Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee - Regular Meeting

you you you you Thank you.

Will the Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee meeting of July 28, 2026 come to order? It is 1.35 p.m. I am your chair, Kalani Bhatunan. 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, Ngozi Lene Uye.

Aloha, Chair. Aloha, everyone. I'm at my private residence. I'm alone in my workspace, but my husband, William Cole Hodgins, is home as well as our youngest child. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Tom Cook.

Good afternoon. Aloha, Chair. I'm in my Kihei office, and my aide is in the front office.

Thank you. Council Member Gabe Johnson. you will be excused. Council Chair, Alice Lee.

Aloha, Chair and everyone. I'm home alone in my workspace, except my little kitty is sleeping under my desk.

Thank you, Chair. Council Member, Tamara Paulton.

Aloha wina ala kakou, streaming live and direct from my kitchen table in Lapili. I have with me two minor canines and two minor humans, one adult male named George Vieira. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Council Member Kiani, Rollins Fernandez.

Aloha wina ala kakou. Maimoula kainui ahina. I am at my private residence. I have two minor age children. uh with me at home uh and there are no testifiers at the multi-district office monitor good afternoon everybody i'm in my google office and there's no one on this floor with me thanks

Thank you. And Council Member Gabe Johnson.

Good afternoon, Chair, Council Members, there's no testifiers here at the Lanai District Office and I'm alone on my side of the office. I'm having a little internet connection, so I'm just going to, I'm good for now. Just letting you know if I leave. Sorry, I'm just restarting. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for that heads up. Just, I guess, for the public, we also have internet issues here in the second floor finance conference room. So apologies if there's any technical difficulties on our side as well. Also with us for his third final meeting with the committee, we have Deputy Corporation Counsel, Thomas Holt. And then from the Board of Ethics, we have the Chair, Executive Director and staff. Ms. Akitake, can I ask you to introduce your team?

Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. We have our staff attorney, Chris Tsukiyama. We have our chair, Captain Michael Lilly, and our assistant, Risa Temple.

Thank you very much. We also have with us our great committee staff. Good afternoon, everybody. Members and members of the public, please see the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity. We will take public testimony up front. Is there anybody currently signed up to testify?

Thank you, Chair. There's currently no one signed up to testify.

I see.

Oh, excuse me.

Before we get to that, I did see Member Sinansi log on, so I'll recognize him first, and then I'll ask that you call on the first testifier. That way, staff can get organized with the testifier log as well. Member Sinansi. And if he needs a minute to get logged on, I will read through our testimony guidelines. Testifiers wanting to provide testimony should sign up in the lobby, join the online meeting via the Teams link, or call in on the phone number noted on today's agenda. Written testimony is encouraged and can be submitted via the e-comment link at myeconomy.us slash agendas as well. Under the Sunshine Law, the chair will receive oral testimony for agenda items At the beginning of the meeting and as the items are called up, for individuals wishing to testify via Teams, please raise your hand by clicking on the raise your hand button. For calling in, please follow the prompts via phone, star five to raise and lower your hand, star six to unmute and unmute. Staff will add names to the testifier list in the order testifiers sign up or raise their hands. For those on Teams, staff will lower your hand once your name is added. Staff will then call on the name you're logged in under or the last four digits of your phone number in the, or when it is your time to testify. At that time, staff will also enable your microphone and video. Please ensure your name appears in Microsoft Teams as the name you prefer to be referred to or as anonymous if you wish to testify anonymously. If you're in person, please notify staff that you would like to testify anonymously. Otherwise, please state your name for the record at the beginning of your testimony. Our testimony is limited to three minutes per item. If you're still testifying beyond that time, I'll kindly ask you to complete your testimony. Once you're done testifying, or if you do not wish to testify, you can also view the meeting on Akapu Channel 53, Xbook Live, or maocounty.us. We'll do our best to take each person up in an orderly fashion. Now, I will recognize Member Sinensi and then follow up with the first testifier.

Hello, Chair. My apologies. Teams has some issues with me setting up my Teams account. I'm here at my home office. I'm here by myself, and no testifiers in my chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Sinensi.

Staff, can you please call on the first testifier? Thank you, Chair. The first testifier we have is Chivo Ching-Johnson, followed by Robert Schroeder. Mr. Ching-Johnson, let me just promote you on Teams, and you may begin your

Okay, there we go. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for allowing me to testify. I'm Noel Archivo Ching-Johnson, and I will be offering a short testimony on Grade 9, Grade 15, and Grade 16. Mahalo for letting me in this afternoon and nice to see everyone there. I would like to add my comments on agenda item grade 9 or bill 55 regarding the board of ethics jurisdiction to go after county employees or not to go after them but to be able to take a look at some of their deeds. that have violated Article 10 of the revised charter regarding the Code of Ethics, of course. And we have carefully reviewed the State Ethics Commission on this item and have pretty much sided with that language after a thorough review in favor of this change. And I additionally would like to say that I support the retroactive window I believe it is in everyone's best interest to extend the board's jurisdiction to six years from the date of the alleged violation. Onto testifying for Bill 99 or grade 15, establishing prohibitions concerning nepotism. I think it goes without saying that we need to ensure that all hiring within

yes i i did have a question of um mr ching johnson's first um item or do you want us to hold it till the end or yeah let him finish his testimony and then we can ask questions okay thank you i see your hand and we'll we'll circle back to you yes

So I was saying, I think it goes without saying that we need to ensure that all hiring within the county is free of nepotism. Most of us have seen examples of nepotism in our daily lives. And the county needs to make certain that employment is based on merit and is an equal opportunity employer. And I'm sure that you would agree with that. I definitely support Bill 99 and ask that you pass this and the other bills. And finally, regarding Bill 100 or grade 16, this is another one of the regulations that we should amend in the revised charter. In a world that is greatly influenced by money and by certain lobbyists, it seems necessary we establish comprehensive regulations referred to in this bill. And in closing, these items are all intended to help the Board of Ethics establish a clear path to follow. helping our county be as transparent as possible, leaving no question about the certain gray areas. I would also like to thank the voters and the county council for giving us such an efficient and hardworking staff to head up the Board of Ethics. Mahalo.

Thank you, Mr. Ching Johnson. Member Paulton, you had a question.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chivo Ching Johnson, for your testimony and all your hard work on this. I guess I might have one question for each of your testimonies. The first bill that you testified, I think it says $1,000 fine, and I didn't notice anything in there about repayment of costs. For example, I think maybe under the Arakawa administration that was determined like $45,000 had been spent on kitchen, commercial kitchen equipment for the break room for public works. Like, is it the Board of Ethics intention that like, if it's determined that that $45,000 was incorrectly spent, that it should also be repaid in addition to the fine amount? Should that be included in the bill?

I would think so. I would want to talk with our lead attorney and our chair about that before I make a positive statement. But it makes sense that we should be allowed reimbursement for things like that that were determined erroneously done.

Great, great, thanks. I really appreciate your perspective. On the second bill, I did see that it included people that are living with the person, and it named a number of definitions of relatives, but I did not see a person's significant other if they weren't married, like boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé, and inquiring your... perspective on that, if that was the intention as you folks were drafting. Well, I mean like the mother of a person's child or the father of a person's child.

Yeah, I think that once again, I would want to defer to our chair and to Ms. Akitaki, but I will also say that I think we should be able to follow the chain of evidence, so to speak. You know, if you're looking into a person that may have hired someone for nefarious reasons, we should look at everyone, particularly those closest to them.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that perspective. And for your third bill, I think it was 100. Wondering how you folks ended on the $5,000 fine amount. I thought that the maximum fine outside of short-term rentals was 1,000. And so how did you folks come up with that number?

I will have to declare ignorance on that. I'm sorry. I really do not know. I don't recall discussing that number, but I do believe that If it has been suggested by Lauren and staff and by our chair, vice chair, et cetera, I think that we should go with that. I would like to find out a little bit more about that, and I can get back to you with an answer on that.

Okay, great. Thank you. I'll yield to my colleagues.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Ching-Johnson. After public testimony, when we get into each item, Director Akitake has responses to your questions.

Oh, great. Feel free to include it as part of your opening comments if you like.

Any qualifying questions for the testifier? If not, staff, can you please call up the next testifier?

Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is Robert Schroeder, followed by Albert Carrez. Mr. Schroeder, you may begin your testimony.

Good morning. Actually, good afternoon. This is Katie Schroeder, who is tech-challenged. Robert is here, but it is my testimony. Thank you. And aloha, members of the great committee. I am here to testify in favor of bills 55, 99 and 100. During my time as a volunteer on the Board of Ethics, I've seen many situations play out with regard to complaints. There are those complaints over which the board has no jurisdiction or frankly, which do not rise to the level of significance. We all think in terms of our own personal frame of reference, Sometimes a complainant believes that a county employee was rude to them or a county employee makes too much money given their position and that that is unethical. My point is anyone can complain about anything. The Board of Ethics is responsible for sorting out those complaints and deciding if the board is jurisdiction and what merit the complaint has. Frankly, my biggest frustration has occurred when it has been determined that there is a legitimate case against a board or commission member or county employee, and the case can go away when said persons resign from their office. It's like getting a monopoly get out of jail free card. Similarly, under the current administrative rules, If the alleged misconduct is discovered after the one-year statute of limitations, the board cannot investigate it. That means that there's no public record of wrongdoing. Does that mean that someday these individuals can work on another board or commission? Can they be hired in a different capacity or even in a different administration? Bill 55 addresses those issues. and closer aligns the Maui Board of Ethics with the State Ethics Commission on this issue. Bill 55 closes the loophole on investigating misconduct. It recommends a six-year statute of limitations. If the misconduct was concealed through fraud or deliberate concealment, the limitations period should begin at the point when the misconduct could have been discovered. I'm asking the committee to recommend passage of Bill 55 with the proposed amendment. With regard to Bill 99, as you know, Maui is one of two jurisdictions in Hawaii that does not have a countywide anti-nepotism policy. This was a vulnerability pointed out in the recent SPIRE audit. Nepotism includes the unfair practice of giving jobs, promotions, or special advantages to family members. We all acknowledge that we live on a very small island where many are related. And the anti-nepotism policy is needed to protect those in the workforce, and the flip side, it protects the decision makers from being pressured to hire, promote, or give special consideration to family members. Have I been through my three minutes on each, or may I continue to address Bill 100?

I do not hear a buzzer yet, so please continue.

All right. The final issue I'd like to address is Bill 100, to establish comprehensive lobbyist regulations. Maui County is the only county in the state that does not have a comprehensive lobbyist registration and reporting system. Currently, a lobbyist can register with very little information given. We are aware of some individuals who have registered under one company and lobbied for another. It is essential to know who is influencing issues under consideration, who they represent, and the issues on which they are advocating. This speaks to the very definition of transparency. I urge you to pass bills 55, 99 and 100. I thank you for your time today and for all you do for Maui.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Member Balton.

Thank you, Ms. Schroeder, for your testimony and your service on the Board of Ethics. I just wanted to clarify when you said the proposed amendment that it starts Can you clarify and also clarify if you were talking about the posted substitution version, the CD1 version, or if you were talking about some other proposed amendment that you had mentioned in your testimony?

No, thank you for that question. With regard to the amendment, instead of looking at when someone severs their employment, what happens if something doesn't come to light? And so what that means is that that time could be extended and should be extended to address the behavior in question.

So the proposed amendment says it adjusts the Board of Ethics six-year jurisdictional window to begin when the alleged violation occurred rather than upon separation from county employment. So to me, that indicates it would be prior to, but you're saying to extend it out from six years of separation? Or I guess I'm not very clear.

And this might be more appropriate for discussion, but part of that amendment includes if If the violation is concealed through fraud, then there is an extension, period.

Oh, yeah, that's number three. So is that what you meant, Ms. Schroeder, that number three establishes a six-year discovery rule for violations concealed by fraud? Is that adequate to address what you're talking about? Yes, ma'am. Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. All right. And before we let her go, can I just confirm for the record, it's Katie Schroeder? Yes. Okay. Staff, can we just update the testifier log to reflect that if we haven't already done so?

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Staff, can you please call up the next testifier?

Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is Albert Perez, followed by a caller from 4945. Aloha.

Council members, it's Albert Perez. Hope you're doing okay today. I just found out about this. I saw it in Maui Now. And so I'm not completely familiar with every word in Bill 100, but that's the one I wanted to testify on. I am a registered lobbyist with the County of Maui, as well as with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission. So I have some experience with the state one. I just want to mention that what we're proposing is going to apply to any nonprofit employee who testifies, planning commission, council, any board or commission. So that's the perspective that I bring. And I'm glad that the ethics board has been looking at the state ethics commission for an example. I'm hoping that the requirements will be consistent with those of the State Ethics Commission. I also hope that the website or whatever reporting requirement you folks come up with can be more intuitive than that of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission. Again, I support this kind of disclosure, but for the state legislature or any departments, we report three times per year, so it's easy to forget exactly how to use them and the site that we use is pretty clunky. Sometimes I'm notified that I didn't actually file when I think I did. I'm pretty tech savvy, so I hope it's better than that. I would like to ask that the state ethics training be acceptable for county lobbyists. So maybe that is a possibility. But like you to examine that and then if ideally it would be if the reporting periods are the same as the state, that would be more convenient for. Because we have to remember three state ones, so if we have two separate ones for the county, that's going to be four or five dates that we have to remember. And then my final comment is that the penalty. I mean, I just read this quickly, but the 5000. It doesn't seem to be optional. It seems to be like if you make a mistake, that's a lot of money, especially for nonprofits. The state one is $1,000. And I would hope that there would be some provision for unintentional violations that you could get a warning and maybe step penalties from low to high. Just an example, like maybe the first would be a warning and the second time you'd be penalized $100 and then $1,000 or something like that. So up to you folks, but I just wanted to share my comments. Again, I totally support this kind of bill and I'm glad that our ethics, board of ethics is moving forward with making it much more formalized and professional. So thank you for your time today.

Thank you very much. Member Paulton.

Thank you Chair, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Perez, for your testimony. I wanted to clarify what you had said about the state requirements and the county requirements. Are you saying that anyone in our county that is a lobbyist already needs to comply with the state requirements and that um it would be similar to what we're proposing as a county requirements or could there be some people in the county of maui that wouldn't be subject to the state requirements for lobbying oh that's an interesting question so i haven't thought about that but um i guess the state one only applies if you're lobbying the legislature or the departments the state departments but

If you folks want to make the requirements about who is going to be required to register different, I wouldn't see a problem with that. But once you are required, then I would say as much as possible, the filing requirements should be hopefully similar.

OK, and then the other question I had was that clarifies for me because this ordinance would take effect on July 1st, 2027. And if there are some people within the county that aren't familiar with the state system and have been operating like maybe for decades in the county, do you think that's an appropriate window of time to educate people acting as lobbyists within the county?

As long as it's publicized, That's like more than a year from now, right? It's about a year from now.

I think that's adequate time.

I think it's adequate assuming that there's enough public outreach. But again, that would, you know, if someone breaks that, the rule, then I don't think they should be fined $5,000. Maybe they didn't know, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't even know if that's legal because of the charter and all that. I agree because it seems odd that the first bill, which is like, you know, you did this thing, it's $1,000 and now this one is $5,000. And I didn't see the how that works. But OK, thank you. I just am agreeing.

OK, Mahalo. Member Huchins.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Perez. I appreciate your comments. So we can understand what, how it actually works, you know, from your folks perspective, but so are you registered with both state and county? I'm looking at the Board of Ethics lobbyist registration form, I don't see your name. So I'm going to later ask how often is it updated? Because I do see this in 2026, but I don't see your name and I believe that you're registered. Like, why would you say you're not when you are? So are you on both sides?

I was. I mean, I'm definitely with the state. Back before COVID, when my What was his name? Not Mike Williams. Mike White. He was the chair. And there was somebody from, I think, some timeshare place who was, in his opinion, abusing the lobbyist regs. And so they made an announcement that everybody needs to register. And so I did register at that time. And if I'm off that list, I'm going to have to call the Board of Ethics and get back on it.

yeah i mean so there's eight pages the last one's kind of the more inactive one i'm trying to go through it obviously we're very familiar with you so i don't think it's anything on your end but i'm just wondering you know what's the scoops then and how many more maybe we're missing thank you so just quickly um if we are not if like if we're taken off the list maybe we should be notified Good point. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you.

Any other clarifying questions for the testifier?

Seeing none, staff, can you please call the next testifier? Mahalo. Thank you, Chair. The next the next testifier is calling from extension 4945, followed by Travis Liggett. And caller, please use star six to unmute yourself and begin your testimony.

Can you hear me? All right. You're reading. Mr. Batonga, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay. This is Jesse Long. I'm calling from your area, Kahului, over on Derry Road. I don't want to reveal my location because there's people listening that would probably try to stop me from testifying. So I wouldn't be surprised if the police arrived and said, oh, well, you're, yeah, same old thing. And I'll just follow segue right into, I heard Mr. Cook say he's in his office. Is that in his office at home or is he in the MED building in the residency office there in Kihei? Is that open for testimony yet or is it still off limits for the public? I was trying to take notes here as you guys were going along. It's kind of hard. I appreciate all the testifiers because I heard on the radio a little bit what this meeting was about today. I have no access to any kind of agendas or any kind of information because I'm pretty sure you guys are aware that the county clerk's office has get restraining orders on me and trespass and all this.

Can you please give your testimony, Jermaine, to today's agenda?

That's what I'm trying to tell you, Bubba. I don't know what the agenda is because you never said what it was over the microphone. I don't have access to the agenda. So what is the agenda? Could you please tell the public? Mr. Betonga?

Second to your testimony?

No. I got to watch that. I'm on 145 right now. So I guess we could tell whose side you're on now, huh? I was saying I thank the other testifiers and I thank Tamara Halton for asking all the questions so I could find out what's going on. I'm glad that the Board of Ethics is in a different building because then I would not be able to file a complaint at all without the cops arresting me for filing a complaint. And so speaking of the process, oh, thank you, Jean Pokey-Paula, if you're out there, thank you for working for the county and Mr. Ross, because like I said, I'm having a lot of difficulties with the process here. I must have pressed hand raised at least 15 times. Somebody's trying to press buttons over there and stop me from testifying. That's what I'm talking about. So all you guys that are listening, please, yeah, no wonder there's no testifiers. Okay, so, yeah, Board of Ethics stuff, I'm all for that. I sure would like to read the law, but I'm all for speaking about the fines and stuff. So say a county employee gets found guilty of violating the Board of Ethics law, are we going to pay for a county lawyer to represent them for it?

Mr. Law, can you please conclude your testimony?

I'm just concerned about the process. At your next meeting, if you could announce what the agenda is before you start, that would be really nice. Aloha.

Members, any clarifying questions for the testifier?

Seeing none, staff, can you please call the next testifier? Thank you, Chair. The next and final testifier is Travis Liggett. Mr. Liggett, you can begin your testimony.

Mr. Liggett, your mic is muted on your side.

Thank you. Start over. Hello, everyone. I hope you're doing well. That's Travis Liggett. I've testified before. First time, I think, as a candidate for mayor. And I just want to speak a little bit about general impressions that I have had with what I perceive to be ethics and corruption stuff. And it's just kind of a story for the records that I think people should understand in the context of developing laws, but what can unfold. So, you know, I was working down in Malaya, uncovered a very controversial case Injectional violation. The first time I disclosed it to someone not directly involved, immediately fired with a very scary text from someone who happens to work for a foreign-owned, billionaire-owned corporation. And to say my life got weird after that is an understatement. I was immediately verbally assaulted by someone I'd worked with for years. Again, this was at no net cost to MVA. And what appears to have unfolded is that it's easier to focus on the whistleblower than it is to fix the problem. And I'm very wary of even mentioning the organization because the person sued me. I was also hacked, certain of it. texts disappeared from my phone and it has been quite an adventure, I will tell you. And then to see the same organization receive grant funding and also I would say the social apparatus of access to county meetings immediately shut down and it just appears to be a strong alignment with these commercial interests and our government officials. That would not be okay on its own, except I appeared to have also uncovered just a very long list of very low probability facts that seem to indicate that protections are being rolled back. In fact, they are. Kahului ceased all disinfection in 2018. And there are so many unusual things that taken together, zero of 41 injection wells and linked systems have the proper permits. I'm talking about general corruption and ethics, which is we appear to live in a system where someone who uncovered these things, including the Ma'alai Harbor, not having any permits, never applied for them since 2012. The condos have no monitoring since 1997 to 2007. And it's just fishy. And it's the basis of why I ran. I'm just testifying that I'm not campaigning. And I am a scientist at heart. I've noticed facts, details, ideally independently verified. And I think it's a mistake to look at corruption as either incompetence or like petty kind of financial interests. Because like it or not, Maui as part of Hawaii with a complex history with military and such things to say the least. And I think it's a mistake to look narrowly through the lens of human behavior, that there might be a more broad field to consider. And it just bothers me that the current administration has taken apparently the side of this foreign billionaire owned corporation.

Thank you. Members, any clarifying questions? Member Palten.

I just wanted to clarify, you're not saying that this bill would apply to your situation because there's not a county employee involved? What bill does your testimony relate to?

That's a great question. It's more of a framing of what any legislation to address corruption and ethics seems to be narrowly defined within a context where people are incompetent, they hire their families, 10,000, 30,000 here or there, and it seems to be framed in a framework of like a local governance and shall we say small scale human behavior stuff. I'm just proposing that it behooves everyone to structure these laws, if any, to kind of like actively defend, I don't know what it looked like, but against mysterious things that place the public at risk that have a foreign element. And just really think about the context. We're in a hot war. I say we, the United States is in a hot war. I would love for someone to take a meeting with me offline to hear more about this. I don't think it's appropriate to talk about in the public sphere. This is a general comment that I think everyone would like to hear, which is just to acknowledge or somehow build into these laws some way to deal with that because it is a threat. It's a threat to us all. And again, these protections have been rolled back. Just talked to a lady that said she swam at Cove Park every day. She had so many infections she can't count. And it's just, I don't see that being accounted for.

Thank you so much for your explanation.

Thank you. Any other clarifying questions for the testifier? Seeing none, staff, can you please call up the next testifier?

Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is Christopher Salem.

Mr. Salem, you're promoted on our end.

Okay, thank you there. The microphone now is unmuted. Thank you so much. Question for you, Chair. Good afternoon. Earlier it was asked whether each item is a three-minute or a three-minute combined. I don't want to overstep the procedures today.

You have three minutes per item.

Okay, well, I'm not going to do that. Okay, so regarding starting with the issue of the six-year extension of i guess you'd call it a statute of limitations i'm 100 in support of that and i'll give specific reasons why i first think you know all the volunteers on the board of ethics that is a extremely difficult position to have to deal with people coming forward uh filing complaints that can get very emotionally charged it's not easy in a small community to call other people out. But at some point, some of these things do need to be addressed. The reason the six year comes into play is the Board of Ethics may determine on an initial complaint that they don't have jurisdiction. And many times they don't explain why they don't have jurisdiction. which is in a completely different filing as to understand how if you're citing to a specific area of the charter or the code that they don't have jurisdiction. Regardless of that, what ends up happening is you have these other agencies and entities such as RICO, OIP, APA, ODC, Intermediate Court of Appeals, all of which have individual Board of Accountancy as it relates to the county auditor. They have their own individual purview, which may take years. I'll give you a current example. A former planning director without naming names has had her credentials removed under the AICP credentials after a very courageous complaint was filed with their ethics commission. And that has just happened here recently. and the conclusions of that ethics board came up with vendetta based retaliation rule making outside of authority many things that would set the stage for a double back to our board of ethics once they are actually confirmed and validated through in this instance is the apa so that is a statement so everybody should be aware of that that has occurred as a result of a very, again, courageous former planning department employee who filed those actions with that specific agency. So on that end, that's the reason I believe the extension should come into play because these processes take a long time. They absolutely do. And almost every one of those that I just cited to are in play currently involving county officials. And so the next point... Can we move on to the next one?

Thank you.

Yes, sir. In regards to nepotism, and I think that this comes to how that is reviewed from the beginning, I think a parallel to that is, and I believe the rule still is in play this way, I think it's a one-year statute of limitations where a county official is not allowed to go out and solicit... I'll get to it. It is nepotism. where they can go out and solicit approvals of projects that they've had jurisdiction over. I would ask you to consider on the nepotism side that that gets expanded a little bit, wherein people are questioned as to before they come in the door, are they bringing potential agendas for developments or other business interests, which has a similar nepotism type um parallel albeit not the same word but that's a serious serious problem is that we have public officials being brought in the door that have wink wink type alliances and ultimately do make decisions on those developments and or companies that they formerly were they're employed by or supported so that's my um testimony of the day hopefully some of that will come into play thank you so much

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

Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is James Langford. Mr. Langford, you may begin your testimony.

Hello, beautiful souls. Love your new digs. I may have an active case. that's going on about this exact topic. So I wanna be proactive for our community, not personally at the moment. As you guys may know, I've written that two weeks after the wildfires, I sent the governor 8,000 pages of a plan on how to rebuild Maui. wrote 90 grants, grant examples, 94 grant examples. So yeah, God bless you. So just as a statement of fact, I've directly experienced the negativity around what the word nepotism means. Um, and being a Yale graduate who doesn't flashes degrees around and where's, you know, looks like a homeless guy all the time. Like, you know, like I'm not into nepotism. I'm into bringing people up and, and creating community wealth. Um, so, uh, I encourage you folks, as you review this topic of ethics, which I'm... I was the head of the Yale Ethics... Journal of Ethics at Yale. I was the chief editor and the cartoon editor as well, too. So I do have a history on this topic. And I do understand how nepotism and contracts and influence works, because I grew up in one of the... The biggest Catholic families on the planet. So I understand gangsters better than all you. And they love me. So not being a criminal, you know, my whole life since I was four, I've been in this game. And 53 now, coming up on 54. So I'll be 50 years understanding how politics and money works. Worked at Apple Computer at eight years old and made a lot of these guys a lot of money on that stock. But long story less long, when dealing with matters of ethics, I would like to be part of the conversation with you guys, you know, and based just on work that I do and provide as examples of how we could be ethical and and move forward and $90, $50 million grants and a $1.6 million, 8,000 page thing that everybody's copying now is a violation of intellectual property rights. And I would love to serve our community in a way that, thank you, that is not litigious. I don't think I'm being provided an opportunity. So peace to Tamara P., my rep. I'm back in the hood in Lowney Apoco, ready to make everybody lots of money and bring peace and food security to us. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Members, any clarifying questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much. Staff?

Thank you, Chair. There's currently no one else signed up to testify. Would you like me to initiate last call? Yes, please.

We do have one here in the Finance Department conference room. And then I do see somebody raising their hand online as well.

Well, Chair, members of the of the Greek Committee. I'm Michael Lilly. I'm chair of the Maui Board of Ethics. I strongly support these three bills. Lauren Akitaki will present technical details of the bills and why they help fulfill the Ethics Board's mission that we hold the public's trust. I'll try to address some larger principles that connect all three. Ethics laws exist because the government must not only act fairly, but it must also be perceived by the public that's acting fairly. Public competence is achieved when citizens know that decisions are made impartially, that public officials are accountable, and that the government operates transparently. I know we all share these goals. These proposals are important steps toward those goals. Bill 55's six-year statute of limitations recognizes that accountability should not depend upon timing or technicalities. We lost jurisdiction over three recent cases because the public employees involved had left public service. Bill 55 primarily ensures that former employees not avoid accountability for unethical conduct. Bill 59's anti-nepotism proposal strengthens Maui County's integrity, credibility, and fairness, especially in our small community. I once talked with Mayor Bisson about the fact that so many of us in Maui are closely related by families and friendship. And he remarked humorously that on Maui, there's only one degree of separation. This bill recognizes that public employment decisions should be free from actual or perceived favoritism. And most organizations, profit, nonprofit, government, have adopted nepotism safeguards because they strengthen employee morale and public confidence. This bill reassures the public that hiring and promotions are based on merit. Similarly, Bill 100's lobby provisions give Maui a more trustworthy decision-making process. The proposal simply recognizes that transparency benefits everyone by allowing the public to understand who is influencing government decisions and on whose behalf. This is all about fair and open government. Taken together, these measures create a stronger ethical framework for our county. They provide clear expectations, greater consistency, and increased transparency, while helping public officials and employees navigate ethical responsibilities with confidence. The Board of Ethics was created by the Hawaii Constitution and the Maui Charter because people recognize the importance of independent ethics program on each county. The voters asked for stronger ethics oversight, education, and accountability. These proposals are meaningful efforts to fulfill that public mandate. And I thank you.

Thank you. Members, any clarifying questions? Member Paulton.

Thank you, Mr. Lilly, for your testimony. My clarifying question is, were you involved in the drafting of these bills?

We were involved, but the work was primarily done at the staff level.

Okay. And then, you know, the list of relatives, how was that come up with?

Well, we were looking at the state ethics, the state rules, and we were talking to Thank you.

That does address my question. And then the other question I had was, were you a part of the decision on the $5,000 lobbyist fine?

Not directly. I support it. But if you see how it's red, it's up to $5,000. So it gives the board discretion based on the facts and the seriousness of the case. We have some limitations on Maui for how much the board can find, the limitations in the ordinance and limitations here.

I guess my question was like in comparison with the first bill where the max fine was $1,000, did you see that the lobbyist violation as more so like times five more than a violation?

When we get into deliberations, staff can answer more questions or provide more detail on how they came to that figure.

Okay, because I mean, I don't see one as five times worse than the other. I think they're equally bad, but okay, thank you.

Chair Lee, I see you have your hand up.

Yeah, thank you. I have a question. I'm wondering, I'm trying to figure out why the extension would be needed. In the case of a mayor, let's say, a mayor, and I'm not talking about any specific mayor, A person who he or she appointed commits a crime. But that is not resolved till after the mayor's term is up. But so this extension goes beyond, you know, so we're talking about a number of years. That mayor will be responsible and liable for his employees for a long period of time. And I'm sure these things have happened in prior administrations. Generally, they're smaller incidents. And so the mayor is sort of excused when his term is expired. So how do you see that this is justified especially to a mayor who probably didn't know or have anything to do with the crime what is responsible because he you know he generally signs off on everything so can you explain why the extra time is justified especially after somebody leaves office well right now um when someone leaves office we lose your the ethics board

loses jurisdiction. If a county employee commits a crime, then there are, the prosecutor has jurisdiction over those crimes. But the ethics of, we enforce Charter 10 of the Maui Charter, and our jurisdiction comes to an end if an employee leaves service, he resigns, or is fired. We no longer have jurisdiction over that. And we had three some of them fairly serious that we lost jurisdiction because each of those three employees had left service. And so we could no longer enforce any of the ethics requirements against those employees. And we want to have jurisdiction so that we're able to reach those violation, that they can't avoid accountability by just leaving public service.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair Lee. Any other questions for the testifier? Seeing none, staff, can you please call the next testifier? Oh, I called my, I see Member Walts in hand up.

I'm just wondering if we want to have Mr. Lilly as a resource, because are you still on the Board of Ethics or no?

yes i'm the chair and i'll stick around yes i thought that when i listed him as one of the personnel at the beginning of the meeting that that covered it but staff if that's incorrect uh we can designate him as a resource now just throwing it out there for your consideration chair okay i thank you i thought i had covered that um but if there's no objections i'd like to have um Mr. Lilly and the rest of the Board of Ethics staff that were previously identified designated as research personnel.

No objections.

Thank you, members. Any other questions for Mr. Lilly?

If not, staff, can you please call the next testifier? Thank you, Chair. The next testifier is calling from extension 1770. Caller, please use star six to unmute yourself and begin your testimony.

Hello, I believe I'm unmuted.

Yes, we can hear you. Okay.

My name is Mads Schaefer, and I'm testifying in support of Bill 55 as amended. I believe that A case that I brought to the Ethics Commission is one of the three that were mentioned just now. I filed a complaint and I want to put this in perspective. I filed a complaint in December of 24. It was heard December of 24. It was referred to law enforcement. On February 3rd, the offense began in 2018 and went on for many years. And when the complaint was filed, when I became aware of it, which was early in fall of 24, I'm sorry. I'm being very careful because I respect the rules of the Ethics Commission and understand why they want to hear things first in executive session. But I'd be happy to fill in the details. I think this is very important because there was a considerable violation over a period of years of the conflict of interest. So very much appreciate this, very much support it. The Ethics Commission does a fine job, and I hope that this passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Member Paltin.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Schaffer, for your testimony. I am in support of it. I was just wondering, you mentioned that it was also brought to the police attention. So... No, may I correct that?

Sure. May I correct that? It was referred... Well, the letter that I received from... ethics said that it's been referred to law enforcement. When I made further inquiries, they said, no, it had been referred to the prosecutor's office and to the attorney general's office because of their concern.

Okay. And then, so I guess my question is like, um, if there's an opportunity to pursue it criminally, as well as civilly, then you'd like the opportunity that both go forward is what you're kind of saying?

No, I'm saying that I believe that ethics, that the appropriate place to start would be with ethics again. And that was where I went. And because the individual was no longer employed by the county, they could not do anything.

Okay. So we're speaking specifically about ethics violations and not criminal complaint is what?

I don't know. I don't know whether it would be criminal. I know that it is a violation of the conflict of interest code of the county.

Got it. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Palten. Any other clarifying questions for the testifier?

Seeing none, staff, can you please call the next testifier? Thank you, Chair. There's currently no one signed up to testify. May I initiate last call? Please do a last countdown. If there's anyone in person wishing to testify, please come to the testifier station. If you're on Teams, please use the raise your hand function. Or if you're calling in, please press star five to raise your hand. This is your final call to testify. Three, two, one. Chair, no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Members, seeing as there's nobody else identifying themselves as wanting to testify without objections, I'd like to close public testimony at the beginning of the meeting.

No objections.

Thank you, members. So today marks a critical step in our committee's ongoing commitment to strengthening good governance, ethical standards, and public confidence in Maui County government. Over our past several meetings, this committee has taken a hard, proactive look at our oversight frameworks. We reviewed special council reports and active litigation, evaluated Resolution 2699 as a vehicle to untangle conflicts of interest, and thoroughly examined the County of Maui Fraud Risk Assessment Report prepared by SPIRE, LLP, and the Office of the County Auditor. Those previous discussions highlighted clear systemic gaps showing us where internal safeguards must be tightened and where public trust requires reinforcement. Today we transition from identifying risk to enacting concrete solutions by taking up a priority package developed in collaboration with the Board of Ethics. Director Akitake, would you like to provide an opening presentation?

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the Great Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss Bills 55, 99, and 100. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the Great Committee staff the great committee, the Office of Council Services, Corporation Council, County Administration, and the many partners who contributed to the development of these proposals, including our Board of Ethics members and staff. In one moment, I'm going to put my camera on.

Oh, staff, can we any more of our camera on? Yes, go ahead.

Before discussing the individual items, I'd like to take a step back and explain why these measures are so important. While our board office is only one year old, the work before you has been years in the making. In 2024, Maui County voters approved the Charter Amendment, creating the Board of Ethics' first full-time professional staff, office, and office. That was a significant moment for Maui County as it reflected the community's desire for greater ethics oversight, increased education and training, meaningful enforcement, and an independent office dedicated to helping preserve the public's trust. That public vote occurred against the backdrop of several high profile public corruption matters at both the state and county levels that understandably raised questions about county and government accountability and reinforced the public's desire for stronger ethics oversight, increased transparency, and greater accountability. Last week's announcement of significant public corruption indictments here in Hawaii serves as another reminder of why strong ethics systems matter. Those are criminal proceedings and they will be resolved through the judicial process. I mention them because they underscore a broader point. Public trust is one of government's most valuable assets. Ethics laws cannot prevent every instance of misconduct, but they can establish clear expectations, promote transparency, deter misconduct, and strengthen accountability before problems arise. Ultimately, our goal is not simply to respond when something goes wrong. It is to build a framework that helps preserve the public's confidence every day. Today's discussion is the third in this committee's series of conversations about legislation focused on strengthening good governance practices and promoting transparency, accountability, and public confidence in Maui County. Recently, the county auditor presented the results of the SPIRE audit. Among those findings was that Maui County remains one of only two jurisdictions in Hawaii without a countywide anti-negotism policy. Also, Maui County is currently the only jurisdiction in Hawaii without comprehensive lobbyist rules. Today, the Board of Ethics is here to present solutions. Not solutions directed at any individual or any particular event, but solutions that will strengthen the ethical framework of county government for years to come. While these three proposals are ambitious, the public's mandate is clear and our board's motto is simple. We hold the public's trust. Those five words guide everything we do. Every day our office answers questions. May I accept this gift? Can I have outside employment? May my spouse apply for this grant? Can I participate in this discussion and vote? May I testify on this issue? We try to be the office of yes to help people accomplish what they want to do while remaining within the ethics laws. But every ethics question ultimately requires us to step back and ask a larger question. What is best for one individual? Well, what best serves the public's trust? Ethics is about the collective we's. The we is county government. The we is every county employee. The we is every resident who expects government decisions to be fair, impartial, and worthy of confidence. That perspective connects all three proposals before you today. To be clear, none of these proposals assumes misconduct. None is intended to criticize past decisions, but each proposal simply strengthens the framework that helps preserve the public's trust going forward. Before discussing the individual items, I want to acknowledge that we're asking the committee to consider three substantial ethics proposals together, and we recognize this is a significant request. At the same time, these proposals were not developed from scratch. They draw upon existing ethics laws adopted by the State Ethics Commission, and those experience an experience gained through implementing, interpreting, and enforcing those laws. Bill 55 follows the State Ethics Commission's approach of applying a six-year statute of limitations period for ethics violations. And the proposed nepotism and lobbyist ordinances draw from the state's existing laws in those areas. We can look to the state's advisory opinions, guidance, and enforcement experience as we implement these measures in Maui County. In developing these proposals, we brought these concepts forward for public discussion. At Board of Ethics meetings, we had robust discussions with State Ethics Director Robert Harris and State Ethics Attorney Keith Campbell about the state's nepotism and lobbyist rules and how those approaches would inform Maui County's own ordinance. As reflected in House Resolution 65, which is included in your public materials, The Hawaii House of Representatives also recognized the value of having county ethics commissions align their standards to those adopted and enforced by the state ethics commission. We also included additional materials in your packet to illustrate how these concepts have been implemented elsewhere, and these provide practical examples of how they would operate here in Maui County if adopted. This does not mean Maui County is simply copying the state or adopting a one size fits all approach. Maui County is unique. Our communities, our government, and our workforce are different. And these proposals have been thoughtfully adapted for our county. But the principles underlying ethics laws are the same everywhere. Fairness, avoiding favoritism, identifying and managing conflicts of interest, and maintaining the public's trust. So we'll go on to Bill 55.

Let me call it forth first. Okay, so members, we have before us Bill 55-2025, entitled a Bill for an Ordinance Amending Section 2.56.010 Maui County Code relating to the Code of Ethics Violation Penalty. Bill 55's purpose is to give the Board of Ethics jurisdiction to pursue violations of Article 10 of the revised Charter of the County of Maui 1983 as amended for up to six years after an officer or employee separates from county employment for acts committed while employed with the county. Members, I have also posted an amendment summary form dated July 16, 2026, proposing a CD1 version of Bill 55, 2025. The proposed CD1 version 1 amends the bill's title to adjust the Board of Ethics six-year jurisdictional window to begin when the alleged violation occurred rather than upon separation from county employment. Three, extends the jurisdiction to six years from the date of violation or from the date a violation is discovered or reasonably should have been discovered if concealed by fraud. And four, changes the effective date to on approval. Director Akitake.

Thank you, Chair. So as other testifiers have mentioned, 55 addresses a practical issue our office has encountered while administering the ethics code. Under our current code and administrative rules, there are circumstances where the board loses the ability to investigate or pursue an ethics matter because the employee leaves county service or because the applicable one-year statute of limitations has expired. As a result, there are situations where alleged misconduct cannot be reviewed, not because the conduct was appropriate, but because our jurisdiction has ended. Public trust should not depend on whether someone separates from county employment before an ethics matter is resolved. The original bill addressed that concern by extending the board's jurisdiction over former employees for six years following separation from county service. However, while researching other jurisdictions, our office concluded there's an even better approach. Accordingly, we're recommending the amendment contained in the ASF before you. Rather than measuring six years from separation from county employment, we recommend establishing a six-year statute limitation measured from the date of the alleged ethics violation itself. This creates one consistent limitations period applicable to both current and former employees. It provides certainty to employees, certainty to the public, and certainty to the Board of Ethics. We are also requesting that the proposed amendment apply retroactively so that the same jurisdictional rule applies consistently to both existing and future matters. There's a memorandum regarding this in your materials, and should the council agree, we need to clearly state the retroactive application on the record. The amendment also recognizes an important principle found throughout the law. If misconduct is hidden through fraud or deliberate concealment, the limitations period should not begin running until the misconduct reasonably could have been discovered. Statute of limitations remained important. Evidence becomes more difficult to gather over time, memories fade, and fairness requires that matters eventually come to a close. But concealment should not become a means of avoiding accountability. For those reasons, the board respectfully replies that we recommend Bill 55 to the full council, specifically noting that it applies retroactively. I would like to address Council Member Paulton's question about the cost, if that's appropriate now.

I think so. The $1,000 fine you mean?

So we're on the first item. We're taking the presentation from the department. We have not yet done public testimony on grade nine, which is why I'm asking the question. So I guess that's a question for after testimony.

Oh, the fine and the repayment. Okay, got it.

Okay, so does that conclude the presentation? Okay, so it is 2.51. Now, we just had our presentation. Before I open us up to public testimony, can I ask you, does the body need a break at this point? Is it okay? Is that Member Johnson asking for a recess?

Yes, if we could take a recess, I'd let that, because I can't access the bills on Granicus. It keeps saying that it's

not there so i'm refreshing so um it might be a technical issue for yeah so let's take a 10 minute recess in the meantime can i ask for staff to email member johnson um the bills specifically the the three bills remember is it all three bills member johnson or is it just the one that you uh is just the one that we're on i couldn't even see the amendments it

So anything with the bill?

Thank you, Member Johnson. We'll try to get that over to you ASAP. It is 2.52. Can we recess until 1.05? Come back in, take recess. Sorry, 3.05. Then we'll take public testimony and then begin deliberations. Well, the great committee meeting of 28th, please come back to order. The time is now 3 0 7 PM. We Before you receive public testimony, members, you should receive an email with all of the materials. I don't know what's going on with Graticus. It's working on my end, but I have heard from several people that they're having issues accessing the meeting materials. So it has been emailed out. There should be three packets, one for each of the bills we're taking up today. Now, staff, can we please receive testimony for great nines?

Thank you, Chair. There's currently nobody signed up to testify. May I do a last call? Can you do a last call, please? Thank you. If there's anyone in person wishing to testify, please come up to the testifier station, or if you're on Teams, please use the raise your hand function. And if you're calling in, please press star five to raise your hand. This is your final call to testify. Three, two, one. Chair, no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Thank you very much. Members, without objection, I'll close public testimony at this time.

No objection.

Thank you. As a reminder, written testimony will continue to be accepted. Members, I'd like to implement a three-minute questioning period per member with a one-minute follow-up round. But I guess since we did have questions raised during public testimony and Director Akitake is available to answer them, let's have her address that question first and then I'll start down the list. Director Akitake.

Thank you, Chair.

You need the question repeated.

Well, the question, as I understand it, is from Council Member Paulton. There are two questions regarding the cost. So you asked, can we recover costs in addition to the penalty? So there are different possibilities. If it's a complaint and we settle it, then in the settlement agreement, there can be different things involved regarding costs. Though I do wanna be clear, and one of the testifiers mentioned, We're talking about Board of Ethics jurisdiction over the ethics code. There are other avenues for various things. And just because our jurisdiction would be extended six years doesn't mean that we're the most appropriate venue. So if it is a criminal case that should go to the prosecutor's office or should go to the AGs, then that's where we'll send it. We don't necessarily wanna be pursuing it at the same time. And if it is to that level, it is better for it to go to one of those entities. However, you've seen that sometimes those take a very long time. And in those circumstances, we have a smaller ability to impose a $1,000 fine, but that may be better than nothing. So we would like to have the option of being able to go after something as well. So costs could come in a settlement. I also wanna mention that in Maui County Code 2.56020, so we're asking to amend 010. 020 is an additional violation penalty provision called additional action. And that it actually says, the provision of 2.56010 for the imposition of a fine for the violation of the code of ethics of the county shall be in addition to and independent of any other rights of any public official or agency to affect disciplinary action or other criminal proceedings against the person who has violated the code of ethics. So another agency or department could take other action based on the ethics code violation. So that could involve the costs or some other employment related penalty. So it's case by case, but we can get at it in different ways.

And then I see Deputy Corporation Counsel Caleb Rowe. I will recognize him and members, if there's no objections, I'll designate him as a resource as well. He is Corporation Counsel to the Board of Ethics. No objections, Mr. Rowe.

Thank you, Chair. In addition to what Ms. Akitake mentioned about 2.56.020, There's also Section 2.56.030, which deals with contracts and transactions that are undertaken in violation of the Code of Ethics. And there are additional things that would include the recovery of any costs that are in there. That empowers the county to void contracts that are entered into in violation of the Code of Ethics. It also allows us to pursue any legal and equitable remedies that are available to it. which in the case of, for example, a contract, we could bring suit to try and recover any funds. So like Ms. Akitaki said, there are other provisions that deal specifically kind of with the recovery, but that is an additional provision that empowers the Board of Ethics to work with our office to bring suit in order to make those kinds of recoveries. I just wanted to point that out.

I think the other question was on, the other question was related to the $5,000 fine, and that is part of Bill 100, which we are not on at the moment.

Oh, it was why one was $1,000 and why one was $1,000.

It does make it to me. Go ahead.

I can speak to the $1,000. So, My County Code 2.56010, which is what we're talking about, is the violations of the Code of Ethics, Charter 10, that relates to county employees and Board of Commission members. Those people are usually not lobbyists. So lobbyists are separate. And we looked at the character of who would be subject to the lobbyist law. And they are not county employees and Board of Commission members where we wanted to keep it up to $1,000. versus the lobbyists who generally, and we can speak to that more later, who generally are paid consultants from law firms and things like that, that could, it is a different group of people that a $5,000 penalty, up to $5,000 would be a deterrent, more so than a $1,000 penalty. And we did have discussions that we can speak more about that later when we get to that bill. but there is a difference of who these relate to. And that's the difference in the dollar amount. Also the $5,000 is currently what the state has for lobbyist rules. It was increased.

Okay. I see chair Lee's hands, but I did say that after she gave that, is that related to the question that was previously both related to reimbursements and the fine amounts?

Well, no, not exactly. But it's related to something she said. That's why I needed to have a clarifying question.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay. Miss Akitaki, you said the decisions you make other other agencies, let's say the county council can take action themselves. Okay, you said something like that. But I just sent you a letter because we don't get your decisions. So we don't know what your decisions are necessarily. So it's hard for us to follow up on something that we have not received. So and then the second part of that is, do you do your own investigations to come to your conclusions?

So we have a investigator position, and I am happy to report that we are going to have a full-time investigator as of August 17th. We have a part-time investigator. So, yes, we are able to do our own investigations. And to address the first part of your question, we have confidential cases. And so... there's a privacy rights for the respondent. And sometimes they are okay with that being public. And if we get to an advisory opinion or contested case hearing all the way to the end, and they're okay with it being public, then it's an unredacted opinion. But if they want to preserve their privacy right, then we redact the opinions. And that is posted on our website, and that can be in e-books I've seen that is public, but it is redacted for identifying information.

Okay, but how do we know whether, if it's redacted, how do we know if there is a criminal activity here and that we should take it upon ourselves to fulfill our obligations to further investigate

So we would refer criminal activity to the prosecutor's office or the attorney general. We don't necessarily refer to the county council for prosecution.

Okay, because there are times when court counsel and the prosecutor is conflicted out. So since we hold the purse strings, we need to know what kinds of activities you know criminal especially criminal allegations that need to be followed up one so i guess we need to work on this so that there is a process where we're all working together somehow

I do want to mention that when I first started, I did have a meeting with both the Andy Martin prosecutor and the auditor that we should have a better referral system between the three of us. And we talked about maybe a referral form. And so we know that's an area that we can move on. With the fraud, waste and abuse hotline with the auditor, we do believe we'll get more referrals from the auditor.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, we need to work on this.

Thank you, Chair. Okay, let's start our three rounds of questioning, or sorry, our first round of three-minute questioning. I'll go to Committee Vice Chair Nohitlani Uwajin, followed by Member Cook.

Thank you, Chair. I know earlier we had issues with hearing the bell, but that bell was quite startling, so no problem hearing that one. Okay, so for Bill 55, thank you for clarifying the difference between ethical and criminal stuff, and criminal things will continue to move on. I appreciate that. I understand that. I think the public has maybe a difficult time understanding what's an ethical violation and a criminal violation. Sometimes it gets a little blurry on our end, too, and usually criminals are unethical to begin with, but sometimes not the other way around. So for Hypothetically, let's say somebody commits an ethical violation today, last week, or last month before this Bill 55 takes effect, but it's still within the six-year period. Can you folks continue to investigate, or is this gonna be starting when it's approved approved, or how do you guys calculate that six years?

That is a good question, and that's why we're asking for this to apply retroactively. So in theory, we would look back and capture those violations. However, we're gonna be, I wanna make it clear that just because we can, it doesn't mean we will. We still have to do our due diligence about the foundation of the cases and to decide if we will be moving on older cases.

Okay, and then so if it's going to be taking effect retroactively, when are you guys proposing for it to begin? upon approval. And then the approval will do it, your investigation? Or like, well, I guess it's either I take my question back, my hypothetical situation should start with if somebody does something violates ethics today, if it was discovered today, last week, last month, or whatever, you guys are still within your six month, six year period. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Um, that's kind of really all I had, I guess. I know you guys said you guys had three, three came up recently. Oh, I know my question. I know you guys took the language from Oahu or State for the Board of Ethics for six years. Um, what happens in those six years and how did they come up with six years? Because that's quite a while for you guys to continue to investigate. How long does investigations typically need? Happy to give you the six years or whatever time you for sure need, but it just seems like a long time would have passed after the, you know, violation was discovered. Without maybe any... action to mediate the violation?

So I did ask them at one point. I don't think there was a very clear reason for it to be six years. Yes, we can take six years to investigate. It won't take six years to investigate and bring it. It's more like that we have six years for someone to report it or to discover it. And then if it's fraudulently concealed, we have an additional six years. So, okay. You know, when we, the state, explained to me that it's very important to have a good amount of time because they've seen recently that you may not discover something until later and you would want to be able to have a reasonable amount of time to be able to move forward once it's discovered sure sure i have no issue with however long you folks need i just would love for

the violations to be mitigated ASAP, which I know you folks are going to do, but then it just looks like, you know, there's a six-year window, but I understand. Thank you.

One more thing I wanted to add. A six-year statute limitation is generally applicable to statutes, or to contracts, statute limitations for a contract. And so it's kind of a known number of years.

Standard number. Okay, cool. Thank you very much. Yes.

Thank you, Vice Chair. So next up is Member Cook, followed by Member Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. My question is for Corp Council. How does Bill 55 work with the current responsibility of an employee ending with employment? When we have, there's been situations where somebody leaves If they're sued or if there's an issue with it, the county is responsible for defending them or it.

Is that Mr. Colby or Mr. Rowe? I see Mr. Rowe popping up. Does that mean you're volunteering to take this one?

Caleb?

I'm just indicating that I am available.

Okay.

If Mr. Colby is here.

I'm not certain I understand your question.

Well, without getting into other the details of when we've been in executive meetings and whatnot, and then an employee has left the county, but the county is responsible for either defending them or addressing the issue. And I'm not an attorney, so I'm speaking very broad strokes. If If it doesn't resonate, then I'm not asking the question right.

Generally, the obligation to defend or indemnify an employee would probably be analyzed under whether at the time the conduct occurred, whether they were an employee. So it could go to allow us to have to defend an employee who's no longer with the county under our obligations to defend and identify our employees. In terms of our ability to go after a prior employee who has separated and he or she is the target of the violation, I think that's one of the things that this legislation is intended to deal with. Section 10.4 talks about what officers and employees of the county shall not do. And if there's an extension of time for investigating after the fact, then the six years would be the amount of time after the conduct occurred under this version. So if it happened two years ago, they would have essentially four years. Where it gets a little tricky is that The discovery rule that is being proposed is when you discovered it or you should have discovered it. And so that is, you know, would basically allow the six-year clock to start upon discovery. So I don't know if that answered your question. We have different obligations to defend as opposed to abilities to go after.

Okay, since I have time, I'll ask a question a little bit different. And what it is, I'm trying to... Did the bell ring? Yes. Okay. Next. I'll yield my time. I used my time. I will wait to the next one. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Cook. Member Johnson, followed by Chair Lee.

Thank you, Chair. You know, Director Akitake mentioned that or I'm kind of trying to sort this out, that you can see the complaints on your website when it's finished, or you can never see these complaints. I'm trying to find, you said it on the website, I'm looking, I'm looking, I can't seem to find any results of the complaints.

Contested case decisions are published, redacted, but contested cases are very rare. I mean, in his time with the board, or Chair Lilly, how many contested cases went through? Zero contested cases went all the way to the end. We had one scheduled and the person resigned in the last year. It's very rare that a contested case goes all the way through, but now we're set up to be able to do it. Advisory opinions, though, are more likely to be published redacted or unredacted. But we also do hundreds of advisory opinions informally out of our office that are not published.

My question is simply I'm looking for where I can find these. And I looked on the website. You said it's posted on your website. I couldn't find it. Was it in? I kind of got lost looking for it. So is there a way to find these? Is it in the document center? Is that the term or?

You're asking the complaints themselves are not published.

Okay. Complaints are not published. They're confidential. Contested cases in the advisory. Was that advisory opinions?

Contested cases. I know they're rare. Just looking for where they're at. Oh, advisory opinions are in the document center. And we have quite a few here. So they are there. We can get that information to you to maybe after the meeting to make sure you can find them.

Yes. Okay. It's fine. Thank you. I just was trying to find it. Now, I guess my question is in regards to this particular, it sounds like you guys are supporting of this amendment. and the idea that when the violation occurred is what the language you guys would prefer. I'd like to hear maybe from the lawyers. Wouldn't that make it a more harder case? Because sometimes we don't know when the violation has occurred. We just know a violation occurred. I thought as a lawyer, maybe you would want that language taken out, but I'd like to hear from a lawyer because I am not one.

Mr. Colby? I mean, there's a lot of lawyers here. I don't know who you are.

It's very standard to start from when the violation occurred. And if there's fraudulent concealment, we can toll for six years. The idea of when it occurred is evidence gets stale over time. So whether we discovered it or not, whether it was fraudulently concealed and told, at some point we need it to end. So from when it, because of evidence gets staled, it's harder to prove the longer you go. So that it's very standard from the violation.

I heard the timer. I'm just seeking to say that like,

if you know from the lawyer's perspective that this strengthens your case or it weakens that's really where i was going with the line of the question but i heard my time's up so i'll move on thank you chair mr colby do you want to very quickly respond to that uh sure uh obviously from as the sakitaki said evidence gets stale in criminal law they have statutes of limitation murders they don't have a statute The misdemeanor has two years and petty misdemeanor has one. The severity of the thing kind of dictates how long after conduct has happened you can prosecute. But going by the date of the alleged violation, that would actually shorten the period compared to if you're going by the date of separation. That's without the discovery rule. So if I quit today, six years from now, would be the date where you could no longer come after me if you were going by separation. But if my violation was five years ago, and we don't have a discovery issue, then you got a year under putting the six years to the date that the violation occurred.

Okay, I understand that. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson. Chair V, followed by Member Fulton.

Thank you, Lauren again. So as I mentioned, we couldn't find the information we're looking for on your website. And I don't know if you got the letter already. I sent you the letter. We also understand that what comes back could be redacted. And so, you know, it's hard. It's really hard to get information if you have cases Do you have cases that are ethics plus criminal related?

Chair, do you want to answer?

Yeah, often they overlap. An act by an employee could be a violation of Title 10, but it could also be a violation of the criminal code. There are different nuances of both, but there are times when they overlap.

Okay, so do you take it upon yourself to investigate this case? Or do you refer this type of case to the police department or somebody else or prosecutors?

We can do both. We can investigate the ethics violation. And the precise violation of the ethics is not necessarily a criminal violation but the conduct could spill over to a criminal violation so the totality could involve both criminal conduct and ethical violations but we have the independence to proceed on the ethics one and we can refer the criminal side to the criminal to the prosecutor okay but do you do you do that automatically and have you done that In the three years that I've been on the board, I would call one or two criminal referrals.

Okay. To the police department or to the prosecutors?

To the prosecutors.

To the prosecutors. And then they would take it from there. They have their own investigators to follow up on.

Okay. Yes.

All right, that's all I have. I just needed clarification because we're kind of kept out of the loop as a council, and we have to figure out how to get back into the loop. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Member Paulton, followed by Member Rollins-Fernandez.

Thank you. Can you clarify, as I'm looking at the CD1 version, I don't interpret it as applying retroactively. Is that something that you wanted to include or it is in the CD1 version?

It is not specifically stated in the CD1 version. The memo does, the research shows that we are allowed to do it. It could be in the amended version. It doesn't have to be. It can be clearly stated as a legislative intent that was approved by the body. And so that would be sufficient for it to be retroactive.

Okay. And then I guess, you know, some issues were brought up by testifiers. Would that allow you to pursue it if it is retroactive?

Possibly. Possibly.

And then, so I'm all for it. I'm all for like no time limits. If you're accountable, held them accountable. And then also... you know i i kind of feel like it should be standard um whether it's a elected official border commission or a lobbyist because you're seeing up to five thousand it's not everybody's gonna get five thousand and i don't know if you've seen what some of our directors mayors council members make nowadays it's not like what they've made in the past like i wouldn't impose a $5,000 fine on, like, a volunteer board or commission member, but you're lumping everybody in together, right?

There is an argument for that, and the state has talked about, and that's why they increased their lobbyist penalty to $5,000. We haven't done it yet. However, The reputational hits that people take out of the Board of Ethics is pretty large, particularly if it is a director. So I do think that that's a big deterrent as well, just a straight monetary dollar amount.

So your preference is to keep it at $1,000, then make it up to $5,000?

We can consider it in the future, but for now it's been pretty standard and there are other remedies like we spoke about with settlement and other provisions we can use regarding contracts and things like that.

And is there an appeal process to your ruling or is that what Ms. Mahi is doing right now is the process if you don't agree with you guys ruling? Or if a person that you guys ruled against doesn't agree with your ruling, what? Is that the process or is there a different process? Like if people don't like our real property tax, they'll go to the real property tax appeals board. If people don't like the board of ethics or thinks they're not fair or whatever, is there an appeals process or is that what it is, what is currently going on?

Yes, there is an appeals process under our new rules that were passed at the end of last year. If the board office decides not to process a complaint for one of the foundational grounds, the person can appeal it to the board. Whatever decision of the board can be appealed to the Second Circuit Court, the Second Circuit Court's decision can be appealed up to the Intermediate Court of Appeals.

Okay, thank you. I support no time limit and 5,000 fine, but if that's not appropriate, you let me know.

Thank you. Thank you, Member Fulton. Member Rollins-Hernandez, followed by Member Sinensi.

Mahalo, Chair. Aloha, Director Akitake and team. Mahalo for being with us today and answering our questions. I am supportive of the bill and six years and it being retroactively applied. Two questions. One, why six years? And I heard you say that the six years is standard for contract law. And so if that's the reason, okay, I'll stop there.

I did ask the state specifically about it and there was no real strong answer other than it is a pretty standard number for statute of limitations, particularly something kind of civil and for contracts.

Would you want it to be longer, like 10 years or something?

No, I believe the size of our office, the size of our jurisdiction, we will be able to finish much shorter than six years. I don't think we're going to need the six years. It's better to have six years for the discovery of the violation. I believe it's adequate.

Okay. And then for the retroactive application of this, Generally, we don't apply laws retroactively. And I think it's because of like notice and fairness. I think the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 10 prohibits criminal laws from being retroactively applied, but not ethical laws, So if that can be explained.

So good question. And that's why our staff attorney researched it and put a memo in the material. So if Chris would speak to that.

Thank you for the question. So you are absolutely right. Member Rollins Fernandez is that generally laws do not apply retroactively. So whenever the legislative body is silent, they'll assume that they just wanted it to go forward from the day they adopt it forward. But the Hawaii Supreme Court has addressed this issue specifically, like right on the head. And they said that although that's the general rule, a legislative body can make it retroactive as long as they're very clear about it. So the way we would be clear about it is two ways, you could either put that specifically in the ordinance that says and the county council intends for it to apply retroactively, or if you folks do pass this, it could be in the committee report that it says specifically, you know, they considered that the council considered it and they are approving this with the intent that it apply retroactively. So that was, That's what the Hawaii Supreme Court has decided. And if you want an example from the memo, I can give you that if you have other questions.

Okay. Sorry, I did find the memo, Granike, item six. I did hear the timer, but a quick follow-up on that. So when we're starting employment with the county, these laws would probably be you know, in our hiring packet, maybe? I don't know. But would we want to add this? I don't know. I think there should be notice. I'll think about it. I think, yeah.

And that's an excellent point. And so the reason why we would suggest that it's okay in this instance to be retroactive is because when you do start as a county employee, you are provided the code of ethics. You check the little box and you sign the papers that say you're going to you know, you're going to conduct yourself in accordance with the code of ethics. So you knew from day one when you became a county employee, whether it was 20 years ago, one year ago, and you were always subject to the code of ethics every day that you were a county employee. So the fact that, you know, we make it go back one year, which is what it is now, versus six years, during that whole time you were a county employee, you always knew you were you had to comply. So the notice, it's a little bit different here because you were on notice and that's why the courts do allow the council to make it retroactive because they didn't have a vested right to only be subject to it for the last year. this just gives the board the ability to address it for six years. So nobody had like a vested property interest in only being prosecuted for one year. They always knew they were subject to it. And so it was a continuing obligation. And that's why in this case, feel it would probably be appropriate for it to go back. And it would be really difficult for an employee to say, oh, but I didn't know I had to comply for the past six years, not just the last one year. So really, there isn't a downside or really a right that an employee says to why it shouldn't apply to them.

So like when we have to do like as candidates and, you know, with the spending reports, like we could be audited up to six years back. And so like for me, I keep all of my documents organized a certain way so that if I'm ever audited, I'm ready to be audited because my documents are all in order instead of like scrambling because I knew that I could be audited six years back. Um, so that that's all like, just like this, the, the, um, record keeping of, you know, whatever. Okay. I'm sorry. I know the timer went off a while ago. Sorry. Mahalo chair. Appreciate that.

Thank you. Member. Member. Followed by members.

Auto chair. Uh, yeah, I did hear earlier about the appeals process. That was my question. So, but. Is there an appeal process laid out in Section 2.56? Is there a section in 2.56?

It is certainly in our administrative rules in detail.

But not actually in 2.56 anywhere, but in your administrative rules? okay and then uh for for clarification the bill uh speaks to article 10 and i know that for us during um our council deliberations we'll always ask people to to send um the ethics board uh just to check on certain things is this is this just specific to to Article 10 or does it also include, you know, whenever we send people to the ethics board for for ruling?

Anyone who needs advice from the attorney of the day or informal or formal advisory opinion, they would need to be a county employee or board and commissions member currently. So does it it's not applicable to the six year statute limitation here.

Oh, okay, so only employees can ask of the ethics board.

And boarding commissions. Yes, boarding commissions.

Okay, got it. So there are kind of safeguards. If we're going to the ethics board early and getting a ruling, you know, there are processes that keep you from going and actually receiving a violation, yeah.

Absolutely.

Okay.

If you get an ethics opinion that says what you're doing is correct, you can rely on that going forward. And Lauren has given more informal opinions since August 1 than we've issued formal opinions in the last 10 years.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. Just going through that process, as county counselors, commissioners, that we have that service from you guys. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Sinensi. Member Sugimura, followed by myself.

Thanks. So really important. I always have said that when Board of Ethics got Lauren to be in charge, as well as this super commission from past to today with Mr. Lilly, the commission has taken on a whole new role of responsibility. And so going back to testifier that appeared, talking about a concern, it made me think about at what point does the Board of Ethics then refer something to the prosecuting attorney or AG? When do you kick it out of this level? And does that mean that it's more serious? Or what does that mean?

So, you know, I've been here for one year, and I haven't had much experience in that other than knowing that it will happen. But also, I was a DM district court judge and a civil litigator. And so I knowing that the penalties elsewhere are larger. If it's a larger case, if it has a bigger dollar amount or big public significance, we are going to decide whether it should go elsewhere. We have $1,000 of my nation um penalty provision which is quite small in the grander scheme of things so um we would not want to in any way interfere or preclude if it's a larger case from going where it should go so i wouldn't hesitate should the prosecutor uh it would be a good fit there or the attorney general or the fbi i mean it should go where it's best suited or even the auditor um but we want the small things that's what i told the auditor as well With the fraud, waste and abuse hotline now with our increased staffing, it is important that the small things are linked into as well. So we have that ability.

Okay. So in other words, you're going to handle it for as long as you see appropriate. And if an employee violated the ethics, and then left at this point, if it was serious enough that it got referred at that level, you wouldn't look at it again. It is now in the hands of the AG or whoever or prosecuting attorney.

I would say, though, that I know that there are some things that are sitting with those entities for years. And it may never go anywhere. So I wouldn't be opposed to the possibility that we would look at it if it seems like it should be looked at and it's just not being looked at where it was referred to.

So I wouldn't be opposed to that. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Sugimura. My only question has to do with the retroactive authority. I see the memo that was created by the Board of Ethics staff. Can I just ask for counsel to confirm that they agree with the findings of that memorandum? that it's sufficient, or one, that we can do it and two, that it's sufficient for it just to be included in the committee report rather than seeming to be a formal amendment to the text.

As to the issue about whether or not it can just be in the committee report, I would defer to the OCS attorney. On the issue about retroactivity, I did read through the memo and I don't disagree with anything that's in here. The presumption is that retroactivity is not the norm. But that if there's expressed a legislative intent to make statute retroactive, then it can be passed by the legislature. If it's the intent to try and make sure that this sticks, I think that it would make some sense to maybe put it into the legislature. But I will defer to the OCS attorneys on that one. And then the idea about, well, the discussion about whether we want to advise employees as they're coming in, you know, chase law, they do get the code of ethics. But I think that that goes to notice because a lot of these employees could be members of a collective bargaining units and might have an ability to agree. I think notice can be fixed and should be addressed in that. But I don't see a problem with it being retroactive if it's clearly intended by the legislature.

Mr. Hanano? Yeah, I agree. Either you can put it in the actual whole section, complex 6.0 or in the community reportable. Okay.

So if you guys are both comfortable with it just being in the report, then I agree. Members, is there any need for a second round? Member Cook, one minute.

Okay, one minute, close. So my question, the comment earlier about a reputational hit kind of resonated with me. What protection does a public official have against slander and frivolous ethics charges Because the confidentiality aspect cuts both ways. So, you know, it isn't, anyway, has any progress been made on that?

So that is why we have redacted advisory opinions and redacted contested cases that go all the way through the end. And I know that everyone would like to know everything, but there is a privacy right for the respondent. And so we do protect that. There were two sentences added to our administrative rules last fall with a optional civil penalty of dismissal if the complainant violates the confidentiality. And that was, there was a lot of testimony that wasn't appreciated by those who are filing these cases. And court counsel stands by our ability to do that. However, the office messaged out that we are not gonna enforce that because it would be challenged in court. And that was our attempt at doing it, but we can handle these cases quicker than in the past.

Chair, may I have one more minute? Chair. Okay. The challenge, I mean, this is personal. The challenge I'm having is a year later in social media continually being labeled, framed, I mean, just the whole nine yards. And I don't say anything because I don't want to pump the flames. But just give it some thought. Maybe we'll work on it some way. because it's being weaponized and I'm just concerned about the six years people doing fishing expeditions. I'm supportive of what you're doing and I believe the ethics rules need to be enforced. They should be clean. I agree with all of that. I'm just from my own experience concerned about people weaponizing these rules and us not having a mechanism to address them. Food for thought. We're not going to solve it now. And you comment if you wish. But, Chair, thank you for me being able to close my thought.

Thank you, Member Cook. Any further discussion on Bill 55? Member Baltic.

Just following up on Charlie's line of questions in the next steps, are you guys going to kind of clarify ethics violation, criminal violation, and where and who each one should be going through? Because you opened this conversation about talking about the current situation, which I'm assuming you're talking about the five guys indicted by the Attorney General, but Is that what we're talking about here as ethics violation? Would a retroactivity be able to say, why did we buy those 50 units from Milton Choi and we never used half of them? Would that be an ethics violation? Because I was a little confused with your opening talking about the current situation, but is that ethics or is that criminal? me my opening or her opening her opening right you said with the current situation of what's going on and i i inferred that to mean like the five guys that got indicted by the attorney general or were you talking about a different current situation going on um

The high profile public cases that are criminal, I cited them because it talks about public trust and about trusting government. And so what we're doing here is in our lane, our jurisdiction with the Board of Ethics to be able to build that framework.

So what I'm asking is, like, when that deals with COVID testing, and, like, when we approved the COVID money, we had to relinquish our right to approve each and every purchase. And then, you know, I always thought that Milton Troy procurement was fishy, but... What could we have done about it? Would we have taken that to you folks as an ethics violation? Hey, Victorino got $3,000 from campaign donations, and next thing we're buying these 50 units that don't make sense in COVID because they're going to have to have communal toilets, communal kitchen, like... Would that be an instance where you say we go to you as that's an ethics violation? Or would that be a criminal? Or how do we get the same level of scrutiny on what we see happening here as what got to the attorney general level in Oahu?

You start asking. So in practice, I see that people contact all the different entities that could help them. And then we should start figuring out having them look at it. Is this our lane? Are we the best person for it? And they know the partners out there. So if we're not the best for it, we're going to send it to the prosecutor's office, whether you contacted them or not.

And we see other candidates have returned Milton Choi donations and others haven't. And some unions are making a big deal about it for just one candidate when you can just Google on the website about who got Milton Choi money and not everybody returned it. So I'm just saying I kind of been asking about those Milton Choi donations. units for a long time i don't even know where they are we've never used them again like instead like we got these korea modular housing when we have 50 units that we bought with covid money from from milton choi that who knows what happened to them so I hope that you take that into your retroactive investigation, all the COVID purchases, because only now it's coming to light with those five indicted in Oahu. We have our own COVID purchases that are sketchy, I think.

So anyone can make a complaint within the county and in the community, and we will look at it.

Okay, I'll make a complaint.

At this time, I would like to entertain a motion to recommend passage of Bill 55-2025 on first reading, including any non-substantive provisions. Is that Member Uhu Hodges raising her hand? I'll recognize Vice Chair and then I'll take the second from Member Fujimura. Okay. I would now like to entertain a motion to amend Bill 55-2025 by replacing it with the proposed CD1 version as set in the amendment summary form. Okay, so moved by Vice Chair Uhu Hajin, seconded by members Sugi and Mora. The proposed CD1 version amends the bill's title to a bill for an ordinance amending section 2.56.010 Maui County Code on code of ethics violations and penalties. It adjusts the Board of Ethics six-year jurisdictional window to begin when the alleged violation occurred, rather than upon separation from county employment. It extends jurisdiction to six years from the date of a violation, if it's discovered or when it reasonably should have been discovered, if concealed by fraud, and changes the effective date to on approval. Any discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, can I call for the question? All in favor? Oh, I see a question. Member Ron Fernandez.

Who proposed this amendment?

That was done in coordination between committee staff and the Board of Ethics staff.

Okay. And then is it... Only if the violation was concealed by fraud or other device, does it extend to six years after the violation is discovered or reasonably should have been discovered? Is that the only way? Like, what if it wasn't fraud? What if it just wasn't?

Then if it wasn't fraud, then the plot starts when the alleged event occurred. Member Rollins-Fernandez, your microphone went on mute.

Yeah, I muted myself so I could read it out loud again. And then is this explicit enough to say that it's going to apply retroactively?

It does not say that. So when we get back to the main motion and we would state it into the records, it will be recorded in the committee report.

Oh, I don't want it just been in the committee report. I'll make the motion for it to be actually in the code. I want it to nobody finds the committee report. I don't think that's sufficient. I know legally we're being advised that that's like good enough, but I don't think that's good enough because if people are going to look up the laws, they're going to look up the laws. They're not going to go and research committee reports. Not everyone's a nerd like us.

okay so i i can i can be supportive so are you going to move to amends uh so are you going to take the second amendment now or would you like to take the vote okay is there any further discussion on the on the uh motion to amend chair lee yeah my discussion is i'm going to be voting i with reservations for everything i think um some of the the provisions are too extreme

And I'm still bothered by the fact that we're always the last to know. So that's my position. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Any other discussion on the amendment? Member Paulton.

I'm going to be voting aye wholeheartedly. I wish we could go back more than six years because COVID and the way that we were kind of railroaded to accept the money and then not have a say on how it's spent. We all seen the Kupali Technologies hand dispensers that never worked. Nobody did anything about this. You know, like I brought it up multiple times. We know who the guy is that was disaster profiteering and continually disaster profiteering. I think they should go back at least to before COVID because we had to accept the COVID money and we could not say yes or no to how they spent it. We were given a list like a eight-point font list about how it was spent after the fact, and I think those people should be held accountable. Everybody, A to Z, not just like one or two people here and there.

For what it's worth, the state auditor is auditing all of the emergency procurement done through COVID.

Oh, really?

That must have been discussed. No, that was discussed at the last meeting with the department. Let me discuss the problem.

Oh, that's fabulous news. Thank you so much. Made my afternoon. Okay. Thank you. I'm glad I brought this up so you could let me know.

All right. Any further discussion on the amendments? Okay. So all in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Chair, that's nine ayes, zero noes. Motion passes.

You're back to the main motion.

Thank you. Member Rollins-Fernandez, would you like to offer an additional amendment?

Mahalo, Chair. I would, but I would also like to follow up on that last comment about auditing all this COVID funding, because if the six years has passed, even if they find something, even if they find fraud or fraud, ethical violation, if it's six years, then we can't do anything about it, right?

You wouldn't be able to go after them for a Title 10 amendment or a Title 10 violation, but they would still be subject to criminal, to the criminal code.

Also, it does say when it was discovered. So if it was discovered, then the six years start when it was discovered.

If it was fraudulently concealed.

It was fraudulently concealed.

But I do want to clarify, I'm not totally understanding the situation here you're talking about, but our complaints have to be about an employee or a board and commissions member. So I'm not sure if you're talking about a contract with someone outside and you want to go after that. Yeah, it's against employees and board and commissions members.

What about the former mayor or budget director or people that went into the contract and it's not right?

So if there's an alleged violation under the Code of Ethics against an employee or board and commissions member under Bill 55 that passed, we can look back six years.

Okay. Well, I guess criminal would be better then. I'll come up.

Member Rollins Fernandez.

Okay, Mahalo Chair. And we don't have to stick to six years. We could make it 10 years and then make it six years later on after everything is, you know, addressed since we have, there's a lot that needs to be addressed. I move to amend Bill 55 to explicitly state that this law would be applied retroactively, however that needs to be written.

Checking. I see a second from Evers and then, sorry, I saw him first. Any discussion on the matter?

Well, Chair, I discussed it. I just want it explicitly in the code so that if someone looks it up, they'll see it in the code and not have to read the automated reports.

Understood. Is that enough direction for staff to be able to work with? I think you folks would just have to say to what date it would be retroactive to.

And, Chair, under the legislative drafting manual, this language would end up in Section 3, and it would say that this ordinance upon approval takes a depth retroactive to and with the date, so.

Member Rollins-Fernandez, did you hear that?

Yeah, so that would only be on the bill. It wouldn't end up in a code. I want it in the code.

Yeah, so, I mean, that's according to legislative drafting standards. If the body decides to put it in the code, that's body discretion.

So we have a proposal from staff as to how they would want this done. But if you prefer it done differently, Member Rollins-Fernandez, can you specify how you would like it written into the code?

I would like it to be incorporated in Section 1 into 2.56.010 that this law would be applied retroactively and the timeline would be that in Section 3 when the ordinance takes effect on approval and so it would be that six years from the time that it was approved. Or should any fraud should have been reasonably discovered, because that could be more than six years.

Okay, it's 4.11. I'm going to ask for a nine-minute recess, so 4.20, so that we can work on language to that effect. Member Rollins-Fernandez, I'll ask you to work with committee staff so that when we come back, we can vote on that. We'll take up this, we'll take up the vote on Bill 55, and then we'll defer the other two bills to a later date. All right, this meeting is in recess until 4.20. Recommended language for Member Alex Fernandez's proposed amendment. Yes, Chair.

So the proposal is to add after the last sentence where it says reasonably should have been discovered, we would add another sentence that says this section applies retroactively. Okay, that's it? Yes. All right, members, you all got that? And I just wanna confirm that if that's what Member Rollins-Fernandez and as well as the Board of Addicts did.

I heard Member Rollins-Fernandez verbally agree.

That was even less words than we had discussed before. I'm glad. Okay.

All right. So everybody heard the amendment on the table. Any further discussion? Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's call for the question. All in favor, please raise your hand.

Chair.

Aye. 9-9-0-noes. Motion passes back to the main motions. And so we're back to the main motion. Any further amendments, members? Any further discussion on the main motion as amended? Member Pultean.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair, for taking this item up. It's been very enlightening. I will be drafting my letter of grievance to Attorney General Ann Lopez of all the places she should look for our county that I think was kind of shady in our COVID expenditures. And I encourage everyone, you know, that feels similarly to go down that path because, you know, the only way you know is if they look into it and Apparently, they're doing something over there. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Paulton. Any further discussion?

member see you tomorrow so i support this um i just wanted to add that i think in the discussion the committee was talking about looking into victorino and also mentioned the budget um chair and i am not budget chair a budget manager um and at that time um i think that what the victorian administration was doing was providing us covet reports every month and whatever we decided to do was what we decided to do so um in defense of that statement i just want to say i'm opposed to that general statement because i think that a conscious effort was being made as far as what the council did well that's that was our kuleana and um but that was what was happening during that corporate time like that or not thank you thank you okay um

I see a hand. Can we please keep it to the motion on the floor? Member Uhuha-Jins.

Thank you. I actually wanted to just say before we end, I have a comment. I just didn't want it to go. Okay, bye. That's all.

All in favor of the main motion as amended, please raise your hand, say aye. Okay, that's nine ayes, zero noes. Motion passes. Thank you, members. Okay, I do know that some of you have to leave. I was told that there are a few of you with a hard stop at 4.30. So I just ask that there be enough of you who stay on the line long enough for us to defer the other two bills that are on today's agenda. And I guess before any of you leave, I just want to thank you for your hard work today and the the deliberations that we had on this. I do intend to bring this back shortly. I don't know exactly when. So deferring the next two bills and then reposting for another agenda. I do intend to take up additional bills as well.

We have in the works a bill to

uh require additional financial disclosures and we're considering one on additional conflicts of interest um member paulson if you want to start working on something related to those reimbursements that you had been discussing um or if you want to start thinking about like a referral system i'm happy to entertain those i just want the members to know that we will be coming back to these good governance bills and if you want to start um you know, thinking of anything, just reach out to staff so that we can coordinate when to bring it up, okay?

You mean the reimbursements on like the 45 grand in fraudulent kitchen equipment, like that kind of reimbursement? Oh, okay.

Yeah, so I was just throwing out things that you might want to work on related to the kind of things that the committee is taking up at this time. I'm not saying you have to go after that kitchen specifically, but yes, in spirit, yes.

Okay, great. I'll look into the criminal stuff and see if it adequately covers it. Um, because I want to go for the highest penalty because like, um, Miss Akitaki said, we're talking about the public trust.

Thank you. Okay. So staff, I understand we have to call the item up, take discussion and then defer. So can we take, I'd like to call up, um, Bill 99, a bill for an ordinance amending chapter 2.56 of our county code to establish prohibitions concerning nepotism. Can we please open up the floor for public testimony? Is there anybody wishing to testify on the nepotism bill at this time?

Thank you, Chair. There's currently nobody signed up to testify. Can you do a last call, please? Yes. If there's anybody in person wishing to testify, Please come to the testifier station. If you're on Teams, please use the raise your hand function. Or if you're calling in, please press star five and raise your hand. This is your final call to testify. Three, two, one. Chair, no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Members, without objection, I'd like to close public testimony. Seeing no objection, we will close public testimony and still receive written testimony in this item. Also without objection, members, I'd like to defer this item. Seeing no objections, I'd like to have that ordered. Now we have before us Bill 100-2026 entitled the Bill for an Ordinance Amending Section 2.56.040 Maui County Code to Establish Comprehensive Lobbyist Regulations. Staff, can you please open up the floor for testimony on Bill 100?

Thank you, Chair. There is currently no one signed up to testify. Can you please do a last call?

Yes.

If there is anyone in person wishing to testify, Or on Teams, please use the raise your hand function and staff will unmute you. If you're calling in, please press star five and raise your hand. This is your final call to testify. Three, two, one. Chair, no one has indicated they wish to testify.

Thank you. Members, without objection, I will now close public testimony. Objection. So recorded. Thank you very much. And then with no objection, member Uhu Hodges.

Thank you. During testimony, I had asked one of the testifiers about him being on the list. And at that time, I couldn't find him. And I wanted to make clear, even though we're not discussing it today, I did find him. He's been legit. I didn't have a question about that. But I just wanted to make it clear that I did find him before we end this meeting. But I will have questions on how often that's updated. So he was on there from 2015. And there are some other people who are like probably no longer shouldn't be currently registered lobbies. And there's an active list and an inactive list. And I want to know how often it's updated and talk about maybe annual registration of lobbyists so we can have an updated list. I'll save that for later, but I just wanted to make clear, I did find Mr. Perez and I didn't want to let it go before I address that. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Staff, can you please transmit a written question to the Board of Ethics regarding how often their lobbyist list gets updated? Is there any objection to deferring this item? So ordered. All right. Thank you members for your diligent work today. We will be bringing this back up again. I don't have a date yet, but I will be working with staff to bring forth the two bills that have not yet been taken up and then any others that you might want to work on. This concludes the Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee meeting. Thank you very much. The time is now 4.39 p.m. This great committee meeting is adjourned.