our twenty six thing book of three hundred sixty five pages we are only into page eight and already where rapidly filling these pages with happenings of ourselves families neighbors strangers government and vironment and all that each day serves us our ups and downs our resolves and our hopes happy times and sad times just stories of our lives this past wednesday we received news of the closing of an era the last of poetry's sugar industry that have been on maui for more than one hundred eighty years will shut down when we in this book and twenty six severance up on employment for molly families will be a reality then there are some of us who received the good of overcoming our health challenges and yet some continue to have hopes of resolving ones illness some of us recently experienced a loss of our loved one still adapting to the reality of no longer having the physical presence of our love on another level as counsel we will be dealing with long days and long night of approving our county budget some department and non profits will be winners and some or not be so lucky we all know how to deal with the happy good feelings but how do we deal with some of our down times of struggles and losses i am reminded of a lesson my dear cooper not my auntie who passed away a few days ago a lesson she shared with me many years ago a long time ago as a young woman i went to visit my and shared my times of struggle and how at the time i did not know how i was going to make it and want it to give up its seen as soon as one problem was solved a new one arose michael took me to her kitchen she pulled the egg out and placed it in a bowl then she laid on the coffee and placed it in a bowl turning to me she asked what do you see i reply she explained each of these objects had faced the same adversity of boiling water each reacted differently the carrot went in strong hard and relenting however after being subjected to the boiling water it softened and became weak the a had been fragile its thin outer shell had protect it as liquid interior but after sifting through the boiling water its inside became hard and the ground coffee beans were unique color ever after they were in the boiling water they had changed the water m ask me which are you when adversity knocks on your door how do you respond are you a carrot a our coffee think of this and my the carrot that seem strong but with pain and adversity do i will and become soft and lose my strength and my the eight that starts with a malibu heart but changes with the heat did i have a fluid spirit but after a death a breakup a financial hardship or some other trial have i become hardened and stiff does my shell look the same but on the inside and my bitter and tough with spirit and heart and heart or am i like the coffee b the being chilly changes the hot water the very circumstance that brings the pain when the water gets hot it releases fragrance and flavor she says to me if you are like to be when things are at their worse you get better and change the situation around you when the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate yourself to another level as i say i who hold to my coupon no and thank her for sharing her wisdom reminding me that the happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything they just make the limited telephone interactive communication that enables individuals from harm one night he and more to provide testimony from our district offices individuals there who wish to offer testimony should now sign up with the district office staff individuals who wish to offer testimony in the chamber please sign up at the desk located on the eighth floor lobby just outside the chamber door testimony at all locations is limited to the items listed on today's agenda and pursu  to the rules of the counsel each testifier is allowed to testify for up to three minutes with one minute to conclude if requested and when testifying for you state your name and the name of any organization you represent we have three individuals who signed up to testify in the council chamber the first person to testify in the chamber is susan gill board member with the tom oral equestrian arena she'll be testifying on county dash six to be followed by jim smith good morning counsel chair white and county council members happy new year to all of you i'm susan deal i'm a board member of the tom equestrian arena located at the fourth marine division park in haiku i am here today to support the renewable of our lease of the facility we have been managing facility for thirteen years now and also we are involved in the in the construction in the planning of the facility it is a community arena that was tom morrow's dream and we've been maintaining his dream all these years it is an arena available to people who do not belong to clubs or have private facilities we make it available to them for a nominal fee of fifteen dollars per month we receive no funding from the county of maui we are some sustaining we pay the insurance to cover the county and all those fees come come from our user fees so i just want to encourage you to please remove the the lease agreement and we look forward to moving forward into the next group of users as the young people come up to use the arena thank you very much ok yeah often we have we have about twenty five users right now it fluctuates you know sometimes we have sixty users sometimes we have twenty five users one of the things that happened when the economic downturn occurred a lot of people couldn't afford to hang on to their horses so the horse community kind of shrunk and that's kind of a given you know given right now it's starting to grow again but it is used daily yes absolutely and we maintain it if you have a chance to go up there and see we're maintaining the property and the facility quite nicely it's always mowed and weed whacked in the arena sanders room so it's always available in a safe manner if we have a lot of rain or something happens where there's a trees down we will close it for safety purposes until fifteen dollar a month fee for someone to use the facility and we need to do that because we ourselves sustaining we don't get any county funding to maintain the facility so it's a nominal fee if you were to wri at a horse barn on the island for just one ride you would pay fifteen dollars and we charge fifteen dollars usage fee for the whole month for you to ride as much as you like and if it's a family it's twenty dollars a month for a whole family of four  everything you know it's hard because most of the work we do up there is volunteer so most the labor is done volunteer the board is voluntary things volunteers so no one's getting paid for anything and we're trying to do you know if we have less users it's cut a little bit of a struggle because the insurance costs us to insure the county in the parks department about sixteen hundred dollars a year so you know we try to make it work and like i said if we have less users then our income is a little bit less so it just really  we have some money in the bank not a lot but some so if something catastrophic happens we may have to ask the parks department for a little bit of help there you know there's a big storm we did have a big storm a few years ago in the sand kind of blow around and  the public works department was able to come down with some of their equipment to help us move it around so so we have gotten you know help from the county from different departments when we need it but but we don't ask for any financial help i mean it would be nice but we are nonprofit and we do have again i will just say that you know that's one of the reasons we're motivated to do this is because that was tom's dream to have a community arena for those who do not belong to a private club or a private barn to make it affordable especially for young people and families to come up there enjoy their horses and stuff so that's why you know we don't want to see it become a club or arena or something we want to keep it a community arena just so it's available for those folks that aren't involved in those particular and tities thank you so much for your time  monkeys and young monkeys are dangerous they chatted a lot of steps of things but i see we have wise monkeys on the sconce and i'm grateful for that for this com g i live in a haiku and i know new tom and i've used the arena and the arena has been life see when you get a new horse and you need to train and you don't have a lot of access to arenas something like this is so important and i've known sue and she has brought such good energy to horse community monthly free don't hesitate don't hesitate with projects to help them at all because that's the blood that's the bones of our community and i'm just so grateful that it's there and hope it continues thank you very much and that is sure tom's time was a different time ok but you are in the same seats ok and you've got to bring that back you've got to bring that focus on right procedures focus on the example of not going with the best sound or the sweetest look or than most number but the right way of doing because that means words matter about process and if they don't matter then why have a charter why have a law let's just have a board of directors and forget it so europe hours and that's why it's so important for this counts ok to think of tom's time think of tom's time show trust in what we are thank you very much  my second testimony has to do with a planning committee report number sixteen for ok and this is this is  community there to review your work respond then get back to you and that's how the charter function is supposed to work and miss committee report seems to turn it on its here so you have you're sending to them a bill to put commercial composting on agricultural land the bill concern hands and nothing about the size of lot it contains nothing about noxious  smells or sounds or anything it just has a definition and then you want the department of planning to come in and do your work and then you want the health department to come in and say how important it is to do this and that and then do you want to sit back and say well maybe maybe not but the way tom's time was you worked on the bill and you're brought it to the planning commission and that's why they are there is to hit hard on your hardest ball and it doesn't happen with this kind of resolution so i would ask you to bring it back to the committee and if you want to put in posting as well as commercial every other thing on any size what then i think you need to re address the notion of regulating land  ok i think you need to go to the legislature because your responsibility is to protect life style like tom not to sell garbage or around hous ag land and this is what's being missed so i ask you to take this one to small amendments to a dysfunctional chapter that's become dysfunctional by this effort to increase wealth i think this would be a good start to january and to sixteen is to recommit this and do the work and then commit to the planning committee and let them hit you hard are not certainly don't rely on a single individual coming up and rattling bones or making a lot of chatter and jumping up and down and again for being here this morning along mr court next testifier is rosemary robins testifying on county communications sixteen dash to sixteen dash eight and bill eighty money everybody happy new year again and work to be done work being done good news first thing that i'd like to bring to our attention this morning is on page three agenda for today it's identified as number sixteen dash two under the category of communications and it's been drawn up by chaired by transmitting a proposed resolution entitled the legislature state to provide the counties with the same share of tranche and the combination tax revenue as the state i got ahold of the resolution once again thanks to the folks on the seventh floor who made this readily available is number sixteen two that i just referenced and a couple of things that i was attracted to and this in the second paragraph says whereas pursuant to act one eighty five ninety five percent of the transient accommodations tax so the folks who are coming to visit us  revenue was returned to the county under a statutory really established formula with the state retaining five percent of the revenue for administration purposes that was the  history but then the state subsequently diminished the county's share of that t h c revenue at various times for multiple purposes with revenue directed to the hawaii convention center island of oahu and the tourism special fund respectively and with artificial caps and just abuse into the counties so the other counties besides in the world were among the three counties that got slaves spend that so let's make that just tribute and something that would be more realistic on the bottom of page  industry has grown so their legal thoughts on this and certainly let's play fair thank you ok and the second one that i would like to speak to is ordinance bill number eighty seven and it talks about  about one thing in the water department where our debts are in down here on page one of this department of expenses from the waterfront debt service five million seven hundred sixty one thousand three hundred sixty eight dollars while but that this is the debts that we have incurred for not having done the right thing to begin with but laws were on the book and very there are categories listed on here and anybody is available to get this from the seventh floor so you've got it in hard copy and to be able to read this and the  water operations waterfront fund has gone down from what had been predicted to being thirty one million seven hundred ninety four and five hundred ninety one dollars those are key huge amounts much too big to not be recognized as being problematic who's going to pay for those low tax payers so please make sure that you're aware of what that is and where you can get the materials and for those who do use computers you don't have to get to the seventh floor wonderful folks here but that data is available to you ok and then the third item that i wanted to talk to was about electronics and metals from the administration and yes in testimony previous early this week we identified the things that were in brackets were things that were recommended as being taken out of the standard operating procedures that have been a problem to some of us so so when we're looking at this and they're talking about the fact that people can receive information coming through  computer avenues wonderful i'm all in favor of that all i myself am not using that particular set of routes to follow through on an automobile accident but indeed the material is available in i would just like to make sure that not only from within the departments here but the concerned citizens who are not able to use the computer systems  about housing and specifically this proviso you know we were strongly in support of efforts to identify you know where the needs are and you know we think it's absolutely time for another check in to see we're at the last study came out in tw but now that the workforce housing policy has been changed in a number of other policies hopefully will be looked at as well you know it's important to get a new benchmark for twenty sixteen we see a number of positive signs on the horizon supply wise here  well there's also some headwinds that we're seeing you know rising interest rates or some recent job losses were very concerned about that but overall i think twenty six years can be a good year and i want to commend you guys for the work that you're doing on affordable clarification the testimony thank you very much for being here this morning mr clerk mr chair there's no other individual signed up to testify in the council chamber if there is any other individual this time or the district offices that would like to testify please identify yours proceed to the testimony lectern or the district office at this time how the office are there any additional office are there any additional testifiers mystic chair we're having technical difficulties out of milwaukee however mr condit advise us that there is no no individuals wanting to testify on more time and mr chair there is no individual to folks in the district offices or the chamber that wish to provide testimony at this time thank you mr clerk members i note that we have received written testimony without objection  clerk mr chair proceeding with committee reports you have before you from your budget and finance committee committee report sixteen dash one recommending that to billing titled a bill for an ordinance amending the fiscal year twenty six game budget for the county of mali as it pertains to appendix a part one grant revenue schedule of grants by departments and programs civil defense agency state homeland security motion for mr victory known as second from mr couch mr victory no thank you on behalf of chair hope karma your committee met on december fifteenth two thousand and fifteen to consider a proposed bill for the civil defense agency to accept an additional two hundred forty four thousand dollars for the state homeland security grant program the total amount of funds that this program for the fiscal year two thousand and sixteen well  bring us seven hundred forty four thousand there's the proposed project is for the granting of funding including purchases of electric generators improvements of the computer network security and  the nine one one backup capabilities the project will improve the county's emergency proper preparedness i respect we asked the council in the committee to bring this forward and to support mr clerk you have before you committee report sixteen dash two from your budget and finance committee recommending that the building title a bill for a new ordinance amending a fiscal year two thousand and sixteen budget for the county of mali as it of motion for mr victory and on a second for mr cutts mr victory no thank you again on behalf of chair hope com your committee of mit on december fifteenth two thousand and fifteen to consider the proposed bill to transfer one point five million dollars from the county away from the county where it costs fringe benefits to the county wide cost insurance program and self insurance to consolidate appropriations force for insurance related activities currently the insurance related expenditures are on record under two accounts for managed by the department of finance and the department of corporation counsel the consolidation of the insurance funds into one account was recommended by county's independent auditor and will allow all insurance expenditures to be managed by the department of corporation counsel research management division the division is in charge of monitoring and controlling risk and associated costs including and ministration of the worker's comp claims i respect will be asked to counsel support for your committee's recommendation thank you mr chair embers any further discussion on this i recommendation of the budget and finance committee report sixteen tash three second every motion for mr vick you know with the second for mr cox mr victor you know mr okama on behalf of the chair your committee we've met on december fifteenth two thousand and fifteen to consider the proposed bill to add an appropriation of one hundred twenty thousand dollars to the affordable housing fun for the two thousand and fifteen housing planning study for the the use of federal funds on the county housing projects and the department's sixty eight housing program additionally the study would determine a fear market rental use of the section eight program for the housing dash for from the planning committee recommending at the resolution and title referring to the nine and molech i planning commissions a proposed bill amending title nineteen county cold relating to composting to composting the purpose of the rise proposed bill is to establish regulations to allow for commercial composting as a permitted use on the land zoned as agriculture the comprehensive zoning ordinance does not permit commercial composting on agriculture land using site materials your committee recommended adoption of the proposed resolution after extensive discussion and it's expensive work contrary to some testimony that was out i respect it and basically it is to assist our farmers it's a help to is you know assist in the waste that is produced on site where others may not cannot you know gather and compile it on their property and people would love this opportunity to go and purchase compost from somewhere else to add to their for i mean practices so i see it as a as a addition an a plus to encourage our farm mean community to grow and prosper so looking for this to going through the discussion in the general public via all the planning commissions and see what we get back in and adopt it as soon as possible so we can get this type of practice more prevalent as the transportation of the greenways across the county do the fact of the patients if this is species that we have the you know the fire and and so on so forth and also i will said questions on the type and the the acreage or the limitations of how big these composts productions will be but i think once it gets really vetted through the commissions we'll have another opportunity to look at that and hopefully we can get those resolved thank you chuck if there is any further discussion say none of those in favor of placing the five i say by those opposed say no request that if any member has any contrary they would they would like to have referred to the budget and finance committee please to let it be made known to the members are they requests for referral charts of contracts mr may request a referral to the e r committee can construction contract number see five eight nine four as well as the construction contract qamar he would like to see contract she five eight seven nine refer to budget and finance and i have also asked for contract c six seven to be referred to budget and finance on my behalf urging the legislature to provide the counties with the same share of transition accommodation tax revenues as the state school career take a quick recess of come back to order members we had originally discussed the idea or planned on putting this resolution up for adoption today but without objection i would like to refer to committee because there is no significant time sensitivity to this i think of it i think we would all benefit from further discussion at the committee level so without objection the chair would like to refer committee for further discussion not to go gesture and the reason i think it's appropriate for us to have additional discussion on this is that just for perspective if you go back to the one nine hundred ninety seven there was a total t eighty generation throughout the state of about one hundred twenty six million of that the counties split a total of one hundred one million little bit less than that but round generated by the hotels and lodging establishment throughout the state has increased to four hundred twenty five million and the county's share remains at one hundred three million so over an eighteen year period we've got an increase of two point two million dollars while the state the state share has increased from a little over six million to over two hundred million so they took the money when they they had a loss of revenue and when the economy when a little bit south they lost about nine point eight percent of their revenues but since two thousand  their revenues have grown at about thirty four percent rate or about one point six billion dollars and during that same time frame  our our base for taxation which is property values remains your own county in the county of maui we're still nineteen percent this is two thousand and fifteen two thousand sixteen it came up i haven't done that figure but  in two thousand and fifteen we remained about nineteen percent lower in property values than we were just five years ago so the state has helped themselves to the t t when they needed it but now that the counties are in the same pickle they're not willing to make any adjustments to provide a greater share of that to the counties so to put that in perspective since two thousand and seven the cost to the counties the four counties four justifier police and parks which obviously serve the visitors to a great degree have increased by one hundred seventy million dollars while the share of the t t c to cover the visitors share of the those expenses has grown by two point two million i went back and looked at this years supplemental budget offered by the  governor and the increase in general fund revenues only has gone from approximately zero and i can remember with what it went and member of the increase the increase is five hundred forty seven million since last year two years ago compared to two years ago the increase is eight hundred twenty five million dollars and compared to three years ago it's one one billion one hundred fifty million or a nineteen percent increase well you all know that our budgets have not seen one thousand percent increase because we've been concerned about raising raising taxes too much so i think it's fair for us to be looking at asking the state for a larger share of the money from the t eighty and we've been getting in the past so that's that's the reason why we're putting this resolution this committee and if so would it be possible to have a panel type discussion to bring in the various entities or personnel that could speak on behalf of the different issues regarding this them to come to something special like what we were asking for but i will do my best i know she what i can do and a check is very much in support of the overall concept of returning t t a fair amount of t v to the counties also  communications will be referred to the following committees as noted to your budget and finance committee county communication number sixteen dash three from the director of finance transmitting to counsel a proposed resolution entitled authorizing t second amendment second amendment to license for the one hundred acre parcel identified as tax mad keen number two three dash six dash zero zero two colin zero zero four pursuant to section three point four zero point one eight zero molly county code county communication number sixteen dash four from the director of parks and recreation transmitting to the council a proposal resolution entitled approving the approving and authorizing execution of a park assessment a green man for the common law new subdivision pursuant to section eighteen point sixteen point three two zero ma we county coal to the economic development economic development energy agriculture and parks excuse me mr chair i need to clarified county communication number sixteen dash for it is from the director of finance reporting on transfers from the general fund and department of water supply revenue fun to the bond fund as of november thirty two thousand and fifteen to your to your economic development lunny subdivision pursuant to section eighteen point sixteen point three two zero molly county cold county communications sixteen dash six from the director parks and recreation transmitting a proposed resolution entitled authorizing the grant of a license of county recreational space to tom morrow equestrian arena county communication sixteen dash seven from the economic development your policy an intergovernmental affairs committee county communication number sixteen dash eight from cancer chair white transmitting a proposed bill in title a bill for an ordinance amending section two point six zero point zero department of water supply administration program water fine and water operations program water fire mr ritter you know thank you army to pass beyond a b c event two thousand and fifteen second and final reading  motion for mr victory in a with the second for mr couch as director you know the bill of man's fiscal year two thousand and sixteen budget by transferring sixty five thousand dollars from the department of water supply water operations program water fun to the department of water supply administrative program water fun the funds will be used to lease copier and purchase meter reading equipment the bill will incorporate corresponding amendments to appendix c of the mali as it pertains to the department of public works skyways administration program highway fund road rage and during each maintenance program highway fund traffic management program highway fun thousand and sixteen budget by transferring funds within the department of public works highways fund program for projected premium paid short force incurred during the hurricane warning premedication efforts the bill appropriations and total appropriations operating and capital improvement projects mr richter you know which i would norm jackson's i would like to ask for bill number ninety two thousand and fifty to be called up members any objections processes pertaining to real property transactions the bill enables the finance director to acquire except conveniences of real property and easements related to counties infrastructure including this water system sewer systems roadway and drainage systems and parks systems in addition to the bill allows the finance director to waive appraisals for acquisitions of small parcels where their previous all costs likely exceeds the choir properties value and for exchanges related to road bridge and drainage related improvements the bill further seeks to increase the threshold values for real property acquisitions that require council approval to preserve the council's oversight of real property transactions the bill requires council to be notified within five days after any acquisition exchange or convenience is made with our consul approval in addition the council will receive annual reports of all acquisitions made and conveniences accepted by finance director these reporting requirements will keep the council abreast of counties real property transactions related to infrastructure and provide data for viewing the efficacy of the county's policies pertaining to those transactions last bill clarifies the language of chapter three point four four maui county code relate to proceed years governing the county's acquisition and just position of real property i respectfully ask for this concert report support of bill ninety one she's visiting from the philippines and she's from the office of the president aquino so i'd like to welcome her to our chambers thank you mr two members any any further items since we're given some some personal privilege of seeing none i want to thank everyone for being here this morning and with that we are a