other noise making devices and we have here joining the committee this morning mean first off for a share of the committee rick yokohama is excuse and also counsel chair is excuse we or more of a pretty good morning ladies thank you for being there and members we have two items on the agenda first is i am sixty amending the acquisition and disposition requirements pretty need to infrastructure related real property and forty four storm water utilities at this point i hope in the floor for testimony and anyone wishing to testify please state your name any being there all right let's get to our first agenda item which is i am sixty and this one is amending the acquisition and disposition requirements protein into infrastructure related real propert and this our last correspondence november twenty fourth twenty fifteen from department of corporation counsel transmitted to revise for pose a bill in title a bill for an ordinance to amend the acquisition exchange and appraisal requirements pertaining to real property easements the purpose of the proposed bill is to improve the county's infrastructure by authorizing the administration to acquire without council approval one real property for a purchase price that does not exceed two hundred fifty thousand dollars to you certain housing units for purchase price of five hundred thousand or not exceed two hundred fifty thousand or sorry purchase raise of five hundred thousand or not or less and three infrastructure related real property and easements so at this point we may consider passage of this  revised repos bill on first reading with or without revisions and we may also consider fighting and at this point i believe i shall turn the floor over to director good to give us some comments on this winding lots and lots of cetera so we last met on this in committee this committee on march second just prior to budget and during that meeting we discussed a draft that was draft bill dated february twenty third and i i would characterize that there was general consensus among some members that the intent of the bill is acceptable but there are questions that individual members had that we've subsequently worked on in a new revised bill fresh ourselves on the bill that actually acquisition ordinance and stream looked at some streamlining opportunities while we're still looking to make sure that the council has the necessary oversight in improvable on the most sensitive of acquisitions so most recent bill is i think the last one in your binder and it be dated november twenty fourth twenty fifteen then this bill we've sought to address the issues that came up so going  fifty thousand dollars and it is kind of reflects the state of values of property in the last seventeen years and there were no questions on this particular aspect of last meeting related to the buyback of  housing units the threshold currently in the ordinance is one hundred fifty thousand dollars the department housing human concerns is seeking five hundred thousand dollars there's a question in the last meeting about this and the five hundred thousand dollars since essentially applies to most existing buyback agreements based on the values what they paid for any inflationary costs etc and would give the department the option if they have the funds to purchase a unit they have to do this in a very short period of time because typically that like a sixty day escrow they need to know that escrow period whether council the council or the county is going to buy it or not there's no way to go to council and get that  within that amount of time if it's over five hundred thousand they have to kind of the council under five hundred thousand they have the discretion if they have the funds next throughout the builders a big reorganization of the bill so the consistency among the departments the director of finance here today is in charge of all acquisitions the director of finance typically a delegate to the various departments like us for road winding  but everything eventually goes through the director of finance all acquisitions currently are reviewed by our department for the surveying information on to make sure the meets and bounce are correct and they match up with current subdivision approve the ability to acquire property without council approval whereas our department of environmental management parks did not spin our tree them all the same on or a consistent roof for the if you will for that part of finance resolution for roads and road lighting lots of do not meet our standards so this is something that came up in last meeting we want to strengthen that language make it clear that in situations like a house tree which we dealt with earlier this year that road was not meeting our standards that's clearly a council decision so that would still come before this body so we can we strengthen the language in the build make that clear if there's a particular piece of property that for whatever reason any the departments does not want to acquire the constituent owner that property kind can come directly to the council so for whatever reason if water say no we don't want that and the folks really feel it should be county think still come here and any purchase over two hundred fifty thousand dollars or that new limit still comes before the council another issue that came up in the last meeting was a notice notice to the council primarily i think the  the the member of which that in the district that we'd be acquiring property so we added to this bill that within five days of acquiring the property we would notify the council by letter to the council chair who could then set it to  the member whose district it may be and so that that member or the chair or the body whoever has a chair decides is aware that the transaction was made we had then also sent an annual report i think by a january thirty first of each year of all acquisitions so they had the council as the oversight capacity there to take a look at it a vigil transactions or all transactions so i think we've addressed that concern with those changes it wasn't something the department our department was going to change but since we were going out looking at the entire ordinance there was a cleanup language there and other item that came up was about appraisals so we have instances where we're acquiring small bits of property that the appraisal costs and time far outweigh the value of property and so after speaking with the members and getting an idea of how we could address as we came up with language that would kind of mirror the seventy five hundred dollars claims limit that core consul has to settle claims and what we came up with was that we have the ability to waive appraisals if we reach so choose when the assessed value so this is the value that's shown by real property tax of the land that we're going to acquire is thirty seven hundred fifty dollars or less and then allow us to negotiate up to twice that amount or seventy five hundred again amount that's consistent with the claim settlement authority this will save a significant amount of time and money as appraisals typically run at least two thousand dollars and take dozens of staff hours to procure process in review an we look up on the assessed value right off the website those twenty dollars a square foot and we're getting twenty five square feet it's five hundred dollars it doesn't make any sense to go spend money on an appraisal and all the hours if we have the ability settle somewhere between five hundred thousand dollars lot of property owners with a few of their assessed value for these purposes as being low so you know give a little room we can go shade a little bit maybe they have a tree that some other plant in the family that's got to be moved or a wall gives a little bit of flexibility to close the deal get it done and move on so that's basically how we came up with that solution the last one i like speak to our exchanges we've had a couple exchanges here last couple of years again hansen rhodes an example the older project that we did we had to take land from a scene as they gave us land back on another area it ends up being about the same out of square feet either  way we made it clear that the two hundred fifty thousand dollars limit we talked about previously couldn't be breach we couldn't trade three hundred thousand dollars for three hundred thousand dollars of property say but typically for road and bridge projects we're talking about you know maybe a thousand square feet on this in a thousand square feet on that side relatively low dollar amounts and typically at the same owner so that would allow the exchange process to go a lot more smoothly and i that concludes my overview we really look forward to this chair we appreciate working with your staff council services has been extremely helpful i council and all the departments because we've worked through all the defector departments finance d m water parks housing they've all chimed in on this because they all have different aspects of this bill  and we feel that it will support simplify the lives of all those folks i just mentioned i think for the council it will give the council the opportunity to look at these small relatively small i should say acquisitions though as they see fit and then the ones that really are important ones that don't meet our standards are high dollar amounts was clearly state within the council's purview and that's a fair thank you thank you director good and we important for me to acknowledge his leadership in pushing this changes for your base consideration and of course ice he had mentioned that a lot of people that work on this one director a member is at this point on the floor is open for discussion do we have any questions or comments for our departments here yes miss bicep thank you very much chair and i'd like to think mr good for his very good explanation very clear and also finance director for being here to express his support for this to you know i think it's really important that we look at this kind of change because it's really important that we try to move things along and we not be spending money like mr good alluded to the fact that we might spend more on an assessment and what we're buying is worth so i mean what's the point and yet we want to make good decisions and i think i'm comfortable with the limits and i think that everybody has looked at this very carefully and at this point i don't have any any i have a couple questions on the approval by two thirds of the members of the council for some dispositions is there a reason why the thought was two thirds majority was necessary as opposed to simple zero even the exchange of group exchange just out of curiosity why it was a two thirds majority as opposed to a simple majority existing code right stands today but we did not dig into why you would require a two thirds vote for a disposition you know above and beyond just a simple majority thank you ok yeah i noticed it was the existing code just curious if it does in prior meetings to discuss that event no i don't believe we have yes corporation counsel and i just wanted to add that the charter does not require the two thirds vote for for disposition so i don't know why it was in the original bill where we just kept it as it's ok thank you for that explanation maybe because it's disposition and we want to be very careful about you know giving up a coming we want to make sure that you know enough of us agreement but i would be ok with a simple majority but i think that might have been the need you know hard pressed to change that we could but i think it's one of those added layers of protection if need be that more oversight and people in the decision process is there are so good ok that it's way since i just really wanted to get this on the docket to discuss because i used to get frustrated we get all these these really issues and it really was very simple clear and yet we had to spend cultural time doing it so i'm glad to see that the guess one of my questions is is to publish publishing in the newspapers to drop from three week down to two weeks is it just to expedite the process ordering without one was about and other than that we think everything's pretty good and also the i like the part that the notice for five days to the council and the actual map will be included with that because of the times the descriptions are there but as i'm aware is this and so that's a very helpful and also i guess they'll be annual reports being made to coun finance department are now the process by which they enter reports put together the notice is accomplished it's over ok very good thank you members is there any need to call in any of the other departments that had a hand in brief recess and i carry on was going to give everyone the recommendation and a motion to recommend passage on first reading of the revised proposed bill entitled a bill for an ordinance to amend chapter three point four for maui county code pertaining to the acquisition and disposition of real property also incorporated in any non substantial revisions and filing of county communications thirteen  excuse right ok got my count down thank you very much motion passes and thank you members moving onto i e m forty four storm water utilities oh thank and it transmuting the matter of storm water utilities and so with that i believe i shall open the floor up to ms by sun for her opening comments to introduce this matter to us for foundation and he mentioned that they were trying to promote storm what are you to the team and i was very interested in the whole idea because we had been so concerned about storm water you know it's a major major issue from our county and we had just of course gone through our own work on the emmis for however this idea that he was talking about is more like a little storm water utilities that are private and they have turned these into businesses and i thought it was fascinating to hear about this so i was hoping that this would be a way to get us to look into the possibility besides what we're doing to maybe look looking into the utility businesses small ones amy be having them located closer to our communities where we might be able to stave storm water there and not have it all running into the ocean i mean you know every time there's rain i run into people and they say well can't you guys kept it is for me and can't you do anything about it i'm looking at it not only from the of course of the horrible damage that it does into our ocean and our coral reefs but also in a waste of water just think if we could capture this water and reuse it and there were people that were willing to get into this business so that's what that's what you know prompted me to introduce the idea and i don't know if we're ready to talk about this today but i'm sure director good who is very much into keeping up with what's going on probably already knows about this so i'm very interested in hearing what he has to say and thank you very much for putting it down due to you and thank you ms base there for your comments and i completely agree and that's why i wanted to bring it here today and bring it to us to discuss and learn a lot more about it and i happened to i got to me i believe you're talking about mr stone bro josh down broke from eight c f and that's where he planted the seed to in regards to this so mr good i hear you're the man did talk about maintain any storm water management system or infrastructure that perhaps a little different than say a private business or an entity but i don't think it precludes a private entity from doing  least pursuing that opportunity but it might be outside of the county's system so currently before this was passed that we didn't counties didn't have that capability of charging for and they also talk about minimizing pollution to near shore environments there is no further guidance from the state and what basis the fees were to be promulgated if they were so and acted by the counties and so far no county  that was passed and they found that being a preventing set of insult from damaging the quote reefs and other marine sources and reducing pollution in near shore areas where the top two issues in residents minds about managing storm  dollar bills to pay on the spot but they felt that those types results were worth five dollars a month as you know we have the best for program which we've talked about a number of times here in committee and so that's what we're focused on within our department and one of the i as we're looking at is how to pay for that system our system more responsibility and we have discussed  internally first to see what opportunities there are before we ask for more money so we're looking at moving positions from the general fund to other funds like the building permit revolving fund we're looking at amending fees related to  construction activities that disturb the land which would result runoff potentially so grading fees subdivision construction fees driveways work to perform we've actually analyzed all those costs our current so storm our utility is my own leased from the government i would is that well we have under our roads we have water pipes sewer pipes electrical and we have storm water all the first three all have a utility associated with them the water department sewer by electric say but the storm pipes don't it just basically falls under our roads program so the question is should those pipes relate infrastructure costs on management and as for program be part of a utility type structure and it's something that's actually done throughout the united states or is about five hundred such utilities and they typically have fees that are based also find those activities but property taxes which is essentially what we're doing now is really star anise for program but it's not a good correlation if you will between property tax basis and runoff so looking at the storm water utility just for discussion some moto a pros and cons some of the pros is does provide a lot of flexibility in how utilities set up so that obviously would happen here the council it would be ok how much was going to cover what are those costs and responsibilities and that can run the gamut from lots of cost and lots responsibilities to small amount responsibilities and cost be very customized so other treatment sources that are done on site if those are implemented they can actually lower their fees they can fund b r m s four permit program cos it's usually a dedicated revenue source but doesn't fluctuate much not subject to being cut when times are tough to say and in property tax and we've had some initial conversations with some local environmental groups and the general support for the concept of utility in fact that forty two is strongly supported by the environmental community cons it may be a popular the general public has imposed additional fees and they may not see the results right away and that doesn't do the water instantly get better typically we have to go through a very well thought out and controlled public relations campaign and probably get a good feel of what people are interested in either paying for our type results are looking for which come back to how big or small or medium sized program might be and  oing out three examples boulder colorado formed utility nine hundred seventy three they had flood control issues in the town and storm water management issues and so they imposed rates on all properties in the service area a have a mall you have lots of parking lots of impervious surface that should be treated differently than a single family salem oregon developed a very simplistic stormwater rate  based on the relationship between impervious surface and the storm otter program costs so i imagine what they did is add up here's what our costs and here's where impervious surfaces are divided up and said years since actually here's your bill impervious area so it was certainly proviso and said to is if you take out impervious you put in not impervious then is an incentive to lower your lawyer fee so you know that's just a handful of models that are out there but it seems clear that it does look at you know how much impervious surface is in play but types of techniques and the impact of all that can you do a ring plan for those activities so that's the new the new late lan if you will here in hawaii that we know how to have a capability we're not currently proposing anything we're still evaluating and examining it not planning anything for f y seventeen at this point but i think charity good to hear you know from the members of not now later at some point to get an idea or a feel for you know what the numbers appetite might be for something like that's that's what i have today thanks thank you director an and wonderful comments there so members and that's why i brought it up to see what is our appetite in regards to this subject matter so we'll open up the floor for some discussion and ms bisaya you want to start off oh yes terry thank you very much in thinking is the director good for the information you know what really piqued my interest when i heard this of course is i'm always looking at conservation because i think that one of the issues we have with water is you know we're losing a lot of the water is available and storm water is terrible because when it comes it's just it's floods a bit and it's seems so awful to just have it run away and so that was you know the number one thing that piqued my interest with storm water but then when i'd listen to this gentleman i realized he was from the highway community foundation and you know they administer like forty three million dollars in grants and i was thinking wouldn't it be nice if some and i don't know the legalities of this because i haven't had a chance to do any background but say that this was a private little storm water utility and they wanted to start up a business i wondered if like  foundation would be willing to help with some seed money to help them get started and maybe that's where they have some grant money or something and maybe it could help because economic development here is very important as well as all the water concerns and stormwater considers that we have so this seemed like the area that i really want to dig into because i think there's some potential here not only to have our money but also some public private partnership in getting things started and so anyway that's where i was going and i was interested in digging a little deeper so i was wondering maybe we might do some checking with that gentleman to see if he could tell us what exactly are they doing and you know what are other people doing and we learn that's how we get going you know there's a citizens electric utility and koichi so what about a citizens storm water utility here you know if you never go you never know thank you bass and yeah wonderful comments and the community foundation definitely is out there educating and bringing awareness to this idea and that's where i heard about also on  plus challenge and how a green growth in session there are so that's that's what we're here for but thank you anyone else had any comments questions to share yes mr coach  look at look at looking forward to any of the studies yeah we have to figure out how we're going to pay for it but it's something that needs to be done you know having been through some of those places you mentioned and seeing what they're doing to help clean up the storm water is something that's very doable but one of the questions i had and maybe you can either elaborate now or when you do your study if you were to have these fees were these you'd mentioned that the fees sounded like that the fees were only for existing infrastructure you know all the pipes of the ground and whatever else we have going on would you be able to do some things to have the county mitigate some of the dirty water going in not necessarily stopping it but cleaning it up before it goes into the  ocean outside of the individual with developers because we've got a lot of existing runoff now that we certainly need to take a look at and figure out how we clean that up so could those fees or would you these suggesting that those fees go towards that as well possibilities i mean there's a lot of things that can be done and people are starting to do it in little pieces parts and if we had a bigger plan on that that would help especially in the rain gardens and whatnot those appear to focusing on that area first in regards to this possibility of fees because that's sort of a mandated down to us to you know take care of i know we want to look at it county wide but i think in that particular area because we have this now put on us to address we're trying to do it in a general broad sense as you just stated manager i don't think we've gone far enough in this with some funding would be nice members any other discussion well and for a flavio we're not going to make a decision here today and solve our stormwater problems but i just wanted to bring this forward to get the discussion going on the ball rolling in regards of this and so with that members my recommendation is to defer so weekend for the discussion at a later date done without any further items on the agenda of this meeting is adjourned