They can see the live version as well in the interim between the reporting periods. Thank you so much. They care. Yep. Thank you Thank you councilmember Kanye Lee Kleinfelder. Thank you chair. Thank you for being here administrator Thank you for Councilmember Cunney Lee, Kleinfelder. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here, Administrator. Thank you for the report. Can you, I have one question for you. The, it might be more. Sorry, it's going to preface it with that comment. You never know with me. Yeah, I'm learning. Thank you. You couldn't hear us, Administrator Costa, but we were all laughing I can hear you. You couldn't hear us, administrative cost of it, but we were all laughing. I can hear you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. How they how about student housing? List the AMI level at 120%. I'm just logically in my brain. I'm not understanding that we have student housing, but the AMI level is 120%. Yeah so I'm just logically in my brain I'm not understanding that we have student housing, but the AMI level is 120%. Yeah, so I'm, you know, I'm not super like some of this additional. Okay, no, that's. So, you know, this is everything, right? This is all affordable housing properties and not all of them are county, county managed or, you know, really part of our regular properties that we touch. So I can't really speak to all of them. Okay, maybe for your review, if you get a free moment, we're looking to that one. That one's interesting. I wouldn't say students would be in our 120% AMI level. I would think they'd be maybe 100% or less. Yeah, I'll have to look into that property. I'm, yeah, I'm not sure. Okay, okay. When do you get time, yes please? And then, were you here for our last communication regarding the sex trafficking? It was awesome. Really, you know, I just want to thank you for that. I mean, these are numbers on numbers of units on a report, but the mission is to provide safe, stable housing for our community and our service provider, outreach teams that are working in our homeless population, we see this all the time, and know safe space, safe overnight sleeping, foster youth housing, it just goes so far in addressing what the last communication presented. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, I was hoping that you would be here and I wanted to tie you into that kind of just titles two together because the numbers you are presenting are some of the same numbers that we are hoping to, sorry, the population and the numbers that were presented in the study from sex trafficking can easily be incorporated into numbers and folks that were serving under different emergency shelters and transitional housing components of all of us. Absolutely. Absolutely in the training. The training that he suggested would be excellent for our team as well. Okay. Do you, what, we'll link up together after. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much, Administrator. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Any comments from anyone else? If not, we'll go ahead and all those in. Thank you, Administrator Costa. Sorry. Appreciate you bringing this forward and you're doing amazing. You've been drinking from a fire hose since you got into this position, but I just want to thank you for bringing all this information forward being so gracious. So thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. All those in favor of closing file on communication 35.1. They say aye. Any opposed? Mr. Clerk, we have seven eyes with council members, Gullimba and Kirkowitz excused. And with that, we'll move on to the next communication 1-6-6. Is there any testimony of your communication 1-6-6? Very none. Communication 1-6-6, 2022 and report of the public access open space and not sure resources preservation commission from Mayor C. Kimo Alameda dated for 24, 2025, transmitting the but report pursuant to section 2-218 of the White County Code, providing a detailed summary of the purchasing history and status of lands acquired through the fund, report on management and stewardship of acquired lands and the updated prioritized list for proposed acquisition of land. Motion to close file on communication 1 6 6. It's been moved by council member Inata and seconded by council member Houston. Do we have a representative from the mayor's office in Hilo? No, we do not. Okay, anyone here to present? The punk. Okay. Well, with that, I'll go ahead and just open it up to council members with any questions we do have in our with our board the 2024 annual report. Mr. Coneyley, Ecline Felder. Just pointing out as reading through the report, looks like to date the county has taken, not taken, it's not a good word, acquired about 6,000, that right, 6,000 acres in conservation easements and 4,000 acres and fee simple. Equally else about 10,800 acres of land under the public access, open space and natural resources preservation fund, which I think is a huge way in our community. So well done for those who put that in place. Those are decades ago, and to what we continue to do to this day. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Connie Lee, Kleinfelder. Mr. Inaba. Thank you. I just want to take this opportunity to mahalo the members of our punk commission for their work every year to receive these applications or them and make the recommendations. These are members of our community represented by folks from each of our council districts. So without their work, we wouldn't have this report and I wouldn't be able to take action on the resolutions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Councilmember Kagiwata. Thank you, Chair. Just I know we don't have the administration here right now, but maybe the folks that are here representing PONC could answer are about vacancies on the PONC commission? No? Okay. I'll follow up with that. I know we heard from a new prospective PUNK member today earlier, so that's great, but I do see several of these other ones either expired or yeah, needing new people, so I want to make sure that we're making sure that we have enough folks to do this important work. And then the only other thing I was just wondering is if the in the next report one thing that I'd love to see is an island wide map that shows kind of where all these properties are, so we can kind of get a sense, you know, where we're focusing some of our attention. That would be really helpful. You want to interest yourself? Go ahead. Good afternoon. Deputy Managing Director of American Ishimoto from the Conor Mayor's Office. Our apologies. I can take some questions back to the administration and get back to you. Sure. Just wondering where we are with vacancies on the with vacancies on the punk and how we're doing there. And then asking for possibly adding an island-wide map that shows when we get one of these reports where all these are located because I can kind of look, you know, item by item, but it would be nice to have a visual on it. Okay. We'll do. you. All right, that's all. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Coguata. Anything on your side? Council Member Kimball? Nope, thank you. I will say to Council Member Coguata's statement about the map. I believe that planning may have that map available on their online platform. Thank you, Council Member Kimball. With that, thank you, Mr. Nishmoto, for stepping up and stepping in to take the seat and answer and take a couple questions back for us. I want to also express my deep gratitude to the community members that participate on the PUNC Commission. And to those who helped bring forth this historic opportunity for our tax dollars to go into conservation property. And I'm really grateful for the number of parcels that have been purchased. And for the work, I just quickly want to say thank you to Department of Finance for taking back kind of the management of the allocation of the maintenance fund because it had added as Mr. Anishy was talking about earlier. It was burdensome to parks and rec and it was causing a slowdown in allocation of funds for our maintenance through the nonprofits. So thank you to the Department of Finance for making that smoother and making sure the funds are getting out there. So we have a lot of incredible nonprofit organizations who are getting their hands dirty and getting right there and connected to these places which are so sacred to so many of us. And that will remain sacred and available to our grandchildren and our grandchildren's grandchildren, which is vital to the resilience and regenerative capacity of our big island. So thank you, Mr. Hashmoud. Chair, be a guest. We. We have the element here to respond to the question around the punk openings. Okay. Go ahead Mr. Hashimoto. We currently have three vacancies right now on the punk not including Miss Brett. We do have one in District 3. We have a vacancy in District 9. We have two solid individuals in the queue. We're not yet ready to move them out. However, I am anticipating getting one individual on the April 15th GOLAC agenda. That's the best update I have for you right now. We are trying our best to bring forward intentional individuals who understand the Kuliana. That's been asked of them. And once they are ready, we will move them out. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Alameda. Appreciate you. Swooping in for some answers with those questions for us this afternoon. All right. If there are no other comments, Mr. Kulgiewa. I just wanted to thank Mr. Alameda for jumping in as well and for getting that information to us. Yeah thank you so much and for being on top of this and getting people in here not only in a timely manner but people that make sense. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. Lastly we do have Deputy Director of Finance Ms. Kikai here to answer any questions to the Pong Report in terms of financing. Thank you. Council Member Onishi. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Deputy Director, Ms. Shimano. What just one suggestion, maybe you guys can also reach out to the council members in the district if we know Anyone who might want to be on any committees and that can help you guys with finding people Okay Great suggestion we'll take you up on that Thank you council member Onishi If that is all and there are no more questions. All those in favor of closing file in communication 166, please say aye. We have seven eyes and two excused with council members Galimba and Kirkowitz bringing us to our final agenda item of the day. Mr. Clerk, can you please read in Communication 167? There's any additional testimony for Communication 167. Are you not in Communication 167? And of course, the presentation by Hawaiian Electrics Director of Government and Community Affairs, Jennifer Zellco Schluiter regarding wildfire safety strategy from Councilmember James E. Hustis, dated February 28, 2025. Chair, motion to close file and communication 167. Second. It's been moved by Councilmember Heustis and seconded by Councilmember Enaba. Mr. Heustis, please do you have the floor. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate everyone's patience here today. We've had a nice long conversation with a lot of important issues issues here on Hawaii County and on the island. And grateful to have our team here with Hawaiian Electric give a little update and presentation. And I know I told them only 15 minutes, so I put them under the gun here for sure. But a lot of these conversations are important to our leeward communities. Hawaiian Electric has presented to this body previously about the implementation following in the 2023 fires in islands. And their work building grid resiliency, work with community partners, working with government agencies to find solutions and work together on a lot of these pressing issues. And I'm grateful to have them here today. You know, I was grateful to attend the wildfire summit in Keoho with all the community partners that are concerned about wildfire, about mitigation, land management, and all the intricacies that we're trying to put into play to really protect and safeguard our communities and our residents here. So grateful grateful to have our Hawaiian Electric team here today. District 9, as a lot of you know, is one of our high-risk areas. So this is really near and dear to me, to our community members as you hear that have attended today and are listening about the implementation of these strategies when we're having these really in-depth conversations. You know, we can also dive into their work, why electric's work about the grant monies and the federal monies that are kind of going to the investment that our utility is making into our good resiliency efforts about climate adaptation and really protecting and safeguarding communities. So thank you for joining us today. Really appreciate you being here. And I'm really happy to bring them in front of the council to provide updates since their last presentation. I really go a little further into the work that they've been doing since they spoke with you last. So I'll pass it over to Jen, Kevin and Kurt. So thank you so much for being here today. Perfect. Thank you. So good afternoon, almost evening. Chair of the Agus and members. I'm Jennifer Zalco. I'm the Director of Government and Community Affairs of Hawaiian Electric. And with me is Kevin Walgin, our Director of Hawaii Island and Kurt Sukeyama, who is our Director of Transmission and Distribution for both Hawaii Island and Maui County. And so I also want to thank Mahalo Council Member Hussis for asking us for this report. Of course, Cherry Nabbuf, for giving us the time today to talk about what we're doing to keep community safe across Hawaii Island. Next slide. The focus of today's presentation is on wildfire mitigation. And for us, and we're seeing it in Hawaii, we are experiencing fiercer and more frequent wildfires, driven by a number of factors, climate change, invasive vegetation, and of course, human activity are just a number of the reasons that we're seeing this increase. And in order to reduce this threat, it does take a collective approach. So I wanted to thank Mr. Matt Chocker. We've met actually quite a few times in the Waiklouwabal Ferry Safety Advocates. They're one of the organizations that are really critical and working hard to reduce this threat. but it takes everybody. And for us, our work is mostly concentrated in that red oval on the left hand side of the screen in the Ignitions Management area. Last year we spent $120 million on wildfire safety and already just up to this point, we've reduced wildfire risk from our infrastructure 60%. The longer term plan which is really balancing cost to customers and also reliability is to reduce that up to 80% again from our utility infrastructure and our goal remains and it is the top priority is to the community, our customers and our employees. Go to the next slide. So our enhanced wildfire safety strategy was filed in January with the Public Utilities Commission. It was founded on the four pillars. You see grid heartening, situational awareness, operational practices, and stakeholder and community partnerships. And really, there's no one greater than the other. We have to have all of them in order to reduce this wildfire risk. The ultimate objective, again, is to look for the greatest risk reductions and, again, balancing that affordability and keeping the lights on to our communities. So this is the wildALFIR risk map for Hawaii Island. You can see the higher risk area, the medium risk areas, and the low risk areas. We use this map to help us prioritize where our activities happen. It helps guide things like vegetation management and asset inspection programs. These maps were developed with a number of other factors and partners. Fire history, wind data was used, vegetation evacuation routes, and then of course where our utility infrastructure is located. We worked with a very yes amount of resources and other agencies including the Pacific Fire Exchange and Land Fire, which is a multi-agency federal wildfire vegetation resource and of course our State Department of Latin Natural Resources. With that background, I'm going to turn it over to Kurt Tsukiyama. Again, he's our director of transmission and distribution operations, and he's gonna explain the first two pillars. Good afternoon, Chair, Carlson members, Kurt Tsukiyama, transmission distribution director for Maui County and Hawaii Island. So I just wanted to, I got the luxury of sharing, basically some of the things that we're doing when we talk about grid hardening and what that really is. With time of the essence, we've used that wildfire map that Jen shared earlier and just tried to prioritize limited time, limited resources, so what could we do quickly? Kevin will go into a little bit of the operational side of it, but just wanted to do a quick short intel of just some of the devices and equipment that we are putting up there. So one of the things that you'll see is pole replacements, system hardening. We not only are looking at wood, but we also have been looking at steel, as well as other alternative materials like fiberglass and composite. In addition to just pore replacements itself, what also goes involved with grid hardening is conductors. We have different configurations of conductors for different purposes, so we are looking at what we call framing, how it's constructed on the pole. Is there better ways to effectively mitigate against fire risk relative to other considerations? So for example, avian strikes, that is one, another option or scenario that we have to weigh again. So, you know, we're looking at all of these different options, span lengths. So we might be shortening spans by, we might have to add another poll so that the mitigates war swinging conductor replacement. So this is typical. This is a vintage copper wire. And I'll have this out for later feel in touch. We're replacing some of this copper with this newer aluminum style copper. What we're also looking at is part of our strategy is what we call covered conductor. This is essentially the same thing, except it has an insulated jacket on it. So these are all just things that we are doing now, but we are also looking and planning what is the best solution with these various options and various things to consider out there. In addition, what we've done is we've taken these fuse cutouts. So you'll see this around town. This is a fuse cutout, and then this is a fuse. This is an electrical protective device that when there's an electrical system fault, just like how you have a fuse or breaker in your house or a fuse that blows in your car, it basically does the same thing. It's just at a much larger level. But these are current limiting. So what it does is it mitigates the amount of energy that could build up that blows the views. So it blows a lot quicker and a lot less energy, thus minimizing basically that spark. If you've ever, people's describing as hearing like a shotgun or seeing a flash up there. This current limiting fuse basically minimizes that energy so it reduces that risk of potential ignition. Likewise, this is a surge arrest or lightning arrestor. I kind of equated to like your suspension on your vehicles, like your shocks or springs. How it gives you a smooth ride, this basically is kind of like on the electrical system and does the same thing. When we have surges or maybe a lightning strike on our system, this absorbs that energy and interrupts the energy. Similar principle, right, we have this to minimize and dissipate that energy so that it limits the thermal and the electrical energy and so it operates quicker so it dissipates and minimizes basically the sparks and the potential for ignition. So these are all risk mitigation that you know is readily available. Other utilities have widely adopted it and so it was quick for us to start getting up on our system. I did mention conductors. I know time is pressed. I kind of won't go into that too much and then undergrowning. So one of the things that is in our WSS wildfire strategy is looking at opportunities for undergrowning. It is in the planning phase we have been going across the island, across all the islands in fact in our service territory identifying potentially what are areas relative to risks, not only for ignition, but ingress, egress, and other types of scenarios, things that came out of what we saw in the country, Maui, and on West Maui site. And so, you know, we are looking at that, you know, undergarning is an option, just as well as some of these other options that we are exploring and again, just trying to weigh everything that we're doing and, you know, we'll be coming back, we're sharing further what maybe of those plans like it might look like. For situational awareness, that is another facet that we're working on in our wildfire strategy. You've heard a lot already about the cameras and the weather stations. I believe there's been par attest in wanting about that. I won't share too much about that except that will continue into this year. So we are deploying more weather stations, more cameras, building that situation awareness, building that network. Again, if you haven't logged on, it is available actually on the internet. The website for the cameras were embedded in the slide. For the weather stations, it wasn't in the slide, but we can certainly get that to you. And even there's an app called Watch Do. We were talking about it at the Wild Fars in Posium. And so it's a nonprofit that actually leverages this type of situational awareness technology. And they are in terms of helping provide notifications for Wild Fars. So, you know, these resources that are being latched upon to help as a community as a whole, right, to make us more aware of what's going on in our community. And then lastly, from an operational standpoint, we have these are called a fault circuit indicators. So if you're ever driving around and there happens to be a short circuit on our system, a fault on our system, you might see these things blinking. That's not necessarily tracking on our lines, but this is intentionally blinking and we use this to basically troubleshoot faults. We keep on chasing these things down the road and until we stop seeing a blink and we kind of know okay, somewhere here in this dark area amongst all these trees and two to a gulch, there might be a fall, you know, there might something might hit the line. And so this is what helps us kind of triangulate and spend our time most effectively out there and trying to restore the system with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin. So I have the Kevin Mulchin, Director Director of Hawaii Island. I thank all of you for giving us the opportunity to come speak on wildfire strategies. First and foremost, my sections will be operational practices, improving our operational practices, tools to reduce ignitions and enhance safety and reliability across our islands. Some of the things we're looking at is inspections. So in these high-while-fire risk areas, we are increasing our inspections. We're doing it yearly. They're going looking at the overhead. And every year we're going to go back and look at it. The reason for this is because by us looking at the overhead, looking to see if there's any issues that came up within the year, it allows us to improve, prioritize, strategize, and improve whatever issues are out there. So we'll be in that area manually, the term manually, but it's actually people in the area looking at the poles, right? Secondly, we're using drones and helicopters for hard to reach areas because they curk talked to you at the gauges or places where we can get in, walking into that area is very difficult, so we use drones or we use helicopters to kind of look at the areas. But these are in, when you look at Jen's slide back in, sorry, go back a couple of slides. This slide here, that red areas is this high risk areas. So we will be in there with people looking at it, and we will have helicopters and drones looking at those areas. Mr. Chalker had talked about Waikolo. Waikolo falls right in that red area. So we're doing that yearly. Sorry, get back to my slides. Next, vegetation management. We're doing level one, level two, and hazard tree identification type, vegetation management. All that means is we're in area. They look to see if there's any trees that will cause problems on the circuit. And we're doing that yearly every year. This is a change from what we've done in the past, right? It's an increase of addressing concerns. So there'll be in these areas that red area every year looking to see if there's any trees that can cause issues. And if there is, there are sending contractors to go ahead and cut the trees, deal with the trees. Level two is if they identify something that is a hazard tree, they're gonna circle the tree, they're gonna look to see what kind of hazard it can cause. And then they'll go ahead and identify it as a hazard tree and take care of it, remove it. Some of the things that we don't kind of talk about, but it's very important to this, is we don't only do hazard tree removals. If they see something coming up that they can remove and it makes sense to remove, they'll remove it before it becomes a hazard, that's very important to it, it's happening in the background. So, you know, tree removals is a very important part of our plan. Enhance fast trip block close. This one here is a technical issue, but I'll try to simplify it. Fast trip is so important that when we put this into play in both our tier two, it's our orange sections on Genes map and our red sections on Genes map, the reason why that's important is because it operates the circuit really quickly, which reduces the amount of energy, something similar to like what talked about fusing, but the faster it happens at the breaker at the substation. Couple of things happen and a couple of things that will ask of our customers. If you are on outage, we ask to call for you guys to call because when you guys call, it will help us to identify that you're going through an outage because we don't always know, especially during storms, right? We bring back the whole circuit, we think everybody's back but not necessarily they are back, they might still be out. So when you call, if you look on the outage map and it looks like you're back but you're not, we ask that you call so that that way we can send somebody and go check out your area. Public safety power shut off, very important, because this is our last line of defense. This is the part where when we go ahead and we decide that it's necessary to turn off the area, we will send out a notice and we will then go outage. Since we put this into play, which is July 1st of 2024, we have not instituted any public safety power shut off in our circuits. We have had outages because we, unfortunately, we've had at times when we stood up our INT for PSPS and ZD we might have to activate, we've had storms. So guess what, when the outage happens it wasn't necessary public safety power shut off. It's very important to note, but there was outages. And like any outage when it's in a high risk area We have to drive it. We have to make sure it's safe before we go ahead and put it back on But to know just so that you guys know we haven't instituted we haven't made any public safety power shutoffs from July 1st till now No, not going with it. Inputs and criteria for PSPS. Once we get into unread flag, right? This happens. National Weather Service says. Okay. Inputs and criteria for PSPS. Once we get into unread flag, right? This happens national weather services. We're in a fire weather watch or in red flag warning. We stand up our IMP. Our IMP then it switches our incident management team. They then start to watch for Wingus above 45 miles power in the area. We have these weather stations. Relative humidity drops below 45%. If we start to get into those scenarios, our team then says, eight, we gotta go ahead and activate the public safety power shut off. We will then notify in that next slide we'll talk about it. We'll then go ahead and notify our customers. We'll then notify our stakeholders. We'll work with our civil defense, and then we'll go ahead and turn off the power. So when you look at the PSPS estimated audit areas, this is a quick map to show all the areas affected. Doesn't mean that when we activate PSPS, that all these orange areas will be out. It just means that if we activate the circuit, it might be the Waikah Law area, it might be the Kohala Waikah area, Kala State's area, it might be the Kona area, right? So just know that it's not necessarily everybody will see it at the same time, but when we have to activate it, we will go and activate in the specific areas that is being impacted. And then lastly, this slide just kind of gives you the steps to process the restoration. And again, restoration might be days. So what we ask is if we get into a PSPS, you know, we please be prepared, know that when we're getting into these scenarios, it's like getting ready for emergencies. Let's be prepared and get ready. Tools to notify SMS texts, emails, automated voice. These are the things that we have in place to go ahead. Our online tool is very critical. So if you haven't subscribed to our online tool, get it because this will help get notifications. And then lastly, emergency preparedness. You know, we cannot do it ourselves so we need everybody's help. So we ask, please subscribe to our preparedness, emergency preparedness, and use that to help be prepared. I'll wrap this up. Last but not least, of course, is that stakeholder and community outreach piece. You can go to the next slide. I think we really want to thank the county of Hawaii. This council or fire department, the police department, civil defense, all been completely critical and strategic over the last year and a half as we work through this wildfire mitigation. So I think we wanted to thank you if you know of organizations in your community that that would benefit from a presentation having us come. Please let me know you can reach out and I've already got some great names from you folks so we'll be reaching out and you can go to the last slide and with that we stand ready for questions especially Kevin and Kurt so. Especially Kurt. Council members opening up for questions comments. Council Member Husses. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Jen. Kevin Kurt and Kirsten, I think, you know, and to the team here, of course, but appreciate you being here, presenting to my colleagues, kind of giving them an update on the work that you've been doing, and the implementation of both the software side, the hardware, and then the community partnerships that we're building, and of course course that we have to keep going and moving forward on. Could you, you know, one of the slides talked about PSPS, could you just then lighten us on the review process as you kind of re-invision PSPS? Because it mentioned, you know, this you might be re-analyzing, re-assessing PSPS. What are the steps that you kind of take and put into effect for that purpose? So, okay, so PSPS, what we did is we actually hired consulted to come in and analyze all the different areas and Jen kind of touched upon it, right? Looked at what the fire was in the area, looked at what the risks to the communities were and that was very important for us, right? Because once you kind of identify that where the risk is, where people are, right? And what was the options for that happening? That's what ended up giving that red zone that you see in this map, right? Very important to us. This is people. Yeah. So once that happened, we then said, okay, this is an area that we got to look at, what are our options? What is our last line of defense? So public safety power shut off was the last line of defense. So you're asked your question is what makes us look at that? What makes us turn it off? What makes us decide? Is that the question? More about like, do we want to reassess it for looking ahead? Like if things change, you know, systems change, growth areas change, the grid changes. So it's a yearly thing. Every year we're going to go ahead and reassess. So we look at them as far as we started with this came up with our area of PSPS. But what we termed, our senior VP terms it, is it's a living plan. And so since it's a living plan, we're going to continue to look at the area and see if it makes sense or if we have to expand. So even when we look at other areas, the first one where we showed was the red, right, just tier tier 3 We then go and look to see if any tier 2's would then come up into a tier 3 and Same thing with a tier 3 has they come out. Do you are you getting more water is it less risk? It's constantly being evolved and it's a it's a plan of living proportion Yeah, if I just can add so as Kevin mentioned it's a living plan so what we do is as we implement tools we change construction we harden the grid we add more situational awareness tools we will look and adjust accordingly what is or isn't a part of the PSPS plan. So we're constantly looking to see like well can we what we call sectionalize a circuit. So we can we maybe just keep a portion of it energizing only take the energize the real critical risk areas you know so I'm not taking out you know thousand people maybe I might only impact 700 impact 700 people. So that's kind of part of this iterative plan that we have that as we look to deploy and harden the system, add equipment out there. Like Kevin said, it will be a living plan that will continue to evolve as we get more information and strengthen our grid. Thank you. Could you speak a little bit to, you know, this kind of involves the white-clote community in the wildfire safety advocates and kind of the work in the partnership you had. And, you know, there were articles about this that went out, particularly about the community benefits package that changed at the federal level. And maybe plans with continuing plans with community or work that you want to do with the dollars and the grant money that maybe could be re-characterized or invested in different parts of your mitigation strategies. Sure, I can answer that. Last year we, I think it was last year, we had announced that we received $95 million from the federal government, that we were going to receive $95 million, which would be matched with funds from the utilities. So it was a 50-50 match. 5 million of that was set aside by the federal government for what's called community benefits agreements. So this was separate from the grid hardening and some of the other things we're talking about, even separate from the vegetation management actually. It really was, I think the intention was let's get everybody working together, let's get the community involved, let's give volunteers and so we had proactively identified several organizations on Hawaii Island, White Glowwald, Fire Safety Advocates for one of them, for this island. To look at work we could do together a partnership where we would fund it through that fund. And there could be volunteers or workers to get that done. And so I think that one was specifically looking at vegetation management. We were told, I believe this within January, that the Department of Energy, those funds would be frozen at this time. Not the other 90 million, but the 5 million that was set aside for community benefits would be frozen. And so we did alert all of the organizations we were working with at that time we didn't have any assigned contract yet but we wanted to make sure everybody knew hey let's stop work on that least until we have a better idea where that is. It again doesn't stop our work as far as vegetation management that other great heartening but it did stop us from being able to do those community benefits agreements. Is there a way so that those five million dollars are unattainable right now then because of the way it's the last we were told as they were frozen? Is there is there a way to recharacterize that language and that request to Department of Energy Energy in terms of to receive just for other implementation that you see to kind of go towards either more grid resiliency or anything like that? Kevin and Kurt can add to this but I believe that 90 million there was actually, we had to be pretty specific about the work we were going to do when we submitted for the funding and so we re-characterized that at this time. I think there's a concern that you could lose that funding. Okay. Yeah, so right now we have designated plans with that 90 million. So we're working towards that. The 5 million that you're asking about is not there. However, we're going to continue to work with our community. Just understand that we will continue to work, we'll continue to come up with different type of solutions that we can help to keep things moving. It doesn't necessarily mean it will be exactly what we were talking about. But we will continue to work. We haven't, just because we didn't get the $5 million, doesn't mean that we stop as an organization working with the different stakeholders. We're very vested because we go back to the plan, this is not one one group issue. This is a many groups issue and us in Hawaii got to continue to work hand in hand together to kind of achieve what we want to do. So I would say this maybe we don't have the $5 million and we as the utility doesn't have as much money but maybe we can work together and we can hand in hand try to see what else we can do. We might not get the money, but we might have other options, other things programs we're working on, things that we're doing, talking about like this wildfire strategy, how do we get to where we make everything safe. Kurt kind of covered the things that we're working on, changing the fuses, covered conductor, hardening the poles. It might not be perfect and reach exactly what we all wanted to do in the first hand, but it'll get us to something that makes it better for the communities that are there. You just remember, we're there doing this day in and day out. Just that he brings the things that we're using today to kind of make it better. Tell us you that this is real things that's happening daily. Some of the things I talked about with inspections and vegetation management, that's real things we do every day. Different from what was a year or two ago, right? The fact that we're committing to inspect every year, the same lines that we've never had to do in the past, it is a commitment that we make from our side that says, we have effort, we are putting focus in these communities, and we are all in. And that's all I can say about that. And I guess just to add, because I wanted to clarify it and I didn't get a chance met when I was doing my presentation, I think specifically to Waikaloah, and it is, it is our highest wildfire risk area. All those things we talked about, the cameras, the weather stations, they've been deployed in Waikaloah. We did aerial inspections of Waikaloah about a month ago. is planned work. We've done trimming of trees along that line area. And so this work is being done in Waikolo. I think people don't often see it. And maybe until we're actually talking about it here, maybe when we put out the press releases for the aerial inspections, but this work, it is a priority for us. Wei Kaloa is obviously a big priority for us. Thank you, Jen. Thank you, Evan. You know, it's going to the wildfire summit. You're absolutely right. Like the conversations that we had there about all the parties that are at the table and everyone who has a responsibility to coole on of kind of protect community. I mean that wildfire management organization we're talking about land management so all the partners around the communities and that configuration zones like interaction from the wildfire to the urban environment so there are a lot of different moving pieces and grateful that you're really paying attention to a lot of these pieces and a willing partner in this conversation. The one I wanted to, and you know this kind of leads into my last question for now is, you know we had our admission of housing, okay how it cost on earlier. These communities are lever communities are seeing growth as well. So there is this you know also increased risk over time as white-cloth communities, we grow the corner communities, you know, these desirable communities that people want to live and they're expanding. So there's kind of pushing into areas where risk is greater as we know in some of these areas already. And one of the, one of the challenges I see, you know, you're out there as the utility maintaining the vegetation that maybe not really your responsibility though at the end of the day. And I think that's a conversation we have to have here kind of at a government level at the Council level one where we're looking at conditions for, you know, permits, approvals, land, all these sort of things, right, and applications that if they're interacting with our utility partners, that they also have to take an ownership and responsibility of the vegetation that runs under your lines. Because you know, you're investing these dollars to maintain the vegetation that interacts with your lines and then you might be going above and beyond to remove it entirely if you see it's like a high risk area or what have you. But I think we need to put a little bit more emphasis on some of the land owners that run under the lines and the partnership that you build with them either through these easements and whatnot. And that's something that we're going to have a continued conversation about to really find that responsible party to take care of their land and that proper land management, especially as it relates to you, and these zones of high risk. Thank you all, I'll yield for now. I've taken up some time and I really appreciate the patients and the ears from my colleagues to really get involved in this conversation. So thank you, Chair. No worries, thank you, Council Member Hustis. Anyone else? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you chair. No worries. Thank you councilmember Houston. Anyone else? Councilmember Connie Lee. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So you guys are going to switch to cover conductors for your main lines. There is. So that is an option. This is one of the types of conductor that we are assessing in certain areas of, you know, what is a best solution for that area. But yeah, not all, but this is just an option that we are looking at and considering. Now we'll eliminate arcing from branches or things like that. Correct. Yeah. So things coming into contact with the conductors or if there is, say, contact swing short. What we call swing short, where conductors might hit each other or some other object. Yeah. Then what about the ground wire? What are you guys doing, ground wire? I'm sorry. What was eliminating copper wire? Is it? Yeah, so we on our system we have copper conductor. So this is typically, you know, this is an example. This is one from a country Maui as a typical example. It's just old. It's more so on the leeward. Iward, excuse me, windward sides, it gets brittle and it bales. And so we're just basically been removing this and replacing it with this aluminum and or we might be replacing it with covered conductor. It kind of depends on the environment, the conditions, it's a situational based consideration when looking at what to replace it with. That's your pole ground or that's the house ground that's in your area. No, this is actually a conductor in the air. This is the main line. This is the main line what is used to be up there. Really? Yes. Yes. And there's a gauge that's even smaller than this is it braided or they saw it so this is a very vintage How they used to tie them together? So this is a splice as a splice it is wow and they didn't break up the splice But they broke a little bit downstream, but yeah, this is that's your area conductors in some parts of Ireland Yes, wow, so this is being identified and being replaced. I've never seen those before. Yeah. So the other thing you got to remember is copper is a good conductor. It's a very good. When you compare copper and aluminum, very good conductor, what is showing you is the size of the conductor. So that's why you said some of them are smaller. So those are the ones that we identified as we got to replace them before they start to fail because copper over time when it swings, anneals, right? And annealment is the thing that causes it to fail. So again, this conductor he's talking about when we find it, we're replacing it before it becomes a problem. And it replacing it with aluminum, because you have less likelihood with a bigger aluminum conductor from creating the same issue. So not necessarily we have this in everywhere, but when we have it and we identify it, our next step is to replace it with aluminum conductor. on conductor. And it is a, if I could add, sorry, it is like a cascading thing. So, right, more mass, a little bit heavier. So then, potentially, right, we are ending up changing our poles, changing our part, where, so it is kind of a cascading. So, we do kind of look at these two, you know, I mean it's It's really situation in terms of looking at it and and what makes the best Sense right from a planning and safety reliability standpoint What what gave that that that isn't that an area will conduct there. I'm just going to be going to be able to see what the area will conduct there. I'm just going to be able to see what the area will conduct there. I'm just going to be able to see what the area will conduct there. I'm just just going to be able to see what the area will conduct there. I'm just just going to be able to see what the Interesting. Okay. Is your president sorry in your welfare management or your welfare density risk map is density of populations taking into account I think I heard the answer but are you looking at the density of the areas the housing density? Populations are. Okay. When I'm saying density, when we say density here, density is like size of zoning. We have like residential 15,000 or you have very dense housing types in an area. Is that in that taking into account in your mouth? So to tell you what happened with this case. So when they came, we took them to each area. We looked at the housing areas. We looked at what was there. We looked at what the prevailing wind was and if there was a fire and in the prevailing win was going to take out this whole area of subdivision. That became a critical need for us. And the reason why it's very important that we brought the consultant to the areas was because they drove every one of these areas where our lines were at and where the associated communities were at. So when you ask the question, did we go and we look at the count of number of people in that area? I wouldn't say they went and counted every person that was there to get the density population like what you're using. But what they did is looked at, okay, the line is here, this is the type of fuel is in the area. If a fire was to occur and the wind blows in this direction, how much people are being impacted? With this impact of community, yes it would, this is a very high risk. So yes, they did. Now, the question came up from Chair Houston's about, I mean, a cons Houston's about what happens when the growth happens here and you get more people. We're gonna continue to look at that, right? Because you see the subdivisions being developed. But this area that is already high risk, can I get any higher risk? We're already looking at them as it's high risk. This is what we gotta do to protect them. For those areas that were tier two though, right? We look at the areas that was orange and we look at growth there. That might come a tier three, right? And that might become a PSPS. Do I take this tier three, that's a tier three and take them off of it? We probably don't, but let's just say the vent the fuel goes away for whatever reason. Land management happens, they make the fuel go away. That might become a tier 2 because now you don't have the fuel, right? Those are things that can change in the plan. It just doesn't, I don't see it happening instantly. I see it happening over time. But if you're tier three, you're tier three because there's risk, because a lot of fuel, and there's risk because there's population that can get impacted. But and also I guess to your point at that wildfire summit, there was an expert on wildfires. And he basically made it very clear. He said wildfires are not the issue. It, the biggest issue is the as-built environment. It is how your subdivisions are built. It is what's around folks homes. It makes a big difference. I think, think it on that line. If you were to overlay your infrastructure maps on top of our County zoning maps and you specifically looked at the density allowance per the parcels and You overlay those two you'd actually be planning for future Growth which is what mr. Husses was talking about when I liked point, because then you're looking at your infrastructure where the county is going to be or is allowing incredibly dense housing to be built, and then you're tracking that and being ready to build your network stronger in those areas or provide PSPS in the future. And I'm sounds like you are, but that might be a tool you can'm going to go to the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at the public to look at incredibly expensive. But as you were talking, the county has a lack of sidewalks. And if I remember right, for being a electrician for 10 years, if you put PVC under the ground, you put four inches of concrete on top, that's considered a proof instead of digging a three-foot trench. I don't know if utilities are subject to the same restrictions that residential conduit placement is or are. But if we combine the need for sidewalks with your need for underground and cables, we actually might have something that would be useful to both parties. Because then we get complete streets and you get cheaper conduit burials because they're case-to-con That might be an option we could pursue as a county utility collaboration which would be neat because I love communities where they don't do aerials it's pretty but you job in the public safety component and you got a whole brand new not just aesthetics it's actually a safety mechanism now. So just an an idea. Absolutely. We would like to work with the county. And as we work through this wildfire safety strategy, including that strategic undergrounding, I mean, those are the key on if things were looking for. Okay. I think I had one more question for you, but I may not. The tree management, that is an interesting one. I've always wondered why I actually have wondered about the cost for both the phone companies and for Helco in maintaining the undergrowth underneath of your lines, classically used by Ives and Eesman. And I have in my neighborhood where palm trees going up into the wires, I call help well, they come and they have them cut, but there's a cost for you. There's a public safety mechanism for us in there. So finding a way to balance that. I just have a hard time believing I can plant the tree under your lines, and then it's your responsibility to take care of it. That's an interesting parallel between public and private components. I'll let Kevin kind of finish this answer but there is you know incredible amount of funds that have to be spent on vegetation management. In general, we would be concerned about the tree that might be coming in contact with the lines. I think one of the things that a lot of folks maybe don't understand is what the cost is to customers. And so it's really balancing cost to customers. And that's where that discussion, Council Member Houston, that point you made earlier, is really how do we work with land owners? How do we all work together in order to maintain the fuel side? Which is one of the things that start fires. I mean, you didn't ignition, but you need fuel. And so I'll let Kevin finish that off. So that is a very tough question, right? Because the property owner is responsible for cutting their own trees that's on their property. The part that we come in and we trim, right, is the tree itself when it impacts all customers. So this line feeds and services, thousand customers, and the tree is coming in. We're cutting it to keep it clear from our lines. And that's what we do. The issue is the tree owner is still responsible for removing that tree. So if it impacts us enough, I'm going to come to you and I'm going to say, hey, this is a hazardous tree coming from your property impacting me. If I got to come in and cut it, I'm going to bill you when it impacts all these customers and I got to put the line back up. So it's happened, right? But I'm going to put you on notice. And there's a law that says anything that you have that can impact the safety of people, right, the public, whatever have you. You're responsible for it and I'm going to come back and I'm going to bill you once I tell you that it is your responsibility. And so we've had to do that. It's not a fun method. The county also does this, right? if there's a hazardous tree that's coming down and can hurt your neighbor and they call you, the county and says, hey, I get this situation, it doesn't impact us, but it impacts my neighbor, it falls down and lands on their house, right? It's a hazardous tree and they go ahead and identify it and they follow the same practice, it's an ordinance and they build the person for it. Not an easy thing. We don't have it easy. The county doesn't have it easy. It would be better if the landowners took care of it, right? But I think back to Hurricane is all too. I mean that was basically the worst case for all the hazardous trees in all of Puna. And then we're out of power for three weeks. So not a PSPS issue, not a wildfire issue, but just an overall hazard that we see not just on one side of the island or the other, but it's a problem. Well, thank you for the information. Thank you for my buzzer on off. Thank you, Councilmember Conelli, Kleinfelder. If there aren't any comments from anyone else I'll just finish this up really quickly. I want to thank you guys for taking the initiative to improve infrastructure. It's a theme in our county in the public and private sector that a lot of our infrastructure has been deteriorating and is older and is outdated. And but also understanding the size of our island makes it a heavier lift in order to update all these things. But I am heartened to have seen the efforts being put forward by you guys and by community to participate, to communicate, to collaborate with one another because it's only through public-private partnerships and government and community working together that we really can be effective and we can move forward and ensure the safety and the health of our communities regardless of what federal funding gets cut. So we can't cut trees. But anyway, I just wanted to thank you guys for being here. Thank you for bringing actually the show and talent. It is as much as I was telling him to stop wanting to ask questions about every little piece. It's really cool to see the pieces in real life and up close and I just want to thank you, Jen, we had a transformer blow up in my neighborhood. It was really a year ago now, but I could just text you because all the power went out and that's the part of the relationships where she could go, oh, that's in your neighborhood. And then all that time was saved because we knew closer to where it was. So I also wanna thank you guys for your responses on and clarifications of the differences. People reach out about, you know, trees leaning on lines. Not understanding that those aren't your lines, those are cable lines which have different risk factors. So as a community and unfortunately it's all too often through crisis, but we learn. And we get educated on things and we lean in and we participate and we contribute. And so thank you to community for being here today. It was long afternoon. Thank you guys for all the work that you do and continuing to bring us into the 21st century and to ensure that we don't have a tragedy like Lahina. We've had some close calls, but I appreciate the work that you do and we have a lot more to do. So with that, all those in favor of closing file and communication 167, please say aye. We have seven eyes with two excuse, Council Member Kergo-Witz and Council Member Galymba, and seeing no other business on our agenda today, all this meeting is adjourned. I didn't have to vote on it.