Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Will the government relations, ethics, and transparency committee meeting of 07/01/2025 please come to order? It is 01:32PM. I'm your chair, Nohelani Uhujan. Members, in accordance with the Sunshine Law, please identify by name who, if anyone, is in the room vehicle workspace with you today. Minors do not need to be identified. Let's see. Committee vice chair member Paulton, are you on? If not, we will come back to her. Council member Tom Cook, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, chair.

Councilmember Gabe Johnson, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, chair, councilmembers, committee members. There's no testifiers at the Lanai District Office, and I'm alone in my house. The dog is outside snoring, so I'm here and ready to work. Mahalo chair.

Cute. Thank you. Let's go back to committee vice charts. Marropolitan, good afternoon.

Aloha. Streaming live and direct from my kitchen table. Currently, it's just me and the unknown main minor canine, the four unnamed minor children, and, the named husband should be back shortly.

Thank you. I'm glad your husband has a name. Yeah. Council member Tasha Kama, I'm assuming will be with us shortly. Council chair, Alice Lee. Good afternoon. Talofa Lava, chair. Talofa Lava. Councilmember Rollins Fernandez, I don't see she should be with us shortly. Councilmember Shane Senensi, good afternoon.

Chair here at my home office. I'm here by myself, and there are no testifiers in the box.

Thank you very much. And councilmember Yukile Sugimura, good afternoon. Good afternoon to Lofa Lava, and looking forward to a productive meeting. Thank you. From corporation counsel, we have deputy corporation counsel, Christy Trentholm.

And Yukari Murakami is online with us if we need her today. We also have Jody Yoshida with boards and commissions liaison as well as Risa Tam Ho, boards and commissions liaison, and Kelly Shen Davison should be with us online as well as we will be discussing his appointment to commission. We have our committee staff, which include Maria Leon, committee secretary, Casey Opo Takayama, senior legislative analyst, Clarissa McDonald, legislative analyst, Peter Hanano, legislative attorney, and Jean Pokipala, counsel services assistant clerk. Please see please see the last page of the agenda for information regarding meeting connectivity. Do we have any testifiers signed up?

Do I have to read it or no? Grand. Well, considering we don't see anybody testifying, let's begin by going to resolution 25 dash one three three, the appointment of a member to the salary commission by correspondence dated and received on 06/12/2025, the mayor transmitted resolution twenty five one three three to consider Kelly Shane Davidson to a nomination as a nominee to the salary commission for a term expiring 03/31/2030. The council's thirty day deadline to approve or disapprove the nomination is 07/12/2025. Copies of the board listing and application for the nominee have been uploaded to Granicus.

Thank you, Maria. As you may have noticed on the agenda, this item was posted for no legislative action today. Since our deadline to approve or disapprove the nominees is July 12, I requested a resolution to be posted today on the July 8 council meeting agenda for consideration. My intention for today is to hear from the board's and commission's liaison, Jody Yoshida, to provide opening remarks on the mayor's nomination, and then to receive any opening comments from mister Davidson. Following that, I'll ask for testimony on the item again, close public testimony, and get into discussion members so we don't have to do this on the floor. So right now, I'm gonna ask miss Yoshida, for any comments, if you have any. Oh, okay. Thank you.

Kelly Davidson serves as a senior executive vice president for Exodus Financial Partners located here on Maui. Kelly graduated with a degree in international business from the University of Texas, El Paso. Over the last twenty years, he has built multiple successful businesses in retail, wholesale, and ecommerce. He currently manages businesses in the financial industry across 12 states. Kelly is a retired major from the army reserves in military intelligence after twenty four years of service. Thank

you very much. Mister Davidson, do you have any opening remarks that you would like to share with us? Oh, shucks. You're muted still. Is he unmuted on our end?

Kelly, you are unmuted on our end. If you're having, difficulties unmuting, if it's not allowing you, you may need to leave the meeting and rejoin. And then hopefully the yeah, mic and camera will let you unmute yourself. Okay. And while he leaves us and rejoins, let's say good afternoon to member Kama.

Good afternoon, chair. Good afternoon, members. I didn't realize it was so late. Pardon me.

That's okay. Good times go fast, and it was our lunch break. That's why we always start late. Well, we will wait for mister Davidson. Should we see if we have any testifiers? If not, I will then close public testimony. Written testimony will continue to be accepted. Thank you very much. We will now wait for mister Davidson, and then we will have a three minute questioning period after he rejoins us. And we can ask all the questions so we don't have to do that during our council meeting.

Mister Davidson, can you unmute now? There's, there's a little mic none on the top. If not, maybe we can give him the number to call in.

Does anybody have a question? Hello.

How are you? Okay. We're gonna try to call him. And you know what? In the meantime, let's take a two minute recess. We will come back at 01:41. Will the great committee please reconvene? It is 01:44PM. Member Palton, do you need to claim, an adult member with you right now?

Yeah. I have an adult male in the house, just Paul Hana. His name is George V. Arrow.

Thank you. Aloha, George. And then we will move wait. Wait. Look. My camera not even on. Hi. Okay. We are going to begin with, asking questions with mister Davidson. And why don't we begin by, my asking you why you are interested in the salary commission, and where do you see your your presence and its benefit on the commission? Thank you.

Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time to consider me today. I believe that my interest in the salary commission is to get more involved into the Maui Council as well as everything that it provides to its community. I've been building businesses for many years in Maui and have been a contributor through those means. But by participating in any way that I can to help with the council in providing greater benefits, helping people, the locals, everything like that, I saw this as an opportunity to become a part of the great things that you guys do and help in any way that I can.

Thank you, members. Does anybody else have any other questions? If not, I can ask, member Rollins Fernandez typical questions, but we will go with member Kama because I see your hand up. Thank you, member Kama.

Thank you, chair. I must have the wrong information because I have, mister Davidson, but I also have him as, planning commission and his did I miss something earlier because I came late chair?

No. You did not.

Think that's what he wanted to do, but they put him on this one instead.

Yes. I think he was

interested in

serving on the planning commission, but I believe either INB or through the course of how whatever happens before they get here, they moved him to the salary commission. So that's what we're discussing today.

Okay. So salary commission. Okay. I have to reroute my brain to go there instead of planning. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. Members, any other questions? Member Palton, go ahead.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, mister Davidson, for your willingness to serve. I just wanted to ask, was the salary commission your number two choice if the planning commission was your number one choice? I mean, looking over your resume, you seem super qualified to do anything, and I just wanna make sure that we're making the best use of your skills and talents.

Thank you so much. I appreciate those kind words. Yes, the Planning Commission was my initial request at the time. There was an opening for the Planning Commission and that was mainly why I was applying for it. As far as I knew, Salary Commission was not open and available at that time. As I went through the interview process, the Planning Commission seats were filled and I did request what other seats were open. Upon that review, the salary commission seat did open up, and I requested to be considered for that position. Okay.

Nothing else caught your eye, like civil service or anything like that? Good question.

I wasn't too sure what other positions all were open. When I heard about the salary commission, this was all before the salary topics were heavily debated and talked about here in recent months and stuff. I did apply more than eight months ago before all of this. So I thought, oh, it would be a great opportunity to be involved and be able to participate. Now all that time has passed and I understand things are not quite as active as it once was.

It's still of interest to me and of course any opportunity to serve. I'm open that's what I'm here to say is I'm open to other positions I'm just looking for an opportunity to where I might be a benefit, help serve. Salary commission, I thought was a great way, but I am open and all ears to whatever might be available.

Okay, cool. I guess one of the main issues that we seem to have sometimes is, quorum. But now as we're filling up the seats, it's not such of a such a big of an issue. But you think through your line of work that you'll be able to make the meetings and things like that?

Yes, I believe so. I do run a business. I run a financial business that operates in about 12 different states at the moment. Yes, I do have a very busy schedule, but when there's something on the schedule, like you guys are very well about having all the days, times, everything like that, I can fit that in, especially when I know ahead of time. So the answer is yes.

Okay, cool. If you happen to know any accounting threes in your line of work, send them our way because we just learned that finance is really looking for accounting threes.

All right. All right. Will do. I'll I'll keep that in mind.

Thank you for my opportunity. So nice to meet you virtually, mister Davidson, and thank you again for your willingness to serve.

Thank you. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, member Paul. And I'm sure finance appreciates the plug because you're right. We just we need accountants. Members, any other questions for Mr. Davidson? I'm gonna go with Member Johnson followed by Member Senensi.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Davidson, for joining us today and your willingness to serve. I'll tell you a little bit of a story about how what happened to me is when I first applied, I wasn't a council member. Was just a John Q publican.

I applied for planning commission and the same thing happened where they said, well, how about this commission? And when you said you're just looking for a place to serve, that really made I understand that feeling because I was just there trying to help the community. I really appreciate your response to that question. And I know that councilmember Paulin asked about your availability. So I'm just curious is you know, you operate a lot of businesses, so of course you look at folks salaries and wages.

I guess my basic question is, is one job enough for Maui County? Do people need higher wages? I'd like to hear your opinion on your thoughts on the wages in the county. Are they fair?

Yeah, that's a great question. Especially as we look at cost of living Maui and Hawaii in general, let's just be transparent, it's too expensive. They're priced out of paradise. More and more families moving away from Hawaii, going back to the Mainland than ever before. After fires, we saw that start to rise on an exponential level where people just could have a very difficult time. Could the wages be risen? Yeah, absolutely. But I don't know. I don't know if we could raise raise the wages enough to get them into million dollar homes that we see today. Right.

Exactly. I don't know if that's really realistic, right if we start to say okay you know what $30.40 $50 an hour is that going to be enough now but opportunities business opportunities opportunities to thrive in you know we're seeing food trucks and other opportunities and if we create those doors to be open for people to. Thrive on trading products and services. To get them into homes I think that might be. A more fit discussion to get locals into the million dollar homes that we see today.

Well, you're singing my song, Mr. Davidson. So thank you for your responses. Thank you, Chair. No further questions.

Thank you, Member Johnson. Members, can answer your questions.

I'll share a bottle of Mr. Davidson for your willingness to serve. And just continuing on the lines of Mr. Johnson's questions, you mentioned, you know, maybe supplement supplementing people's salaries with other businesses. I remember in Mr.

Johnson's adept committee, he did bring up some businesses that could be that could diversify within our economy, some of them. So, I just wanted to get your thoughts about continuing with agriculture as well as, I believe at that meeting he mentioned more fishing industry, those types of things. Do you have any ideas when we could diversify besides that?

Yeah, you know, there's a long history with Hawaii and agriculture. And while I'm not born and raised here, you're looking at a Holly guy here from Idaho, and I've gone from potatoes to pineapples. That's my story. I had you know a business called Mister pineapple for twenty years works closely with the pineapple farmers highly my lead the West Side as they did organic pineapples. Worked with the folks in Kauai and on the Big Island doing their white pineapples and all kinds of fruit and vegetables.

And you're absolutely right. We we need to keep that historic agriculture. Right here in Hawaii we need to provide more opportunity to go from 30,000 acres of growing pineapples down to less than a thousand acres in Haile Maile, that's awful. And it hurts to see our local industry once was thriving and booming to be lost. And I agree the fishing.

The farming everything like that is got to be brought back to life that is what is part of what makes Hawaii Hawaii. And I'd love to see ideas of how to make that happen. Competing with bringing in. Food from other countries. Think we have everything we need right here on Maui to be sustainable.

It's a matter of having the right minds and people to be able to do it. Just give you a quick example, know, working with a farmer out of Florida, he's farms and fruit and vegetables where it's growing much faster he's figured out like a recipe kind of thing all right where it's growing much much quicker if we start networking with outside how they're doing that might help our locals be able to achieve those kinds of things.

Right. Great. Thank you for those responses. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, members and Nancy. Members, any other questions? Hope you all received, Jared's letter of support by this for this nominee. And as we all know, as I feel, Jared, I hold him in high regard. So if he holds mister Davidson in high regard, I can respect that. That. Member, comma.

Thank you, chair. Good afternoon, mister Davidson. I just have a few easy questions. What branch of government did you serve?

I served in the Army Reserves for twenty four years and retired in 2023. And you served in your hometown? Great question. I served all over. Yes, my final five years of service was at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. I flew back and forth over there.

Okay. And so my second question is, you're going to be serving on the salary commission and they just decided to give us all a raise and there was some hoop to love about people thought that that was too much money. The job we do is a part time job, But it when we end at 12:00 midnight and we go for days and days and days at a time and working late at night, and even though we have committee meetings on one week and the next meeting is supposed to be an off week, an off noncommittee meeting, Those are the weeks that we meet and the days we meet with our constituents and have meetings and get to know the community a little better and they get to know us. Bearing all of that in mind and you weigh the amount of time spent and how much time we're putting into this part time job, do you feel like it's equitable?

You know, I was watching it closely, that discussion go back and forth. I think, you know, with any job, the salary increases from the mayor on down, I think it can all be justified as long as we see the fruit and the work being put in. Just like you explained it, right? You provided facts of, yeah, there's off meetings and all this extra time and part time. And the answer is yes.

And sometimes that's what the public doesn't know. And the words can be kind of twisted through the media and everything like that. But the end result is there's a lot of work to be done. And is it paying enough even with these increases? Let's face it.

We all don't get paid enough for the amount of work. I believe that, it can be justified. And even more so When you see the fruit of bills being passed. The growth of businesses the growth of the economy the growth of Maui and what we can do for for everybody and is there a dollar that you can even put on that? Is there value? Probably not, to be honest with you.

Well, thank you for that answer. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Kama. Members Member Sugimura.

Yeah, thank you. Interesting background. Reading your resume that you provided, and I can understand why you thought you wanted to be with the Planning Commission just with your broad breadth of experiences. But I do support you for what you really are saying is that you'll do anything to help the community, I think, and take that step forward. I hope you continue on. You have done financial literacy classes. Is that what I'm reading? And why did that Yeah.

So my background over the last twenty years on Maui was, like I mentioned doing pineapples and I did a clothing line company and I did a tropical floral business from the Big Island. As I was doing all these businesses, yes, I was helping locals and tourists alike in the different industries, but five years ago, I opened up a financial business and helping with life insurance trusts and retirement planning, helping people get out of debt, things like that. And I found that I could help people a lot more in that area. Everybody's got money problems. So but as as the agriculture was diminishing.

I found I could be more effective in the financial industry. So I did do that I transition I closed down all my businesses to focus on the one and expand that business throughout all the islands and then extend it out to the mainland as well. Through that, we teach a lot of classes for free. Don't charge in fact to use an We sent three of my agents out this last weekend out to Hana and they met with about 90 teaching the elderly how to set set up their own trusts and helping them with financial planning and stuff like that. And it was a very successful event, and that's an example of kind of what we do for the community is a lot of teaching and educating in that area.

Fabulous. There's a lot of need for that, I think. Yes. Everybody needs Absolutely. It can help. That's exactly some of the things that we need to do with Bill nine that is before us, is that financial literacy and training and how to set up your budgets. I think those are all part of living in a community and living life. So thank you very much. I support.

Absolutely.

Thank you, member Sugimura. Members, any other questions before I close out this meeting? Seeing none, as a reminder, this resolution was posted for no legislative action because we're gonna be voting on it on the council meeting of the eighth because our due date is July 12. So I will now defer this item without objection. No objections. Thank you very much. And so members, oh my gosh, this is like a thirty two minute meeting. This concludes the government relations ethics and transparency committee meeting. Thank you very much. Good job. It is now 02:02, and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you, Kelly.