Housing and Land Use Committee (2025-2027) - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Will the Disaster Recovery International Affairs and Planning Committee meeting of June 17th come to order? The time is now 1.33. And if everyone can please silence their cell phones or noisemaking devices, that will help our cause. Members, in accordance with the Sunshine Law, if you're not in the council chambers, please identify by name who, if anyone, is in the room, vehicle, or workspace with you today. Minors do not need to be identified. Also, please see the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity. My name is Tamara Poulton, and I'll be your chair for today's DRIP Committee meeting, and with us, we also have Committee Vice Chair Nohelani Uhuhajens, Aloha Winola, and Yorana.

Aloha Chair, Yorana, everyone.

And we also have Council Member Kawanoe Batangan.

Aloha Wina Lakako.

And we also have Council Member Tom Cook.

Aloha Chair.

Aloha. Member Johnson informed me that he is coming to Maui on the one o'clock ferry, so he may be in transit at this moment, but we expect him any moment now. Next up, we have Council Member Alice Lee. If you have anyone with you, please let us know and give Koa and Jill our best.

Yeah, they said aloha to everyone. And Yorana, no one's here in my workspace. Looking forward to your meeting, thank you.

Thank you. We also have the live and direct Council Member Kiani Rawlings-Fernandez in the chamber.

Live and direct at the chamber, Aloha Awina Law Chair, Aloha Awina Law Kako.

And we also have Council Member Shane Sinensi, Aloha Awina Law, Yorana.

Aloha Awina Law Chair and Yorana here at my home office. I'm here by myself and there are no testifiers in line.

Thank you. And last but not least, we have Council Member Yukile Sugimura, Yorana.

Yorana, good to see you.

All righty, this meeting of the Disaster Recovery International Affairs and Planning Committee of the Maui County Council is located on the traditional aina of the Kanaka OEV who never ceded their sovereignty to the United States. We recognize that Her Majesty Queen Liliuokalani yielded the Hawaiian Kingdom to the U.S. in duress under threat of violence to avoid the bloodshed of her people. We further recognize that Hawaii remains an illegally occupied nation state by the U.S. as documented in a 2021 scholarly article for the National Lawyers Guild Review by Andrew Reed, adjunct professor of law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Generations of kanaka maoli and their knowledge systems have sustainably cared for Hawaii and continue to do so. We're grateful to occupy this space and learn the ways in which we can contribute. As a committee, we seek to support the varied strategies that the indigenous people of Hawaii are using to protect their land and their communities and commit to dedicating time and resources to working in solidarity. For our resources from the Department of Management, we have Deputy Managing Director Aaron Wade, also Office of Recovery Administrator John Smith. Would you like to introduce your team and any external resources or only if they're needed? Either way.

Thank you, Chair. Yes, I have... Tetra Tech is one of our consultants is here, and we may ask them to join during the Q&A session. And I have Christelle and Helene from my team as well, but likely it'll just be me and Aaron and Tetra Tech. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. We have asked for someone to be here from the Office of the Mayor. And for Deputy Corporation Council, we have Deputy Corporation Council Hopper. Other resources we have are Elizabeth Vargas, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of Field Operations and Disaster Recovery and Resilience of the United States Small Business. Administration. Members, without objection, I will designate Ms. Vargas as well as Mr. Smith's additional resources as resource persons under Rule 18A of the Rules of the Council due to their knowledge and expertise in providing disaster assistance for homeowners, renters, nonprofits, and businesses.

No objection.

Thank you. We also have with us DRIP Committee staff. We have Senior Legislative Analyst James Krueger, as well as Legislative Analyst Jarrett Pasqua, Ryan Ramirez, Legislative Attorney Karla Nakata, Senior Committee Secretary Yvette Boutilier, and Assistant Clerk Jean Pokipala. We will take testimony after opening remarks and presentations on the only item of today's agenda, DRIP 9-4, Maui's Long-Term Recovery Operations. So under Rule 7B of the Rules of the Council, we intend to receive presentations on the long-term recovery operations with emphasis on recovery from the 2026 Kona Low Storms from Office of Recovery and Ms. Elizabeth Vargas of the United States Small Business Administration. The committee's discussion may include recovery efforts, disaster assistance, and other related matters, but no legislative action will be taken today. And this is timely because there is an upcoming deadline for SBA loan application, which Ms. Vargas will go into more detail. And so if there's no objections at this time, I'd like to hand it over to Ms. Vargas from the U.S. Small Business Association for her presentation to the committee. And members, if you have questions, it might help to write them down, because we're gonna take questions after testimony.

Thank you, Councilmember. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Elizabeth Vargas. Some of you already know me, have seen me around, and I'm happy to be here giving you an update on the SBA Federal Disaster Assistance Recovery. SBA is committing to supporting the community recovery by providing access to disaster loans to homeowners, renters, businesses, and nonprofits of any size. Next. And the takeaway that I want everyone to make sure that you know, because recently I was in Molokai last week, and still some people do not know that SBA offers disaster loans to homeowners and renters, besides businesses. And of course that is because of our name, small businesses. So please remember to tell people that homeowners and renters are eligible for loans. Next. And here is an overview of our type of loans. SBA offers business loans to businesses and nonprofits to repair or replace the real estate, inventory, any equipment that was damaged because of the disaster. These loans can be for up to $2 million. We also offer to businesses and nonprofits economic injury loans. These are working capital loans for businesses to be able to pay their obligations during the disaster and afterwards. The $2 million cap can be for a combination of both loans, physical damage and economic injury. For homeowners and renters, we offer up to $100,000 to repair or replace their personal property. This can be anything that was inside the home in a car, a personal vehicle. Homeowners may borrow up to $500,000 besides the 100,000 to repair or rebuild their primary residence. And also, we do offer mitigation loans. These loans are for up to 20% of the verified damage. Next. And as I said, renters and homeowners may borrow to repair or replace personal property. And this money can also be used to pay insurance deductibles and debris removal. In a case-by-case basis, they can do relocation or refinancing of an existing mortgage. And these are the uses for business loans. Again, the physical loans, physical damage loans can be used to pay debris removal, insurance deductibles, and the economic injury loans are working capital loans just to pay the regular obligations on a day-to-day basis like rent, payroll, and any obligations, bank obligations, debt obligations that the business has. Next. The SBA loans are for losses due to the storms that happened March 10th through the 24th. And this is important because I know we have storms or you had storms before and even after that. And this declaration, this disaster declaration only covers the storms from March 10th through March 24th. The deadline to apply was the 14, June 14, but we have a 60-day grace period, so we will accept applications, late applications, until August 13. For economic injury loans for businesses and nonprofits, they have until January of next year. And this is because sometimes businesses and nonprofits, they don't realize they are having capital issues, working capital issues until a few months into the disaster or even after people around have recovered. So the deadline to apply for economic injury is nine months after the declared disaster. Homeowners and renters' interest rates are as low as 2.8 percent. For businesses, interest rates are as low as 4 percent, and for non-profit organizations, 3.6 percent. The repayment terms can be extended for up to 30 years. So the payments are low, mostly in the case of homeowners and renters, they are surprised when the financing goes to many years, 20, 30 years. So their payments are low, so they have the ability to repay the loan. There is no cost to apply, no prepayment penalty, and no obligation to take a loan if you are approved. So there are no losses for you. If you apply, you decide later you don't want to take the loan, it's fine. And also, you don't have to wait for an insurance to settle, because we can adjust the loan once your insurance reimburse you for whatever amount they do. Next.

Who can apply?

I just want to emphasize renters, homeowners, besides businesses and nonprofits. And SBA loans fill the gap when insurance and grant programs don't fully cover losses. So this is an important part of the program. We work with FEMA. FEMA may offer some grants. The insurance may offer you or reimburse you for part of your damages, but there's always a little gap or sometimes a big gap, and that's where SBA loans come in. Next. And here is the application process. I'll just go over it very quick. People can apply online at LendingSBA.gov or we have a disaster loan outreach center in Kihei that I will give you the address in another slide. The second step is that the application is reviewed. A loan officer is assigned to your loan and he will work with you to recommend a loan amount according to any other recoveries that you have. The step three is once the applicant signs their loan agreement, five days after he signs the loan agreement and everything is accordingly to SBA requirements, five days later he will get or the person will get the first disbursement for $25,000. and then we will work with the applicant as per how much money they will need, depending on if it is a construction loan or just a personal property loan. Next. And as I mentioned, we offer mitigation loans for up to 20% of the verified losses. This money can be used to mitigate and just make some improvements against future damage. And this is very important. Usually people do not realize that this extra money on top of their loan can help to increase the safety of their property. And these are some examples of the mitigation projects that people can do in their building or their home. And as I said, they can get on top of whatever loan amount they get, they can get 20% additional to protect their home or business. Next. Okay, so these are the loans actually as of yesterday. These are the loans that SBA has approved. As of today, we have already approved a little bit more, 170 loans for over $11 million. The majority of the loans that have been approved are home loans that go to homeowners and renters, some businesses, and some economic injury loans. So some highlights of our program that are very important is, as I said, that if you're approved, you're not obligated to take the loan. And the most important part is that you do not have to make any repayment until 12 months after you receive your first disbursement. So no interest or payments are due for the first year after you receive your money. So this will give you time to recover from the disaster. And this applies to all type of loans. And as I said, you don't have to wait for insurance settlements, and you can get an additional 20% for mitigation measures. And as I said, we have a disaster loan outreach center that we opened this Monday in Kihei. We are there. We have customer service people there. It is 1501 Liloa Drive in Kihei. That's the South Gym, South Miami Gym. And we are there Monday through Friday, 9 to 6. We're going to be there as long as people are coming in. We have recovery, I'm sorry, we have the customer service people that can help anyone coming in to apply or just explain the program. and anything that they need, like maybe apply for a reconsideration, or if they have questions, they can come in and talk to our customer service. And here is our website. They can go there. They can also apply online. They don't have to come to the center if they don't need to. We have our 1-800 number also. And as I said, we continue working closely with FEMA, the state, local partners to ensure survivors know about these resources. And pending any questions, this concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Ms. Vargas. At this time, we'll move on to the Office of Recovery presentation.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Vargas, for being here. It does complement some of my slides, so I'll run you through that when we get there. So... Aloha, everyone, and thank you for having us to give an update on the Kona Low and all the things that the county's doing. So SBA has been a wonderful partner. They are in, we're in several of our recovery centers, and I think you're just down to the gym now, but like Ms. Vargas said, it's fairly easy to access these resources online as well, but thank you for being here. So we have, I have probably more slides than you want today. I'm gonna start with that. So if it's okay, I'm gonna go pretty fast, you guys, but just stop me if. if you want to. And kind of the reason why I did that was, or we did that was to, I don't know that everybody really understands how widespread this disaster actually was. I know that I've met with almost all of you individually on what's happening in your districts, but I think this will help paint the whole picture for this particular disaster and just why we did get a new presidential declaration. Next slide. I won't go into details of this particular graph. All I really would like to point out is that long-term recovery starts when we have the disaster. It used to be that we kind of had three different bubbles where you'd start something and then that would finish and then you start a new thing. But the way we're approaching long-term recovery is we are actually on the call list with Mima now so that when a big something big happens, um, we need to know about it. So Louie can start thinking about what's going to happen longterm, um, after the response is over. So that, that's what that, that slide depicts. Um, we can get into the details of that at another time. Next slide. Uh, this is a really recent photo with Bob Fenton. And I just put that up because we all know Bob and Bob is acting administrator of FEMA. Um, and it's, we learned a lot while he was here, um, from the fires and we are watching FEMA change under his direction. So we're kind of at the forefront of what's happening with FEMA and some of what I'm I'll talk about today.

I'll explain why.

But let me run through, I'm gonna turn this way, because my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. I used to be able to look at that one. Okay, sorry Chair, I turned my back to you. So we've come and talked about the Kona Low already, so you folks know how recovery is integrating with a big disaster. This kind of lays that out. We go to the next slide. And we know that this happened in March. We know that it was big. I don't know if we realized it was this big, though. If you look at this picture, every circle on there represents damaged infrastructure that the county owns. And the bigger the circle, the bigger the problem. And we have all the details of that that we can talk about later if you want to. And you already know about some of them, some of you more than others. and we'll talk about that later, but I just wanted to visually represent like when the storms hit, it impacted all of Maui very significantly. Next slide. You know, we had sinkholes everywhere. This particular one's on Molokai, and then this is some of the outreach events that we put on after the event. We had... Next slide, please. In Lahaina, we also had sinkholes and all kinds of other problems that were related to the record-breaking rainfall. In central Maui, we had fairly significant damage to the landfill. A lot of people don't realize that, but we had some pretty big... Because of how much water came down the slope, there were some walls at the landfill that got broken and are being repaired already, but it was a big deal for the guys at the landfill. In Kula, I think the one that we all are aware of is the gym, and there's a couple pictures of it because I don't think folks realize how badly it was damaged. and a number of washouts in Kula and upcountry, just to show you that. In Hana, I mean, Hana's used to getting rain, but this was at another level, and we had very similar issues in Hana that we had in Moloka'i, houses were damaged, and folks were isolated for a while, and then that's also why the individual assistance of FEMA and SBA got turned on, just because of how much it impacted our residents. I think most people understand that EOW was another significant event, very similar to what happened back in 2016. and I'm sure we've seen these photos. And then Kihei was overwhelmed with sediment and debris along with sinkholes and other issues associated with roadway and infrastructure failures. There's just some pictures right after the event. So that's just an overview of thousands of other pictures we could have shown, but I thought it would be worth just, even though it was just a few months ago, reminding us of how bad that rain event really was. So because of that, we started, and this was not just us. I definitely want to give a shout out to our partners at FEMA, our partners at SBA, all of our partners at HI-EMA, HI-OR, Human Concerns, our DCMP folks. Everybody came, Gov's office, and everybody came, including our council, of course, with appropriations from the emergency fund. everybody came to, to the rescue of, um, the community, which is, is really nice to see. But this time it was just so different because we weren't just focused on one community. This was everywhere. So we expanded our, our resources in La Haina, Kahului, South Maui, Moloka'ihana and Ki'e to give folks a place to come and sign up for these services. Uh, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. It's just list some of the partners that we were just naming off. recently that have helped our community. So I won't read them all, It was good to see the community come together. At the end of the day, on the individual assistance piece, and this is like a complimentary slide to what SBA showed. These do not include SBA's numbers. This is just FEMA numbers. So we have, so far from FEMA, there's been $4 million approved for individuals and households. 2.2 million approved for housing assistance, meaning some sort of rental assistance, and then another two million of just needs assessments. And I think that was like a one-time cash from FEMA for like $760. But when you lose everything, that really goes a long way. So if you showed the need, you could get So 700, and these are just Maui numbers. These numbers are about doubled or tripled on Oahu when I look at those. So Oahu had the largest impact in terms of dollar amount from this storm, but Big Island got hit really hard. Maui was second behind Oahu in terms of the extent of the damage. We're working with you folks where the need is. Of course, one of the biggest needs we have right now is the sinkhole in South Maui on South Kihei Road and working on a business assistance program right now that's complimentary as well to what SBA is doing. Next slide. And then there's other things get turned on. When you get a presidential declaration, you do get FEMA, you do get SBA, but there are other agencies in the federal government that have funds that are particularly set to help local government get back. So two of those are, One is with NRCS. It's an emergency watershed protection program. Public Works has applied for this fund, and that fund will specifically help remove all the sediment that's in the gulches in Kihei. So right now there's about 300,000 cubic yards of sediment in the gulches that needs to be removed. And just to give a sense of the size of that, I think the the temporary debris basin, or the debris basin from Lahaina was like 400,000 cubic yards. So we're talking, I mean, several football fields, 100 feet high. It's pretty good size. And then Federal Highways has a program. It's an emergency repair, emergency response program. And when you get FEMA, Um, if there's another federal agency that is responsible for that area, which South Kihei road is one of those, meaning that the county has received federal aid dollars to fix South Kihei road in years past, that means it's not eligible for FEMA federal highways knows that. And so they can help pay for some things too. So they're helping to pay for the sinkhole. And that's, that's one of the projects they're helping. Okay. I'm going to jump into FEMA stuff specifically now. Um, I'll probably use some acronyms that are embedded in my brain forever, but if I do that and it doesn't make sense, please just stop me. Uh, this particular disaster is 4909. So all the people that speak FEMA, they just use that term. They don't talk about the corner low. They say 4909. Um, That's our incident, that's the period it happened. We, the county, had 92 damaged sites. So on that map, that represents 92 sites. Out of those sites, let me go back one, there's emergency work, permanent work, and then there's some floodplain stuff. But out of that, that just kind of gives you a breakdown of the categories. And I'm not gonna get into categories too much, and if we need to, I'll bring Meredith down here. but all they really do is define the work. Like right after the work, what did you guys do? What's like a longer term CIP project. We'll put that into another category. And then where is it and what kind of a facility is it? They put letters with all those things and they all have names and numbers and we have to follow that. Next please. Okay. Here's where FEMA is changing old FEMA, like wildfire FEMA, you have a lot more time post-disaster to get all of your ducks in a row, so to speak. So the right side kind of shows those timelines. The left side is the current. This is what we're following now. So it's kind of a two-edged sword. It's trying to move faster because FEMA got a lot of criticism for how slow they moved to get reimbursement. And we've been in here talking about that in years past where it's like, we're waiting on FEMA and the state to process our, because of a disaster that was seven years ago. They're trying to fix that. They're trying to get it down to less than a year, two years, maybe three years, but not these long, long term where the county would have to cover that for a long time. Because you gotta remember, everything we're talking about here is a reimbursement. So they've instituted new expectations post declaration for the community to have the disaster. And this simply outlines how that change is coming into play. I expect this to happen across the country. It's not just us, but we're kind of the Guinea pig because it's so new. So I think, Along those same lines, you know, what we need to do is finish what they call our recovery scoping meeting. So they have terms for everything, and it's like, you need to explain the scope of work to us, you need to finalize how that damage looks, you need to go out with us and inspect the site, then you need to apply, and then we'll get into some of this other stuff. So there's a whole process for how it works. We are ahead of schedule. on this process because we were ready for it this time. So Office of Recovery came in and said, all departments put all damages and all of these things that we're gonna go through FEMA through us. You don't do it on your own and we'll streamline the process. That's what we're doing right now. pre-us, every department was on its own, and I know that you talk to every department about all these things for years now. Now it's all streamlined into one group. FEMA likes it, the state likes it, we like it, but it is a lot of work on the recovery staff, which are sitting in here. Helene is nodding her head. But that's how we're running this one. This was the plan from after the fire for what recovery's role would be. We didn't expect to have to implement this quickly. There's a couple roadblocks I point out that we did not get with this disaster. 404 mitigation, which is another FEMA term, is not available. Category G, that's probably the bigger one, which means they just categorically excluded parks facilities from being eligible for FEMA reimbursement. That's just what the declaration said. I don't know the reasons for that. It is being appealed. So the state of Hawaii, Haima in particular, has asked FEMA in writing, can you reconsider that particular determination? and how we're treating it is, how the county's treating it is, we're still gonna quantify those problems, we're still going to submit those problems. If that gets resolved, we'll be eligible for that. If it doesn't get resolved, we understand what that difference is. One of the big questions I get is what about the gym in, why I call it a gym, your gym, yeah, sorry. I'm looking for you. That one we were able to categorize in another pocket, so it's not considered a park. Even though it's under the Parks Department, we're moving it into a different category, and they've already agreed to that. It's a lengthy process. We gotta follow the lengthy process so that we're audit-proof years from now. Next slide. Just note that... the support from FEMA just isn't just for us. There's other agencies, so local nonprofits are also eligible for some of this FEMA assistance, and we are assisting some of them with those applications. Some of them are like the school in Kepaniwai that the county owns the land, and it's a nonprofit that runs it, and it was damaged. That would be a good example of how we help that application go through, or we partner with a nonprofit to try and get some reimbursement to repair the school. Next slide. I thought you might want to understand how much, how big, relative to the wildfire. I like this slide. So we have, and this is just infrastructure, by the way. This is not everything else. This is just infrastructure numbers. So we have... a $2.36 billion need for recovery and mitigation. And then the Kona Low added another 100 plus million to that particular problem. Next slide. And then timeline wise, I thought this might be, This is not just for the Kona Low event, but it's relevant. So if you go from left to right, this is, and I've come in here before talking about how recovery's helping with funding strategies with all these federal aid programs. So as we work through that process, the corner hits this March, and we immediately incorporated that new need into our funding strategy in this new funding stream that's coming from FEMA and these other agencies, so we can have more of a holistic view of what the needs gonna be in FY27. Because the budget you just passed, even though we passed the emergency fund, there's another hundred million dollars worth of projects coming and we'll have to front the money for those projects. And that wasn't really budgeted. So I just noting that that's in our, in our funding strategies, we're pulling this one into. So when we come back later this fiscal year and give another update, we'll be able to tell you, um, how much of that 100 million is gonna hit in 27, or maybe it'll be a 28 project. It just depends on the length of it. Just wanted to note that for your understanding of how we're processing this. And the little box on the left is just a list of all of those federal grants and programs that we're tracking in this effort. So next steps. Of course, lots more site inspections with FEMA. So our departments go out and inspect all these damaged areas and they report them. Then you gotta go and validate them. So we're going through that validation process with FEMA and with HIEMA in the field. Once that's done, we finalize the report send that into FEMA and they say yes or no. You got it, you don't have it, we need more information. That process is, we're in the middle of that process today. We think we have a high likelihood of most of those projects being funded because we kind of understand what is and isn't allowable to submit for reimbursement. And we say we do understand that. We're continuing to have longer-term recovery discussions internally. We're incorporating our operations plan with MEMA's operations plan. That's ongoing and refining those plans so that we're ready for hurricane season, unfortunately. And that is the end of my presentation. I'm sorry it was so long. I hope that... It's helpful, but I'm here for questions, and if it's something I can't answer, I know that we have a couple other people in the stands that can help me with that.

Thank you, Administrator Smith. I also wanted to recognize that we have Budget Director Leslie Milner and Chief of Staff Cynthia Lalo online and would like to give them this opportunity if they would like to make any opening comments before we take testimony. Cynthia Lalo, any opening comments from the Office of the Mayor? if you can allow her to speak and unmute her video.

Chair, we've unmuted her mic and we've enabled her to use her microphone and camera.

Ms. Lalo, any opening comments from the Office of the Mayor?

Thank you, Chair. No opening comments. Ready to get into it.

Thank you. Um, budget director Milner, do you have any opening comments that you would like to share with the committee?

Thank you chair. Thank you council members. Uh, no, I don't think I have anything to add. I just, I've really enjoyed working with O R uh, and the council, uh, as we move forward in all aspects of our recovery. So happy to be here to answer any questions. Thank you chair.

Thank you so much. Um, at this time, We'll move on to public testimony for DRIP 9-4. Written testimony, do we have testifiers? Okay, I'll read it. Written testimony is encouraged and can be submitted via the e-comment link at MauiCounty.us backslash agendas. Testifiers wanting to provide oral testimony should join the online meeting via the Microsoft Teams link printed on today's agenda or calling to the phone number which is also on today's agenda. For individuals wishing to testify via Teams, please raise your hand by clicking on the raise your hand button at the top right of your screen. For those calling in, please follow the prompts via phone. Staff will add names to the testifier list in order testifiers sign up or raise their hands. For those on Teams, staff will lower your hand once your name is added. Staff will then call the name you're logged in under or the last four digits of your phone number. when it is your time to testify at that time. Staff will enable your microphone and video. Please ensure your name on Microsoft Teams appears as the name you prefer to be referred to or as anonymous if you wish to testify anonymously. If you are in person, please notify staff that you would like to testify anonymously. Otherwise, please state your name for the record at the beginning of your testimony. Oral testimony is limited to three minutes. If you're still testifying beyond that time, I will kindly ask you to complete your testimony. Once you're done testifying, or if you do not wish to testify, you can view the meeting on Akaku Channel 53, Facebook Live, or MauiCounty.us backslash agendas. At this time, we will call on testifiers wishing to testify on DRIP 9.4. Go ahead, staff. Chair, real quick.

Oh, sorry. I forgot to say that I have to leave at 2.30, but I'll join by phone. Okay.

Thank you, Chair. There was one individual signed up to testify, but they have since dropped off of teams. I feel like I can do a last call for public testimony.

Sure, that sounds good.

Thank you, Chair. This is the last call for oral testimony. If anyone in the chamber would like to speak, please come up to the podium. And if you're on teams, please raise your hand to indicate you'd like to testify. Final countdown for testimony. Three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair. There's no more testifiers.

Thank you so much. Members, without objection, I will now close public testimony. Thank you. Members, I would like to open the floor for discussion. I propose as many rounds of questions as we need up until 4.45 each member. Let's start off with Member Rollins-Fernandez since she has to leave. And is there any objection to giving like eight minutes if she needs it? because that'll probably be two rounds.

I just have a couple questions and then I'll join by phone and I'll do the raise my hand function.

Okay, then let's do five minutes in that case. Okay. And then let's go from Member Rawlings-Fernandez this way because South Maui had a lot of stuff too.

Yeah. OK. Mahalo, Chair. And mahalo for the presentations and for being on Molokai, because I know that really helps when you have help from face to face in person. It makes a big difference. And the folks that have sought your assistance in person have given me that feedback. So mahalo. Okay, so with the potentially 100 million for the Kona Lo and for all the recovery efforts, how much do you anticipate would be bonded if bonding is an option and does FEMA reimburse us for debt service?

That's a great question. I think a majority of those larger CIP projects will be bonded. Um, in terms of the debt service question, I actually don't know the answer to that. I don't know if Leslie, is that a no, no, FEMA does not cover debt service. So we have to front the money and then we get a per percent paid back. that exact percent is usually 75% they pay, 25% we pay. It depends on the event, but we don't get a reimbursement until after all of it's been done and paid and they finalize that.

So then I guess if a project is going to cost X amount and the debt service over the 30 years is gonna cost X amount, would that be considered part of the 75% that they would cover and reimburse us for? And if you don't know the answer, can you find out? Because I think it should be calculated that way.

I think that's a good point. I think the answer's no, but we can follow up.

I believe in you, you can change their mind.

This might be something that we could continue to lobby FEMA on. which I would like to note, I know that a lot of you folks helped us with lobbying FEMA. I went to the NACO National Convention with some of you, and I just want you to know, it actually is changing that culture, and it just got tested. So they are a big machine, and it takes a long time to change, but we're feeling the change already. it's not all exactly what we'd want because you have less time now to do things. But we were fortunate in that we had stood up our office and we were ready. I think a lot of communities are gonna have a hard time moving as quickly as we have.

Mahalo, and then for the parks being exempted from eligibility, I can't think of a clear example for Maui County immediately, but I think about the clearing at North Shore, and then their temporary site was at, I think it was like a soccer field or something in Waipio. I think that was the park that they used, and the rehabilitation of that park to make it safe again after all of that, material was there. I think something like that should definitely be considered. But it sounds like you folks are also being creative and maybe Oahu is as well.

Yeah, I think the driver for the appeal to FEMA is a little stronger on Oahu and I think because of that they have a better shot at making that argument stick. And like I said, they are allowing them to be flexible. So some of these categories, it just says parks, but it could potentially be considered part of their debris mission. There's other ways that you can do it, so we're just pointing out that that was a little bit of a hamper for us because it was explicitly excluded. Yeah.

Okay, and then when do you folks plan, or are you folks planning on going to Molokai again?

Christelle was there last week. I think we will if we need to, and I'm not sure if you guys are back in Molokai. Not yet, but we wish we had.

We were last two weeks, and I was personally there this past weekend, and we will be back if we are needed. We have talked about it, and we will follow FEMA's and HEMA's lead on that.

Okay, awesome. Mahalo for that time, and then I'll use the raise my hand function for more questions. Mahalo, Chair.

Thank you. Next up, Member Cook, your opportunity, we'll stick with five minutes. That seemed like a good amount of time, although sometimes it goes by really quick, and other times it drags on.

Thank you. So my question regarding the sediment removal from the gulches, how does that work for the actual getting the right of entry for the property owners? Is there any assessment of, does the government do any assessment of liability of where they're gonna pay and where they're gonna go after somebody else, kind of that insurance line? And I'm curious, is county, state, federal regulatory stuff, how much of that gets cleared to enable things to go quickly and i'm just asking these because i'm concerned about how soon these activities can occur because the sediment and the gulches is part of the flooding problem okay um it's a good question i'll just break it down with a few different answers um

One, I would start with a lot of the material that, it's Kalanihakoi is one of the bigger ones, and then Waipuilani and Waiakoa, I think are the three major ones. And all three have distinct ownership issues or not. Some of them, the county has clear jurisdiction and ownership and maintenance issues. responsibilities those are the most simple that we can move on most quickly the ones where you get into private property requires a right of entry um and then the liabilities and and identify i'm not an attorney but we can ask that question the indemnification for the county occurs through that right of entry process where we kind of outline what we would do and how we would be protected through that agreement. I guess, unfortunately, we've done this before in South Maui, so we have relationships with those owners and how this could work or would work in this scenario. And then it's just a matter of bidding the work out, procuring the work, following all the rules and regulations that would apply to that work, and then executing. So in terms of timeline, each gulch has a different set of parameters. The thing that we're, where we are today with it is the application to use the fund, that 20 million plus, is with USDA in that program. We're not the only ones going for that because of this event. There's folks on Oahu that are going for it. And then there is some at the state that are looking at other jurisdictions that had similar problems to Kihei.

So that 20 million is for the state, not for Maui?

No, that's for us. There's more than that. That's just for those three gulches.

Okay, that should put a dent in it. I would think, yeah. My next question is the park exemption. If they're not gonna pay for it, is there any things that enable us because of the storm to do work in it that would normally be an impediment with permitting and that type of thing?

Well, there were emergency proclamations that helped with some of that. Like if Parks Department had the resources to take on whatever that problem was, either internally with their staff or hiring it out, there's nothing that would stop them from moving forward with that kind of work, but it would just be the known thing is that we may not get reimbursed for that, and that's a burden that we have to bear through the general fund.

Okay, my last question for this round pretty quick is I'm curious, like, you do an inspection, they approve it, and then FEMA does an inspection, or the agencies do an inspection, but in Kihei, because it was cleaned up so quickly, it was really impressive what the subcontractors and public works did, because it was an incredible amount of material, and like in a week, it was pretty much cleaned up, and then in another week, people had gotten a lot of yards. How does that work about, we have this damage, take pictures, but then three to four weeks later, it looks like, well, it doesn't look that bad.

Yeah, FEMA understands that piece of it, so when we meet with them to scope out all this work, that's kind of why they have that category A group of things, because they know after every disaster we want to get to work cleaning things up. So as long as we do a good job documenting what we did, which we've also done enough of these now that we know how that documentation works, we just need to show them before and after pictures with either the log of the work and or the contract that we used. That's usually enough justification.

If you would allow me, Chair, one more. As far as the documentation.

Let's give him some leeway, folks.

As far as the documentation, I was curious if it was as granular as like how many trucks, how many cubic yards of material was removed. It is that granular. Because that would be really good information for us to have in the future, mostly to be lobbying and advocating to address this issue and not allow it to continue. Yeah.

Thank you. Remember your opportunity and five minutes seems good.

I don't think I have as many questions as like remember cook does cause your community was severely impacted, but thank you both for your presentations. I do appreciate how in depth it was and then it saves us asking questions. So thank you. Um, considering, I'll just kind of, um, go off of what they were asking to considering the parks, isn't included and then you said you reclassified the gym in Paia, what then did you reclassify under and how, where did you find some flexibility to help us cover that cost?

It's mostly in the debris work where there's more flexibility. So if there's debris on a park property and it gets moved out to the road, we can just include that in the roadway work. So that's one of the things. It's the permanent repair part that's the hard part.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. It's not the... easy stuff right up front. It's the, I don't say easy. It's not that immediate. Like we had to clean the bushes up or whatever. It's the, we lost this building and it's no longer, or we lost this entire ball field or whatever it was. And then that facility needs to get rebuilt. They excluded that stuff. So, uh, we're getting creative like with the gym, the, the, it's clearly a under parks jurisdiction, but we're, it's considered like a community amenity.

Yeah.

So we're just putting it under a different category.

Okay. Okay. Um, Now you said that there's about $100 million worth of infrastructure damage and I'm assuming that's just like construction costs or does that include like all the permitting requirements to get us to spend all that money in the construction costs?

That's inclusive of the permitting work.

Okay, how quickly do you folks do like the emergency permit work required to do the emergency work if you can clean it up about a week after the event happens? How does that work for you folks? I assume you guys are doing some permitting process.

Yeah. So, well, that's where the emergency authorities of the governor and the mayor come in, um, helpful in terms of what's excluded and what's not in that emergency proclamation.

Okay.

So the stuff that happens like right after the event, it's like a life safety issue.

For sure.

Like all the roads and all the crazy, the life safety stuff or, or emergency evacuation piece of this thing. Um, is really, that's what the emergency authorities are designed to be able to do. Everything else, once you get past that initial sort of we did the response, falls into the category of you're following all the permits.

Can I ask you a separate question? What is the difference, like those big sinkholes, what is the difference from like what we regularly see, like a regular pothole, like Mako Ave gets potholes when it rains. But we didn't have sinkholes, thank Jesus and Buddha and everybody involved. And then Molokai had some, Lahaina had some too. How much rain do we need to experience to have a sinkhole that can take out a semi truck?

Well, if I wasn't formerly the highway chief, I probably wouldn't try to answer this.

No, you can answer. That's why I asked.

This is the guy to ask. Well, okay, I will answer because that's on Molokai. So what was happening? And then they had St. Coles too. Right, right. So for the Molokai specific one, there was a project that was already being worked on on the road. And so they actually dug down and was doing work under. And so when the water was coming down, it just went right into under the road. And then it just ate away all the... It followed the pipe and the road work and eroded all the... soil or all the dirt under the road and then all the way and it you know, just goes down gravity and then You can't see under the road and so when the semi was coming It was parking and then because because they were doing work They're parking and they were parking guy and then it cracked and I fell in.

Yeah, that's what happened and then in the case of like Kihei, where they had the other, I know, that one was more like, I think that was primarily related to the amount of rain. How does that happen? And then, how do we prevent that from happening again? Okay.

These are good questions. And you can do La Jaina Luna sinkhole too.

And La Jaina, like, just, I mean, like, we do it potholes, and so I gotta, like, know when to bob and weave, but you can't bob and weave a sinkhole.

Yeah. Okay.

Sorry.

So... there are several modes of failure that are associated with things under the road. The very simplest thing that you could look at is what we would all call a pothole. All that really is is just water getting into the pavement, and as traffic goes over it, time and time again, every time a big bus goes over it, every time it has a deflection in that water and the pavement, it starts to loosen and all of a sudden it develops into a pothole. So that's just the first thing. Usually it's water is the root cause because it gets underneath. So like water is kind of an enemy of pavement. Think of it that way. The next thing would be underneath our roads in a developed area you have lots of pipes. You have water lines, sewer lines, storm drain lines, underground conduits that run our utilities, and sometimes gas lines and other things. Every single one of those is another place where things can go wrong. the simple version for most of what happened was it's so much water come down, it surcharged the system, meaning that the pipe filled all the way up and it's rushing at a high velocity. And then you'll either have like a construction project, like, like, um, like in Molokai where you had a way for water to get in there and then continue down that line. Or you could have a previously like unknown issue under there where, where there's like a puka in the pipe underground. And as you have multiple storm events, the water rises, it grabs a little bit of that material and pulls it into the pipe. And that happens over years. So you may have something on there that we didn't know about. That's why we do inspections of our pipes. Some of the problems in Lahaina and some of the problems in Kihei were because of that, where you had a failure point and it doesn't take much of a failure point when you have that much water at that much velocity to just take the whole thing out. And then it, so it, it goes out underneath. and then it creates like this cavity underneath and then the road fails. So you're just seeing the end result of it. There's one more and I'll stop.

No, I'm intrigued. Let's go.

The one in South Kihei Road that everybody knows about that's on the news that they're working on right now was actually a water line break. It wasn't a storm sewer. So the water main under the road broke, and it created the cavity under the road. And then it just happened to be hit by water coming from the storm and from the ocean all at the same time. but the original mode of failure, from my understanding, was actually the waterline break.

I didn't know that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, for allowing my time to extend.

Sure. Was that waterline break during, in the middle of the storm? Yeah. Oh, wow. Perfect storm. Okay, Member Sinensi, your opportunity.

Thank you. Just a follow-up. Mahalo for the presentation. Was that the one at Waiakoa? The gym or which one? Sorry, and Kihei.

Oh, no, that's the one at Kamaole 2. That's the one we're talking about.

Yeah, yeah. I only thought that because there's a stream that's right next to where it failed.

There were seven or eight other minor sinkholes in areas that also blew out that were repaired before anybody knew that they were repaired. So there was some near Waiakoa, council member, but they're just, the highways guys got to them really quickly and nobody really knows that that happened, but that happened as well. But we documented it so we can get reimbursed for it. and then when we're building it back are we doing anything different to kind of you know be more resilient for the next one yes so the big one the one that's still in progress now um and why it's taking one of the reasons it's taking so long one is we're following their proper procurement we're working through federal highways to make sure we follow all the right permitting processes And we hired a design firm to make sure that when we do put it back, it's structurally sound. So that's in progress now. So as of today, the water main has been replaced. They're working on the storm line over the next two weeks. And then they have... some geotextile material that is going to go back in underneath all this stuff so that it's stronger and more resilient um for the future it's not just like a bunch of rocks it's like a very specific type of engineered solution yeah i understand the the new drainage rules uh requires larger culverts when it goes under under the road so are those some of the newer uh

Thanks, Dave. You guys are following the new trainers.

It depends on where the problem occurred. Sometimes things are gonna go back the way they were. Sometimes they'll be upsized, meaning larger culverts. But every time we do something that's extra or above, we also have to get approval from FEMA to see if it will be reimbursed. So that's a process that we go through with FEMA. In addition, not every time is it even an option to do that the culvert under the road, there's only so much room between the top of the culvert and the top of the road. So sometimes you're just physically restricted by what's even possible. But Public Works will go through that analysis and tell us on each one of those individual bases which one they're gonna upsize or which one's gonna stay the same. We'll leave that to them.

Okay, and then is public works having to compete with state projects on state islands?

You mean in terms of like contractors?

And equipment or material?

I wouldn't say compete, but I do think we have a lot of work going on right now. So it does come out in the cost of the proposals from the contractors. So the more work we have, it's really just a supply and demand thing. But that would only be for like the really large projects like the bypass or something like that. For the smaller stuff, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Okay, and then Director Hano was considered as one of the disaster areas, yet we didn't get a blue dot.

Oh, I'm sorry. You did get in your district though, CalPOL's got a bunch of them.

Oh, blue dots? Yes. Oh, the dots were in CalPOL, okay. All right, fair enough. Thank you, Chair.

Sure thing, I'll give you a blue dot. Member Batangan.

Thank you, Chair, thank you, Administrator. Okay, so in going through your presentation and in conversations that we've had with your office in the past and with MEMA, I'm pretty clear on the distinction between jurisdiction when it comes to response and recovery. I'm not super clear when it comes to resiliency and mitigation efforts. Can you help clear that up? Like who's responsible for what in resiliency and mitigation?

Yeah, okay, so mitigation, I would argue is all of our, both will be all of our kuleana, but we do think it's necessary to jump into our actual mitigation plan that MEMA has, but all the different departments are listed in. And one of the things that Office of Recovery is trying to do is really just define this exact question more clearly for all of us. Those plans were developed before Office of Recovery existed. And so we're kind of jumping backwards. We're working on our own detailed operations plan. that intersects with these other plans, and then we're gonna suggest changes to those plans based on the clarity needed for this very question. So I can't answer it clearly today. It is a work in progress. I would note, however, hazard mitigation, which I didn't really talk about, but it was also excluded from the declaration in this particular event. So normally there's a mitigation fund that gets created after an event. That was not part of this particular disaster.

Okay.

And then we're on that subject of jurisdiction. So like the sinkhole in South Maui, is that being fixed by your office or by public works?

That is public works responsibility. It's their road. It's their responsibility. their giant hole. And they went after the funding for that particular one through Federal Highways, not through FEMA. So that's, it was a clearer one to be involved with.

And then I think I understood the financing from FEMA, right? You mentioned that we have to fund the money, generally there's a 75% reimbursement, is that correct?

Okay, so. Yeah, it's 7525 for USDA and it's, is it both? Yeah, they changed those numbers so I wasn't sure.

I think it's 7525 for this one too. But there were other funding sources that you mentioned. some of which I'm guessing we're applying for and there's a specific scope attached to those. So budget director, how do we get those recognized? As the funding gets, as the grants are accepted, is the administration just gonna transmit a budget amendment for those specific grants?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Patagan. Yeah, it will depend on the funding source. We do have some FEMA funds already recognized in the Appendix A, Part 1, in which case we'll send a notification to Council of receipt of those funds so that an index code can be issued and we can access that funding. That's for expenses that happen within the same fiscal year. Sometimes when we receive reimbursements for expenses in this year, in a future fiscal year, that becomes part of carryover savings. If it's a funding source we haven't anticipated, we'll submit a budget amendment.

Okay. And then for grants that we apply for, I'm guessing there's, because it's a disaster, there's new monies that become available to the county. We apply for them, there's a scope of work, and that part's pretty straightforward. Are there any block grants that we apply for that are not attached to a specific scope of work? And if that's the case, how does the council, or what's the council's role in determining the appropriation of funds that are less restrictive?

I'm not aware for this particular event of any block grants that we would apply for.

So what is the CDBGDR reallotment that's mentioned on the funding sources for your presentation?

I stole that slide from a CDBGDR presentation, so sorry about that. I was just really trying to show that we recognized that the Kona Low happened and that that was a funding strategies slide and it was a previous presentation that we'd given.

Okay, so there's no unrestricted money that the county's applying for as a result of this incident. All of the grants that are being applied for are for a specific scope. If we get the money, it'll go directly to that and there's no deliberations that are gonna be needed by this body.

That's correct. It's, it's very specific to the emergency happened. It created a new problem. We apply money to fix that problem and that money would go to that problem. Okay.

And then chair, may I have one follow up question? Okay. So for those grants that you guys do apply for for specific purposes, um, if there's matching funds that are needed for those grants, what's the council's role in, like the council's gonna have to play a role in appropriating those funds. So at what point does the coordination with this body happen?

Well, I would let Leslie respond to that specifically, but the one that I'm most aware of is the one I talked about from USDA for the Emergency Watershed Protective. So maybe Leslie could talk us through if we get $20 million to fix that problem and it's a, I think it's a 75, 25 cost share as well. How would that work? I would let her respond to that.

I think there are a couple of different ways that that could happen. It depends on the specific needs of the project. There are instances where we have a capital improvement project that is in that same area already appropriated in the budget that we can consider as match funding. You know, but if it's a whole new thing that we haven't allocated any funding for, we would come to council, I would assume in conjunction with us recognizing that grant funding, to ask for the recognition or addition of match funding as well, if it needed to be added to the budget.

Thank you, budget director. Thank you, administration. Thank you, chair.

Member Sugimura, your opportunity.

Thank you. Can you just share more in depth what you shared originally when you presented?

sure um and i don't i don't have all the details from from memory but the gym was and maybe we should get Pat in here to talk about it a little bit too, but the, you know, that gym is very important in the community to start with. Um, more people, I think much more important than people that don't live there realize, cause it's, it's, it's very, very unique. I know it was very heavily utilized for many, many years. Um, and of course I know that we, um, purchased that gym, not that long ago, maybe in, I want to say 2020, something like that. But the damage, yeah, the County did. Um, the damage to the facility was the, you know, the high winds kind of blew off the roof and then the, it rained inside the building and it's a wooden structure and that wooden structure is now being evaluated by a structural engineer for its integrity. What we suspect will come back, which I don't want to say it will, but it is going to be a total loss in terms of it's going to need to be completely replaced. It's not unlikely to be able to be repaired. But we will wait until that structural analysis comes back and run through that analysis with FEMA to determine exactly how it comes back. Meaning, do you leave like the foundation and then you build up from there or do you raise the entire thing and then you start over with a new facility? If you do do a new facility, what are the parameters that we work within in terms of, Accessibility, that's always a big deal. Parking's always a big deal there. And we know that there are a number of site constraints that are very unique. It's also historic, and it has to be reviewed from that standpoint. Archeologically, we have to look through that, what's in and around that area. So it sounds like it would be an easy one to just Let's just build a new gym. There's quite a bit to it, but we do expect to have that evaluation done in the next 60 days or so. We'll know more about exactly how FEMA will participate once we get all these studies finished and then have a chance to go back and forth with FEMA.

Thank you. So it's definitely on the FEMA list for the disaster.

It's on the, it's, it's, we put it under the, there's a category for buildings that we put it under. We took it out of parks and put it into building. Okay.

Also in my community and I saw Bob Fenton, there is the Kula hospital and it was not us, but are we involved in any of that?

We're not involved in the decision-making process for the Kula Hospital, but we are involved in advocating for it as a community resource. So we're in the meetings from time to time with the state where we talk about the entire recovery and what's important. And we do know that the state understands based on community feedback and our feedback, how important that facility is to bring back. So, but we're not, we won't be a decision maker at the table for that particular facility.

When you ask, you're talking about reimbursements, right? And because of the large numbers from the wildfire as well as the Kona Low Storms that we're impacted in, of course we gotta fix it. So how are you accommodating for the match funds? Maybe that's a Leslie question, but.

I hinted at it earlier, but I do expect once we've reconciled the timing of when we'll need funds to do these projects, I would expect sometime in fiscal 27 to come back in through an amendment process to reconcile the need and work with you folks on exactly how much that'll be. We don't know yet. I'm just giving you our estimates at this point. We're saying it's like a $100 million problem that we need It's not a it's not a billion-dollar problem. It's somewhere in that range and it's likely to come in this nest next fiscal year He's the acting administrator of FEMA Yeah, it's it's very interesting to know that we we've have a relationship with the head guy And so I mean, we'll use it to the county's advantage as much as we can, but Bob has always supported Maui and we're happy that he's doing that function right now.

Yeah, me too. He's super good. When I last saw him, he even, I couldn't believe he made the time to do this, but he even sent condolences for Tasha Kama.

Folks can't hear you if you don't speak into the mic. He did.

Yeah, that's how he is, right? He's such a special person. Yeah. Thank you.

At this time, I'd like to recognize Council Member Gabe Johnson, fresh off the boat from the night.

Yeah, I'm fresh off the boat. Captain Johnson reporting for duty. I apologize for my tardiness. I've been trying to follow the meeting. I've been in and out of service, so I heard some of the presentation, but apologize, I'm kind of playing catch up.

It's also the last item on the grant in case if you need to see any of the slides. Now we'll go to Council Member Cherlie for her opportunity. And you didn't miss your opportunity, Member Johnson.

Thank you, John. Thank you for the presentation. And I do have some questions for Mrs. or Ms. Vargas. First of all, you mentioned Kula. Regardless of the fact that the Kula Hospital is a state facility, will you be assisting them in repairing that particular building, which probably faces more challenges because it's in a historic district? John?

Oh, that's for me, I'm sorry. We will help facilitate or act as a liaison to the state for those kinds of questions where they need to intersect with county departments. So say they had an issue with permitting somehow through the county, we may get involved in that, but we wouldn't really. Okay, good. Yeah.

Good, because I'm committed and so is, Vice Chair Sugimori, committed to especially help the severely handicapped that were sent, about eight patients were sent to Oahu and are really concerned about bringing them back as soon as possible because many of them are going through separation anxiety right now because many of the patients there, their family, were their housemates and their caregivers. Some of them are 50 years old and have lived there practically all their lives. So that's a special, special project for me. I wanted to also ask you about Wailuku. I saw a lot of blue circles in Wailuku. Where would you say is probably the hardest hit in Wailuku?

Well, I know we had a number of sinkholes in Wailuku as well, very similar to the storm damage in Kula and Moloka'i, so those are always expensive repairs. And then, you know, Eow is in Wailuku, of course, and the damage all the way up through Eow Valley Road up to Kepaniwai, that's a pretty big blue dot. And then there's some other roadway and drainage damage, but I think it was, oh, also there were a number of roofs. I forgot about the roofs. So the county owns a lot of buildings, right? And so there were a number of damages to our facilities that we're looking at getting reimbursed for too. I'd have to go back and look at the data.

I thought you said something about 92 sites and 50 million. Then I heard 100 million, so the 92 and 50 was what?

Yeah, there's 92 sites and if you add everything up, it's around 100 million in terms of damages. Okay.

Now, I did want to ask Ms. Vargas about her loan, the SBA loan programs. When it comes to homeowners, If a homeowner borrows money from SBA, will they have to do a second mortgage transaction?

Hello? If you can turn on the mic.

Yes. A homeowner, they... have to offer collateral for a loan over $50,000. If they do not have it, it's fine. They won't be declined, but if they have it, they must offer it.

Okay, that affect the interest rate if they don't have it?

No, no, it won't affect their interest rate.

Okay, because I was gonna ask you the same question about renters. What kind of collateral would you be requiring of them since they don't own their homes?

They won't be required to offer any collateral.

Okay. Okay, very good. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. You're welcome.

Thank you, Member Johnson, your opportunity. We're going on five minutes, but there is some grace for folks that have a little extra.

Okay, thank you so much. So thank you all for being here, and once again, sorry if I'm playing catch up. Mr. Smith, one of the questions I have is what a lot of the meteorologists and the scientists are saying about the upcoming El Nino and the storm, where people should be being prepared. In your slides, you said there's catastrophic planning. How has the El Nino coming affected your catastrophic planning? If so, yeah.

if you go back to the very first slide in the presentation, there's a, there's a graph, um, or not the very first, maybe not the introduction slide, but the one with three different parabolas or something on there. The, yeah, that one, What we're doing is jumping further in and closer to the actual event. So when you think about long-term recovery, you're really thinking about years-long process of rebuilding infrastructure, housing, whatever it is that's damaged. So one of the ways that we're being more prepared along and in partnership with MEMA is jumping into that headspace during the event. So that's the first thing that we're doing. So we're strategically placing ourselves there at the table. And we're not trying to take the place of what MEMA's doing with all of theirs and we could bring them back to talk about this and how they're preparing for El Nino season. But... I'm just, what I'm just trying to relay is that we're engaging in the process sooner than we would norm than you'd normally think to engage in the process so that when we do need to make some hard decisions and we start to see that we're already at the table, you don't have to call us in. Okay.

Um, So you're saying you're kind of, are you expecting more? Are you beefing up capacity for October, for the hurricane season, the traditional peak of these storm events? I understand that you're gonna be at the table, but what else are you doing as far as your office goes? I can imagine storage and desks. getting ready.

Oh, okay. That kind of question. I'm sorry. Yeah, we, well, we are, we are actively expanding our office space, um, because we kind of ran out of space. And, um, so that's one thing. Um, we are, I think this event that we just went through is probably the best workforce development training you could ask for. So our staff are getting real-time another large disaster under our belt. So in terms of preparedness for long-term recovery, I don't want to, like, that is, that's not, that's a real thing. Like putting our staff or some of them are sitting up here right now, um, through the ringer through this event is going to make us as a county much more prepared for what happens with the, with the next hurricane. So I think we're doing it by working this current event.

Okay. Um, again, I apologize. I, I come in in half of the meeting, but, one of the strengths we have as council members, as council is, you know, changing the county code. Is there any code recommendations that, you know, sometimes it's a 30 day or a 45 day, something like that in all of the things that were involved, all the, how big the code is. Is there anything that we could do as, as a body to help with you guys legislatively?

What? I think how the body pivoted after the wildfire to reform the code, I would say, to make it more simple for housing in particular is more than necessary to keep going with. We should continue to, from a recovery standpoint, I think we should continue to ask those hard questions about where are we? Where are we getting slowed down? And I think we've brought a number of those things to light over time. Managing Director and I and Josiah and I have been working through coordination directives that are on our website, those directives are meant to kind of cut through some of that stuff, but they're also meant to be followed up with code revisions. So I think there's nine or 10 of them out there today. Some of them you're already moving forward with those code revisions or it's an, so we could get into those details at some, some point in the future. Those are all good things to think about for all recovery actions.

Yeah. If, if, um, if you guys have any of those nine, I'd like to learn more. Maybe we could get a letter from you guys in regards to that, you know, those suggested code amendments. I'd love to hear more. Thank you. And that's my time. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. For my opportunity, Ms. Vargas, I had a question about the SBA loans. We had a gentleman in my district that got like a 500,000 SBA loan in the aftermath of COVID because he sold away a lot of his turf. surf beach gear during COVID because nobody was renting them out. So he replaced all his inventory and then his home and store location burnt to the ground. And so there was nothing left. And kind of an elderly gentleman in his 60s. So what happens if people get an SBA loan for whatever it is and we're having these back-to-back disasters and then whatever they use their SBA loan for gets totally destroyed in the next disaster, are they still on the hook for repaying all that money?

Well, it will depend on the insurance they had after the second loss for them. In this case, I will say it will be a case-by-case scenario.

So if you get an SBA loan, make sure you get good insurance, basically.

Well, you know, they supposed to keep insurance when they have a loan. Okay. So that is a requirement.

Thank you.

But, you know, if you give me the information, I can talk to them. Or they can come to the center and talk to one of our specialized customer service.

Okay, thank you. Sure. And then following up on Member Johnson's question, We did have for the burn zone factory built home allowances. Is that one of the legislations that you could envision helping folks to expand it also to those affected by the March 2026 Kona low storm or even future disasters?

Yeah, I think that's a good example of something that we should consider. I think it's probably nice that we can try it and what you've already passed. And there were a few others. There are things we're doing with parking, there's some other things that we're doing with how fast things move through the system that I think that was alluded to that we would definitely be open to supporting or helping craft the language to make it work with existing code.

Okay, I am going to the factory on Monday with the HSAC delegation, so I'll try to look into that too. Yes, HPM. And then the other question I had regarding the sediment in the culverts. When you remove it, where do you plan to place it?

Well, it'll be... A partnership between Public Works and DEM generally. If you follow the debris plan that we have on the books now, we actually do have a whole system set up for this that establishes how we deal with debris and where it goes. The short answer is the landfill is one place that debris ends up and then other places would be ag properties. But it kinda depends on the debris as well. Sometimes it's not something that you can just put in an ag field, sometimes it is. And then where you place it and how that's placed, you wanna make sure it doesn't get back into the gulch. Each one has a little bit different story.

I mean, we have now like a composting facility opening up over here. Is that a part of that?

That was part of it. Yeah, that was part of it. The office of recovery jumped in right after this one. We organized a debris task force and we outlined all the different places that all the things can and should go so that we don't overwhelm one facility as well.

And is the amount of sediment that we're seeing in the culverts, I guess mostly in South Maui, a normal amount, or is the axis deer or other issues contributing to extra sediment in the gold trees?

Well, I don't know that I would offer conjecture on this one, but I can tell you my experience that the latest one is more than I've ever seen. So it's pretty significant how much came down, um, in this, in this March event. And I would also know what you don't see is what happened on Moloka'i. I know council members, um, and most of what happened on Molokai is actually under state jurisdiction, not county, but I was more than overwhelmed when I noted how much material came down the mountain in Molokai. And it was basically the entire island. What happened in Kihei happened there. You just don't hear about it because there's not as many people, but it's pretty significant.

So being that Molokai is not as developed and hopefully not as many toxic substances or whatever, could that sediment be placed on ag land or do you test the sediment to determine where it can be placed?

Well, that one's also probably part of this emergency watershed protective planning effort, and it'll be a state DOT slash DLNR issue that they're dealing with, because I don't think the county really has any jurisdiction on where most of that happened. But yeah, it would be their choice on how they deal with that, but it's, like you say, it's sparsely populated, and how that gets dealt with, It does matter because even though it's sparsely populated, it kind of changes how flood routing works. So you have so much material came down and actually the rivers and streams that turn on when you have a big event. they actually jumped away from the culverts and went over the road in different places. So at a bare minimum, there's a restoration effort to restore the flow to where the culvert is designed to go. So there's that level of it, and then there's once you get beyond the road, there's material on both sides of the road and it's still there today. It's not, it's not done yet. So this is a pretty big problem on Molokai. That's, that's still unaddressed. Very similar to what's happening in Kihei.

Okay. Um, thanks. That concludes our first round. Do members have any objection to like a 10 minute recess between rounds? Okay. So we'll come back at three 21 folks. Three, two, one. Will the Disaster Recovery International Affairs and Planning Committee meeting return to order? The time is 324 and we've just concluded our first round of questioning. We'll handle second round by raised hand because I know not everybody has questions. So in the order, I see anyone raise their hand. Member Batonga.

Thank you, Chair, just one. Are all of the grants that we apply for applied for directly by the county, or do we have to go through HEMA to request disaster funds?

So if it's a FEMA grant, it has to go through HEMA.

But the rest of them, we are eligible applicants on our own.

If it's an FHWA grant, it has to go through State Department of Transportation. Okay. If it's a USDA grant, I think that's a direct. I can't recall if there's an intermediary there on that one, but for the two big ones, we do have an intermediary.

And is that just because the feds appropriate the money to the state, so the state has to be the applicant? That is exactly correct. Okay.

Any further questions, Member Cook?

I'll be brief because I'm tired. Thank you, sir. As far as like hazard mitigation, them not paying for hazard mitigation, is like the 300 cubic yards in Gulch's, that's part of the storm that was deposited there. So it isn't to remove it, so it's not a problem next time. It's to remove it because the storm put it there.

For the grant we applied for, it's to remove it because the storm put it there. there are other mitigation grants that you could look at it that it was never taken care of and we need to reduce this flooding potential. So there's, depending on the program, but the one that they applied for is to remove it because the storm put it there. Okay. Last one.

Money for hydro mulching. Like when they're cleaning the, after we cleaned the gulches, yeah. Hydro mulching it to mitigate the dust.

Yes, so I met with Public Works this morning on this topic, and they're pursuing a potential, it's not hydromulch, it's a different kind of material, but it's a similar concept where, and they do this on Oahu, where it'll cement the soil together so that it won't produce dust. Yeah, it's like tack, they spray it on.

Is it soil tack?

No, I brought this up. It's not soil tack, it's a different kind of product. It's something that's already being used in Oahu. So we're pursuing that right now to see if it's a possibility. And then that would be like another sort of resilient kind of practice that we could, if this works, that we might be able to apply elsewhere.

Any further questions from the members? Member Sinensi.

Hello, Chair. Just a question for Ms. Vargas. She mentioned that for the SBA loans, renters could go ahead and qualify or submit an application. Would those renters need to, like, authorization from the owners that they're renting from?

No, they don't because the loan will be in their personal property. Anything that was inside their home, furniture, anything they own, clothing and their car could be included also.

Got it. Yeah, I think for East Maui residents, because we were out of power for several days to a week, food, that they lost, those types of things, you can ask for reimbursement. Or what else with FEMA, but you could put those things down as well?

No, for food. The loan is on personal property. For food, that would be FEMA.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you members. Any further questions? I just had one more question, either for our management or our Office of Recovery. As Member Johnson said about the Super El Nino, what is the urgency or the timeline for clearing the gulches? I mean, South Maui and otherwise all of our gulches, I guess, because that's kind of become like our storm prep is make sure all the drainages are

Open so the water needs gets where it needs to go Well I can start I Mean it most of this falls on Public Works in terms of the preparedness for storm drains and They are following up regularly on on this 20 million I think we'll know very soon if we're gonna get that and then that will allow them to move forward with contracts So that that should go pretty quickly Of course, it's still there today. But again, I think I need to explain how much material is there. It's not a small amount. This is many weeks of moving material with half the trucks on the island.

Yeah, so I mean, the faster we get it started, the faster.

Understood, and we're pushing. So if we get to a point where we know that that's not gonna happen, then I think that would be a more immediate, we need funds for this.

No. And then as a result of the Konoloa and the Kala'iola retention, detention basins that were built, I think without spillways, has any remedy, as we're still in the Super El Nino bin, proposed design?

Property owners have been put on notice of the violation.

So that would be HHFDC?

Yes.

And what was their response to the violation?

I don't know. I would have to ask Public Works to come in and comment on that one. I don't know the exact, but I do know that that's been formally noted.

and the formal notification is like please solve this before the next storm occurs?

Well I think it's a grading violation. So the remedy that comes from that would be on the owner to figure out. I think I would note that the good thing that happened from that is that we have basins at all. Back when all of that happened, if you recall, we were kind of exempting a lot of things, but Public Works did stand firm on, no, you have to put basins in. So they did work, but if you were really gonna do it as a planned development, you probably would have one giant basin or maybe two that are connected with spillways. So there are remedies there that can be done. That's a work in progress. I think if a storm hit tomorrow, well, I'm knocking on wood that it wouldn't be near the size that we had with this latest event, but they did work out functionally how to deal with a very large storm. So I think there's a silver lining there that we should consider that we have some protections.

And then I know one of the retention, is it like the difference between a detention basis and a recent detention base and one goes out to the ocean, it's the farthest north, one towards the post office. Who's responsible for maintaining that so that it, doesn't get clogged up, because if that one would have clogged, then we would have been in way worse trouble.

Yeah, I don't wanna say without knowing for certain, so I'd have to ask.

Okay, maybe can we follow up to Public Works in writing about the detention retention basin issue on HHFDC land above Wahikuli and Hawaiian homes?

Yes, Chair, we can send a follow-up letter.

Thank you. Any further questions from the members? Any closing remarks either from our Deputy Managing Director, Office of Recovery, Chief of Staff, Budget Director, or Ms. Vargas?

I can start real quick and then hand it over to Deputy Managing Director unless you have something.

I just want to remind everyone to please tell your constituents to apply. There is no obligation to take a loan. It's best to have the resources available, and then they can make a decision later on. A lot of people are still waiting on insurance. I spoke with a couple in Molokai, and this lady told me, I'm still waiting on my insurance to settle. So that is not necessary. and to visit our recovery center that we have in Quique. The more traffic we have, the longer we will be there. Thank you and thanks for having me, Councilmember. Thank you.

I just want to take the opportunity to thank the council for your continued support from recovery, especially as we get into emergency appropriations and things where we come in that are out of the norm. I just really appreciate your understanding and engagement in this process with us. And again, take the opportunity to thank all of our partner agencies, both internal, so our county departments are doing an incredible amount of extra work. Even though we have recovery now, that's still Public Works' problem in South Cairo. And those problems are continuing to compound. I think we're making things better, but just wanna recognize all the really hard work that's going on in the county right now, across the boards, starting here, and all the way through our state and federal partners. And then I would love to hear from Aaron.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks for having us here today, Council Members. A couple of things came up that I just wanted to highlight in closing, if I could. The first was Council Member Johnson's question, what can the Council Members do? And many of you did it during the Kona Low, and I think this worked really well, was when we got National Weather Service's report in of what was anticipated, we reached out to you, knowing which districts that we expected to get hit hard. and let you know what we thought would be coming. And then at the same time, you let us know what you had heard was an impact previously. So the things like John was mentioning, a small problem can become a really big problem during a storm quickly. So those are the two things. Knowing ahead of time things from your district that you've heard are small problems so that we can get them on our radar and either anticipate them to become big problems if a storm is imminent or to address them if a storm is not imminent. And then the second thing I think that was incredibly helpful was you having the contacts with your constituencies and being able to report into us about what you were seeing in real time. And simultaneously, we've worked directly with Tom Cook's office now in particular, knowing that some properties are not, some properties have both full-time residents, part-time residents, and vacationers. And it's difficult to get messaging to those folks because they're not accustomed to whatever our typical messaging is in Maui. Having now we've started developing a relationship with property managers and having a system to be able to communicate to those property managers both prior to and during an event in order to get good information out. Those aren't networks that were robustly built before but I think with your partnership we're being able to lean in on that and enhance both communication as well as awareness and preparation. for events and storms. So just wanted to say thank you for your partnership in that way.

Director Milner or Chief of Staff Lalo, did you wanna have any closing remarks?

Aloha, Chair. I had to head to another meeting, but I've been monitoring. No additional closing remarks, just looking forward to continue working with you all as we move forward. And feel free to reach out to my office if you have any additional questions. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Chief of Staff Lalo, any closing remarks?

Chair, she's still signed into the meeting, but maybe she's away from her computer.

Okay, with that being said, if there are no objections, the Chair will defer this item. This concludes today's Disaster Recovery International Affairs and Planning Committee meeting. Thank you very much, everyone. The time is now 3.38, giving you guys a whole hour 22 or something on me. Enjoy the rest of your day. This meeting is adjourned.