Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee - Regular Meeting

Will the Government Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee meeting of 05/19/2026 come to order? It is 01:34PM. I'm your chair, Kamanai Patangan. Members, in accordance with the Sunshine Law, 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, Nohilani, Uuhajans, is excused. Council Member Tom Cook.

Aloha. Good afternoon, Chair.

Thank you, Member Cook. Council Member Gabe Johnson is also excused. Council Member Council Chair Alice Lee is excused. Council member Tamara Palton.

Live and direct from beautiful Kohilo Town. I have with me one adult female canine. Her name is Cha Cha Cha Paltenviera. Thank you.

Councilmember Keani Rollins Fernandez.

I'm at my private residence alone here, and aloha to too.

Council member Shane Senensi.

Chair. Aloha Happy to be here. No testifiers in Hana, and hopefully it's a hot cha cha afternoon. And

then council member Yuki Leisugimura is also excused. With us from corporation counsel, we have with us corporation counsel Takayesu and deputy corporation counsel Colby. Good afternoon, guys. And then as we also have with us our great committee staff. Good afternoon, everybody.

One second. So everybody please see the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity. We have two items today. Let's take public testimony at the beginning of the meeting. Staff?

Chair, we currently have no one signed up for testimony at the beginning of the meeting. We can do a last call. If anybody in the audience or on teams would like to testify, please come up to the podium and begin your testimony or raise your hand on Microsoft teams. This is the last countdown. Three, two, one. Chair is seeing no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Thank you, staff. Members, without objection, can I close public testimony at the opening of the meeting? Before we get to the first item of business, I'd like to recognize councilmember Gabe Johnson.

Thank you, Chair, Councilmembers, committee members. I know I'm here, sorry for my tardiness, but the jet lag is kicking in, but I'm going full bore. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us. I do those return trips from Japan are rough. I give you credit. Okay. So first item on the agenda is Resolution 20 six-eighty one.

This would provide settlement for Charlotte Martin versus the County of Maui, et al, Civil two CCV-twenty four-nine zero three, filed on 09/26/2024. In the Department of Corporation Counsel's correspondence dated 04/23/2026, transmitting the claim, a request was made to discuss Resolution 20 six-eighty one as soon as possible because the trial was scheduled for 06/08/2026. After a committee agenda was posted, Deputy Corporation Counsel Pasquale informed committee staff that the trial has been postponed from June 2026 to sometime in June 2027. Because this resolution is no longer time sensitive and Deputy Corporation Counsel Pasquale is unable to attend this afternoon, he has requested that we cancel or defer Resolution 20 six-eighty one at this time. Therefore, following public testimony, I intend to defer this item.

It has been posted, so we'll go through public testimony first. Staff, can we open up public testimony on grade eleven twenty eight, please? Sure.

Chair, we currently have no one signed up to testify so we'll provide a last call for oral testimony. If anyone would like to provide testimony, please come up to the podium or raise your hand on Microsoft Teams. The count is three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair, no one has indicated that they wish to testify.

Members, any objection to closing testimony on this item at this time? Thank you. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. I guess since it's been agendized, does anybody have any questions or comments that they'd like to make on the matter? I will remind you that the deputy corporation counsel responsible for overseeing this matter is not able to be with us today, and I don't know how much information, incorporation counsel will be able to share. But going through our our normal procedures, I will open the floor if you have questions or comments. Member Palton.

I just wanted to clarify. You said not till calendar year 2027, or was it fiscal year?

Calendar year 2027.

Before

we close discussion on this item, I'd like to recognize councilmember Sukimura.

Good afternoon, chair. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Any questions or comments on the first item? No. Okay. That being the case, without objections, I will defer this item.

No objections.

Thank you, members. Right. That was easy. So second item. We have before us resolution 20 six-eighty two. This would authorize an increase in compensation for the employment of Special Counsel Myers Nave to represent the County Of Maui as a defendant in current and anticipated legal actions related to the August 2023 wildfires on the Island Of Maui by $240,000 for a total compensation not exceeding $740,000 I will ask Corporation Counsel to provide opening remarks and give Member U'U Hajins a minute to get settled before we recognize her on the floor.

Good afternoon chair, good afternoon committee members. I'm here to ask for payment of 240,000 for Myers Navi. Myers Navi was Los Angeles firm that we hired to assist us with the litigation regarding the Maui wildfires cases. We have terminated their retention as we no longer need them. This these bills came as a result of a gap between when we tendered our duty to defend to our excess insurance carrier, Safety National.

And I guess the gap is between when we retain them and when we tender them. So in accord with Safety National's litigation guidelines, they reduced their coverage of their bill. It was originally 854,000 and they agreed to pay 521,000. We were able to deduct another 93,000 and that's how we ended up with the 240,000 remaining. So at this time, I don't know if we need to go into executive session depending on the questions I'm asked, but I'm happy to discuss the bills if needed. Thank you.

Member U'uhajans.

Aloha, Chair. Aloha, everyone. Sorry I'm a little bit late.

Thank you for joining us. Before moving into discussion, we'll receive testimony for grade eleven twenty nine. Staff? Sure. Member Palton.

I had a clarifying question on what you had said in the opening and what Ms. Takayesu had said. You said that they represent us as the defendant, but my understanding was that we were the defendant and the plaintiff. Did they only represent us as the defendant and not as the plaintiff?

That's correct. So Myers Nave was our Los Angeles co counsel with McHorstin guys in Honolulu on the defense side. And John Fisk from Barron and Bud was our special counsel on the plaintiff side.

Oh, okay. Thank you for that clarification. Sure. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Palton. Any other clarifying questions before we open up the floor for public testimony? Seeing none, staff.

Chair, we currently have no one signed up for oral testimony so we'll do a last call for testimony. If anybody would like to testify please come up to the podium or raise your hand on Microsoft Teams. The count is three, two, one. Seeing none, chair, no one has indicated that they wish to testify.

Thank you. Members, without objection I will close oral testimony for this item. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. Members, I'll implement a three minute questioning period per member with a one minute follow-up round. If anybody has any questions that require us to go into executive session, we can put a pin in those ask them, corporation counsel can let us know if we need to go into executive session. We'll put a pin in those and then we can take the vote to go into exact. But my hope is to get everything that needs to be discussed and open first. Okay. I think I saw member Johnson's hand. Do you want to start off or do you have a question for me?

Oh, Chair, I just in my rush to move moving forward, I forgot to mention my sunshine rule that there's no one here with me except for my snoring doggy. Thank you, chair.

Thank you, member Johnson. I envy your dog. That sounds lovely right now. Alright. So I guess that being the case, we'll start our discussion round. I'll first go to Vice Chair, Uhu Jin. Do you have any questions for Corporation Counsel?

Thank you, Chair. So this is to approve an additional and it's in the resolution, I can say it. Dollars 240,000, not exceeding $7.40. What did we spend so far?

So, so far we spent 500,000 to Myers Navi and 444,000 to McHorstin in Honolulu. This is the end of our legal bills. Safety National is taking over all of our defense costs. To date, they've paid approximately 3,000,000.

Safety National is taking over our defense costs?

Yes.

Are we gonna pay for them as well? Or

Oh, no. Safety National is our carrier.

Oh,

okay. So they're covering all of our defense costs.

Oh, okay.

So today, they've paid close to $3,000,000.

Oh, that was the total, $3,000,000?

Yeah.

And then our share was the $7.40 or will be the $7.40?

Yes. Okay.

I don't have any other questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Woo Jin. I'll work the way down the line to my right, so Member Cook.

Thank you, Chair. Could you clarify when they decided that they didn't want to pay? I didn't want to

Sure. We had been keeping Safety National National apprised of our legal bills and discussions and updates pretty much all through this process. But when it came down to we met our self insured retention, we tendered our costs to them. However, they have what they call litigation guidelines, which I was not intimately as familiar with. Perhaps they should have been, but it was kind of a little chaotic at the time.

But so for example, one of their guidelines was you can't have more than one attorney on a meeting call. And we were having weekly meetings, and there was more than one attorney just because we were dealing with a multitude of claims and plaintiffs and the AG investigation. So it never occurred to me to be like, oh, we can only have one of you on the call. So, you know, that ended up. That those were added costs.

Well, that's probably some really small print.

This was very small print.

That's really my only question right now.

Thank you, Member Cook. Member Rollins Fernandez.

No questions at this time.

Thank you, Member Rollins Fernandez. Member Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, department, joining us today.

Do you expect to come back at any other time in the future for an asset for any more funds? Because is it phasing period? Is it this maybe that's really my question there. Is this it?

This is it. Yes. Safety National has been taking care of all of the current legal fees since this was just that bills between when we received our when we tendered our retention until the time we terminated their services. So we will not be back. This was like sort of old bills.

Okay. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson. Member Palton. Thank

you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Takayasu. I guess my question is, was it that we were only supposed to have one lawyer from start and that should have been our current insurance carrier?

I'm not sure I understand. They wanted one so they were okay with us retaining Myers Nave, but they insisted that only one attorney from Myers Navi could be on the call. At times there were two or three. And then we also had our McHorsten firm in Honolulu, and they would have one or two on the phone on the calls. And we were having weekly meetings just given the nature of this.

So was it that we should have had only McQuariston or only Nave instead of both?

That's a good question. I believe they would have covered one attorney. They didn't give us any pushback on the McQuariston firm even though actually there was more than one attorney now that I think about it on that. But we'll just gloss that one over. I think they would have been fine if we had one from McAustin and one from Myers Navi. It was multiple attorneys from the same firm that they gave me pushback on.

Oh, and then I guess, can you clarify also who's the they that gave you pushback? Was it it the Attorney General? Was it

No, it was Safety National. It was our excess insurance carrier. Specifically, it was well, there is a huge chain of command apparently within this insurance carrier. So they had local liaison council, but then they had to kick it up the chain and then kick it up the chain, and it was some unnamed person basically on the Mainland.

That said only one.

Yeah. Well, it's in the it was in their litigation guidelines in the policy. And as member Cook mentioned, it was in very small print. But what we did was we ran it through our third party administrator and they ran it through their third party administrator and that's how we came up with the numbers we did.

And the the reason that they cut some off is because the third or the insurance carrier paid for some of some of it

Yeah.

Because they didn't alert us soon enough or something? Or what was that?

We we argued with them about some of the charges that they decided they weren't going to pay. For example, they objected to the hourly fees of the Los Angeles firm, which was $650 which is actually in the going rate now. And so they finally relented on that and allowed that. So there was like when we called them on certain judgments that they made, they were reasonable and backed off.

Okay, thank you. I did hear the bell.

Thank you Member Palton. Member Sugimura.

Yeah, thank you. So we've been hearing about global settlement. This is not about global settlement then.

Well this is litigation in association with the global settlement, helping us get there, going through the mediations in Los Angeles and all the court hearings and such.

And so you said in your opening sometimes we were defendants and sometimes we were plaintiffs. Yes. So can you explain that?

Sure. So we decided as part of our litigation strategy that we were going to pursue a lawsuit against HECO because we believe that we suffer damages and that they were primarily responsible as well as other codefendants. And so that put us in the seat of being a plaintiff where we were actively suing. And then, of course, we were being sued by everybody. We got just lumped in with all the other defendants in this case. So that's why we had, like, two sides. We were plaintiff and we were also defendant.

Okay. Thank you for that explanation.

Sure. Thank you.

I'm done.

Thank you Member Sugimura. Since Chair Lee is not yet here, I will take my turn. Ms. Takeshi. So the resolution that was transmitted to us says that the compensation is for employment of special counsel, Myers Nave, to represent the county of Maui as a defendant in current and anticipated legal actions. But this is all past billings. And so I don't understand what the current or anticipated actions are for.

Well, the bills were for current litigation. That's how we're looking at it. At the time that they were incurred, it was for current litigation. So I guess that's how we're reading it.

And then the anticipated legal actions? Actually there's nothing moving forward. So all of the billings have been closed. This is just outstanding invoices from the period in which we terminated the contract to whenever we received the invoices.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. And I guess just to put a bow on what Member Palton was asking, it was all for actions that are I don't remember what the term was, but extra insurance is not covering.

That's correct. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. So I don't have any other questions. Do any of the other members need a second round of questioning? Okay. Just to make it crystal clear, nobody has any questions that may require executive session? Okay. So that being the case, let me flip through my notes. Would anybody let I'll entertain a motion to adopt resolution twenty six twenty eight, including any non substantive revisions at this time. Okay.

Moved by member Cook, and I'll recognize Vice Chair Woo Hajins as the second chair. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye. I see oh.

Oh, sorry. Chair, that's eight ayes. One excused, Chair Lee. Motion passes.

Thank you. Thank you members. This item will now move on to full counsel for consideration.

Thank you.

So that concludes the agenda that we have posted. Members, I just want to make it clear. So that takes care of all of the litigation banners that were requested by corporation counsel during our budget session. So we don't have any outstanding litigation coming down the docket. Okay? All right. And with that, this concludes the Government Relations, Ethics, Transparency and Committee meeting. Thank you very much members. The time is now 01:56 p. M. This great committee meeting is adjourned.