16 Budget and Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Will the Budget Finance and Economic Development Committee meeting of 04/14/2026 come to order? It is 01:05PM. I'm the vice chair of this committee, Kalanar Batungun, and I will be acting as chair for today's meeting. This online meeting is being conducted in accordance with the Sunshine Law. As a reminder, when your name is called, if you're not in the council chamber, please identify by name who, if anyone, is in the room, vehicle, or workspace with you today. Minors do not need to be identified. Committee vice chair or committee chair Yuhile Sugimura is gonna be a few be joining us in a few minutes. Council member Tom Cook. Good afternoon, chair. Council member Gabe Johnson.

Aloha chair, council members, community members, there's no testifiers at the district office. Now I'm here and ready

to work. Thank you very much. Council chair Alice Lee will be joining us in a few minutes as well. Council member Tamara Palton.

Aloha, la. Kako, streaming live from the council chambers.

Aloha, in a la. Council member Keani Rollins Fernandez.

Aloha chair. The the intonation of your voice makes it feel like we're about to get receive an award. It's like Keani Rollins Fernandez. Fernandez. I'm happy to be here in person.

There are currently no testifiers at

the Molokai District Office. Well,

you were always deserving. I don't have anything for you today. I is council member Shane on yet? Okay. He will also be joining us shortly. And then online, I see council member Nohilani Uuhajans.

Chair. Aloha, everyone. I see member Rosperan just has a prize over there with M and M. I am at my private residence, and I do have a, adult child, Makoa O'ohajans, with me at home. I will be home for a bit, and then I'm gonna take my meeting on the road. Just FYI. Thank you.

Oh, thank you. Assisting with today's meeting are the BFAG committee staff, and our invited resource persons from the administration include a budget director, chief of police, members of the police department, and deputy corporation counsel Wigglesworth. Everybody please see the last page of the agenda for information on the meeting connectivity. Thank you members for attending today's BFED committee meeting. We have one item on today's agenda. That item is BFED one, the proposed fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget for the county of Maui. Members, I will be taking testimony after opening comments today. Before we begin, I'd like to recognize council member Rollins Fernandez for comments on the Molokai Residency Area Meeting.

Have my award in my mouth. Sorry. Moment. Mahalo for the m and m's game. Okay.

Sorry. Let me pull it up. Do we have anything else to talk about while I'm pulling okay. Got it. Okay.

Mahalo, everyone, who were able to, make it. Member, Cook and Member, Poulton weren't able to make it because Mokulele struck again. So six council members, were able to make it, and we heard from 31 individuals, who testified. This includes the three fifth grade readers, who did not sign up to testify, but we heard about their film project, that'll appear at the Wailuku Film Festival on STEM, incorporating Urumeika. And we received some recent testimony.

The meeting was called to order at 6PM and adjourned at 07:50. We heard, test testifiers express gratitude and support for a variety of Molokai programs, including the value of Molokai Rural Health Community Association's Kupuna program staff and services, including social activities, yard service, loamy, podiatry, haircuts, and foot care for diabetes. MEDB STEM works, including a resulting opportunity for Molokai students to present at a conference today on Oahu, the STEM conference, and present their film on bullying at the Hawaii International Film Festival. We heard testimony supporting MEO, the Transportation, Community Service, and Head Start programs, Family Life Center on Molokai, Molokai Community Health Center, Molokai oh, sorry. Maui Family Support Services on Molokai, Papa Makua program.

The first time, being funded is a Halema Kua adult day care oh, day health on Molokai. We heard testimony, to support MoMISC, which is a Molokai committee under the Maui invasive species control program or organization, especially in light of the recent coconut rhinoceros beetle finding on Molokai. Support for the matching fund under open space for Molokai. And continued continued support for the Maui Film Commission, its first Wailuku Film Festival, and its pilot program to empower local filmmakers to tell the stories from the community. And finally, support for sustainable Molokai and Molokai Heritage Trust.

So mahalo again to all of the community who came out last night who testified and who did not testify and who continue to do the good work on the ground. And mahalo again, vice chair and my colleagues who were able to make it there and back safely. Mahalo.

Mahalo, Member Rollins Fernandez, both for that report and for the amazing hospitality you provided us while on your Aina. Members who were not able to make it, you really missed out on both the dinner she provided and the reception from our wonderful family and friends on Molokai. Okay. Members, we will, today we will continue our deliberations on the FY 2027 budget. We will begin with comments from the Department of Police. At this time, I would like to invite the Department of Police to provide their opening remarks.

Aloha. Appreciate it, chair. The the the reward or the prize is is money. So so when council member Rollins Fernandez was talking about it, was sitting here thinking, we we need we have an opportunity here. Right? Problems are opportunities. We we we know the problems. We we know that there's financial crisis. We know we have tariffs. We have $7 gas. We've got things that we didn't expect. But let me tell you, it's my fifth year coming in front of the commission. It's the fifth time I've come here. And there's been no better friend in Maui PD's arsenal than the county council.

Let me be let me be

clear on that. We've come here and we've asked for help. We've looked to be a vision. We've tried to say, hey, here's where we are and here's where we're gonna go. And you guys saw that. We're we're having a little banter back and forth about the ability to send somebody over to one of our other islands, and we can do that now. It's telecommunications week. We have amazing individuals that answer 911 day in, day out, 247365. They don't get a break. It doesn't stop.

And they do remarkable work. They would be here today except they're answering the 911 calls. I wanna make sure to recognize the incredible men and women of this department that day in, day out, put their life on the line for those they've never met. We've got from POs all the way to chiefs in the back. We've got incredible people that are just absolute true heroes and and professionals, and they do the they do the policing profession very proud.

And I and I could not I could not be and my team could not be more thankful for what we've got. My deputy chief, Wade Maeda, is here as well as our accountants, Cheyenne Dworski, and we have Melanie Rodriguez. And we will go through the different questions that we've got, but I wanted to highlight a few things. The first thing I wanna highlight is as we talk about the monies for the radio systems, the infrastructures, the CIP projects, it it's not lost on me, and I and I feel like it really does get lost, that the police department has bore the weight of all of this for the entire county in our budget. It's not in fire's budget.

It's not in public works budget. It's not in communications budget. It's ours. And so we maintain all that. We're talking about the repeaters, the towers, the software, the different infrastructure that takes place. And as we go through the budget and as we talk about and we have these questions, one of the things I really wanna mention is, you want a mediocre department? You want you want laissez faire? You want you either some people wanna defund the police. I I don't know. Asinine. Or do you want an elite department? Department? Do Do you you want want a department right now that's the tip of the spear in the state? Because that's that's what they are. The tip of the spear.

They have more positive forward momentum than the other three counties. And it's not me talking ill of them, it's because of the work that they've done. It takes time to get to there, and we've had the ability to do that. And so when we talk about where we want to go for the next five years, we wanna strive for excellence. Maui County does not deserve to have a mediocre department.

They deserve to have the finest police services available, period. To that end, there are six pillars of twenty first century policing. It's in our strategic plan if you haven't got to see it. But the pillars of twenty first century policing came out of the Barack Obama administration and have been codified in each presidential administration since. They were rededicated under president Biden and his executive order, and they haven't gone away. But one of the pillars is technology. And as we talk about technology and the different advancements in technology, there's so much out there. And so as you as I don't think anybody has a a flip phone. I think everybody's got something that's got the ability to have some apps and do some different things. And so as we talk about that, we talk about a real time operations center.

Council councilmember Cook, you helped add this as like an amendment last year and we were able to at least start that. But what we wanna do is wanna complete that. And in there, we we have the equipment, we've got the software, we've got the technology, we've the infrastructure to get that. And this allows us to see certain things in real time. And so for the for the room, the software technology allows for AI anomalies to cause alerts.

What does that look like? If it's in a crowded area, then we could use we could use Kihei, we could use the the triangle, if you will. We could use Kannapali. We could use Naughty City, different just different parts where there's where there's If you see certain gatherings, it'll it'll it'll trigger. You can point it toward the mountain and smoke is an anomaly. Smoke is an anomaly. We could actually see that in real time. And so he go that, you know, 2020% cost, right, because of gas. He goes got a in a system that they three party contract out, and then they give us wash down data. It's not our data.

It's the data they give us. Right? It's not ours. But we could have our own data in real time. And we could integrate this eventually with fire, with emergency management, with other factors. But we know if we build it the way we want it, we know we're gonna get what we'd like to see. Some people are like, oh, well, there's cameras. Well, we don't write tickets based on cameras. I don't believe in that. My my my team doesn't believe in that. But if you think that we aren't gonna look at was there an accident at this intersection and who was the vehicle that caused the accident? Yeah. Because you know what? People lie. Wow.

They lie to the police. Woah. You know? And I and I say it like that because, you know, we've we've kid gloved public safety so much that everybody here if if I'm if I'm wrong on this, then please tell me right now. But I'm gonna bet in the last six months when you're at an intersection and it turns green, you wait at least a half a second because somebody's gonna run a red light, or that's at least happened in the last six months. I see everybody nodding your head because it happens. Why? Because we don't have the stick. Right? There's the carrot in the stick.

We don't have the stick strong enough. So why would we not utilize technology to make sure that we're as safe as we possibly can be? We can utilize these things at high crime areas such as the airports, different things like that. And so for the money that it costs, we will save money, we will save lives. It's it's not that much. It's 1.7. We could talk about how we break that down. Those incredible people back there did something that's never been done in the state's history. They created the first patrol canine unit in the state, period. These canine these canine officers and their and their animals, they will save lives, no doubt.

One could argue that they already have. We've had de escalation situations where known offenders that have been violence, that were acting in a certain aggressive manner, complied when they knew that dog was coming. The the second the day we we signed the the general order having them come in Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, we we briefed the police commission Wednesday, and then Thursday, they got a successful apprehension on a burglary in progress. We know it's a tactic. I wanna say we had a citizen write in, I guess, write in, saying that they didn't see loo low lethal tools in another state on a on a critical incident.

A canine is a less lethal tool. It's not deadly force, and it's a it is a de escalation tactic. There's a little in the memo that we sent over, I just a clear clerical error. We've got two full time canines right now ready to deploy. We've got two more that are in training on the Mainland right now with their handlers out there.

We've got two narcotic canines, and then we're looking to gain four more patrol, which will give us 20 fourseven, three sixty five canine coverage for Maui County. We'd look to expand that at the outer islands as well. It's something in the eight. We'll look to see how we wanna do that. But that's what the the goal is to do that, and we wanna make sure that we have that available because when we briefed this out to the other counties, they couldn't believe where we are.

And and they're here, and I know that they're gonna they're gonna be reluctant to say anything. But Maui County, Maui PD has surpassed HPD in its patrol canine capability. They don't even have it in their policy. They don't even have them. They haven't even figured out what they wanna do with that yet. I'm not talking ill of them, but it's just because we're we we're not waiting. You know, we're not waiting for somebody else to show us the way. We're trying to be wayfinders ourselves and to go do it the best that we possibly can. We also wanna make sure that we talk about the more. You know, it's not lost on anybody here that we lost a 102 of our loved ones not even three years ago.

You know, the fact that people wanna sit here and they wanna talk false narratives and they wanna sit here and basically lie to you guys about what we do or what we don't do or what MOUs we have or whatever the case may be, whatever. I don't got time or the inclination to listen to lies and falsehoods. But you know what I do have? I'm gonna talk about the incredible work that these folks do because they're the ones that made all those notifications and identifications. They're the ones sixty days after every single person was identified.

That's never happened in American history. Okay? Never. And so at four months out from the campfire in California where there's 80 people lost, they had 80% at the four month mark. We had a 100 at the two month mark. The reason I mentioned this is when we asked for stuff for the morgue, it was ignored for the better part of a quarter of a century. And we're talking about a building that doesn't have certain just so you guys know, during the fire, they didn't have AC. So I I really? So we can we can get into this, but Maui County's loved ones that are housed in the morgue deserve the best. The forensic facility that does the investigations deserves the best.

So we're not asking. In in what we asked for. We were cognizant of the tax structure coming in in these different things. And so I know that the cheerleader had said go bold last time, and and I and we we did the best that we could under the financial constraints that we were in. And I wanted to make sure that we were respectful to each and every, you know, one of you here because we know that you rep it's your money that you represent. It's it's your budget. You know, it's it's the police departments. We work with the commission. The commission approves our budget, ultimately sends it to the mayor. The mayor then decides what parts of the budget they wanna include when they give it to you guys, but it's your budget.

And so as we make these asks for you, we wanna make sure that we're as transparent as we possibly can be. And nothing that we asked for, we felt was was just a a luxury item. We we have a a justification for each and everything that that we put in here. Happy to discuss them. I'll leave the comments there because I do know we're on the clock. And I just wanna say mahalo for all that you guys do for us.

Thank you, chief. Before we continue, I'd like to recognize, two more of our members who have since logged on. Chair Lee?

Good afternoon. Sorry, for the tardiness, but we were having problems, technical problems. Thank you.

Thank you, chair.

I'm in my office. I'm in excuse me. Sorry. I'm in my office alone in the building.

Thank you, chair. And, councilmember Shane Senenzi.

Aloha. Good afternoon. I'm here at my home office.

No testifiers. You. Thank you, member Senensi. And then OCS staff, just a heads up, my connection keeps going in and out. Every couple seconds or so, I get a disconnection notification, but it doesn't seem to be impacting me on the public screen just on my personal keyboard. So I'm gonna continue to preside over the meeting. And if there are any issues, let me know because I don't always catch it. Okay. That being the case, we can now begin to receive public testimony. Testifiers wanting to provide testimony should sign up with staff, join the online meeting via the Teams link, or call into the phone number noted on today's agenda.

Testimony on the budget is not limited to the department scheduled today. Written testimony is encouraged and can be submitted via the e comment link at mauecounty.us/agendas as well. Under the sunshine law, the chair will receive oral testimony for agenda items at the beginning of the meeting as well as the item as called up. For individuals wishing to testify via Teams, please raise your hand by clicking on the raise your hand button. If calling in, please follow the prompts via phone. Star five to raise and lower your hand. Star six to mute and unmute. Staff will add names to the testifier list in the order testifiers sign up or raise their hands. For those on Teams, staff will lower your hand once your name is added. Staff will then call the name you're logged in under or the last four digits of the phone number when it is your time to testify.

At that time, staff will also enable your microphone and video. Please ensure your name appears in Microsoft Teams as the name you prefer to be referred to or as anonymous if you wish to testify anonymously. If you're in person, please notify staff that you would like to testify anonymously. Otherwise, please state your name for the record at the beginning of your testimony. Oral testimony is limited to three minutes per item. If you're still testifying beyond that time, I will kindly ask you to complete your testimony. Once you're done testifying or if you do not wish to testify, you can also view the meeting on Akaku channel 53, Facebook live, or mawikani.us/agendas. We'll do our best to take each person up in an orderly fashion. Now we'll call on testifiers wishing to testify. Staff, please call the first testifier. Thank you, vice chair.

The first testifier is Kay Anderson to be followed by Travis Liggett.

Aloha. My name is Kay Anderson, and thank you for allowing me to speak today on the fiscal year 2027 Maui County budget. My my comments focus on one critical addition to the Maui Department of Water Supply's budget. First, I want to acknowledge and support the department's aggressive budget and overall direction. They are are taking Maui water Maui's water challenges seriously, and that is appreciated. We are asking you to add one specific investment that will make all those efforts more effective. Maui is heavily dependent on over pumped groundwater. Precipitation is decreasing. Supplemental surface water is erratic and diminishing. And we are already seeing water quality and quantity declining in many areas.

Without reliable water, no new housing can be built and no additional potable supply is available without either more rain or desalination. Every major decision you make about housing, agriculture, tourism, and wildfire resilience depends on knowing how much water we have, where it is, and what level of use is sustainable. How can we responsibly reallocate water, set pumping limits, or prioritize infrastructure if we do not fully understand our aquifer conditions? Right now our methods are inadequate. We do not have enough data, and all data we do have is too sparse and uneven to confidently guide long term management.

More wells are needed, but we cannot simply drill our way to understanding. We need a smarter way to decide where how and how to invest. This is why we are asking you to fund airborne electronic magnetic imaging, AEM, and the associated geophysics modeling and analytics. AEM, combined with existing well data, is the best available tool to map our subsurface freshwater resources at the island scale. It provides the key missing information about aquifer structure, salinity, and freshwater distribution, which other conventional methods cannot.

When we combine well data with AEM modeling, the county and the Department of Water can establish scientifically grounded, sustainable, and adaptive pumping limits for each aquifer, identify the best and worst locations for future wells and other water infrastructure, and support ongoing monitoring, modeling, and data driven decision making over time rather than one off studies. This investment has important co benefits. Implementing AEM and related modeling will create professional opportunities for Maui's young people in hydrology, geophysics, data science, and environmental management. Education, training, and local employment are a field directly tied to our island's survival. Finally, AEM will enable the Department of Water to work more effectively with commissioned, sea worm, commissioned re water resource management, University of Hawaii, and u USGS to create a truly adaptive science based water plan for Maui with high quality AEM and well data.

The county can better estimate real sustainable yields in each aquifer, decide where it is most responsible to drill for new water supply, support informed land based decisions about where it is safest and most sustainable to build affordable and workforce housing. In short, this one addition to the FY twenty twenty seven budget funding, AEM imaging, and the associated modeling and analysis would cost less than 4,000,000 and give Maui the information we need to manage our water, our housing, and our future responsibly. Compared to the cost of a single misplaced well

Can you please wrap up?

Or an uninformed infrastructure decision, this is a modest investment with outsized returns. I respectfully ask that you include this investment in the final budget for the Department of Water Supply. Mahalo.

Thank you for your testimony. Member Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Anderson, for your testimony. I'm glad you printed it out for all of us to read. One paragraph you mentioned was the county working with Sea Worm. Have you guys and I assume you're representing Maui tomorrow have you guys reached out to the state or Seaworm about AEM?

I believe they have. I was not in that meeting. It it's actually we call this project AEM. So it'd be a it's kind of a partnership with us, Seaworm, USGS, and we would have two University of Hawaii post grads working full time to do the modeling and mapping. This technology hovers over the aquifers. By the way, this is island wide. All the aquifers, not just one or two. So we would have the data, and it's a one time operating costs of these analysts that do these modeling and mapping.

Yeah. I just wanted to double check that you guys have reached out to the state sea worm guys. This was in my committee. I totally support this. We'll you know, and I wanna keep moving forward on it. It's just partnering with sea worm. I'd I'd you know, I'd like to hear if you guys have done that or spoken with them.

I I can get back with you on that, but I'm pretty sure they have. And I also have a relationship with sea worm, too. Great.

Right. Thanks for your testimony.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Member Johnson. Member Cook. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. So do you know if any

of the other islands have utilized this yet?

They have not, but Kauai is also wanting to move forward with this along with us. And by doing the whole island, we are saving money by the mobilization cost. If we do it piecemeal, costs us more each time we bring the heavy helicopter and that heavy AEM tool to hover over the different aquifers. So there is cost savings in doing it all at once.

Thank you very much for

your efforts and your testimony.

Thank you.

Thank you, Member.

And I know this had a lot to do with police work too. So

thank you.

Any other members have any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, staff, can you please call up the next testifier?

The next individual signed up to testify is Travis Liggett to be followed Kaola Mel Tengon.

Good morning, chair and council members. Thank you for investing your time in these hearings. I really appreciate it. I wish Chair Issuji Muru were here. I just want to commend her for her grace, in handling that, passionate testifier.

That was a class act. Even if I sometimes disagree with her, that's what I like to see. And, you know, the testifier write it up into actionable solutions to your concerns, and I'm sure they'll listen. But here, I'm talking you know, it's so neat that the police commissioner is here today because my testimony is, again, about accelerating wastewater disinfection in Kahului. And I just want to be heard out on this, that crime may have systemic contributions.

What I've learned through personally experiencing this is that infections can affect directly the function of the nervous system. That can present very easily as something like mental illness, or it can drive things like addiction processes. And that it's just been like uncovering a whole world to delve into this because I almost passed away from an infection. I'm three treatments into IVIG, so hear me out. UV disinfection is like a Ghostbusters machine.

Light bulbs in a tube that you pass your water through, and then people don't get infections. What did people used to think infections were? Spirits. That metaphor still has a lot of legs because it has effectively zero mass. It can take over mind, body, soul, family, community. And here's an interesting word. The medical word for a hidden infection is in fact occult. So we see these videos of these homeless people and, you know, they're like, Oh, mental illness. But there's maybe something behind it, which is that disinfection was actually seized illegally at the Kahului facility. And so, I placed testimony. If you want

to

investigate crimes that may actually reduce crime rates, look at the behavior that I've shared in my testimony because it's actually quite scary because in 2018 it effectively went from treated to not with respect to disinfection. And there's no evidence that any sitting council members, including Tasha Kama, who took office a few days later, were ever informed, at least in writing, that's discoverable. Don't think that sits well if you're out enforcing on people that may actually have infections from a legal action by the county and no elected officials were informed. So I just encourage you to look at the systemic level, past 1,800,000 to accelerate the design work at Kahului. And if you're brave, see if crime rates went up around December 2018.

That might be like something you could statistically look at because some of these infections I read about it they may actually just decrease cognitive function by 15%. They may just make you 15% more irritable, or maybe more checked out. And you may never know you have infection. You just went swimming at the beach. So it's just, you know, forty two years, ten years at NASA, Sandy National Lab researcher. It's called sanitation. It's not that hard. And maybe if you rename it the sanitation department and not the reclamation department, people understand the job. And by the way, they're not reclaiming it either. I hope you understand

Can you please wrap

this isn't

roadsterious stuff, and it's a trim tab. Just cut the disease off at the source. Thank you for all your hard work

and keeping us safe. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Members, any questions for the testifier? Seeing

none, can you please the next testifier? Thank you, vice chair. The next testifier and last last individual currently signed up is Keola Meltingan.

Aloha, one and all, vice Chair, County Council members. I just wanted to say mahalo for holding this open forum for us to be able to come forward from community to converse and communicate things that are happening on our Ina. I want to first and foremost just thank the county overall for the support that Kahya has received. I'm testifying today as executive director of the nonprofit organization Kahya and testifying on behalf of really supporting our involvement in the upcoming budget. I want to give you just sort of an overview of what we've seen in 2025 to give a little bit more context for 2026 and moving into the next fiscal year.

Last year was jamming. I mean, we definitely were able to do a lot in terms of service, from expanding our services to include a farmer's market and creating a space for our community to gather, having over 5,000 participants overall between all the different programs on average who usually has about 1,200 to 1,800 on an annual basis. So, we saw almost a 250% increase in terms of those that we're able to support. Did a lot in terms of being able to really kokua with schools, doing a lot in terms for Kua Kai with over 40 schools that were served. Even hosting over the summertime a native Hawaiian storytelling project on Aina.

In terms of restoration, we really kicked things into gear with our fire mitigation. In the past two years, we've had fires out at River Mouth, and so we really wanted to get ahead of and the S. Saw a stark decrease of instances U. Down on Kairo down at Nehi Point as well. And so, we've really been working hard, which says a lot because we are a very lean team.

Now, having just a more solid base moving into this year, going through the effects of most marine debris I have seen ever. And so we've started the process of cleaning, but it is a job that is way more than our small team of three can handle. So as we look at the next fiscal year, we're asking for $500,000 to be able to grow our team because we are stretched not just thinly, we're stretched beyond what we're capable of. And it's my intention to increase the capacity to be able to match the level of service that we are providing to our community from food distribution and to restoration to a cultural resource to the outdoors classroom and much, much more. And so I mahalo the county council for your support, Chair Lee's office really helping in getting us on as a perviso line item, think the that's

very And for the testifier? Seeing none. Staff, is

there anybody else wishing to testify? No, chair. That's all the individuals signed up to testify. Would you like me to do a last call? Not yet. I do see one individual approaching the podium.

Thank you, Jared. You.

You have three minutes. Put

my bat watch on. You go ahead, Andy. Thank you, It's JC Long from Kula'uka, Wako. You, How do you say? Luna Ho'omolu Batangan for inviting the chief and the deputy chief and all the, the the Maui five o crew And the the Hawaiian word for policeman is maka e.

They used to have it on the front of the police station, but I don't the sign, I don't know why they took it off. I won't scrutinize the amount of money. This is one of the larger departments because I think it'll be give me more and more than I need right now. I'm pretty sure some of the council members are gonna ask some of the hard questions, especially about The United States leadership. And I I I think I'm on safe ground when I hope that someone I'd suggest that someone asks about your recycling and trash removal there at the police station.

And side note, the meals at the at the jail could probably improve a little bit. So if you guys are throwing away anything, maybe you can recycle some of that back to the jail. Mister Rutonga, I'd like to speak about a sensitive issue with the chief. I don't know how many of the people in this room here were accused of something before, but it really it really sucks a lot to be accused of something, and then you don't get to you don't really get to defend yourself to the people that are accusing. And, yeah, I won't mention any names up there in Kula.

I read an article a little bit about the that little amount of nasty business that happened last year, and I read that mayor Bisson said that he won't apologize. And he I think he's watched too many John Wayne movies because and one of the movies something stuck in my head that John Wayne said and when John Wayne is his character, one of those guys, he said, don't apologize, boy. It's a sign of weakness. So, yeah, we need a strong mare. So but I will apologize. I will I will say I'm sorry for that that you had to go through that chief because I know what it's like. And that's all I I saved the rest of my time for the Hawaiian peoples.

Thank you for that testimony. Members, any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, staff, is there anybody else wishing to testify at this time?

No, chair. Not at this time. Would you like me to do a last call? Yes, please. This is the last call for oral testimony. Please come up to the podium or raise your hand on teams if you would like to testify. The countdown is three, two, one. Seeing none, chair, no one has indicated that they wish to testify. Thank you.

Members, if there are no objections, I'd like to close public testimony at this time. We can still receive written testimony. Thank you very much. Okay. So we can now entertain comments and questions from the members. I'm gonna propose two rounds of questions with three minutes for the first round. We can evaluate how we are on time after that. Member Palton, since your drip committee has oversight jurisdiction for the police I I think

question.

That's

as he that's said. If I got the answer or if it's taking too long, I might move on. Not meaning to be rude. Okay. I got the response that the fiscal year '25 ACFR was $5,004,736.10. Do you have that broken down in how much was in category a and how much was in category b c? Sounds great. Thanks. The next oh. Okay.

Mike, for those online. The next question I have, maybe you can start getting ready. In one of your answers to PD one, it says you have 106 sworn vacancies, but 25 of them are filled and unfunded. Could you provide that to us in writing, which 25 position IDs are filled but unfunded? The other question I had was, the vacancy list, I counted 78 vacancies and 13 in expansion.

So that's, like, 91 vacancies. But there's says 53 civilian, 21 non civilian, a 106 sworn vacancies. So it doesn't add up to the entire amount of vacancies. On April 9, we received from personnel their list of inactive vacancies. And I counted 49 inactive vacancies that weren't on your vacancy list that are scheduled to be fully funded for fiscal year twenty seven.

So my understanding of inactive vacancies is they're not posted for recruitment even though the position is created. And so, like, the first one is P26270 on budget details 2014 for a 130 oh, I'm sorry. For a large amount. But there's no recruitment going on for it. It's a inactive vacancy, but you're requesting full funding.

So the numbers and the details are not adding up. I was wondering if you could provide a full list of vacancies, which ones are filled and unfunded, which ones are active, which ones are inactive, which ones are civilian and non civilian. And maybe explain why we're asking for twelve months of funding for an inactive vacancy. Or even, on the answers to question three c, I can understand possibly requesting nine months of funding for a position that's currently in recruitment, but there's positions that haven't been created yet that we're asking for twelve months of funding for. So just trying to get a handle on the data.

Thank you. Thank you, chair. I know the timer sounded so

I will be quick. For the A budget, was $3,627,000.03 0. For the B budget, it was, 1,377,706. And I'll let police answer more and also, obviously, I think a lot of that will have to be in writing. But I will just add because I had a conversation with the department earlier today. Those filled unfunded positions, it's similar to what the fire department does where they have sort of a holding position that they can fill until they get people through training. That's why they're filled but unfunded. Thank you.

I I be do And

we're

I wanna say, if we don't do the holding with the numbers and we're actually talking about how many opens positions we have for PO ones to come in, we're we're like at 11 or like 17. It's not that many. Could you give me that number? Am I kind of in the right ballpark? So so so if you think about we can all do math. Then when I was a new parent, they did new math. And I asked where do you carry the one? And I didn't know where to carry the one. I got yelled at because I can't carry the one because you're supposed to pull it apart. And so some of what you asked me is a little bit of new math.

But I will say this. Because the way DPS works, and if you noticed in like my answer kinda like, I'd love to do a pilot program at some point and maybe pull out of that. But at some point, I can't hire people because we move quicker than the rest of the system works. And if we don't do this, then we're behind the the ballpark totally. And so if we're talking 3,000,000 that we're giving back its salaries, and I know that 3,000,000 is a lot, don't get me But it's also showing that we did a really good job managing the overtime, the cost, because if we don't have some of these things filled, we have to use some of the overtime in order to make that happen.

And there is a level of police service and a level of public safety that the public does expect. And we've had to manage that because prior to the group, the leadership group here, there wasn't a strategic plan, there wasn't a recruiting plan. And so, we went from 28% vacancy to 18% total commission or 11% if we're talking about the recruit positions. And so, that's huge. And I do want to mention really quick, our recruiting team has now been asked to go to two different county police departments to teacher coach mentor them as to why we're successful here in the state. So it means we're doing something right. But there are a lot of barriers to your point, and we gotta cut through that tape.

Just I think this might be a follow-up question for the budget director unless you guys know. If it's an inactive vacancy or a vacancy, do we still provide the full fringe amount? If it's especially if it's inactive.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Palton. Yes, I believe we calculate the full fringe amount on all of the salaries and wages section of the budget.

All vacancies? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Palton. Oh, yeah. There was a lot to her question, and I know the department responded to some of it, but not all of it. Can I confirm that staff has what they need to transmit in writing of the to get the rest of her answers? Thank you very much. Alright. Member Johnson. Oh, sorry. Before we move on, I did forget to read from my notes. The the department did provide responses to our questions.

Their initial letter and response PD one is item 42 in granicus. And then the department questions but not answers PD two is item 90. From I think

questions printed off of. That's where I got my

Oh, we did receive the answers. Okay. So then my notes must have been printed prior. Thank you very much, Member Palatin. Okay. With that, Member

Johnson Item 90. Granicus Item 90. PD-two.

Thank you. Member Rollins Fernandez. Member Johnson?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chief and the Department for joining us today. I know you guys are busy and we're it's just important that you're here, so thank you. Your opening remarks, chief, I'm I'm not gonna I'm I really like a straight shooter when you come when you come before us and you're a straight shooter, I really appreciate your honesty. Now sometimes I don't always agree that's that's life. Right? You said funding the police is you know, you were talking about equipment. In my mind, there's so much more than just the equipment when we come to funding our departments. I mean, like training. I mean, like, the bodies, the number of people we have in the seats, community policing, livable wages.

Those are things in my mind that it's a yes and. I'm sure the radios and some of the equipment are so important, but so is the training, so is the wages. And that brings me to my question. I want to talk about the recruitment incentive offered by MPD for one? Has it been effective? That's really what I want to hear from you.

You know, I I think we agree on a lot more than than people give credit for. Think I think we all do, you know, and if I if I made it seem like it was just the equipment, that's not what I intended. It's it's the whole public safety package, which is look. Everybody's gonna come in in front of you guys, and they're gonna say that there's the most important. I totally get it. If you don't have us or fire, you don't have anything. So public safety, it really is training the men and women doing the job. The $30,000, the recruiting incentive, the incentive for the dispatchers, it's been huge because we have to stay competitive. I've been telling folks, and I don't know how this happened, and I think that this is really something we got

to look

at. Santa Clara, not San Francisco PD, Santa Clara. It's a it's a mid sized agency. They are paying their dispatchers a $161,000.

You brought that point up last time.

And and well, the reason I'm bringing it up because I have people not believe me. Yeah. And then they said, oh, I can't find it, and I sent it to him. And so I know right now there are two people that the recruiting team and myself myself personally tried to recruit. Lieutenant in the back, he knows who some of these folks are.

They're going to North Las Vegas PD, not not where I came from, it's a sister agency, because they're paying 40,000 a year. We pay 30, thanks to the leadership of of council member Paulson who wanted to make sure that we were more than HPD with their 25. And so the reason I'm saying that is, it does matter because they are literally packing up and moving for an extra $10. And that that's telling us things. And so when we're talking to these folks, and believe me, the other counties are doing this too now. And it's huge, you're trying to get these folks here because it's an investment, right? The beauty is we've been able to do it by with the funding that we have.

Okay, chief. I'm on three So, I I hear you. Can I go on the next one? The next one is about the recruitment center. I'm curious of what the total costs are for the recruitment center, the rent, the lease, utilities, and are we getting recruits out of that recruitment center?

We use it every day. It's $3,000 a month. It's that times 12. It's paid itself in dividends. The county's also used it as well. And the total annual cost is $53,000 and change. And you think it's worth it? Absolutely. No doubt. No doubt because we use it every day and there's people in there every day because they can go and do the training for the test prep. We do test prep Tuesdays and we do workout Wednesdays and they we do the testing in there and it gives them Tuesdays? Not Taco Tuesdays, test prep Tuesdays. You know, if you feel like that might work, we can ask for more.

You go. Bring it out. Alright. Thanks so much, chief. Thank you, chair.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you, member Johnson. Council member Rollins Fernandez.

Mahalo, chair. May I suggest test and taco Tuesdays? Okay. My questions are regarding, my priorities for FY '26. So one of my first priorities, was a 100,000 for the Molokai Cottages, which I see is, has been reduced in FY twenty seven.

And I'm really excited for Hana that there's, 3,000,000 slated for the police cottages in Hana, but none for Molokai. Could you share some of your thought process behind, that if the funding for the Molokai Cottages was used, if there's plans in the future for the Molokai Cottages?

Councilmember Roland Fernandez, answer that. I don't know if you've seen the Hana Cottages, but they're in very bad shape. And they take precedence over anything. Mean, it's actually become a live

You support it. I don't not support it. But I also am advocating for Molokai's cottages. I know they're livable, but Yeah. They're not in that great condition.

Yeah. So our our priority would be Hana, of course, but Molokai and Lanai do also need improvements. We also recognize that they do need improvements, and we do want to put money into those to

I put $100,000 for Molokai last year, this FY 'twenty six. Yeah,

we're working on that right now with the $100,000 put in the Okay.

Was that encumbered? Yeah. Okay. And that's gonna move forward and then maybe FY '28 or something?

Oh, before that, I believe.

Oh, okay. Because we're in FY '27 and Yeah. No more money from Molokai.

Well, no. I think we we already did the

We're working on it now. We could probably add more for FY '28.

Yeah. Yeah.

Great. Thank you. Okay. My next, Molokai, priority is something that chief comes over for every year is the Molokai youth leadership program, and that was a priority I put in for 30,000 to support our recruits, so that we can continue especially on Molokai, like to have our Molokai people be our officers.

A 100%. We we love it. It's a great event. It's it's been one of the flagship events that we do for the youth period.

Is there funding for it?

Because

I see it was reduced. But if if there's gonna

be It shouldn't have been reduced. And if it was, then somebody should put that back. Yes. You know? Absolutely. You know? No. Yeah. A 100%. It it matters so much to those folks, and we get people going back, and that's a home run.

Okay. My next question Well, I think you're looking for that. If you need the page number, I can get it for you. Sorry. Okay. The new police station, I I see that on the cover page of the CIP section that it does have a CBS number. That's really exciting. CBS five five three six. I do see it's slated for FY twenty eight, and I believe that's 45,000,000. And at the same time, an upcountry quarter able 20 to

Molokai the is a conversion of the existing armory and some of the infrastructure for that's already been done, where we've got to do all new stuff at the upcountry.

Because I thought we were going to build a new station.

We were, but then we were told that, that deal was dead in the water that they weren't going to move forward. We actually asked to break off from the county to purchase the parcels by ourselves. And they told us absolutely not, they wouldn't let us do it. So then we were okay, we get nothing or we can build this. And if we build this and at

to And

facility And and we could build a really, really great police station. But if I didn't spend the money, we would lose the money. And so we were like, okay, what do we do?

Do we have a lease for the armory?

We they have some hurdles they have to jump through because it's National Guard. There's an existing model that's already being done at HPD. On Oahu? Yes. Yes, yes. By Diamond Head.

Yes. Okay. I heard the timer. Okay.

You, Member Rollins Fernandez. Member Palton, these kind of policy changes feel like something that we should be looped in on before the budget cycle. Can I ask that you consider taking it up in your committee?

Sure, I can. Was there a county communication about the change or no?

There wasn't a county there wasn't a county communication about the initial change. So you're like, I we never what we had agreed to with the armory is what we had agreed to officially. The other thing came up as a hey, this might be able to happen. What occurred last summer was last summer mayor Bisson was over on Molokai. He said he didn't support the armory. I wasn't there. I wasn't consulted about that. And then I was told that that wasn't gonna happen and then all of a sudden that fell through. But I I didn't know about that. So we decided that we would still go through with the first plan since the other thing fell through.

So if all of a sudden we couldn't buy the parcels of land and here's what was what we were always worried about was now nobody's got nothing. And I'm sick of the cops not having anything in the community gets nothing and they get bent because nobody's I got she's fighting for them and we're fighting for them and then there's nobody else in between. So we didn't want the music to stop and nobody got a chair. So

So that's the way I would know to have it is if there is a Communication.

But since it didn't happen, there was no chair.

Yeah.

I guess I I should apologize first. I didn't mean to just add something to your list of legislation. I should have requested put it as a request. But I I I would like to ask that it'd be something that the council can consider.

Yeah.

If the department's willing to transmit something to that effect so that we can add it to one of our agendas. I

If there's things you want me to know, just email me or whatever

you,

Chair. Aloha to all of you. Great having you here and the progress. Policing isn't expensive, but it's important. In my community, I hear about it a lot.

One, an improvement. And going able that. Do And One of the things that I am concerned about and I see a lot, I can say Kalama Park, is drug dealing. So I'm asking and hoping that possibly I don't know if you could have the undercover beach crew, the guy and his dog and his jams and a surf shirt cruising around. But I see people that I assume are dealing drugs because they're sitting in the same place every day, pretty much doing nothing.

And I did see a guy one day, he kinda like holds up his hand like that and then a Tacoma pulls up behind me. And high school told a friend of mine that be careful with your kids going to Kalama Park because there's a rampant drug dealing and you can get pretty much any drug you want. It is cleaned up now that we have night time security, but it's still an event. So I'm asking for my district to put those dogs in use. I assume that they're for drug sniffing, explosives, as well as non deadly and letting people know just cooperate?

So

the dogs are they're all the patrol are dual purpose. So they're either narco or explosive. You don't do both because then you don't know what you've got. We're going to have firearms coming with the next ones that come here in the fall, the next two that come. And we will absolutely put some more enforcement, but that's also part of the real time op center. What's great about that is we can actually put the cameras in there. We can see this occurring in real time. It's a phenomenal

assist for the officers. I think that'll help tremendously. Yeah, we really need that. So I just people are asking for and grateful for security and oversight for their children and people going to the park. Just thanks for what's happening. It has improved.

May I will you just indulge me really quick? So the council understands the gravity of this. We have record number record number of cocaine seizures in Maui County last year, more than all the counties combined. Pounds, pounds of fentanyl coming in. So we want to sit here and pretend that something's not really happening because I got, you know, some people misusing a word that means indivisible. Then they want to create a false narrative. We're combating narco terrorism. We're combating violent crime. And those people back there are

the ones doing it. Thank you, chief. Thank you, chair. Time's up. Thank you, member Cook. I can't see if member Uou Hodgins is on. Staff, can you let me know if she is she, available for her turn?

Here. Okay.

Member O'Hodgins.

Can you hear me? I'm here.

Yes. We can. You have three minutes.

Thank you. Is it okay if I leave my camera off as, you know, this is the police department. I'm pretty sure they would give me a ticket if my video was on. So

Staff is nodding yes. You can't see them, but they're saying yes.

Okay. Great.

Thank you. So happy thank you so much for all that you guys do for our community and thank you for being with us today. I did look through your folks budget obviously and we saw a couple of things for repairs and maintenance both to Waduco Station to and use those funds. How are you guys doing in the permitting system? And if so, do you think they're gonna be permitted and constructed and done within this fiscal year?

Chief, did you get that question? Because her audio was in and out. I didn't quite catch it. I didn't. If

you were asking about the stations, I think that's what you meant, but if it wasn't, we didn't hear.

Okay. Can you hear me better now, maybe?

Yes.

Okay. So, yeah, you guys have a lot of money in repairs and maintenance, which happy to support. But how are you guys permitting? Are you ready to use those funds for repairs and maintenance? I see some for the Guadalupe Station was a carryover of some of your funds.

To

we're able do do that. And For instance, the 16,000,000 we're for

the radio, we're

going only to going to ask for 600,000 on that, but we would be ready for what we ask for to use on the CIP.

Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Chief, thank you so much for always answering my calls. Anytime we have some weird stuff usually happening in my community, usually in haiku, we had the haiku creeper. We had the SKB that was in Haiku. So what in the budget can help you folks prevent that or, you know, help stop them quicker?

So councilmember, you're welcome. You're supposed to keep some of that between us because then I got all these other folks know that we're going to prom too. Know? And so I need I need all of them. Right? But, you know, you're all my favorites. You know? But, no, it I think that's a great question. And so I think what we need to do, and here's the here's the best answer I'll give you. Let's have a real discussion about what the real problems are.

Let's really do that. Let's really talk about making sentences tougher. And you know, let's let's really not have where we just arrest somebody, put all this work in to have nothing happen on the back end. If we really wanted to and that's why I made the joke about the traffic at the four way, because there is no there's no repercussions for these things. And so we're seeing it's a revolving door. And that's frustrating for every single person here. We've got so many repeat offenders that are constantly doing this. And what we really are desirous of doing is solving and preventing this violent crime. We are trying we are reactive for the most part. Police, you call us after the problem.

We have and here's when you guys cut the the budgets and and the overtime and we don't have the guys out there or the guiles out there, that means my captains that are right there, they can't deploy their guys proactively. Proactively means they're actually hunting, looking for the bad guys. And that's what we need to do. So the more that we can do that, the more successful we're gonna be. Real time op center helps with that, my vice helps with that, narcotic investigations helps with that. It's all connected. But we can have a more robust discussion on it at any time you want.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Uuhajins. Before moving on to Member Senensi, I'd like to recognize committee chair Yukilei Sugimura.

Apologies for being so late. The truth is I thought I was leaving sorry, Keanee. This is about mokulele. I thought I was going to be leaving at seven in the morning so I woke up 05:00 or 06:00. Went to the airport. The reservation was cancelled. I didn't even exist. I had to Welcome to my life. Oh my god. And then there's a whole another part of the story. That's my long story for why I had to go home, get ready, so at least I could be presentable to the chief.

They're going prom two.

Oh, yay. I'm your favorite. Oh.

Oh, yay. Good stuff.

And for the record, I was previously scheduled to be presiding over to this meeting. It wasn't because of Mokulele. Yeah. I thank you, chair, for providing me the opportunity to practice, presiding over these council, these committee meetings. I really appreciate Thank

you.

Okay. Next up, we have, Member Senanci.

Hello, Chair, and apologies for the hot mic earlier. And mahalo, Chief, Assistant Chief, and Police Department. The council members got to meet Lieutenant Buenacoursy in Hana last Monday. So, it was nice for the police department to be present at our budget hearing in at the Helene Hall. Again, main question would be the request from the community for an additional officer in Hana.

I wasn't sure if that was feasible. We always get like, hey, we don't have the population numbers to justify an additional police officer. However, we do get substantial visitors that kind of take on a lot of our emergency resources in East Maui. I wasn't sure if that was a possibility of Senancy adding an additional officer. Know

Clarify they wanted a community resource one, right? Not just a police officer.

Correct. And oftentimes, when there's calls out in either Keanai or out in Kaupo, and if two officers are going in different directions, there's the person back at the station was probably on call or is off duty with a radio just in case anything happens in Hana Town. But having just a set number of police officers also increases our overtime at the Hana station. So I was just curious if this was something that the department was open to.

Thanks for the question, Council Member Senanci. The answer is no. No, I'm just kidding. Police department, we will look into it and it all depends on our manpower. So we do a study in all the districts with the crime rates and the availability of the manpower and we make the determination in there. By all means, if we can get you that CPO and we can if it's feasible, we will do it, especially since we're getting the recruitment numbers coming up. Thank you.

Okay. Yes. And I thank you, assistant chief. And I do get a lot of requests, to, to join the police department. So I'll be sending sending you guys some new recruits, hopefully.

I

said thank you so much. We'll take it, and, we'll see if we couldn't get you too. $30,000 a year signing bonus. Bonus.

Thank you. Thanks, chair. Thank you, member Senensi. Council chair Alice Lee.

Thank you, chair. Chief Pelletier, I am replacing you as my my date going forward. Can you hear me? And, you can go bold with somebody else. Deputy, are you free? Okay. Chief chief, you know, our main complaint is Wailukotown, Market Street, Pihana. Do we have anything new to report to our community? Anything? Any progress?

Thank you for the question. I don't I don't know if you guys have seen recently, but we've been having the officers do, shifts walking through Hualuku Town. We have two at a time during the busy parts of the evening. We think it's been helping to curb crime, but you guys are the ones that can two weeks as well and see. But so far, it's been pretty successful in the areas of Market Street, Vineyard, those high traffic areas that we've been seeing less crime since

Okay. Thank you, Debbie. Appreciate that. I'm happy to hear of the progress. Do you work closely with the homeless coordinator in the mayor's office? I think that would be very helpful if there was some kind of coordinated effort.

I personally don't, but we have a group that does. That's their specialty, our core division.

Okay. Yeah. And what about PE HANA?

PE HANA, we're working with the well, I oh, I think you're in the that threat, but we are working with the counterparts as well as the fire department, public works to try to clean that area up as well.

Are the cameras working?

Are helpful? The cameras are working, but

the

thing is nobody monitors them all the time, right? We have to go back after the crime and try to see. And the chief pointed out too, it's not our cameras.

Okay. Well, if there's anything we can do I can do in the budget, please let me know. We're here to help you and however we can do that, we certainly want to do that. So thank you, deputy. Thank you, chief, and the whole department. Appreciate all that you do. Thank you. I have no more questions.

Thank you, chair. Committee chair Yuki Lei Sugimura.

One of my favorite departments. Thank you. That's that's

thing. Thing.

Opportunity to be great

16 with the Owen County that wasn't because we held them to the fire. We're trying to do some more. But then again, that's also part of the issue is we're moving faster than DPS will move. And so we've got to kind of figure that out. And do going

to to

next question. I the about to And we're just going to continue to drive that point next home. And we'll discuss the possibility of the paramedic and the AMR contracts with those folks because for the for the council, this is a really important part actually. They when they when they put AMR here, they paid the department for six dispatchers and supervisor, which was never filled. You're like a dozen years ago, they did this.

So they said, here's your 160 something thousand because it's a base salary for six dispatchers and supervisor never filled, but here you go. And in that, we dispatched them. The problem is it was never filled. But conversation of what's the best thing because the dispatcher should be making the monies, not just having this go on the cheap for them because they're it's a profit company, too. True. Thank you for your help.

Yeah. So I hope that we can solve that. That's a whole new problem. I hope we can work together on that. It's a state issue with Department of Health. And I've been in touch with them.

Yeah, we will. We'll make it work.

Okay. Appreciate that you're putting in their retention, the dispatchers.

Well, no, thanks for the council is so generous getting us that retention and helping us stay competitive. So it really matters. That's the point is at some point we'd like to convert that to being pensionable, but that's part of the process.

Exactly why we're fighting for it, right?

Amen. Yeah.

So appreciate that. What about your cars for your this is another retention thing. So the cars for your police officers, how are we and how can we move that forward? So, you

know, we asked for more subsidized cars and some of that got cut and then, you know, we got 10 replacement cars that got cut out of the budget. And so I I would just say, you guys look at that, you know, we're not asking for car we have bad guys ramming our police cars. I mean, we we just had this happen a week ago in Kihei. And so they total a car. If do of equation.

Do

I that's point. Point. Do wanna ask think if it's a departmental good priority because And I didn't see it in this year's budget. And so I'm trying to figure out if it's something that I should be pushing for on my end or if it's something that you guys, asked or or said it doesn't need to be included.

My understanding is that we procured it, but let me let me just say this. When we ask for these things, it's it's not like we we just pull this out. You know, one of the things cut is transport van. A morgue transport van. And so, it's cut.

And the reason I'm saying that is, so we have our loved ones, because AMR doesn't transport people that are deceased. They drop them off at the police station where they might wait for hours. And if we've got our contracted services and they're busy picking up in Hana or wherever, we've got nothing. And so we're asking for decency for us to be able to go pick up our loved ones and not have them baking out in the sun. And so, the reason I'm saying that is, I have to say it like that because nobody's, you know, nobody else is saying it.

And so, for the core, for the van, for the canines, we're making these ass because we need these. These cans keep getting kicked down the road, and then everybody suffers, and we sit here and go, oh, gee, how'd that happen? Because we came up and we begged for this stuff years ago, and then somebody decides with a stroke of a pen to just get rid of it, and nobody asked any of those things. And so we're not asking for anything other than necessary police items, and it is important.

Okay. And but in relation to

the four by four, you guys are in the process of procuring? My understanding is they're telling me that we've got that and then we're in the process of procuring and if that is different, we'll get that over to you ASAP. Can

I just ask that you follow-up in writing

to confirm? You will have it in writing.

Perfect. Thank you very much. Yes. My office will probably follow-up with you guys on that ban. Can I ask if it's possible to do in Kahului what you mentioned you were doing in Guayeluku with member or council chair Lee?

We one of the big requests that or complaints that my office gets is, because of the Kapalui Transit hub. There's an increase to do to to And so, And doing

we're we're to And these funded positions and we don't have that, all that stuff goes away. So the answer is yes, but realize how I'm trying to

do it, too. Understood. Thank you very much, questions for the department. By show of hands, can I get a sense of who has second round questions? Okay. So that's almost everybody. If we do another three minutes, that's roughly half an hour and would take us about 03:00. Are you guys comfortable with a two minute second round? I see nodded heads. Anybody disagree with that proposal? Okay. So let's do a two minute, second round. I will again begin with member Palton.

Thank you. I just was wondering. It says helicopter pilots are currently on call from dusk till dawn,

but

it also says that, Windward Aviation is currently undergoing training for night flight. So question is why are we on call from dusk to dyneth? They're still undergoing training for night flight. And second question is if you can explain a little bit about the pilot program to conduct your own hiring process separate from the county. Those are my two questions.

No way I can answer the second one in two minutes. That's a whole another conversation.

I only have two minutes. You have however much.

Oh. Oh, perfect. Alright. So some of the pilots have the night flight capability. Some of them don't. It's newer for them. It's the synthetic vision. We've got the equipment. We're working through it. And so it's it's a process in place. You know, if there's an emergency or something really bad, can we do it? Yes. But that's a case by case bail with the conversation with assistant chief Tom, team leader Gantala, the deputy, myself, as as well as sometimes. As well yeah. Yeah. So on that. K. Recruitment. And then okay. So here's Cherley's you wanna go bold?

You know, like, you had me in hello. Let's do a let's do a pilot program where let me break away from DPS for five years. Let me break away completely from DPS for five years and see how effective I am. That means totally break off. Let me negotiate the contracts. Let me do all that stuff. Let me do all the recruiting. Let me do the SRs. Let me let me increase my my staff and add services. And the reason I'm saying that is we can do a better job, we can go faster. And I'm sick of asking for basic permission for somebody to read a paragraph to tell me somebody's either working or not. And if we're not successful, hey, we can go back. But if we are, then maybe we just save the county hundreds of millions moving forward.

Is that allowed under h r s or

Well, we can we can rewrite the law with that way too. There's a lot we can do. So go big or go home.

Might as well let everyone break away in that case. Can. I heard the bell.

Thank you, member Palton. Member Johnson.

Thank you, chair. I'm gonna, kinda focus on the rising cost of professional services. That was one of my questions, and I saw that you didn't respond to it. And basically, I'll let you respond to it now, but I only have two minutes. I'm just gonna add on to do do you shop around for professional do that.

To And And

we're

out to bid. So they're going the winning bid. Like Carrie Kapoy, our psychologists and so forth. Those are the rising costs of the professional services. I would love for them to have a flat rate the rest of their life. But the the it is rising cost with with of course the cost

of living and the end competitiveness. So we have to pay those costs. You you don't have to convince me on the importance of making your officers well. I get it. Like, I'm here for it. But it's just that I keep seeing the rising in costs and I I wanted to find out if you guys are able to shop around. Sounds like you did do a bidding process and that's just the way

the price of business is. Yeah. None of these contracts are under 25,000, so they all have to go out for a bidding process. And then, of course, if we do the IFB, the lowest bidder always wins, right?

Thanks for your response. No more questions. Thank you, Chair. You, Member Johnson. Member Rollins Fernandez.

Mahalo, Chair. Okay. Let's see. I want I wanted to follow-up on the Molokai youth leadership program. And I understand now that, council members' priorities are generally deleted from the department, in the new fiscal year unless the department requests to keep them on.

And so the 30,000, for the Molokai youth leadership program was, in fact, deleted. And you all came to Molokai, and you heard how many, people wanna be one of the priorities that we, only have two for. So that's on page six seventy two of the program budget, 20 dash 10 in the budget details. So, yeah, I guess I'm gonna have to figure out how to get that back in if it's something that you're supportive of.

We're a 100% supportive. Actually, that that's news to us. We were on the assumption that it kinda was a institutional rollover. It should be. Are you kidding me? Like, those those kids, they look forward all year for that. So, you know, that needs to happen. We can get creative with some different things, but that's really there's no excuse. Mean, our kids are most precious resource.

They're so cute and excited about that program.

For

the professional services, let's see. So, back a few years ago before you were chief, one of my priorities was creating a position for an on staff psychologist. And so it looks like psychologist two, and it was removed in f y twenty four. And then preemployment, psych evaluation, leadership develop Guardian Alliance psychologist. I I might be saying it wrong, but it looks like there's, like, a professional services psychologist's, work, under the professional services.

Since the psychologist two position was removed in FY twenty four, was that, like, not working out for the department?

It is a great question. Very insightful. I remember coming here going, what the heck is this for? Am I good still because that bell went? Okay.

So it was I wanna say it was, like, 80 something thousand dollars, which is way less than a psychologist would make during the year. And so there'd be like, it would have to be their full time job. And so no psychologist wouldn't take that for just $80,000 That being said, they couldn't treat our employees on a day by day thing, and then also do our psych tests and some different things, because there is a conflict from that, as well as the wellness for duties, the different things that'll come up from officer involved shootings. So because of that, we kinda had to decontract out. And if I may, and this everybody's gonna appreciate this, the former psychologist that was doing the psych evals for dispatchers, I'll use this one.

It's gonna make you so mad when you hear this. They actually said that all the dispatchers, owing that seventy five percent of all dispatch folks putting in were either unacceptable or failed. And going to we're be

And do

service. They operate on the Mainland, although they're also licensed here. Have deep roots here, and it costs a little bit more, but we get a better product for it. But then because of the events of the fire, the different things, the wellness, the psychologist that we have is going do do I

to And that. Be

we'll And next question. That, that we recognize, hey, we need to get them to talk to somebody or like a OIS type of thing. That's, hey, you need to talk to a doctor, a doctor needs to meet with you, and then we'll get you cleared. But the other stuff and what we are encouraging, and I know you all will appreciate this is that the wellness component that talking to folks that it's okay not to be okay. That stuff that we as a department are really pushing the holistic employee, we're be

good

to

do

you know, psychologists is still two minutes, remember Cook? No. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But mahalo for creating a healthier culture at the department to seek help or, you know, just wellness.

Really quick, super fast indulgent. When the deputy was the president of the FBI NA and Assistant Chief Madera, she's the second vice president as of tomorrow, because she'll host it. His whole conference he did last year, the whole theme was wellness. And we brought everybody from the state and all we talked about was wellness. And it was phenomenal.

Good job, chief. Member, before we move on to member coax, sorry. I was trying to get your attention for this. So I've lost connectivity, like, several dozen times at this point and have twice been booted from the meeting. Do you guys mind if we take a ten minute recess so I can try to get pretty established here? And I think it's been about an hour and a half and generally around the time we take a break anyway. Would you guys be open to a ten minute? Okay. So it is 02:37. Can I ask if we come that staff come assist with my docket up now?

Thank you. The time is now 02:49. Members, did I leave off on councilmember Cook? K. Alright. Councilmember Cook, you have I'm

if not not insurance work with the police department with the county Of Maui? Are we self sure insured or is there a policy go ahead. We're self insured Okay. To the So, you indicated that there's a couple of cuts in vehicles. Did they cut some of them, all of them, or what?

So, the Because we were asked to provide some of this list, in our, I'll let them get the page number specifically that we we put this in our response. But, you know, some of the vehicles that were cut that we feel are critical are the transport van and the ten one, and the half to two SUVs, two BMR that. Trucks. So that's our the BMRs are, hey, if we're gonna rebuild the stuff at Hana, these are the guys going out there to do it. So if we don't have the trucks to do it, you know, it's so it's like we we keep just cutting these and we didn't ask unless we we needed them.

Really, if we could at least look at that.

Okay. We'll review that. And then as far as for the I forgot the terminology, but the new department that you have for technology. Technology and support bureau? Yeah.

And that's in the key office. So, yeah, well, that's the real time crime the real time op center. The real time op center. And that's what we were talking about, the 1,700,000 as like one of the asks that we were making at the by beginning of this of

the statement. Yeah. I did have the opportunity with my aide to go on a tour of that and was like super impressed and encouraged because of the it just seemed a really appropriate oversight without invasiveness to be able to assist. And there again, this is using technology to not replace but to augment the human factor. So that and recording is a big factor.

I was just sharing that I know when people would call the Kalama Park or other areas and they would complain to me about, Well, the policeman didn't come, and I talk and then I would talk to them later. Say, the policeman came, but you weren't there. If you're going file a complaint, you have to stay put. They have to have somebody to get a complaint from. You know, you could take a picture and give it whatever. Anyway, so the technology aspect was cut. There, there, the, there is

some technology that was cut as far as the contracts. There was some GIS management services, some body worn camera certificates, some remote admin. That was 2,800,000 that was cut. And then our NCIC, our National Crime Information Center, and our NLITS, the computer license software, that was cut by 1,100,000. And so these are renewing licenses to run bad guys and kind of make the bad go away, and that was cut.

So when you re when you don't renew a license, is there a grace period or something? Or just the guy goes to the keyboard and it's like, and you don't It's have authority to do

a combination of the two, but the problem is you don't have the licenses. Just imagine this. NCIC this is what if, but we get cut out of that or which so the guy's got a warrant on the Mainland and we we don't get that information because we don't have that. But then you lose your certification and now it may take you a year to gain that back. So it just doesn't make any sense for us to be asking for these subscriptions, these licenses, and then these just to be cut. I get it, we're all trying to cut from places, but when you're cutting this, it doesn't really make

a lot of sense to me. Thank you. Thank you. I'll keep my time short. Thank you, Member Koch. Member O'Hajens.

Thank you, Chair. For essential purposes, I am now at home, and I do have one minor in the house with me. I wanted to ask about the grants that MPD receives, specifically the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice grant and the high intensity drug trafficking areas. How are those funds expended? What kind of benefits do we see? I know earlier, you said that you folks have pounds and pounds of cocaine and fentanyl. And so does that help? And if where does this money supplement, and where does it go? So,

as they're pulling up some of these numbers, and I'm stalling for time by answering it this way, but the high intensity drug trafficking, that is absolutely that comes from ONDCP, the Office of Drug and National Control Policy. That is huge for us because that really helps us build these federal right first we're

Jack Byrne grant. We're

going looking to for And enhanced cameras for our real time op center, we're in the process to see if we can get those. Those are that rotates between us and the prosecuting attorney, depending on the year.

Okay. Cool. When you said, you know, that you folks were able to seize all these drugs more than the other counties, is it because we have more, or you guys just caught it earlier? Or I mean, it's it's a scary thing to think about, like, pounds and pounds of illicit substances.

So I'll I'll I'll tell you something because I can tell I can say this. We've got pounds that literally have the stamp of the cartel when we recover them. So so what that means is it's coming directly from the cartel here. And so that means there's not a whole lot of people cutting this stuff out. It means it's coming directly here.

And the reason why we are successful in part is because the vice team that we have, the leadership of that vice team, the partnerships partnerships that that we've we've made, made, and and the the hard hard work. We put some of our absolute best officers. And this was a this was a thing that was not being filled because of the vacancies with patrol and things like that. And so we ended up filling it two years ago, deputy. We ended up filling it with a a couple years ago and that helped tremendously, but it's it's it's just very good work. It's very good proactive police work in spite of all the challenges that we have.

Thank you. I love to hear it. Thanks.

Thank you, Member Uuhajans. Member Senensi.

Follow chair. My follow-up question was we had this discussion about the JTTF agreement. And so, I was just curious if with the cancellation of the agreement, does that reflect it in this year's budget as far as if if there was any travel time to meet with FBI, anything like that?

So let's there's a couple things. One, just because you guys voted for it doesn't mean that we actually even never had a we never had a full time JTTF officer ever in the entire time I've been here. So that's fake news for likes and views. So I just I say that because that was a false narrative. And there may be some travel time that we go and discuss things with members of the JTTF, but that's investigations and operations.

And that's not gonna stop. And we're talking a couple plane tickets to and from and some rental cars. And so that's very, very small, but we don't have any full time JTTF officers and we haven't. I talked to Tom Phillips about this. When this was created, part of why this was created, we didn't have the clearances back then.

There's a few people that have them on the department. They were gonna lend they were going to land seven forty sevens from 09:11 here at Maui Airport, which meant once they landed them, they could never get them up. And because of Tom Phillips and his connections with the feds at the time is the only reason we didn't have that fiasco happen. And so when we talk about these pounds and kilos coming from the cartels directly, that's part of what I'm talking about, too. So, I'm trying to give you the answer, but I'm trying to be very real.

And we've changed our policy, by the way, since that meeting. We've added perceived immigration status as a protected class, just like race, religion, ethnicity. And we've also put in our policy that we will not participate in a two eighty seven gs, which is the immigration enforcement programs. So that's in our policy, which supersedes any MOU. We also put in there that if you're a member of a task force, that you are excused from participating in any two eighty seven gs or immigration enforcement.

So that argument is actually now so null and void and manini, because now our policy prohibits it. I hope that answers it, but we've got a great department, and by doing that protected everybody, we protected our community. We worked very hard to establish those relationships. And I think that was a bunch of scare tactic.

Thank you, Chief, for that clarification. Thank you, chair.

Thank you, members and Nancy. Chair Lee, are you still on?

I have no questions. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. Committee chair Sugimura.

Yeah, have no questions.

Then it comes to me. Chief, so I've looked through most of your line items and the budget details, and we transmitted some. Admittedly, I haven't been able to read the responses that you gave us because I haven't had connection to be able to download them, throughout this meeting. But I did have a one one of the questions I wanted to ask about was, office equipment for the police commission. $10,000 for 10 chairs. Do do the police commissioners need bulletproof chairs, or are we able to get a a more economic or more economic furniture for our police commission?

Thank you, Chair for that question. So the chairs that they picked out, it has a minimum five year warranty. We project that chair is going to last fifteen to twenty years, though. And it comes in at $965 It's a solid chair. To put in perspective, our dispatchers sit on $3,500 chairs because it's a twenty four hour operation. That chair is sat in but it needs, a I point. Important point.

Point.

And able able

do

going ir And think, own. I

If if I'm yeah. So the answer quick quick is yes, but but let me explain why. They have not had a meeting room of their own. I I don't know if before I ever got here, they did. I I don't I don't understand. I don't think they did. So they were in different beg, borrowing, and stealing different rooms. We got them office space. And they were trying to do something that would reflect the standard of Maui County when people came in and and actually had a a presentation. Occasionally, we happen to find ourselves on TV most often for some nonsense, but occasionally and so we wanted to at least have something that if it was a little higher profile that it looked in the style that Maui County deserves. Okay.

And I do appreciate that you thought about longevity for the equipment that you guys are buying as well. So thank you, chief. Okay. That's all for me. Members, did anybody else have any last questions?

K.

Wait. I shouldn't check online. Yes. Member Cook?

I don't have any last questions, but before you adjourn, I'd like to just have a little statement about afternoon. Sure.

You can do that now while I go look up the what I'm supposed to say about this afternoon

Well, as thank you. I want to remind go ahead.

Oh, before he goes, is it okay that part in the beginning of your opening comments about the canine with the little bit different. Could we get that in writing? Thank you.

Sorry. I chief, I didn't sitting behind you, I can't understand the the nonverbal communication that sometimes Thank thank you, chief. K. So I did recognize member Cook, and then I'll go to member Rollins Fernandez. Oh.

I just wanted to commend the department for reducing the vacancy because that's incredible. Don't think that was said, I just wanted to reiterate that. It's huge. Mahalo. Thank you, In a very short amount of time.

Second And all of that. You've been a wonderful you're continuing to do a good job. You're very forthright and transparent, and we appreciate that. We appreciate it very much. So anyway, I want to remind everybody that the South Maui

point. To the airlines.

Ir But that's it. And I I just want to commend you, Chair, for today.

Pardon?

Yeah. It's in Keyhei Community Center on La Poa Street. And there again, dinner's at five. Everybody else come at six and we will be ready for

the meeting. Six to eight is the meeting. Member Cook. Thank you. Okay. Members, if there are no objections, I would like to make able we we next sure in chamber meeting is Thursday, April 2026 at 1PM. I will also be presiding over that meeting. Thank you again, Chair Sugimura. And that will be with the Department of Environmental Management. We may also be discussing legislation that was submitted, to be considered with the f y twenty twenty seven proposed budget.

Also, if you have any additional questions for the police department that were not addressed today, please send them to staff.bfed@myway.us by 9AM tomorrow. We're still waiting for some responses, but as we approach decisions week, time is limited. So for departments that have not yet submitted responses, please send all follow-up questions to staff. Bfedmaui dot us by noon tomorrow. If a follow-up question is not submitted by that deadline, the individual member will need to work directly with the department to get their responses. Did I get that correct, staff? K. Did I miss anything, staff?

Sure. I got a follow-up question for you.

For me? Okay. I might have to lean on staff, but please.

So we don't gotta come here tomorrow because you said the next chamber thing is on Thursday.

Correct. So the Stay home. This well, we gotta go to Lanai.

Okay.

But the calendar originally had

Not coming to when did

you go? The morning reserved for members to develop their proposals and for travel. Was We can't Yeah. So it was available if I wanted to recess this meeting to continue discussions tomorrow, since we weren't sure what kind of testimony we were gonna get.

Okay. So we don't have to come here tomorrow.

But you do not have to come here tomorrow. You are welcome to go directly to Lanai, Collect 200, go bowling with with member Johnson. Any other questions, members? No. K. Making sure that I did everything that I'm supposed to on the administrative and staff. Anything? Okay. So that being the case, thank you members. Thank you MPD. We appreciate your time. The time is now 03:08. This meeting is adjourned.