Remarks by Tyler Dos Santos-Tam
39 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
“Aloha and good afternoon, everyone. It's 2.34 p.m. on Thursday, October 22nd, 2026, and I call the Committee on Government Efficiency and Customer Services meeting to order. I'd like to welcome Committee Vice Chair Weier and Council Members Cordero and Nishimoto. Pursuant to Section 92-3.7 of Hawaii Revised Statutes, this meeting will be conducted as a remote meeting by Interactive Conference Technology with the following procedures in effect for the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in person in the Council Chamber and…”
“Members, are there any questions on this resolution? Okay, hearing none, thank you. We'll proceed with testimony. Clerks, is there anyone here in the chambers or remotely standing by to testify?”
“Okay, there being none, we'll close testimony on this. Members, we're in discussion. Any discussion on this agenda item? Hearing none, the Chair recommends that Resolution 22-227 be reported out for adoption. Any discussion, objections, or reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. We now move on to agenda item number two, which is a report from the Department of Budget and Fiscal Services Procurement Process Improvement Project. Members joining us in the chamber today to give a brief presentation are Paula Youngling, Central Purchasing and Contracts Administrator of the Department of Budget and…”
“Members, any questions? Council Member Cordero.”
“Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Nishimoto, any questions? Okay. Council Member Wai, any additional questions? Council Member Cordero? Okay, Councilmember Cordero actually asked my questions, so my things were covered, which is actually really good. Sensing that there's no other questions, any kind of closing or concluding statements that we should take away?”
“Well, thank you. At this time, we'll open it up to testimony clerks. Is there anyone registered or standing by to testify either here in the chamber or online?”
“Okay, that being the case, there being no testimony. Members, we're in discussion. Any takeaways, conclusions, reactions? Okay, seeing none, there being no further business, this meeting is adjourned. It's 3.23. Thanks, everyone.”
“Thank you, Chair. This project is in my district, and it's one that I've been looking forward to for quite some time. The action we're going to take today is going to extend the deadline. And as we know, there's difficulties in getting through some of the approvals in this economy, making sure that all the financing gets together. This is a worthwhile project, and we spent a good amount of time listening to folks demanding and asking for affordable housing, which is so needed. This project is going to create 625 apartments that are going to be dedicated to folks between 30% and 100% of area…”
“Aloha and good afternoon, everyone. It's 1.03 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026, and I call the Committee on Government Efficiency and Customer Services meeting to order. I'd like to welcome Council Members Cordero, Nishimoto, and Kia'aina. Committee Vice Chair Weyer is excused for the time being. Pursuant to section 92-3.7 Hawaii Revised Statutes, this meeting will be conducted as a remote meeting by Interactive Conference Technology with the following procedures in effect for the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in…”
“Okay, thank you. Members, any questions? Council Member Cordero.”
“Thank you. Members, any other questions? If not, I have several. Okay, starting with the idea of the backlog. The backlog is really applications in minus applications out that creates the backlog. On slides nine and 10, if you take them together, it indicates that the number of applications submitted is up 34% from about 7,700 to about 10,400. But the number, of building permits issued is only up 5%. So that would imply that the backlog is actually growing. How do you, is there a different way to characterize that?”
“Okay, I guess we'll revisit that at that time. Speaking of CivCheck, back in January of 2026, DPP had an implementation plan for CivCheck, and in March 2026, we actually had a briefing here. At that time, it was indicated that CivCheck would be rolled out for commercial permits in summer of 2026. Obviously, now it's the fall.”
“On slide 17, it talks about over 130 submitted applications using CivCheck. And then slide 18 talks about CivCheck's performance based on a sample of 19 residential permits that shows an average of 40 days saved. How was this sample determined? Is this actually representative of what's going on with the 130 permits submitted?”
“Now I do want to turn to H&L Build overall. One of the issues that was identified immediately after the rollout and then also at our March 2026 hearing that we had here was the mapping of old legacy data sets. Has that process been completed and is Posse still alive? I remember the Posse graveyard that somebody built in the office. Is it a Posse zombie? What's going on?”
“Is there a plan to... Is there a plan to have data integration so that your staff doesn't have to pause what they're doing in H&L Build, log into Posse, find it in Posse, figure it out, and then go back? Is there a crosswalk or walkway that is being built?”
“I want to turn to Carasoft now. We've talked about Spiridian. Carasoft, according to the contract that was shared with us, they're required to submit semiannual end user satisfaction reports. What have these reports shown us? Are there actions that DPP has taken as a result of these? Are the end user satisfaction, is that going up or down? I mean, Council Member Cordero talked a little bit about the BIA survey. What are we seeing out in the wild?”
“Okay. I mean, they're semiannual reports, so we should have at least one by now. I understand that it maybe takes them a little while since it's been live.”
“Okay. Thank you. In the March presentation here, DPP described H&L Build as having future capabilities to integrate with other agencies. Have there been any other agencies that have plugged into H&L Build for their permit processes? I know BWS, other agencies have to do reviews.”
“Are there any immediate plans for further integrations?”
“One last question, I'll turn it back over to the members. One of my beliefs about the permit backlog is there are so many different permit types and some of these, even small ones, if we can take them out of the queue and deal with them in some other way that's quicker, we can help the overall system. And one of them is our sign permits. I actually talked with a bar and restaurant owner that has struggled with this for much longer than he should have. In our March presentation, you mentioned changing some of the requirements and streamlining the process. Have we started doing this for other…”
“Because looking at this bar chart, you know, there's different categories that I would hope that we're able to cut down on some requirements for and just streamline so they're out of the queue, right? I mean, obviously a CP major is complicated and requires a lot of agency intervention, but site grading, as long as you're not doing anything too complicated, it's reasonably simple.”
“Members, any other questions here? Council Member Cordero.”
“I'd like to welcome Council Member Weier to the chambers. Council Member Weier, any questions? I know you're catching up on this. Okay, in the meantime, going to slide 14, I wanted to ask about commercial permits, because this has been, I think, a big frustration out there, and I understand that we're really trying to work on the commercial permitting here. Based on this sort of apples to apples, at least reasonably apples to apples comparison between Q1 2024, Q1 2025, and Q1 2026, With the little footnote here, it says excluding this long lead project, the commercial average is still 493…”
“And I suppose this is all good news because this is data on permits issued, which means these things did go out. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is assurances that within each category, within each apples to apples comparison, that the average permit, the ordinary permit is indeed going down. And I think the frustration that we're hearing from building industry folks is that, well, they're still waiting, you know, sometimes upwards of a year and it doesn't feel to them that all of these things are helping them. Maybe it's helping other folks, but.”
“On slide 15, it indicates there's almost 2,500 permits that have been idle for over a year. I understand there's many reasons for a permit to be idle. Is there, in your estimation, a cutoff at which point we'd say, you know, please respond to us within a month if you want this to keep going. If not, we're going to cancel it. Is that three years? Is it five years?”