Okay council members thank you for being here this morning everyone calling this meeting to order it is 9 o2 a.m. Mr. RSL. Do we have any testimony before we begin our meeting today? Chair just noting that we do not have any testifiers in your remote sites or zoom it does seem that we do have one testifier here in the Heelow Chamber. Okay. Go ahead when you're ready to ours. Thank you so much, Chair. So our first testifier is Christine testifying on Bill 31. Take your time, Christine. It's okay. Christine Kubat, Bill 31. And whenever you're ready, Christine, if you could make your way to the front, you can press that green button at the base of the mic and you'll have three minutes. Good morning, Miss Kubat. Good to have you. Push the, push the green button when you're ready. Take your time. Take your time. We're all getting started. There is no rush. There is no rush. You're good. There you go. OK. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. Hello, how good morning. My name is Christine Kubot. I'm the executive director of Recycle Hawaii. I admit that I'm just kind of dropping into this and I haven't had a chance to actually see the budget for the Department of Environmental Management, but going off of what I've seen in previous years. I notice that there's this habit for the department to take the budget from one year and just kind of plop it into the next year and say, oh, we're good to go. really there's not an evaluation of the budget that addresses ongoing needs or goals that we have, especially related to sustainability. So what we've noticed in the past couple of years is that there's a decrease in funding for recycling programs and we find that very problematic. So I would hope that in this budget, there is a commitment made to recycling, especially recycling education, but that word recycling is very outdated. We're moving towards sustainable materials management. We're moving towards resource recovery. So, you know, anything that's along those lines. What we're also finding is that with the withdrawal of federal funding that we're having to rely more on the private sector and to the extent that we have county funds that we can point to and leverage and say that the county has made this commitment. Now we're able to take those funds and use it to attract more funding from the private sector very helpful. And another thing that has come up in past discussions with the previous director Ramsey Montsor is he had this idea, which I thought was a very good one, in that the county could along with the tax form, include a section where people could make a voluntary contribution towards sustainable materials management or sustainability projects, just in the same way. You can check that little box and add a couple of dollars to support the fund for campaign contribution, something like that. So I would really like to know if something like that would be possible because what we find when we go out to the community, there is such a demand for services, especially for zero waste support services at county events. And we did our best. We submitted actually a total of four applications to the county grants and aid program, two for our organization, two is the fiscal sponsor for a very dynamic. 30 seconds please. Dynamic group. And all four of those applications were denied because of a technical error on our application. We're so very sad for that because there is a really, really strong demand in the community for support services out of events to reduce waste. So I would ask that the county do everything it can to make sure that there's funding, dedicated funding that can't get taken into wasteful practices. But for recycling, waste diversion, and those kind of projects. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your testimony and chair with that. Those are all the testifiers you have this morning. Thank you very much, Prasera Sali. Well done. Joining us today, our first department is going to be our mass transit agency. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see you when you're ready. Introduce yourselves for the record and then go to your presentation. And then when you're finished we will go to the questions and go from there. Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair. Thank you, Council Members. For being here today, we really do appreciate it. My name is Zach Bergham. today We really do appreciate it. My name is Zach Bergham. I'm TA to the acting administrator role at mass transit currently With me today is Kelly and Fuji. She's our accountant as well as TA to the ASA or administrative services assistant position as well Before I get started I'd also like to give a shout out to our hilly on team as well. So all the MTA staff that we have as well as Robert's Hawaii staff and drivers, MTM, medical transportation management, staff and drivers, HCEOC, Hawaii County Economic Opportunity Council as well as TaxiSit help out with our services and also our continued partnership with SSFM in regards to the master plan. Thank you very much. So looking at our first slide. If you get stuck, really is amazing and you can come push buttons for you. Should I hit the arrow maybe or? Yeah, I think the battery might have died. Okay. I'll just use the error then. Nope, it works. Okay, perfect. All right, perfect. So looking at our first slide, we've got an overview, starting with charge point chargers and battery electric buses. So here this June, we're going to be receiving the first four battery electric buses from Gellig. In addition to two charge point chargers, this will be our first step toward going to the zero emission fleet and putting these buses in service. So we're pretty excited at mass transit for this progress in moving forward. Below that, you can see scaffolding and maintenance. What that means is with any type of maintenance that is done on hybrid buses or battery electric buses, the maintenance in those routine maintenance functions happen on top of the bus. So we have to have fall protection in place for these. So in turn, scaffolding is something that we're looking at. It's something that would be in a bay where the bus would pull into the bay, the scaffolding would then slide up to the bus itself. It's got like a railing system around it and the mechanics then can work on the buses. So we're in the process of acquiring that as well. The next thing is sewer entries. So this year we identified a pretty big problem that we had at mass transit in regards to the large albecia trees that surround our property. A lot of these root systems have grown into the leach field and we're causing some problems to our septic and leach field essentially. We had some toilet overflow problems, we had a portage on put in place as a precaution, but Big Mahalo to DPW folks, they've been really helping us out in moving forward with that and getting these trees cut back and eliminating that. So that was a big morale booster for us in moving forward. So I just wanted to notate that here. The next thing below that is the micro transit program. And what that is is it really is the missing piece of the puzzle for our agency. I just wanted to kind of just touch on that lightly because you know we have fixed route. We have pair transit services but we also are missing a key element and that is reaching the people in the more rural areas that can't reach those services and so we need to reach those folks and bring them out to the nearest official bus stop and that is micro transit. This is a van similar to like a pair transit van but it's about three feet longer and that's what we're looking at purchasing in order to achieve that goal. But that's the micro transit program in a nutshell. The next thing is the GTFS improvements. So we've acknowledged that our services need improvements on the real time tracking of these buses where they're on-round. It'll help passengers and also the community know where these buses are on-route to allow for better planning, essentially. So that's an improvement that we're working toward achieving as well. ADA compliance is something that we take very seriously, coming, especially this year. It's just one thing that we have to to take very seriously and what we do is we have training that is conducted every single year in January and February. And this training, it doesn't just involve MTA folks, but it also involves Robert's Y, MTM as well as taxi. So we bring everybody in and we conduct training. And so that's just one step for just, you know, a knowledge level thing. In addition to ADA compliance, we also do audit checks ourselves at mass transit where we go meet the buses and we do audit checks and just making sure we keep the spear sharp, essentially. Another safety precaution that we do in making trains easier for folks also in regards to safety's security. We've acknowledged the need for security, whether that's at a bus stop, or even riding the bus, because things happen, unfortunately, that we can't plan. So we're moving in a direction that, you know, better equip the buses with security as well, moving forward. The last thing I wanted to talk about on this slide also is HUB planning. Most of you know that we're working toward transit hubs around the island and right now with the Pauhoa hub our cadets is with H.Dont or Hawaii Department of Transportation and we're looking at finishing that up so that'll be our Caddx categorical exclusion and after that we can move to land acquisition. So that'll be a huge step for the community on that one. We're also in conversations with Lily Kalani Trust and SSFM in regards to the Kona Hub status and so we've identified some parcels of interest and right now it's the the parcel that fronting. The old Kmart area in Kona is the Kona Hub status update there. So a lot of these places also are going to be different multi-agency departments. So there's going to be state entities with them in conjunction with county. So like for Pahoe example, we're looking at a state facility as a library being in conjunction with that for example. And then lastly, Waimea in K.L. hubs as well because all of those are included at our master plans, we're going to continue to push those forward as well. All right, the next slide covers our highlights. So currently we have eight hometown buses on order right now. We've received one bus already and the seven others are going to be trickling in over the next couple of months. And so these will go right into the fleet and start helping those numbers as well. Like I mentioned earlier, we have four battery electric buses arriving this June and also we have nine pair transit vans arriving this year as well. So those are all inbound. And then I already did mention about the ADA training that we have in the sewer and tree improvements which was a huge highlight for us. Another thing that we're super proud about on this slide is ridership. And as you can see, FY24, we were just under a million riders on fixed route, which is just outstanding. The community doesn't just use our services, but they depend on it every single day to make it to their appointments or work or whatnot. And super proud of these numbers. Paratransit, the same thing, ridership has just been increasing as well as share ride taxi in Vanpool. On the right hand side you can see the bus stop and shelter improvements in the next phase. So as you know that we did the first phase about a year and a half ago with shelter improvements around the island and then lately the past couple of months We've been doing these town hall meetings around the island and just getting great valuable feedback And so this is just wonderful timing as we move into the next phase of bus stop and shelter improvements because we've met a lot of really nice folks that just care And they express all these concerns with us and and so we're able to you know finalize our list and in conjunction with that we're also working with Hawaii Department of Transportation on grants related to that to these stop and shelter improvements so definitely exciting times for us. Then the last part on this slide is the seven pair trans-advance and transmission repairs. I wanted in here is, you know, we, at mass transit we have nine mechanics and we have seven pair trans advance. And so when you look at these ridership numbers, it's quite impressive and especially what our mechanics can do. A lot of these vehicles are pushing 50,000 miles plus a year and the transmissions and other mechanical functions are failing and these guys are just they keep them on the road In addition to a lot of these gale buses that we have and they're pushing over a million miles on the odometer. So very impressive work All right, our fourth slide You can see that we have 26 positions and eight vacancies. I'll start at the top. You can see the administrator is vacant and that one is in progress and those interviews should be conducted soon. When looking at the ASA position, administrative services assistant, we've done a couple different recruitments on that one in interviews, but we're unsuccessful on that as well as the transit fleet and not that one, sorry about that. The transit program manager, which was out of Kona, and so we've been unsuccessful with that too, but in communications with HR on different incentives and things that we can do to make it a little bit more desirable to folks on applying for those positions. And then also we're going to be looking at the storekeeper positions or in the process of completing the RTF or request to fill for that. And then following that position will be the garage supervisor and then the two mechanic position at the bottom. Our fifth slide is our total budget, which is 59,911,640. The budget increase is 15,173,227. And the OCE increases 11,423,227. And the equipment increase is 3,995,000. And so a lot of this is uncontrollable cost related to fuel, oil, insurance as well. But the two biggest things also will be our fixed route contract and a pair transit contract as well. And so this is us trying to project enough to make sure we have that covered. We're not underestimating with that. For equipment increases. So we're looking at 10 additional pair transit vans in the next 12 months as well as seven hybrid buses and those two purchases We'll we'll be able to use federal funding as well as county funds for those In addition to that was the micro transit concept that I talked about earlier We're looking at purchasing eight micro transit vans and also a mobile bus wash which will be included into that. We spend a lot of money on washing buses, so this in turn is going to help us hopefully reduce those costs. All right, slide six. You can see that we have new contracts listed here. I mentioned fixed route services and pair transitransit services. And then also we're fair free until December of this year. And then a snapshot of bus procurement. So as I mentioned, we have eight hometown buses arriving this year. The four battery electric buses arriving this June. Nine paratransit, VANS arriving this year as well. It's a total of 21 total vehicles for this year. And then coming up after that we'll be we're looking at five or sorry five refurbished buses. 10 additional pair transit vans. The eight micro transit vans I mentioned earlier and also the seven hybrid buses. So that's that's a total of 30 vehicles there that we're looking at purchasing as well. All right, and that's our slides. Just wanted to say thank you so much for your guidance and support over the years. Thank you. Thank you very much, acting administrator, to the council. Council member Oenecee. Thank you. Sure, acting administrator to the council. Councilmember Olici. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. Good morning, and thank you for coming. Morning, you mentioned all your mechanics, you're trying to hire more, but then you also mentioned about increasing your fleet with more electrical buses. Now, I know like most of the buses are diesel, and so mechanics are they able to repair those electric buses or do you want any certain training or you guys going to be requiring when you have these new hires to have that? Absolutely. Absolutely. So yes to both of those. So our mechanics are going to work on the battery electric buses and they will need to receive training which when we purchase these buses we also purchase that training kind of in conjunction with it. And so have you started already training the existing mechanics, the existing mechanics. Yes. If we started training them to be prepared to end these because you folks do have couple electric buses already? We have one electric bus so far. Okay, so they're already trained or they're in training? These buses are different variants. So if we get a battery electric bus, say from New Flyer versus Gellig, you know, it's yes, it's a battery electric bus, but they're different companies essentially. So when we do get the buses, the training does follow. Oh, okay. Okay. And same thing for a hybrid bus too. So how long is the training gonna be? I wanna say this one coming up with 60 hours? So this one coming up for the four battery electric buses, it'll be like a 60 hour package of training. And then we can cut that into the weeks how we need to. And then also we can't just close shop shop. You know what I mean? So we have nine mechanics, but we can't just say, okay, everybody's not gonna work this one day. So it needs to be broken up, essentially. And then, you folks did retrofit couple buses with hydro? With that current? Hydrogen. So we did, we had one bus that was retrofitted with hydrogen. And is that being used? No, unfortunately, US hybrid pulled out of the state of Hawaii last year and it kind of just left a strain a little bit with that operation. And so was the county paying for the retrofit? No. The company was doing it for us. Right. So now that vehicle is what? No, not in service or correct. It's not in service. It's currently over at NLHA property. Okay. I'm with you. It's been a pretty big struggle and it was kind of unexpected when they pulled out. Our mechanics are not trained to retrofit a hydrogen bus or work on. know what I mean that was that wasn't a plan and it was pretty unfortunate so okay and that was prior to you being in like it's to the TA present no I've been with mass transit for about two years not in just the you know this position of course but I started off as the ASA to begin with. And then you talk about ridership, like hitting a million riders. I mean, how many of them are like students? How many of them are Capunas? How many are them? Are working people? And how many of them are just writing because they want to write? Def People have a count on that. I wish I did have that count. I don't have a count for broken down, you know, like you're mentioning the demographic of the person writing. I have total ridership that's reported and that's what the numbers are in the slide. Okay. Because I think that would be good data to keep so that we as a council or even the administration would know, you know, where's the focus and where we might need to increase more. Because I remember back before in like 2008 like that ridership was free. And the schools started to increase their fares to their students so a lot of students was catching the helion right because it was free and so that took numbers on to the bus that had less other you know like people going to work or you know other trans going to other places had less room for them. So that's where something you know I think would be good to look at and talking to some of my friends who drive the bus. There are some riders that I mean they just because it's free, they just get on and you know they just do whatever they want And sometimes, and that's where I was going to bring up about the safety. So, is there a policy like when a writer is rude or violent on the bus? Do you folks have any policies on that? Absolutely. And we do exercise that a lot, you know, whether we need to trespass someone, but yeah, that absolutely is enforced. And that's something that we also talk about at the driver meetings when we conduct those as well. And also with our security team as well, because that's essential. Yeah, absolutely. Because you're contract with Roberts. Do they follow the same policies as they drive for the county or for Massachusetts? If there's a passenger that is obstructing a driver from achieving their goal or their duty for driving, absolutely. Yeah. We call the police right away. They're in constant communication with dispatch as well. And then we'll have the police, whether even if the bus is maybe at the bus terminal, have police dispatch there, or if they are on route, they're in communications with dispatch to have police waiting at that next official bus stop. So when the bus does arrive there, then they can intervene. We've had that problem with up and down the spectrum, with kids, with school-aged kids, all the way up to adults, because a writer is a writer at the end of the day. Yeah, because I've heard like there's certain policies where like if you have that service dogs or you have like lot of packages, you cannot be put in on the next CTU or whatever. So you limit it, but people sometimes don't follow those rules. And so the driver is responsible to enforce that policy. That's right. And then that's when they get into this confrontations right and so your bus all the county buses are they have cameras on that not not all of them some of the buses are much older than the newer ones so you folks are looking to retrofit that to put in the cameras or cameras but also all the new inbound buses that do arrive absolutely. And then the Roberts ones, they do have cameras, right? Most of them, yes. The last, well you mentioned about the trees. So the trees were being grown on DG Channel Land. Is that correct? Or was it on the land that we got executive order from the state? Around our property it's kind of a mixed bag at state land behind us and to the left of our property, Hawaiian homes on the right side. Okay and so the trees are where on which properties? Well trees are on all the complete surrounding. So have E-Foats contacted Day J-Jow? Wait, we have. And have they helped with cutting those trees? And so that's kind of a continued effort there. So this is kind of the early stages with it, but our court counsel has been helping us with getting in contact with the credit. And also who's in court for counsel is working with E-Foats counsel Susanna okay can you have a contact my office because then that's my district and I have a good relationship with the land the supervisor of the land management okay so I can work with with them to help perfect thank you do that thank you for that. The last thing I have is about security. I cannot believe that we have to pay at a bus shelter's security to watch because of the passengers how they behave. And that's why I talked to Finance before is that. I mean, and I know there's a program that it's a free ridership to, when is that end that funding December? December, okay. And there's no way of trying to compensate that expense of security by having some kind fee or some kind charge to the writers. No, we're totally restricted. Because I cannot see, could we spend almost over a million dollars on security? Is that correct? Correct. Yeah, I mean, I can't see maybe more have park order, but like a shelter right behind Cuperin's co-heal. I mean, it's isolated, so that's why you even get the elements, right? And so, yeah, you need security. But maybe we got to relocate them into more of a further populated area or something. I don't know, but I cannot see that. We're paying for that. We could use that money for something else, right? But your thoughts. I think, since I've been here, I think security is important. We see a lot of unfortunate things happen. You know, something is, someone's waiting for a bus and, you know, a pass or buy is doing something inappropriate. The security does intervene and it's really good that they're there. It's, it's the time, and even, you know, unfortunately our security, we can't pay them 24 hours to date to be there at some of these locations. Okay, ours kind of there to the end of their last, right? I guess, stop, right? Right. Because they have preschool here. I see the guys late at night, like at eight o'clock in the day, they're still there. things happen and it's it's nice that we do have security there to help and it's those little stories that we see and hear about where the security did person they did intervene and they made a difference and then it's kind of for us it's a win we're like, oh thank goodness that that's good that's kind of what we want. I'm with you I think we do spend a lot on security but at the end of the day I don't think we're going to eliminate it. We always need to be thinking about a way in the future on how to reduce it. We're never going to eliminate it. Well, then that's where I think by charging, it's going to help resolve. Because I don't think I've ever seen an Anohahu with a higher population than Big Island, having security at their bus shelters. Right? I've never seen any of. Yeah, I just wanted to say something, because it's just the bus stops. They have heavy foot traffic, and it's the locations that have the heavy foot traffic. For example, besides the plaza, we have the Pooha bus stop. There's the one in Kwonum. There's in there. There's at the bus terminal, you know, that's all we have. And those heavy foot traffic, where there are a lot of people, even though if we do have them paying a bus fee for it, it's still going to have the traffic for those people, pedestrians. So for that case, you know, there is a lot of security that we have watching those stops and it's just for the per you know for the safe field the riders that are there waiting for the buses. I know at like down in more apart that bus stop they had cameras there and did he still have cameras there? Yes we still have cameras. Did you folks upgrade the cameras? We, it hasn't been upgraded yet. Because I remember back in 2008, they put in cameras, but then it was like not the high definition. So they really couldn't see like the people or the, you know, the faces. It's been better. But maybe they did update, because I've been there. I did. Okay Yeah. So, so we had problems where an incident would happen, but they couldn't really see the whole, you know, like the detail of their faces and so forth. So, police had a hard time in, you know, arresting people and so forth. Yeah. So, that's good to hear. Yeah. And in a couple of those cameras, we're damaged last year. And so we did replace them. We had them replaced. And so they've been good since then. And police does, they do rely heavily on us when things do happen. OK. What's happening? I did send an email to Casey. And this is in regards down at the harbor's entrance, where the cruise ships come in. What's happening is when the visitors come off the ship, they really don't well, supposedly they supposed to have some information that the cruise ships were supposed to provide to them about transportation and so forth. But I don't think it's reaching out to all passengers. So when they come off, they walk towards the intersection, the busy intersection, they're lost. So then they cross the street, they go to the journal store, which is okay, because then they might buy something at the journal store, but they also have other businesses around there that they go there and ask them questions like, oh, where can I catch the bus? Where I can do this, where I can do that? Right? So, I think for mass transit, when they start, somehow when they exiting that gate, the main gate, if you folks can somehow work with DLNR or with harbors, and I think harbors is now is responsible for the property. I can help you guys out with that too, in putting up or putting up the cure code or whatever to so they can you know check out where the where they can go where the stops are because there's one down the road but there's nothing information to tell them that it's you know hitting towards C-Lo or whatever, and you know, it's like maybe 200 yards down, that's where the stop is right. So if you can work on that too, perfect. Yeah, and like you said, if you need. Council member, just to write your buzzer on off. Okay, about a minute. So I'll just say it, but so that's all. So if we can work on that, so please contact my office. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I'll remember how you want to. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here. Um, for Mass Transit, appreciate your time and the effort you've put into this presentation. Have a couple questions. I guess following up on Council member O'Neighe's point about signage. Is there any reason we couldn't be putting up signs now working with DPW at the bus stops even before we have the shelters? Because I've had this question from my constituents as well, which is I don't even know where the bus stop is. Like it's a secret because there's no signage. So just wondering, you know, I realized that people can find it online, but not everybody who rides the best things about that so much they like to be able to see. You know, a sign. This is where you go. So is that possible to get those signs up? Because I don't think that's a huge expense, is it? So no expense, no. One thing that we're working right now with the bus stop and shelter improvement project is making them ADA compliant. So some of these places could be flag stops, which isn't like considered an official bus stop, right? Because it may not be ADA compliant. Maybe a lift will come out of a bus and it's in gravel or if it's uneven ground or something like that. So that means we need to manipulate the ground where it's a pad for somebody if they're in a wheelchair and they're coming off of the bus. So that could be, for example, a stop that is a flag stop which is not unfortunately like an official bus stop. But I hear you loud and clear and that's one thing that our team has been looking at is improving that right there because That's one thing that we constantly hear about is where's the bus stop at? Mm-hmm and unfortunately We're you know, we're we're attending to that and putting enough attention on those areas now to do that That's where we're heavily involved on the next phase of bus stop and shelter improvements. Could there be some signage or signal that this is a flat, like a popular flag stop so that people, I mean just something simple that this is not an official stop. I don't know if that's possible, but there are places that act as stops that lots of people use, but other people are like, how do they know to go there? So I don't know if that's possible or even desirable but I would love to understand a little more about why that could or couldn't happen. Okay I'll definitely take that back. Okay feel free to talk to me and we can talk about it. Absolutely. Thank you for that. The other departments pulled out any federal funding or grant funding they had federal state funding. I know that most of your funding comes from GT, correct? Correct. Yeah, but do you have any federal funding currently? In relation to grants? So yeah, so I think Kelly's prepared to talk about the grant stuff, but just a couple of, we anticipated that question anyway, but although we didn't apply for any grants the past year, we do have grants that we have had from prior years that still have funding, and we're going to use those to the purchase of vehicles and whatnot. And then Kelly and I, we completed our grant training what two weeks ago, and then a few days after that we applied for a new grant with the SHOT Senate for $10.3 million and that's going to be in regards to hydrogen planning and infrastructure going forward. But going forward we're also going to be applying for new as we proceed. Do you want to add anything about the? So currently, I know because of the government, the FDA and all of that stuff, but whatever grants that we have that we are still getting those grants. How long? It is, what, and how much? Well, there is no deadline for the grants that we have currently that, I mean, there are you What are they for? For me, so those ones would be for, for example, about mean, there are a few. What are they for? For me, so those ones would be for, for example, our battery, left through buses, hybrid buses, some of them are for operations. They are, because they were going to take away all the low-no grants, right? We still have those low-no grants. Tell me what a low-no grant is. Low-initians grants. Those are the low-initians. so we still have currently all those grants. What about the, didn't we have funding for the free ridership? We did that kind of came out of the COVID grants. Okay. Is that completely gone or is that in place to the end of this year? COVID grants were it It's all spent down. It's all spent out very much. So we do still have one more grant for the operations side for Roberts and the care for the bears. OK. Now, so going into, after December of this year, what is the plan to figure out what the ridership cost will be? And how's the out? How are you deciding that? So what is the, so we're only fair free until December. Right. So what happens after that? So after that, we would go back to fairs. But who decides how much? Who does, okay. So it's just, it's just, you're not gonna have community community meetings or anything. Just we just decide. That's been put out that we're fair-free until December of this year. Okay. Yeah, I know. It was kind of unofficially put out and then I heard about it. Yeah. Okay, so it is officially out there now that going to some fair, but we don't know what and when will we make that decision? Correct. I mean officially we're fair-free until December of this year and Then I think that's you know us also in communications with what those fairs will look like in in regards to how many dollars Okay, thank you Director Not a gawa. If you can, sorry that I'm not up on the fair funding, because since I've been here, it's been free. A couple of questions. The morning council member is Diane Nakagawa, finance department. It is in the code. The fair structure is also there. If there would be a change, the council would do that would request the change. So that would be the process moving forward. But the fair structure would refer back to what is currently in the code. Okay. But I assume if we want to make changes, we're relying heavily on mass transit to give us information about what they need for this program. Yeah. Okay. Any information that can be needed to be needed? So I guess that's why I'm looking the mass transit to like, are you going to be providing that information? Do you have a sense of, you know, what we have in the code? Is that going to be adequate? Is that so I mean, I didn't bring the paper with me, but essentially it's a dollar for seniors and students. And then $2 for everybody else on fixed route for pair transit. It's $4, one way trip, and then $4 on that return ship. That's for pair transit. And so when you go back to the coupons and what they would do, essentially, that was the price. I think we're just going to have to have, you know, continuing conversation about the prices going forward, honestly, and I'll have to come. Okay, because that whole coupon thing, and all that was a big deal. I mean, you made changes for that, right? In the last couple of years there were so the coupon, so the coupon booklets for the share ride taxee program. Right, that was. Right, but weren't there some changes that were made to how people did that share ride? So the change was for the first four miles, essentially that was free and the task of going to the bus terminal to purchase those booklets went away and it was just the county what subsidized $15.80 for the first four miles of that person's trip and then anything after that they would cover the cost. Okay, thank you. Director, it sounds like it seems like you want to add something. If I could. So just on the overall budget, I think what we're seeing and we recognize is there has been a significant increase in the mass transit budget. And I alluded to a couple days ago, this is one of the areas we need to really evaluate, especially with potential funding ending and also not just that, but what is the appropriateness of the services that we have here? A lot of the services under MASH Transit, the cost is increasing and we do need more information from the administration. It is a priority. We will be reviewing a lot of these services the outcomes, which the ridership, the utilization of the services with Mass Transit. It is a priority. I want to add one more thing. So those are the things that we will evaluate. You know, it is what they have in front of them is the cost of the services as we see today. A lot of them, oh I do remember. One of the things that unfortunately we've had some turnover in the management of MASH transit and that transition time and those short year management year management has kind of hurt in terms of just kind of overall seeing, you know, where we're at. And so one of the things is we've looked at the master plan and we've kind of checked off a lot of the different services in the master plan. And like I mentioned earlier, it's really time to evaluate which ones are appropriate and where we're spending our dollars. So that is something we are definitely looking at. Okay. Yeah. And with this micro transit, that's an additional cost. So as soon as they'll be fairs associated with that or maybe it's just one fair and you do the whole route or something, but all that has to be worked out as well, right? That's correct. Okay. Alright, sorry, if I got a little off track, I just, yeah, there's like I said since I've been here, it's been free. I'm with you. And we really are doing our best to just keep the ship going forward. like Diane just mentioned, we've had a lot of turnover and we're doing the best we can with what we have. Absolutely, absolutely. And I really do hope that we can look to grants. I'm glad you did the training that really that makes a lot of sense and hopefully that will pay off. So thank you and thanks for applying for those grants. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Thank you. Council. Oh, jeez. Wow. That was nice. I haven't seen three lights in a row on yet. Who was first? I think I was. That's a really good one. Um, just thanks for being here. And I just wondered, do you have ridership broken down by routes at all? And if so, where could ones get that information by routes? Yes, we do have by routes. I can provide you that information. OK. Great. Because I think as we go forward looking at the program, I think it's really important that we prioritize the routes that are used. And I feel like, I mean, this is just anecdotal. But whenever I see a bus in my district, it's pretty well used, whereas a lot of times buses in town, they're empty, which is the opposite of kind of what you would think, but that seems to be just for my observation. So I think there's a lot of use, and perhaps I could even be more routes where they're being used since there's, you know, they're popular. So yeah, that's all if I could get that info, that would be absolutely. Thank you for that. Thank you. Council Member. Just for a quick. Yes. Thanks for being here. Thanks for stepping up and leaning in to this leadership position as there has been, unfortunately, quite a bit of turnover. It's interesting. Council Member Coguata statements about riding being free since she's been here. And when I first started in this role, our transportation division was in shambles with money falling out of closets and not accurately tracked. And I just want to commend you guys for how far you have come in the last six years. I mean I look at yeah we have a long way to go we still have things to fix because this is a public service essentially but I look with great pride at our buses with the Ohea blossoms on them and the branding that was put forth and the grant funding that was brought in to support the improvements. It's unfortunate. With the hydrogen bus that that didn't quite go the way we were hoping but it sounds like there may be opportunity for hydrogen to continue to be explored. I'm really grateful to hear that there is potentially some direction and hopefully a decision on the hub for Kona. I had seen that as a SEPM report and survey a couple of years ago now. It's all kind of blending together in the Twilight Zone. But I think that property that you're talking about could be absolutely ideal. So I just want to say thank you for stepping up leaning in. You have historical knowledge in your service and understanding of the numbers that keep this department going. You know, I get it. You can't answer the question about what's going to happen in December. We don't even know what's happening tomorrow in this country, quite frankly, and funding is so volatile. But what we do know is that we'll be here together to figure it out. And so I just want to express my gratitude for some of these good news things and the parts that are remain challenging will have to navigate together. But I am I am tremendously people still squawk but my thing is do you know how far we've come? Look at our buses I mean I know they're big small you know handy vans whatever I can tell because they're they're marked and it's a it's a great branding so I'm looking forward to more of the shelters and the branding that will come with those as well and signage so people know where to go, how to get there. I yield. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. I also remember Kimble. Thank you for being here and thank you for the presentation. And yeah, I'll also acknowledge you guys have had a tough hill to climb with a lot of transition and chronically understaffed and all the things so thank you for all your efforts I guess I'll start with a couple of specific district questions I'm sure I know you're aware because we've e-bailed and we have some very vocal constituents about bus stops in Papaco there at the intersection of McMill Road as well in Pepecaew. So are those, do you think, going to be done in the next year? What can I tell my constituents about mass transits plans with those? I'm with you. Yeah, still in weekly conversations with those folks with Uncle Ben. You guys met Ben, Ben is very beaming about the bus stops. Just seeing him again, you know, at the state of the county as well when he was over there and always, it's always a pleasure to catch up and talk with him. But absolutely, we, that's on our priority, you know, for stop and shelter improvements for PAPI Co and PPL and what I've told him as well. We're working with the state. That's a state roadway and we're also looking at grant funding to help us out with that and so it takes a little time. But it's definitely on our priority because we've definitely acknowledged and got so much valuable feedback from those town halls that we've attended. It's wonderful. And thank you for putting me in contact with him, by the way. But we are working in that's definitely a priority. If there's anything I can help with the state relationship on moving those forward, I recognize that that represents the challenge and that there's probably a lot of factors that I don't even know about that have to be considered with making those viable stops. But I think in BupiCo, in particular, if it's just so my colleagues know, it's kind of one of those flags, you know, it's not an official stop at this stage. If we could get some lighting like that's kind of the main thing because it's a lot of the hotel workers go from that earlier in the morning when it's still dark and just just a light would make me feel a little better about their safety being there on the side of the road. Right, and we're exploring another option too in regards to the lighting and also the safety of people waiting for the bus. onouting that possibly up to a mill road and then taking a ride on Mamala Hoist Street right there and then having that area right in front of that bus or the post office as the stop for the time being and just routing it right so just taking a left right there and then a ride on Mamala Hoist highway and then right there being just a workaround just a safety aspect so when the bus does pull over they don't have people whizzing past them at 67 e-miles an hour. Yeah that's a great idea you know that the the building right next to it is the Seabrore facility and it has that loop driveway. Right. I'm happy to maybe make the connection there if that would be something that would be well, like, that one time because then you then you'd have to worry about backing up or anything like that. Right. Okay. That's a great idea. I like that a lot. With respect to your slide on all of the procurement, can you just go over that again real quickly in terms of what we've already paid for? Obviously, I can I assume that the ones that have arrival dates are already bought and paid for. So the refurbished buses are those are those ones we're getting donated from sitting county. Not the refurbished buses they're not paid for yet that's where we're in the process of that one. Okay, and then the parrot transit vans, the nine are paid for the first nine, but what about the additional 10? The additional 10 will be well after you ordered. We didn't beat them yet. Okay, the micro transit? Not yet as well. And the hybrid? Not yet as well. Okay, and so for the the 10 parrot transit and the seven hybrids, we're looking at also utilizing grant funding with those two. Okay. Okay, great. Okay. I'll follow up on my thoughts on that. Rem remind me again, the mechanism by which you calculate ridership. So fixed route, 2024, almost a million. Is that unique rides? What is that? How do you calculate that? That's calculated from when, you know, from the bus driver. So when people come on the bus, you know, they calculate that. It's calculated from when you know from the bus driver so when people come on the bus, you know, they they calculate that. It's all reported from Robert Soay to us and then we input it into NTD or the national transit database that's then reported on the state level and then when we reference numbers or anything historical we would pull it off of NTD on to see if you know from years prior or years prior or whatnot. Is there, do you have the calculation of what our capacity is with our existing routes in terms of the potential for ridership or what percentage of capacity this represents? Is this 10% of our capacity? Is this 50% of our capacity is this 50% of our capacity like what is I'm looking for a number that makes this number translate into like actual usage of what we're providing I totally see what you're asking and maybe we could even compare it to other cities within the state, you know and we could see what see what maybe a Wahoo's looking at for ridership compared to what Big Island is looking at in regards to bus and bus numbers. I don't have that right now. That's a very good point though. And especially as we're looking at what the cost is for fixed route and how effective or not effective or great it is, how can we compare it, right? I totally see what you're saying. We can work on that. Yeah and you know to to Diane the director Nakagawa's point, you know I think that this is a time to step back and evaluate how well the master plan, as excellent as it is, is actually working. And let me just say, I love master answers. Like anytime I go to a big city, I am all about writing this subway or the bus or whatever because it's awesome. But I try to say, I'm gonna support master answers. I'm gonna go for my house to my office, which is 10 miles on the road. It was going to take me two hours to get here because I had to write up and then wait for the bus there and then write back down. I know that in my district the bus is critical because so many of the folks in my district work in the hotels. And I know that those buses are like standing room only. And then we have a whole other population that just can't even get to the bus stop because they're way out there in the middle of nowhere And so you know as much as I would like to say let's just I mean the story nationally is in order for mass transit to work You just got to throw money at it and build it and make it really easy and accessible. But there's a point where you got to like, okay, just say this isn't working, we got to cut and pivot. And so I'm, you know, thoughtful about what director Nakagawa saying that this is the time to re-evaluate. So my last question is kind of, what are you thinking you're going to be looking at in terms of evaluation about what we have as our plan moving forward and how we potentially need to pivot? Because as mentioned, we may see some really drastic changes in our funding, the GE timeline. We don't know what state's going to do. Hopefully they'll re-up it. But we've had discussions that now the GE can be used for other things besides mass transit. So I want to understand a little bit about process and particularly how this body might be able to plug in and provide feedback and information so that we make some good decisions about how we're investing in mass transit. I'm completely there with you on looking at services and seeing how effective our services are. Are they meeting the needs of the community in their eyes, but also our eyes? Are we achieving that goal? When you look at the master plan, we are. We're hitting it. Whether it's a van pool, whether it's high bike, fixed route, pair transit, the goals set forth. Those five year goals that we have, we're hitting them in addition to their hub planning. We're on track with that, but I'm with you. I think, and we've also talked internally at Mass Transit about, you know, a few years ago, we implemented a ton of routes in addition to what we were doing. And there was a huge increase in costs two and a half, three years ago with that. Looking at ridership, and if we have to reduce routes, it's something that we need to pay attention to and I think looking at the ridership with it is going to allow us to you know see our answer within that and then all the other parts of the multimodal plan that we have we we need to look at those as well at a close eye and see how effective they are. Yeah I I just want to make sure that we are not just making decisions based on here's this plan. Let's check all the boxes without also doing that evaluation of like, is that, is checking these boxes actually going to get what we want? I mean, SSFM is a great company. It's a great planning document, but there's the reality on the ground and I'm not sure who made Ben-Chan of it. Michelle, I think, you know, seeing all the buses in town empty and that's so frustrating, right? We'd love to just say get on the bus. It's awesome. But Yeah, I'm glad that we're looking at it. I think we need to and I think there are ways for the council members here to reflect back about what they're seeing in their districts and And also incorporating a little bit more thought around the equity piece, particularly making sure that we are making routes available for, you know, our lower moderate income folks, again, speaking to all the people in my district that ride and go to the hotels, they do it every day, two times a day, going from the free fare is going to hit them really hard and they're already just right there, right, in terms of making ends meet. So it's not going to be a dollar, the ride doesn't sound like much, but it's going to hit some people pretty hard. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council member Kirkwoods. Thank you, Chair. Hello, administrator and Kelly. Good morning. Council member Onishi, I really appreciate this. So we first met Zach. I believe he was two weeks on the job, and he had to present the budget. So that was a really fun day. I think for you. That was time. I never forget that. But you've really come a long way and thank you so much for sticking it out. I was going through the Mass Transit Master Plan and it noted that in fiscal year 2017-2018 the budget for mass transit was $14 million. This fiscal year, we're looking at a budget over four times as much at $59 million. In 2012, the report claims that we were at peak ridership 1.2 million riders. And it did because of the unreliability of service. So in 2016, ridership was 874,000. In that span of time, with a significant increase in budget, the ridership has not grown exponentially. And when I just did a quick calculation of what's being proposed this year, $59 million. And I divide that by an anticipated 1.5 million rides. That equates to about $40 per ride. And that's a lot of money. And I totally understand that individuals rely on the service, many folks in my district rely on the service to get to work, to get to, you know, healthcare appointments and to visit family and all those things. But I think Councilmember Kimball is right that we are at a critical juncture where we need to evaluate the sustainability of the program to re-evaluate our master plan and what the community needs now because the needs when community was engaged a decade ago have likely changed. I just want to put that out there and I'm definitely for looking at how we move forward to provide this essential service but in a way that makes makes sense for each of our communities, because the needs of each of our communities are so very different. I'm also curious about ridership by routes. So if you could send that breakdown to all of us, I think we would like to know which routes are popular, how many folks are riding at any given point in the day. I'd like to know what times of day, you know, buses are full versus empty. I'd also like a report on the kinds of incidences that are occurring at each of the bus stops that require security. You know, Zack, we've had conversations in the past about the situation in downtown Pohoa and the struggle that we were facing with, do we keep us stop there in town or do we remove it? We want folks to go to the downtown center but let's be honest, some of these folks that are getting off the bus are unsavory characters and conducting activities that are not supportive of small business. So I'd really like to understand what sort of crimes actions are being committed in these areas that warrant security. One of the conversations that we've been having here right now is related to shelters and stops. I fully advocate for finding a way to get that done faster. For years I've seen a woman on Highway 130, right past Caloli waiting for the bus. For years. In all that time, no sign, no shelter, but she's out there every day. Rain or shine. So there's a level of urgency to make sure that we have the proper infrastructure so people are able to wait for buses, I think with indignity. And if there's anything that we can do as council members to mobilize our community and have work days to install signage or shelter, let's talk story about how we can maybe deploy a plan like that. I think that would be really great. You mentioned earlier about workforce. And we've got fleets that are running on diesel. There's the electrification of our transportation systems. There's a little talk here about hydrogen. I don't know if we have the workforce to match the ongoing maintenance of these apparatus. Are you in communication with the community college about training, focus up, creating curriculums so that local residents can be trained up for these positions that we need now and in the future. That's that's a great idea. No, I'm not in communications with the college at all with that but that's a really good idea and I would love to. Okay I am going to introduce you to Chancellor Marata so you guys can get going on that conversation. Wonderful. Thank you. You know, and the couple other things here, one of the guiding principal for mass transit is safe, reliable, friendly, accessible service for people of all ages. One of the things that I'm hearing from parents throughout my district is, wow, five minutes went fast. Ter, just one, I just need to finish this, but thank you very much for the latitude. Parents work eight to five typically. Kids get off of school around two. They want to be able to stay at school and place boards or do a recreational club activity, but they can't because the school bus is leaving. Can we think about partnering with mass transit, maybe running pilots with various schools around the district to have, you know, a later routes that services kids to home, just so that they can be on campus to participate in extracurricular activities? Um, so any type of route modifications, we've, you know, we've been in constant communications, especially during the summertime when the kids are off of school and schools about ready to start. We've had multiple meetings with them and getting those desires. And we have, we've flexed some of our routes to help kind of meet that. Also, you know, since we're federally funded as a transportation agency for everybody, we can't also just cater to just school bus versus the others. It has to kind of be fair for all, but route modifications is fair for everyone, right? And so that is something that we can explore and talk about for sure. Okay, fantastic. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about what that could potentially look like. In your budget summary, there was talk about consolidating. I think it was three or four services so that we can understand bus service in real time, where bus is located. Can you just expand a little bit about that because you're looking to consolidate that under one service? So what that means is a lot of these buses are tracked GPS, right? And so whenever a bus has a breakdown or whatever type of delay is happening or whatever the situation might be, you know, a person at a bus stop, all they know is I'm just at the bus stop waiting for the bus to come. They may not know where, you know, in real time where it is unless they call this batch and go, hey, where's the bus at? And I'm at bus stop number whatever. So this type of tracking will help the community where they can go and see this real time on their phone, for example, and it will just just, you know, depict where the bus is currently at that moment in time. Okay, helpful. Thank you. Final question. Thank you for the update on the report. I'm sorry, you Your buzzer went off. Thank you. I will yield at this time and wait for another term. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Overlay, here's this. Thank you, Chair. A little administrator. Kelly, thank you for being here today. Good morning. Um, and I appreciate the update information on the Alpsies or trees. I know we spoke about it in January, I believe. And then Mahalatu, Councilmember Onishi, for kind of pursuing that a little further. I don't think the outreach that I did made any difference. So let me see what you can help with our DHHL partners and stuff. And along the lines with Councilmember Kimball in the district 9, North-is-Earth Qualia area, in Kauai High we have state highways. So I did bring this up with HDOT about finding that space, that capacity for particular stops because otherwise it's really in the right of way. There's no way to pull over in some of those areas. So kind of need to work with you and each do a Tiana trying to find a proper space in that area. Pullouts are essential in even with Councilmember Kimble just mentioning with Papa Co. for example, the bus can't just stop on the highway. We need a pullout. And so we've had numerous conversations on the state level with our agency recently in just the past couple of weeks and we've been hitting that home as a topic trust me. I couldn't agree with you more. I appreciate that. I mean, trying to convey that to community members, I'd love to see these stops but can't just stop and mill the highway. We need that. Absolutely. Space and easement there. I just like to dive into some of the numbers if that's okay with you here. Yes, sir. Let's start with printing printing costs and expenditures in the in the 2324 actuals we spent down 13,000 and then in this current fiscal year was budget was budgeted for $132,000. So I'm curious what your dear-to-date expenses are on on printing. Because you're requesting another $132. For wrapping? Yeah, looking at the numbers. So a lot of that is existing from years prior, whether it's DVIRs, maintenance reports and whatnot, but also vehicle decals and wrapping buses. Rapping buses is one of the more expensive ones when it comes to that. Do you have an estimate of what we've spent in this fiscal year, the current year? If we're even approaching that 132. Come on in council member again. They have spent about $1,000 in that line item. Of this fiscal year we we spent $1,000 of the budget, $132,000. That is correct. Okay. So I'm going to have to see what's coming up. If you have any bits open, okay. Okay. Thank you for that. The details there. And then if you could just elaborate on, I mean, I just what the base yard improvements are, as this related to the electrification improvements there for the facilities, the request is 4 But because we weren't sure it happened this fiscal year. So we had to take care of it this year instead of next year. Okay. Yeah. So that's what it was. Okay. Thank you. And then moving on just a little bit to some of the contracts, miscellaneous contracts. What professional services are you expecting if any, half a million? professional services would be, for example, like our ADA training that we do. Okay. We hire somebody to come in to help with that, because they need to train the drivers and that is ADA group. So that is one of them that we pay for. Professional. With that one. Professional services. SSFM is another one that we. Okay. Where? Okay. That's really to kind of carry out a lot of the master plan and. Yes. Got it. And. And this. I see direct there if you wanted to chime in at all. No, no. So on the printing, and I would let mass transit confirm. But if the buses weren't received, a lot of that money is for the decals to wrap the bus. And that cost is pretty significant. So if you're waiting to get these buses in, then we haven't, you know, spent that yet, because the buses aren't here to do the decals. So I'm assuming that money is for wrapping the new buses and anticipation of getting them, then we'll go ahead and use a lot of it. Well, that would be anticipated for next fiscal year at the time line. This year, right We do, but those will be wrapped before they get here. Okay. Or sometimes the vehicle is damaged, so it needs to get fixed for the wrapping, so that would help you get that cost. But maybe, okay, so that would happen, you think it would happen within this, within this current fiscal year? No, nothing would, there's nothing that will happen in this current fiscal year. Okay. It was just though. Okay, so these are definitely anticipated for the next. Okay, thank you. Tell me a little about the contract for bus shelter cleaning. Is that for specific, are there specific locations where these contracts are signed and agreed upon or is this across the entire county? That one is for the entire county. Whatever bus stops, bus shelters that we have, they go and clean it. The Kona. How is that coordinated with the contractor? That is through Roberts. There's a schedule that they follow every month. And whether it's one week go to corner or heal or that is where they go and clean. They take the rubbish, there's a rubbish can. They scrub the shelter, cleaning graffiti or anything that is on the shelter also. And are they reporting if there's damage to the bus stop? Are they reporting at that instance if they're out there cleaning it? Are they making the report to you? They will make a report to us or if somebody reports all the damage to the bus stop. Are they reporting at that instance if they're out there cleaning it? Are they making the report to you? They will make the report to us or if somebody reports damage to the bus shelter, Robert's local and fix it also. Or help. Yeah, I think Robert's fix is the. So that's part of that same contract that they would repair if panels are damaged or glass is broken or. Yes. If we just had that happen actually this past weekend where a panel was knocked out where the glass was broke. We heard that from Roberts and so that falls within that contract. It's repair, it's cleaning, it's kind of keeping those pieces up. And then the bus washing and cleaning is that on the main facility on your, that's who comes in for that contract and what is that what does that contract look like? It's Robert's why as well as well in its at our healer base yard, okay Okay, okay, and they so they have access to the facility to do those kind of regular cleanings on a monthly basis regular daily basis. Oh, okay. I got it cut Got it. Regular. Basically, when the buses come in, they get fueled first. Yep. And then they pull around to the back and then they get washed. And then they get parked. Okay. Fantastic. I could tell you that. And then, I think the last one I had is for now, on the miscellaneous equipment under 531506. There wasn't any mechanical equipment purchased in 2324. That's not an item zeroed out there for 2324. And then this fiscal year 25, some kind of curious what's being purchased for mechanical equipment. And then now requesting a jump of 75,000 if what's projected to purchase for the garage and mechanics. Since we've had a transit fee and facilities manager now, there's been a little bit more changes within our agency and we have made a few purchases of, for example, a tire rim changer. So they can change the tires in-house and we don't need to have another vendor do that services for us. increased was for mobility wash station for the bus washers to help wash the buses, because as of right now they've been washing it by hand by scrubbing it. So that will help wash the bus and see costs. Okay. Okay. And I think I just want one of the question on if you you could just speak to I'm probably know the answer already but Parts supplies it's gone up by 500,000 in your in your proposal if you could just Kind of just share little thoughts on that and what how things are What you're seeing impacts there for sure Price in parts of course. I've seen a lot of them being increased quite a bit and especially now with everything with the government we're not too sure on that also so that is the reason for the increase for it. Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Hello Chair. Thank you. Councilman Broney, thank you Chair. So I just wanted to follow up on some other comments that was made. So bus shelters in the past when I was on the council, we used to use voiceouts to build those buss, the little small ones, right? Not the big one but the small ones. Is that still allowable? I'm not too sure on that one. I don't know. We have to back into that. Yeah because we used to work it with mass transit, used to give us I guess the specs and then councilmember well I used to provide the funding for the materials and so forth. We worked it with Parks and Rec and then they would build a shelter at a certain location. So I think I did in my district about two different shelters that we built. So that's something to look at. And it's nice to, as Kirkco had mentioned, if you know the information that the council members are requesting, if you guys can send them to all of us. Absolutely. We will. About the sports activities after school. When I was with the high-pale program, we were like, I was involved with Papaya Kojim. And with their problem working with the school, well, I was working with the school was that the school bus had to go right after school. They had to take them back to Papaya Kale, Honomu, and so forth, right. So the kids couldn't participate in any athletics after school. So I tried working with that mass transit back then, but it never could work out for some reason. And so I kind of gave up on that. But yeah, something to look at so that our students can have this after school activities, is they're going home and you don't know what they could be doing because like certain areas like Hamukua or Punasai you know the parents got to work in Waikula so they're gone for like 12 14 hours a day right so kids are sometimes you know unsupervised right and so so that's where county with Parks and Rec and with the Hype Health program can help do these activities using their facilities and also working with the school. Okay, so something to look at. UH Hilo back when I was on the council, this was I think my third term. We are district three provided funding, two transit to do pickups at the University, the dorm above Waikai High School that knew dorm that came up. So we provided transportation in the weekends, picking up the students and taking them to different locations from, I forget what the shift was, but like was from morning to like one o'clock in the morning. Like they would take them to the movie, to Prince Coyleau, to watch movies or whatever. Take them downtown, take them to a couple other places. And mass transit is to do that. It's to come in. And the funny part was the university had asked a county for help and they never provided any funding So it was basically mass transit and my contingency funds that helped provide The operations of that was that done with a bus or a van or how did they do that? I think they did it with the bus I think yeah, because I think back then we didn't have a lot of the smaller ones. Right. If folks have now. Right. And so yeah, these two do that. Was it a route modification? Yes. Okay. So it was just a route. Yeah. And these two, I think these two come and stopped by the student services building first within the university. Okay. And then they would go across the street to the dorm to pick them up. Right. they'll drop them off and then late at night then they'll go and pick them up and begin and bring them back. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. So we ended that. The last thing I wanted to do, and this is when I was on the council in 2008, talking to mass transit about doing a plan, you know, it's just a proposed plan or just something sort of council we could have about light rail because if we're looking like 30 to 50 years from now, we would have a growth on this island and traffic is going to be unbelievable and we're already facing that, right? And so by having the plan of light rail where the stations are going to be developed, we can, we can as council approve different zones in these certain proposals, right? Now to help offset the expenses for the rail, we have commercial areas, right, around the rail station that can provide funding to help offset the expand. Also, you're going to have housing where people can walk from their home to the commercial to the station and then go to work. So if you folks can and if you folks need funding, please let me know. And then we can see how we can work with finance to find some funding for that. But it's I like from, I would say, Puna, Upper Lord, Tahilo, going to corner, Alhamakua, you know, get all these different, I guess, sites for us where the stations, you folks feel, or wherever can be built. And then that's around the area that we can do development. Because if we look at how Wahoo did theirs, they're already too late. And the funding for their expenses is now off of the ridership and also upon the county. Because there's no generating income on commercial that can help them. Like if you go to like Japan, right? Have you been to Japan? Right? I have many times. Yeah, you go to the train stations. There's like a second city underground, right? And that's all revenue generated for help with their systems, right? So that's how we got to look at it, right? And it also, on the staging areas, we need to make sure that there is able to also make revenue on that where we can have commercial operations on top of that too. So if you can, you know, work it out and like I said, you know, contact my office and, you know, we can start working on that and we can bring in finance to see how we can help do. Or even with planning department. That would be perfect. So please, thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Council member Kirkwoods. Thank you. Administrator. I appreciate knowing that Poehawub continues to be a priority for development. You mentioned a CatX, a categorial extension. Can you explain to me in the public what that means? Categorical exclusion is in regards to the environmental work that needs to be done. With any parcel or anything that's going to be considered for a hub or whatever it is going to be you know you got to look at the ground disturbance with type of environment environmental work is going to need to be if there's any type of disruptions to anything it that's all looked at in that report. Okay so the cat X is currently underway Kelly. It gets reported to FTA. Okay. It's a it is. It's a FTA requirement for us. And you mentioned in your update that it was almost completed. What is the timeline for that? Because then you said it gets sent to the Department of Transportation in addition to FTA. Yeah. So we need to complete our site of it. I feel about the information that needs to be done. And then from there, we submitted to H.Dot. and then from H. they submitted to FTA. And that's where it's at currently. It's with H.N.FTA side currently. Okay, and then the next step from there, the land acquisition. Yeah, then FTA reviews it. If everything is good, they approve it, then we can move forward with a land acquisition. And is the land acquisition going to be done by the county or the state and the county? the county. Okay, and the funding from the state to support the development of the site because I believe the library is going to be co-located there. That's correct. Okay, that's all been allocated. We've been discussing all of that. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate the update. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Overhew's use this? Thank you, Chair. A similar question to Councilor Kirkowitz on the YMIA hub. I know a little bit further behind than the Pauho on how would imagine so. But you have the CIP request. This is something that laps already and kind of re-op in it then. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. That would be for that short KL. And by the, uh, for all the people. Yeah, um, Yeah, that is, you know, we're progressing. We have a lot of tasks when it comes to hubs and, um, so we've been pushing, you hub is our primary and then you know with Kona but K.O. and Y.M.A. it's part of the master plan as well and we're you know we're pushing that forward as well. Any other development on the Y.M.A. site location identified anything like that? We don't have a site identified yet. Partners connecting with? No, not currently. You know, the, it looks like some funds were allotted previously, not lapsed. And then the lion's share of it is being requested in the subcoming fiscal year, including construction that all of the steps. So I don't know if it needs to be spread out across the five, six years to really show an effective use of the CIP sort of the programming. If we can't get all that done in such a short amount of time, but really kind of mapping it out for the next five years using those columns that are appropriately I guess. Thank you for that highlight. I totally agree with you. I think looking at where we are and where we need to be going within the next five to six years, seven years, it does need to be spread out a little. Yeah. We can't just jump into construction because we don't have a place yet. So I totally agree with you on that. Okay. Thank you for that. Of course, of course. And then I did up a couple other questions looking back at the budget worksheets here. In terms of the travel expenses. There's something if you could just help me, if you could explain what the inspection of buses is that when you're off elsewhere to on a trip inspecting buses at another facility? So when buses are built, we'll send a mechanic to go do bus inspections. Dependent upon how many buses it is, if it's one, maybe one mechanic goes and does the inspection. Inspection will typically last a couple of days. If it's an order where there's, say, eight hometown buses, maybe two people will go, and then they can balance that a little bit. And then it's easier when you find errors on a bus when it's still in production because if the seats are wrong or if something is wrong, the mechanic can identify it right there. It's still in the line for production and they can correct it. Once a bus is complete and it's out in the parking lot sitting and you find a problem, they're not going to pull it back in and fix it. It's going to then make its way here to Hilo and then we're going to have to figure it out on the back end. That's why we do that. Got it. Thank you. Thank then make its way here to Hilo and then we're going to have to figure it out on the back end. That's why we do that. Got it. Thank you, thank you, Commissioner. The last question I had was on the micro transit side. You know, requesting 2.2 kind of expanding our micro transit fleet and really kind of standing that up. This really speaks to that hub and spoke model and the master plan of connecting those more rural areas to our fixed routes. What are some of your limitations, current infrastructure or in community? Now we've spoken about this, like in the White Glow community at length, and we've spoken with those residents as well. What are the limitations there when we're adding micro transit or what is needed in community to allow for micro transit to be effective to connect people to the fixed routes. We're definitely really excited to bring this online. We hear feedback weekly on even if you have a flexed route and you're able to flex and you're able to divert one mile in in hopes of picking up people but like I was mentioning earlier, a lot of people are really remote. You know, we have many conversations weekly with some of you and we hear it and it's not like we, you know, this is what we have. We got fixed route and this is what it is. Not every route can flex. But the micro transit is the one that can go on the adult road or an association that doesn't want a big bus riding on those roads because we're going to damage the roads and cause potholes because that's also another concern. It's hard for us to reach people. In turn, we get a lot of feedback from the community about, hey, what are you doing to help us out on getting to the next official bus stop or taking me to my appointment? So, micro transit is where that's at because micro transit is going to be a van that is about the same size as a pair of transit van or just a little bit more. We're looking at pro master vans currently. And that's what we're going to be progressing toward is that pro master model, which is kind of a larger transit van if you've seen maybe Ford Transit's on the road. It's kind of something similar to that, but the model that we're looking at is pro master. That's what's going to be able to go in on the dirt road or into the association where a big bus is not allowed. They're going to go in. We're going to have a program manager that manages that entire program into all that coordination piece. They can go in and pick those folks up, take them to the nearest official bus stop, then that person can continue on their trip. That bus or that van that picks them up is not going to be running all over the island. It's going to be designated in, say, like the white colloia area. That's where it would then concentrate its efforts. Pick those people up in the royal areas. Take them to the next official bus stop. Then they get on the bus at that point. And have you, I know you mentioned white colloia, but have you identified certain communities where this would be most effective in partnership with our routes? And so that's where these town hall meetings have been great. And then also talking with you folks about people that bring ideas and problems to you folks and you relaying that to us. It's been great. So that's been helping us identify those areas now. Okay. Thank you, Minister Reader. Appreciate that. And thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay. Okay thank you administrator appreciate that and thank you chair. Thank you. Okay. Administrator and Kelly thank you very much. Looking at your ridership numbers for this year I was going to ask. Do you have it for this year? We do. So ridership is like I mentioned earlier, it's reported on NTT, which is the National Transit Database, but it's from September to August. So when you look at the numbers on the slide, that's why they look a little bit low, but they will catch up. And so it doesn't go by hour fiscal year. So it's not going to end in June. So for NTD, it's reported from September to August. But the numbers for fiscal year 25 are on there. What is the numbers? So currently for fixed route, we have 472,209. pair transit of 16,786. Shared ride taxi is 29,129. And vanpool is 95,311. They have a total number of passengers system wide? Are you talking so just adding all these up? In the reporting that we do, it's broken down by what it is. But I mean, essentially, go and just add it up I guess all right, so our fiscal year is July 1st to June 30th You're saying that You don't track on a fiscal year But I have in your program review Total systematics or system white passengers for FY 2324, actual is 1.229063. So I won 1.2 million. When this report was done, I didn't realize that it was the NTT report because people have asked that what is our numbers and somebody else filled in this numbers for us. So that's why it's this numbers right here, the September through August. It should have been, that's my bad. It should have been July through June. Sorry, which one? The FY2324 or the one you just gave me was? The one on the PowerPoint, the 24 fiscal year and then the 25 fiscal year. Okay, so current for 24, 25 fiscal year, do you have that number? No, I don't have the number, sorry. I can provide you that number, hope I write you that number. That'd be a good number to have at any hearing that you come in front of us so we can discuss budget so I understand where you guys are at. Thank you. So something I'm watching with interest is in the past month, the county has changed its policy for the GE fund to allow for housing infrastructure to be utilized and built using the GE fund or a portion there of are you or of that? Yes. Okay. So when I see the state and the county line up to begin offering that as a use of funding I would be very cognizant of that as a department that you are potentially going to lose funding in the future. And while that may go to affordable housing or infrastructure, two days ago, Office of Housing said they have about a hundred million dollar budget, which is 10% of our county budget. You guys are operating with about 75 million. I wanted to check on that. What is your revenue from GE this year? Is it 59 million or is it more than that? When you say revenue, what do you mean by revenue? We're currently fair free right now in fixed route. Oh no, understanding that. What is the mass transit department running on? G-E-T. G-E-T. What is your portion of the G-E-T? There's been a lot of too white county. Or what's your total fund that's guiding your department? So it would be 75 million. It would be the 75 million which is our total. Okay. And that is a guesstimate as far as what you're expecting from the GET search charge or that is an actual number. We're also projecting for fixed route and also pair of trains that because those contracts, you know, coming up on expiration. So this is us projecting enough as well. Okay. So, the point that I'm making is, I believe that in the next couple of years, given the state changes to the GE tax usage allowance by the county, that you need to be very clear about how you wanna run your your budget. If not, it's going to be put towards affordable housing. Their budget is $25 million more than yours. Currently, I want you to be very cognizant of that. As you move forward as a department, especially when you're coming in front of this council to ask for different projects or coming in with a budget that has different things in it. I find that important. And for different reasons, but I'm not gonna get into that. We talked about your security. Park security right now, the Parks and Rec, they have about a million dollar contract. And that's for all the parks, I have been wide. I would like you to lean into the non-profit service providers because I believe that most of your issues are happening with folks that are homeless, and that are occurring in your bus shelters, and that you guys are catching the flag for it. I don't think what you're doing is wrong. It's expensive, and at the cost of providing safety for our residents, as they sit in a bus stop and wait for a bus as we work on apps to make that more clear for the public, we keep them safe. But I think the big problem where you're addressing that you're dealing with is homelessness. And we have created funds to the tunes of millions of dollars to address homelessness and we have nonprofit service providers who are in here. Not more than two months ago collecting huge amounts of funding. And if they can't help address homelessness in our shelters then new folks are paying a service that's already being covered. I have a problem with that. Thank you for that. Writership, as far as I understand a problem with that. Thank you for that. Writership as far as I understand equals federal funding. Is that correct? Correct. So the free fair program has a benefit. Its federal funds coming back into the county. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Classically what do you see subsidization for in different counties across the state? For the mass transit system? Should you seek to reimpose a dollar or two dollars for a fair? What are we looking at for revenue coming in? So in FY22, that was the last. We were just looking at these numbers last week and that was 376,000 was revenue the last FY22 full full 12 months before they went fair free so 376,000 that was the revenue brought in from fairs correct. Okay fixed route. So if you went back to doing fairs Let's say you take on something similar That's nowhere near handling your 75 or 65 million dollar budget Great. Yeah, that's just a hard fact the mass transit and if we choose to do so as a county for our citizens who need help We do but we'll never reach full Sorry, we'll never have our fair paid for the department's expenses. That's why I see it. Right, I mean, we compared it to even the fuel cost, you know, for a 12 month period, the fuel cost that year came in at just under a million dollars for that year. When looking at revenue, it was 376,000 for that year, that same year. I'm with you. Thank you for that. Therefore, ridership and federal funding is incredibly important. We up ridership, we get more federal funds. It helps cover the cost of running mass transit and subsidizing it for our people. Again, that's how I see it. Lastly, the PCDP outlines KELOL as the primary hub outside of Hilo. And I say that to put it on the record, and for your understanding, we've talked about this, but if KELOL is the primary hub outside of Hilo, then our intention as a county is that document is a guiding light for how we move forward as mass transit into different areas. Okay, I was the next hub. Please be on top of making sure that project aligns with getting funded and gets into the capital improvement project list and we start to look at doing that. If it's not already is it in there? So what we do, it's in the master plan and to be honest, we're keeping the ship headed straight like I said earlier and so we're going to keep pushing that forward. But thank you for that. Okay, so was that a yes, it's on the capital, a pro-proper project or it's in the mass transit plan. Yes, it's under this. It is. Okay, beautiful. Thank you. Okay, well, I understand you're the acting administrator. I appreciate you being here. Thank you for what you're doing. You are acting, right? Correct. Okay, okay. Well, I think you're doing a good job. Keep up with your work. And thank you for being here this morning. Thank you all very much. Really appreciate your time today. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Are there further questions for our Master Transit before I jump off? I have a clarification for that I'd like to ask the finance director. Director, it was stated that Office of Housing has a $100 million budget and that sounds misleading and so I'd like for you to clarify that the funding that's being received by the federal government is simply a pass-through. Office of housing is using that funding to deploy project-based vouchers, section eight housing. I just want to be clear for the record because we're not comparing apples to oranges when we say mass transit's getting money, $75 million budget, that is exclusively money that's being generated locally, and the money that's coming in to support Office of Housing is federal. Can you please clarify? Yes, that is correct. So, you know, as we, as we sat through the Office of Housing presentation, we walked through the various funding sources, and most of that is their federal funding. And yes, today we're talking about GET. So if there are any questions, I'd be happy to further clarify one-on-one the different funding sources and what's being paid for. I know it can be a bit confusing, but those sources are different than the sources we're talking about today under GET or from our general fund. But yes, those are that is generated locally. Yeah, correct. Okay. And then there was also a comment made that we were getting money from the federal government to offer free fares. My understanding is we received money temporarily as an emergency during COVID. but currently we are not receiving money from the federal government to offset fares. We have one more grant. A C-Mac grant that is 5 million that Kelly mentioned earlier that we can use toward operations. Toward operations? Okay. Anything else for? Yeah, I just want to, you know, kind of close by adding that. Just confirming, we are aware that there are increases. We are actively reviewing it. We're happy to definitely come back to council. We've been asking some of the same questions and working with Mass Transit. With our Mayor and Managing Director, we know that this is an area that we need to talk about and have some collaborative solutions to how we further fund and continue to fund mass transit in all the appropriate and needed areas. But we are happy to come back with a lot of the information that we gather and some of the solutions that we have moving forward. So that is a commitment from us to do that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I've been sounding the Cajaya on being sustainable for a couple of years now. I have gotten indication from the state that they will continue to charge a half percent. But in 2030, that money will not remain in the county. It will likely be going to the state general fund. So now is the time to start planning what the future looks like for mass transit. Thank you. Thank you so much. Council member Kimbo. Yeah, thank you. Kind of building on what you asked. And now what Council member Kirkowitz said, you made me think that because the GE is not a fixed amount, but it is based on how much people spend and given the economy, there's potential for a recession and reduction in visitor spending, which is tied to the GE, as well as the TAT. So are you folks thinking about contingency plans even in this year for a GE income number much lower than what is forecast of the 65 million? Yes, and so kind of what Diane was just mentioning too. We need to start planning soon now. We can't wait another year to be thinking about this then. If we need to reduce routes, we need to be looking at that now. Internally, we are looking at that. We also are evaluating what services that we do have per the multimodal plan because the multimodal, as you all know, it encompasses so many people, right? We got high bike. We have vanpool. We have taxi. You know, all of these little pieces to the whole program, but we have to. And you all have brought up very good points with, you know, we're looking at the budget, so absolutely. And I'm a very, you know, pro government person. I think we do a good job at solving a lot of problems, but I think that this is also one opportunity where we can look for some private support. And I mean, when I think about the fact that we are, when we talk about all those hotel workers, going to the hotels, we're basically subsidizing the industry with that workforce, right? Getting them over there. So I think there's other opportunities to look at where the private sector could actually step up and fill in some of these gaps in the event that we do go in. workforce, right, getting them over there. So I think there's other opportunities to look at where the private sector could actually step up and fill in some of these gaps in the event that we do go into some sort of economic recession. But I'll in there with the exception of saying, oh, and we could do a light rail. I would be so with you on that. I think that would be awesome. I think we have some real struggles in terms of what it costs in this country to build like rail, but if we could make it happen, that would be my dream come true. And they can have the steep continued at half percent. Okay, thank you. Last time to thank you very much for being here. Yep, thank you all. I've got a ton of notes and trust me. We're going to take it back and make sure that we're in communications with all of you and following up. Thanks for the nonprofit information. Yep, thank you all. I've got a ton of notes and trust me. We're gonna take it back and make sure that we're in communications with all of you and following up. Thanks for the nonprofit information. That's great. We're definitely gonna take that back as well and look at that very closely. But yeah, thank you all for your time today. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I'm gonna take a brief recess. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. you you you you you I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. Okay, welcome back. Colleys, we got a recess. Our next department is Parks and Recreation, showing up in force today. Director, when you're ready, please introduce yourself and your team and then go into your presentation and we'll go to the questions from the council after that. Yes, thank you for that council member Matt. Clayton Honmoud, Director of Parks and Recreations. Behind me, I have my team of people here. I have Jason Motel from Parks Maintenance. I have Nari E. She's our accountant for. I have Melissa Samuero, she's our deputy director. I have Lindsay Eel, she's with Recreation, our administrator for Recreation. I have James Comate back there, our parks planner. And to the left of me, I have our parks business manager, Sharmine Felipe. So she actually helped put this budget together along with Nory, and yeah, she'll be helping me along the way. But I want to thank you guys all for giving us the opportunity to present our budget to you guys. And so I'll just begin. The Department of Parks and Recreations, this is our Special Finance Committee Program budget. Our program measures and outcomes. So this past year we executed 21 friends at a park agreements. We provided a wider array of services to 13,687 seniors. We increased our zoo attendance by promoting two special events. And we also completed two park improvement projects in each district. Overview of our objectives for fiscal year 26, we're to ensure the proper maintenance and upkeep of park infrastructure to ensure the safe, they are safe, functional and aesthetically pleasing. Another objective is to ensure accessibility by continuing the implementation of, implementation plan for ADA compliance and by offering facilities and programs that accommodate individuals with disabilities. Yeah, and we also continue to, continue sustainable practices for resource conservations, including water conservation, energy efficiency, waste management, and use of environmentally friendly products and materials to minimize environmental impacts. I think over some other things, all of these things as well to throughout the budget, but I'll take it as questions from you guys a little bit later. We also maximize resources by encouraging the friends at a part program and identify a minimum of five community service projects that focus on maintenance and improvement of our facilities. So that is one of the big objectives that we are doing currently. And yeah, and we're looking forward to broadening that especially at this time. So some of our highlights, We're working on getting CIP funding for our state projects, CIP state funding actually. So couple of them is a Jim Korea ball field and the WILOA skate park there with budget and finance right now at the state level just waiting for the governor to send this letter and release the funds to us. I believe there are million dollars each. Second highlight is reservations and permitting system begin research and review of available systems. So right now we worked with Corey from DIT and we're working with Salesforce as a beginning step to move that part forward as far as getting online with some of our reservation systems out there. Accessibility improvement projects. We reopened Richardson's Ocean Park and Colleague College Beachbich Park. Board of all, looks fantastic. The improvements makes it accessible for everyone actually. And we have a couple more accessibility projects that are about to begin. One of them is which is in Middle-Lead, where we're about to begin maybe in June or so we should start that project. And recreation activities with worldwide impact. We hosted the World's Brints this past year and of course we have Mary Monarch with us every year so those are a couple of big highlights it has worldwide impact, you know, across the board there. So, parks and recreations. We have the Office of the Director, Parks Maintenance, Recreation, Elderly Activities Division, our Panayev Recreation Complex complex, our municipal golf course, cultural education. Under recreation we have Holoulu complex and aquatics and under Elderly we have programs in coordinated services, our nutrition program and the retired senior volunteer program. We have our staffing is we have 584 positions in nine divisions and currently we have 45 vacancies. When I first got confirmed, we were at about 60 plus vacancies. We brought our vacancies down from 11% to roughly about 9%. Today, we don't have our recreation, our elderly activity is person here because they're doing interviews as we speak. So hopefully we can bring the number of vacancies even further down. Some of our challenges, of course, have been in recruitment of poll lifeguards and nutrition drivers. This continues to be difficult to fill, but we're looking at options in the recruitment of lifeguards especially. We're also trying to do this internship program with high schoolers to help staff our polls island wide. And so an internship program just was introduced to us from human resources. So we're going to try to look to implement that as well. We also have conversations with some of the other counties in regards to some of their lifeguarding challenges to see where we could work together in solving some other challenges. I think one of the ways is to try to increase the pay for the lifeguards, but that got to be done statewide through each county and you all got to be in agreement with that. So we're having the conversations right now. Our change is parks and recreation, fiscal year 26 budget overview. So our changes in SNW, we're adding five positions to our budget. Those five positions are three building maintenance worker positions and two painter positions. positions are in our maintenance staff on the corner side actually. Building maintenance worker positions will they're kind of versatile where they can do some plumbing, some electrical, some carpentry work, but they're there to address the immediate needs. For example, if we had to change lights in cornerona, we'd have to work for like about, you know, a number of work orders to pile up before we send our guys out there to change those lights. But if we have building maintenance workers out there, they can address that immediately. So that's kind of the reason why we're going after building maintenance worker positions on that set at Island island, instead of just having an electrician or a plumber or a carpentry cabinet maker, but having a little bit more versatility out there. Having positions out there also frees up our guys from heal from having to travel to the other side of the island to do maintenance work. So you paint for travel time of, you know, about an hour and a half each way. And there are prepping and breaking down. You might get four hours of work out there in Kona done. But having a positions out there will eliminate both at a travel time. Just probably to prep and take down work of what they're doing. So it allows us to have more time on our side to finish and get jobs done and decide and also address work orders on the other side of the island more immediately and efficiently. We have a change in our OCE and our parks facility repairs by $4 million. that was added to our budget to address all of the maintenance concerns in our facilities, Islandwide. So one of it is going to be like that, a little playground which you're going to fund next year. And that for part of the $4 million that is going to go out there. But others include roof projects, repainting projects of different various parks, island wide, includes Greenwell Park, Conocalla Park, Nalehue Park. And so we have a number of those projects that got to be done, and that's part of the funding that is going to, the additional funding funding, the additional funding will fund those projects for us. And we have a change in equipment, 751,000 increase for replacement trucks in Parks Maintenance. We got to replace 25 additional more trucks this year. All of our trucks have been condemned by our motor pool. They're not going to issue us safety checks on our trucks because they're just that dilapidated and yeah and they're no longer safe to travel. We're working on a maintenance replacement plan for our trucks. I notice here we're replacing 16 trucks all together. We have nine new, seven new ones and nine on a lease program. And so yeah going forward, our guys need their equipment to get out to do the jobs that they were requiring them to do. We also have federal grants of $80,000 for USDA grants for summer food service and this is to all provide food for our summer fund programs that are out there, ILNY. So again, our priorities and new initiatives for 2026 implement an online reservation and permitting process for parks and recreation is one of them. Again, again, we have Salesforce coming in to give us a prototype of what to follow and what we can do with an online reservation system. We're targeting first our pavilions and our community facilities out there to, I guess, run a prototype first before we actually implemented into our system wholeheartedly so we can actually do the testing in-house, work with someone here on island or in our state and getting that system started with us. And they're friendly on the procurement side as far as us trying to implement that program altogether. We're going to continue to upgrade and replace age vehicles. Again, 25 this coming year, we're doing currently 16 this year. We will create and hire building maintenance worker and painter positions on the corner side. Again, serves a couple of purposes. One immediate response to work orders on that set of the island and freeing up our guys and decided to island from tripping out of way out there to do work out on the other side of the island. We'll continue our golf subsidy program on the west side. Yeah, big thing to have balance on both sides of the island and the golf subsidy has been very popular for us all together. And we're going to initiate the design contracts for electrical and roof repairs. And so the electrical repairs includes the corner that roller hockey rink that we have out there. It includes the Panayevui Questering Center. It also includes the lights up at Cavalier Park as well too. So those are some of the electrical and roof repairs that we're going to be addressing. Our parks and recreation, CIP, fiscal year 26 priority projects for construction For construction, we're going to go to Kailua Park and demolish the old terminal building and construct the new and going to construction for new parking improvements. So that will include a pavilion, another comfort station there. We'll also be demolishing the old DMV building as well to out there in Kona. Also, Kylo Park will get three comfort stations when I replace the two on the north and the south side of the runway. And then we'll be constructing a new one right next to the Kanuhalaw's and the events per billion that is there. I'll do island-wide outdoor sports courts construction so that will be like again the courts up at Greenwall Park at Honoka down in La Lehu. I think Mohu the whole Uli Park is also included in that. So we have a number of projects on that support court reconstruction that we're gonna do. Also on that project list is Kauanana Kua, Jim repairs, so that is a huge project for us that will be working with the state right now and getting some money from the state and working with ourselves and Funding part of that project as well too. So it's a partnership with the state and us in getting that done Possibly all how we'll be working with us as well too and Funding some of that projects also We also have the shipment park fencing and parking and road improvements as well to going through with that. Defencing, we have some contingency money there but the balance will come out of the maintenance fund that we are getting. We're going to improve parking by moving that ballerjee and instead of keeping the ballerjee going to move the fencing and off of the road a little bit to improve parking and working with public works and actually doing some paving in there as well too. So partnership with public works in many of our parks, Iline Y, it has been tremendous. I wanna thank the mayor for that actually and public works were going out there to help us with paving in many of our places out there. I mean, design, we're gonna have clearanceone Park, a new covered play court out there. So we're going to be going to the community soon for that. Public Works again has done a great job in clearing a bunch of the land there and paving a nice new parking lot for there currently. They just got done with that yesterday actually and I believe we can add at least a hundred stalls in there for parking We have the Bahu Bahu Bahu fuel lighting system restoration The Nalehu Bahu fuel lighting system restoration as well too The design part is also going to include Bahala Bahu fuel lights as well too, so both Bahala and Nh who will be included in that design project. Kohana of Eki Beach Park, the new comfort station that is there. So sorely needed to service both sides of that beach and to also service all of the beach on that side. So we're looking forward to building that out. Why may a community center, the re-roofing and repairs for that facility, so sorely needed for a long time, well used facility out in Why May, but we're gonna finally be able to address that by going to design for that and figuring out the scope of work that needs to get done for that. And then of course, Coalva Street, a new comfort station that we get on beautiful Pacta, It is so well used. Football, soccer, baseball over there. And we just need a comfort station. So the people using our facility that doesn't have to come across the street or use port of parties in that area. So those are just some other CIP projects that we have listed here. There are others as well too. Again, we're getting stuff done with not only these projects and our maintenance staff, but Friends of the Park has been a big tremendous plus for that. But again, yeah, that's about it that I have for our presentation and our slides. We're here to field any of your questions. So thank you. Thank you very much, Director, to the Council. Councilmember, let's go ahead. This is thank you. Thanks, Chair. Hello, Director. Yes. Appreciate you and your staff here being a day. Thank you for taking the time to be with us and dive into this. I'll kind of start off with a nice conversation. Thank you for having me at the RSUP luncheon. That was fabulous time with our seniors there, you know, really acknowledging the work and the time that they put into the community beyond what they already do for us. So, you know, part of that conversation we had outside, the luncheon was about the federal funding that is being cut for those sort of programs is that something and where other what are the impacts are you kind of seeing on the federal side for revenue coming in that you maybe talked about and are thinking about trying to internalize or pick up the slack here or there. Yes, currently you know our RSVP, the funding did get cut from the federal government to us. However, the positions that we have in the program is funded through the county. So we have two positions that are there right now that is funded and filled. We didn't fill the other two positions quite yet. We're gonna run the program. It's gonna be a scaled down program, actually. Council member Hustis, where we will continue to do the retired senior volunteer program. We cannot afford to do the mileage for the seniors at this particular time. And also the awards luncheon is also going to be cut, but we're going to scale down the program to where we're probably going to staff it with two of our members there and and continue to run the volunteer program as it is. And so that's kind of how it's gonna go. I think that funding is till 2030, I believe that we may be cut from funding for the federal government for. So yeah, it's kind of what the status is for that right now. Thank you, appreciate that. Talking about the motor vehicles, what have we purchased in 23, 24 actuals, about half a million we spent on motor vehicles? Are we replacing those as well? Are they their conditions kind of on par? And now, you know, and it's surprising to me to see that we didn't have anything budgeted in this current fiscal year. Do you even keep that line at them active to kind of keep replacement on a regular basis? Good morning. Charmaine Felipe, business manager for Parks and Recreation. So thank you for that question. So Parks maintenance put together their vehicle replacement plan. So, you know, they replaced what they could prior years with auction items. So this year, the seven that we requested to purchase and the nine that we requested to go through lease finance is for new vehicles so that they don't get put back on this vehicle replacement list within the next five years. They have a total of 146 vehicles and equipment on this list that need to be replaced within the next seven to ten years. Okay, thank you Charmin, appreciate that. Thank you for increasing capacity for friends of the park. I see a kind of a tick there. Yeah, it's like from $17, $18,000 to $30,000. The first four months that I was here, that $18,000 has been up altogether. We just did some work at Honoka, Rodeo Arena, where we had them work on the shoot, and we replaced some of the sighting there. We had skips, she's doing quality-quality beach park right now on helping us with the trees, you know, a quality, quality beach park. Probably saving our county about 60 grand by doing that. Some of the work there, we have all the proper permits to already get that stuff done, but we picked up some equipment for him. He's going to go into Lehia next and help us with Lehia beach park audit and a kioca to help us there. But really that the money is going to be spent island wide, where every community that we have a friend's at a park with $30,000 is really a drop in the bucket compared to what would be required. So we use some of our parks maintenance funds for some of that as well to, you know, it goes to like material that we got to put into parks, whether it's top dressing a field with with with cinder soil or ash. And all the friends out of parks stuff that you got to do, whether it's cementing for for a memorial bench at one of our parks, because they got a B88 compliant or what have you. Boy Scout Projects, it goes to as well to Ecoscox projects that we just done at Mohu-Ruli Park that took a big chunk of change in helping to fund a part of that project for that. So, you know, we help fund some trees that got to be replaced in that park. We had some trees removed earlier, but the replacement trees as a project done by an Ecoscope project. But that ask was it just a small ask. It would be nice to have it a little bit more, but we know how tight things are. So we try to be as efficient as we possibly can be with the funds that we do receive. Thank you, Director. If you could just explain to me for clarification on the golf subsidy, I know it's for geographic equity. What facilities are we applying that towards what courses? And who's really benefiting? I know it's on a monthly basis, kind of at the front end of the month, those are kind of really eaten up pretty quickly. It's Waikoloa and... Waikoloa village and Makalegov courses. And Makalegov. And they track the participants by zip code. So if you'd like to see that report, I can get that over to you. That would be fantastic. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, we have a lot of offers from this site that uses the program as well to the right console member use this. So yeah, it's, yeah, it's open for everyone actually. But much is a scene for the municipal golf course on this site at Island where everyone can come and play at the, the door rates that we have here, you know, from island wide too. Sure, but that subsidies really goes towards our, for our residents though. They have to be Hawaii residents. Correct. They check in with the Hawaii ID and the Hawaii ID has to have a Hawaii zip code. So even off of this island would qualify. Hawaii Island. Hawaii Island has to be okay to Island resident got it Yeah, I just want to I just want to really thank you I know probably this will be echo amongst the call of my colleagues here about The work you and your team have really jumped in to maintain and take care of a lot of our park spaces So I really want to thank you and your staff for the work that you're doing island-wide And other may mayor speaks about it a lot on these spaces that have been neglected over time or has not been properly maintained or that the budget itself really hasn't spoken to proper maintenance of these spaces over time. And it's amazing to see four million more go towards our park spaces. And and we have a lot of catch up work to do for sure. And I'm sure you could speak to that about this is only like just a scratch on what we're trying to get started here and maintain a lot of these bases because all of our communities have these older parks bases that have been forgotten and kind of really need that TLC over time. Yeah, thank you for that Council Member Husses and at my confirmation I said it'll take a team. It's you guys in the mayor that funds, you know, all of our budget and you guys fund all of our projects. I mean, it's between both of you guys during the funding, but it takes my team behind me to actually execute everything and giving them the tools and the manpower to execute the funding that we do receive and get stuff done. Our guys, copy up above and beyond the call of duty sometimes to go ahead and get things done and I appreciate all the work that they do. I appreciate the work that you guys do, and I appreciate the support from both you and the Mayor for our department in general. So thank you. Thank you, Director. And I'll leave it on this one. Last for now is on our, this is CIPs for District 9. And I want to my hello, our planning planner, James Cammato, I'm kind of presenting a couple of these forward for the community, and even engaging with the community on some of them too. For example, the Mahu Kono one, and I know James Mr. Kumato was there on regular basis to kind of speak with community, engage with community, learn about what the community wishes were. So looking forward to seeing that one go forward. On the Spencer Clawney-Shootie District Park, you know, listed here, it really shows that 15 million on the county. But I think there have been ongoing conversations with community partners as well as our state partners on kind of the breakdown of the cost. So to help move, and you know, a lot of these projects are kind of contingent on those other supporting funds that offset the cost and help to expedite the process so if there's any update on On kind of the cost breakdown for this project to show that delineation between Different municipalities and the state and community partners. Maybe that could show a Process to expedite this project a little further rather than just the 15 going for the county. Yeah, we'll work with you and that. Okay. I'll have James and Melissa as well too, because she's from that area, you know, we'll continue to be on that and working to communicate with you and it tries to that particular project there. Okay, follow. And yeah, thank you for really paving a lot of these spaces, we're repairing a lot of space of our community park spaces. The one just to put a pin in for now is the Spencer Beach paving efforts down there. Yeah. Thanks, Director. Yes, thank you. Hello, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Anishin. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. You're welcome, Chairman. So, I have kind of a long list, but we will start with parks. So, I wanted to go and update on how the fire and crew is doing. And I did talk to the Department of Ag with a chair heard. And she's willing to provide some funding for like supplies, or herbicides, or whatever pesticides that we need. Yeah, so I don't see it in a budget, but I mean, can you guys? First of all, Council Member Onishi, thank you for one starting up the project way back in the day when Mayor Piliquinoi was the mayor on one getting the state to fund the first two positions that we had. It was really big back then because it does the genesis of our crew that takes care of Fire Ants at the Park Street right now. Secondly, we welcome the additional funding to get supplies. I'll have Charmin actually take a look into the budget right now and see what they're budgeted for as far as supplies go for them. Because the staffing is part of the park maintenance staff. Okay, all included in, yeah. So it's not separated out as its own separate account numbers. Okay. And so like for like supplies and stuff, it's all to 16, yeah, under agricultural supplies. Okay. So would you be be able to help me or with Jason's help and finding out? Like what what folks need? Yeah, crew. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or even like sprayers or whatever you folks need Yeah, let me know okay, because then I can let her know because she was telling me that they have some funding And that they can get it to us. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And then with still with parks, there's this account, two to nine building and construction materials. I don't park maintenance. So what I'm looking at is, which is great, is that number 10 is this colon up pickle ball court, what is it? Repair a maintenance, $100,000. Is it possible to have like island wide? No. I mean, not the $100,000. Add in two that, I learned why. How's that? Okay. Yeah. I'm not thinking about it. I don't want to take it away from you guys. That is possible, Council Member. Yeah. Yeah. For one, we're going to do our Parks Maintenance staff already committed to doing an AOLO park. Yeah, I know. You know, we're working with public works in paving that and risk and restripe home and also going through the fencing for that. So Jason has just had a conversation out on the line with them in regards to moving that project forward. And he said most of the stuff can be taken care of in house. But pick up all courts. Island wide is so sorely needed, right? Such a big sport and every district on the island, we have a big interest in Pickleball. So I understand what you're saying. Yeah, no, definitely we'll take things somewhere to consider it. I know what I think you're working with me and Jigs and also thank you very much for working with I Know The Park. I mean, it's like, that would be an ideal place I think to have it especially nothing's been there I mean everything got ripped up and so forth but thank you but so that money is like what repair and maintenance or is it to construct this is all basically repair and maintenance construction will be totally separate. And our guy is our maintenance crew is primarily repair and maintenance. We might construct something, but it's going to be on a very small basis. So even like putting a fencing, we're not going to put a long run of fence. If's gotta go into a long run then we're gonna contract it that project out. And so like in Council member Kanili, Kalingfeld, there's district up in Shipman Park. It's gonna be a big run of fencing. That's why we gotta do a contract for that particular project. I wanna get right now two guys in the Fencing Crew. And we have them all in Waimea doing the backstop right now. And they also are flooring crew as well too, that covers all of the gems that we have. So flooring and Fencing, only a couple guys. But again, so for Pickleball courts, I only get like couple painters right now as well to paint the courts and one construction crew on this side of the island. So again, by having the building maintenance positions are proven going forward, they can kind of help work with the construction crews or they can work with the, they can do some masonry work and things like that. So to bring up a number of crews,iser. We got a bigger project They can all go together and address it all together and so You know that that'll be very helpful, but again our guys is mostly maintenance rather than constructing new things Okay, good to know okay, and then the friends on the part. I see it's an increase Is it possible to add in the helodrax trip because I know like how it's been working right they go and donate and they get this credit and so forth right yeah but if we do this way then it's more clean I would feel yes to what what a conference that again that would be I mean, for the other part. Okay. I don't know what. What what a conference that again? That would be admin friends at a park. Yeah. I mean, because I don't know like what is the status on how much more credits we still owe them. Yeah, the Heel of Drake shoot is unique in itself right because you have two organizations that who do work there. That work there, if it was one, would be a lot easier and cleaner to work with. But you got to honor the two organizations that are there. Yeah, so that, I did use some funding there to bring in material in the past during Billy's administration. We did bring in the base course to help with some of their other issues that they have there. And that funding is so general that it can be applied to any of the parks, any of our facilities, in any which way that we can. So maybe we can increase that to include the low drag strip. I mean, something to think about. Yes. Yes. Oh, thank you. Absolutely. Outerly activities division. Okay. Is the budget? Oh, well, first of all. So senior employment. There's the discontinued senior employment. Yes. Workforce has senior training and employment right now. But you guys lost funding. The state took't renew our contract. You know, maybe about five or six years ago, I think they didn't renew our contract with the office of aging. So not office of aging, but kind of directly with parks and decorations. We were just a pastor at the office of aging. Okay. And so went straight to workforce development for them. Yeah, okay. Okay. Their budget, has it increased? I mean, like, with more services or is it kind of status quo? Because, you know, I've been with Ellyn and I've seen that they don't really get too much attention. Yeah kind of more status quo. Plenty of their budget is true. So for example nutrition is primarily true. The older Americans act through the Office of Aging Funding that program. We did see a sit back during COVID and we still haven't fully recovered since the COVID, since we had COVID issues out there. So the numbers aren't quite as high. But that's not only because of COVID, it's also because of the capacity issues because we're having also challenges of filling positions in the nutrition program. A lot of them are part-time positions. They're covering just the morning program for nutrition. For employment, that's tough to feel right now. About with coordinated services, they do house cleanings, they do the chores, some other chores services. They also do like, um, companionships and all this kind of transportation. I mean, that hasn't really increased to, no, that hasn't increased. Yeah. I don't know. So maybe something to look at that service, you know, committing more. And we just had mass transit here. Yeah. So I really want to see how mass transit can work with coordinated services. It may be helping providing some funding with the power transit, right? Having that some funding given to coordinating services to help with providing services to the Kupunas. Yeah. So I'll talk to them about that too. And I did before when it first started and I told Tiffany at the time who was a mass transit administrator to help with coordinate services and provide that funding to them, to county. And it's all in house, right? But then they wanted to contract it out, right? And it was big money we're talking about. So I'll do that. Thank you. And then also like with the recreation I hear on and on from retirees, just recent retirees trying to get into some of the programs especially like ukulele, but they cannot because it's limited and the ones already in don't leave, right? So then, you know, so nobody else can come in and it's a beginning class. And so we might have to start increasing on that part and then maybe expanding Kamanah, senior center, right? Or making another area. Finding instructors too. Well, I think, yeah. Because we think we moved the instructor from coming out down to anti-Sally's. Oh, so he could take on more people, right? Right, nice. And so it's a much larger class that he has now, you know, compared to what used to be in the past, he relocated to accommodate more participants, right? In fresh in regards to that. Okay. That happened while I was at the office of EGING, so at that time. And I think Stan, our driver for nutrition, he's also an instructor, but because he's working for us, it's hard for him to get off to instruct the coupon on ukulele classes, but again, trying to find the instructors as well. Well, something to look at, you see how we can build capacity you know I guess space or you know one last thing I can come back to you but one last thing I just want to thank you because in the budget I seen officiating thank you Lindsay to increasing that to 18,000 so that's gonna help our the youth program in basketball and volleyball and and also the t-ball pitch ball that they don't have to provide as much of the cost for officiating. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Aloha. Thank you for being here and being your whole team. It's a pleasure to see you again. We've had some opportunities to meet and talk about some exciting things for District 7 and Kona and I'm really excited and grateful to see the projects moving forward at the Old Airport, Kailal Park. Yeah, and I'm just excited to see the big in with the Marriquese Harping on restrooms and how important it is out there. And once we get that done, it's going to be so wonderful for a community to not have to use part of parties again and get on with it. A literal game changer. Yes. And I've had people harping on me for the last six, seven years. So unfortunately, not everybody understands what had to be done to get us to this phase. So it's really heartening to be come into fruition. I also want to thank your team and your staff for the support with these friends of the park agreements. For a a while there they kind of were viewed critically and unfortunately because some people start one and then they just fall to the wayside. But I think we have seen a real resurgence in responsible community collaboration on the community standpoint and also this relationship building with parks and rec. So excited what's happening at the skate park. Thank you, Mr. Komata, for your support in helping them as community volunteers to navigate the process of providing plans. And just having all this support means the world. To Kailu, Akona, our village. The collaborative work that's been done with navigating with community policing and homeless service providers to keep our parks healthy and safe. I operate under no false premise that we won't continue to have issues at Old Airport with the unhoused that assume it's a camping facility or wayaha but the collaborative work being done between parks and rec community policing and the homeless service providers who are actually doing outreach and helping people get specific solutions is really heartening for everyone. Just a couple more here. Lunarillo Park. Great news about that play ground facility. The matting is in horrible, terrible condition. Of course, you know, me old school, and I'm like, we never even had that when I was a kid. Right? It was like, you look if that was gravel and some monkey bars or something. We played soccer on the baseball diamond that all day. So a little bit, you know, that balance, but Kona has grown resources, the expectations of our community. So watching our parks get the attention that, you know, and resources allocated is deeply appreciated. And speaking of the playground, it takes the community also to make some noise, see, we need some attention here. And Angio Naka, of course, is she's simply letter to council member Inaba here and we took a look at it and you know, at the very first we had a community volunteer group wanting to fundraise for that but you know that never gained momentum so we decided to take over that project altogether and get it funded truly again our maintenance budget to address that. So anyway, thank you yeah because I had actually those other projects and those people have been working with for years and told it was coming and so I'm you know there are challenges with change of administration and leadership sometimes but I'm really grateful that what I'm seeing is we're seeing progress, action and momentum and that's really helpful even for me and my role, because a lot of people come to us as legislators and assume we're the administration and that we can tell the administration and departments and department has what to do when we really can. We can have a good relationship with you, try to support, see what you need, but having action being taken and the priorities are, I am seeing a more equitable distribution of priorities and resources to parks on the west side that the community is really excited about. Yes, I think the mayor is very fair as far as trying to balance off the whole island in general and addressing issues issues island wide. Again I think communication is also the key here. We don't have all the staffing in the world to go and address everything right away but if we can communicate with each and every one of you guys on you know status of projects and working with the friends of the parks out there and communicating with them. I think with Deputy, she does a wonderful job in trying to clean up the friends at a park agreements with many of those out there. Some of them, you know, they have no time in the midst on them. So we're trying to put a cap on so we can continue to have conversations with them. So I think we're trying to implement like a two year cap on a friends at a park. So, come back to us and give us the status of what they're doing or what their intentions are. If they have one time projects that's you know we know we know it's not said then but yeah again thank you for that yeah that's really wise because I know YAHA Honol's Beach Park I'm not sure if that friends at the park is still viable and moving forward, but there is still a need for continued advocacy there because it is kind of more of our urban beach park that, you know, they get people moved out who decide they've just discovered the coolest, you know, public camping space and finally get them moved out and then another group comes in. So, thank you for. And you know, Higashi Harapark and working with the Lions Club up there and that group of people has just been fantastic to see that collaborative work. Yeah, thank you. And lastly, something I hold close to my heart was the Glyphosate legislation that we passed a number of years ago Which prohibits the use of glyphosate in our county parks and wreck facilities But I was made aware in the last year one more quick thing And I get it. This is the loophole why I tried to include the names of lots more herbicides because the companies just changed the name and now it's glyphosinate. But the intention was there. The Wooloo Road walking trail where people walk their dogs and whatnot, they had been transitioned to being cut instead of sprayed. And so we can continue with this offline, but I'm having a lot of people ask now like, well, what's the status there? And I'm just, look, I was really heightened to see in your list of objectives and values and visions for this next year was continued prioritization and values of environmentally friendly practices for maintaining our parks and really going that extra mile. Well absolutely and again you know in lieu know, in lieu of, you know, using herbicides out there, it takes manpower to actually go and cut that. So in equipment as well too. So, you know, the world of the people is what we're going to try to work with as best as we can. And the voices all come to you guys. And you guys work with us. So we're willing to work with all of you guys, including our constituents that are out here. Thank you. And the will of the people was, we stopped exposing us to these things. So whatever you need for resources, as far as equipment to support your staff, we did, I did invest, help invest in that weed steamer. And I know there's other good technologies coming forward. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I yield. Thank you. Council member, Kagiwata. Thank you, Chair. Great to see you here, Director Homa. Yes. And your entire staff, or not your entire staff, obviously, but the staff who are here today. A few things. One, the trees that have been cut down recently, especially like the iron woods, I know there have been some safety issues. I know councilmember Kimbles canoe was crushed by a limb that fell off of one but I'm wondering if you have anything your budget to replant non-invasive replacement trees so that we maintain this healthy shade aesthetically pleasing look. Is that in your budget at all? We don't have any budget to replace trees that they'll maybe come from friends at a park again. Again, that is one of our most versatile funding sources to do things like that. So again, we're just asking for $12,000 more to make it $30,000. But the number of friends at a park say we have island wide. That's just a drop in a bucket to address all other concerns out there. But definitely, when we do cut trees, you know, in some instances, we do have replacements that we do put them in with. So just, just know that all of our practices, it's just not to remove all of the trees all of. We do have replacement practices of replacing them with native trees that are from our state and our island. Okay. Well, that's good to hear. I guess as you continue to look at how many trees you need to remove, I think if you need a budget for replacing those, I think it would be really important. I've gotten several calls from my office saying, they're cutting down trees. It really, I know that being aesthetically pleasing and being healthy, having enough shade are things that you really care about. So if we can make sure that we're being thoughtful about that, that would be great. OK, thank you. Yeah, and then going to Friends of the Park, I tried to look on your website and there's not like a list of Friends of Parks and even when I go to individual parks it doesn't necessarily say if there is a Friends of Park for that park. Is there a way that people can know where there are friends of park organizations and when there aren't. Yeah. Not not courage. Okay. That would be super helpful. That would be super helpful. So if you work on though, absolutely. Yeah, even just a list, something. Yeah. Because I know for instance, I was talking to some constituents like, oh yeah, we have a friends at a park there and then I called the office and they're like, no, you don't have friends of the park there. So there's some confusion I think about when there is an official one and not. So when we found like we had seven friends of the park, so I think we meant one park. And that is difficult to manage. And so we've been trying to reel that back. And so again, my deputy Melissa, somewhere, she's been wonderful in trying to see, hey, we're going this stuff up and We've been trying to address it trying to terminate some of our agreements that have been super long-standing that we know there's no one there doing it anymore Or sending out letters on terminating some of the agreements that are out there But it's gonna be a kind of a long process because we don't have a clerk specifically managing contracts or friends at our parks that are with us. And so a lot of them, we do have physical files inside of our office that for each facility or park that's in their file, there's a friends at our park agreement or there's four or five friends at our office. Yeah, some of them active. Some of them not active. But yeah, again, we don't have that clerk in the office to manage all of that. So Melissa, my secretary Amy Baltista, Norey, our accountant for Charmaine. We all try to figure it out as we're going along the way. Again, they're one of the most efficient ways to work and bring the community on board and have them engaged with us at parks. And it gives them that buy-in and to taking care and maintaining their parks in their communities. At the same time, you might get seven of them and you might have conflicts with groups. And that is also a challenge in managing as well too. So I hear you, I hear you that you would like to see that list out there. And again, that'll be a working progress for us. Thank you for that. Well, I appreciate the work you're doing around Friends of Parks. I'm very supportive of the increase in the budget on that. I don't think it's too much. And at least I can speak for myself, and I'm guessing that most council members would be happy to help you if you need help with the community, like with those multiple friends of parks groups or something. I would be happy to help in my district, in the district I represent to help bring those folks together and figure out who's doing what. Yes, well, thank you for that. Of course, of course. You mentioned the large international events that you guys have been part of and really, I think that brings a lot to our community and, you know, people love to turn out for that. A lot of pride there. I'm hoping that we can get something going wherever there's one of these large events that you work with our new Oscar division on making it zero waste or at least lower waste events because a lot of these events do generate quite a bit of waste. So I will reach out to Oscar as well and mention it to them and they already know already know I've talked to Laura before about it Yeah, but I think this will really also send the right message to visitors to our island and visitors Even you know on different sides of the island that this is something that we care about and that we want to yeah I agree with you sure that okay Thank you so much and then just a couple thank you for Doing the couple maintenance things Ahul Alani Park. Thank you so much. And then just a couple, thank you for doing the couple maintenance things. Ahu Alani Park. Thank you so much getting that done. Just changing the basketball. There was a, we have a park that had four basketball hoots and they were all at different heights so they could never play a game. Yeah, so we matched them off. Thank you, Jason for, yeah, giving us grew. Yeah, I gave you a screw-out there. I was, like, two years of getting that done. I just did as well, too. Yeah. Appreciate that. And then thank you, James, and your work, and the mayor's commitment to the Helioscape Complex. I really do think it's going to be something for the whole island and to bring some of those international events here. I think it'll be really great. So keep moving forward on that. Lastly, I just want to ask about the Mohu Uli Park Upgrades events here I think it'll be really great so let's keep moving forward on that. Lastly I just want to ask about the Mohu Uli Park upgrades that we had talked about. I know you said that the Cork the Pickleball tennis courts will be part of a larger island-wide court renovation but do we have enough funding to just do like kind of plan it out and do the design and plan for those changes this year? Not quite yet, so we've got to work with you and the men in regards to funding for the design for that. We're also working with the Stegra Kiss in trying to secure funding from Representative Chris Todd in regards to that. I, I talked to him. I talked to him. We'll be working with probably Sully Loie, who it's in her district. So next year probably won't. So it's not going to happen this year, but we think it can. And Chris is very supportive and says he'll support for next year. So we'll work on that. But if we could start on the design part, it's just the renovations. It's not a new park, but just yet, it needs some TLC. Yes, thank you. Thank you. start on the design part, it's just the, you know, the renovations. It's not a new park, but just yet, it needs some, some TLC. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate all you're doing. Thank you, everybody. I yield. Thank you. Cosmo Recurquoise. Thank you. Director, it's great to see you and I really appreciate working with you and your team. It's wonderful to continue to be invited to participate in planning discussions around recreational resources. You know, I love how Mayor Kenoy said that. Parks are Pooohonua, right? They're a safe haven for kids for Ohana and as a mom with kids that are heavily involved in sports, there's volleyball games and baseball games all weekend. I love seeing all of the families there using all of our resources and cheering on their kids. It's really wonderful and shout out to our parks crew to make sure that, you know, our facilities are in tip-top shape. You know, one thing that I just wanted to point out because I know the work is ongoing. I believe in the last administration some funding was set aside to train or to engage in a consultant or to train some of our parks employees up to do facilities ratings so that we have a sense of what needs to be done on an ongoing basis. So I just want to flag that and look forward to some kind of report coming from the department in the near future. One thing that I would like to explore with parks and rec is the ability to do online reservations for facilities and pavilions. At this time, if we need to rent out the community center in Pahoa, we got to go to Pahoa, fill out a form. Happy to do that, by the way, love checking in with Shannon. But I think it would be really convenient to be able to see online what days are available and to do transactions online. So again, we have Salesforce that we just met with this past week. And so I'm building out the prototype for us. Salesforce can actually do everything from even work orders for our maintenance department as well too. But currently we're just having them build a prototype for our pavilions and our community centers. We cannot use Epic. I'm not sure about using Epic. I think Epic is more based on for those types of uses rather than the permitting for our building permits. I know. But that's another conversation in general, but Salesforce's presentation too was very good. And Cory Stone from IT, he actually proposed that to us in broad and started meeting up for us. And Corey has been wonderful in getting us online at all of our facilities. So he's been working one by one with getting us online to do those. So we have the potential to start up the reservation system online at all of our facilities. We just got to start somewhere. And to begin with, I think this opportunity that we do have with Salesforce is quite exciting. And yeah, we'll see what comes out of that that but we've got to start somewhere like this. Dr. Nakagawa, do you want to offer anything? By the way I'm not advocating that we use Epic like we pay for it already I'm just curious if we could. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that we are exploring options, but we will have to go through a competitive procurement process. So we're just doing our due diligence and looking at what options are available for us to build a scope of work, but it will be a competitive process. Thank you for clarifying now. Director, we have a beautification fund in the county. And I know that Parks and Rec has access to that. Just wondering what some of those funds have been used for this past fiscal year, what you think you're going to be using it for this fiscal year, the beautification fund, I think about 40% wasn't used this last year. I believe most of it is used for equipment that's needed for sites that are visible from the street. Okay. So doing when Mercky Neu was the mayor back then we took furloughs with major cuts. I couldn't buy a lawnmower for about six years while I was the director and deputy director of Parks and Rec. We used the beautiful Caching Fund to purchase lawnmowers for the parks that was visible from the streets. And so that's kind of like, I think, what we're kind of doing right now is using that fund to get some equipment for, you know, to keep those places. Good looking, yeah, aesthetically pleasing. But at the same time, you know, if you have ideas that you can share with us, did we welcome that as well too? Wonderful. I mean, I'm just thinking about, you know, we have conversations with the Department of Licker. and you know, prosecuting attorney's office has been engaging with local schools, different community groups to do murals in partnership with local kids. So I just wonder if there's another potential collaboration between Parks and Recreate, Councilmember Inaba, and Likker Control to have a beautification fund available to do visual sort of improvements parks facility. So, just putting it out there. Thank you. Can you provide me just a general update? We've talked, but I want the community to hear just a general update on where we are with restoration of ISEKHLE beach park in Pohoiki. I'll bring James Kamata for the presentation. Wonderful. Thank you. Mr. Cawatha, thanks for being here. James Cawatha. Activate your mic. James Cawatha Park Planner. So the Isaac Halle Beach Park Project were currently in design with our design team. We've approached the pre-final stage, and we continue to work with stakeholders. We're reading the environmental assessment to be published. We're working on the preservation plan for the cultural sites that are there. And we are meeting weekly to keep their project moving forward. So we're working really hard to be able to get back out to the community, do a larger public meeting to present the plan, get a little more input from the community and the stakeholders and get that project out to bid shortly. I don't have the exact time on getting it out to bid, but it's in a few months. Thank you. I was able to meet with Lim Tiago, the consultant to kind of go over what the, you know, the central design could look like. So thank you for that invitation. Are we still in the range of completing park restoration by the end of next year? That's so, okay. Okay, wonderful. And then an update on HPP District Park. It was really wonderful when the mayor kind of looked at each of the council members and talked about different priorities in each of our districts and he highlighted that and so just wondering if there's an update you'd like to share publicly. Yes, so for the Hawaiian Heritage Park Master Plan which is currently kind of wrapping up. We've completed the environmental assessment process. We receive all the public input. Our consultant is currently putting together the final revised master plan for us. And then the plan with the mayor and with Clayton Harris to move into the first phase of design. We don't quite know what that scope is going to be. We'll work with you and stakeholders to identify what that's going to be. Very exciting. Thank you. Director, one ask that I have, and I'm happy to provide some contingency funding for this, outdoor fitness stations. You know, when I was visiting Japan, I would see like Kupuna walking on the street and then literally go to a park and do like 10 pull ups. And these are like Kupuna, but they're super fit. And on my last couple visits for Daughter's volleyball tournaments to Oahu, Alamoana Park also has these fitness stations. But I think this is another way to just encourage healthy, you know, health and well-being by our community because we spend so much time at our park. So, wondering if there's money in the budget or if you'd like to explore using some of my CRF to realize that? Absolutely. I believe we do have outdoor fitness stations up at Manakia, you know, on the walking path that we have there. So, we didn't incorporate that to begin with. at just that park itself. But you know, we'd love to work with you and exploring other places or other options that are out there. Wonderful. Thank you. And I just really appreciate everyone's continued support on all the various projects that we ask you to support us with. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Kimbo. All right James, you have to wait. I have just one simple question that probably has a relatively complex answer and it might require Mr. Kamada to come up again and he does so much work for the county. I feel like he should have walk up music when he comes up to the desk. But my question is there's so much work to do over 300 plus facilities. Fortunately, we're putting money towards it, which I'm very excited about. Do you folks envision having any kind of dashboard or do a spatial tool that the public can kind of view what projects are underway, what their status is, and how will you folks be determining priorities? I mean there's so many, but do you have a strategy in place for determining what's going to happen when or anything like that? That's why I think it's a planner question. Yeah, really because the timing of it, it all depends on the project itself, and the consultants that we have, and the permits that it's in. And a lot of the time of the process of planning a project is not necessarily determined by us, but we're waiting on permits to happen. And it's difficult to see and to say when a project will start and complete, basically because there are so many variables involved. And we take considerations from not only you folks in the mayor, but the community as well too on these projects and something may come up, they might find EV on the property itself and we've got to deal with burial council. We've got to deal with the Americans with Disabilities Act out there. We might have to deal with state historic preservation. There's so many different phases of the project that is not controlled by us, right? EAs, you know, permittings. I mean, just incredible. Maybe James can elaborate more on that. Yeah, so right now we're in the discussions internally about being able to put specific construction projects information out on our website. We've been working with that your modes are public information officer on a way to be able to get that out that's friendly and easy for people to read. We do meet internally twice a month. We go over all of our project status. And so, you know, through that we may be able to update the community on specific projects. It's tough. We've got seven pages where the projects we're working on right now. So, you know, maybe not getting all that out there, but as much as we can, the bigger projects. When we're looking at our overall efforts when it comes to repair maintenance construction and those types of efforts, we have been talking internally about coming up with a better work order system that can be managed that would be able to take input from the public as they see things that are broken or damaged or dangerous or whatever it is, the condition may be, but also being able to manage the job assignments internally making more efficient for ourselves, but not quite there yet. We're working on that. We have talked about having a GIS position to be able to get all of our fixed assets. On a map, have that tied somewhere into our work order system. But again, it's all in the discussion phase right now. We do realize that we've got to get better at being able to get out to the community what we're doing. But yeah, working progress. Yeah, thank you for that. And I can appreciate, especially with the variety of projects and places and locations and things. I mean, there's so many confounding factors really to give a clear timeline to folks. But I do really like the idea of a GIS-based visualization. I think there's lots of, you know, the DPW has the one for like paving. I don't think it's been updated a while, but it was really super easy to just send that link out to my constituents and say just check this page and you can see what's happening. Are you operating this parks and rec have a strategic plan or a maintenance plan that you guys are operating under currently? No, we don't have a specific strategic plan at the moment. Okay. Yeah, and part of it is again, you know, staffing and manpower. This is why we're asking for the positions that building maintenance worker positions on in Corona. Because we have just a tremendous amount of work orders that we got to try to address. Yeah prioritizing them and getting them done whenever staffing healer unlike public works where they have staffing to address like roads for example they have a staff in a crew and equipment out in Kona, staff in a crew out in Waimea, staff in a crew out here, maybe a smaller staff out in Kauu, but they have staff in Island wide that can address things more efficiently and quickly. We just have our staff in Hilo. So we're trying to build up the workforce on the other side of the island to be able to address things more efficiently and have a better response to those work orders altogether. So trying to get a handle and manage and schedule things, you know, and to get it addressed in a timely manner, that's one of our bigger challenges that we have altogether. And on top of that, we have equipment issues, like I said, our vehicles, they've got to be replaced getting our staff out there. That is another big challenge and so you know. And on top of that, we have equipment issues, like I said, our vehicles. They've got to be replaced getting our staff out there. That is another big challenge. And so, you know, on my confirmation where we fully got the support of getting more funding to get our maintenance issues addressed. I also stated that I appreciate getting the funding to get it addressed, but also I need Stuffing to do to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to funding to get it addressed, but also going to need staffing to get those issues addressed. You can give us the additional funds, but if we don't have the staff to do it, we're never going to get it addressed in the year that we have that funding for. So an important for us to get the positions to support that as well too. Yeah, I think those was up here on the dice. Definitely appreciate that and realize that it's not. We have to have the capacity to utilize funds that we give. I don't remember who it was. I was mentioning it to before, but you know from our standpoint. A lot of times we just need to be able to give our constituents a reason about why something is or isn't happening. And that's why I'm asking for some transparency around what is the plan and when are we going to do what and how do we prioritize things because in the absence of that, people can make presumptions about why one group is getting something and the other group isn't. So I think it's important to, as we kind of modernize, how you're doing things with all of these work orders and other tools. Hopefully we can find some good support for you guys there. That part of it is really educating the public on how these decisions are made with a caveat that sometimes it's just somebody's in the right place in the right time and they can get it done, right? I mean, it's not black and white with all of the things you guys have to do. Because we get the situation as well to it. I swear, you know, you're taking so long to address something why, right? But again, we gotta crawl before we walk, right? And walk before you run. And we gotta start somewhere and try to get better at Parks Maintenance and addressing our maintenance issues that we do have. And again, you know, as I see it, it all begins with the staffing and the equipment to begin with. And giving our guys the tools to, and you know, giving ourselves a personnel to go ahead and try to address all of our maintenance issues. We do have older buildings that are out there and a lot of buildings are older and dilapidated. We have a lot of roofs and electrical issues that we got to address. And again, you know, appreciate getting that extra $4 million that that is a drop in the bucket on what we got to address that is out there all together. But it's a start and getting positions is also a start and getting us to move forward. So, but again, I appreciate what you're saying. Not so remember Kim, but. I'll ask you for at this stage as you are figuring out how to modernize and move forward with these programs. If part of what year lens is like, how can we communicate this effectively to the public? And that's what the ask is at this point. Are there other positions that you have identified that are going to maybe come through supplemental? Or do you think you've got? No, we have a electrician and a plumber for the other side of the island on our supplemental as well, too. And again, like I said, this is just the beginning. I mean, next year is another ask that we're gonna be putting in. Because again, our task is much greater than what we just have. And what we gotta address this year, you know, we gotta build a team like, I wanna be similar to what public works as is a team of building maintenance workers not only in Kona and Hilo but also have one in Y-Metak catch you know the in between areas I mean be couple guys out in Ka-U so that we can address all other issues that are you know and more readily be able to address those issues that are out there island wide I don't have the team they all got to come out of Hilo right now, but you know, again, we're starting to crawl already at this particular point in time before we walk. And I think the parks and rec directors on the other aliens really appreciate like how big we are and how that just the geographical space that we have to cover presents so many of its own challenges. And this public works works in everybody else's quality, right? Exactly. It's that, yeah, the mass transit, right? Yeah, let's maybe talk about your IT support potential for a GIS person, just, you know, as you're talking about, including more software services, more online reservations and stuff like that. We want to make sure that you have that capacity covered. Well, I'm not sure what the existing staffing is. I'll have to look, but let's have a conversation offline and see if there's anything. Yeah, so Dr. Averin, thank you. I'll just, what, agree with Council member Kirkwitz on the exercise station. I think those are great because they can use by everybody. And I know have issues sometimes with the playground equipment, the side swings, all that stuff. But the kids can use the extra, I mean they may not do the exercise, but they're going to climb all over them and use them too. So I like them as a multi-generational activity opportunity, really. Yes. How to present. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Irvington. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just have a quick question. I appreciate the Summit. Well the mayor bringing up a lot of the priorities in down in district six. I just wanted to ask about the Pahala pool. Where are we on that? Some other things for others. No, but it's on going actually. It is ongoing and it is an ADA project, right? So we have funding for it. Yeah, so it's just a matter of process, but my community asks about it. So I just want to have something, an update at this point. Yeah, the Phahalismic pool project is one of our accessibility improvement projects required of us by our transition plan for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. You know, unfortunately on that project, we run into a bunch of delays. We are at the where we are right now is we have the revised plan in hand. We submitted it to our contractor. We are waiting back on pricing so we can negotiate the amended scope of work. We're hopeful that in the next month or so we will be able to start that project back up and get it completed. I believe we've addressed all of the geotechnical issues, the hazmat issues, all the things that we're kind of hanging out there, waiting on updated design, waiting on various regulatory approvals. I think we've got that all squared away, so we're just in the final stages of getting that project back going again. OK, thank you. And it's the same contractor that, I know we had previous contractor in that fell through. And so we have got a new contractor. Or is it so that it's the same second contractor? Yes, it's the same. We're working with the same contractor we've been working with since the start of the current construction effort. And it was actually in the process of the demolition work where we ran into a bunch of concerned and issues that have delayed the project. Okay. So in a month, you said? Yeah, in a month or two, I said we're working on the negotiation with the contractor on the mandate scope of work. So once we get that, then there'll be a change order that documents the revised drawings, the revised costs and the scope and time, and then they'll be able to start to work. Okay. Could you possibly just, when that happens, shoot me an email on that? Yeah, we'll keep you updated on when we're ready to start again. And I think that's one of the projects, as I mentioned earlier, if you want to be able to get on our website so that, you know, people have been asking, inquiring a lot on their project and have it there. People can go and check and get updates every two weeks or so. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Coggiwara. Thank you, Chair. Um, a couple other items. Summer fun, uh, the food, the 80,000. Um, is that for breakfast, sandwich? Is that for breakfast and lunch? Is that for breakfast and lunch? Hey, Lindsey. It's just for lunch. Just for lunch. Okay. And if for some terrible reason that that was either cut or rescinded by the federal government, do we have a plan, a backup plan for that? Funding to make sure those kids get fed. Then it goes back to they providing their own lunch. Okay, all right, not a great solution because a lot of those kids will not. Okay, thank you. On the zoo fees, I see in here that you wrote, admission charges are pending review. And I know that was something that you kind of just stepped into. It was like at the end of the last administration and I'm looking at that but in the budget I was looking for it. Is there anywhere in the budget that shows revenue from the zoo coming in? Did you estimate an amount or what's in the budget around that? I looked for it but I wasn't really sure the only place I saw maybe it was in the summary of revenues in the general fund under Parks and Rec is maybe part of that 2.338 million. So it is in the estimated revenues under 3407.45. Hold on a second. Say that number again. 3407.45. Okay. Not seeing it immediately, but okay. So page five of the estimated revenues. This part. Yeah, I looked at that over here. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. So what's the plan working with the community for coming? Are you going to be doing a community meeting or getting feedback or how is this decision going to be made? Yes, we are doing another community meeting in regards to public hearing actually. Okay, public hearing, great. And do you have any thoughts on when it might go into effect? It should start at the beginning of the year. Actually, our target is to begin the new fiscal year for the COVID-19. The new fiscal year, so it's the same. We're actually trying to target next month for public hearing. Okay. Trying to secure a venue for now. Getting this venue is one of the important things. But the timing is more important because we want to target getting it started at the beginning of the year. Okay. So I know one of the things that was brought up in the earlier hearings or public meetings was the concern that low income folks who really rely on that especially because there's not another park right in that area. But I also know even people coming from Hilo rely on that a lot when they have kids is a place to go. Have you guys discussed having some kind of monthly pass or annual pass that a very discounted rate for like people that are on you know snap or anything like that that could help. Well for the kids we're're proposing for them not to be charged until they're 17 years old. Just the adults. Yeah, and then Kupuna is well too not to be charged. So Kupuna and kids are free. Our proposal includes four dollar fees for the adults or they can have an annual pass or purchasing annual pass. Okay. And then our visitors, I believe we have a higher rate for the visitors as well too. So yeah, we're targeting trying to keep it affordable for our citizens here on our island and our constituents here. So yeah, again, the annual pass is something else. And that was a big work around because we weren't prepared for on how we're going to do the annual pass, with our staff, whether it's going to be a card or ID or something, but we work something out. So yeah, again, we're trying to try to get the person in the line. That's wonderful. And I think the nice thing about an annual pass is that you can have companies say, buy them and give them out or auction them as a donation to something. You can help people in that way by giving out annual passes if somebody wants to help. So I think that's a really wonderful addition to your thought on that. Thank you so much. Lastly, back to the exercise equipment. So when I came into office, there was a request for CRF left on my desk, quite a council member, Aaron Chung, for exercise equipment for the Heel Obey front trails right out here and I did fund that to the tune of almost $6,000. I understand after talking to parks over the last two years that the equipment was purchased but has never been installed. At the time there was another 18,000 for installation that was put aside for that project. I would love to get an update and I think it would be wonderful to get that installed out here because that's the ongoing project. I'll take a look at that. It's the first time hearing of it so absolutely. I'll take a look and see what the status is. Okay, I think there was something around ADA requirements that needed to be in place, maybe the pads or something before they could be. I'm sure that is, you know, a requirement for sure. But I think it's been like two years sitting there, so I really hope we can get it going. Okay, well, like I said, I first I'm hearing of it. I'll take a look at it. Thank you so much. It's back to you. Thank you. I yield, sir. Yes, I'm Ronishi. Thank you, sir. So that's good to hear about this, because that was part of my list. So Lisa, you know, yeah, what's going on? Yes. Good. So I guess my question now is about work orders. So maybe James, if he can come up. This came to I had mentioned about work orders and like how you folks have it, so maybe about a year and a half ago or so or longer, yet an employee at the year section that were evaluating the work orders, right? Was that correct? No, it wasn't evaluating work orders. Or was he, like looking at the projects and kind of list them as what priorities? So his assignment, if we're speaking of the same person, his assignment was to go out to all of our Parkside Silentwide come back with recommendations on any issues that were identified that should be looked at further for safety issues or safety concerns repair, repair needs, things of that nature. And what ended up happening is he ended up preparing work orders for what he felt was appropriate. So rather than the list of stuff, there were work orders prepared, but those work orders are pending review from our office. And when is that going to be done? It's not prioritized at the moment. No. Okay, so basically this person went to go and evaluate these facilities or parks to see what is wrong with it, basically. And it wasn't based on work orders that was already given to the department or was just new things, but could overlap possible. Yeah, there's a possibility of overlap. His ability was, I mean, his responsibility was to go out and wait for a fresh set of eyes and look at each park facility and look at what should be done. And do you have a list of all those work orders? I have a box of work orders. Yes. And what, so, so, because it goes back to, if Parks maintenance went to a certain, like beach park and had these pavilions that was, they felt that it would need it to be fixed or repaired. So they would make a work order, right? And then submit to the proper channels. And then I guess everything would come back to your desk or to your section right. No my section actually doesn't deal with the work order process. So who does the work? The maintenance division. So they monitor you Jason you want to come up then. So but then before you leave so the person that was there also did the same thing right basically going out there evaluating, making a work order 10, it goes back to maintenance. So I'll come, you have it in the box. Because the instruction was not to prepare the work orders, it was to do an assessment and come back with a list, so that we could determine what would require a work order to pursue, what would require a larger project, a larger effort to pursue? But in review of some of the initial work orders the work orders They're not approved some of the scope of work weren't appropriate for work orders because they weren't something that our internal staff could handle So it would be like a CIP. Yeah, but then then you would have two separate lists Exactly, so that's why we were supposed to get a list back. And from there, be able to determine how to split that up, what becomes a work order, what becomes part of a bigger CIP effort. So instead, there were just work orders prepared. But a person who was evaluating these places had to determine if was a CIP project or a work order. No, this individual was supposed to prepare a list, come back to us with pictures and descriptions of the work that were encountered and from there we would determine whether it was a work order. Work order was appropriate or if a larger CIP project was appropriate. Okay, and then so I mean he just didn't do it one day right, he was doing it multiple days right?, right? And then during that time when he was doing it, was he submitting to you to review or to look at? He would report to you, right? He reported to me, yes. And so how long was he doing that? I don't know, stop my head. Okay, because that to I mean, if he was doing it wrong, or what he was the scope of work was supposed to be, then somebody should have told him, instead of letting it go on and on and on. And then now he's... Well, I think the work product is still usable though. It wasn't being done exactly the way that we had asked for it to be done, but the product is still usable. know but something is but like, but like you're just saying that he was supposed to do this, this, this, this, take pictures and whatever, and then I don't know if he ever did. So, I mean, and it's stuck right now in your section, right? You can characterize it that way, I guess, yeah. Okay, so is it possible to turn over all that work orders or those documents to Parks Maintenance? For them to review? Yes. 100% possible. Yeah. Okay. J.C. you're okay with that? Oh, you can come. You can come. Sure. Remember to introduce yourself, Likyu. Yep. Jason Matos, Parks Maintenance, the division. Five of the work orders that that guy was doing, I think that would be where, out of our scope of work for the four guys that we get, The work orders that we do is a common record of that we get from recreation or out of facilities that do minor stuff. That comes to my clerk, she puts it, sent them to me, I look over it. If I feel like something emergency need taking take care of, I write down, or this is emergency priority. And then I give him back to her, and then she distributed to the tech shop, the mechanics, welders, or companies. But so that means you've seen those work orders that the document that was prepared? No, I never see that one. So you don't know what it is. No, the ones I see is that common ones, they've come from like, correct, right? Right. And like how normal, or what is it that we do? I understand. But so, okay, so I guess what's going to happen is then hopefully, you know, creating a work with it where those documents can be transferred to. Yes. These things, guys, so they can evaluate what's going on. They can make a detour in each and over there. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. So. documents can be transferred to. Yes. These things, guys, so they can evaluate what's going on. They can make the throw in the machine over the... Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. So, Zou is good. Okay. Golf course. I know the choice is not here, but we had a discussion with him before, and he mentioned to me about, you know, his equipment is breaking down, and, you know, we did provide back then with Kenoy's administration that we did purchase some machinery for him, but then I guess back then with the bidding system, you don't really get the best sometimes for the price. And so I guess now it's like breaking down or it needs to be, I guess and so forth So he talked about maybe leasing so I did talk to finance after I met with Troy and I didn't get to talk to Troy because we have a meeting with him coming up but Have you guys ever looked at doing like that leasing of the equipment or did he talk to you folks about it? Yeah, no, absolutely. Fresh. I mean we we're looking at options right for for our for our maintenance at all of our levels right because the cost of repairs and the cost of equipment is just gone up astronomically right and with the tariffs that is happening today there's even a greater concern because some of his equipment is not from here it's European so the tariffs that's going to be hitting him is going to be it's going to be hard on some of the mores that he does have right so again you know we're're looking at auto options and good suggestion to try to go and look at leases on some of those equipment that he does have. Because you'll eventually need to meet together like for repairing and so forth. It's much easier if you're leasing, right? And then at the term of the lease, then you can, you know, like I guess we turn to get a new one coming back or so forth, right? So that way his equipment will be updated all the time. Yes. OK, so that's good. Thank you. Acqu on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's good. Thank you. Aquatics. Anybody from Aquatics that is here? Okay, if Lizzy can come up. You can introduce yourself. I'm going to give you one more question. I'm going to jump the James. I'll come back. Okay. Good. Aquatics. I've got the calls about. Clubs, well, the youths practicing at CalMoto, but also work, I guess, I guess, work or intermingling with adults, open public. And so I guess the parents feel safe dewise. Like you have like you know underage like you know practicing swimming like with clubs or high schools and whatever. But then you also have older people from the public that is also in the pools at the same time. Right. And then also if they went to the bathrooms there's no really security within that area, right? So is it possible when these youths or the go-for-practice, especially like these clubs that come in or high schools, to give them a certain period of time? Like, you know how they do gyms? Like when you rent out, like, for basketball practices, volleyball, you get certain times, right? So having where, maybe from three to six is all for those younger ages, like all 17 and below, right? And then prior to three o'clock can be open pool, after six o'clock can be open pool, right? But just during that certain time, it's just for our young ones, right? So that way the parents could feel more safe with their children and not have to worry if they're walking to the bathroom, if anybody's following them or so far. Your thoughts? I appreciate the concern I do and I don't know the answer to that, honestly, but I can tell you that, you know, in any type of recreational facility use, it's the same thing, right? Our gyms, our fields, it's still open to the public. We don't close the gyms. Right. Nobody can see when people like, they're using like, they rented to like the high school, like a high school swimming team or whatever, for practices, right? Or the aquatic clubs that practice there, right? They get what I understand. They get assigned certain lanes, depending on how many members you have in each club or participate. But then also at the same time, there's open lanes for public use, right? So there's a mixture. And that's what I'm talking about the safety part because like at the same time there's open lanes for public use. So there's a mixture and that's what I'm talking about the safety part. Because like at the gym if I have a basketball team I'm going to rent out the gym for my practice at maybe 4.30 to 6. It's mine. Nobody else is there. Basically because I have my practice. Baseball same team. If I have a baseball team I'm going to like rent out Andrews, baseball field, right? Going to only my team, not going to have Joe Public for playing on the field too. So that's what I'm kind of talking about. Yeah, I think yeah, first is something to consider it all for sure, you know, I mean, good luck. I'm looking at it's just safety because I don't want I want to be more proactive than reactive because what if something does happen? How the county can be responsible? And I don't want to ask corporation counsel right now, but just something that we can discuss. Absolutely, we can have the discussion. And you know, take them into consideration. Absolutely. Because you know, like I said, one day might. Or you know like they say what is the term of that? It's like when? Right? Yes. Yes. And again you know we are we're not taking to consider consideration everything right so we're taking to consideration what you're seeing. And you know again the public too they did them too we got to make sure that they understand it ain't. You go shut it off for schools or what have you're saying. And you know, again, the public too, they did them too. We got to make sure that they understand it. They were shut around for schools or what have you. You know, we might face some backlash for that, but definitely we'll take that into consideration. And like I said, you can have it before three, it can be open, right? And after six, it can be open, right? So you give them those opportunities and it's like even at the gyms like You had the youths practicing in the right after school to like six o'clock and then after that is adult leaks, right? It's obviously what used to be yeah, so same thing, but okay Thank you. Thank you Thank you customer uses Thank you chair Thanks again. Just wanted to circle back to some of the, and I'd like to sit down with you some time to really look at the lapsed, when the lapsing CIP projects with Parks and Rec and kind of review of these, because the co-haul of community meeting, the good discussion about the co-haul of swimming pool, right, and the age of that facility and it curious your thoughts on is there something that we want to take under as maintenance or are we going to have to be doing some sort of large CIP request? I think the Koalas women pool women view on CIP request there, constantly used this. I mean our pools are probably the most expensive of all of our facilities island wide. I mean you look even at the sand filters they got to replace every once in a while the sand filters that all of our big pools back when I was the director with Mary Billy, Kinoa, the sand filter used to cost like $10,000 to replace one of those sand filters. And that is a like, almost a pool or KCA, Sierra Paolo pool, the larger pools. Today, the sand filter costs about $25,000 to $30,000 to replace and, you know, those pumps, they're not the same at every pool. We've got the pools at various stages with different pumps. And when you bid on, you know, the work that's that's put into constructing the poles, you don't get the same things all the time at every single poles. But those are very expensive fixes. And just like Pahala Poe, where you run into problems when you're doing the demolition of the pool or what have you or finding the scope of the work, again, pools are quite expensive and it's kind of unpredictable on some of the work that's gotta be put into the pool. You're gonna look at the pool basin at the same time that you're doing the pumps or what have you. Something might come up in the pool basin that you might have to fix could be the drain at the bottom of the basin or something that you got to address. We've had issues in the past that get a whole couple with the drain being an issue, you know, and having to fix their address that. So I think, you know, if I'm just talking off the top of my head, I would think a CIP project for that pool is a more of a consideration for that. Okay, let's work together on kind of mapping that out. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, and then just looking at some of the other lapsing projects and had some good conversations with Deputy Director some more on this and our dog parks. Other on the lapsing projects, there are three areas in District 9 that are requesting dog parks. That these are council members in the past have brought them forward. And I think we need to kind of really establish more rules when you to identify these specific locations. The best use of those, some of those facilities is it better for our ball fields or is it better for our dog owners, right? And are we have other areas that we should be utilizing for those spaces? Yes, I mean, for one thing, I think we need more recreational facilities for our sports to begin with, but also dog parks is also a trend that is trending is becoming more popular these days, right? Especially parks that, you know, you need to get consideration of having changed areas where the dogs get offends in areas where the dogs can be kind of run off leash inside of those areas and, you know, that is I think we've got to address some of the legislation or rules in regards to having unleash dogs in these dog parks as well too. So we can have conversations in that but I think you know we got to go into that area much like going into the area of getting online registration. We got or pick up on has certainly moved and evolved into a big sport Dog parks are something that we got to think about as well, too So I'm in a greens with you and trying to take a look at that going forward Okay, and we'd like to have conversations with you if you'd like to have them with us Absolutely and definitely identify some of those spaces that I think are you know in our general plan as Park spaces looking forward and maybe that's a better use of that area versus near our ball fields and those sort of things. Okay, thank you. One of the, in Waikolo village, Kamakou Nui Park, this is also a lapsing project. What is your understanding with the developer on not necessarily, there might be some fair share of money is there, but also their commitment to the space and open to offset some of the costs for expansion and improvements of that area? So I bring up James for this one. James has been working with the developer on this. Melissa is also involved, but the mayor recently got James involved to have conversations with the developer going forward in regards to the Kamakuni Park. I'm sorry, can you restate the question? Yeah, just curious on the developer's agreement for Kamakua Nui Park. It helped have an essence to offset costs on the county side and any sort of agreements that were made previously that that they're bringing into the table to help with expansion or improvements of Kamakua Nui Park. So the agreement we have with the developer is to bring to restore the soccer multi- field back to clearable status the baseball field as well and the that lawn area between the parking lot and the ball fields so restore all that that that's what they're obligated to do we've had conversations with them about doing additional work they're interested in doing additional work work. And so we continue to work with them. Right now we're having them focus on completing the improvements that they committed to. The both ball fields, they've committed to complete by April 15th. So we'll be meeting with them to go over, the status of that. We're looking to reopen the park, hopefully early May. That's our tentative timeline. And from there, they've talked about scope of work, additional scopes, such as a dog park there, additional fencing, additional landscape work. So all that's on the table right now. We've talked about a playground too, yes. They've brought that up. OK, just, yeah, just curious of some of those offsetting funds that can help us move it forward. Yeah. Thank you. To for you, run away just the last one. You might know what I'm going to ask here, but just curious on your thoughts, directors, while looking at it. and I appreciate time you're going to take to sit down with the YMIA community members about the YMIA Stream Trail project. And kind of curious, where do you see that project going forward? I know Mr. Otani, the previous administration was kind of really focused on that and trying to go after some federal dollars for that project. But kind of curious where you see that kind of going forward and what we need to kind of keep it going. So I've got a meeting set up with Clem Lam out there in regards to the trails. He's going to bring me up to date in a price of the project altogether. I don't know yet what the asks are going to be or what the necessary steps are on the project I have been spoken to James about it quite yet in detail. But it's just no in general, you know, that project has been ongoing since our time here when I was with Mayor Billy back then and I believe it was Lennie grad and Larenoff that I was working with back then on that particular project The community has certainly done most of the work there and I've done a great job in Keeping what they have going, but again, you know, I got gotta meet with that group and kind of find out and figure out what's going on there all together. I'm planning to be there with you that day when a little bit later after I'll come back. It's an interesting project because it was also applied through PUNC. Yes. So there's other kind of layers added on top of the project as well about that could be utilized for maintenance of the space as well. And that's some kind of conversation to have with the community and with you and your staff about, how do we manage this space? Yeah. Yeah, I believe UH as well, too, is involved in that. And so there's many different, I guess, organizations and variables that encompass the whole trail to begin with. So again, I got to get a prize and figure out what our party is in that. And what we'd like to see going forward on that particular project altogether. But when we have the conversation, we'll definitely have a clear picture of what's going on and again, we'll have the conversation with you, like you said, and we'll climb them out there. Thank you, Director. Yes, it would be interesting, and I don't really know the rules and I'll have to talk more about these linear parks, right? These ones that are these trails because also in the CIP list we have and we'll talk to them on Friday with planning about their like a countywide trail program and I don't know how that that folds into parks and rec and kind of your responsibilities for for that as well. So yeah, thank you, Director. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Onision. Thank you, Chair. You can come up. I found a account for vector control. It is in 550-202 over 216. from sixteen it's a part maintenance OCE get 40,000 so maybe you know we can find out if they need more than we can add on to that okay I was talking to Jason earlier I wanted to for my contingency funds and you can let me know if this cannot or can to provide maybe a little bit more money into his fencing into like getting supplies or material but we found one but was wrong there was a whole little account which is 5511.0 to OCE number 229 building a construction materials. This is number four fence accessories, $250. So question is, is that the like funding that Jason uses for his crew that do it or co-lulu staff does that? The repair. It's probably park maintenance because co-lulu does not have fencing staff, but it would be equipment specific to that complex. Okay, so for make it general, how, where would what account or I guess you can let me know so that but first of all would I be able to transfer funds to that account? with this current fiscal year? Yes. Directly to parks and restaurants. Yes. Okay, so I want to do that and also I want to transfer to a live cemetery, which is 5421.02, account number 229, is for a metal for trash bins. Because there are certain ones that has like those cement walls but there's no bins and so I guarantee his the guys who collecting it got to go and scoop it up and something like that so it takes a lot of time so I want to put some money into that too so yeah so do that so Jason Jason Jason Sorry, it's like 2000 enough Like like how much you think five Not that much Yeah, if you're gonna respond, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come,5,000, we can go to three of them. Yeah, about four, three. Oh, three out of market for three. No, no, no, no. Okay, so what did that do? Why, why the reason they're not there because we get so much planning out of events that is only where we can take them from. Okay. You know, so as well we put them out of places. Okay. now well-being, which we'll feel pretty soon. But so, Sheming, Dami, oh, thanks, you said. So the main thing is if we can get the money to you as soon as possible, right? Then you guys can encumber it to, yes. You said, okay, got it. Thank you very much. Okay, the last thing, sure, I get one last one. and this may take a little bit while but summer fun. Okay. Lindsay just left which is I guess not gonna help but okay so salaries for the summer fund program for employees okay from when back then when the director of in-depthity and I was on the council, the balance that always gets carried over, it's about the same, like 50 to $60,000. And I remember one time, like maybe my last couple years, I had mentioned to you about, you guys gotta use them if not, I was going to take that money and put them into the elderly into coordinated services to create more positions. So, so I, but you said okay yeah I'm going to use, but like I told our finance director, then is that it's still there, the balance is still there, and then, well he asked me, Did you track back three years ago? I go, it was back when I was on 16, 15, 14, and it's still the same, right? So, you know, I tried, and when I got into office, one of my projects was to get all this summer fun again. You know, like how you folks supported me back then, and we had two locations with was unbelievable families would go and sign up and 120 spots in 45 minutes all gone. Oh yeah. So the demand was there. It's still there. Yeah. But the thing is but working with this group now it's hard. So to me I was willing to help them with whatever. I even got Aluniki to help with providing employees and Aluniki pays their employees to work for the county. So we was like, it's a free, I mean, so no brainer, right? I tried also working with the with HCC to see if we could get credits for any of the students to come and work and they can get extra credit. The job challenge, I talked to them about trying to get more and you know, I don't know what status it is, but I know there's no all these summer fund, this coming summer, so I'm going to give up already on that until next year. I'm going to check, go again. Okay, okay, but so like I talked to Finest director that's six up already on that until next year. I'm going to check it out again. Okay. But so like I talked to finance director that 60,000 you know our life guards, the temporary life guards that fire has for ocean safety. In my district we have four beaches. One beach is being provided full service. The rest of the other three are being temporary and sometimes don't even have. So they told me if I can get them some funding from the half-time to full-time that they can provide more services for those four beaches and to me that's a safety issue right so I'm either looking at taking some of that money that you folks had for many many many many years or in 5509.02, some of the fun intercessions OCE, number 225, educational recreational scientific supplies. This year has 15,000 actual that was spent in 2023-24 was only 3,000 so there's like about 12,000 left over in that account. I don't know what happening this year or how much you guys spent this year. Would you, don't you mean? Well, we just started purchasing the supplies for summer fund this month and it's a lot more than $3,000. Okay, but you can give me a number later then. Sure. Okay. Then. We're starting to share it. We're starting to share it. I'm going to cut you off. I have it in that whole like a. Oh, okay. Can I come back? Yeah, yeah, sure. Thank you. Mr. Inavo, go ahead. I apologize, Mr. Ones. Oh, it's me. Skip me twice. Good afternoon. I guess in the conversation that we're hearing today, and director Han Mahnure, team I know you folks have a lot of experience and have plans and are making changes in the time that you folks have already been back with the county. But I'm hearing maybe uncertainty and kind of that the council and the public in general is a little, I guess, uninformed about some of the priority projects in each of our districts and I'm throwing this idea out there that maybe there be an internal document that folks can just share with the council as to the top three priorities in each of our districts that are like next to be accomplished. Because obviously things like Lunar-Legal Park, not in my district, members of my district do go and use it though it's in Councilmember Vagueis's district. People want to know when and what is going to happen and if we can at least give a timeline you know we can even have these individual meetings with you folks to give us at least maybe a little bit more specifics and then we can at least filter how much of that goes out. We don't want to just commit the department or the county to certain things by a certain time understandably. But I just hear throughout all of these questions that the council and the public need more information because there's just been a lot of uncertainty and if we can try and reduce that uncertainty by sharing those priorities and those timelines, it might be helpful not just to us but to you folks instead of having to continuously get these individual project-based questions during the budget and throughout the year. Yes, we'll communicate with you guys better. Councilmember Inaba, top three projects we can work with you guys. The mayor certainly goes to every community and provides all of his priorities out there and I know he's worked with each and every one of you guys. But yeah, to have more clarity on what the top three is maybe for at least this year, and then maybe next year we can state the top three for whatever the next year of theirs carry over from this year to next year. That can also be stated as well too. But yeah, here what Council Member Kimball is saying in regards to at least getting it out there so people know I can hear you as well too. we'll work on that and understand into right we have our CIP projects but They're not necessarily at the forefront right we know they're in this pile of things that the county needs to do and And there are projects outside your department scope people care about the parks and that's I think one of the county needs to do and and there are projects outside your department's scope. People care about the parks and that's I think one of the reasons Mayor Alameda is in his position right now is because of the promises for the park so we should perhaps have a little bit more clarity from your department in respect to the projects for repair and maintenance and in new facilities. Specific to each of our districts. I'll leave it at that. I'm not gonna try and pick apart your budget. I think you have the experience and we look forward to seeing it get done. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Inava. Councillor Verone, is he? Thank you, Chair. And this is the last already. Okay. Back to summer fund. So in 5509.25, summer fund intercession class activities, number 341, miscellaneous charges. So it's like this budget or this fiscal year is 175, 175,000 and then actual spent in 2023-24 was like 89,653,08 quo from the last years, this this balance of 89,000 that you guys spent not going to be that much. I mean, yeah, costs of the busing maybe gonna rise a little and so forth. But then other than that, there should be maybe about another, at least left over about maybe 60,000 or so. I would think. No, no, I'm so I'm just saying that you know there's that leftover money money. So I mean We're trying to take a look at it Consumer when you see that might be our The fees collected the revenue account and the fees collected That's the placeholder actually said When they do collect the fees even from the participants Yeah so, Norish checking to see what is the corresponding revenue account, and if that revenue account is from the collection of fees. Oh, okay, got it. So, if it is, we can only spend what we collect. Okay, so then why would the budget be for this coming fiscal 175? I mean, because you guys are not doing all day summer fun. Basically you guys have the same facilities, fame, you know, programs. So, going to be consistent, but now it's high. You guys, because you guys are not anticipating more participants, right? If the fees you guys collecting fees correct? I can't speak for Lindsay. She makes her own budget, but it looks like that it's been consistent from this year and the previous year. And again, it's anticipation of collecting the fees. Okay. So just let you know, when I talk to them about doing the all day summer fun for Andrew's gym. I Automake what is the cost for the balance or the difference to make it all day because you already had your Your budget right for whatever hours they had so I wanted to put in money to pay for the extended hours They came out with $38,000 for the six weeks at Andrews Gym. And that was like paying for all new employees and the whole expenses. And I couldn't believe it. I mean, because when we first did it the first time in 2008, extended or the amount that was asked to extend it, was only like 10,000 or 15 at the most, we did two Y-charac all-angels, so it was like about 30,000, 25,000 to 30,000. So that's what we gave. And so two, so when I did a dishier, it was like one place, 38,000. And the positions I was listed, it seemed like it was all full-time positions, which is right. But then it was already existing in the budget already with these positions. And so that's where I get kind of confused. Whereas I don't know the communication maybe not working or you know maybe so or being understanding but yeah so it is just that if you can help with I guess getting me the proper months and as you say if this is from the fees that you guys collect for this activity. And how much do you so confirmed? Okay. How much do you folks collect for that like intercession and summer fun between all intercession and summer fun in 2324 actual is 117,000. 117,000. Okay so that actual is wrong then in the budget right now. That's the expenditure that you're looking at. That defaults. Okay, so then, also then there's a carry over then. If you guys collected 117,000, that's what you're saying. Yes. In 23, 24, right? Yes. And then you guys only spent but 89,000. Yes. Cash basis ones, right? Yes. Sometimes there's expenditures from this year that we don't pay the invoice toll. So say we get an invoice in June that we don't pay until July. And so that gets recorded in July in the New Fiscal Year. Okay. Because the differently got it. Okay, so basically it's just your salaries is based from the county, right? And that's the 60,000 that is, there's a balance of 60,000. Plus, right? If the balance of 60,000 to you're referring to the expenditures. No, well, for the salaries and wages. That's the 011. Okay. Yeah. Because that's based on county general funds. Yes. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, Chair. Are you good? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Parks and Rec, sounds good. Thank you chair, are you? Thank you. Okay, thank you, Parks and Rec, Reation for sticking with us for so long. I have a few questions for you. I'll try and summarize a lot of my questions were already answered. And thank you for mentioning the projects you're taking on in District 5. I appreciate that. Some of those have been on the books for I've been here six years. Let's just say at least six years. So to see movement happen in the first three months of administration is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Looking at your security services, I saw three different sections address it in the budget. as admin, OCE and EAD, totaling roughly 200, sorry, 2.5 million roughly. Are you reviewing that for reduction? Or came up with mass transit? My thoughts is you're probably looking at a lot of homeless activity that you're providing services for security for. Can you just please review that and look at the way the county as a whole is offering funding through a number of grants and other funds to provide homeless services and look at how that interacts with what you're having to provide as security. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, security is not only for the homeless, so we get security down. It's Spencer Beach Park. Watches the campers overnight. You have security down. Isaac Halley for a little while because of the camping as well to provide safety. But when I was director last, we only had like about maybe four security contracts. Today we have a number of security contracts because of the homeless like you said. What is Bayfront or whether it's all they're reporting Kona, whether it's the Kandu Halal's, whether it's the Kalakal Park, whether it's at our Kamana Senior Center, you know what what's happening also is that I don't need a homeless but we also have guys stealing gas from our cars, cutting our gas lines, taking our catalytic converters. Vandalism had come on, I took four vans to begin with they burned four vans there. And so yeah, I've had meetings with couple of our security companies as well to, as well as community police officers who try to train our security officers in how to talk to people, how to manage situations that they come across. Because some of them can be very challenging and they got to know their role that, hey, we're the security company, we need the police to come in, call the police at this particular point in time when it gets rough out there. But again, we're taking to look at all of the security services that we get because we do have a lot that is out there compared to what when I was here last. Yeah, the job that they do, they have a difficult job in managing the homeless issues and it does seem redundant with other services that we may try to think of that we have out there. But ours is basically there to try to keep the place safe for the public. One of them is basically pay for it. Not only the bus terminal at Mojillo, Bandstand and our Bandstand itself, but for the soccer fields where we have the restrooms or the kids and the parents want to feel safe when they go to the restrooms and not have anybody in there while they're using their restroom facilities or even like down at the canoe halal as well too. So again, we're gonna take a look at those security contracts here we do have a concern of Connie Lee, client fold. Thank you. Thank you, Director. I know it's a lot. It's a lot. And today we're running late. I think you probably haven't even lunch yet. Thank you. Mr. O'Neill, you brought up the work order thing. And the more I listen to that, I had more questions when I was was done and I was a little bit concerned over the different answers that I got. Okay, please review that because it went from work orders by somebody, put in a box, not in a box, somebody's duty, not somebody's duty to a different apartment and it's supposed to review and get things done and possibly aren't getting done or are. Is there's a lot of question marks in the trail of answers that Mr. Onishi got to his question so I think that deserves a little bit of looking into. Yes. Thank you. Port-a-body budget is high but I know that it's getting more expensive. But I also lean back to those work orders and our bathroom facilities and how we're addressing kind of long-term challenges in the department on the same subject, the maintenance and repair fun went up by $4 million. But I see different things being addressed in different parts of the budget. So how are all those coming together in a beautiful picture of parks and recreation, cutting the part, port, port body rentals, increasing our bathroom facilities or bettering them and using that repair and maintenance money to do so. That's a very good question. For example, we have portapods on in Middle-E, for example. Nobody wants to do it in Middle-E. We got to basically beg the company to put services down in Middle-E, we asked for, you know, one porta-party day, we've got to take two. They'll provide an extra one because they don't want to just go in service one. We actually get four now because I may ask for putting another couple more porta-potties. But the porta-potties to Mill, Milloli is a lot more expensive because there's nobody to bid on it actually. So the guys who are, you know, certain places is just tough to get porta-potties at. And we're subject to the guys providing the porta-potties. However, once we get the project done, we're not gonna need porta-potties anymore for one. So that'll take care of itself when we get the restroom facility up and going there. That's one. That's one in our whole island of ex-facilities. How many facilities we have? I don't know how many restroom facilities we do have. It's just parks, being parks with facilities facilities. I think last year, if I remember, they did a complete inventory. Yes. So you do have something you can draw on for them. Yes. But we do have port of parties everywhere. And we do put them on for some special events as well too. So, for example, like Fourth of July we might have the events downtown if we got to supplement the restroom facilities that we get we got to bring in portapoddies for that. I mean you know just a number of projects that we get going on and come on a case for example it went out the restroom facility went out for you know a month or so we got to put port ofis there. But yeah, we are at the restroom issues everywhere, whether it's parks maintenance, or whether it's CIP projects and doing like co-avastry buff, you're putting a new park, the new portopottis, the new restroom facilities there, or all there are parks where we have portopottis everywhere because we have no comfort stations there, except at the events pavilion right but again those things will take care of itself where we're not gonna need part of parties once those restrooms are already complete somehow it becomes cyclical where we fix something something else goes down somewhere else where we got to fill it. Need our aging facilities. All got to be addressed here and there one by one. Does the formulae insert putting you in that direction? Absolutely. That's what I want to hear. Absolutely. Yeah, we all want shiny new things. Yeah. You know, all we got to fix things. We all want brand new parks. We all want brand new facilities. But if we can't even upkeep what we have. And I said this last year, then we got to fix it. My grandpa always said, getting old then we got to fix it. My grandpa always say getting old ain't for losses. I mean, it's right, because it's hard. You start getting old, you start falling apart. And so we're getting old, and we're falling apart, and we gotta go ahead and maintain what we got. Yes. So I'm hoping by next year budget review you come back and tell me hey we're able to fix these bathrooms And I can lessen our portability of it by 100 grand. Yeah So I'm hoping by next year budget review you come back and tell me hey we're able to fix these bathrooms And I can lessen our port of poverty by 100 grand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you try to figure that out right okay Yeah, the beautification fun came up. I thought that was interesting 10% of the budget for the beautiful case and fun is for The whole village center. What is that? Sorry, I may not be can help me out that to beautification so we share this account with public works okay that's what I. So that's not yours, that's DPW. Right. Okay, good. So there's a roadside beautification. Yeah, so there's the equipment part is usually what we take. And we take care of equipment for our parts. Beautiful. Yeah. Previous administration, and I put together a ask for the Buddy Paris last Shipman Park master plan. You have tie-ins with police, fire, mass transit. All these things come together with the growth of the community there and the KELOL as a whole medical centers the shipment master plan build out for the community there I mean it's gonna be it's going to be big and it's gonna grow I think five thousand to ten thousand homes grow in that specific area. So I'm interested to know where James is at with the Shipman Park Master Plan and the KL community center because they all fit in together. That's the only part of my district I'm gonna jump into right now. So if you don't know direct there then we'll ask your planner to come up and help us with that one. Yeah, I'm a little bit familiar, not too familiar with that. They kind of touch base with that when I was there with my Billy back then, where we had meetings with Shipman itself. Then that group there, Kimo was there at that meeting. I think the CEO retired already, so there's somebody else new there, but I can only imagine the size of shipment because it's, I think, just the between volcano co-earria through Hilo, that could be the place for recreation actually out there. I mean, they have the land over there that they can give to that. I think, you know, in a plan, if they have a pool there, put best sort of much of the communities and the people that are out there. But again, you know, maybe James can come up and share a little be more in regards to that. That'd be great. Thank you. James. So the Shipman Park Master Plan, that involves a larger effort than just our department. And we have not had any conversations since the Turnover Administration about that effort. So we can follow up with that with Director O'Online and the mayor's office. That would be good if I remember correctly that was specifically called out in one of the recent bonds that was pulled. It was at the community center design, or was that the Shipman Park Master? I think that was a community center. Okay. But so for that Shipman Park Master Plan, or the Master Plan that involves Shipman Park, that's a larger effort, it's not a parks and recreation project directly. We're just one of the departments that's impacted by that. So we're not the lead per se on that initiative. Who is the lead? Historically it was finance I believe, but I'm not sure who's who's running lead right now. Okay. And then to the community center. Community center, we have not moved on that. That's on our list of projects that we still need to prioritize and move forward. Okay, to the director, it was called out specifically and I'm bond. You have funding. Are we having funding for that? Are we having funding for that? At least the design aspect, if I remember correctly. I'd love to say the building too. And it's needed. The other building is falling apart. That paint can't use upstairs. And it's well utilized. Yeah, yeah. I'm from a deal with the building. You are a two footer. We drive by it every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see that? Yeah, okay. I hear you. Okay, but again, we'll work with you in the mail in regards to that particular project. Beautiful. All right. Okay, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Yes. Please get back to us on some of the interesting things that came up today as a whole. Yeah, I think one of the things that are going to be speaking out to you know, getting that priority project list out to you guys at the top three. Yeah, or any cherry districts. That's for sure one day we're going to be working on and that communication going back and forth because I think, now, it not only serves you guys, but it serves us just as good, just as well to, in having some people that understand, you know, it kind of in general, top three priorities for each of you guys in each district which is our priorities as well too so just people that understand, you know, it kind of in general, what are the top three priorities for each of you guys in each district, which is our priorities as well too. So just to begin with with that, I know we got a whole bunch of other things to address, but that's off the top of my head, it's very important to get done. I agree. The public wants to know what you're doing. Yeah, and for the mayor's office to have big three projects and propel that into the community, say, this is is what we're gonna do for you, you, you, you, you, you, you, that's beautiful. Cause they may know what you're doing. And for the mayor's office to have big three projects and propel that into the community and say this is what we're going to do for you, you, you, you, you, that's beautiful because then they know we're working for them. Yes. Love it. Thank you, director. Thank you for your team being here. Thank you for your time and thank you for running late with us. Oh, yeah. No, thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Let's take a brief recess. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Let's take a brief recess. Yeah. Yeah. To the council services, we'll take a 15 minute recess minimum to give us time to reset. Any. Thank you. I'll have a welcome back our next department joining us is the Hawaii County Office of Aging. We have administrator, director and team joining us today. you're ready, introduce yourself, your team members, and we will run to your presentation, and then we'll go to questions from the council when you're ready. Take your time. Be magical. Thank you. Aloha mai kai, kako, mahalo. Hello.. Mahalo, Cheri Naba, Vice Chair Houston, the rest of the esteemed county council members. Forgive me the opportunity to present the Office of Aging proposed 2025-2026 operating budget. My name is Christine Nguyen. I am the administrative services assistant one for the Office of Aging. We currently do not have an executive on aging. So I brought with me my team, Keola Kanhoye, TAing for the plan or three position, Meredith Catalini, Aging and Disability Resource Manager. She's in charge of the Aging and Disability Resource Center. Joe Yamada, also at Aging and Disability Resource Manager, she's in charge of Case Management and Capuna Care. Joining us today is also Sharmeen Felipe, my predecessor, my rock. She is here to offer moral support to me and to provide answers that I may not be able to answer. We also have Clayton Honma, who was previously the planner three. Okay, so our mission at the Office of Aging is to ensure the dignity, independence, and ability for older individuals to remain in their homes as long as possible. That being said, we pride ourselves in our ability to assist our Kapuna's the best way we can, ensuring Aloha, humility, and grace. Our Kapuna are so vital to our community. Besides the homeless population, they truly are the most vulnerable. Our Kapuna are at the heart of what we do every single day, day in and day out. They represent a part of who we are and what we want to become. That being said, the various programs and initiatives that our office provides is all geared towards assisting our Capuna. Okay, so now I will start with my slide presentation. Okay, so program measures and outcomes for the ADRC, which is our aging and disability resource center. We have over 8,000 contracts between ADRC and targeted populations resulted in options counseling, trainings, referrals and more. Capuna care, we've assisted 460 individuals that received case management services. 350 of those Capuna's or Capuna or caregivers received home and community-based services. And the planner section, Hawaii County Office of Aging, provided funding for nutrition services transportation, in-home supports, caregiver counseling, legal assistance to Capuna and caregivers, and oversaw over 20 contracts. The overview and objectives for fiscal year 26, so older adults in Hawaii have the opportunity to live well. And it's not just living well, it's thriving, right? We want our older individuals to thrive. Second is allow older adults to age and place safely. This is critical because we want to, this is critical because we want them to age safely in place. Number three, provide Capuna disabled persons and caregivers information, resources and services to age in place successfully. And four, ensure underserved aging and disabled populations and caregivers have equitable access to programs and services. Okay. So our fiscal year 25 aging highlights for the ADRC, we provided fall prevention and emergency preparedness training to 800 individuals. We implemented innovative programs to help decrease isolation. For Capunacare services, we provided 26,750 hours of home and community-based services. We increased caregivers' understanding of available programs. For the Hawaii County Office of Aging, we hosted, we hosted, Older Americans Lentian at the Hilton in Waikaloah. This is like the prom for the senior citizens. We are holding the event next month, and we hope that you will all be there. These These Capuna eagerly wait for this event every single year. So we're very excited to be hosting that next month. We also provided caregiver counseling and respite to 73 caregivers. For our planner section, we monitored contracted services supporting Capuna and caregivers. We implemented new transportation services for persons outside of Hilo attending adult day programs. Okay, so for the office of aging employees, we have 20 positions. We have three divisions and I know it's six vacancies, but we actually have seven. We were hoping to hire the executive on aging, but that's still vacant. So we have seven vacancies right now. So some of the challenges are in sufficient administrative staff. The wages are just not competitive. The lengthy recruitment hiring process. And really the issue at hand right now is that we have two key positions that are vacant, right? Which is the executive on aging and planar 2. And Kiela is actually the planar 2, however, because she is TAing into the planar 3 position, that makes that position vacant. So I just want to express, you know, especially with our vacancies, there's nothing more heartwarming than helping our Capona. So I want to express my unwavering gratitude to the staff at the office of aging. They truly go above and beyond, and with the staff shortages have really pulled together. So, office of aging is really a dream team. Okay, so let's get into the numbers portion of it. So the Finance Physical Year 26 Budget Overview, our federal grant revenues is 76% of our budget. So for federal grant, we have 590,000. For state revenue, we have 2.2 million for a total of 2.8 million. Our salaries and wages is 1.4 million, and our OCE is 2.2 million. And equipment is 60,000. So total budget is 3.4 million and our OCE is 2.2 million and equipment is 60,000. So total budget is 3.7 million dollars and once again the state and federal grants is 76%. So 24% county funds. So the salaries and wages increase only increased by 8,000 dollars. Operations increased by 121,, that was not county funds. That's actually state and federal funds. So increases were minimal, but we increased the American, older Americans' lynching by $10,000. Case management by $50,000. Caponecare by $38,000. And health and promotion education by $ 12,000, and also fall protection by 5,000. The equipment increased by 30,000, and that's really due to our library, and we're mandated to ensure we have that library for as a resource for our Caponecair. Okay, so our priorities and new initiatives for fiscal year 26, we continue to be a resource for our aging and disabled population. We explore alternative meal options to increase numbers of persons benefiting from nutritional support. We provide end-of-life, open conversations, and aging planning seminars from ADRC to Capuna and caregivers. We support the efforts to increase capacity for case managers in home support persons and day program And we continue to ensure better choices better health programs are available to older adults in Hawaii County Okay, so that concludes my PowerPoint presentation Well done, thank you To council, questions are concerned for the office of age? And just to let everyone know, council member Inaba and Villegas are on their way to Kona and maybe joining us shortly. Council member Kagiwata. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful presentation and really got us up to speed. I don't have a lot of questions, but I have a couple. Let's see. Going back, I've been kind of asking this of all the departments. If so, you have almost $60,000 in federal grant revenue, if given the unsteady state of things at the federal level that were to be either reduced or go all together, is there a plan or what would happen at that point? I don't have council member Kaguaro. Go ahead and introduce yourself for the record. Kia ora, Kenoi. Program planner, three TA. Great question. I know that's a big concern in the current situation going on at this time. Right now, we are looking at contingency plans in terms of any funding that maybe reduce, wouldn't stop any of our programs as we know it. So we have been advised by our executive office of aging in Oahu, the director of Caroline Calirau, who we are in close contact with on a monthly basis and sometime weekly in regard to that concern. And so services at most and being could be less, you know, were fortunate in the county and our general funds provides the majority of our income for our staff, so the majority of our federal and state funds is able to go to direct services. So anything that's just a little less in terms of in-home services or the type of programs that we have, they go, a, you know, so. Little less. Right. And some of that federal grant review is a nutrition and nutrition services and food, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. For the in-home meals and also the community meals. Actually, I see. And also the community meals, right? Yeah. Okay. The state grant revenue is any of that basically like federal pass-through money or is all that truly coming directly from the state? You know my understanding is it is okay great okay all right thank you that that gives me a better sense of that love what you guys do Do you? It seems like maybe you coordinate or you're working in concert with Hayak. Yes. Somewhat is you have the transfer to the concert. Great. I know they do a lot around caregiver respite and that kind of stuff too. So that's so important. I mean, I just feel so lucky that we have these services that really can help our Kupuna stay home as long as they possibly can. One program I'm really interested in and I would love to talk to you offline about this, but I'm just going to mention it here because I actually brought it up with our housing administrator as well. Is the program they have over on Oahu where they match a younger person with a kupuna who has space in their home to maybe become roommates and they do very extensive background checks and they do oversight but it really can be a wonderful match I think we, you know, a housing shortage here, especially for younger people who maybe can't afford as much. And we also have a lot of kawuna who maybe have space in their homes because their families have gotten smaller or whatever. So I would love to investigate that program more and see how we can look is there a community organization or one of our county you know departments or agencies that could maybe help us like pilot that here or something Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up because I think it's a wonderful opportunity. I can say too Okay, thank you so much. I don't really have any other questions. Great job. And I guess my main thing is just hopefully you guys get staffed up and especially get your leadership in place. Do you have some folks lined up to interview or anything like that? Are you getting... oh we recently did conduct interview so the recruitment is underway. Oh great things with with the mayor's office. Oh, that's awesome. Okay, great. Good luck. All right. Are you all? Thank you. Councilmember, here's this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And just to follow up on the Councilmember Kagiwada's question about, you are a smaller department. Are you getting the support you need from HR? Yes. Yes, we have been receiving support from HR. Yeah, so it does take a long time to fill these roles. Yes, and you know, in all honesty, I want to say that it's also me too, right? I mean, I'm very fairly new in the position. Okay. So there's a learning curve learning curve obviously and I don't have an executive on aging so I'm just not able to get to everything. So part of it is you know so we actually have three recruitment that are out that we have already submitted the paperwork or four and you know two one that I need to re-describe and then one that we're still pending on what to do so. In your presentation you mentioned Planner 2 has been vacant for four months but on the worksheet I'm seeing it's Planner 3 is that? So Kyola is actually the Planner 2 and she's teeing into the Planner 2 position. Oh gosh okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. All right, thank you, Chair. Thank you. I was number one. Thank you. I just wanted to ask you if you could perhaps tell me a little bit more about your Coputa care services program. Absolutely. And for that we have our case manager here so let me. Oh, it is. Okay. Okay. My name is Jolyamara. I am the planner three. I provide for Copuna care, our family caregiver support program as well as our our vendor pool. These are the vendors that actually go into the home and provide direct services to our coupon. So like Christine mentioned, our goal is to keep our coupon in their homes safely with dignity for as long as possible and retain their independence. We contract out our case management services. These are services that are specific to the Kupunakir grant. We are allowed case management services, homemaker services which go in and help them with house cleaning, meal preparation, laundry, personal care, which is either standby or assistance bathing, dressing, transferring. We provide assistance, assisted transportation, which is a one-on-one escort to our doctor appointments or shopping. We also fund daycare. This is a daycare, not necessarily the high-ox counseling and stuff, it's specific for daycare. And that helps our caregivers, because although our focus, of course, is on the component, it's also on the caregivers as well, to make sure that they're not burning out and they have time for personal and self-care. So this is really, really important and part of the Coupunecare program. We have the Family Care Giver, which is another, so the good part about Coupune Care is its state funded. So to date, we, from what I was informed, we have the funds for the next fiscal year, 25-26. The Family Caregiver Program is a federally funded program and that there's a lot of uncertainty about that particular program. But because CoupUNA care is so, it's such a viable and wide program, are even while we're providing services for the CUPUNA, in essence, the caregiver is still getting respite, regardless if they're on that program. Our vendor pool is also contracted. Currently, we have seven vendors in the pool. So when our case managers order services, you know, they reach out to all of these different vendors to see if there's an aid available in that particular district. Our challenge, I would say, over the last few years has not necessarily been about funding for component Care because it is a state funded program. It has been capacity, not having enough aids that was an ongoing problem before COVID and it was exacerbated after COVID. There's a lot of our aids that are actually leaving community-based health care services to work for hospitality industries in corner, the hospital, because of the benefit packages and job security and career advancement. So our vendors, I mean I meet with, I'm in communication with them on a daily basis, our case managers and our vendor pool, because every service comes out of Caponecair and the family caregiver requires a prior authorization. So I am touching that every single day. So I'm very much aware of the challenges that they're facing, that our vendors are facing with capacity issues. When we've met with the vendors, a lot of Focus has been on recruitment and not enough attention on Retention Taking care of the you know when you have aids that go in because they're they're in pointed to people's homes If they're dedicated loyal and trustworthy these are the people that you want to Take care of and make them feel valued so last year we launch. This is the first time we did it. I called it, I am a hero and it's helping elders remain in their home safely. So what we did was we created lanyards and a little gratitude gift bag just to express our deepest and sincere gratitude to the AIDS. Because they're the ones going in and they're providing the direct services to let them know that we value what they do and that it matters. And in the bag we created a QR code and they had the opportunity to complete an anonymous survey so that we could get feedback and get see their challenge. I mean they could express their challenges, their suggestions, their ambitions, and what they wanted to do. And I honestly thought wages would be the biggest thing and I found out that it was in wages. It was them loving their career, loving what they do, wanting to, of course, you take advantage of career advancement. But the biggest thing that I learned of valuable lesson was that they were more concerned about the Kupuna as being lonely because they get so very attached to the AIDS themselves. So giving them that opportunity to voice their concerns and share this information, I thought, was incredible feedback. Because these are, like I said, I have a soft spot for the frontline workers. The people are actually doing the job. That's where I came from originally. So we're doing whatever we can. And even though we know, you know, could put a care of the funds have already been allotted. The state funds have already been allotted. There's uncertainty as to how those funds may be allocated in the future. So in order to address any cutbacks, what we may have to do is limit the service hours or days or the duration on our program because we are person centered. So that's basically Kupuna Karen and Anacel and we're very passionate about what we do and committed to taking care of our Kupuna and our caregivers. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for that explanation and so how do how do folks sign up to get become? Maritath for the ADRC so Maritath is a Guilty Division and then it comes to me. Thank you very much. Hello everybody, Maritath, Catalini, Aging and Disability Resource Center Manager. I'm going to say ADRC because Aging and Disability Resource Center gets a little long. So I'm the manager of the ADRC and we have three amazing Aging and Disability Service Specialists that work on the ADRC team. We have one employee, Alice, who works in our corner office and two specialists, Lay and Kim, that work in our Heelow office. So, a small four person team. We, a lot of the primary functions of the ADRC is to provide information, awareness, referrals, and options counseling. Our target populations are the aging population, but also adults with disabilities. They don't necessarily need to be 16 over. Sorry, I don't know. Can you check the laptop there and see if there's a screen up? No. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're for, I was like, we was going to, I was going to, I was going to, I was going to, on my face. Yeah. Thank you. And then the other two really important functions that we do is options counseling and refurls. So during options counseling, we meet with our Kupuna caregivers, individuals with disabilities, and get information from them. What's their situation, what's their income, what's their health insurance, what natural resources do they have, what needs might they have in the moment, but also really our focus is planning for the future so emergency care services are few and far between here on the island so really helping individuals and family understand if this happens then you can access this if this happens then you could apply for this so one of our key focus is being proactive during that process, when we identify that there's a need, we do eligibility and intake screening. One of the titles under the ADRC is No Wrong Door. And that really is a focus. If you come to us, we don't have everything under our umbrella or office of aging, but we try to know everything about what everybody else has. So if we have to help somebody with applications for SNAP or help somebody get set up with Medicaid, instead of sending people to 20 different places for 20 different things, helping the streamline that process. So specifically for a Capone care program, that's one of the things we do. We screen for the eligibility and then we submit referrals to Joe's site for the Capone care. Thank you very much. I don't know who this would be for, but the aid going back to the aids, what kind of, I assume they're their own small businesses or they part of larger businesses. That each... Oh, we have a closer. Yeah, they're still private. Come on. Yeah, oh, sorry. They're private community, well, community-based healthcare providers in the community. I see so usually each person is their own business. Yeah their own business and so what we do at HCOA does is we can't so they so we put out an RFP and then they support us you know setting their proposal and then we contract with them so I current and like I said we have six contracted vendors we call it a pool because They're all in the pool and then also contract with them. So I currently, like I said, we have six contracted vendors. We call it a pool because they're all in the pool. And then also a daycare. Hi, Akis. Also part of our vendors in the vendor pool. OK. And so do you have enough, or are you or saying that you don't have enough is to end up in the pool? Actually, you know, in reality, we actually have sufficient vendors. I did, however, send out an email to every single home community health care provider on this island and providing them with instructions on how to get on public purchase, just to get their names on there. We ended up with one new person. We lost one of the agency actually closed, but we picked up another new one. So I think at this point, that's what we'll continue to do, just to at least get them on the list so that they'll be notified once an RFP is posted. Okay. It's the workers. That's, you know, they're struggling finding workers. Nice to hear. And that's been our, like they said, our greatest challenge, you know, until now we're now funding is a question. It's always been not having sufficient capacity, a workforce in this particular sector. So I saw like, Lee, you get like seven, are you budgeted? 738 for Capuna care for the contract service. Do you run, is that enough to go through the year or do you kind of run out? Partway through the year Well push push your mic My apologies Christine union. Sorryunacare is actually one line item on there. There are actually several line items. Okay. So there's Capunacare, there's personal care, there's homemaker, there's chore services, there's home delivered meals, adult day care, case management, and assisted transportation. So that all kind of rolls up into one big amount. You can do it. Yeah. Got it. terms of numbers what we're looking at when she talks about capacity. In 2018 we spent 3.6 million on Capunic here and then in 2024 it was $2.6. Okay, thank you. Thanks for your info. Thank you. Council Member Kergowitz. Thank you. Thank you ladies. Christine, great job. Thank you. Just a few questions. And just staying on the workforce, the caregiver's piece, you know, one of the suggestions I gave to Mass Transit earlier today was to connect with the community college, because there was a need to create a program around mechanics for working on electric buses, hydrogen buses, and I don't know if the Office of Aging has relationship with our community college, but it would be a nice way to get folks fresh out of school, doing an apprenticeship, getting some workforce hours, you're probably already on that. So you want to talk a little bit about that? So, So, Feliz said that I am actually attending a Hawaii community college. I am actually working on that. So you want to talk a little bit about that. So, Fanny, you said that. I am actually attending a Hawaii community college. I am actually working on a Capuna memoirs of our Capuna right now. So part of being in Phi Theta Kappa is we do a Capuna project. So I'm working on that. So I've actually collaborated with my advisor there to talk about what we can do to help the Capuna. So I do plan on expanding that. I have had several conversations with the mayor's office in regards to what we can do because they had mentioned that there were some areas that were lacking, but you know right now in my position I'm a little bit overwhelmed. So we haven't really dug deep into that area, but I am hoping to do some collaboration. Fantastic. I mean with our population, our aging population growing, just it's really highlighting the need for more caregivers and especially helping folks who want to remain in home and as you say, age and place in a dignified manner. Thank you. I was wondering if you could just share more information about one of the priorities that you highlighted earlier exploring alternative meal options to increase numbers of persons benefiting from nutritional support. I always get really excited when we talk about food and I think making sure you have a well-rounded meal is very important, especially at Kupuna. So what are they being fed now and what do you guys are exploring? We're exploring the fact that after COVID people didn't want to come back to our congregate sites. We're also exploring the fact that again capacity, having enough employees at these various sites, has affected our ability to serve our cupuna at the congregate sites, which does two things. It feeds them and helps with the social gathering. Yeah. So the pilot program we're speaking about has to do with, we're going to be looking into coming up with a program where they can go to a restaurant, take a ticket, and get a meal there. Until we can build a capacity for our employment, we're gonna be working at finding certain restaurants that we can have a nutritionist review, a menu for a lunch that's appropriate based on our Title III expectations for meals that should be served to our population. And the meals that were served at the congregate sites, they were, how were they prepared? How were those serve? So those are all under guidance of the Family Care Gewehr program where it has to be a nutritious meal that is served and a nutritionist we it and approves it and so all the meals must come out of. So we use a couple of vendors. So a lot of times the schools and I know HCOC has a kitchen and so we use approved kitchens with nutritionists who have reviewed the menus. So my counterpart in Kona, Panna 2, Debbie Wells, manages that part of the program. So I do various other things, but that's what I'm able to give you right now. That's wonderful. I'm offline, I want to connect to you with some folks that I've been able to meet over the last year. It's a group called Malamanakupuna. They sourced ingredients like local ingredients from various farmers and folks to eat up and they cook these really elaborate but delicious and healthy meals for Kupuna. They've hosted them at different county facilities, like recreational centers, even down on Kaurabrasana and Kalapana, so like community venues. I can't hear about them. Yeah, they have a great model and it's by Kupuna for Kupuna. So this also has them continue to have a sense of agency and contribution back to community. I'll connect to you guys offline. They're really wonderful. Yeah, of course. And then on the isolation part, remember when we used to have pen pals. So I'm thinking about how within our summer fun programs, and it's so wonderful that director Hanme is here from PNR, perhaps an activity of kids at the sites can be to write to one kupuna. I remember writing to my grandmother, she would write in cursive. I write in cursive in front of my kids. They think I'm writing in a different language. I'm like, what is that, mom? I think it would be a really beautiful way to encourage that intergenerational connection and restore letters. Yeah, just putting it out there. I like that. Okay. So I just wanted to mention and go back to what you said earlier in terms of collaborating with Hawaii Community College. You know, personally, just because I'm involved with Hawaii Community College, I personally also have gone out with a few of my professors, Claudia Wilcox Boucher, René Rivera, Donna Madrid, and we have gone out to Paola to Sacred Hearts to feed the Capuna. We have gone out a couple of times to Playbango at Mojole Housing or Hayak. So some very exciting things and I know when I was working on my Capuna project and one of the things that I thought about was adopt a Capuna, right? So there is some collaboration there, but for me, it's more of an on a personal level. I would love to incorporate that with the office of aging. I don't think we're at that point yet, since we're so short staffed. And I need to focus my priorities on, you know, the focus. Absolutely. I'm glad it's there. Please know that we love our Capunas while they are treasured resources. Thank you for your caring leadership and your big hearts. And please let us know whatever we can do to support you. Thank you, I yield. Thank you. I'll have some members. Who says? Thanks, sure. Just one last thing. I have been a conversation. We haven't met with research and development yet, but I had a conversation with the director of R&D, director Medina, and they're considering reorganization for their department. And I think they'll probably speak to that tomorrow in front of us, I would imagine. So one of their divisions is on our cakey, on our cakey education. I don't know if you've had any conversation with a mayor and administration on bringing cakey and Capuna together into one division. I don't know if they've had that conversation at all. Not that I know of. So not that we are aware of, but Erin Samara. So then executive assistant in the mayor's office, she is our go-to person, so we will collaborate with her. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just a casual conversation. I don't know if anything's come of that, but as a considerate reorganization and bringing those pieces together, I don't know how you feel about bringing those two pieces together from KQ2 Capuna in one division, one department. I love it, but I'm going to say that's unfortunately, it depends on our partners. Yeah. So, this part is our next generation. Hello. Yeah. Come here. We have tried to focus a lot on the intergenerational pairing of our young community members and our coupunas. A couple of programs that our staff had developed and implemented last year. And Ashley, we did try to do the pen panel and we got some kids signed up we got some kippuna signed up and then there was something so revisiting that because then it was summer and then it was Christmas break so definitely looking back into that but we had reached out to several high schools our pilot we did last year was pilot so junior high in Kilo and then Pahoa High and those students actually put together training for cell phones and laptops and then they came one of the pictures on our slideshow is the kids teaching some of the kupunas. So we were responsible for signing up and getting people to come our aging population and the kids had whole presentations and it was basically a one-on-one. Like it was a big training but that enough kids and we had enough Capruna that was a one-to-one. So they walked, it was hysterical, they're teaching how to do selfies and text it to their grandkids and really cool. So really focused on that, the isolation, social isolation, isolation, peace, every time we say that wrong. It's really a big focus of ours too. Because this island has so many rural areas, even when there's services and people available or programs and funding, getting to all those places for all the people in need is maybe always going to be a challenge, right? And we look at things like getting people set up with laptops so we partnered with digital readiness and hosted. I think a dozen or more and participants got to go home with free laptops and free training. Some of them free hot spots so they could get on. So really a big focus but yeah, having the kids and the kupunas partnered together I think it's special for a lot of ways. Yeah and maybe premature for me to say all this but I think that's like the mayor spoke about this and his campaign and kind of, you know, kind of supporting these two pieces and the kind of the different ends of the spectrum really bring them together. And as R&D kind of reimagines their direction, I think they were looking for, you know, collaboration with other departments and those sort of things. So curious to see how they'll, they'll speak to that tomorrow. But thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How do you, how do you or do you work with ERS in Parks and Recreation? I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit Recreation. So Office of Aging provides contracts to two EAD sections, coordinated services for the elderly and the Continutrition Program. So with coordinated services, they provide outreach and education as well as transportation. For nutrition, they provide the congregate meal sites, home-del, as well as transportation to the congregate meal sites. And that's, that's contracted through opposite asings to parks and rec to EAD, not ERS. So, ERIS is a separate section of EAD. They're the more social aspect and the classes of EAD. They do not get any contracts through office of aging. Okay. Because there's a, one of the things I've been watching, there's a kiln sitting in the Kau community center I believe is broken. It's been there for about a year but I know we had money for a new kiln but I also know that ties into our activities we provide for our seniors and it's well loved. And so I'm just trying to put the pieces together for my own brain of how all this. So Sylvia looked provided a grant that Office of Aging could utilize to purchase equipment for the elderly activities division. and Office of Aging did because I was there. They did purchase two robust kiln systems for ERS. So if the broken one is an older one, I'm probably guessing it's an older one, but we did recently provide two new ones or aging did provide two new ones to ERS. Okay, and then you work together to provide services for our elderly as well. Am I putting that together right? Through which program? Well, through all of it. Sorry, I'm just putting it all together because I'm listening. The Mee Parks and Rec just came up and now we have Office of A.S. and while I'm watching the inter-life overlap. So the overlap is that federal funds, Title III federal funds run through the Office of Aging by Contrac to coordinated services and the nutrition program. Okay. Can I speak to that real quick? Yes, please. Yes, please. So, the question on the Director of Parks and Recreation. So, Parks and Recreation, the elderly activities program is for the more active seniors that are out there. And Office of Aging provides services for the vulnerable seniors that are a little bit frail and semi frail seniors. So there's kind of a difference in between that. However, the Parks and Recreation does receive funding through the Office of Aging for the Programs like Nutrition and Coordinated Services to provide transportation for our seniors out there. So kind of the difference is one active seniors younger active seniors and then they kind of Move into the area of going towards the services from Office of Aging in the in the future But back in the day when this all, kind of like built a caba in a past kind of had this set up where the services could all come through the county in general. In most cases around the nation or in the state, a lot of the nonprofits do like the nutrition program services or what have you. Well, we're kind of unique in the sense that one department has a set of services that we provide. And the reason for that also is because Office of EGIN cannot monitor themselves. So it's a conflict of interest. So that's why the kind of monitor us at Parks and Recreation with some of the funding that they provide for us to provide the services for the seniors. Okay, okay. Okay, that was helpful. Thank you. You get a good team today, that was good. I don't have anything else for you folks, checking with the council on the time. Good, good, good. Okay, thank you very much for done. Thank you for the presentation. Did you have something else, Jeremy? Sorry, there's one more thing. Yes. Well, it has to do with federal funding. So just to give everybody some comfort. So so far this year the state has secured half of the federal funding allotted for this year. And the way Office of Aging was set up was because federal fundings are good for two years. Office of Aging has set up this system to where they're not overextending themselves or using all of the money in the first year. So they have some carryover. And the system is also set up to where, although there are admin funds, portioned out of the grant funds, very little, I would say maybe 2% is used for actual admin funds. Everything else goes back to service. Okay, so that being said, if anything was to happen and funding was to get cut today, office of agent would be good for at least another year and a half. So that would give them time and give council time and the mayor time to decide how to move forward with the services that are needed in the community. Thank you, Shemene. That's actually really good information. And maybe some of our non-profit should take that on as well. I told you she Shimein. That's that's actually really good information and maybe some of our nonprofits should take that on as well Okay, thank you very much appreciate it good job team Okay, our next department will be up shortly. We'll take a brief recess Okay, welcome back from recess. Our next department is the office of the county auditor for our special budget finance hearings. Mr. Better, go ahead when you're ready. Thank you. Aloha members of the Hawaii County Council. My name is Tyler Benner and I'm with the office of the county auditor and happy to provide our budget presentation today. Before we get into the presentation itself, we'll just start with our mission statement and some background information. It's our mission to serve the council and the citizens of Hawaii County by promoting accountability, fiscal integrity and openness in local government, through performance or financial audits of county agencies and programs, the Office of the County Auditor examines the use of public funds, evaluates operations and activities, and provides findings and recommendations to elected officials and citizens in an objective manner. Our work is intended to assist county government and its management of public resources, delivery of public services, and stewardship of public trust. Just brief background, our office is formally known as the Office of the Legislative Auditor. We secured our independence in December 1st, 2008, through a charter amendment approved by the majority vote of Hawaii County citizens. The office of the legislative auditor changed its name to the office of the county auditor in 2018. The office of the county auditor was granted investigative authority to conduct investigations of fraud waste and abuse within county operations by a 2022 charter amendment approved by a majority vote of Hawaii County citizens. Our authority can be found in Hawaii County Charter Section 318. All right, so advancing to our first slide, a workflow year to year is extremely consistent and guided by the requirements of the Hawaii County Charter. In our program measure outcomes, we generate an annual audit plan, section 318-D2 of the Hawaii County Charter requires that the County auditor, which shall conduct or cause to be conducted performance and or financial audits of funds, programs, services and operations of an County Agency executive agency or program is set forth by the County Auditor in an annual audit plan that shall be transmitted to the County Council and the mayor and filed with the County Clerk as a public record. We've demonstrated compliance with this requirement by filing our annual audit plan in accordance with the requirements on June 30, 2024, and we made it available to the public on our website. As part of the requirement, we've included the audit plan in our objectives for 2526. As you may be aware, we're currently conducting countywide risk assessment via survey, which we typically administer every three to four years as part of our consideration for that body of work. Next, we secured a vendor to conduct an external audit. Section 318B of the Hawaii County Charter requires in part that all financial audits be conducted by a certified public accountant. In section 318-2-1 requires that the county auditor conduct the financial audit of the county is required an article 10 financial procedures section 1013 post audit 1013 itself states that the county council is required to ensure that an annual independent audit of the county's financial transactions and systems including those of all county and executive agencies this audit must be performed by an impartial certified public accountant accountant or firm the audit covers both financial and accountability and adequacy of the accounting systems. We've demonstrated compliance with this requirement by securing a five-year contract with the QDLLP. As part of the requirement, we've included contract monitoring in our objective statement for fiscal year 2526. I'll discuss changes into this contract when we get to the budget overview in a few moments. We also participated in continuing professional education or CPE, section 318G of the Hawaii County Charter States in part that the County Auditorial Conductor caused to conduct all audits in accordance with government auditing standards. Government auditing standards are housed federally in the Office of Management and Budget in a book of standards known as the government accountability of standards or yellow book. Those standards acquire that auditors obtain 80 hours of CPE every two years with at least 24 hours specifically focused in disciplines related to government auditing. We partially demonstrate our compliance with this requirement by attending the annual Association of Local Government Auditors Conference, which provides intense training over a three to five day period and fulfills a majority of the training requirements. Additionally, CPE is typically obtained by attending learning modules virtually or through other cost effective means. In our objectives for fiscal year 2526, we've noted that we will host a peer review team to come on site and assess our continued compliance with standards by calendar years in. Published audits section 318G of the Hawaii County Charter States in part that all audits in accordance with government auditing standards shall set forth final findings, final audit findings and recommendations in written reports, copies of which shall be transmitted to the county council and the mayor and filed with the county clerk as public records. We demonstrate compliance with this requirement by distributing our reports in accordance with the requirements. We make them publicly available on our website. This fiscal year we've published an audit of a ban in vehicles on July 5th, 2024. The reports can be accessed on our department's web page on the laser fish document repository. We continue to conduct audits in fiscal year 2526 and will outline bodies of work and our future audit plans. Next, conducting unannounced cash counts and investigations and complaints of fraud, waste and abuse throughout the county. Auditing standards allow for certain other services provided by government auditing organizations. Yellowbook standard three.7, two states and parts at certain services may be provided in response to statutory requirements at the discretion of the audit authority, including items such as identifying best practices or leading practices for use in advancing the practices of government organizations and investigations of alleged fraud violations of contract provisions or grant agreements or abuse. We demonstrate compliance with this provision by conducting unannounced cash counts and grants compliance reviews. We've recently added a routine activities page to our department website. Separately, we operate a waste fraud and abuse hotline. We maintain a page where we may publish reports at our discretion. We maintain a dashboard where we provide performance data related to calls, time and disposition. We've added the item to our fiscal year 2526 objectives and will continue to conduct these similar activities and to operate and encourage engagement with the hotline. So moving on, I'm just going to stop briefly and shamelessly plug our website. We try very, very hard to make sure that nothing that we're presenting here to you today is the first time you've heard it, is real true news. We only, or can be produced on demand. We want anyone who wants to know about our operations to have appropriate access at any time throughout the year. And to that end, we encourage employees, departments and council and the public to visit our site at their convenience and engage additional understanding relating to topics of interest. Next let's look at staffing. When we are fully staffed, our office has a staff of five, including myself, one administrative assistant and three audit analysts. We currently have two vacancies. We have a hiring list for the admin assistant. We'll be reviewing this week and interviewing shortly. We will aggressively seek to fill the analyst role. I want to thank my staff for being so flexible, wearing multiple hats and taking on duties beyond their normal responsibilities and just generally making the office an enjoyable place to come and work. So thanks Max and Jasmine you're both fantastic people and I continue to be honored to work with you. I appreciate that you truly do make it a team environment. All right so moving forward let's just look at the budget overview. Salary and wages comprise approximately 56% of our budget. We expense wages regularly, we don't budget overtime. I plan step movements for the audit analyst. We probably will realize some salary savings for that third funded audit analyst position until we get it filled. Other current expenses, 5% of our total expenditures. We've made some minor adjustments within line items, but we end with a zero top line and bottom line change overall within the category. Equipment is less than 1% to $1,500 and remains unchanged. And then there's external audit. Currently shows on the PI as 39%. Want to take just a moment and talk about this expense category, which supports the annual comprehensive financial report Act for Although the funds are encumbered under our department and we do oversee the contract We don't directly benefit from this allocation any unspent funds are returned to the general front The Act for process continues to be a significant challenge for the county There are two issues. We have short-term challenges. This year the county faced a major transition with a new mayoral administration, a newly appointed finance director, and the department in the departure of both the long-term time finance director and the controller role was vacated. The new assistant controller was still onboarding. The interim controller was tasked with coordinating the act for working with a new audit team while also implementing a new accounting system. These overlapping changes have created notable difficulties. Beyond this year's transition we have long-term systemic challenges. The county has struggled with legacy issues, manual inefficient processes, infrequent reconciliation and a decentralized structure that complicates coordination. These factors have made it difficult to meet reporting timelines. Due to both current and anticipated challenges, I communicated with council on February 18, 2025, informing them of expected delays and potential additional costs. In response, we collaborated with Finance Department and Corporation Council to seek additional funding for the Act for both in the current and future years. This request reflects the county's involvement in the inefficiencies as allowed under Hawaii Administrative Rules Section 3-1-5-3 and other relevant sections. The proposed funding includes the 385, the proposed funding will include 385,000 for a baseline contract for the upcoming year plus additional programs which could be as high as $90,000 if we encounter provisions for five of those additional programs at 18,000 each bringing the total to 475,000. Understand that the additional programs may not be needed, but it's appropriate to anticipate and provision it. By the may follow up these changes will be included in the request for the coming year. So in closing, our priorities include making sure that we have a full house by filling our vacancies, ensuring that we're operating according to the newest audit standards, completing outside standing items on our current or past plans and continuing to execute future plans. We'd like to express our sincere appreciation to Council for your continued support of our work, play a critical role in helping to ensure that public resources are effective and are aligned with the public interest and foster continuous improvement across county operations. Thank you for trusting us with this responsibility. That ends my presentation. Thank you very much. Guels from members. Guels from Rehueses. Thanks, sir. I'm a whole auditor. Appreciate your time here today. Appreciate your work here for the county. Mendes. The worksheet so did you, you said that you have just two staff members on us analysts? Correct. Our worksheets are showing three analysts are still occupied. Is there, has that changed recently then? Yes, our third analyst just vacated the position on March 31st. Okay. Thank you. Okay. my record that was? Great presentation. Thank you. So I just wanted to check the increased funding you need for the egg for audit. Is that reflected in this? No, it will be in, it will come between today's presentation and your May revisions. Okay. Do you have an idea of what that number might be approximately? Yes, for the coming year, it will be a $385,000 baseline contract figure. And then we always provision additional programs. The schedule of expenditures of financial awards decides how many additional programs above the baseline need to be evaluated. The 385 includes three additional programs. But for this year, for example, two additional programs on top of the three were required to be evaluated. So in the coming, for the coming year, we would want to encumber funds that would include up to five additional programs. And then if they're not required to be reviewed, then we give those funds back to the general fund. And if they are required, of course, it comes off the top. So it will be a total of 475 with the understanding that it may only be 385 that we would end up paying. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How's everyone? Is it? Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. As I told you before, I met with you, whatever I can help you with, let me know. And I believe that you should increase your staffing so you can help us out more and get more audits done faster so it can help the council, right? In reviewing, yes. Yeah, I appreciate those comments. As far as production, our office compared to other offices or our office's current production compared to how we've historically performed everything that we have in laser fish back to 2004. I believe we have 17 reports uploaded to the time where I came aboard 17 reports from 2004 to 2021. From 2021 to 2025 we processed 13 reports and were're almost finished to the 14. So the staff that you have. We have. So I would weigh our productivity up against anybody currently. But of course it's much much easier to put something on our plate than for us to complete it. You guys can always put it in front of us faster than we can complete it. And so to that end, if it does exceed our capacity, we would certainly not dismiss, put it out of the realm of possibility to ask for some outside resources to help bring in a subject matter experts or individuals or firms that could help us complete additional bodies of work. And then as you mentioned to me to like your department is very important because I you know I always thought by the director that I wanted them to be the ideal for them to do the audits on the different departments but then we still need you to oversee them right at the end right and so that's why you're crucial to so I guess I don't you guys can work together, but you know if we can establish you know In like I guess internally would be within finance and then you force the overall yeah Yeah, yeah, the distinction you're describing is an internal audit function versus, you know, us being a legislative auditor looking at the executive departments. We enjoy our coordination collaboration with finance and you're right that they're a point, they're in a position to be able to see pain points throughout the county and probably get us pointed in a good direction. We meet with them frequently and you know, we definitely want that feedback from them if they see it. But we also value our independence. So my door is always open to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Auditor Banner. You've always had a very thoughtful approach and I have appreciated your team's very comprehensive work products given the staffing challenges that you're currently facing. I'm wondering if you're able to provide an update on the status of the resolution that we approved requesting an audit of the Department of Research and Development. You and I had a chance to kind of connect on that and the ask was quite large and I know that we're looking to now kind of narrow in on the focus but just curious if you have sufficient personnel or need additional resources in order to complete that. I wish you had a great clear answer for you on that. In your right, we spoke on this issue. At the time, we were considering potentially withdrawing from the engagement entirely because of our resource constraints. I think coming away from that meeting, what we've decided is that R&D is centric around economic development and all of the other component pieces of that department should be an outcropping of and supportive of the overall goal of driving economic development. And so we feel that there's still some opportunity to complete that audit narrowing in scope and really focusing on the economic development piece and how some of those other divisions either complement or potentially distract from the work. What we still feel like we could get a good work product out for you. Fantastic. Thank you. I'm fully supportive of your budget and your request. Thank you, Diold. Mr. Banner, I have no questions for you. Well done on your request. Thank you, Diane. Mr. Benner, I have no questions for you. Well done on your presentation and your work product show on your expertise in your field and what you do for our colony. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. We are in recess. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we're out of recess. Our next department joining us is the office of the county clerk. Joining us today we have our commander and chief John Hendrix. Mr. Hendrix, please take it away. Thank you so much, sir. Deputy B joining us shortly as a pension for being slightly late, which is one of his attractive qualities. My name is John Harris, the service county clerk, Chair Finance Chair, County Clientelder, Finance Vice Chair Hussis, members of this committee. I appreciate this opportunity. I don't really have a budget presentation per se. Quick overview of our operations many of you familiar with but just helping myself kind of remember what we do here and why we do it. I would say our main priority obviously is to provide the infrastructure and resources for the county council to conduct this policy making duties. That would be the bulk of where our resources go. Secondarily, conducting all county state and federal elections would be, I would say, the secondary usage of our resources allocation wise. And then, of course, we also provide mail services, inter-par-mental delivery, printing and copying services for every agency and department and person in the county and along those lines. As with most county agencies and departments, the vast majority of our resources go towards human resources, salaries, wages and benefits. We don't have a lot of fixed assets in the sense of property, vehicles or anything of that nature. We do have a ballot sorting and scanning machine that is already paid for, but does come with some recurring costs in the form of software updates and things of that nature, technological things, licensing that we have to pay on an annual basis even though elections are conducted by annually. I don't know if that means twice a year, every two years. Whatever every two years means. Yeah, so that's pretty much the gist of it. I do want to say to you before I go on, I want to thank finance director Nakagawa for being such an excellent coordinator on her site for the administration for this now four-day review, which is to be a three-day review. She's been terrific in my estimation and working with her to make sure this could go as smoothly as possible with a lot of structure to make sure that you guys have an opportunity to do your jobs in the most efficient and thorough fashion. So thank you for that to her and also maintaining an excellent sense of humor along the way, completely throughout. So thank you for that. And then of course, just want to thank the team that works here. We're what roughly about 60 strong to do all those things I mentioned earlier. And I really am grateful to everybody who comes in, let the great attitude and determination to be the best public servant, they can be, which in the course of doing so, hopefully, you all find that you are properly supported and can do your job to the best of your abilities. We're grateful for everybody, all of our division leaders. And I'll also say too, before we are thoroughly scrutinized and roasted that we are looking forward, we're in a time of transition. We've had some people retire, transition to other roles. And with that comes a certain amount of institutional knowledge loss and some sadness to some degree, but it also provides for an opportunity. We have some new people coming on board that I'm very excited about soon. And then other people that we're looking to bring on and we're also currently interviewing for positions and legislative research branch. branch and we had a really outstanding volume of applications for that. Almost 40 people applied in a short amount of time and we we went out the down and we're doing interviews now and the quality of candidates is was really refreshingly. It was awesome so our hard part is going to be selecting and we're not even done yet interviewing people and that's exciting I really one of my goals is to in the next year to really build up the legislative research branch and expand its services and duties and we also have big projects coming on the line publication on the code even though it seems far away. There'll be a charter commission that will be assembled soon in 2028. I want to make sure that LRB is properly there to or suited and constituted to provide assistance for that. I have some ideas I'd like to share with the chair and you folks, when we have time about how LRB can be a greater service to this council of the county and this island. We have some, I think, really smart, thoughtful, considerate ways of expanding its services. Well, that will require more people in there and people in there that are, of course, qualified in every sense of the word to take on that additional responsibilities. So that's something I'm excited about. And on that, I'll just end with, I view my primary responsibility as administrator to make sure that we have the best people working in our small but mighty department as possible. And of course, changes but you know I want to make sure that people come to work that are coming here that really really want to be here and know why they're here and are comfortable being here and are striving to be at just a little bit better at their jobs every day and I feel we're on a really good trajectory at that and again I'm excited about excited about new people that are coming on. And I take very seriously my ultimate responsibility to make sure that there's people here to keep the wheels turning. So thank you for that opportunity. It made a very brief presentation on our department that doesn't really get into the numbers. Because quite frankly, they don't change very much from year to year, and there's not much we can do about them. Everything I mention that we do, it's not my choice. It's required by County Code, HRS, County Charter. We're just meeting lawful requirements. So if you cut the budget fine, let them will all be in prison. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Annarchs. Mr. Brown, anything? No, I think that summed it up pretty well. Thank you guys very much for the opportunity to be here and support you guys. And if you have any questions, let's go. Thank, thank you. Council members, Councillor Recogio, you want to? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Clerks for being here. Just on the legislative research branch, are you feeling one position or two positions? Not a really good question. We're going to start with one. Okay. I'd like to, we have two. I'd like to eventually, pill them both. I think it would be- You're both the same position, basically. Yeah, essentially. Okay. I have some other ideas to about structurally, how that division would really be treated like a division of all of our divisions will let have its own leadership in there, which it currently doesn't. I see. So I have some ideas about that too that we've kind of endeavored down that path in the past, but it just wasn't quite the right time to have it quite the right people for that. But we're headed in that direction too now. So it'll look a little bit different, hopefully. Okay. Yeah, that's the vision going for it. But one for now for sure. But I feel like with the amount of interest that there's been in this position, which we were pleasantly surprised to receive the amount of interest of people who are qualified and we're interviewing. And I don't think it would be as challenges that we have think to find to really qualify people that will come in. And one of the things we think about when we look at hiring is not just is that person qualified now, but do we get the strong sense that they'll be here for a while? I'm really into stability. I've lived in the same house for 22 years. I love it. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't mean this one. I mean in my home, I'm pretty close to 22 years here too though, but so that's something we look at. I really feel like when we bring somebody on, mutually we put a big investment in that person to be here and do great work and they're also putting an investment into us. And when I look at it, I want it to last. Things happen, but I want it to last. And I have a great respect and admiration for institutional knowledge and stability. People that are around for long periods of time that don't lose their sense of duty, responsibility, and passion for the work. So that's something we're looking at doing when people are on is like, I hope they want to be here for a long time. Right. Thank you. Shifting gears over to the elections. Can you remind me? So what is this elections divisions role for federal election? Well, for federal elections, especially at the county, do voter registration. Well, of course, we could do candidate filing if there were a candidate for either Senator or representative from this island, which I'm sure there have been like, sorry if I don't remember them and you're out there. And then simply just basically they're on the ballot. But there isn't as much interaction of course is there and there's not it you guys know as being candidate said concerts not a lot of interaction with elections in that healthy. You know you going you go and use file your papers, you're not msion papers, but yeah. So yeah, go ahead and show you have a follow up to that. Yeah, the reason I'm asked is because Congress just passed the save-ass. Right. I was just reading on that. Yeah, which would, if it does end up passing, I would think would potentially impact the the budget and what you might need to do, be required to do. So I just, yeah, I need. I'm glad you brought that up. So it did pass the SAVAC, which requires proof of citizenship to be a valid registered voter. Past house headed to Congress needs 60 votes in Congress, proceeding as if it may pass, but there are no plans right now at this state level or county levels where we're preparing for that. I'm thinking about it, we're monitoring it. I don't quite understand to, you know, how it would all work for, you know, we're already all registered voters. So what would we need to do as registered voters? Do we need to, is this, I'm assuming it applies to us as well? And I was hoping that there be some mechanisms there where through national databases and other features that we wouldn't have to go through that exercise, but from reading up upon it, it seems that every person would have to provide this proof of citizenship in person to not just through emails or scanning things. I just can't imagine logistically how we would do that with our 129,000 registered voters just on this island. Let alone, you know, you're getting like Los Angeles County as 33 million registered voters How they would have everybody come in and Validate their citizenship through forms of IDs that many people don't have and so I don't like using the word concern. I'm not concerned, but if it passes, we're gonna have to really analyze this. Look at it. How do we follow the law and do it in a way that is least disruptive to our voters, but also is in alignment with the law. It's an interesting one for sure. And I went to an election conference this year in February and it was a topic of discussion there as well so that was my first introduction to the Save Act and we talked about it a lot at the conference over many days so I'm familiar with it I'm following it very closely and if it does become something that needs to be done we'll get it done. Thank you and I'm glad you're monitoring it. Yes. I sure you will. Yeah. We will. I'll figure it out if we have to. Thank you so much. Just, yeah. Just want to express my thanks to both of you for your continued support on many levels. Thank you. I yield. Thank you. I also remember Kimble. It's super fast. Yeah. Minor data point on the HZAC and NACO subscriptions. We have, or memberships, we have historically been allowed membership in the Western Interstate region at half the price because we're smaller. There's a resolution before that body now to make us pay full price. So, might be many, but I'll try to figure out what that figure might be, but we may need to just we should actually have an answer before the second version of the budget is coming. And perhaps you have to play it safe. If we dull, we would ask for the draft to include that appropriation increase. And then if we learn later before the council at the opposite budget is not necessary, then we could pull it back. Just to be safe. I would maybe say just add a $2,000 to the membership. Yeah, just on the safe side. Provincial anchor. All right. Thank you. That's why you get the big books. So I think you're really good. Thank you. Councilmember Houston. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Clerk. Deputy Clerk, appreciate your time. This body had had some conversation in the past about improving the public interface and our reach and kind of side for legislation. And happy to talk with you about this. Sure. And that length offline at some point. But curious like what that adds to current staff, in partnership with the information technology, improving sort of that public outreach inside to be able for community members to track or really follow policy as it develops here in the county county and what that looks like for you and if you had other thoughts about that at the moment. Yeah I mean it depends on what that means but if you're talking about basically improving like our digital like our website to make people to have people like I'm be able to find things easier especially bills they're interested where they they know what the subject matter is or the even easier the bill number. We have been talking about that as something that's important to him and others and we've reached out and we've looked at the city and Coltie of Honolulu's website and they have a very Lamborghini version of that I would say. But good for them, a bit much for us country folk, perhaps. But definitely we're looking at putting in a great vehicle, putting in a simple feature that would allow people to pull up a page, pull up the bill, see where it's at in the process. If it's already been voted on, what the votes were, who voted how to, you know, links for how to probably test some money. So it taking their Lambie Regini version and scaling it down a little bit because there's also has all kinds of versions to look up things from other, you know, previous years. I don't foresee it being used as a research tool for like things that happened in the past, but more as something to be able to engage and participate in what's going on now or what will be happening with the council. So, and with that in mind, you know, Deputy Brown has been working with our team here to work with laser fish to find out what we can do with what we already have because what you know in talks with City and Continental it was not you know it wasn't a small expense not only did it cost a fair amount of money which money was spent good investment in the public and in in their systems but it took a lot of time to develop and it was developed in three layers with three different projects, three different phases and we're moving up for that but I would have to talk with you more about what your expectations or what you envision as being helpful and again it's good to talk to you know you're new to the council. You clearly follow things in the past. Your perspective is much better than mine. I work here, I kind of like am required to know what's going on. So I don't really have a good sense of what would help somebody in the community or somebody in the industry be able to utilize our website in a way that where it's very convenient for them and they're not doing a lot of work. They can focus more on what they need to do through their analysis. The thing is opposed to calling us like how do we find this thing? Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of ease that process for the public side for sure. Yes. And I'm just curious what additional work does it add to existing staff to kind of bring it forward, but also to keep it active, maintain those spaces? They're right. Yes. There be some data entry required no matter what. I don't think there's any algorithms and products that could take what we currently do, and then automatically fill things in based upon the work we already do. So there would be some additional data entry. We're worth it. We'll figure that out. Like we were bringing on more staff or hiring more. It would be all through council services. We would have those conversations and we're up for it. And I just would say this to not to be corny or anything, but whatever we can do to make things more available and accessible to the public, I'm generally all for it. You know, I'm no unconditional support but generally all for it because I talk to people all the time and I truly believe that the council does its best work when the public engages and is involved in participates in this process with you folks. I just know that over the years seeing that to be the case. So it is our responsibility to make that portal and that access to what we're working on here. Your business, their business and that they don't struggle in any way, shape or form. They feel included. Yeah, I definitely see that efficiency piece where it would remove that workload off of staff if there are receiving calls. I hope you find things. Yeah, you're right. It kind of balances out to a certain degree if you're doing more work in one area but you're reducing your need to take calls one on one and discuss things and it does have that impact of that in that fashion. Yes. Agreed. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Oh, good, gentlemen. Chair. Oh, thank you. Sorry, I forgot to get it over there. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Navell and Mr. Villegas. Questions? Thank you. Thank you, first and foremost, is one of Mahalo, the clerk and deputy and staff. As he said, for keeping us in compliance with the law and out of prison, we appreciate it. But especially for some of these improvements, and I guess from my end as Chair, some of these discussions have been ongoing with the clerk and there have been some of these intermediate steps we're taking at the same time pursuing some of those longer term software updates. I'm happy to meet with any of the members about that and I know there are some other suggestions that are coming in. So between the clerk's office and myself wanna make sure that we not only make it easy for us to do our job as well ultimately for our work with the departments and interfacing with community. Wanna make sure it's as transparent and efficient as possible. So just wanna to mahalo look there and there may be a couple budget amendments that we're going to see in the main budget nothing significant but happy to talk with anyone about that offline model. And if I may, sure. We, and I'll speak for the team, we look forward to these opportunities that are more work, you know, especially when they're meaningful, because, you know, I don't think it's like a very high level of thought, but if you're not improving your services, they're going backwards because nothing stays the same. Nothing is ever just the same. So if you're not trying harder and not saying drastic things, that can be problematic, but at least doing a lot of meaningful small things if you will, and you're not trying to get better than you're going backwards. So we look forward to these conversations and opportunities and we look forward to achieving these objectives and proving what we have to offer here. Thank you. Councillor Bavaria, be a guest. Nope, just Mahalo and you know the team is back together Aaron and John and just grateful for your support and the staff that you have working for and with you and all the support they provide us. And you'll. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just want our DA. So I look at our budget and 5101.02 on their 104 travel get other DAE. Then continue on to 227, computer and office supplies get other DAE. And then on 341, miscellaneous charges, district allowance expenses DAE 61. Yeah, so, divided among the nine districts, all of that, what I'm mentioning. Yes, that is correct. So DAE, there's no specific line item for DE because DEE can be a variety of things. And the way our accounting works in the county, you know, be consistent with all the other departments and to follow the federal guidelines, the gas fees and things like that for how you categorize expenses. the DE will be properly expense by what it is. So DE is actually calculated separately per district, but it can be used for these different things. So if a council member decided to use it all for travel or offer furniture or for equipment, they could do that and we would expense it to the proper account in the budget. So it's kind of a place where we hold there. Do you have a total of each district? Oh, offhand. I'm not sure exactly what each district is. It's all, each district will get the same amount. I can get back to you in that. I'm not sure if it changed in the past year. I don't think so, but... 15? About 15,000? Yeah, it's about around 50,000, I believe. About 15,000, per. Oh, no, don't get any ideas. It's not 5,000. You're not 5,000. So where can we increase it and where we can get the other funding to get the 50,000? Yeah, no. We would have a long conversation with our finance the rest are back there because we would have to find that that just reading you somewhere. No, but thank you. Yeah, thanks for explaining shit Thank you Yeah John thank you very much for talking about LRB. Yes sir. Following the lines of mystery knowledge, it's a very great, polterra staff of having been here for a number of years. I know what each one of them does, including yourself and Mr. Brown to make sure all of our meetings go. According to plan, and we're taking care of the public, so, wow. In looking over to this staffing, I noticed there are some vacancies that are funded within Council services. What is the plan for those one, two, three, four, five positions? Are there five funded vacant positions in council service? Well, anyway, we have someone starting on the 16th of this month in our Council Services is one of the supervisor positions. Excited about that. It's one of the things I mentioned, like new people coming in, and then I'm really excited about that's LRB or council services. Council Services. Yeah, council services So we we recruited interviewed hired sign on the papers for that on the 16th someone's coming in For that position and then we'll also we've are entered the process of recruitment and hiring for another position in council services to fill that out. We just had somebody start this month in support services. It's going great so far. So that went well and then I think we have one elections vacancy that we're working on as well and then as I mentioned you know we're working in filling vacancies in legislative research branch not only just to short up I feel really good about the three people and they're right now they're you know dynamos and they can handle but I'm thinking long term too just you know what's coming down the pike, you know, big projects and they can handle. But I'm thinking long term too, just, you know, what's coming down the pike, you know, big projects and things of that nature. So yeah, I'm in a hiring mood in mode. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. You don't mind. There's two positions open that's shown, vacant in council services. One of them we already have filled. One of them was in support services. One of them was the legislative research branch position as well. So they're not all in council services. The way the positions are laid out in the position reporter, little you have the legislative research branch, then you have council services, you move the support services, then it goes back to council services. So that would be why it looks like they're all in council services, but that's all the vacancies across the division. And the larger point to that is stride in efforts sooner than later to fill all of our vacant positions, but not rushing or doing anything that, you know, we're cautious. We hire with the intent that that person is going to retire someday from this department. So we take we're cautious, but we're going to be, we're again, I mean, I'm in a hiring mood in mode. I like it. Good. I mean, sorry, Mr. Brown, I'm looking at the one of the forms I was submitted in your positions in our itemized budget review. And it shows five vacancies, but to your comment, one of the things says expected start date 7, 1, 2022. So these might be outdated forms that I have in front of me. And that's an LRB section. I'm sorry. I don't know. I can take a look at what you're looking at a little later. I don't. I see. OK. We can work on that for the next one. I always see what you're looking at. But if that does point to anything, it does point to us having thought about it in 2022, but it is now 2025. And there's been some transition there in some of the positions there. Working with chair staff, getting a position that can help with chair staff and the CRF whole thing. And so there's been some transition there but we are as John mentioned we're looking forward to building up that team strong and we have two positions that are vacant that are being looked at right now. Yeah that's a good point too because we have been I think think, very strategic with our positions, our vacant positions where we've actually moved them around, you know, from one division or area to another one where their filter was a need that could be better suited to have a person there full time and I've been very supportive of doing these things when, of course, they make sense. Because once you make that decision, it's really difficult and it shouldn't be something that you just then rescind or change back. I don't like doing things to try them out. So you have to be pretty confident. So there has been over the years and recently taking positions from one area and then applying them to another area of the work we do. And I think those are, I think, I believe, and I'm confident that those are good decisions. And with regard to some of the really dated Phillip positions in 2022, I can't remember our time in recent history where legislative research branch has been quote unquote fully staff for a variety of reasons. I don't think it's ever been short staff. It's just kind of in between. But again, I'm looking more towards building it out and having more staff in there than we typically would have, but for good reasons. Not because anybody in there right now is overwhelmed, overloaded, or that, you know, I, at least from my side, that there's really long wait times for things to be done, but just to make sure that it's a really strong team that can continue to work to doing us doing. Perhaps that a slightly, you know, more quicker pace to keep up with everybody's needs. But I'll just say to one of the things I look at too, you know, is that it's eventually, because it's already kind of happening unofficially, is that every bill, a resolution that comes to the council would have been reviewed by LRB. Giving an example of them like, can you just do the fire code come up? You know, it's unofficially, we get called. Can you guys help us look at this bill us look at this bill and help us make sure that it meets the standards of just legislative drafting and we of course provide that assistance. It's in everybody's best interest. I like to kind of I would like to in the future, I don't know this is going to work with formalize that process to ensure that the legislative research branch through its expertise and it's very niche expertise is looking at. at is looking at, maybe perhaps not the resolutions for printers and copiers, maybe not necessary, but there are quite a few bills and resolutions that come from the administration where we're already being asked for support. And I'd like to extend that support and expectation that this legislative research branch would be providing research branch would be providing its support and its technical expertise so that when customers sign those bills through their duties by requests that they're top shape. And it's just one of the areas I'm looking at where we would need to have a more support in that office as far as more people having the time to do that and making sure that it's quality work and not rushed. I completely agree. I've always been happy with them. They've been very helpful. But I also looked at the state level. There's a team of lawyers drafting legislation with the simplest of ideas from the legislators. Yeah, I want to fix this and then you get a drafted bill by a team of lawyers back to obviously in a few days. We have more of, I think, more kind of home grown approach and they're extremely helpful and I love them in LRB. But I think we could do them a favor and also favors a county and have more input and output coming out with a little bit of assistance, which is hiring new staff. We're on the same page. Yeah. And then just thank you to whoever that's there continuously, really funs alone. Those are incredibly helpful. And then my last question, the miscellaneous equipment is the $40,000 and I think you spoke to that when you opened your statement. Other council services equipment. I'd like to say I did, but I don't think I did. I thought you did. I don't think I covered that. Maybe you didn't, okay. Where can you help Mr. Brown out with that? F-10101.ph. That poll 640. So we are continuing to look at our AV capabilities for providing the service for the community, live streaming, captioning, things of that regard. We just executed a contract with our vendor to continue services. We're continuing to look at that. There will be additional equipment needs for captioning, especially captioning has gone up both in our usage and in rate. So we're continuing to look at that, but that'll be equipment we use to continue to provide the service to community. Is that separate from the 115 account for miscellaneous contractual services for live streaming and live captioning? Yes so one is the equipment and one is for the contract and the different services. So you actually see in the in the may version of the budget those numbers will change a little bit to match our contract that we've been working on for a while. Okay. Before you go on, literally as we speak, our captioners are working and I just want to say it's not cheap, but our captioning is like excellent. I mean, they're really good professionals. It's a person doing it. It's not AI as far as I know. They take the time to learn how I embrace names. You know, it's the relationship has been terrific. Just want to thank our captioners. I know how important that service is for. What is our captioners? I'm not allowed to say I'm sorry. No, I don't know. I don't know their names. I don't know. Well, we surprise. Well, we subcontract for that through our tour granicus. Yeah, yeah. I'll get them a nice Christmas fruit cake since I know you wanted to recognize them and I feel to do so. I set it up and I just didn't hit the mark. I'm sorry. Well, we're here and everyone else watches the meetings, but they're sitting through all the meetings as well. And working. And it's the best captioning I've ever seen quite frankly, because I review captioning on other services. And yeah, it's not cheap. It costs money, but it's worth every penny. They're great. And for those that are using captioning, I'm certain they appreciate it. I hope they do. Really just sent us a message. It's Lorena. So Lorena, if you're out there, thank you very much. Newport, real time. Appreciate you. And you're actually in study of Hawaiian words, because that's I think a major difference between our county and other places is that are captioning their very on it with our Hawaiian language so, Mojalo. Thank you, Mr. Arsali. Thank you, Mr. Brown and Mr. Hendrix for that detailed comprehensive of our department. You have the else in the council. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So I had one question. I mean, you mentioned what LRB and stuff. on the council from before and seeing how they operate a year after year, is there a way of implementing a system where, if say, a contingency funds that was used, like maybe in 2024, right? And now, 25 countries will do the same person, same organization, everything like that. Same thing, all we do is change in the date. Is it possible for that to just automatically move forward, instead of being reviewed again? And the problem is, this, like, say, 2024 could be person person A, 2025 could be person B. The way I guess they write things up is sometimes different so it got approved in 2024, now 2025 they review it and they go oh no I gotta change the wording that I don't know this and that right I mean we wasting time to me it's like, it was already approved from before, right? And then we only changing numbers. That's it. Let it go. So this goes back to a little bit talking about how we strategically move positions from one area to another and by creating a position within the chair staff that is handling all grant related matters. We are transitioning to where that person would be the central repository to assist consummabors with their CRFs. If you notice, there's been a couple of resolutions that come out that look different from the standard CRF resolution. So essentially, it's going to quote-unquote solve the dilemma or issue or challenge you just mentioned by having a person at LRB? No, in the chair staff. No, but right now LRB is doing that. So it's transitioning away from that. That's what I'm saying. Okay, yes. So it's already started with Council member Kimble on Council member Inaba introducing resolutions through that process. And the goal was to simplify the process to where the resolution itself is pretty bland. It doesn't have a lot of information and it's like an envelope. And then the attachments to that resolution provide all of the specifics as far as how does it meet a public purpose? Non-profit grant, the non-profit status that it's all there and and the, you know, all of that information is as it has an exhibit. So the resolution itself is. So how can I get it my office? If you know, Dr. Chair and I have been, if you're ready to start that process now, are you ready to take it on? We have sheriffs coming, you know, moving on from our office. And we still doing the old style. Understood. Yeah, it's transitioning to where eventually, they'll be. But then like I said, then we run into those problems. Yes, I heard you. We've used it last time. Yes. Now, be in there. Now, changing everything. Right. It takes the delay. Sure. It gets kicked back to my office. Right. I'm going to read to it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like I said, sharing all of them, maybe you can forward that new process. Oh, you can do that. Give me a second. Sure. Oh, go ahead. Chair Coneyley, Kleinfelder. Yes, sir. We did have a brief discussion about this, and there was some hesitation from the body a few months ago about starting it, you know, between or with the remaining months of this fiscal year. So the plan is to get it started with the new fiscal year. But for any member who would like to begin, we're offering you, you can reach out and we can have our special assistant helping you through the process if you wanna start already because right now my office and council member Kimbo have started that. But feel free to reach out and we can start you earlier. But the plan is everyone will move over to this new way of doing it with the new fiscal year. And I'm reaching out now if can. But then also say one email. Thank you. Thank you. If I may add one more thing though. The reason that chair, you know, and I wanted to kind of do it a couple of times first is just to make sure we've worked all the bugs out. So again, just maybe give us a couple more iterations to make sure we've got it full proof and then we'll... Yeah. Result. But it's been doing okay, right? Those last two resolutions, last council meeting, where the first one's coming through. Council like for the CRF. Yeah. Okay. So we just started it. Yeah, I understand. So but like I So did it so did it work? Okay. Yeah, so far so good. Okay, so I don't then should be no problem then. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Onisi. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Good job. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you. Our next department will be joining us shortly. We are in recess. you you you you you Thank you. Are you with us, Kona? Yeah. We are. Thank you. Kevin gets started. Okay. We're out of recess. Our next department joining us today is the department of Environmental Management. We have director and team here today in the Hewlett Chambers and we have members joining us from the Hewlett Chambers as well. Director when you're ready, please go ahead and introduce yourself to your team. You can run through your presentation and then we'll go to questions from the council. And for everyone, make sure you push the green button before you speak, introduce yourself. It's just enormous for the record and for captioning and all that. Good afternoon, Chairman and Council members. We're glad to be here this afternoon. And I brought with me my subject matter experts. And I'd like to introduce them to you. Today I have our deputy director, Craig Kouaguchi, been sitting to my left, is Robin Bauman, she's our business manager. Then my planner is Kelly Hartman. Kelly is behind me. Our acting wastewater chief Chris Barber our acting solid waste chief Jean Keamus and our deputy solid waste chief is Mike Cah. Did I say Jean was wastewater? Jean is solid waste. Okay I got it. All right well I'm an obvious this, but I'll do my best to get through our slide presentation. So these are the buttons. All right, Department of Environmental Management, and this is a special finance committee meeting. Let's see. One, let's talk about our program measures and outcome. DEM awarded the Hilo-Wisewater Treatment and Rehab Project, the Paala Wisewater Collection System Project and the La Poyhoy Transverse Station Improvement Project. We had an auction of abandoned vehicles. Let's see, that was auction of the abandoned vehicles and then we've been collaborating with other entities to hold a used tire collection event and refrigerator recycling event that was held in K.R. On the other side, the overview of our objectives will be beginning construction of the Hilo Ways Water Treatment Plant, rehab project. We will continue working towards the closure of the Na'alehu and Pahala large capacity cesspools will be establishing sewer fee rates at a level to cover expenditures for operation maintenance, repairs, and replacements. That's the scope of the study. We'll complete construction of the La Poeh Hoi Hoi Transfer Station improvement project and finally will improve signage of after recycling and transfer stations to provide information about recycling opportunities and procedures. And I'd like to just share with you what these signs look like. You might... Jean, can you get those signs so everyone can see what I'm talking about? So, let's see. Just so you know that the entire collection, refrigerator thing was at KL, and it was a one-time event. I heard it was a good six-big success. Okay, Jean, can you kind of hold up our signage, cardboard, okay. Scrap metal, glass and bottles. And we had a big one. A big It was too big to fit in the car. Thanks Mike. But this is what is posted at about 90% of our transfer stations. And we got what, 21 transfer stations. Okay. More than this. Oh, yeah. Okay. Thanks, there, Jean. I'll move on to the next slide. Okay. This is fiscal year 25 DEM highlights. Let me begin from the left side. The first one is increased repairs to our facilities. Underway we have 14 solid waste projects and four waste water projects going on. Under CIP construction projects, we have two waste water projects and solid waste projects, which you probably know about already. And on the equipment side, solid waste received seven pieces of heavy equipment for their operations. Was that 18? 17. I'll correct my notes. 17, big number. And wastewater received three heavy pieces of equipment. On the vacancy box there, we filled 13 positions and we're in the process of recruiting additional 15 positions. I'd like to just give my hats off to our new program manager, Kahula, Gint Leis. She's not here, but when she came on board, things started to really move forward with our recruitment. And, you know, so I'm really pleased with what she's doing. Moving on to my next slide, Solid Waste, wastewater. Let's talk about the staffing. We have 200. Oh boy, did I press the wrong way? Oh, going backwards. What did I just press return? Then I'll be okay. Okay? All right. So we have 263 positions, two divisions, and we have 77 vacancies. Of that, which is basically 29% of our total available positions, of that amount, now 35% vacancies are with our wastewater division, and 25% is with our solid waste division. Our challenges in the department obviously are the vacancies that we need to fill as quickly as possible. Second is the recruitment of engineers. We find how it has been very difficult for our department. And finally, the challenges we have is staffing for the 10 legally mandated CIP projects and programs. And what I'm talking about is the AOCs. Okay, this is how our budget, if you look at the box in white, changes to our salaries and wages. We're wanting to increase by three positions and that includes two with our abandoned vehicle section and one for a regulatory administrator within the department. We've had some changes with our other current expenses which we've increased to about 1.4 million and that's basically to address unforeseen repairs at our wastewater facilities. There's been basically no change in our equipment on federal and state grants. We have the 141,450 glass ADF stands for glass advanced deposit fee, where I guess the state collects I guess the state collects a penny and we get what it is is not high five but what gets turned in are liquor bottles, jellyies and jar bottles stuff like that under that program. Then the beverage container program, this is what pays for our high five. There's $719,720. Then finally the deposit program that I went over that is $100,000 for electronic waste. That's basically for outreach. These are all state grants. And my understanding, these grants come in pretty much every year and we expect it to continue that way. Moving on, DEM, CIP for 2026, these are just a few of them. I'll start with the wastewater division. Under construction is the Hilo wastewater treatment plant rehab. Then we have the Pahala large capacity assessment closure. Then the Haleh, Haleh Vi, forced main replacement. That's moving into construction. On the design end of these wastewater projects is the Hilo wastewater treatment plant Rehab Phase II. We also have the Pahala Large Capacity Says Pool Closure, Nga Alehu Large Capacity Cosure, Pua Pump Station, Forest Main, installation and Rehab, and another Pua Pump Station itself rehabilitation. The Kulai Manu wastewater treatment plant rehab and replacement and the Papai Coal wastewater treatment plant rehab and replacement. And what you don't see on your list is the our list is the Kialakehe wastewater treatment settlement project which is to convert to R1 water. That needs to be out to bid by September 1st of this year. Construction should start in March 2026, continue on through 2029. We also have a feasibility study that's attached to that settlement that must be completed by October 2026. We have to get that R1 project operated by April 2031. So we've got some pretty tight schedules there. Moving over to the solid waste division, construction of the Lapuaoi transfer station improvements. On the design side we got improvements of the East Hawaii sort station, the Waiho Hino transfer station canopy, which is a roof base that goes over the tipping floor, and we also need a waste trailer there. And then also moving on to planning for the Hewitt scrap metal site remediation project. Finally, moving on to some of our other priorities and initiatives for fiscal year 26. The top, which you don't see there, obviously is the legal mandates of satisfying the three AOCs and the recent R1 settlement for Keala Kei wastewater treatment plant. The other initiatives include naturally the Hilo wastewater treatment plant, Fahala collection system, the La Boa Hoi Transfer Station improvements, working on our assessment conversion plan and conserving land-filled space, air space, at our landfill in Poo Anahulu and filling vacancies. So that is pretty much covering it for our presentations today. And I will kind of yield to your questions at this time. Thank you, Director Sagar, I appreciate it. Two of the body. Who would like to start? If anyone? Chair? Council member Villegas. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Director Segalo for being here and for presenting this information for us today. I have a couple of questions and we might need to have Director Nakagawa join you up here. In the last budget cycle, there was funding specifically set aside to hire a consultant to study the potential project of a sewer extension between Magic Sands La Aloha area and Kahalutu. This area along the coast has been rated one of the number one priorities when they looked at our island and identified it was Pua Co, Hilo and Kahaloo that needed priority soaring because of its coastline emissions, direct emissions just straight from the cesspools into the ocean. And last year there was money, set aside by the administration and the budget, So thankfully I didn't have to do an amendment asking for that to be moved there. But now I'm following up to see what the status is. I do have some information here. Kelly Hartman was kind enough to send something. But I'm a little concerned because I don't see the $350,000 that would be needed to continue on with the next phase of this project. So we have Shell ready. And I'm wondering if that was included in the budget anywhere also having some confusion because I couldn't find the project in the CIP. Either prior existing or this year and I didn't see the funds and the numbers listed here specifically related to this project. All right. Chris? Sure. So before before you begin, please introduce yourself. My name is Chris Barber, Acting Ways for the Division Chief. At this current time, that $350,000 was not included in this next year's budget. This next year's budget is essentially focusing on facility maintenance and supporting the existing capital projects we have to meet our AOC requirements. And then as far as the CIP budget, we did not include that project at this point in time because again we have the AOC projects to meet as well. I suppose I find that deeply concerning and I hope that that can be changed. The community here has petitioned for decades for this one mile area of the coastline to be so we should beward. It was finally taken up into the last administration, given the prioritization and the funding necessary. The goal from the report that we're supposed to be getting back from the consultant would indicate whether or not connection to the privately own wastewater treatment facility in Keoho could be connected to or if it would be more expeditious, efficient and financially sound to connect to the Cali-Keya wastewater treatment facility. It's really concerning to me now that I can see here that we're supposed to get the results from that consultant's report in July. But the intention was always for this project to continue forward and not get left behind. I know we have other believe me. Cali-Kai wastewater treatment facility is also in my district. A little bit. Disheartened to see it listed as number 29 of the priorities in this current budget. So I just have some serious concerns about this falling off of any priority and the resources not being allocated to continue with the progress that's been made in order to ensure the health and safety, not only of our reef ecosystems and oceans, but of the humans that swim there. University of Hawaii recently did a study and dropped a blue dye in a toilet of one of the homes and within four hours that die was in the ocean. So I am looking for some support and some continued prioritization on this really important project. The amount of money necessary to keep the project moving forward, I don't think is enough to be, you know, it's definitely not what it's going to cost you the Heel O'Waste Water Treatment Facility or Telekai Hays upgrade to R1, but it has also been identified as a priority one area on our island. Understood. The thought process is that we'll get the report. We can further understand the alternatives and possible solutions. And then in the next budget cycle, we can assess what the realistic costs are going to be with continuing forward. So that was the process. We can definitely take your concerns into consideration and reevaluate and see if there's other facility maintenance that can be deferred. So and we can further address. Okay thank you. I'll circle back on this. I do have a request in for our meeting with managing director Brawlhante and a number of community members, including Cindy Puneha Ole and other members who have been very loud and proud and strong advocates for this project to continue forward. And it wouldn't go over very well if this gets put on the back burner for next know, in future or we're going to look at another study, we really need action where this is concerned. Just one quick other question. I have been hearing about cesspool working group, cesspool working group. And I wondered who was participating as a representative of District 7. Councillor Neill, just let you know your buzzer. Oh my buzzer. But you can finish your question please and then we'll come back if anything. Thank you. That's my final question then. Okay. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going toman. I'm the environmental planner. And my self and Craig Kawaguchi are going to be sitting on the cesspool task force. We've had two meetings so far. One is a large group and one as co-chairs. So we're just getting started on drafting what the outline is going to look like for our action plan. Is that something that representatives of districts are being included in or how are people being selected to participate in that. I just have a lot of constituents asking me, are you participating in this? Do you have a seat at the table? How do we, you know, find out who's participating in how it's. You know, I wasn't included on the invites, but certainly there was the question pose who else is missing from the table. And so taking your comment into consideration, we can certainly add you to the list and you know anyone else that needs to be added. Thank you. I think that might be really, I know it would be helpful for myself and it might be helpful to some of my colleagues, especially because we are so consistently petitions by constituents concerned about what's going on, how's it going to happen, what's going to happen, what not. we know the more we can share with our community. So thank you. Okay thank you Councilmember Regan.. So thank you. Okay thank you councilmember I can come back to you. Coming back to Hilo, councilmember Onishi. Thank you chair. I guess you can come back up again. Kelly. So my question is who was the ones that organized it? This is the mayor. This is the mayor. Who was the ones that organized that? This one is the mayor since a mayor's past. Okay, okay, got it. Okay, thank you. Recycling, who's in charge of recycling? Okay. Great call, Gucci. Great. Great. How's it going? Okay. So, you know, because every time we talk about wastewater or we talk about solid waste, recycling, it always comes up. I know in the past like during 2010 you know that back then China used to purchase a lot of the products right and then they stopped right and so now I guess for DM there was a problem for you guys correct yeah and so now moving forward now in 2025, what's happening? Like, is there, did you find a source to get those plastics out? Right now, the recyclers on island, they want the clean recyclables. So that's why they still take the high five. They take the highfive plastics. But you guys getting compensated from the state, right? To run the program ourselves. Yeah, but then so what happens with the end product? So that the plastics I think go to the West coast right now from what I was told and who ships it out? The recyclers. Oh, they doers oh they do yeah so they they handle the we contract out like the redemption centers at the transfer stations so they collect the recyclables and then they send it off to different markets okay and so now who's paying for the shipping? They pay for the shipping. What do you pay for the shipping? So whatever they sell their product and products to the profits that they make, then they pay for the shipping costs. With the high five program, they receive, wanna say it's like two cents, maybe three cents, a container from the state to help with the shipping cost. So the state helps. It helps. But as far as the non-high five, I assume it's in what do you call that? The bid or the contract, when do you bid for the contract? I know way back again, the glass that was supposedly received and then went through recycling, recycling whoever, distributor or whatever. But they used to crush it all up. And the plan was to put it or mix it with the asphalt or mix it with something. Yes, so that's one of the things I want to bring back again, because prior the, I guess, way kind of way back when is that we used it when we had DM projects. So we called it on glass creed. So if you go to like, yeah, I'll pull or think why may I. Cali, K here. They do have on glass creed there. And that's what I want to start bringing back. So what's happening with all the glass reflux are collecting now? So the high five glass gets shipped off with the plastics. Yeah. Okay. And wherever they sell it to, but the non-high five stays on island. And then when the recycler finds a use for it they go to the DOH for approval department of health and are they I mean using it as yeah as far as you know yeah so we receive I believe we receive where they send it to but they have to they have to get approval though. They send it to someplace else. On island, use of on island. So like, like, the ground cover or whatever. Um, pipe fill, I guess instead of using gravel and stuff, these things like pipe fill and stuff. So construction construction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But that's good. Yeah. Because that that program falls under on the state the the EDF It's we I guess overseed a program on island Okay, and the state compensate you folks for the manpower to oversee big they give us Monies to Pay the contractor. Yeah, okay, okay So that's a good idea. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we take any admin. I think you guys shoot up. Everybody else does. Yeah. Okay. Another one is about, okay, the electronic waste. Because I've heard like Mr. K. K I mean they do a lot of that right they offer a lot of collecting that so You folks also help compensate them in collecting the e-waste So as far as the e-waste that's the um, it's a state Program now state law. Oh, I forgot what lie was it's a what he called extended producer responsibility kind of and you guys Yeah, so we don't we Receive money is from the state for outreach so This the law that was passed puts the Proper disposal of the e-waste on the manufacturer. Okay, so out and they find recyclers. But then they get compensated by the state. Yeah, it's between them and the state. But you folks have nothing to do with it. Not, not anymore. Okay. Scrap metal, junk cars and all that. What's happening with that? So that now is with us. Okay. And so you folks are collecting all that. You guys are stirring them in the back by the, what is that, the secret? But that's the, so that's the abandoned vehicles program. Oh, okay. So that's with the, with the separate, yeah. But did that could become scrap metal too, right? If they don't, I guess, when they have their auction where somebody doesn doesn't come and picks up their vehicle. There's a lot of trailers to back there, yeah. There's, yeah, okay. Yeah. I went back there with them and they said, wow, okay. Last thing is tires. Okay, okay. I know someone came to see folks about the tires that could they could possibly be able to take the tires from you guys, right? And they could do their own thing with it. So have you guys continued that discussion with them? Are you folks having fun? I'm trying to get them. Reached out again. I guess. Okay, kind of in silent. Okay, so they did contact me and they want me to set up a meeting with you guys. Okay, you know, okay, dirt and you're pretty, but you guys got to answer my email now. No, not with that. Oh, that's okay. But yeah, but you can, you know, yeah, my issues with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and the last thing, I didn't really hear anything about Pu'anahu, the Westaway, Salt Lake Way. I mean, what's the lifespan and what is moving forward? Because I know at one time when on the council, like the first 10 feet of a new cell silo, it needs to be like trash or paper stuff because you cannot throw construction materials in there as soon as it opened because it could puncture the lining, right? And so, one at that time, the problem was that we weren't trucking over to Westside. And so that's why it took longer to get it to the 10 feet of like trash or stuff. But I mean, so what's the update on that? Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Jean-Killiyomas, acting chief for the Solid Waste Division. So the remaining airspace at Ponevulu, if all the conditions remain the same today, we are looking at 15 years remaining. 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, wow. But there's a lot of variables. We can't control the incoming tonnage. If we get more than the usual, obviously we're going to fill up that landfill a whole lot faster. Just from a numbers game, a numbers standpoint, we take in 200 tons of rubbers from the hillside and it gets struck to Guanahul, that's daily. And on the west side, including some of the large businesses from Hilo, it's 500 tons. So in a day it's 700 tons per day. And one kilo can't hold how much tons the trucks? Or no, like you know when you put berry, like is? When we take it into the landfill it's converted to cubic yards. Oh okay, so you would be bring it in by tons and it's converted by cubic yards. Oh, okay. Just to give you an idea, one cell, we call it cell. So, okay. It's anywhere from a year and a half to two years. Oh, okay. We fill that cell. So you kind of say that we might have like maybe six, seven more cells to go. Eight more cells to go. We're filling the last two cells in the center cells, and then we only have the remaining eight on the corner side of the cells. And there's no way of expanding. There's a way of expanding, but it requires land acquisition from state. Maybe we can work on that. DLNR? Yes. Oh. It's been in the works and it's a slow moving and I'm sure you guys are aware of some of the bills that being introduced by the state and it makes it harder to expand the land. Yeah. I know. It's to be where we cannot bury nothing or we cannot do anything because I think the whole island is up to the aquifer, right? Possum, I mean, or 90% maybe, right? Yes. Just about. Yeah. OK. Thank you very much for that information. And just to let you folks know when I came on on 2008 DM had a contract on what would be the best use or the best way of doing our or you getting rid of our trash in And it's why I was mentioned that trucking 2.0 was the key. So when that was done, I kind of mentioned about doing a waste to energy facility in Poinohulu. Because if we did that, I almost finished. If we do that, that I was told the lifespan down there would have been like 100 years because of you had, or maybe years because you would just be bearing ash right and so but then that never worked out because there's so many moving parts to it yeah but thank you very much thank you also remember Kimball yeah thank you good afternoon first I just want to start by thanking Jean and Alex and his team for the work on La Pauhoi-Hoi Transfer Station, particularly coming out and doing the community meeting, which I know was not super fun, but I appreciated that time and just the way that it's gone with as far as rollout, you've been very communicative. I've been able to share that with the community And so I think it's moving along well. So just wanted to say I appreciate the help on that wanted to ask about the Heel of wastewater treatment plant so at the Pepeco community meeting I believe director Nagawaawa said that the notice to proceed had not been signed yet. Has that agreement actually been signed for the Heal of Wastewater plant? It was the Galat Director of the EEM. Your question was whether we issued NTP for the Heal of W plant. We have issued what we call a conditional notice to proceed. Basically what it authorizes the contractor to do is to immediately proceed with purchasing and delivery of materials and equipment and do other preparatory work. Their schedule indicates they need, according to their schedule, 330 days to procure and obtain delivery of these materials and equipment. So with that that in keep people. That's down from like, was it an original like something 450 or something was the original time frame for that procurement phase? The duration you're saying? Yeah. So they've contracted that. I think it could be. Well, they had, this this is I'm using the contractor schedule that was submitted with their bid Okay. Yeah, so that the duration of that activity I believe was 330 What is the condition? What is the notice proceed conditional on what on? It It's limited to purchasing of materials. Am I correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the conditional notice to proceed allows them to, it provides the sign contract back to them. And it allows them to start preparatory work like pursuing, like a storm water permit for their discharge, for getting coordination items worked out, allowing the county time to get our construction manager and all of those contracts in place because we're short on staff. So that's the purpose of that period. So then after that point, a construction notice to proceed will be provided and then we can start the, you know, a groundbreaking, so to speak. Okay, so we don't have an official start work date yet. So in terms of, that's a negotiation with the contractor. Okay. But you expect that would be win. What's the, what are we roughly estimating for our work? I think the absolute deadline is August 1, 2025. Okay, so four months. Give or take? Correct. Okay. with the contract before you came on board, so you may not know the answer to this, but you might. We had a conversation about the actual design of the contract itself, and we This was with Perp Council strands to strands. And there was concerns that we had been using an old contract for professional services that didn't necessarily cover some of the concerns about like this project is such a big major project. There's undoubtedly things that we haven't accounted for or there's going to be errors and emissions and you know things like that that are going to cause additional fees to be incurred and things like that and the contract didn't really cover that as well as according to the Cooperation Council at the time. Did that ever get resolved before we went out? I can follow up with co-operation council if you don't. I apologize. Yeah, so initially, our contracts are reviewed by our risk department. In terms of specific issues as far as that detailed knowledge corporation council you know never really expressed their detailed concerns to you know me specifically so yeah I wouldn't have working knowledge of those specific concerns. But in terms of the contract itself due to its size and with errors and omissions coverage, we have evaluated that contract from a risk standpoint. And we adjusted our current you know contracts you know with our our CM as well as our you know various designer of record to account for that currently. Okay moving on but staying in the same general area, the mayor had of course issued an emergency proclamation with respect to the health water treatment plan in the effect of February 11th, which basically gives the county administration the authority to, you know, act more quickly than usual. Should an emergency happen? Thank goodness. But the question I had asked, managing director Bill Haunte was, or maybe it was mayor, was, you know, what is that plan, that emergency plan, and how are you going to pay for it? Like do we have some contingent funding as set aside to support any sort of emergency action if in this time period that we're waiting for the contractor to do all their procurement and the work start date. What's the plan and how much is it going to cost? Where's the money coming from? That's a much simpler way of saying what I'm asking. So in terms of the plan, we have a you know we have a temporary bypass contingency plan that has been that's that's that was put in place you know, last year. We did kind of a mock up with our internal staff, and we are working currently on procuring specific pieces and parts for that so that if we have an issue or something in this interim time that we can move forward with that. But it is contingent in the contract that we are going to install at the emergency bypass that is part of the construction contract. We do have a contractor under a conditional notice to proceed. So, you know, if, if, and we have the emergency proclamation in effect currently, so if something emergent happened, we do have procurement avenues such that we could react quicker than normal. You know, one of our concerns was, oh, you know, what if we don't have the't have the necessary pieces and parts because we're on an island and shipping can take several months. But we are going out for procurement for those pieces and parts. And then we do have a plan in place with the components that we have in our containers at this time. Okay, so that's great to hear. So there's, in the event of having to do this temporary bypass, is it non that think that would do the contracting on that? Is that part of, I'm sorry, just to clarify what you just said that is it part of their contract? Well, it's it's not necessarily part of their contract, but you know, and it's we would go through our standard emergency procurement process, but you know likely since they're there or mobilizing generally in that case, right? there's opportunity for an end to be competitive for that emergency procurement. Right. or mobilizing, generally in that case, right? There's opportunity for an end to be competitive for that emergency procurement. Right, right. So is there a design or would that it have to, would the process include the design of that bypass? So the bypass itself has been designed as part of the project. So in terms of the emergent bypass, there is no, you know, in an emergency situation, we can have all the plans in the world, but depending on what actually breaks, right, we are, at that point in time, in real time, coming up with solutions and implementing a fix. So at this point in time, we have a plan, you know, if certain components fail, but as for a specific design for an emergency situation, it depends on the context of the emergency. Okay, so the temporary bypass, and I forget by ignorance, is the response to what type of failure at the plant? So let's say the temporary bypass would be, you know, we show up and, you know, the the force main into our headwork system has failed. And it's catastrophic, meaning that the body of the pipe is is failed, right? Healow, all of Healow's wastewater is pumped to that treatment plant, right? That is our single point of failure is that one force me, right? If that thing blows up in our facility, no wastewater gets to our headworks, okay? So at that point, we have to come up with, you know, a fix, right? And what that would involve is, right, temporary piping to get that sewage into our primary clarifiers. And even at that point, that's a challenge because the head works is where all of our grit and screening is. So now you have core solids going into something that's not designed for core solids. So, yeah, it's, again, it depends, it's all context-based on what fails and how it fails. Right, okay. So is there, and I'm asking this in the context of the budget hearings, because one, I want to make sure that if we need to be purchasing those bits and pieces, right, to have ready to plug in, that we have enough money to do that, set aside. And number two, if we need additional consulting services around the response to an emergent situation. And so I guess my follow-up question would be to you is are there other sort of known points of failure at this time that we don't have sufficient planning around for a emergent event that we should invest some funding towards now? Does that make sense? My question. Yeah, your question makes sense. So in terms of specific emergency response planning, I have not, you know, I do have consultant services funding for that and I do have it available this year and also next year. But in terms of, you know, emergency bypass planning, the way that we have been approaching that is with our internal staff knowledge. Because our operators know what's the first man hold? It's going to overflow if this pump station stops working. OK, what's our plan? Damdike divert. We have things in place. So it's very context sensitive. Now, in that event, in terms of sizing, different things, or coming up with a plan, we could pivot from that and move that direction. But at this point in time, those solutions have been internally developed rather than hiring a consultant that may not be as familiar with our system. But what we could do is look to have a more, I guess, orderly approach to looking and making sure that, say, all of our pumps are the right size or whatnot in terms of equipment. If I can get the line item number for that particular consultant fee that you said is... So it would be in our... And I know my time has up chairs. I just want to get that in and I will yield. But I have more questions. So we have a line item for consulting services and that would be 5, 6, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. It would be a line item number 13 and GL account 115. So if you look at 5631.02 wastewater OCE, you drop down into account 115 miscellaneous contractual services, item number 13 consulting services. I am looking at the wrong fund. That's why I'm not saying it. Okay. I'll yield for now, Chair. Okay. Okay. Okay. How's our crew? It's thank you. Thank you, Director Deputy and your team for being here and the presentation. I wanted to bring up even though it's no longer in my district, the K-Out transfer station. If you've been there, the reuse center is in deplorable condition. And I've in previous budget cycles, I've put money in the budget to at least change out the tent, the covering of the reuse center. And I'm so glad that the pod manager, Deputy Managing Director Nishimoto is here, because the pushback that I got from the last administration was, well, these structures don't meet our building code. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Can we not find a way to work with the building division to get some kind of waiver or whatever it is? But, you know, I find this admin to be one of no nonsense. So, deputy, is there a way that we can re-engage building and get these canopy tents swapped out because it's kind of shame, kind of shame to go and there are volunteers that work there and they're not the best conditions and so I really love your support on this and it's not my district but many folks in the Pune region, goal and service. Yes, visit this resource. It's yes, it's no longer in district four. Yes, we're looking at It's yes, it's no longer in district four. Yeah, so we're looking at that. Fantastic. If there's anything that I can do to help, please let me know. Because I know like the, we're gonna look at all the reuse centers where it's fencing shelves, like in Hilo, we're planning to move the, where the high five was, the old bamboo tent and move it over to that reuse tent inside there. And those are really lovely. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I'm consistently emailed about trash on the side of the road, highway 130. And when folks are pulling into into the transfer station They don't have anything to sort of cover their trash debris so sometimes it just flies out of the back of their vehicle and I believe that there's a section I don't know if it's in our county code or in our HRS that requires your trash to be Baton down covered so I I wonder if your solid waste team there is just issuing friendly reminders to folks about making sure they take personal responsibility and secure their trash. Because if not, it becomes everybody's problem. Okay, thank you. You know, Contra, number Chung kind of like past the torch to me to continue the conversation about the Huyne Earth Recycling Contracts, they currently provide a free mulch, greenway services to the county, these free mulch events, which the public loves on a monthly basis. My understanding is there is a composting or food waste processing component of the contract. I want to say back in Harry Kim days, there might have been a pause or removal of one of these components I'm not sure. We also saw resolutions about finding alternative sites to do the composting work. We've talked about maybe doing this on a regional level rather than having one centralized location. At the end of the day, I don't care what we do, I just want to do something. So I'm curious to know where we are with these components of the contract. So as far as the composting and why it's that part of the contract is suspended, because there's no really called that, food waste to mix with the mulch to make the compost. So majority of the islands, food waste goes to the pig farmers around the large, I guess large commercial So that produce it like the hotels, the schools. So, majority of that goes to the big farmers. We're looking at different ways, I guess, of just not having just mulch. And making it more available. And are there ways that we can maybe take a regional approach to this? Because if not, all of the ways would have to be trucked to one location on the island in process. And I wonder if our transfer stations present an opportunity to do this work on a smaller scale, but then you'll have these resources closer to communities. So I think it depends on the size of the station. I know that's the biggest why we have a hard time offering greenways or mulch pickups. So I've been talking to parks that maybe we do provide mulch at those farmers markets. At their facilities like mulch piles. At the county parks. Like I think it depends yeah. Okay. Okay. Like at Honokai I think they have it on their old that baseball field, I think they have a farmer's market or some kind of market. Yeah. I think they have it on their old, is that baseball field? I think they have a farmer's market or some kind of market. Yeah, we have by ordinances allowed for a number of county parks facilities to have farmer's market. So there's a complete index in our code and we just updated it not too long ago. Thank you. Please keep me posted on how I can be helpful. Always looking to do demonstrations and pilot projects to just provide proof of concepts, but you know there's so many community members that have great talents and they want to be part of the solution. So feel free to, you can call me in tech right. Thank you. And then the last thing I wanted to ask about was some of the work you folks are doing to just divert solid waste from the landfill. I know that council member Onishi asked about recycling initiatives, but what is there anything more that you'd like to talk about? I know that many many years ago we have as a county adopted a zero waste plan. And I'm just I'm curious if that continues to be a guiding policy, you know, priority of the department and what steps are being taken to just divert, you know, traction the landfill. So I think we've been looking at partnering up with different organizations like the RIDA Fridge program. We teamed up with HoyEnergy and that tire collection event we did. We teamed up with like our Lex Brody's, DOH had some funding. So I think it's more, I'm partnering up with different organizations. Okay, thank you. And sorry, one more thing. I'm very curious to see the report from the SESPool Working group, especially because more than half of the SESPools on Hawaii Island are located in the Pune district. So these are working families and it's cost prohibitive to convert. And so we're very curious about what sort of solutions and financial support is going to be offered to community members. Thank you, I yield. Thank you. Council Member uses. Thanks, sir. Well, director deputy. Thanks for your time this afternoon. Not even quite yet, maybe, but. Going to do kind of just high level first and then maybe dive into some of the numbers after that. You know, with, you have a lot on your plate, with everything that's coming forward. And one of those pieces, I'm not sure where it fits into the mix, is the integrated wastewater management plan. Because on the website it shows that this summer going back out to the public to do public meetings. But I don't, are you prepared to go back out there and engage with the community on that? Because it wasn't on in some of the priorities going like the next fiscal year. Kelly Hartman, PM planner. So we're still working on the integrated wastewater management plan that includes our facility plans as well as our cesspool conversion plan for the county. We anticipate that the draft will be available the end of summer, probably end of August. And we plan a public review period. We're going to meet internally with the Mayor's Administration, the CES pool working group. And we think the order of events will be Environmental Management Commission, Council Committee meeting, and then public. We're hoping that will help us get a greater turnout from the community doing it at the tail end. And we expect the final draft to happen around the first of next year. Got it. Thanks, Kelly. Appreciate that. Councilmember Villegas briefly mentioned Pueco and kind of our list of places. Have you continued direct learning engagement with the Pouacle community since our last conversation with them? To, yeah, please. Councilman, yes we have. Okay. Good question. We are, I think, we'll think by now we've received a proposal from the people we met with and it's going to be reviewed by administration. I think it's more court consult type material that was provided. Okay, because those are one of those priority areas on the gualakos and that community's keen on pursuing a community facilities district. So they're willing to do, take that step forward. It was very encouraging. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Can we speak a little bit about the vacancies and what support you need to help fill the number of vacancies you have in your cross-yourdivisions. I'm Robin Balmond, Business Manager for Environmental Management. So one of our big challenges in filling our vacancies is the fact that we've had vacancies in our HR section. So as Director Sagar will mention earlier, we recently filled our HR program specialist position, which has been a tremendous help to start moving our recruitment along along a little faster. And we are in the process of filling our human resources technician one position. That will hopefully be starting very soon. So that will be a tremendous help to start moving these recruitments along. Having the staff to update the position descriptions, schedule interviews, you know, putting in the request to fill, doing background checks, onboarding people that's been a challenge with limited HR staff, but we should be staffed soon. Okay, okay, thank you. Yeah, please, please let us know how we can help. And if, you know, we need more support from HR to help you move those things along as well. Need to make those connections across the departments. Okay. I'm going to dive into some of the numbers here. Starting with the on the sewer side, the sewer fund, so wastewater. What are your your to date expenses on travel? You budgeted previously for 50,000 requesting another 50,000 again. Here's what your year toto-date expenses are. So, are year-to-date expenses for travel so far is just under 15,000. 15,000 under 15. Okay. And then there are a couple of places where it mentions building maintenance repairs the facilities. What beyond, you know, the emergency repairs, what other facilities are ongoing on wastewater side? So 800,000 for building maintenance. 56, 30102 wastewater. Chris Barber, wastewater division acting chief, so in terms of building maintenance, our facilities have right aged roofs. So I was specifically looking at a couple of our sewer pop stations. So within the sewer pop station we have things like backup generators, electrical boxes, you know, within the sewer population we have things like backup generators, right, electrical boxes. And so, auto dialers. So it's really critical that we keep, you know, the leaves, the roots in good repair, so that those systems aren't exposed to the elements and water. Additionally, we sometimes get clogged floor drains. So a lot of our job requires that we hose down specific process areas. So we have floor drains that get clogged up that need to be dug up and repaired. Other things can include fencing. We're required by DOH to have six-foot fence around our treatment facilities, so that needs to be maintained. So it's, you know, ventilation systems within our facilities. So it's a mix of different things. Okay. Thank you. Moving on, it's a small item, and it is probably for personnel safety, it's immunizations. Is that an ongoing thing that you have for staff to make sure that they're when they're exposed to anything or? Yeah, so specifically our newer hires, they get immunized and then we have recurring for those that are with us. Okay, okay. Thank you. I'm going to jump on to... I just care if I'm not sure what these apply towards. There's miscellaneous charges for administrative fees. There's credit card fees. There's administrative fees. the mission at Fe fees for 1.1 million, what do we look at? So we are supported by our business to services section both wastewater and solid waste. So that is their port, that is what we pay them for their services and making sure that we get our sewer bills. They process our procurements. Those critical, they hire staff. Okay, and that's just been steadily increasing then over time. Well, as we've been adding, yeah, sorry, I'm speaking. No, no, that's right. But they're critical. They are critical to our operation. So. Yeah, that's correct. I would just add that our administrative budget falls under the general fund but since the department was created back in 2000 all of those costs have been allocated to the three special funds that we have received. Okay. I wanted to jump over to, I think, it was a vehicle disposal fund. There's another, this facility repairs as well. 24 actuals, 2,300 was spent, and then continue and ask for 50,000. How are we looking in that area? Are we expecting any major repairs for some of the, how to pull in from that fund in particular? One of the difficulties we have with our impound lots is a lot of times there's vandalism and, you know, fences get cut. So I think that's primarily for repairs that need to be done that come up unexpectedly. Okay, thank you. And then just going to jump over to solve the Solid Waste Fund itself. And just wanted to point out, I can find it quickly. Because of the similar administrative fees there, I see that there. Got that. Thank you. I don't know if I, I think I lost my question on that, but okay, I think I'll just end on this one here in terms of equipment. This is our heavy equipment parts and supplies. Our 24 actuals, or under 29,000. I know these are kind of, you know, I understand, ongoing maintenance repairs, making sure these equipment is up and running, but it is budgeted, was budgeted for 240,000, also proposed for 240,000. What are we looking like for our asks and our needs in those areas for heavy equipment repairs? Thank you for the question. Mike Caja with Salvatore's division deputy chief. So yeah, the heavy equipment budget line, we typically have this budget line for to keep our heavy equipment like our loaders in the sort station running. The biggest problem with that is that the transmission, so we have solid tires in the station so a lot of hydraulic issues. And we don't have equipment that's really available. Nobody else runs that same thing. So we got to actually stock our own. Similarly for our landfill, there is nobody else that has compacting. It, not like a construction equipment. So a lot of these repair items are so specialized that without having this budget, we end up not having the ability to, you know, compete our work. So it does look like a high ticket item, but it is necessary because of the specialized equipment that we run. Hope that answers your question. Yes, thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. And then the last one I did find, the one just curious on, this is more on the recycling programs, 5610.02. Where, what facilities are we using portable toilets for that are particularly tied to our recycling programs? Are these located at these recycling sites themselves? Yeah, at the transfer stations where we have for the volunteers and people that are stuck in these areas. Yeah, so like the reuse contractor, the high five redemption centers. Okay. Okay. Thanks Deputy. Thanks, sure. Thank you. How's everyone? Thank you. Staying on recycling, and those were very nice signs. I think they clear and I, so especially for the cardboard, you know, when I go to a traffic station, like a lot of it is box board. So I think you're trying to make it clear that you don't want box board, you just want cardboard in those bins. Currently, like what happens, do you have to sort out the box board or do you just send it into the recycling, the recycler like that? And it's not a good product, or could you tell me a little bit more about what the what the issues are with box board versus cardboard. So I think box board is a different type because it's um as a uh what's that waxy kind of waxy. Right with pictures on it and everything. Yeah and then they get sent to um the recycler takes it and sends it to whichever market market. So do you need to separate it there? The end market separates it. The end market separates it. I know we want to start doing more outreach. Because the... To help with separate the box board from the cardboard. Because cardboard is valuable to the recyclers. And also down the cardboard. We don't want a roll off full of boxes and basically the recycler would be hauling more of it is like air than cardboard. Right. So you wanted to people to... Plat Flatten. Yeah, flatten the cardboard. Yeah. So the signs are probably better, but probably are you planning to change it up? Well, people there are like to educate people on it, because I think that's, you know, I mean, most people are just trying to get in and out of a transfer station so even just to look at a sign is almost too much so you get have any plans around education for that. So now they're looking at the I think it was like the Master Recycus program to have volunteers come on. I think we'll go back to um if I I need volunteers to help educate people around that. Try to get that program started. And similarly on the signs for the glass, it all says to take the caps off. Is there an issue with the caps like can you, does it decrease the value if there are caps, or what's the deal with caps versus non-caps? I think for the high five, I think it keeps it clean. Oh, I think you had it on just for the regular glass too. I mean, and then I think my thought process is, so there's no confusion. Like, take it off for high five, but you don't have to take it off for non-high five. I see. I see. And there is a huge difference in the value of it if it has. Now, because when it goes to the recycler, I can see I have like a conveyor belt and there's a magnet that catches the metal caps. I see. I see. And a lot of times the glass gets broken. Yeah. The caps will probably fall off, etc. Okay. Thank you for, yeah. That's kind of curiosity if I was had. And like, you know, my arrow at eye and my time taking off caps or not. But so continuing with the recycling theme but on a bigger scale, the statistics that you get just cited about tonnage from Hilo, there's like 200 tons a day of like regular rubbish going over and 500 tons a day from large commercial accounts. That's a big number. Is what kind of outreach are you doing to help reduce that number with the large commercial account? Because I think that there would be quite an opportunity there since it's such a large number. So I think the outreach needs to go back to the kids again. So I know when we first started the High Five program, we did a lot of tours. We went into schools and then you get the kids involved. And then they kind of pushed the parents. Right. What about the commercial accounts? They have to pay. So are they right? When these large commercial accounts that are bringing over 500 tons a day of rubbish from Hilo to Waikeloa, which is, I think, what was said earlier. So like, So like what do the how do we get them to divert our stops and denover so much or maybe you know so that we are we can keep our landfall for longer. That's 200 versus 500 is that's a lot of. It's a lot more solid waste per day that the large commercial accounts are producing. There you go. It's one option, right? It might not be popular with the business community, but that might be one way to increase the lifespan of the ladrill. There could be ordinances commercial cardboard. Right. Well, I mean, that is a question. Do these large commercial accounts do they recycle? Yeah, I know that the large ones do on cardboard. Mostly cardboard is what they recycle. I see. OK. I guess the other thing I wanted to ask about, and I'm not sure who should answer this. It might be more of a finance question in the context of environmental management. So this is around the waste, the many wastewater projects and the AOC and the sheer amount of money that we're needing to expend on this. Do we have, are we starting to think about how to go to the EPA and say we can't handle this? Financially, can we extend our deadlines on say this project? Or are we starting to think about that, what the priorities would be as far as changing that schedule? It's going to save you. Good afternoon, Council Diana Cagal, Finance Department. Yes, we have been meeting every week between Finance, DEM, and Corporation Council looking at all of the projects in the AOC, working with DEM to determine the necessary schedules and timelines and priorities looking at the estimated funding that we've had at that time looking at revised funding estimates, putting that into our model as well and working on a strategy to present present a plan that is feasible for the county. So yes, we have been working on it and it definitely is a priority. Okay, thank you. I guess do you have a look at an initial timeline of when you think you're going to present that, or get, you know, get it together and present it to EPA. I don't have a date right now. What we're looking at now is some of the initial timelines and discussions and meetings that DM already has scheduled with the EPA in determining if we can make some of those regular scheduled meetings to provide a status update. I think we're at the point of kind of just developing that strategy on explaining the county's financial situation but as well as our resource situation. You know we've talked a lot about our ability to fund these projects but we always don't talk too much about our ability to actually manage these projects with the resources we have and those will be the two You know priority discussions that we will have to try to provide some flexibility in being able to manage and fund the projects Thanks very much Thank you, it comes over here sis. Make sure just a small one that I missed on the accounts on the ESRI, the Ezri extension for wastewater. You don't have, there's no one filling the GIS specialist role in wastewater at the moment. The, for one thing, but then is this extension on top of what we already, the other contracts we have with IT? So Chris, we started a division. As far as the ESRI extension, what what that is is it's a connector software that allows us to communicate between different software platforms. And you are correct. Are that position that GIS position is vacant? I've expressed that it's a position that we need to fill. And so currently we are working within our, you know, between our our internal staff, wastewater staff and IT and some previous staff to to make sure that the GIS system is is maintained. And then as far as is that contract in addition to additional I additional IT contracts answer be yes. And the reason is is, is because it's specialized to what we use. We need the communication between our line crew, sewer service trucks, and our databases, and different things. So it's actually pretty sweet software, but yeah, anyway. That's what it's used for. Appreciate the clarification, Chris. Thank you. This is kind of a question I know Deputy Imagine Director stepped out, but the question you deputy and Director as well as finance. The urgency, the costs, the AOCs, and the concerns about lack of staff in DEM. I don't know if it needs to take more of an emergency approach where this department is more supported by other departments to kind of help move projects further along. And I don't know if those conversations have happened within the working groups or at a administrative level. Yes councilmember these discussions have included obviously the need for more support so there are options that we're looking into now, whether that is some external support temporarily or you know other options that to just to get us where we need to be. But yes, those options are being explored. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. Because with with Hilo, Kallike, a master plan, these communities, coastal communities, they're just, I mean, I see the weight on all of you here, and we feel it too, and we understand it. So just trying to think of some glad that those conversations are happening to support this department beyond the hiring practices, working with HR, trying to fill these roles, the contracts that are going out, the consultants that are being hired, the work that's being done, but what we can do internally to really support as much as we can, like all hands on deck. Yes, absolutely. We recognize, you know, these are hundreds of million dollars in projects. And so the significance and the expertise that is needed and the oversight is a lot, you know, it's a historical projects for us. And so those are the things that we have been talking about at each of our meetings. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair. It's checking in, Kona. Hi, Chair. Hi. Director and deputy, you know, just I think there was a lot of good questions asked and I think for those of us, you know, we've been working with previous administration and you know, even for Vice Chair Onishi and his time, you know, serving a full term before work. I think the benefit right now is that we're on the hook, but it's also a burden right and we're hearing that from director director not Gawa. Council members are expressing their willingness to try and be supportive but ultimately, you know, I guess I can't say anything specific to the budget but there's been a lot of talk at least in the time that I've been serving here on on the council and we see action in other departments as promised by the mayor. But we know we really need to see it from you folks. So we're counting on you folks and again, but us know keep us informed is what I asked as we move forward, especially with some other requests that can be accommodated in the main budget, please do so if you can. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Kimbo. Yeah, I think I'll start by building off of some comments from Council Member Houston. I believe at 29% you may be the department with the highest vacancy rate. Are you getting applicants for responding to the advertisements or are there other barriers that we should be looking at supporting you guys with in terms of hiring. We are getting applicants for some positions and others like civil engineers. We get very few. You know, some positions are very difficult to fill. Others, we are getting a reasonable number of applicants. Are the engineering positions, is it the issue of the salaries not being competitive enough or are we not advertising the right places? I mean, is there a simple, maybe a, maybe not simple, but is there something you think we can do to encourage for involvement? Yeah, I'm not sure. I know we've done a number of different things from human resources work to change the salary schedule for the engineers. You haven't seen increase in applicants. We're trying recruitment incentives. We also advertise in trade journals. As we come up with different ideas, we are trying. Okay. Yeah, I think the idea maybe, I mean, I think the budget is deceptive in the sense that it doesn't look like you guys are the big spenders, but you're going to be the big spenders because of all the capital improvements. And if we need to have supplemental support somehow from other departments to make sure these things get done It for example is Are we doing the construction management for hila wastewater internally or are we contracting for that? Westsega with chair director director. We are in the process of contracting the construction management. What's the go-to director? We are in the process of contracting the construction management for Hilo-Wase Waterport. Do we have, do we haven't selected already? We have a selective, we're in negotiations and somebody alluded earlier about how the contracts were being prepared. So we went through and pretty much reviewed all the terms and conditions in the county's contracts that go out to professional service consultants and they're currently being reviewed by the court console at this time. So we are not doing that for that particular project, we are not doing the construction management internally. We're contracting that out, but we haven't selected that. That's correct. Or we haven't. We selected somebody, but they haven't signed yet. Yes. That's correct. Okay. Within that contract and then the overall non-contract, what do we have in there in terms of cost escalations, just with respect to delays, and then of course the inflationary issues we have? I don't know if this is a Director Nagawa question, but do we have some buffers in there? We don't know how this little tear of thing is going to fall out and we're shipping costs and all the things. So what just kind of at a general level do we have the original contract is $337 million, but do we have, do they have the opportunity to pass on those costs if they see escalations on their side once they begin the project. So generally per right are standard construction contractional terms and conditions, there are some allowances in some cases where the contractors can come in and have those conversations. You know But it's important to definitely highlight that those conversations are bilateral agreements. Right. Yeah. OK. Although we are a little bit over a barrel in some cases. OK, moving on to KELK he then. So the settlement agreement has been put out there. So it's public now. With respect to the R1 conversion, what stage are we at with that? Do we have a design? So at this point in time, we do have a working design. And you know,, we do have construction documents for the project. So how soon do you think we can go out to bed with that? So in terms of going out to bed, I would say that depending on the end approach that is selected for that project, we can meet the deadline within our settlement. So we're looking at multiple approaches to the R1 conversion at this point? Well, in terms of the R1 conversion, I think it would be wise. I mean, in terms of the approach that is in terms of the approach that we take, right, it needs to be reviewed and vetted by the current administration. I mean the approach that was previously designed was done under the previous administration. And this current administration has had very little time to... previously designed was done under the previous administration and this current administration has had very little time to really look at it. Yeah. Yeah. Does this... Okay, so is that you, the valet, who's doing that evaluation? Is it Wes? That's our director, Sagaoah who's taking, who's Kuleana is it to review which approach we're gonna take, could make that decision? Or is it the mayor himself going to make that decision? Well, I would think it would be a team approach, I would say the ultimately right, the mayor has that decision make, I can't speak for him. But yeah, I would say that the, you know, internal department as well as the new administration would review it as a team. But you are optimistic that we can meet the deadline of the, was established in the settlement for the R1. It seems very short to me, just knowing how long the process takes, just even if there weren't decisions yet to be made, right? If it was already decided which way we were going to go, this designing the scope of work, getting that all approved, getting the contract, putting it going out to bed, like I just don't even see how we make it. If everything was completely completely normal and decided on, what is your sense in my way of based on that? Well, there are a lot of working parts, but I mean, I prefer to be optimistic and just get the project out and get started. I've been optimistic too. I've been, it's been tried a lot less, so lately I will say, what's up going out of the federal level, but I'd like to hope that we can do things. I do think that this is something we have to be cautiously optimistic about. It may be just consider from our standpoint with respect to the budget and what, I mean, we don't probably even have a ballpark figure yet because we haven't decided on an approach or do you have something in mind about what we're going to actually be looking at down the road. So in terms of what specific costs are you looking at? Are you looking at a specific construction estimate or are you looking at operational costs? What, what, sorry, I don't understand what your request for budget is. With respect to the conditions of the settlement agreement, so that would be design and construction to accomplish R1 status on the wastewater. Yeah, the previous estimate that was provided for the AOC was 50 million for the project. That's public. Of course, prior to going out for bid, we may know, we'll likely take a more detailed look at at that cost. Okay, so 50 million was the estimate from the agreement from, when was that AOC? That was like last year. Correct. Okay. So we have to kind of get a little bit of a buffer on that with respect to. And that 50 million was based on what mechanism of getting to our one. Because there was the discussion about the whole sand filter approach versus what is that 50 million? Which approach is based on So the 50 million is based on your sand filtration. But yeah. OK. And then as far as the second phase of the settlement, which I don't have the AOC in front of me. I don't think it was actually included, right? The reuse piece, I was not to my recollection part of the AOC. It was just to get to R1. So the settlement agreement is just to produce R1 and put it in the disposal location for R1 for disposal. There is a feasibility study associated with it and then there is within that agreement also we need to look at you know a reuse project right and that's with the settlement. So the countywide AOC itself that was signed with EPA, that included the headworks components, but yes, R1 was excluded because that's not really, it wasn't really a jurisdictional concern for EPA. EPA was looking at the operations and maintenance of the facility as it was today. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that other aspect, the two pieces of what I'd suggest, because we're in budget hearings, you know, we do need to be talking about these large capital expenses that we're going to need to address, because I think we need to be thinking about looking at our different revenue streams, right? Whether or not we got a very property taxes, whether or not we got to look at the improvement districts. I mean, we just need to get some some revenue to do these and it's going to be a lot better to make those decisions with some real numbers, right? So what I want to suggest is that after we get through this budget cycle, I think we need to have a deeper discussion and presentation about these timelines and estimates and just so that we can start thinking about the hard political choices that are going to have to be made to make sure we can pay for all this because it's going to take a lot of money and we know got it right now and that's that's the bottom line. Yeah and we appreciate that consideration as well. So back to the corner any any files? No, wrap it up. Bring it home. If you follow questions for the department and thank you so far. A lot of been answered. New positions for a DEM administrative regulatory administrator. What is that? Okay. I'd love to hear from you, Director, on some of these. Okay. So the regulatory administrator position would be to assist the director and deputy with all the regulatory, state, and federal mandated AOC orders. Okay, that's big. That's awful. Okay, thank you. Looking through, I'm just going to bounce around a little bit. I'm going to try to keep these kind of high level and then I'll dig in later. Looking into your program review, or your program measures, the solid waste one come back, as we'll be talked about today, the amount of tonnage going to put one of who though. It's big. And then we talked about Mr. Nishi brought up the expected lifespan. And I'd heard 100 years when I walked in six years ago. I heard 50 years from the previous administration. And in four months, that went to one five years, 15 years. That's scary. But in my six years, I lost 75 years on Poo-Won-Hoodle. What bugged me in the program measures was there's a discussion about diversion based on limited information is currently at 22%, but doesn't change in any future projections, which tells me that we're not projecting to try and change that. That's what I get from that information. That's in this beautiful operating budget program reviews that was submitted by the State Department. I'm to overlap that question on recycling specialists and some of the discussions we've had on diversion and outreach and communication and staffing. I don't know who wants to crack at that but if we aren't really tracking diversion we have funding for outreach and diversion. We're not looking to decrease in any future estimates that I've seen our diversion rate as far as what was submitted in the program measures. How are we aligning everything that I heard today towards being in a better place for our 15-year-rated landfill? So I'm or Craig Hulgutchi, Deputy Director of Environmental Management. Yes, I think it's a whole bunch of programs that we're looking at that we want to try get on the ground to help they've worked more. Like, for me, I want to look at like C&D, like more reuse in that sense. And working with the recyclers to see what they can actually recycle in the other markets. Okay. What else? Anything else? And just revamping our better signings with the reuse facilities. What can be taken, what cannot be taken. And just fixing up the places again. Okay. Yeah. As far as the version, it's, I think we're looking at all programs and different options that's available for us. Okay. I know the big notion that we're talking about and the big funding source. And there's this scary waterfall picture that was presented at the very beginning of our budget presentations which showed the massive amount of funding we're about to drop really quickly into wastewater for all the AOCs and Hewley wastewater treatment facility, all of it. That's big but what I just heard which really bugs me because it's really concerning is 15 year lifespan on the only active landfill that we have on this island. And that does mean that not only are we going to see the next four or five years for our wastewater and our ability to fund that, but now we got to be thinking 15 years our landfills full and we're building new and I know that contract was a pain in the ass in the beginning so I'm going back to diversion I think I think I'd like to hear a little bit more on what we're going to be doing and how to get that rate of diversion up. So we're estimating more diversion less on edge going into the next, I'd say within five years. So I think it's getting more commercial recyclables in. Like cardboard, like a wall who has the the ADF glass that can't go in the landfill. She's gonna come out to ordinances and outreach. Going back out into public and increasing our outreach. Because I noticed that when as far as the high-five program is that when our outreach got cut, then then we slowly saw that the redemption rate for the state started just going down and it's it's down. Yeah, yeah. Director, thoughts. You got hired for the director position. I'm interested to hear your thoughts. I think, well, as far as the landfill is concerned, to see what your question is, like what are we going to do? 15 years, that's not much time. A lot of time it takes to get regulatory permitting and go through that process acquired a property. Take 10 years, right? Then you got to build this stuff it's five years enough right so we got to start now as far as what we do in my mind we got to start educating the public we got to start with the young people in the grade schools I don't know what what they need to do. Change our behaviors. And it's the same story that we got to communicate to them and carry on to generations. Because everything we have on this rock, we have to bring in. And the part that stays here, so all we're between is burying it. So I recognize in like, the deputy says, we gotta look at diversion, we gotta educate. And this week it wouldn't just spend a lot more bucks burning this stuff and, you know, we still got to bury it stuff how we get it off this rock it's gonna it's the challenge okay I think that's gonna be our next our next big one yeah it is it's gonna be huge we have about seven recycling specialist positions I think five are are they helpful at all in this discussion? I've never really understood what they do. Is these specialists? Well six positions plus the coordinator. So like right now we have three and then I'm still assisting with the program. So two of them are with the high five program. One is specifically grant funded. And then we have a recycling specialist, one, two, and three. What do they do? It's like outreach, contract management, coming up with ideas like how to just finding ways that we can increase diversion. Okay. Yeah. Five are vacant. Three. Three are vacant. In my book, five, that's what I got right now. It could have changed. I think some were supposed to come on in the last couple months. They have six. Three or vacant. Three or vacant. And that's really the folks who can hone in on diversion and being creative and have ideas. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Do we track the amount of impact that tourism industry has on our landfills in Kona? We started looking at that last year and then reaching out to the hotels and working with the hotels and like creating like a QR code to show what programs that we offer because we always get calls from people visiting the island that you know what programs you have, what redemption centers are open. So that's another thing that we're going to look at is like a QR code. So that could be left at the front desk or in the rooms, the hotel rooms where they have that. I think about that, but I'm also thinking about the amount of trash that is generated by the tourism sector that we promote heavily because that's a huge source of economy here, but they also impact all of the resources from parks to madfills. So I have that number, but off the top of my head, yeah, we have that number. Good, good, good. West Hawaii Civic Center is one of the few facilities that has a janitorial expense. Why? It's got Baciar, you know, Helo, Kona, all the base yards, but less to Y is listed in the the janitorial expense category. The Civic Center? Yeah. It's in the line item for the account. Just maybe take a look at that one. I don't know why it's here. It just stood out to me because it doesn't match the rest. Under the Solid Waste Fund, the rental lease of equipment, a lot of that equipment was purchased recently by the previous administration. Is it landed and in use? Sorry Mike, thank you. Hello, the Salahist Division. So in August, we received six truck tractors. We received three grapple trucks, boom trucks. We received four compacting trailers, received four walking four trailers. So we received a lot, thank you, constantly. We really appreciate that. Yeah, that was big, that was big for the environment. Some of the ones like flatbed trucks, hydraulic pumps, 2025, those are in too? Yes, yeah, we start to have to put the specs out because because that's a little bit more complicated for our hydraulic pump stations at each of the transfer stations. Okay, so we will put the specs out before okay, okay thank you Mikey. I'm jumping to the sewer fund. You know, something called my eye and I was thinking about Mr. Onishi's comments. There's roughly $3.2 million in electrical costs for the sewer facilities, not. And it's broken down east and west. I don't know how those sub-categorized, but my question question is have you considered trying to offset those costs with renewable energy projects? Well, push the button. Sorry, Chris, wastewater. So when we look at our electrical costs, we always want to look at what's the driver. So on the west side, your biggest expense is Kallikey wastewater treatment plant. We have turbo blowers size to 5MGD that are treating about 1.2 to 1.7MGD. So as far as renewable energy projects, if we're going to evaluate a renewable energy project, we would do it at Kali-K because that's your biggest expense. So previously, there was effort. All right, not my expense. Kali expense. Sorry, county expense. Yeah, understand. So previously, we did look at, and this was years ago, we looked at solar, I believe a solar farm at Cali-K. So one of the things that we intend to look at would be something to the effect of, could we, with the R1 upgrade project, PON-6, we need some way to prevent algae growth in PON-6 So could we somehow employ something like a solar cover or something? So that's one area that we're looking at. The other interesting thing is on our Pahala project, our HIKO transform is going to take potentially, And so we're, you know, we're trying to think outside of the blockchain. What are we going to do? How do we, you know, how do we reduce the time that we close those LCCs? So, you know, potentially there's an opportunity to evaluate, okay, well, if we have to run on a gen set, right, to provide power, could we look at, you know, potentially solar, because we're already planning to put a canopy over the treatment plant trains. And so that's one area that we're kind of, you know, looking at. We don't have anything formal in writing in terms of to do a design on that yet, but that is an opportunity. As for on the helocyte, at this point in time, we haven't looked at renewable energy. The only renewable energy on the helocyte would be for your digester on the phase one project. We're're gonna be producing gas that will get reused for the heating elements, so that will help with power consumption. But again, that's not, that'll be implemented with the Hilo phase one project. Okay. So those are, so we can definitely adjust our sites to renewables. I think long term, I think that's a smart move. I remember the, for lack of a better word, the propane company, forget their name. They came into the presentation on incorporating collected gas from some of the solid waste equipment and incorporating that through a process back into their propane lines because it didn't disrupt what they're doing. It was an interesting discussion, but you have some options I think, and even our waste Poo Wannohulu has a gas collection system built into the facility if I remember correctly, that we could use to recapture and reuse the gases coming off it to create electricity if we so chose. So you have some interesting abilities to cover your electricity costs, which is helpful for future generations and our taxpayers. Thank you. Lastly, any thought to pay as you throw? It came up about a year ago. At first, I was very hesitant against the whole idea because I think it will end up in other places. But the data that was presented to us for pay-as-you-troll program becomes a revenue source here at the department, and it's supposed to decrease tonnage because people are starting to be aware of it costs money to throw away. I'm going to throw less away and do more diversion type activities. I'm not going to put it all in the garbage can. It's an interesting balance, but I think there might be something there for this administration to take on. It's not going to be loved, but it's a revenue source, and if it helps with diversion, and it helps Mike guys, then I think we should look at it. Any thoughts? Directored? I'm not gonna put your sword guy on the... On the spot. It's a sword guy. I'm gonna use your flag. I guess you're flash. Did you get that? You were suggesting sorry, I'm sorry. It's called pay as you throw. Oh, okay. It's basically, it's tipping fees for residential. So everybody pays when you show up. It can be tonnage-based. There's a number thing. It was a whole presentation provided to the council last year. I forget who brought that in the door. But although it sounds scary, it costs money, it costs us money. We all pay for it via our general fund already. And in other ways, it does create a revenue source for the department and it helps they've worked. Is there a way I can get more information? Maybe Mike. If you don't, we got to go dig to our files here. Yeah. Thank you for your question, Council. I'm on chair. Mike with Sadoe's division, I'm just real quickly. So it's something that was presented last year. And one of the things that you saw in the operations plan is it's sort of like what Maui and Kauai does. They kind of incorporated it into their curbside disposal and collection. And so they call that their PIU throw. it's kind of like you have to pay into that. So it's sort of like there's a mix. There are some suggestions of using the VRL. So kind of like you kind of pay into it, and maybe possibly that might be a way. There's a multitude of different ways of doing it. But you're right, you know, we're considering different to see if we can encourage people to look at a different way, of not everything just go straight to the landfill, because that's the easiest, it's the low-hanging fruit. So I agree with you. Thanks for the question. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mike. Something I think about. Craig, thank you for doing the tire event in KL. That was wonderful. That was very well received. And you got, I forget how many tires it was, but it was tremendously successful. And look forward to seeing other activities like that in the community. Yeah. So we're looking, hopefully we're looking to do one more. I think we did about 22 rolloffs of tires. It's not that one event. Yeah, just nonstop. I think it was 74 tons of tires from one event and Kale. Well done. That was basically that was all you. Yeah, people were going down the street and doing cleanups prior to coming to the event. And it was just non-stop. It was crazy. I appreciated the community. A lot of the subdivisions being how rural we are. They did their own collections and brought them to you. It was huge for them. they don't have a there a... There's no output for all those tires. They just sit in the community and become mosquitoes or rubbish or whatever. So thank you. Okay. Howdy calls members. Anything further? You got anything? No? No? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Finanstractor, anything? No? Okay. Okay. Financeric to anything? No? Okay. Okay. Thank you very much, Department. Thank you everyone for your input today. Appreciate it. And we are in recess. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.