Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee - Regular Meeting

Will the Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee meeting of June 2nd, 2026 please reconvene? It is 1.34 p.m. on June 16, 2026. I am your chair, Kalani Batungan. 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, Nohelani Uuhajins. Is she gonna be joining us a little bit late? Oh, she's here. on, oh, I see, oh, Kalamai, Vice Chair.

Aloha, Chair. Aloha, Chair. Aloha, everyone. I'm at my private residence. I do have three minors here with me as well, but yeah, I'll be online. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Council Member Tom Cook. Good afternoon, Chair. I'm here, but I'm getting online. Thank you. Council Member Gabe Johnson.

He's asking for staff to let him in.

Okay, we'll circle back to Member Johnson.

He has his hand raised. Yeah.

Council Chair Alice Lee.

Hi Chair, as we Marshallese say, yakwe.

Council Member Tamara Paulton.

Yorana and Aloha Uwinalakako streaming live and direct from the council chambers.

Council member.

Chair, chair, chair. Yes, chair. I meant to say I'm home alone in my workspace.

Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Kiani Rollins-Renandez.

Aloha Uwinalakako. Yeah. Happy to be here in person.

We're happy to have you here in person. Council member Shane Sinensi.

Aloha, wina ala, Chair. No testifiers in Hana. Thank you.

Or, yeah. We're taking testimony as each item comes up. Okay, thanks. And then Councilmember Yuki de Sugimura.

Aloha and nice to see everybody. I hope we rock and roll and finish this meeting.

And then circling back, Councilmember Gabe Johnson.

Okay, good afternoon, Chair. We can hear you. Great. It's been one of those days. There's no testifiers at the, well, of course, and no one's on my side of the office. I'm alone and ready to work. Thank you. Cool. Thank you, Council Member Johnson.

Okay, so I think that's it for the committee members. With us from Corporation Council, we have Deputy Colby. Good afternoon. We also have with us here today the County Clerk, the Deputy Clerk, the Budget Director, the Boards and Commissions Liaison, the Board of Ethics Executive Director and Legal Counsel, the Costa Government Commission Chair, and the Independent Nomination Board Chair. Members, without objection, I'd like to recognize the cost of those individuals as resources for this body. Thank you.

No objections.

We also have with us our great committee staff. Good afternoon, everyone. Everybody, please see the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity. Members, we will continue our deliberations on the proposed charter amendments to help refresh our memory of the June 2nd, 2026 great committee meeting. A document is being distributed that briefly summarizes the resolutions we discussed and the actions taken on each item. My goal for today is to discuss the remaining charter amendments that the committee did not have an opportunity to discuss on June 2nd. To begin, we will start with Resolution 2611, the proposed charter amendment regarding county council vacancies in office. We will then proceed to Resolution 2686 to establish a comprehensive staggered term for members of the Costa Government Commission and continue in the order listed on the agenda. Today we will get as far as we can. I plan to recess until 10 a.m. on June 18, 2026 so we can finish discussions. I want to thank Council Member Rollins-Fernandez for offering us her meeting slot so that we can complete the work of this committee. Yep, so Thursday will provide us time to finish discussing any remaining charter amendments, including reconsideration of any items that need to be revisited. That will include the charter amendment introduced at the request of the Office of the County Clerk and deferred on June 2nd. Once we complete those, we will review the total number of charter amendments that were approved by this body. And if the committee believes the number may overwhelm the electorate, we can discuss prioritizing the amendments and reconsidering our actions. Please keep that in mind as we move through today's discussion. So now let's turn to Resolution 2611 entitled Proposing an Amendment to the Revised Charter of the County of Maui 1983 as Amended on County Council Vacancies in Office. Resolution 2611's purpose is to place on the next general election ballot the question of whether the revised charter of the County of Maui 1983 as amended should be amended effective July 2nd, 2027 to require a special election to fill a council vacancy if the unexpired term of office is six months or more, and if the unexpired term is less than six months, to remove the time limit for the council to unilaterally appoint a person to fill the vacancy. Council Member Rollins-Fernandez, as the introducer of this proposal, would you like to offer opening comments?

Yes, mahalo, Chair. Okay, so this proposal was prompted by the, oh, okay, by the process of going through filling the seat of our beloved colleague we lost last year. The charter as it currently reads would only allow a special election to fill a vacancy if the unexpired term is more than 15 months. If the unexpired term is less than 15 months, the members of the council may appoint a person by resolution adopted by a majority of its remaining members to fill the vacancy for the current unexpired term within 30 days. If the council fails to fill the seat within 30 days, the mayor would be given an unlimited amount of time to appoint someone. First, it was an odd experience for council and for mayor to be put in this position. It felt inappropriate for the executive branch to have so much power of the legislative branch. So one amendment is to remove that requirement of the mayor and instead keep it within the council. During deliberations to set up our process and then voting on the resolution to fill the seat, my colleagues expressed preference for a special election to give the voters the ability to choose someone instead of us. I consulted with the clerks to see how long it would take to conduct a special election. They informed me that it would take three months or 90 days. The second amendment is to amend the requirement for a special election if the unexpired term is more than six months. My thought there was to double the time it would take for the clerks to conduct a special election for any unexpected obstacles. If the unexpired term is less than six months, members of the council would then appoint by resolution, adopted by the majority of the remaining members, to fill the vacancy for the current unexpired term without a time limit. At six months before the end of term would be June of an election year, before the primary election in August and general election in November, the members could even consider choosing someone that did not file for office by the deadline, which is the first Tuesday of June. If the remaining members ended up in a deadlock, worst case scenario is the seat would only remain vacant for six months. Best case scenario, of course, would be the members choosing someone unanimously. The ballot question would read, shall the charter be amended effective January 2nd, 2027 to require a special election to fill a council vacancy if the unexpired term of office is six months or more and if the unexpired term is less than six months to remove the time limit for the council to appoint a person to fill the vacancy. During our lunch before this meeting began, I did have more discussion with the clerks and we came up with more ideas. So this reso I offer to view my colleagues as a starting point for discussion. I'm not married to any of the proposals in my resolution and I'm open to all the ideas and other ideas that our clerks also suggested and if I could also invite the clerks to provide opening remarks on my resolution as well.

Clerk, Deputy Clerk, opening comments.

Thank you, Chair. So some of the things that we talked about would be the six months and that if the vacancy occurred very close into that, say 181 days prior to the end of the term, what you would be looking at is an election held just three months before the end of the term. So the six months may be something that you want to look at and possibly extending that out to like a year, 12 months, whatever. We do recommend using number of days because that'll make it easier. So whatever period of time you come up with using days. That was really our main topic of discussion. We talked about the cost to conduct a special election, approximately $600,000 to $700,000. But we're here and able to help you in your discussions if you wish our thoughts. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Okay, so Member Paulton, this is opening remarks. Is that what you're seeking recognition for? I don't wanna get into deliberations or questions before testimony.

That was a clarifying question, but I can hold it.

We can take it now.

The special election that you talked about, is it the kind where we don't come in our offices in the chambers?

Yes, currently we would need the chambers to have accounting center operations.

Even for the one filler? Yes.

Okay.

Thank you, Member Paulton. Okay, any other clarifying questions? Seeing none, let's receive testimony for this item, grade 10-6. Staff, is there anybody signed up to testify?

Thank you, Chair. There's currently, the first individual signed up to testify is Sam Smalls on Teams, followed by Christina De Leon on Teams.

Thank you. My testimony apparently is outside the agenda. I have another charter amendment that I wanted to propose, but that doesn't appear appropriate today.

Thank you, Mr. Small. Staff, can you promote Ms. De Leon?

My apologies, I was hoping to testify on resolution 2687.

Okay, so we're taking up testimony on each item as they're called up. So right now we're only accepting it for grade 10-6. We'll hold off until we get to that item. Staff, is there anybody wishing to testify on grade 10-6?

Thank you, Chair. There is currently no one else signed up to testify. May I initiate final countdown? Yes, please. If anyone in the audience or on teams would like to testify, please come up to the podium and begin your testimony or use the raise your hand function on teams and staff will unmute you. This is your final call to testify. Three, two, one. Chair, no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Thank you very much. Members, seeing as there are no more individuals wishing to testify without objection, I will now close oral testimony on this item. Thank you, members. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. Okay, so for discussion, I'll propose a three-minute questioning period per member with a one-minute follow-up round. Yes, member.

May I propose something different for your consideration? I would like to propose taking it up in sections. So there's different sections to, there's several amendments. One is to remove the mayor. And so, I mean, I guess I can let everyone have questions first. But my proposal is for, I think there was kind of consensus about removing the mayor appointing, filling the vacancy. And then discussion on the timeframe of the special election. And then whether there should be a deadline for council to fill the vacancy. And then any other suggestions. One thing that we also discussed, as you recall, during the process was appointing someone who would not run for office so that we wouldn't interfere in the election that would be occurring at the same time.

Thank you, Member Rollins-Fernandez. Can I get feedback on the pleasure of the body? Would you guys prefer to break it up into sections? In which case, since there's three sections that member, yes, Chair Lee.

Yeah, I would like to break it up into sections.

Okay, anybody else have any preference? Okay, so I was gonna propose three minutes in total for the first round since we're breaking it up into three parts. Are you guys okay with one minute per part? Do you guys need more? I kind of wanted to, since there is quite a bit of amendments that still need to be taken up, I kind of wanted to keep things moving. Are you guys okay with a minute for the first round and then we can adjust if needed on the second?

Can we just do like one question instead of, I don't wanna hear the timer every minute. Sorry, that's a lot.

I think if we're gonna be doing that, then I just ask everybody to be considerate of the time, members and resources included to keep things flowing. Okay, Member Rollins-Fernandez, can you repeat for the record the three sections that we're breaking this up into?

Sure, the first will be whether we remove the mayor's authority to fill the vacancy.

Okay. Second was the, yeah.

Okay, and then the second would be the timeframe of the special election. Okay. Third would be a deadline for the council to appoint. Okay. And then fourth would be any other considerations.

Okay. Chair, is it okay if somebody says what the current timeframe for a special election is?

Clerks, can I defer to you on that one?

It's 15 months. So if it's more than 15 months, there is a special election.

The other way around.

Less than 15 months, there is a special election.

Right. So if the unexpired term is 15 months or more, then we have a special election.

Yeah, so for clarity, as it stands, if the remaining time is less than 15 months, then an appointment is made. If it's more than 15 months, a special election is held.

Any other questions before we begin the deliberations?

Chair Lee.

From a practical point of view, it's hard to now take it separately if you're talking about 15 months. When you're talking about six months, it was one thing. Now that it's longer, we're gonna need the mayor back in because if the council. It currently is 15 months.

My proposal is to make it less.

Yeah, so if you break it up, just talking about less, less time, then it makes sense to not have the mayor involved. But when it's longer, it's another issue. That's all I'm saying.

Thank you, Chair. So that being the case, let's take up the time element first. Instead of going mayor time in which a special election would be held, the deadline for the council to appoint, let's take up the time element. Member Rollins-Fernandez, as the introducer, would you like to go first? Or since you offered opening remarks, would you like to go last?

Okay, so the reso proposes six months. We talked about the six months from the January 2nd would be June. And so that's right when we're having elections. So we're talking about the practicality or like what it would look like in practice while we're having a regular election. And so one thought we had discussed was if it's less than a certain time, then we just let it go to the general election. And then the clerks also suggested 12 months, or 364 days, four? I like that. Four, not five, right?

Right. We recommend using whatever the number of days that you go with. So if it's six months, instead of six months, using 180 days, or if it's a year, then 365.

Thank you, Member Rollins-Fernandez. Member Johnson. Thank you. Any questions, comments on the time element for the proposal before us?

As far as the time go, I don't have any questions at this time. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Member Johnson. Member Paltin.

My question for the time, I don't mind a year, 365 days, that sounds good. How long are we kicked out of the chambers in the eighth floor in our offices? Three months for a special election for a seat?

No, so typically when we, oh, thank you, Chair, sorry. Typically when the setup for a regular election, it takes us about two weeks to set up. And then we also do a, we can do it after hours, but we have a period of time where we meet with the volunteers that will be handling it with us. And so it would probably be about two weeks, but it depends if there's gonna be a recount two to three weeks.

Oh, so if it's a special election, then... Oh, okay.

No, no, no, sorry. The way I understood it was that we would be speaking, not just one question, but like the questions that you have on that element of the... of the proposal, so to continue your line of questioning regarding the.

I just had another clarification. What would be, it would be the same process of people would pull papers, get the signature, but it would be a condensed timeframe, right? Would we need to set that as well? Or is it there a standard condensed timeframe like that we would go off of the 15 months or more special election? Is it already set in stone? What is the amount of time somebody has to pull papers and turn them in?

So the charter would currently, it says that the council has to call for the special election within 30 days. But in terms of when the ball's in our court and the clerk's office's court, we would get the candidate filing as quickly as possible so that we can move forward to ordering ballots and getting the election actually scheduled.

So what would be the window of opportunity for someone to pull papers and turn them in, like one month?

No, it would probably be very compressed. So if we have only 90 days to conduct the election from the date that council says go, we would probably try to get the candidate filing done very quickly and maybe only 10 days, two weeks, maybe max. It would be a very compressed and short time frame because the ordering of the ballots and the distribution, the mailing, all of that takes much longer.

Okay, so I'm in favor of 365 days based on the questions I asked, but I'll see if anyone else has questions that make me change my mind.

Thank you, Member Palten. Member Sugimura. Thank you. Chair Lee.

I don't have any more questions, thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Member Sinensi.

Just with a question, maybe Member Rollins-Fernandez, it says to require special election to fill council vacancy if the unexpired term of office is six months or more and if the unexpired term is less than six months.

Are you asking me about the ballot question right now? Yeah. So that's what we're talking about, whether it's gonna be six months or 365 days or some other idea. Right now it's 15 months.

Okay, all right.

Consensus, Chair. Okay, thank you, Member Sinensi. Member, sorry, Vice Chair Uhuhajans.

Thank you. I understand why we're doing this before we begin. It was really difficult when we had to figure this out. It put us in such an awkward position. I do think six months is really close. I understand that point from one election to another. I'm supportive of what the clerk said and what I think we're discussing maybe leaning towards with the 364 days. Five days, 365, okay. Okay, so the leap year is gonna be awkward, but okay, 365. Okay.

Thank you, Vice Chair Wu. Member Cook.

Thank you, Chair. Considering, I think 365 days would be appropriate. The six months, sounds appealing, but the problem to rush getting candidates to sign up, to be qualified, and all of that seems to be, it's too abbreviated. So the 365 days seems to be fair to be able to get a wide range of potential candidates and to be able to have the process not be overly rushed.

Thank you, Member Cook. I guess for myself, here are my thoughts. I think six months is too condensed. Uh, it's too close to when the primary would be. I think it'd be a big strain on our election administrators as well as the, um, the public having to keep track of multiple elections, even if the council special election or the election to fill the vacancy was held concurrently. I think it might cause some issues with the public. Um, my hesitation for, and I, and I'm open. My only hesitation is that if we take up the next part of this, which is like removing the deadline to make an appointment, we would potentially be extending, um, the time period in which the council is unable to function, uh, with a clean majority. Uh, if the, if we do go down to a eight member body for whatever reason and, um, you know, the politics of the council are split as they had been, it would take us from six months to potentially a year in which it would be difficult for us to pass substantive legislation. That's my only concern in extending the timeline from six to 12 months or six months to 365 or four days, whatever the pleasure of the body would be. But I do think that there are merits and I'm going to reiterate that I'm open. I guess that's a nice segue to the next piece. We could go with the deadline for the council to to make a decision as it currently stands in the proposal before us, that would be eliminated. Or we could go to the portion of the proposal related to the mayor having the appointment authority. I'm open to whatever the pleasure of the body is and which way you guys wanna go for the next round of questions or deliberation. Member Palten.

I have a question, so if we remove the mayor and the council, say we remove the deadline, then we're just waiting till the next election? Basically if...

Potentially, right? So that's what's before us. There are three elements before us, right? Removing the mayor's authority to make an appointment if the council cannot act. There's the timeline for when a special election will be triggered. And then there's the... a deadline, removing a deadline for the council to make a decision.

Is there a problem with removing the timeframe for a special election? Like say it was exactly how it happened when Member Calma passed away and the council could call for a special election at any time. Unless, if the council doesn't hit its deadline, if there is a deadline, we could call for a special election. So it's like, instead of having the mayor have the final say, if the council can't come to an agreement, the public has the final say. Then you call for a special election.

I mean, I guess that's an option. I have comments, but I think Member Rollins-Fernandez also has comments that she'd like to share.

Yeah, no, I think that's another idea for it to be, the council may call for a special election up until a certain time.

Because then it would bang bang with the real election. is the up until a certain time.

Yeah, the regularly scheduled election.

The regularly scheduled election.

Yes.

We don't wanna bang bang the regularly scheduled election, so that would be up until a certain time. That would be my concern as well, yeah.

What about 270 days? That's gonna go into budget April.

I know, I know, that's why. Chair, if I can.

One of the other possible ways of handling that would be, so this is under number two, if the unexpired term is, and I'll just use the 365 for discussion. So if the unexpired term is 365 days or more, or council fails to act within X number of days than the special election,

Sorry, that's where I thought you were going. I guess my only concern is if that... Yeah, but she said it in pretty words. But yeah, I guess my concern though would be if a vacancy occurs close to the primary or to the general and then the council fails to act, we would automatically trigger a special election at that point. Unless it's within the timeframe of the... Yeah, so if we do choose to entertain this amendment, we would have to craft it in a way that... excludes the possibility of overburdening our election administrators by having to hold two concurrent elections, or one in between the, say, primary in general. Correct. Cool. Member Sugimura.

Yeah, so the caution is what we just experienced, you know, until you came in, and we're at 4-4, 4-4, right? And really, it's counterproductive, nothing... Well, it's hard to have things accomplished. So if you're talking about time, I believe that the faster we can get things done, because otherwise we're gonna be stuck with the situation that we just saw. So.

Agreed.

Yeah.

And again, that was my hesitation from extending it, the deadline from six months to one year, is that we could potentially be in a deadlock situation for a prolonged period of time. Not saying that it should be a deal breaker, I'm just saying it's something to consider.

And then, remember Paulton, our budget queen, basically said, and what if this happens during budget? You know, that would be...

that would be pretty scary. Yeah. So the, the timing of the council calendar is something to consider as well. The timing of the, um, regularly scheduled elections are need to be considered as well. Um, Can I hear people's thoughts on what should happen if the council cannot decide? The proposal that Member Rollins-Fernandez put before us removes the mayor's authority to make a decision if the council cannot act. She gave her reasoning for that. I'd like to hear from the rest of the body on where they stand on that particular element of the proposal. Chair Lee.

You know, I did agree with her in the beginning, but now I can see there's so many complications. And if we have a council that just can't move because it's 4-4, as much as I hate to see it, there's no choice but to have the mayor do it so that business can continue. That's how I'm feeling. Unless somebody else comes up with a brilliant idea.

I saw Vice Chair Uhu Hodgins first, and then I'll recognize Mayor Rao.

I have some brilliant idea. It attaches to Charlie's suggestion. Okay.

I can hold my thoughts.

My brilliant idea is I would rather have the council chair do it than the mayor. I'd rather it stay within the council and not go to the executive branch.

Thank you, Member Rollins-Fernandez. Vice Chair Uhuhajens.

Thank you. I was going to say, in the event that we were four four which what we experienced then we would need a tiebreaker and we see that often um you know with an even amount of people on a board we would need a tiebreaker i don't disagree with member rollins fernandez that you know the two branches of government are usually separate like we wouldn't appoint a mayor god forbid something happens to a mayor so you know how would how you know so it would be we should kind of keep things separate but if we don't go with council chair choose and we stick with the old version of having the mayor to choose then i would appreciate a longer time period i know that's coming up but we were under such a crunch we barely had time to grieve and we had to figure out a way to move forward so whether or not we figure out who's the tiebreaker i would like to give us the opportunity to kind of work it out amongst ourselves

Thank you, Member Ujajin. If there's no other comments or questions from the body, I would like an opportunity to weigh in. like the idea of keeping it, it's a vacancy on the council and I think that filling the council vacancy should be a council decision. I like keeping it in the legislative branch. And I do support the idea of having the chair be the tiebreaker in the event that the body cannot make a decision on its own. My one hesitation would be that as the council person who controls the calendar, the chair would have every ability to keep the council from making a decision and then having it go directly to him or her. So if we do go that route, I would just ask that we build in safeguards so that a special council meeting to hear a resolution on filling the vacancy would have to be scheduled, right? So that you cannot be chair and use the institutional powers of the chair to ensure that you then get this new power. I would love to hear the inspiration of member Rollins Fernandez and her new brilliant idea.

So your comments inspired another brilliant idea that then the chair would be excluded from the vote and then that would be potentially a tiebreaker.

I try.

Because of all that power she would wield. Yes, it would definitely be another she.

Chair Lee.

Okay. Assuming you're not gonna have a tyrant for a council chair, I don't think we, well, we did have one, but just one in the history. I could probably go for the council chair, breaking the tiebreaker, but giving the council chair a short period of time to make that, In other words, the Council Chair wouldn't have the opportunity to prolong the decision.

Right, so I would agree. Give us something, Chair. Go ahead.

I don't know how the public is gonna figure this out themselves if we can't. This is confusing.

Yeah, well, I guess what should be the process? is a complicated question. I think our ability to articulate the proposal that we transmit to the public via ballot should not be that complicated. So I do have faith in our ability and the ability of our wonderful staff to help us be able to help the public make an informed decision on the matter. Anybody else have any thoughts on the mayor's authority to, or I guess who should have the authority to make an appointment if the body as a whole is not able to come to a decision? Because it's currently a mayor, that's why I had it written down the way. Yes, Member Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. I don't know if anyone knows this, maybe the clerks or any of our lawyers, even any of the council members. But basically, you know, planning for these types of things, it's kind of icky. But what if a mayor passes away, is my question. Where does that go? Does that go to Josiah Nishida? What happens with that? Because in our situation, what if one of ours passes, or if I pass away, or does Axel Beers become the guy? I mean, it's

like what what's going on why is it different from administration to here it's that's one thing i want to know is there why why is there a difference and is there a difference i guess the short answer is yes there is a difference the charter provides for what happens if there's a vacancy um in both the council and in the administration there's a line of succession for the mayor you are correct the first um person who would succeed is the um managing director After that, I think it's fine.

Is it because we're in districts? I don't want to get in the weeds here, but I'm just curious why it's separate.

Yeah, I cannot tell you why the charter was designed the way that it was. All I can say is that for a vacancy on the council, it calls for the council to make a decision within 30 days, and if not, then the mayor makes a decision. provided that the vacancy occurs 15 months prior or within 15 months of the end of the term. Chair Lee.

Yeah, I've been on the council long enough to experience this twice. And the same thing happened. In each case, the mayor made the final decision on the appointment of the replacement. Because no matter, a lot of councils are very close in votes. And so if it's going to go down to 4-4, the inevitable is going to happen. There won't be. There won't be a decision made. And it would have to go to the mayor, unless, as Member Ron Fernandez mentioned, perhaps the council chair, but with certain restrictions on time, et cetera.

Yeah. Member Rollins-Fernandez.

So just for reference, the vacancy for the mayor, if the unexpired term is one year or more, the vacancy shall be filled by a special election to be called by the council within 30 days and to be held within 90 days after the occurrence of the vacancy.

I feel like we should do the same. One year or more, council can call for a special election. And then if it's less than one year, everybody but the council chair votes on the successor with the majority of four taking all. And then if, for whatever reason, they can't agree at that point, then the council chair chooses.

Or the vice chair in an unusual case.

But what if it's the council chair that dies? Then it's the vice chair that fills that role. Vacates the seat. Oh, sorry.

I mean, yeah, I guess there is, multiple ways that you could vacate the seat.

She could become a billionaire and be like, I don't need to do this anymore, bye. What if she was convicted of a felony?

That is, yes. Member Rollins-Fernandez.

Mahalo Chair. To help you with time today, again, my proposal, I knew that to both of them, the INB will also take a while, was to get the brain juices flowing and then we could potentially come back. So I'm happy to let folks sit with this. and then we can move on to the others and then maybe we can come back on Thursday with more of an idea of what would feel good. I also have a few other creative ideas that I didn't share and if others would like to kind of just throw everything at the wall before we table this, if you like that idea of continuing on and then waiting until Thursday to make a decision on it.

Thank you, Member Rollins. So my preference would be to at least get a conceptual idea of what we would wanna take up on Thursday so we can ask staff to draft legislation to that effect so that we would have a proposal before us on Thursday. So if we're gonna table this, I think there's enough from this body to give direction to staff and I'd like to finish that first before moving on.

Really, did you count that? Because I didn't count a majority on something yet.

Okay, so let's talk this through, because no, I did not do a straw poll. This is just me trying to read the room. But I get the sense that there is support for keeping the decision within the legislative branch rather than sending it to mayor.

Right, and that's why I proposed taking that one up first.

Yeah, so I guess we have that much guidance.

Yep, and that's already part of the proposal.

Yes, but the idea to have the council chair be the tiebreaker in the event that the body cannot make a decision I think is new and is worth considering. SPREADING INTO A PROPOSAL THAT THE CHAIR CANNOT USE THE LEGISLATIVE CALENDAR TO FORCE THE ISSUE TO GO BEFORE HIM OR HER I THINK IS NEW. I THINK CHANGING THE TIME ELEMENT FROM SIX MONTHS TO A YEAR SEEMS TO HAVE BROAD-BASED SUPPORT. I think the only outstanding, oh no, because the last item would be the deadline for what happens if council can't make a decision, but then it would go to the chair. So I guess, staff, is that enough guidance to ask that you put together a proposal for us to consider on Thursday? Yes, chair.

Yeah, I don't think there was any consensus about the chair making the decision. I think there was an idea to be floated, you know, because, you know, you folks shouldn't think about yourselves being a part of this. You should think about the future of all council members coming after us. You know, because what if you guys were in the majority and your council chair couldn't vote? Think about that. The best way to handle this is not to put yourself in the mix. Just think about what's best for the future of this county and this council. I think it might be an improvement not to have the mayor make the decision, maybe, but as far as having the council chair not vote, that really doesn't make any sense. And honestly, it's gonna hurt you guys in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I didn't think that was part of, I wasn't including that in the recommendation to the, if that's the pleasure of the body, we can ask staff to include that, but I was not anticipating that the Chair would be excluded from that first vote. I was just anticipating that the Chair would have to schedule the vote so that that individual cannot unilaterally grant themselves the power to make a decision. Yes, members, an empty.

Just to clarify, we, we do still have like a special election if, if we cannot decide within the council, as I asked staff to draft it.

No, because then the tiebreaker goes through the chair. If you would prefer, we can ask that there be ASFs created so that we can swap out the, what the tiebreaking mechanism is.

only because there was a lot of testimony that suggested that from people that came up, that we should go to a special election.

Thank you, Member Sinensi, understood. Member Paltin.

Chair, can we, as part of this thing that we're drafting, can we ask the clerks the most practical window in which a special election could be held, like, after we say somebody vacates their seat immediately, special election from then, I guess November 10th or whatever, through to what is the last practical date a special election could be held? Without interfering with the regularly scheduled election.

The city and county of Honolulu, their charter provision on vacancy in council office, the language there may be useful for that circumstance. So basically it says, if the unexpired term is for one year or more, the vacancy shall be filled by special election to be called by the council within 10 days. Our charter says 30. So 10 days, that is good. and to be held within 120 days after the occurrence of the vacancy rather than 90. Those timeframes are much more workable on our end. Some other language then it says, some other stuff in there you may want to consider. And what is their process if it's less than one year? Less than, it's similar to ours right now. Unexpired term, less than one year, the remaining members of council shall elect a successor with the requisite qualifications, et cetera. And then if the council should fail to fill the vacancy within 30 days, the mayor appoints. So it's basically identical to ours.

And this procedure that we're discussing would hold for one through how many members? Like I know... they don't like more than three of us to go on an airplane. Say the plane goes down with three of us on it, then you have six members voting. And so a simple majority would be four. four or five, how many would it take to win? Or say two members are on the same airplane and it goes down, then you have seven, which is an uneven number. But if it were six, what would it take to win?

I'll defer to the attorneys on this, but your charter requires a simple majority for all actions unless otherwise specified. So four, five. Yeah. So not of the members present or still around, but of the full council. So it's still take five. So even if you just had six members left, it would still take five.

So that's why only three people can get on a plane together.

Staff, did I see somebody from OCS seeking recognition on the floor? No, okay. Yes, Member Rollins-Fernandez.

So other suggestions is, If the second runner up in the last election receive 30% or more of the votes, they could automatically fill the seat. And another idea was to prohibit the person who fills the vacancy from running for the regular election. And then if the clerks have any other ideas that they came up with after our discussion.

Okay, is it worth trying to get a sense of where the body stands on those two? Because otherwise I'm gonna ask that you draft a proposal to the effect of what I had previously stated and then prepare those two as ASFs that we can take up rather than try to figure out on the floor now what the pleasure of the body is related to those two.

Oh, I don't want an ASF.

Oh.

I'm just throwing it out there for consideration.

You guys wanna discuss, would you guys like to discuss?

No, no, we don't have to discuss it now. I'm just saying that those are other ideas.

Oh, I see.

Member Cook. Is it appropriate that I comment on the last two suggestions, time-wise? Sure. Okay. I wouldn't be supportive of the person in the runoff for the election. I see the logic in it, but I think the public should have the opportunity for other people to volunteer to do it and do it. So that aspect of it, I wouldn't be supportive of it. And the second one was?

The second idea was to prohibit, so there would be more to the second runner up. That would be also part of the overall process. It should be a special election or appointment or if there's like a, And it would be like a good portion of the electorate that would vote for the person. So there is a good amount of the electorate that would vote for that person. It wouldn't be like person would only get like 5% of the votes. And then the other one is prohibit the person from running in the regular election.

Anyway, I'm not supportive of either one. Thank you.

I don't think I want to get into the details of those just yet. I think we have better direction from the body as to what is palatable for the overarching amendment. I would just like to ask staff to draft something to that effect so we have written legislation to consider when we reconsider on Thursday. In the meantime, I would like to ask OCS attorneys and corporation councils to just check on the legality of those two proposals, whether or not there is an issue with prohibiting an appointed member from running in the subsequent election. And if there are, I mean, I can see constant or democratic issues with automatically appointing somebody who lost two thirds of the vote in the previous election. But I guess I just wanna make sure that before we consider it, that there's no legal issues with making an automatic appointment to that effect. Okay, and then Member Palten.

I just was wondering if we're also trying to, I mean, we're trying to fix this because we went through the process and it was kind of awkward, but based on the five votes, the majority of the body, I feel like we don't have any direction for mass casualty events, like active shooter, explosion, COVID, Ebola, what if there's not five members to approve somebody? The charter doesn't give any direction and I feel like it's a little irresponsible of us to have now identified that and not put a solution up.

I guess as a starting point proposal, staff, when you draft that, can you make sure that it's a majority of the remaining members rather than assuming it'll only be eight members?

Thank you, that solves my issue, I think, as long as there's members left.

Yeah, all you would need is one, I guess, who would then have the ability to appoint the other eight. But yes, if there are none, then we have- We'll have to do a special election.

automatic special election if everybody dies? What if there's carbon monoxide in here and we don't know?

But if there are no council members, then who would call for the special election?

That's also another detail. I guess we would have to build in a mechanism.

Or the mayor.

We just booted him from the process.

Well, that only comes into effect if everybody is,

Yes, so I guess we would ask for language to the effect of if there is no remaining members of the council, that we delegate the authority to our election administrators, in this case, the clerks. Well, this got a lot more grim than I was expecting. You know, when we took this up, we were primarily gonna be debating timelines.

I've been around, yeah.

All right, is there any more discussion on this? Because I think that we have enough direction to give staff guidance and that we would then be able to take up a concrete proposal that better reflects the will of this body come Thursday. I see Member Rollins for hand and then I'll go to Member Sinensi.

The clerks also liked the 10 days that Honolulu City Charter has. And so I would be happy to also include that. I don't know why it's 30. Do you know why it's 30?

I have no idea why it's 30. That's a long time.

Should it be consistent with the mayor since the mayor vacancy says one year and then ours would be 365 days? Should it just be consistent or should we change the mayor's one too?

That's a good point. Yeah, ideally you'd change the mirrors too, but I think if that's going to complicate the ballot question, then that may be a consideration. I mean, we can figure it out if it's a year. Can I add just one thing really quickly? It's that same section that we're talking about in city and county. And it says, if any special or general election is to be held after 30 days and within 180 days after the occurrence of the vacancy, then the election shall be held in conjunction with such other election. So meaning it would just be combined with any other election being held instead of a special election.

Okay. Is there enough support from the body to give staff direction to that effect?

The Honolulu has four-year terms. So that might also be why it's built in that way.

Yeah, but it's staggered, yeah. So there is an election, a regularly scheduled election every two.

Their terms are different than our terms. So it could end up being like that position would have been in the election anyway.

I think that would maybe address those circumstances where a special election might be called within, basically, it says 180, so within six months of a regularly scheduled election. So you wouldn't have to have another special election within that time period. So maybe staff has a better way of saying that, though. Yeah.

Member Sinensi.

Thank you, Chair. I know you're asking Corporation Council to weigh in on those last two proposals, but I just want to say I would be supportive of the runner-up that received at least 30% as an alternative to a special election.

Thank you. Thank you, Member Sinensi. Yeah, so we have them ask, we've asked them to look into the legality of that, and then when we revisit this, I guess that can be part of the conversation as well. Staff, can I ask you to read back at least the bullet points that was given? Just for the members' clarity. And if you've missed anything, we'll make sure that it's captured.

Yes, Chair, there's actually potentially a couple of things we wanted to double check with you. We do have that we would increase it from the six months to, I believe it's going to be 365 days instead of a year. And then are we doing the tiebreaker for Council Chair to keep it within the ledge branch?

I think just as a proposal, yes. I think that's... where the gist of this conversation.

Is that gonna be the ASF? I don't think there is broad consensus for that. I don't think it should be included.

Okay, we don't have to include the tiebreaker component. We'll have that debate on Thursday. So it'll be the remaining members because we need to accommodate for the possibility of there being multiple vacancies on the council. Do not include a tiebreaker mechanism at this point, but it will not be the mayor. the time I think we settled on three 65 rather than one year. It does make him a little bit off of an awkward situation since it's not the same as what is being proposed for the executive branch. But I think we heard the clerks that that's their preference. Um, am I missing anything members?

Was there any further discussion about, sorry, Chair, the 10 days for the Honolulu?

Oh, yes. Okay. The timelines we wanted, I think there was enough. Yeah, I think there's enough support for adopting the timelines that City and County had. Clerks, can you repeat that for us?

Yes, so the language is coming from section 3-105 of the Honolulu Charter, Vacancy in Office, and this is subsection B. And the portions of that that we talked about were... If the unexpired term is for one year or more, the vacancy shall be filled by special election to be called by the council within 10 days and to be held within 120 days after the occurrence of the vacancy. And then kind of skipping down, it says if any special or general election is to be held in the city after 30 days and within 180 days after the occurrence of the vacancy, then the election shall be held in conjunction with such other election.

So that last element just means that if there's a special election within a certain time period, a regularly scheduled election will be held concurrently. Okay, members, I think that captures the gist of our conversation, at least where we were to get now. It'll give us a good starting point for deliberations on Thursday, and then we can iron out the details that we have not yet got consensus on. I think there's direction to staff. If you have anything that you feel very strongly about, feel free to prepare an ASF to that effect before Thursday, because my preference would be that we discuss proposals as much as possible with written legislation to consider rather than broad concepts that we have to then wordsmith on the floor. Okay.

I just wanted to clarify, we don't have a deadline for the council to act except for the attendees to call a special election. If it gets close to the regularly scheduled election, it'll combine into one. Is that what we're seeing?

Correct. And the reason that there's no deadline for the council to act is because we

We don't have a tiebreaker.

There should be a tiebreaking mechanism which we haven't gotten into and so we just put a pin in it. So I guess what we're gonna get is gonna be a PUCA draft with that being the PUCA.

Okay, got it. Just wanted to see where we landed.

All right, members. Okay, wait, so if we're gonna be revisiting this, then we do not defer it. Do I need to defer this item?

Yes, Chair, you can defer the item and then on Thursday, you can reconsider and then take it up again.

Okay, so members, without objections, I'd like to defer this item. Thank you, members. Okay. It is now two 38. That was quite a bit. Um, does the body want to take a quick recess at this point or do you guys want to keep moving? Okay. So the next item is, let me just check my notes and make sure that it matches what I had said earlier. Thank you. Clerk, deputy clerk. 2686. Okay, so the next item before us is resolution 2686, proposed charter amendment to establish a comprehensive staggered term system for members of the cost of government commission. The resolution 2686 purpose is to place on the next general election ballot the question of whether the revised charter of the county of Maui 1983 as amended should be amended effective July 1st, 2027 to require that the terms of the existing and future members of the cost of government commission be staggered to ensure continuity and prevent simultaneous expiration of multiple member terms. At this point, I'd like to request comments from the introducer, Committee Vice Chair Uhu Hodgins and the Chair of the Costa Government Commission.

Thank you chair. So this is something we worked on when I was chair of GREAT but as working with the cost of government commission they there's several of them that their terms will expire at the same time which will mean that they will be in a very similar position that we just discussed and there's going to be nobody on the board and so this will just allow a staggered term so that they could provide themselves with some continuity and that they're not dealing with an empty board all of a sudden, all the time. But I'll leave the rest up to the cost of government. Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Uhl-Hodgins. Cost of government, Chair? Could you mind introducing yourself for the record before giving opening remarks?

Sure thing. I'm Dino Goossens-Larsen, Chair of the Cost of Government Commission. We did meet as a commission to discuss this proposal on June 9th, as it is something pertinent to our commission. We welcome the initiative to remediate what we understand to be an administrative error when changes were made to the membership terms of the commissioners following the charter amendment in 2012. where terms were adjusted to five years but omitted proper staggering. We're equally concerned with the risk of not having continuity with, as outlined earlier, three members in a vacancy's terms expiring in 2028 and the remaining five commissioners' terms expiring in 2029. The position we aligned on as a commission is as follows. We believe that there is an option to address this through a code amendment and would be supportive of going that route. We do not believe it's a matter we need to put in front of voters. And from attending the first session of this great committee meeting, there might be some appetite around that already to trim the number of amendments. We suggest this is one of them, but of course, only if there's commitment to actually address this as a code amendment. I've already outlined our concern with continuity from not properly staggering the terms. Secondly, when reading the language as proposed, there's some concern with how it's written and how it would apply to the members currently in the commission. The suggested charter amendments language transition provision raised the concern that it can result in some members' existing terms being shortened. At a minimum, it was unclear how it would be implemented as written. And then lastly, The commission wanted to stress the value of the five-year terms for the type of work we perform as a commission, providing accountability and oversight across tenures of legislators and administration, with two years being seen as too short. The current language, again, provides for a class of commissioners with two-year terms, which we moved away from in the first place. So in summary, we're supportive of addressing the continuity risk by staggering the terms, but suggest doing so through a code amendment with clear language that does not shorten any of the existing terms of the current commissioners and retains five-year terms. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, before moving to discussion, let's receive testimony for grade 10-9. Staff, is there anybody scheduled or signed up to testify on this item?

Thank you, Chair. The first individual signed up to testify is Dick Mayer.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you. Two things. If you go ahead and pass this, I would suggest that you move the implementation date from July 1st to an earlier date. You'll be appointing people to boards and commissions probably in February, March. And so I would recommend that you put the implementation date February 1st 2027 rather than July 1st. So you can start off at least initially on the right foot. The question I have is why only the cost of government commission? I would think this would apply of staggering terms to many of the boards and commissions, especially those that make major decisions for the county, like the planning commission, the water board, police commission others that you may wish to consider making staggered terms a requirement or a desire at least for many of the other boards and commissions in the council and certainly perhaps incorporate within the council's own rules that we will make every effort to try to stagger terms when we appoint people to the various boards and commissions I think it's a wise practice of stagger and how you implement it, whether you can do it in your own council rules or whether you need a whole charter amendment to do it, I leave up to you. But I think it is a wise thing and I certainly think the planning commission and a number of the other commissions that make major decisions would benefit by having staggered terms.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Member Palten, you have a question for the testifier.

Mr. Mayor, I thought, isn't it that most other boards and commissions have two people expire every year? So in that way, it already is kind of staggered, but not the cost of government commission isn't like that.

I don't know if there's any rule that says every two years. It could happen that a board and commission's people may have died in between, somebody got temporarily appointed.

You may have as many as four or five people, perhaps, dropping off a particular board or commission, and then you would... Yeah, but I thought it was every year two people are appointed, guaranteed, by the mayor. not you, Mr. Mayor, the other title mayor.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I just wish you could, it's just something to consider to make sure that you never have, you know, three, four, five people all dropping off and the council appoints some, the mayor might appoint two other ones, that we make sure that all of the boards are operating with people who have continuity as well as new people on there. And what the best way to do that is I leave up to your discussion.

we can't control if there's a mass exodus, like if there's a group of people that step down, but scheduled, I think we're appointing at least two every year, but we can't control if five people step down or however many.

What I'm suggesting is that when you, if let's say if more than two, three, four, five people were to be, their terms ended and you had to appoint people, you have the option of appointing people for three years, four years, five years when you make the new appointments. And so that's really what I'm recommending, that you make, you don't have to appoint everybody for five years. You could appoint people for varying terms that would allow for a staggered alignment each time.

That's how it usually is. As people drop off, they just are finishing a term. It's not a brand new term unless they're one of the seats that expire. But the cost of government commission isn't like that. Thank you.

I see. Okay, thank you very much. I'm sorry I put that in there. I thought it was that it would apply to all boards or many of the boards. Appreciate your efforts. Thank you. By the way, I do want to testify on another item. I can't get my name on the list for item 1013. That's resolution 2693. The staff could add me when you take that one up, 2693.

I see them nodding. So yes, they'll make note of that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other clarifying questions for the testifier? Seeing none, staff, is there anybody else scheduled to testify?

Thank you chair. There's no one else who is currently signed up to testify. Would you like me to initiate final count?

Yes, please.

If anyone in the audience on teams would like to testify, please come up to the podium and begin your testimony or use the raise your hand function on teams and staff one mute you. This is your final call to testify. Three, two, one chair. No one has indicated they wish to testify.

Thank you. Members seeing as there are no more individuals wishing to testify without objection, I will now close oral testimony for this item. Thank you very much. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. I will propose a three-minute questioning period per member with a one-minute follow-up round if needed. Member Uhu or Vice Chair Uhu Hodgins, would you like to kick us off?

Yes, Vice Chair. Considering what the Chair of Cost of Government just said, which I thought we needed to do a charter amendment, which is why we're discussing it today, but I'm happy to do an ordinance If that works as well and continue to work with the cost of government chair, I'll reach out to you and we can figure out how to do an ordinance. So I have no problem filing this. I know we're trying to minimize how much we're going to do. As long as it gets done, I'm not married to how we do it. So we can do that.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Before we continue down that line of thinking, can I ask Corporation Counsel or OCS attorneys to weigh in on whether or not it'd be more appropriate to take up as a charter amendment or if it can be done as a code amendment?

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I think we have to go through the charter amendment route. And the reason is because it's already set up. as a 5-4 board. And to change the terms, we have to go through the Charter Amendment to stagger it.

Okay. And Corporation Council, you concur with that opinion? I do. Thanks. Okay, so Vice Chair Uhu-Hajins, it sounds like we do need to go the Charter Amendment route. Does that change your thinking?

No, it doesn't. I just would like to get it done. I understand. I testified to Mayor what he was saying. I get his point. But in this situation for the cost of government, we have four members terms expiring next year, five members terms expiring the year after. So we don't typically see that on any other board except this one. But I would like to hear how the chair of the class of government sees how we can better work with the language and ensure that it's as friendly as possible to how they need to implement. And then I think maybe we could begin some discussion.

Chair.

We have not formally taken a position on this. We understand that if we want to transition the existing members to a staggered term, that it may require extension of some of the terms of the existing members, even beyond the initial five-year term, which is, for our understanding, not allowed in the charter. I would need to go back to the commission to specifically figure out how we would address this. We just understand, we just, when reading the language, are not clear how we would accomplish this without actually shortening the terms of some of the existing members, which we strongly oppose.

Thank you. Does either of our attorneys have an opinion on that matter?

Thank you, Chair. So under the proposal Terms of the Commission members must be staggered as follows so two members will have to two members Will have three-year terms two members will have four-year terms and three members will have five-year terms then after that it says regardless of section 13-2 5 which is the section that prohibits serving additional terms as Chair of the Coastal Government Commission just indicated. So we're seeing, despite that section, a member may serve additional terms consecutively. So by putting that phrase in there, we're accepting all that provision that limits a member from having consecutive terms beyond, I think, the five-year term. And the other comment that I want to make with regards to the transitional language, that language is basically just to allow the council to reset the terms initially, as stated in the proposal. So basically what will happen is... of the nine members, council will determine of those nine members who will get the two, who will get the three, who will get the four, who will get the five-year terms. And I would assume that the Coastal Government Commission will weigh in on who they recommend getting what terms. And the way I understand it is four members will expire in, March of 2028, and five will expire in March of 2029. The minimum number of terms that's being proposed, I mean, the minimum number of years that's being proposed is two years, so no member's term will be cut short. In fact, it'll be expanded by at least one year, if not longer. And because there's a provision that there's no limit on the length of time that someone can serve on the commission, it's basically open-ended. And if the members wanted to restrict it to 10 years, we could add in language to that effect.

Okay. That's all I have. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hanala. So you mentioned that the terms expire in March of next year. Is that March 1st or March 31st? The end of the month or beginning of the month? I think it's March 31st. So it's the end of the month. And then, so I guess, you know, Mr. Mayor had suggested that we change the date that this would take effect. So then should we propose April 1st so that it would take effect on the day following or is it sufficient that we just change the date to like the beginning of the year and then the council can act when a vacancy comes up? Do you have an opinion on the transition timeline that's stated in the resolution?

Yes, I agree that I think the date should be changed. I think as you suggested, beginning of the year maybe january 1st 2027 that way the council can at least start you know putting the wheels in motion as far as trying to stagger the terms which you know should be effective on april 1st 2027. thank you mr hanano uh remember rollins fernandez

Mahalo, okay, so when I first got onto the council, we noticed that this problem had occurred with a couple of the boards and commissions and at that time, we were advised that we didn't need to do a charter amendment to do this because section 13-2 starts, subsection one, starts with unless otherwise provided and so that gave us more, Thank you. that gave us flexibility to change what would otherwise be the default, which is the members of all boards and commissions shall serve for staggered terms of five years beginning April 1st and ending on March 31st, five years thereafter. So the unless otherwise provided was what gave us the power to make that amendment in the code to properly stagger any board or commission.

I guess to either of our attorneys, does it change any of your opinion on the matter?

Well, to the extent that that phrase, unless otherwise provided, I think that's a charter. Can't hear you. Yeah, okay, I'm speaking now. Can you hear me now?

Maybe it's... Chair Lee, are you able to hear Mr. Colby online?

Yeah, now I can. When he first started talking, couldn't hear him.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Colby, into the mic, please.

Thank you. Section 13.2, the language, unless otherwise provided, I agree, Member Rollins-Fernandez, that this essentially says that we couldn't change things that are kind of solid and implemented in the charter unless we made a charter amendment. I gotta defer to Mr. Hanano on the basis for the idea that we had set up the initial cost of government as a five, four staggered terms, which is why we have them all expiring either one year or the next. So I actually am not certain that there's any reason why, from what I see in 3-9.3, that we couldn't do it by a county code amendment.

I agree with Mr. Colby and it does not say otherwise provided herein which it says in other places and that would indicate that only the charter could be amended to provide the flexibility to the default rule. It says unless otherwise provided Yes, so it could be by ordinance or by any other rule that is otherwise providing. Because if you do Control F and you look for all the unless otherwise provided, because I did this, it says herein in this charter, it has it like all kind of different ways, it's so inconsistent. But I did do a search on this within the charter and it doesn't have that stipulation that it has to be within the charter.

Thank you, Member Rollins-Fernandez. Can I ask the cost of government, Chair? Why was it that you were under the impression that it could be done via code? Was that the advice given to you by your corporation council?

Correct. And just to clarify as well, we are not set up as a 5-4 board. So I don't know if that changes anything from council here representing.

Thank you. Member Paulton.

I agree with the unless otherwise provided. I guess my question would be on the next step because say we do this as a code amendment and that would be the unless otherwise provided, like whatever we set up in the code, would the county clerk under their authority to reconcile obsolete languages and like that be able to then go change the charter once the code has been enacted or no?

Member Rollins-Fernandez.

And I don't believe it has to be a code amendment because it doesn't say that it has to be a code amendment, it just says provided. And so we did change one of the terms to be less than five to start the staggering because it just says unless otherwise provided. So when we do the resolution, we would make the term shorter so that we can appropriately stagger everybody.

I guess my preference would be to cut down the number of proposals that we have to put before the voters. I think the introducer of the resolution is of the same opinion. I think the only holdup that we have is the advice from our legal counsel and both OCS and corporate counsel here at committee. If you guys, if the conversation that we've had changes your opinion of the matter, I think we're happy to move on. But is there any concern from either of you with the, with the direction of taking this via a code amendment or through the next appointment by changing the term.

And I did have a question for Mr. Dino-Large-Goosey. Goose and slash, sorry.

So I guess we'll wait for a response from Corporation Council and then I'll recognize you for the question.

Thank you. Well, based on the discussion that we have here and the fact that it doesn't define within the charter that it has to be, that it is a 5-4 committee commission, I'm okay with us being able to move forward as, you know, through a code provision as opposed to a charter amendment. But again, that's based upon the representations that I've heard today. And I would just like to, confirm with Mr. Hanano that I'm not missing something.

Mr. Hanano, and if you want to ask for a recess, we can give you a couple minutes to confer and then let Member Palten ask her question too.

Yeah, I mean, I'll defer to Corporation Council. I still think it should be by charter, but I'll defer to Corporation Council.

Thank you. Member Palten.

Thank you, I just wanted to clarify with Mr. Dino-Goussens-Large that the not shortening of the terms is for you folks sitting on the cost of government commission currently. If we were to appoint new people on the commission, like say the four that expire March 31st or whatever, At that time, is there objection if we appoint four and we have them three, four, five or something, three, four and five, five, is that what you meant by not shortening the terms or just not shortening the terms of existing sitting people?

It specifically pertains to not shortening terms of existing sitting members.

Oh, okay, okay.

Okay. So members, I guess I hear the concerns from our OCS attorney and the initial opinion from Corporation Council. Given that the Corporation Council representing the commission itself had opined saying that this could be done via OCS, ordinance or resolution, and that that was the guidance previously given to this body, I'd be comfortable moving on. Is there anybody else who, I guess, I'll look to the vice chair who introduced this measure for her position on the matter.

Thank you. I agree with you, Chair. Happy to move on and have this as an ordinance. But while we have the chair with us, I'd like to thank him very much for your report from the cost of government on all the boards and commissions. It was so well done and so thorough. And so I wanted to publicly thank you and your board for that. We appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vice Chair Uhu-Hodgins, and thank you, Chair. Okay, that being the case, I would move to... Deferred this item just in case our attorneys come back and on Thursday. We need to reconsider, but my preference would be to file At that point, but I want to leave the door open just in case the lawyers Come back and throw us another curveball. Yes, we're all internet.

I have no objection to deferring But if we defer we don't have to do a motion for reconsideration Correct. Yeah, so

Okay, so I guess Mr. Hanano and Mr. Colby, this is your opportunity to flag us. If you really feel that we need to do this via charter amendment, let us know before Thursday. Thank you. That being the case, no, no, I don't think we're going to be taking up new proposals on first reading. If we... No, no, no.

It would be a recommendation to the full council, and the full council could say, we don't wanna take your recommendation, great committee.

Sure. Okay, so without objection, at this point, I will move to defer resolution 26 to 86. Thank you, members. Okay, next up we have resolution 2695, the proposed charter amendment to allow reappointment of members to the Board of Ethics for one successive term. While I read through my script, can I ask the director of the Board of Ethics to come down to the floor and serve as a resource on the matter? Members, we have before us Resolution 2695 entitled Proposing an Amendment to Article 13 of the Revised Charter of the County of Maui 1983 as amended to allow reappointment of members of the Board of Ethics for one successive term. Resolution 2695's purpose is to place on the next general election ballot the question of whether the revised charter of the County of Maui 1983 as amended should be amended effective January 1st, 2027 to authorize the mayor to reappoint members of the Board of Ethics of the County of Maui with the approval of the council for one successive term without an intervening waiting period. I also have an ASF prepared for this resolution as the effective date in the ballot question needs to be changed from July 1st, 2026 to July 1st, 2027. I was the introducer of this proposal, but it was on behalf of the Board of Ethics, and so I will be asking Director Akitake to provide opening comments.

I thought it was January 1st, 2027.

Did I just read my notes wrong? It needs to be changed from July 1st, 2026 to July 1st, 2027. Sorry, staff. Am I screwing this up?

It should be January 1st, 2027.

Isn't that not what I said?

You said July 1st, 2027, and July 1st, 2026.

Thank you, members. What Member Paulton just said. What the thing in front of you says is what the thing that we should be going with.

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and members. I'm Lauren Akitake, the Executive Director and Legal Counsel to the Board of Ethics. And I'm here in support of Resolution 2695, which proposes a charter amendment allowing the reappointment of Board of Ethics members for one successive term. without any waiting period. I do note the one amendment, the correction to paragraph four, the reference to 2027 rather than 2026. I did testify in support of this resolution at your June 2nd meeting, so I will be brief. The board submitted a similar proposal in 2024 on the ballot however it was incorporated into a broader charter amendment affecting all boards and commissions that was not approved by the voters accordingly the board requests that this proposal be presented to the voters again but as a standalone amendment applicable only to the board of ethics While this proposal was important in 2024, it's even more important today, as the board now has full-time staff, and for the first time in its history, has the capacity to address complex ethics issues and long-term policy initiatives, in addition to its traditional adjudicatory and advisory functions. The board is a quasi-judicial body, and its members develop substantial institutional knowledge that becomes increasingly important as the board undertakes multi-year projects that often extend beyond a single term of a member. Allowing one successive term would help preserve that expertise, promote continuity with the board's work, and reduce the risk of quorum and vacancy-related issues and disruptions. At a time when the board is undertaking significant long-term initiatives and developing ethics training opportunities for county employees, continuity of leadership and expert experience is critical to carrying out the voters' vision for a stronger ethics program, which ultimately promotes public confidence in government. For those reasons, the board respectfully requests your support of Resolution 2695, Thank you for this opportunity, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Chair, before we go into testimony, can she clarify what the current term is?

Director Akitake.

Thank you, Chair. Five years.

Any other clarifying questions? Seeing none.

Go ahead. And they're not staggered?

They are staggered.

They are staggered.

Okay, thank you. Thank you members and NC. Okay. Any other clarifying questions? Seeing none, let's receive testimony for this item. Staff.

Thank you chair. There is currently no one signed up to testify.

Can you do last call?

Yes. Thank you chair. If anyone in the audience or on teams would like to testify, please come up to the podium and begin your testimony or use the raise your hand function on teams and staff on YouTube. This is your final call to testify. Three,

to one chair no one has indicated they wish to testify thank you very much members seeing that there are no individuals wishing to testify without objection i will now close oral testimony for this item as a reminder written testimony will continue to be accepted um let's do a two minute round of questioning with a one minute follow up if necessary. I think that we had had this discussion the last time around and that you had heard from the director on the second, so it may not need as much robust discussion. But I do see some hands and we'll start with Member Paltin since I saw her first and then I'll work my way down to Member Johnson, then Rollins-Fernandez.

Thank you, Chair. I have no problem putting this on. I don't know that it'll pass because it didn't pass the first time. I don't think anyone cared what it was, but I mean, no problem. The question I have is the preference to allow for a second term over extending the first term to 10 years? Is it because not everybody would want a second term? Some people might be like five years, that's more than enough, thanks, I'm out. Or can extension to tenure one term be done not in the charter? Those are my questions and my statement.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. I'm not sure. I would think a 10-year term is quite long for someone to sign up for. Even a five-year term is quite long. This proposal was approved by my board before I started and went on the ballot, what was requested for 2024. So when they were coming up with this recommendation, I don't know if they considered a 10 year term.

Can we ask Corp Council if extending it to a 10 year term would require a charter amendment or if it could just be a code amendment?

Deputy Corporation Council.

I think this one would definitely have to be a charter amendment to even extend the term to 10 years rather than keeping it at five years in two terms.

Um, Well, the language right now talks about, you know, I guess this is Section 5 of 13-25, provides information about how long they can be extended and adding that a second term has to have an intervening period.

Yeah, I'm asking if the first term could be 10 years instead of five years or I guess even eight years or some other number, would that have to be a charter amendment or could it be a code amendment?

I'll have to research and look at that. I don't know whether or not in the charter it says anywhere that there's a maximum number of years that a position can have. If it doesn't, then maybe you could do it.

Thank you, so that could be your backup plan when this doesn't pass. Thank you.

Thank you.

I meant to say if, sorry.

Okay, Member Johnson.

Thank you. So first off, I'm looking in the Charter right now if you can reapply after you take a break. Is that allowable? After a year break, you can?

Yes.

Is it one year or two year? Director. Prior to the expiration of two years, So it is a two year.

I believe it's two years. Is that correct? Corporation console.

I'm in 13 dash two section of five. That's where I'm looking at it.

Um, right. That's correct. It says, uh, prior to the expiration of two years and it's kind of funky language, but essentially what that means is you can't reapply until two years have expired.

Right. I can barely hear you, but I heard what your point was, but then it continues on and says for a term not exceeding three years, I know this, this sentence, this sentence is kind of janky.

I think that's the circumstances is that if a person is taking over a position that's been vacated and it's for three years or less, um, then that won't count against them and they won't have to have a two year, um, time out before they're able to be reappointed.

Okay. yeah that's that's all right well that was my question but um it was the two-year break is what's required correct that's required by section 5 of 13-2 unless you're finishing on a partial term like three years or less yeah Right, yeah. So could we amend it and make it a one year? Or that would be back to doing a charter amendment, but I don't know if that's a route to look at as well. But those are my questions.

Thank you, Member Johnson. Did you want a response to that question regarding the one year?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member, for that question. The goal is to have continuity so there's no break.

Okay, so my understanding from what you're saying is that your preference would be to have two consecutive terms without a break and changing the period from two years to one year doesn't make as big of a difference for the body.

Correct.

Okay. Do you get that, Member Johnson?

Yeah, fair enough. I'm just asking. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Member Johnson. Member Rollins-Fernandez.

Okay, I was supportive of this last term when Chair Lee introduced it on behalf of the Board of Ethics. And here, you'll see an example of as provided herein in subsection five. And okay, my question is a question, a discussion that we had last term when we were talking My proposal was for rural areas, so Lanai, Hana, and Molokai to have the same thing. So that's initially what the idea was for the planning commissions, and then it was all lumped together, and then it was just like everybody, and then it went downhill. I have a little more faith in this one. I'm supportive. However, the way it's written, so do you envision someone serving for like 13 years? So if someone were to serve three years first, and then five years, and then would they be eligible for another five years?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that question. I believe that is possible, but it's not what's anticipated or the goal. Like you mentioned earlier that some people could just drop off for whatever reason and we would have to handle it that way, but it's not necessarily anticipated.

Yeah, but it could happen. Possible. With the way it's written. I believe so. Because that was the discussion. And so we had to try to figure out how to recap it at 10 total.

Though frankly, if someone wanted to serve 13 years and they had that institutional knowledge and wanted to keep serving, it helps us. And at 13 years, that would be the max.

Yeah, I mean, if they're doing good work, I'd be supportive. And then there's also a subsection, I think four, where the council could remove someone if they're not doing a good job.

Correct.

Well, it doesn't say it like that. It says upon, remove for cause. Okay, mahalo chair.

Thank you, Member Rollins-Fernandez. Member Cook.

I'm supportive of the concept, but I don't really have, I'm not touched.

Thank you. Thank you, Member Cook. Vice Chair Uhuhajit.

Thank you, Chair. I don't really have any questions. I understand their point. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Sinensi.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Akitake. It does say in the charter question that this would be with the approval of the council. Should that be reappointed?

Yes.

Okay, supported.

Thank you. Chair Lee.

Chair, yeah.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I know. I was and I wasn't and I was. Thank you very much, Chair. And nice to see you, Lauren. Of course, I support this. And, you know, it's so difficult to find people to be on any board. And if somebody is that dedicated to spending 13 years on one board, God bless them. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Member Sugimura.

So on a similar note, I just want to say that your commission was almost invisible before you. And I don't think we've taken this up as often and the improvements you made so very appreciate and I think this is a reflection of the strength of the Board of Ethics and where it has evolved to. And if I think of the two top guys on your board, I hope we want them to serve for 13 years or whatever it is because they're super good. We'll have to name names but thank you. I hope it impacts them.

Director, did you want to respond?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Thank you for your comments, Council Member Sugimura. I appreciate it. The reason I am here is because of the dynamic members on my board who are experienced and had the vision to put full-time staff on the charter in 2024. And we just lost our chair and our secretary because they termed out. And so that's showing that it took that long to get to where we are now and we lost that institutional knowledge. And we still do have very dynamic, very experienced members. And the thought of now that we're moving forward with these big initiatives and it'll take a while to get those approved, implemented, it would be wonderful if those people could continue to help us oversee the implementation of those big initiatives and help fix things as needed along the way. Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Sugimura. I guess for myself, I would just say that I wasn't here last time around when this was put before the body, but I was observing as a member of the public, and I think part of the pushback against the proposal last time was that it was grouped in with some of the other boards and commissions. My hope is that representing it to the public as a standalone proposal will mean that there's more of an appetite to approve it. I also am. partial to having two five-year terms rather than a single 10-year term. I think it'll be easier to get people to volunteer for that kind of a commitment. And I like that there is some kind of review process in which, you know, people's performance is evaluated at the halfway point before we decide to give them a full decade on the body. So I am supportive of this measure and would like to move forward, call on my members. Is there any need for a second round of deliberation on this? I just see one hand up, so we'll take Member Rollins-Fernandez.

I just have one more question. And so why would we have it start on January 1st, 2027 and not effective immediately? Is there a reason you wanted to give like a few months?

I will defer to Corporation Council on that. Oh, okay.

I don't really have any comments on that. I don't know whether it has to be taking effect January 1st, 2027. It's a proposed charter amendment. It needs to be voted on. So other types of resolutions can take effect upon when they're effective, when they've been passed. So I don't have any feeling one way or the other about January 1st.

Do you have a preference? Would you like it to be enacted immediately upon passage?

So this is virtually identical to what was approved by the board in 2024. So that's why we went with these dates. it would be nice to be effective immediately, but I don't know the discussion that went into choosing the state.

So that was a recommendation from your corporation council, uh, not the committee's corporation council. So I don't actually call the rationale behind it. Um,

Well, okay, and because I think the mayor, well, he closes the, there's rolling deadlines, but the mayor often asks for applications by the end of the year, and then if folks think that they are not qualified, they may not submit. Oh, I guess they could. Whatever.

Whatever you want. Thank you. I appreciate the help in changing that language, but we're okay with it at this point. Yeah. Thank you. Okay.

Yeah. Sorry. I don't actually recall the rationale behind it. I just know that it came from the board's staff. And I was like, yeah, sure.

Yeah, if we can get that information, just the rationale behind that, I'd love to know and have it on the record.

Sure. Staff, can we transmit that question in writing to the Board of Ethics? Mechanically, does it go to the board to then have their corporation counsel respond or can we just send it to corporation counsel?

Can the director just get the information and when it comes up at first reading?

Yeah, can you, I guess, have that available for us?

Yes. Great. Mahalo.

All right. Any other discussion? If not, I would like to entertain a motion to recommend passage on first reading of Resolution 2695. Or, yeah. Oh, I guess I was gonna do the amendment after taking up the, after we get a motion on the floor. But I see Member Sugimura, can I get a second? Member Cook, okay. I will now entertain a motion to amend resolution 2695 by replacing the resolution with the proposed CD1 version attached to the ASF. Moved by Member Sugimura. I'll take Member Rollins-Fernandez for the second time. Any discussion on the proposed ASF? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand and say aye. All opposed, nay. So back to the main motion. Yeah, as amended, is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion as amended, please raise your hand and say aye. All opposed, nay. Thank you very much, members. This item will now move on to full council for consideration. Thank you, Director Akitake. Next up, we have Resolution 2687, Proposed Charter Amendment to Establish a Climate Action and Resiliency Revolving Fund. Resolution 2687's purpose is to place on the next general election ballot the question of whether the revised charter of the County of Maui in 1983 as amended should be amended effective July 1st, 2027 to require that in adopting the annual operating budget, the council appropriate at least 20% of the Maui County transient accommodation tax revenues into a climate action and resiliency revolving fund to implement the climate action and resiliency plan. I'd like to ask for opening comments from the introducer, Council Member Johnson.

Okay, sure. For opening comments, first off, you know, as you folks may remember, we codified the CARP, the Climate Action and Resiliency Plan, and now this is a way we can fund this plan through a revolving fund. Just to remind you, that's 20% of our TAT tax would go into this pot. And for example, EP&S, in 2027 alone had $29 million in grants. So that's a significant pot of money, grant money going out. So CARPA identified over a hundred action items that show priorities and costs and timeframes. So a lot of the things that they're asking is gonna cost money and what good is a plan without the funding? The three things that keeps going over in my mind is mitigate and adapt to climate change, making our community resilient. Resiliency, mitigation, this is being proactive. These are all good things and good planning. I also wanna, just on a very minor level, Little Lanai, our electric bill is $400 a month, sectioning housing electric bills at Iwioli, I'm hearing at four or $500 a month. So we need to look into 100% renewable energies. We need to look seriously at how we are gonna get off of this oil if the cost is so high. We can use this money to protect our community. I think it's common sense in being proactive. we often hear especially me going in high school I heard this all the time think global and act local this is a way that we can use our you know tackle these big issues on a on a local level so those are my opening remarks I feel that you know having discussed this in my community when the carp came down i i also recall during budget so many of us were looking for funds for infrastructure the flooding of south of south kihei or south maui uh fire protection all of these things council members were looking for funds to to find and i think having this pot would be really useful to take up take that on you know It's not just a West Maui and South Maui thing. It's the heat in Kahului and Wailuku. It's all of the things, the erosion that's happening on Lanai. Every district has been affected by our climates, has been affected. We need to make our towns more resilient. Look at the Kona Lows and look at the flooding on Molokai. I mean, it just, when are we going to try to put some money aside and really tackle these issues that are only getting worse? Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson. I see Chair Lee's hand up, but before we get into discussion, I wanna make sure that we take testimony on the item. So Chair, did you have a clarifying question or is that part of discussion?

No, I was ready to discuss.

Okay, so let's take public testimony and then we can move on to discussion. Staff, is there anybody signed up to testify on this item?

Thank you, Chair. There is currently Lucene De Nye signed up to testify, followed by Christina De Leon.

Thank you.

Aloha Committee, nice to see you all in person. My name is Lucy Andine. I'm testifying today on behalf of the Sierra Club Maui Group. Our board has discussed this concept at our last meeting and is very much in support of having something As Council Member Johnson says, we have this county plan for resiliency and adaptation, and we need a way to actually implement it, make sure that we're ready for these changing events that seem to keep happening because we're in a very changing world. So we do support this going forward as a charter amendment. The one comment that people did have is that the things that were listed as potential funding areas are very, very broad. Some of them may actually be covered under other funding streams. So it would be nice to concentrate on those that actually are going to help us with resiliency. I didn't see resiliency hubs listed here. I know Hana is working on one. I really think that we need that concept where we have emergency supplies in each region gathered there ready for when you need the satellite radios, for when you need the generators, for when you need the emergency supplies of food and water. We need to be ready region by region, and this could be one way. Of course, the other types of things listed here, such as walkable and bikeable, complete streets, I would hope those would kind of come under our transportation funding, but if we do need an extra emphasis, because these are things that do promote resiliency, it would be good to have matching pots of fun. We are a little concerned about nature-based shoreline management solutions. That's a broad word, nature-based. It sometimes means vacuuming up sand from one person's ocean and dumping it on someone else's beach. We don't support that very much because those are very tricky solutions to implement well with no impacts. So we would hope that this would hone in on things that are really proven and are going to be widely beneficial for our community in facing storms, fires, wind events, tsunamis, and also just the changes in weather that we're seeing. the drier conditions, et cetera. So mahalo for your consideration and please accept Sierra Club's support of your efforts. Mahalo.

Thank you. Members, any clarifying questions? I have one. Member Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Lucy, and thank you for joining us real quick. I know you mentioned resiliency hubs, and I know in the CARP there's a lot of, it's a big plan. So did you go through the list of actions? Is that what the one you're referencing?

Yeah, I was just looking at the actions. and I have looked at the plan. I haven't read every single section of it. I've applied for some grants at the EP&S, and so they do want your grant objectives to correspond with the plan, and there are a lot of great things in that plan.

Okay, great, thanks for that clarification. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Member Johnson. Any other clarifying questions? Seeing none.

Mahalo.

Thank you. Can you call up the next testifier, please?

Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is Christina De Leon, but I no longer see her signed into teams for now. We could go on to Alex De Road and return to Christina at the end if she's returned.

Yes, let's move on. And if Ms. De Leon is back on, then we can take her up at the end of the list.

aloha community chair hello council members good to see all of you my name is alex de road i'm testifying as a resident of maui county and um just wanted to share that as one of the former county staff that helped to co-lead the development of the climate action resiliency plan there was definitely from the start a goal to have it funded and not be an unfunded mandate. Having an operating budget for this plan, as has been mentioned by member Johnson and Lucien and others, I think is really one of the critical pieces that's really going to allow us to make progress and be able to start to see us making, you know, real, substantial moves towards more resiliency for our communities. I will mention resilience hubs are mentioned in the Climate Action and Resiliency Plan. So from Lucienne's comment about that, that is something that's in there. I would encourage the Council to consider Maybe some language as to where that funding would be housed or who would be making decisions on how you know what would be funded or not. Would you know just the process? Maybe that's something to be determined later and not in the Charter Amendment, but understanding how that would function and during our. time with the Office of Climate Change, Resiliency and Sustainability, we were overseeing many climate action-related grants, as Member Johnson had mentioned that EP&S does now. So that's money going out to the community. But we also were able to allocate funding to support departments within the county that had projects that aligned with the CARP or other climate action. At the time, the CARP wasn't adopted yet, but basically similar to the projects and goals and objectives that are mentioned in the CARP. So that included things like helping to supplement stormwater projects under MS4 with public works, helping to support climate adaptation planning for parks under Parks and Rec, um helping to support some of the current planning divisions uh coastal zone management and dune restoration so a lot of this funding can help supplement wherever there are shortfalls um to really enhance that that important work that's being done within the county and within our communities so thank you very much for your time thank you mr derode any questions for the testifier seeing none uh staff can you call up the next testifier please

Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is Suparna Vasisht followed by Hana Lele on Teams.

Hi. Aloha. I am Suparna Vasisht and I just want to express my support for resolution 2687 which would establish a climate action and resiliency revolving fund like many people have already said we have a strong plan a climate action and resiliency plan and what we need is permanent funding for it so um i'm just here to express my support and urge the council to make this a charter amendment to establish the Climate Action and Resiliency Revolving Fund. That's it. Mahalo.

Thank you very much. Members, any clarifying questions? Seeing none, staff, can you please call up the next testifier?

Thank you, Chair. The next and final individual to testify is Hannah Lealy.

Aloha chair, vice chair and members of the committee. Can you hear me? I've been having some weird like Bluetooth issues today. Okay, cool. Um, my name is Hannah Lilly. So I'm the Hawaii regional manager for surf rider foundation, and I'm testifying today on behalf of the Maui chapter and strong support of this resolution through our coasting climate and clean water initiatives. We work on many of the same priorities that are identified in the carp, including dune restoration, wastewater solutions, fire resilience, water quality monitoring and long-term planning for sea level rise and chronic coastal erosion. Like you've heard, one of the biggest challenges that we consistently encounter is the lack of dedicated funding to implement these solutions. Too often, we find ourselves operating in a reactive cycle, responding to disasters after they occur rather than investing in the actions needed to reduce the risk before the next crisis arrives. The March Kona Low and the recent King Tide events offer a glimpse into the future. Many of our coastal communities face there's flooding, shoreline collapse, damaged infrastructure and worsening water quality impacts. You know, I was out documenting the King Tides last weekend on the south and west side, and it was a really sobering experience. You know, the high wash of the waves, was reaching far beyond the sandy beach, washing over roads and infrastructure, coastal flooding and key hay, nasty brown water surrounding our coastlines. All I could think of is that these impacts that we often talk about are not some distant future. They're already here, albeit in glimpses, but we're not prepared. So this resolution represents a really important opportunity to move from piecemeal responses towards long term resilience. It provides a mechanism to invest in the projects that will help protect our beaches, water resources, public health and community well being before climate impacts become severe and more costly. Similar to some of the concerns that Lucienne brought up with kind of sneaky nature-based shoreline management labeling, I would encourage the county council to establish clear guardrails and accountability measures as this fund is implemented. Dedicated resilience funding is critically important, but it also should be directed towards projects that build long-term climate resilience and work with natural processes rather than against them. uh to sum it up you know the challenges that we face are growing uh but so is the opportunity to proactively shape a future that we can be proud of and dedicated funding is essential to do this mahalo for the opportunity to testify thank you very much for that testimony members any clarifying questions seeing none thank you very much did i hear you correctly that was the last person signed up to testify so i guess can you circle back to miss deleon

Yes, if Ms. Christina De Leon is available on Teams, this is your final call to testify. I don't see her online. Please use the raise your hand function and staff will unmute you. This is your final call. Three, two, one. Yeah, I don't see her available. Would you like me to do final call for all testimony?

Yes, please.

If there's anyone in the audience or on Teams that would like to testify, please come up to the podium. and begin your testimony or use the raise your hand function on Teams and staff will unmute you. This is your final call. Three, two, one. Chair, no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Thank you very much. Members, seeing as there are no more individuals wishing to testify without objection, I will now close oral testimony for this item. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. For this one, I'll propose a three-minute questioning period per member with a one-minute follow-up. I saw Chair Lee's hand up four minutes ago. or first, so we'll start off with her and then work our way down unless Member Johnson would like to go last in the lineup. When I get to him, I'll ask if he wants me to skip over so that he can round off the conversation. Chair Lee.

Did you say to ask questions?

You can ask questions, you can share. I don't think we called up any testimony.

I'll go right into sharing. I'll go right into sharing. My sharing is I don't agree with this at all. 20% of the TAT is very substantial. And after what we've just been through with Bill 9, we're going to receive way less in TATs. Now, the subject matter, of course, is very important. Climate change. action and resiliency fund I think is worthwhile. But coming from T18, I don't think so. It will be competing for funds with housing, the homeless, a lot of social programs, important critical programs which the community really needs. Now, think of another source perhaps. then maybe I could possibly support it, but not this much. 20% is too big of an amount to be taken from the TAT because this is a dwindling revenue source, and we need to preserve it for our social programs and other critical programs. But as far as the climate... resiliency and action plan i think that's important it's not like we're not addressing it now we are uh through other streams and through other departments so um and through um local non-profits so again you know a good idea but i am hoping that the members do not agree to 20 of tt thank you

Thank you, Chair. When you asked if you could get into conversation rather than just questions, I almost told you that we didn't have any resources available, but that would be a mistake. We do have online the budget director and we do have online members from the Department of Management. So I just want to make the members aware. So if you do have questions on what this would mean for our budgeting process or how it would be implemented, there are personnels that can answer those questions for you. So continuing on the line, Member Sugimura.

So my thought on this is huge need, I agree. But we also fund in various departments exactly these needs, so it's not like it's something that's forgotten. I wonder if, did we say we have finance director Marcy Martin?

Who do we have? I don't know if we have anybody from finance.

No, Chair, we have the budget director online, but nobody from finance.

okay so budget director what is the impact of this um are you there yeah let's see okay dollar wise thank you chair thank you councilmember sugimura um yes uh as we discussed in the adept meeting the other day um I believe we determined that based on our current TAT estimate for fiscal year 27, which is $65 million. 20% would be $13 million that would be moved into this fund. We did have some concerns about bond rating agencies, but we discussed that in depth, so I won't belabor that at this meeting. So yes, it would be $13 million if we had done it in fiscal year 27, and obviously that will fluctuate as our estimated revenues change. Thank you, Chair.

And how does the budget department or is it finance then watches the funding that goes out to different organizations to make sure there's no double dipping?

Thank you, Chair. Yes, we're working on that in some of our grants working groups to determine, because as you know, we have organizations that do work all across the county in different areas. So we do have grants to the same agency from multiple departments. So we're really having the departments coordinate with each other to make sure that the scope of those projects is different. So agriculture might give a grant for somebody to do planting somewhere, whereas OED Resources will do a grant for

uh cultural recovery in a different area but it's the same entity but we're really trying to make sure we're keeping an eye on scope of work so folks aren't double dipping for the same project thank you i i look at epns as probably a big contributor to all of this although it wouldn't be the ultimate and only so i look forward to hearing what other members are going to say thanks thank you member sugimura member paulton

Can I get Director Milner back? Do you know how much money EPNS was projected to generate this fiscal year budget and last fiscal year budget?

I will pull up my revenue spreadsheet here in a second, but I can say that EPNS this year, we did need to do a supplemental transfer to cover the costs of the programs that they were operating. And that supplemental transfer was $14,252,130 for fiscal year 27.

Okay, I'm not supportive of it in this form and I think it has a lot of work to go before it even becomes an ordinance because in the discussion of it becoming an ordinance, my question was how much money are we currently spending on this and it's from all the different parts like EPNS, Manage Retreat and other places like even I think MEMA, in the form of like resilience hubs and wildfire things. And I think pushing this through as a charter amendment right now is asking our voters who aren't like super ma'a to the entirety of the budget process like how we are. So I would be more supportive of it as a code but I think it needs a lot more work. All the questions I asked when we were in committee the last time and I'm done, I don't need any more comment.

Thank you, Member Paulton. Member Johnson, would you... Sorry, I see budget director wanting to respond, so I'll give her the opportunity to do so.

Apologies, Chair. And apologies to Councilmember Johnson. I do have an outstanding letter to his committee that is currently with the mayor for signature, so I'm hoping it will be transmitted this afternoon. But I know that's overdue, so I do want to apologize. The current total across all departments is $90 million, $842,813. Wow. So we'll get that letter out that itemizes it per department, but just to give you the overall number. Thank you, Chair.

So with that information, I mean, it's not that we aren't spending money on the CARP. I think the point is that it needs to be better organized, better, you know, put together so that we see the goal and we prioritize the action plans. I don't think the problem is we're not spending money on CARP action. It's that we're not coordinating it well so that the vision and prioritizing. And this charter amendment, in some ways caps it at a certain amount. Or it doesn't necessarily do that, but it gives others the excuse to. So not supportive of a charter amendment for this. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Palten. Member Johnson, would you like to speak now or do you want me to circle back to you at the end so you can bookend the conversation for round one?

Sure, you know, I like to work with everybody. I'll wait until everybody's done speaking and then I can add some more. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Member Johnson. Member Rollins-Fernandez.

I came up with a brilliant idea inspired by Member Calma. Yep. Thanks, Member Calma. Member Bolton, now I forgot it. Oh, so that could be one of the questions that we send before budget session next year, and then we'll get that response immediately when we're doing a budget so that we have a better understanding, and I wanna commend Member Johnson for, having this prepared for both budget session as an ordinance and for now for taking up charter amendments. Some of the questions that I had were now answered, so that's great, thank you. And then the only thing that I would add for this, and we kind of already have an idea of the direction this is heading, but for other dedicated funding mechanisms in the charter, it comes out of RPT. RPT is enshrined in the Hau'i Constitution. and the legislature always tries to amend the constitution to get some of that RPT. TAT was created by statute, and it's easier for them to take away, and I don't trust them. So if this were to be put into the charter, if they decided one session that they don't want to extend the TAT to counties anymore and they vote to take that too, we would have an unenforceable section in our charter. So there's that. Okay, I think that's everything. And I'm Mahalo Budget Director for providing us that information on the 90 million that's been invested for climate action and resiliency. And I'm guessing that also includes the work, some of the work that Department of OIV Resources is doing because as we've heard globally, Some of the most effective responses to climate change is indigenous wisdom. And so investing in indigenous architecture, indigenous methods, permaculture, all of that, some of it which was rebranded as climate change was taken from... indigenous peoples I'm happy to hear that 90 million this past year. So that's great.

I'm guessing that's something that member Johnson didn't know Yeah, okay Thank You member Rollins Fernandez remember cook Thank You chair

I'm not supportive of using the DAT for this. It's gonna be a diminishing resource with the current legislation that we have pending. Considering the legislation that was passed that's going to be impacting the TAT tax. I'm an advocate of using the TAT for housing our local residents as well as full service wraparound services for our unhoused. So that's the area that I feel that particular tax base should be focused on and the climate actions are worthy and as they've been noted, various funding. But I had one question. Within this proposal, who would be, how would the funds be directed? Because there's so many different facets. So that's one thing I wanted to ask, and hopefully Member Johnson can address, what department would this reside in and who would be managing it? I'm just asking that he's going to talk about it. I was just curious about that. Okay.

Chair, if you allow. Member Johnson. Well, just like the CART being in the... The managing director's office, we would also put this into the managing directors because they're in charge of all departments. They could push some money towards water for something, transportation, you could get electric buses. They're kind of overseeing all the departments and they would issue out the funds.

Thank you.

Member Cook, does that answer your question? Any further discussion? Thank you. Vice Chair Uhuhajens.

Thank you, Chair. I feel very similarly to Member Popin and Member Rollins-Fernandez and the rest of the group. I think this can be done not only via ordinance, but we do address it in the budget, as we just discussed. And considering we're trying to minimize the amount of charter amendments that we want to push forward, I will save this one for not only further discussion and working on, but just so that we don't have a whole bunch moving forward as well, considering we can do this in the budget and through ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Member Sinensi.

Mahalo, Chair, and Mahalo, Member Johnson, for bringing this forward. I did have a question for Budget Director Milner. When we did address some of the Kona Low Storms, we used emergency funds.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Snitzy. Yes, we did do a budget amendment to allocate $32 million from the emergency funds for the recovery from the Kona Low Storms. There were also some amendments during the Council's budget process, not specifically related to the Kona Low Storms, but related to recovery. And we've also received some grant funds to help with small business recovery from the Kona Low Storms. Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you, and I mean, I'm supportive of, only because during that Kona Lo storms for East Maui, we saw a lot of the damage that shut down pretty much everything for at least a week in East Maui, so if we can find those types of funds to support our rural communities when we do have those large weather events like the Kona Lo, I would like to see more funding for that, Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Senancy. Just in the interest of time, I'll add that I feel similarly to what was shared earlier. I support the CARP. I think that's demonstrated by myself and by the members of this body by putting forth way more than the $14 million that this would dedicate towards that effort in the last budget cycle. The budget director said $90 million was spent towards CARP projects in FY27. but I do share concerns that were brought up regarding creating a dedicated source of funding and tying up revenues that would may impact our bonding. So I guess that's where I stand. Member Johnson, would you like to bookend the conversation of our first round?

Sure, fair enough. I hear the members loud and clear. I hear the body. I simply just don't agree, as you guys would expect. Of course, I don't agree with it. $90 million into the CARP shows how much work that is needed to be done after years and years of ignoring climate change, of ignoring our seashores, of ignoring the way we live. Well, the Pigeons are coming home to roost, if that's even a term. You look at what COVID did to our economy, you look at what recessions do to our economies, global terrorism, all the things that deal with our fucking economy, wait till climate change comes. Oh, that's going to be a big chunk of change. And that's going to change the way we live our day in and day out lives. Let it be known today, 6-16, 2026. I tried to put this before the people on the ballot. It's not going anywhere. I'll try again, maybe through county code. But I think in my notes, I'm looking down right now. Are we prepared? That's my question. And I just simply don't see it. We're not prepared. You know, we're trying to get resiliency hubs. We're going through the red tape to get these things that we say are going to protect us. Meanwhile, El Nino is at the foot of our door where all the meteorologists keep telling us time and time again, this is the season, big hurricanes coming, all these fires, all these droughts, only more is coming. So I'm trying to do what I can. And I think of like the, just even our little Lanai, the climate here is different if you ask the old timers. And even where you guys live in all your districts, all the old timers will tell you the weather's changed. It's never been this hot before. It's never been this cold before. All of these ups and downs, floods three years after a whole town burned down. I can't imagine us not trying to do so much more and that's what i'm trying to do i i want to go down a list and say what have we done for our housing what have we done for the houses that burned down what have we done for floods and erosions you can say yes this is what we've done but Look with your own eyes. I've used Lanai as an example. Look at the runoff that has been flooding our reefs, not in my time, just six years here, but just 20, 30, 40, 50 years of just mismanagement. It just goes on and on and on. I don't think this is a cheap... There's no cheap answers. It's gonna cost a lot of money, and the damage it's gonna do is gonna just crush our economies, crush our lives. But I'm trying, and if it comes down to, you know, I'll try a code, and if that doesn't pass, then... I'm going to keep trying because budget season, next budget season, we're going to be like, scratch our heads. Where are we going to get this money fund for South Maui for the flood protection, which we just had the discussion with Council Member Cook. Well, there would be a pot of money that we could use for that. Just an example. But I hear you. Chair, if you want, we can defer this and then we can file or however you want to do. But I don't want to take any more of the body's time. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Johnson. So what would the pleasure of the body be? If I'm reading the room correctly, I don't see the votes to pass it now. Do you want to defer it? Do you want to file it? Chair Lee?

File. Posted file.

So we have a motion on the floor to file, seconded by Member Sugimura. Any discussion? I guess we all kind of shared our thoughts during the first round, but any additional discussion on the matter? If not...

Chair, if we're gonna file, I just ask for a roll call. You guys know, of course, I'm gonna do that. I think it's kind of short-sighted, but that's my discussion. Understood.

Staff, can you please do a roll call?

Yes, Chair. Proceeding with the roll call vote, Council Member Cook?

No. The motion on the floor is to file. Yes, to file. Yes, to file.

Council Member Johnson?

No to filing.

Council Chair Lee? Aye. Council Member Paulton? Aye. Council Member Rollins-Bernandez? Aye. Council Member Sinensi?

Yes.

Council Member Sugimura?

Aye.

Committee Vice Chair Uhu Hodgins?

Yes.

And Committee Chair Patongan?

Aye.

Chair, that's eight ayes, one noes. Motion passes.

Thank you, members. Okay, so we have three more resolutions to go over today and a little under half an hour left. So that being the case, I'm not gonna call for a recess. If you have to, you know, go, just go. But we do have up next the resolution related to the Independent Nomination Board. Okay, let's see, where's my notes? We have before us Resolution 2693 entitled Proposing an Amendment to the Revised Charter of the County of Maui 1983 as Amended to Simplify the Appointment Process for Boards and Commissions and Dissolve the Independent Nomination Board. Resolution 2693's purpose is to place on the next general election ballot the question of whether the revised charter of the County of Maui 1983 as amended should be amended effective immediately to repeal the parts of the 2022 charter amendment that created the Independent Nomination Board and related procedures for nomination at various county offices. To assist with our discussion on this topic, I transmitted the cost of government's commission's May 2026 report on boards and commissions to this committee item. It's number five on Granicus. Because one of the report's recommendations was to strengthen the Independent Nomination Board's independent vetting role, I asked the administration for their position and how they would address the Commission's recommendation and finding. Our letter is number four on Granicus. We did not receive a response from the administration regarding the proposed recommendations from the Acosta Government Commission. I would like to begin by requesting opening comments from the introducer, Council Member Brauland Fernandez. But I also wanna note that the Casa Government's Commission Chair is still here and we at least had the board, the Independent Nomination Board Chair here.

The staff for the INB is here.

Staff is here, okay. So we have the Boards and Commissions Liaison here with us as well. If there are no objections, I'd like to designate them as resources.

No objection.

Okay, so Member Rollins-Frenette, the floor is yours.

Mahalo, Chair. So as we know, the INB was created by the charter commission, was introduced by the charter commission and ratified by the electorate in 2022. And following the meetings and discussion, the INB ended up being a mashup of two ideas by the community, Blue Ribbon Committee, to nominate members to county boards and commissions, and a separate idea of two ideas I think that's the independent selection committee to choose the auditor, clerk, court counsel, and prosecuting attorney. And Chair, if I misrepresent any of the details, as also a member of the 2020 Charter Commission, I'll invite you to correct any of the, correct me after I provide remarks. Oh, welcome. The purpose of these ideas was to encourage more participation in the processes, recruitment, involvement by the unelected community members, and then to increase transparency. That was a big one for me in determining who received nominations. Unfortunately, the INB has become more of an obstacle. and has not served the purpose intended specifically, as I stated earlier, transparency. My proposal is another attempt at this, and I'll go over the sections really quick. So we just went over 13-2, unless otherwise provided and it says in this charter or by ordinance and I'd rather it to say by law. And then additional policies may be provided by ordinance is in the next section. And then following that, striking sections 15 and 16 that create the INB. Section 17 returns us to the process prior to the establishment of the INB, or sorry, subsection A. And then subsection B provides clarity for boards and commissions not subject to the mayor's nomination and council approval process. And then section 18 returns the process to filling vacancies to pre-INB time. Then the last section is a section on transitioning from INB to no more INB. Because we just voted to recommend putting the ballot question regarding the Board of Ethics that amends section five, we'll need to also talk about how to ensure the blend and I don't know if that would be like an instruction to the clerks to incorporate that since they have the power to do that. And then the ballot question reads, shall the charter be amended effectively immediately to repeal the parts of the 2022 charter amendment that created the independent nomination board and related procedures for nominations to various county offices? Mahalo, Chair.

Thank you, Member Rollins-Fernandez. Since you did point out that I was on the Charter Commission at the time, I will try to...

I found out. We voted for you.

You did? No, no, no, sorry.

Member Cama nominated you to represent Kahului.

Since you mentioned on the floor now, I guess I would just share my history from my perspective on how this came to be. You were correct. It was a combination of two different proposals that were put forth. The initial one was from... the chair, Lance Collins, who wanted to model something after the Judicial Selection Committee that nominates judges. So that's where the Independent Nomination Board was first modeled after. There was a second proposal from myself to allow for more political independence for the clerks and auditors. I wanted to ensure that the people who oversaw our elections facilitated our legislative processes here and were responsible for maintaining accountability for us and for the administration weren't subject to political pressures. And so those started off as two different things two different items they got mashed together i ultimately voted in favor because of that i was not for the independent nomination commission our committee when it was first proposed independently just because there were so many vacancies on our existing boards and commissions i didn't think it would make sense to create additional bureaucracy um but you know i wanted i wanted to ensure independence for our clerks and for our auditors I think that there was a vision for how it was meant to be implemented that didn't fully come to fruition. If I understand the recommendations from the cost of government commission correctly, and they were pushing for us to go back to what was originally proposed. I wish we had gotten a response from the administration on their position regarding those recommendations. Members, we have the chair of the Independent Nomination Commission. Is there any objection to having him as a resource as well?

No objection, Chair. And then I think Mr. Mayor is also here to testify. I look forward to hearing from him because I think the Blue Ribbon proposal, the Blue Ribbon Committee was also one of his proposals.

Okay. Before we get to testimony though, I think I'd like to offer each of our resource personnel an opportunity to offer opening remarks. Then we can go into testimony. Resources, I want you to know that if you would like to offer comments now, you can. If you would like to offer comments during testimony, you're also welcome to do so at that time. It's not an either or. Yeah, so when we open up the floor for testimony, because I know that some of them had signed up to testify on this item. I'm looking at the log and see some of the names. So you can give opening remarks now, you can give testimony later. I'll defer to you. I just want to make sure that you have the opportunity to speak. So we'll go down the row. I guess we'll start with the administration. Do you have any opening comments to offer at this time? And I recognize I'm putting you on the spot. So if the answer is no, We understand.

Currently, no. I thought I was here for questioning. That's why I'm in case.

Okay. Board or cost of government chair? Do you want to offer comments at this time?

Yes, I was asked by the cost of government commission to provide some clarification testimony on the report. At a 10,000 foot level, we acknowledge that there are recruitment and quorum challenges across boards and commissions. and we actually, in response to that, recommended retaining and strengthening the IMB. Specifically, the themes that we see a role for the IMB in is undertaking a comprehensive, assisting the county council with entertaining comprehensive review of the process of recruitment, nomination, confirmation, and retention with the objective of reducing the structural barriers to volunteer service. This review should examine whether membership categories and professional requirements are necessary and appropriately scoped, whether the number of seats on each body is right-sized, whether the council confirmation process is proportionate to the responsibilities and authority of each body, whether the geographic residency requirements can be modified to allow for input without requiring voting membership, and whether the timeline for nomination to seating can be streamlined. Attendance policies should be actively enforced, and the IMB should be directed to screen for both qualifications as well as realistic availability. Without the IMB, the quorum and attendance issues, in our view, could be exacerbated, but would need to be taken up by other bodies at a minimum, which would come with risks of their own. Secondly, the above requires strengthening of the IMB's resources and capacity. It's our position that the County Council and administration should treat investment in the IMB's operational capacity as an investment in the quality of all the boards and the commissions. The IMB's resource and capacity limitations should be addressed directly. The county could evaluate authorizing and funding background checks for board and commission applicants as a standard component, evaluate providing IMB with dedicated and additional administrative support given the breadth of its responsibilities, noting that the IMB's administrative operations are entirely managed by a single county employee, the boards and commissions liaison, who simultaneously serves as a staff liaison to all county boards and commissions and is staffed to the conservation planning committee. Work also with the Department of OUE resources, translation team, and the IMB to develop a realistic workflow for bi-weekly agenda translation compliance and prioritize the adoption of the IMB's administrative rules to provide procedural clarity for applicants and staff. Council should also evaluate whether the current confirmation process appropriately calibrated to the nature of the volunteer advisory rules, giving consistent evidence that the process deters qualified applicants across boards and commissions.

Thank you very much. Can I ask that you give a copy of that to staff so it can be put into the record? Thank you very much. And then, I guess, chair of the INB, do you have opening comments you'd like to offer? And if not, that's okay too. If you just want to be here to serve as a resource in case members have questions.

Yeah, opening comments at the time. Okay.

All right, that being the case, staff, can we open up the floor for public testimony?

Yes, Chair, so we'll start off with Chair Goossens-Larsen's opportunity to offer testimony. Chair, did you have additional comments?

No additional comments. Thank you.

Okay, then our next testifier will be Mr. Dick Mayer on Teams. Mr. Mayor, you're enabled on our end, so you can go ahead and turn on your camera and unmute your microphone and begin your testimony.

Thank you very much. A little history. Many of you know that I was the one who started the Blue Ribbon Committee back when Alan Arakawa was mayor, and it worked very well. We had an excellent group of people who knew a lot of people in the county, and that was a critical element in establishing who was on the Blue Ribbon Committee to make nominations to the mayor for his appointments. uh when the charter review commission met in 2021 i went to them and urged them to do this and out and uh chair at that time uh lance collins took up the idea and put it forth to the committee the model that i mentioned to them was what the state does in selecting judges they have a process by which there's a committee they can review candidates and go through the procedures unfortunately after the election and the establishment of an imb in in the county the county government the mayor's office in particular did not do what i had asked them to do and that is to ask me to come before the first meeting and even before that to meet with the staff of the mayor's office who was putting together the whole process to establish the INB. And I think I would have been able to give them a lot of words of wisdom that would have helped them do the process in the correct way. As it turned out, they didn't know what they were doing. They made many mistakes. I know a lot of people in Maui County. I did not know any of the nominees that they made to the INB and that's maybe my fault, but I then was disappointed when I went to the first meeting and asked to give a presentation to them and they were very reluctant to receive any any advice on how we had operated for four years prior. So what I'm asking is that this be allowed to continue. Please do not add this as a charter commitment and let's get it done right. It's a very important function and I agree with the cost of government commission that it should be better staffed There are a number of other steps that can be taken to make this a functional element within our county government. We have 30 boards and commissions, an extremely important part of running the county, and we need the very best people we can get there. The Blue Ribbon Committee did a major job in recruiting people for positions. Very often there was a vacancy in a board, and I'll give one example. Let's say the Animal Protection Committee, dealing with the Humane Society, etc. And we went out and got veterinarians and other people who were willing to do it. They didn't apply. They never thought of applying for the board, but we went ahead and recruited them. And I think that should be an important function of the INB. But it takes some effort, takes staff time and some finances. The second thing we did was we made an effort really to get background checks on the people we were recommending. And that's a very critical element. We found out that one person who had all the fine criteria on their application, but one of the members in our board... uh knew that that person had had some trouble with the police we checked with the police found out that was true and we then did not nominate that person those are the kinds of things an imb can do to screen out uh undesirable people to nominate the very best people and improve the operations of the board so i would urge you not to put this on the charter but let's work together as a community to make sure we have an effective imb and i think that can be done

Thank you very much. Any clarifying questions for the testifier? Seeing none. Oh, Member Rollins-Fernandez.

Mahalo, Chair. Mahalo for your testimony, Mr. Mayor. The Blue Ribbon Committee, was that appointed by former Mayor Arakawa or did you folks assemble your group?

When the election took place, I mentioned to Mr. Arakawa at that time that I thought that we needed to improve the whole process of selecting people for boards and commissions, because many of the commissions were not operating with the best people in there, and sometimes it was political people merely from their campaigns who got appointed. And he said to me, because he had been a student of mine years ago, And he said to me, Dick, why don't you go ahead and find some good people? And I went ahead and selected a real nice variety of people, both ethnically, gender-wise, geographically, to be on a committee. And we met. At that time, of course, it was not part of the charter. It was a very informal thing that the mayor used as a cabinet to review candidates that he would then nominate. We had no power to nominate anybody, but we did nominate. not meet as a group and we nominate usually two or three people for each of the positions on the on the boards and commissions the mayor looked them over and in general he agreed with us he saw that we had done a good job there was one or two cases where he said no i'd rather appoint somebody i know uh separately and he went ahead and did that But I think overall the process worked well, and I feel strongly that over the next several years, the boards and commissions upgraded themselves considerably in their operations and in their professionalism.

Mahalo, Mr. Mayor. Mahalo, Chair. Okay.

All right. Staff, any other? Oh, Chair. I didn't see Member Johnson.

Thank you, Jerry. Afternoon, Dick Mayer. I appreciate you sticking around testifying. I know that you really worked hard on this. I wanted to bring up a clarifying question. You said there were certain steps that the administration didn't do right when it started going. Can you get into some of those steps?

One of the things I would have done right from the very beginning was gone to the Office of Information Practices, because I know they would be dealing with personnel matters, and many people would get selected, other people would get turned down, and they needed to find out exactly what OIP would allow the Independent Nomination Board to do with applications that came in. I'll go back to the example I gave about a person who had a police record. You don't want to embarrass people. You don't want to get sued. The committee members don't want to get sued by saying, I think that person has a criminal record or police thing. So you need to find out ways of handling personnel matters The way the county hires people and does things, they don't publicize everybody who's applied for every one of your jobs in the county. There should be a way that the INB can do things properly, legally, and with the necessary transparency, but not open it up for being sued. that's that those are some of the things that need to be considered and that's why i think if they model it after existing procedures in the civil service system and with the judicial review board and work with uh opposite information practices i think they could come up with a very good thank you

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, I had high hopes and it's just been, it has really not been the way I've been wanting it to work. So I'm kind of frustrated with the process and thanks for clarifying. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Member Johnson.

Any other questions for Mr. Mayor? So we have one other individual raising their hand to testify. I guess, members, it's almost 4.30. My hope is to be able to at least have some conversation on this, given that resource personnel have dedicated time to be here with us today. I know that some of you have hard deadlines to leave this meeting. So after we finish testimony, those of you who need to leave, I'd like to recognize you first. and then we can play by ear. But my hope is to wrap up after this, defer the two remaining resolutions from the budget director until Thursday. If we're able to finish this portion today, great. If not, I would like us to at least get through the questions that we need to ask of our resource personnel. Does that make sense?

Okay.

Staff, can you call up the next testifier? Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is the Royal House on Teams.

Aloha. This is representing the Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, Kea, Keaupūniko, Hawaii Paiʻāina, and I think, or I'm pretty sure that there was many things that was missing for finding the people to be hired, yeah, because the laws that were made from Kamehameha III, yeah, and I believe Lot, I think, Kamehameha, there's a process on how to hire these kinds of people. And I heard the guy say that he was looking at, like, people's backgrounds with, like, ethnic and stuff like that. So we got to go hire the people that is part of the House of Nobles, yeah, because that is the leaders of the kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, yeah, because... yeah if you're just hiring on any kind of people that's from all outside whatever it's a conflict of interest of this royal patented domain okay and um yeah um yeah for any kind of leadership role whatever yeah you guys gotta hire those specific people's is descendants okay yeah by right by law um and if not that's a conflict of interest for real okay and um and yeah because the commissions all the other boards whatever they um making decisions on the public's behalf and the public never even say anything about the decisions that are being made whatever and um yeah and don't think that anything should be changed i think it should be reverted back to the original um laws that it was created and forever will exist period and yeah um yeah get the correct people in all the seats okay because yeah that's a major violation on an international level and yeah thank you

Thank you very much. Members, any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, next testifier, please.

Chair, the next testifier is David Good on Teams.

Aloha, Chair. Can you hear me? Good afternoon, Chair Patongan and members of the committee. First of all, I want to apologize to the chair because I forgot that the committee chairs had changed. So my letter I wrote this morning was addressed to your vice chair. But in any case, I offered some testimony today. I'm trying to recognize the fact that boards and commissions are very hard to staff, very hard to retain, and as the folks from the Coastal Government Commission mentioned, my review of the proposed draft was in that vein. I think the IMB has done the best job possible, given the constraints they had from the get-go. And my comments are really geared towards making sure that we get quality people in a timely manner and make sure these boards and commissions are staffed and can be quorum. It's very frustrating to the public when they can't make quorum. So anything we can do to make it easier while having the right controls, I think is a good thing. So I had three areas of possibilities. One was to create a mechanism where the boards could extend someone's service for 90 days while the council administration is still working through a replacement that allows, you know, a greater chance for quorums to happen. The second one was more about just kind of gaming through the ordinance as written and the what-if scenarios if things don't happen. This is exactly what happened with the previous charter amendment. Right off the get-go, a deadline was not met, and all of a sudden, you know, everything kind of fell apart. It took a long time to get back up and running. So I, as I want to do, created some flow charts, and you can see in those flow charts in my testimony where it appeared that there was some scenarios that could happen that weren't addressed and what the next steps would be. And finally, just some other wordsmithing. You're not going to be able to deal with this today. That's fine. Deal with it in a couple days. But take a look. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer either now or possibly on Thursday if you need to. But I think it's rather self-explanatory what I've written. Thank you.

Thank you. Members, any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, staff, is there anybody else signed up to testify?

Chair, that's all the individuals signed up. This will be a last call for oral testimony. If anyone would like to testify, please come up to the podium or raise your hand on teams. The count is three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair, no one has indicated that they wish to testify.

Members, seeing there are no more individuals wishing to testify without objection, I will now close oral testimony on this item. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. Okay, so I know that there are some of you who have time constraints. By show of hands, can I get a sense of who that is? Okay, so Member Paltin and Member Sugimura, Member Cook. So I'll go in that order. And If you can, I'd ask that you prioritize the questions you have for the resource personnel that we have here, since this seems like it's gonna be a conversation that we pick up on Thursday, and I don't wanna have to ask people to come take up more of their time. So starting with Member Palten, then Sugimura, then Cook, and I ask that everybody in this first round prioritize the questions that they have for the resource personnel before us.

So wait, Chair, only ask questions for our resource personnel?

I said prioritize if you go off, but you do have your, you have your three minutes. So, um, I, yeah, I'm not going to say you have to waste the rest of your time because you have none for, for these people. Okay.

I have to leave. I don't have any questions, because I'm kind of over it, and nothing against you folks here, but I feel like we gave it a good try for like four years, and in that time, we're trying to rebuild Lahaina. We can't get quorum for the CRC, the planning commission, and like that, so I'm just over it. It's another hurdle, another step. I didn't necessarily think there was anything wrong to begin with. I mean, whoever's in charge made the thing, but if it turns out bad, then it usually switches to someone else in charge. So I'm not gonna take my whole three minutes. I'm just, my community is suffering. People need to get home. Nothing's happening in the historic district. Nothing's happening in the shoreline. And when that happens, then the state takes away our citizens. opportunity to input by doing laws that they did and so I'm just so frustrated that I'm over it and I'm not willing to give it another chance and I'm just ready to vote to put it on the ballot and I'm sorry I need to leave but I just had to say how it is because when they call me and they're like CRC is canceled because of quorum again, We can't even have an event, homecoming in Lahaina or whatever. Planning Commission's not hearing my stuff. And it's just, that's the most agreed is there's other things too, but sorry, that's just how I feel and I have to leave, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Member Palten. Member Sugimura.

Thank you for the resources. So I'm curious what the INB board may have to say and then I have something for Jodi after. Mr. Burns as a chair.

Chair.

When you, excuse me, when you say you're curious about what I have to say.

Yeah. Well, I guess what we're looking at is to get rid of the INB. Right. And you have volunteered your time and, you know, what does your board think or have you even entertained this conversation?

I don't know where to start. I think the IMB is good. It works in a way. Sorry for Member Poulton, how she feels about it, but we try and do our best as the IMB members on that board. We do our due diligence by going to the applicants that get sent to us via email before our meeting starts so we can kind of get a handle on what kind of background they have, what kind of experience they have, where they came from. You can kind of more or less tell what this person is about and why they want to serve on each board or commission that they are applying for. We do our best, we work hard, we stay there till late, like literally, almost equivalent to the planning commission. So the hours that we put in trying to get this, you know, push these applicants through, the right applicants, not just anybody like how Mr. Mayor mentioned. After we do our due diligence, when we're in the executive session, we would deliberate on who, which persons we would send through. So all this is time consuming, takes a lot of our time, but we don't mind being there because we don't mind doing this for our communities and the people and the boards and commissions that needs to be filled. So people, you know, like Member Palten said, they can have quorum.

Yeah. Thank you. I did hear that same frustration that member Paulton but I do also know other members of your IMB board and I want to send our appreciation because it's a lot of time I heard and I am going to be voting to support this because it looks like it's an obstruction to the process. And to Jody, thank you very much because I know you've been working hard on your own and trying to juggle many balls, I would imagine. So I just want to express our appreciation, but I am going to support this charter amendment. Thank you very much, Dwight, and thank you, cost of government. Thank you very much. Oh, you want to say something? Sorry. Oh.

Well, you had asked previously to hear from the administration.

Yeah, I did hear. Yeah. So I don't know if Jody wants to say anything. She's going to say thank you.

Okay, just want to say thank you. But I did want to state for the record what Council Member Paulton was saying about Cultural Resources Commission not making quorum. They were fully staffed and they were still missing and they were still having quorum issues. I don't know what the issues were. I do know that a lot of them just couldn't make the meetings and that's all I've seen. Because when I hear like, oh, this board or commission can't meet because they don't make quorum and I'm like, I look at it and I'm like, wait, they're full. Why aren't they making quorum? So a lot of that does not fall upon the IMB for not staffing these people because they are fully staffed. So yeah, just wanted to make that abundantly clear. Also Maui Planning Commission is also fully staffed as well too. So I'm not sure what their issues are, but that is on a different level.

Thank you, Member Sugimura. Member Cook. Thank you, Chair.

I've been for years, been watching and seeing the boards and commissions, the processing as far as the selection. I know Mike Molina and other people, when they were doing it in the mayor's office, very time-consuming and really diligent reaching out into the community. My two cents part, I think the INB and what you folks are doing, I think we have quality people, committed and wanting. The gap in my mind is we have so many boards and commissions. And really, I think the appropriate thing to do, and it's really our community, I don't think a charter, Amendment is the way to do it, is to assess the roles, the duties, responsibilities of these boards and commissions. Because like what was happening in Lahaina, there are people there and they're not showing up. But they were a very significant board with a great deal of power and authority to review and approve projects. And those are volunteers. and God bless volunteers for willing to step up, but I think that that's sort of a kink in our local government if we have all these boards and commissions and we're delegating to them the authority. The intent, I believe, the intent, I believe, is to get input from the community so that the community is participating in it. But, Mr. Burns, what's the... What's your suggestion as representing the board? What's their suggestion to improving the existing situation rather than doing away with it?

I'm not going to speak on behalf of the other board members, but I'll speak on behalf of myself and how we can improve. As far as improving, what is in place now is working. Like how Mr. Mayor said, like the recruiting, we do that. We go out with Jody and we do recruiting. We volunteer to go out there and try to recruit people who would be willing to wanna serve on the boards and commissions. Volunteering, right? It is not easy because sometimes when you hear the feedback from the community itself, some people want to do it, but they just, sometimes they know I go through a process of being here, being interviewed by this body. They feel like they're going to be picked apart. Right? So you cannot blame them for feeling that way. Right? So, We would, or I myself would say like, you know, you guys gotta look past that and think of the bigger and the higher purpose that you're serving as wanting to serve on these boards and commissions, right? You always talk about giving back to your community, well here's your chance, right? Just look past that, come over here, go through a process. If you make it on, great. Now we can fill all the voids or all the bodies that need to be filled in all the boards and commissions. So make the process faster. Just to, echo what Jody said too, like Jody does a great job of letting the board know which boards and commissions are full and which ones need to have more people on it. So when we look at the applicants and what they are applying for, we try to focus on the ones that doesn't have enough people and try to get them on there to fill those boards and commissions.

Thank you says that well, you're not gonna speak for the board, but it's a board boards aware of this and as far as like there's no vote whether it was like for against or everybody wants to just keep going and it just improvement.

So that part I can say everybody wants to keep going. Yeah, we still want to have the INB in place. Okay.

Thank you, sir. Thank you chair.