and we have many departments that are here department heads and others and what i will do is i called them up for their various our committee items i would then introduce them at that point in time sol let us in let us start with public testimony do we have any public testimony in the chamber not to display them we checked with our district offices i feel to ask them if probably testimony is close thank you ladies have a great day expiring march thirty first two thousand and twenty please note there is no time limitation for the council to approve or disapprove this nomination but before we discuss this nomination i am pleased to announce the staff is developing a new user friendly rare resolution format whereby the only time we have to revise the resolution is if we disapprove the nomination there will no there will no longer be a b and c exhibits to deal with it but committee staff are sent an e mail last week asking each and any member that would like to request the attendance of the nominee to the meeting there was no response so with that being said mr morley would you like to tell us a little bit about this nominee unfortunately mr donny cannot be here today as a farmer but daylight hours are very precious to them and he had work and so he did tell me or did tell the staff and i we question if he'd be here but he was unable to attend so with that being said mr morley no thank you very much the chairman and good morning committee members of the administration would like your consideration mr paulo tani to serve on the cool ag part as a self employed farmer for over forty years he said various experience in wholesale and produce marketing and distribution and has been very active in the farming community by serving on the farm bureau for over twenty years and also he was the past president of the mali farmers cooperate exchange and so he certainly brings all of that to the  missile missed by so thank you very much and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be here this morning to speak on behalf of this nomination i know the nominee very well i think if anybody is eminently qualified to tiny he was a member of the original advisory committee and has been in a country farmer full of forty four years and still is actively involved as you stated this morning you know farmers take stuff to market monday morning and there's just no way that he could have been here but i was having served on this committee myself i understand what is required and i think he brings a very deep understanding of what the park is all about and what we're trying to do with the park and so i would respectfully urge my colleagues to please support the nomination i think it's one of the best i've seen in a long time thank you and if you missed by so i'll just go down the line expansion of the cool ag park that is about to take place having somebody like paul would be a big help other committees so i think it's a great recommendation from the administration thank you chair you're welcome mr o community so yes i agree wholeheartedly excellent choice especially with what's occurring and the expansion of the cool park so if there is no other comments i would like to make my missed by so any further discussion seen not all those in favor of seeing the file by saying i opposed but the record shows eight ice one excuse me the guzman thank you and good luck mr donnie and thank you again for serving would like to ass if we could take that i don't take that i don't mop along with item number three which is p i eight thirty two because both of them relate to the fire department and since we have the fire department three point six eight point zero three zero of the county code now we first the wrong section of the fire code we live in to find the correct sections is sixteen point zero four zero c point one seven zero i will have the staff draft will be able to make this correction so we will correct this item however today we have captain paul oppy from the fire department if you remember during the budget hearing and i did put in you have a copy on your das of pih thirty that the chair submitted with the minutes of the budget meeting for which this discussion was brought up and during the budget chief m stated that that maybe to lots can be cleared annually because there's not enough money in the fund he suggested if on then we were talking about of about one hundred thousand dollars versus i think right now it's ten thousand brush clearing is used to address slots that have been deemed a fire hazard because of lack of maintenance so all growth then dry brush is become a concern and so we've gone out and looked at these parcels and for whatever reason the owners of the parcels have not addressed the concerns and so all this fun is used to clear the hazard each year as far as fire mitigation for that particular lot a particular lot the number of lots yeah an approximate number each year i want to see maybe thirty lots really lots are you ok and generally i do the chief mentioned more or less what it costs but do you know what it would cost and i know be very community especially the neighbors in the area and that the the fire department had to send some what he called landscaper or someone to take care of the lot to make it safe for that was three thousand dollars to clear and we've had a couple of more a couple more in the country area that were about a thousand dollars  so we don't have too much statistics and i guess that's because of you know my concern my concern was how we're going to get the money back i didn't think it was a good idea for the the county to be paying for these clearing and not have any means to get the money back we were we were lacking on that part with the cold provisions so for a while we weren't pursuing the clearing we were just packaging our work and sending out t corps council but then in discussion with the consul representative to fire department you know the only way that we were going to get statistics touche to show to the council w actually pursue those pairings so in the option of our fire code we try to put in wording to allow the county to get the money back and so with that we pursue those clearings that i talked about the three thousand dollar one in key here and then a couple more in up country so it's been a while since we've used the fund it is the fun that is necessary and now when the question up on the floor do you feel you do you feel the figure of one hundred thousand would be sufficient to the thirty or thirty five lots that you may be looking at and you know of course we have methodologies of recovery however we just want to make sure that that money is available that you would or the fire department are not going to be because they don't have enough money to cover change some of the fire code in order to get recover our funds we've done that is that correct yes ok and if they eat what we usually know who the owner is and they're usually  gone and have abandoned the property at least the ones that i've seen you guys do if they don't pay back do we have the ability to leave put a lien on the property now  allow for us to do that you talked about you have thirty or so and a hundred thousand would cover that of those thirty that you get a year thirty plus how many of them are the same one over and over again because i know you don't i mean you got thirty you can only clean up two or three so i'm guessing people are complaining on the same one multiple times you know it's a guess but i'd say about twenty five percent ok ok good in the last the biggest in that same question i asked in the in the budget hearing is if we get increases two hundred thousand and of course it will be a revolving hopefully replenished by the folks that whose places we had to clean up that put a little bit more pressure on you guys to actually go out and be able to go out and do the clean ups is that  cleanups i don't think that situation will be a reason for us to ask for more bodies i think we have more than enough work now to ask for more thank you thank you  cheek question is to call this just contracted out that's not that this is what is this matter is all about allowed finance director to lean pretty on almost anything of jurisdiction of the county as it is within the code was under the fire code it's already written structures and premises the key for me today is how cooperation council looks at premises and regarding fire hazard removeable and some of the powers we already give fire department what over time one of our fighting major brush is part of it is to mitigate in creating situations for major brush fires that is hazard removal you and i know that i can see as putting in some money in here because in the long run i see savings because we mitigating in advance of major price rises by taking care of the hazard early and i support the captain on this position but as we all know part of the thing is within the go on residential areas we get people parking our own kaunas up to stop signs and everything that to me should be part of this mitigation because they can revenue generation sherman so what i would like to support the department is use what is already an author a's and started doing it i don't have a problem supporting a little bit more funding for the fun to ensure their ability to perform one in which molly and you know how do you meet a gate open space when you have all this a land that's open and gay and that's that's a bigger challenge than just where it's a dental lots and the other thing the other issue is i don't think is hoarding no that's not been addressed but if you recently when watching a wobble a couple of on one particular home in kind of he took them five days to clean completely clean out and that was forty i mean that was a fire hazard along with the health hazard and every hazard you could think of and that's another area that we've been fortunate but there are some won't if you drive around come very close to that and you've seen and i've seen it i think everyone has seen those types of homes and so that becomes a real issue again mistah p i will say i would ask you this question most of this is complaint driven is that not true yes that's true yeah so i would someone have to make a complaint before you come or you send someone out to inspect the property or the premise is that correct that's correct ok so that's another issue a lot of times many of us you know especially the local residents we just kind of let it sit there right in you know we don't want to create a i hazell but it becomes really should we still call what you're right and we're moving in that direction so we have really a lot of different aspects of this bill first of all the reason for the funding was because that was the discussion first and foremost so they could get out there and do more before something happens but how do you get these land especially these big landowners where vast acreage is not on the west molly salt in all we even central mali that create right up here none for more than four years ago there was a tremendous brushfire both in the valley back of our and then the other one was right up here i look at whites which came within feet of homes i mean mere feet of homes so these are things that yes i want to give them the ability but maybe this is something we've got morning members happy to be here discussing this fire hazard removal fund as discussed during the budget session i think the reason why a fire chief maria was requesting one hundred thousand dollars was yes we do currently have the ability to lean the properties and the the in three point six eight three zero see it specifically says the director of finance can authorize to file a lien on the real estate on which the buildings are structures are located or premises is involved and mentioned the challenge has been in the past of yes we mean the property but unless they refinance or sell the property that lien can just sit there forever there's not really a collection process for us to do that i mean that is the strongest thing we can do is clean the property rate until we have the ability to to like a property tax sale you know where we force the sale of it which would be a sad situation really that lien is our only remedy so when they're requesting one hundred thousand dollars it's because that money is probably going to sit there for a while before it gets collected again so even though we me you know that's then in two thousand and seven we spent thirty to ninety five on one cleanup and eight hundred dollars on another cleanup and  from my records it doesn't look like we ever got that money back i don't know what happened two thousand and seven but you know so the many as it goes down if there's a big infusion of money in here then they have the ability to go out and do more of these and you know i don't not sure the percentage of collection if it's going to be any higher than it has been in the past but at least they'll have the funding source to do this and having that be a revolving fund it also provides the ability for us to collect that money and put it back into the fund so that we can go and spend it again should we get the money back and mr is here as well he was the one during clarification i think there's got to be other ways we can recover our money more quickly and i think michelle comma like you said many times there more than one way to skin a cat than this deal so i believe we can look at some of the alternatives mr gray you've heard the conversation do you want to add anything else at this point in time no not thank you if you have any questions i'll be available good going  properties buildings on the premises or structures but i think the real issue is the process in which we go about getting those liens first of all i would believe that you'd have to get a judgment on the lean judiciary to the state if it's civil yeah they're probably going to be going to us so eventually what is needed is probably a judgment and then from that judgment we apply it to a lien but that whole process is is very rigorous and long there's never a guarantee that you're going to collect on a judgment you see all these civil debts that are all over the place the judgment is just a piece of paper but until you're able to collect that is a process in itself the lien is a form of collection but then we place a lien on the property file it with the b o c bearer of kevin says but we can't collect until either the property is sold or we  we force a sale which is another process we're going to spend money for to to fit force a sale so that's that's you know hundred thousand is very minimal if we're talking about trying to go through all those different processes that there probably needs to be some other way that we're going to have to figure out for recovery a different method maybe that's something that the corporation  council can work on but other than that what we have set forth in the audience right now is a long and tedious process and not just one process is various processes to get to the end result the other question i would have is work line is the work line being utilized at all i know the parks department utilizes the work line and has started to use to do more with the work line this is with the our  contract or our grants that we we've given with them triple c the other question is was it the fire code just getting back to my first initial my ideas but being more efficient on collection or recovery or other methods of recovery aside from a lean is anyone really to answer that  you have some comments on that thank you chair you know i've had this discussion with captain hockey numerous times and he has the same concerns a lot of concerts collections in the end of that there are real property tax there's a special section in the whole year by statute this authorizes us to do foreclosures without sale and stuff you know that type of stuff to special process it's a much faster than like a judicial foreclosure but it's specifically authorized for real property tax so our opinion has kind of been that we don't want to broadly read that into other areas just any colony any monies do annoying to the colony because we don't want to abuse that you know that very special authority we have from the state in that section so just just wasn't is there any way to to find the nexus between the real you know the real property tax provision that you've just stated and the fire code is there any way to bridge that so that we can utilize that section of h r s  i would recommend the statutory amendment however if we are looking for compliance and i believe that's a captain hawke is constantly going for he doesn't guzman i think you chair the ideal would be we wouldn't clean the lots a criminal citation would be given to the landowner the problem there also is finding the person is often difficult so again like you mentioned earlier none of this is easy none of it simple you know if it was we probably wouldn't be here right now talking to you folks about it but the idea is we don't mean a lot to be go through the criminal citation process and that usually is a little more convincing to our landowner like when they just get something in the mail from a fine it's not is motivating as a criminal citation so we're hoping that process we might be able to start working on that soon but again it's we've never done it before or it's been done but very rarely i believe so we're gonna get going on figuring out and getting through all of that so that's their next plan you know but who knows how will work i there were no guarantees you know thank you thank you chair is there any other source of revenue that's tied in with this fund like other funds have a a source of revenue that park ranger fund a so are there any other revenues or anything that are that's outside of or the fire department is charging that the public for something that we kept in hockey section would be a part of would be the they review building plans and stuff but that that separate fund then you know separately but i don't think they collect any fireworks but i don't think that's related to this either so i'm not one hundred percent sure if they have i think they charge a lot of fees and stuff the fire department thank you good question and thank you mr carroll any questions for the department by so yes i'm very happy to be participating in this discussion today about two years ago was he showed a tremendous amount of videos of the kind of things jared you were talking about earlier that we've been seeing on t v and he also acknowledges that a lot of his problem is hoarding and people that have places that are just all overgrown and you know not cleaned and what it terrible the effect it has on the city because it breeds all kinds of stuff there not only safety fire hazards but you know rats and god knows what  and really excited when we started talking about an environmental court but what i see us going towards is something different we're talking about big cases dealing with you know who's dumping what where and whatever but i think this what was exciting for me and where i'd like to see some link to the environmental court and i don't know what it is and that's what i was wanted to ask our legal beagles is do we have any possibility of linking our problems with what we're talking about today with this environmental court and therefore it would be in their bulk ballpark to get the citations and the money and it becomes somebody else's big responsibility rather than if they can help accommodate us to make the process smoother and faster then i think we might get some action because you know people do court and they act a little differently than when you send them a bill thank you and usually we are of just requesting their assistance in this area and outlining what we've been discussing today thank you mr cheery i think it might help ok and yes my colleagues have asked some great questions and brought up some great points but i just want to little more clarification i think director boz mentioned that we did initiate a couple liens but never really ended up in maybe if you recall dollar amount it's a what why i guess we just don't have that extra hammer to get it and i think you mentioned about the things this can be a dead end at times was a process i believe he mentioned it was back in two thousand and seven or two thousand and eight so we can further follow up on that as i am not aware of alina the legal process being initiated as council member goes on to mention it on paper it sounds quick and easy here and you know a very effective in reality it's it's a process it takes a lot of time in you know it's not simple i should say i'm not sure what the amounts were moving forward we are trying like you mentioned new and different things owner of the property so has the seller or becomes for close by the bank or i mean they can just use lien it but then it just sits and so if nothing's done it's just going to sit so you're looking at  it's more difficult the banks don't take ownership of the home that it's still under the ownership of the that's ironic the ownership of the owner but it's still on the whole mourner and you know if the person's not paying their mortgage they probably are in some pretty bad circumstances so for them to just automatically write a check to the fire department to refund them is probably more on likely so what we then would do is like mr carson said probably have to go get a judgment from court then we lean the property we could force the sale but also another thing to consider is i am not sure which lake what number we are in line in the case of a of the sale so if the mortgage the property is way under water there i'm not sure where we are again this one might have good priority i've never checked but we might not even get any more help to the foreclosure sale because all the money will go to the mortgage so the banks but i'm not sure on all of these things because we've never really done one full blast but if we can find that we can definitely look into it further thank you thank you x there's a issue the additional funding was to just give the department and the opportunity to get out there and do more you know because my my biggest fear is if we continue to hamstring them and and hold them back and then there is a major problem a major fire that is caused by one of these properties i don't want a colony to be held in homes and we saw that that was part of my in my thinking in this respect yes i know there's more work and i'm glad that the discussion has gone in this direction and i will be looking into some additional with the fire department some additional improvements in this area but like you said mr goodman there's no simple way there is no simple way but we can tighten it to the point where our recovery is enhanced as much as possible that we have the opportunity to retreat as much as possible and when it comes to the public safety that is what we hear first and foremost so my and my concern is taking care of the matter before it causes a problem not after and i think all too often we've watched that in our community and in other communities and i don't want to wait that long so that's my intent in the soil in this bill today to move forward so that for me group are pretty tax actually is a great thing i think we should be following through because our p t then goes into a general fund the general fund  by the for a department and then one thing i think we should maybe possibly learn from the state chairman is i guess how they dealt with it but they add new shoes because only after the dam broke and people died did the state after responsibility of property ownership we should look at how the state responded and why the statute currently allows us to go after the property owner more aggressively to for their performances property owners i think that is one of the issues that we need to bring forward is that you have responsibilities as a property owner by law and that needs to be fulfilled and he said obligation of all public health and safety  holcombe i think the advantage of being able to put it under or finding that nexus with real property tax is that once we do it then becomes a subject matter of taxes and so that would then bump us up on the priority if we're talking cognisant big brothers out there and we start something we start putting nexuses inside and take over or start to say that this connected to will property tax i don't want to be in that position of being challenged by the state we'll look into that we'll look into the matter but i think i think revisions of the cold are making them stricter like you mentioned me still comma maybe part of the issue the other part is making sure enforceability and giving them the funding to help enforceability to prevent something from happening is very important and that's what this was all about it's a first step in many steps that need to be taken so all i want you to understand this is not the end actually really is the beginning but to make sure that the funding there for the department to be able to go in in me to keep before something tragically a curse and i don't want to we talk a little dam disaster or major fire with people die and then we're trying to figure it out at that point i don't want to  reactive i read like to be proactive in this respect but i thank you for your comments because we've taken notice of all of them and we will adjust them with a letter to the state and as well as the other agencies that are involved to get back feedback and then come back with some revisions to the cold and where we all can work together and make it what i call in the public space to use any other questions or comments seen on the will move to defer this item not just don't do very much let us move into the next section which is p i a turkey to and this is reading to plan review processing and inspection revolving fun if there are no questions from the body regarding the fun during the budget but since we were tasked to review h r s's provisions to see where we came better utilize and managing the fun in the best way possible this is why this was brought forward kept an arche can you give us a specific number to be doing to how many reviews  and what and what you would call the anticipated cost of these reviews thanks chair if i can remember correctly i wan the past two years we did about two thousand two thousand reviews for the year out of our department maybe a little bit more to twenty three hundred any when you see two dollars in twenty three hundred do you have any idea how many man i was preview and i know some would be more than others but any like average five was ten i was do you have any idea how many i was man i was would be done for this review process you know chair i don't know an average but i know some reviews they'll be able to just kick out immediately and then on some bigger projects we have to spend the least couple of days in good if you so you know yeah so they would an average it's difficult to get an average but yes some will be room or any area for which people actually utilize for living purposes in other words they actually live under that part of the or live in that part of the house yes that that would be part of the review  itself and the proposals you know communication and the minutes of the budget and finance meeting you all have that so i wanted to provide that so that you have some background ok thank you five thousand dollars in revenue for fiscal year fifteen and about two hundred fifty thousand dollars in expenditures for for twenty thousand so you know the beginning ballot twenty fifteen was about five hundred thirty six thousand and the ending balance was about four hundred  twenty thousand so you know we are dwindling the fun down this is it typically is you know it's something that depending on the economy rate and how much building permits are out there are different things you're going to have thousand ok typically that means that we're charging more than the cost except for this year we have actually charged less than the costs because it is doing tooling but to get it to come up that actual salaries of body until more recently ok all right thank you i thought that was a discussion we had a couple years ago remember they brought it forward they wanted to their percentage of the fee and the council turned it down is one to share in make sure that all the councillors are aware of many pots of money you do not see in a regular budget review process that exists and are paying for and being called elected by this  county you know i think part of the responsible is your committee chair is making sure that these funds that do not go through it and your review is still worthy to remain on the books and part of this process is to allow that's part of the purpose sure but to also let people know especially the counselors whole funds are being utilised to pay for certain things within this colony because most people don't understand that it's more than just real property taxation understand the what are the general issues who are dealing with here he says to improve the efficiency of the what is that plan review process seeing an inspection of the revolving fund what are the what are the deficiencies of it yes i am number one question what would you what are the real major issues that we need to discuss after would you since we have fire here and it was instituted for fire do you have any major challenges as far is the plan review process and i would use the example fire fl mean this is all part of this when they review official i just wanted to throw a few examples out there but capped off thank you chair at this time we don't have any issues with this plan review fee in fact we you know we get to use it to send our people out to training so that they are current with our ever changing code since standards oh we also use it to purchase some equipment like distributors and things like that they can help us to figure out fire flows in certain areas we we use it for our to purchase and for information brochures and things like that so we can  smoke detectors and fire extinguishers and things like that so  we don't we don't have any issues with the with the fee or those just just a question of chair you may know this or maybe the fire department so is it just one fee for the the building permits guys collect right this is just for fire just for fun i believe this is the only fee fire collects in relation to permit inspections ok thank you and the issue is that we're not charging enough and therefore we're depleting the fine well rapidly belle's one of the issues i mean i think i'm part of the review process was to make sure that the fund is sufficiently full funded or that it's not depleting itself so quickly then all of a sudden we have to have an emergency budget amendment so this was all part of the process and the discussion doing budget so i decided to bring this out and you know just started we could have a clear view and from what i'm hearing from captain argued that he feels this is sufficient so we can move on ok thank you mr okama just quickly for as a point of information  how council set up certain funds and fees was because of the continuing issue to keep is length of building permit process this is one way to address from one department the need to how have they perform with this fun in issuing that their department is fulfilling that goal of getting through the permit process in a timely manner for the applicants would you like to answer that question from from the fire department perspective yeah yes well there is a there's a review that's being done in regards to the plan review process and for the most part we've been we've been on time with our reviews at least our initial reviews you know you initially you have that control they submit you can review you want to get to it in good amount of time but then once after that initial review is a lot of things that i can do you know when they respond how they respond but as regards to the initial review when they get these things  we're going to be discussing the budget director's implementation report but for the fire department for this specific goal number one of the fire prevention program is to provide timely quality customer service to permit applicants during the plan's review process and their measure is to increase the rate of plans review within fourteen days from the application date by ten percent they number of plans are reviewed for  what they're they're putting forward their quarterly report status so the information you know that's why we put performance measures in there so that we can you know make you have a better understanding of the activities of the departments and if they're actually achieving their goals a half percent of the building permit fee that's the basic fee that charges twelve percent of the building permit fee and where plans are incomplete or change so as to require additional plan review an additional plan review fish shall be charged at the rate of three dollars per hour so if they go and significantly changed their plans and we have to read review the plans then we can charge  various agencies again to address some of the questions that were brought up today and again i will ask to defer this matter with no objections thank you very very much thank you f the question had come up is on the liquor education funded by so you brought this up on numerous occasions and so today we have our representatives from the department and what we'll be discussing is if she would like to play in again her position again this would require a change of section two eight one seventeen a three of the hawaii vice statute perhaps you w look at the transmitted package deal from the two thousand and thirteen fourteen legislative session to the committee for consideration for the package bill for the upcoming two thousand and sixteen session the reason for this is our deadline for submission by our by this committee will be october first so this is why i've decided to bring this for me so that we could again bring to spot it bring it as part of our legislative package  just from mali and or from a sack as far as the education funds and how it's being used by some yes so i will let the department go first and then i will ask you for your take and your clarification on background that the liquor education fund why created so that the department would be in compliance with two eighty one seventeen point five b where only monies collected by a liquor commission can be used for the operational and administrative costs of the liquor commission collecting net in two thousand and nine senate bill for seventy expanded the use of the liquor education fund to  include education of commission staff commissioners and board members and all sold that fine monies not to exceed ten percent can be used for that department could go out and use it for educational programs in helping to educate the public such as maybe with organizations such as mad or  if there was a way to get some of the money that is generated by this to this activity to be put back into helping to mitigate the problems that are caused by the consumption of think i have it right and somebody can correct me if i'm wrong because i'm often wrong but my understanding is if there is money left in this fund did it is reimbursed or given back to the people that put some of the money in there and i would much rather see that any money that's left after we had minister and we you know follow the rules and do all the things that we have to do would go to instead help you know programs that help with  whole recovery or prevention more work like what was done with being a jerk and that kind of thing and so that's where i'm coming from we have not been successful in doing that i think we ought to try one more time  statement yes i would just like to clarify that the monies that get returned to the licensees each year as part of a settlement agreement that was done because the argument was they were in compliance or twenty one seven moneys can only be used for a liquor license purposes and you can only collect what the department needs so we only return the excess money that is in the liquor fine the liquor education fund is a different find that is funded soley by liquor license fines so it's we don't return any money it stays there it's just that we're limited to the use of it here on the stand by so you know i'm ok i do think that we should should amend the law anyway and i agree you know if that's what it says that's what it says but that doesn't mean it can't be amended so we can make better use of it the problem we're running into here is that we have a tremendous amount of need for social services to then be used as ten percent of the for educational component is that correct senate bill for seventy and the portion that you're talking about is to eighty one seventeen to twenty one seventeen three so senate bill for seventy and this is in reference to the liquor education fund only this is find money strictly find money find money only yes so it's a separate fund from our liquor fund where we operate our salaries our operational budgetary b and c account this is a separate a column it's a revolving account what senate bill for seventy did was it expanded the use of this money so that we could provide educational programs not only to liquor license fees and their employees but also to the commission staff which is the department commissioner's liquor control and then they also put in a provision where fine monies not to exceed ten percent a year fines accumulated so i take it to be whatever is the balance that that any given time may be used to fund public or related education or enforcement programs or the department could now go out and assists me like i said organizations such as matter maybe go into high schools and give them education we were limited to just using it for licensees and their employees anymore so the out of the ten percent that that was the balance for me could have been used for the educational component how much in your budget was exactly and what did you use it for during the regular county time as far as salaries being allocated how it they would clarify it but we couldn't give education or help and assist in such programs as maybe be a teacher or those th actually fund it using this if we were we were part of it doing the education that's and we can use it but we don't actually put money in a set aside for it because at any given time it's available for use so you haven't you realize we use it currently for because over the years they've been so has the tent and not used it for the wrong thing whether it be finance or the administr at that time because the liquor education fund came into effect in the early one nine hundred ninety s and it was everybody's has a tent on using it yeah ok so but right now we're using it for certification purposes so where our light our person goes out and educates the licensees and then ploy ease on different islands also understand that part of it i'm just trying to narrow it to the educational component to the public so in the past i guess my question is in the past you haven't utilize it and what is the estimate of of that amount of money has been there  that specific comported educational component and on average what is what are we always left with the pot so that we could utilize it for educational purposes for the public well currently ten percent would probably be around thirty thousand or thirty thousand so roughly thirty thousand that we could work with and determining what educational organizations you folks would like to work with is that correct more open to any suggestions it's just not something that has come up all ok so you don't have so black and white question you haven't utilized it for the public educational portion of it being under the senate bill for seventy now ok thank you thank you for  please committee so last year they received a little under forty eight thousand dollars in revenue so if they were to spend down their balance and if it's ten percent of the cumulated balance then yes it's around thirty thousand dollars but if it's if they zeroed out their money each year and they're receiving only forty eight thousand dollars in fines we're only talking about four thousand eight hundred dollars worth of money to be able to be spent for other purposes so just one just that perspective to understand is that yes there is a balance available right now in that fund if it does get depleted looks like the total expenditures were around seventy thousand this past year so the fund is being depleted as well  y're going to not i mean for a while you'll have thirty maybe twenty five in twenty thousand and fifteen just understand in fees fines or are in unreliable source of money because that depends on somebody violating you know so if there's no violations and there's no more money received i just wanted to share that with the committee as well as if i read you correct there's not a guarantee as far as the funds going into this particular educational fund because it's based on fine that's correct yes so just as a personal note i like the idea of using these funds for public education i think that it's something that would benefit our community but just to be understanding of it's not going to be a reliable funding source well then maybe we need to add some more changes like a so i'm just throwing out an idea i don't want to put anybody in this position of saying what we can do that but that would be another option if we could convince the legislature which is not an easy task overall to maybe set aside a percentage of all the licensees collected licensing funds collected not only fines but the exit licensing fees that are being collected the small percentage for the purpose of you very much share your exactly where i was going in we're not trying to take up reading funds away from the liquor department that's not not the objective idea is that i know that it's a tremendous amount of money and i think it would be really interesting for us to kind of look at distant to sticks you know we're not talking about thirty thousand we're talking about a lot of money that is generated by liquor and that's the part that i'd like to go and you know and it will take legislative change in a new way of thinking and all that that's always difficult when we start talking about that to things like liquor which most of us i'm not one of them but a lot of people enjoy it and so you know there's a lot of money we all know that bars are the money makers in all the best right operations that have it and hotels and everybody everybody makes money so there is some money and i really would like to see some of it put into mitigating the harmful effects of alcohol so that's where i'm going because we've got a fine money we don't have endless money to take care of our communities problems but if you've been injured by a drunk driver in your city your son or daughter or even yourself gets hurt or killed bombs because of it so it's a life long process you know ancyl but when you lose a loved one or someone is injured permanently when they become a  or even worse bedridden for which the effort and experience to take care of that person is astronomical what bill do we put in front of that so i greet you will hardly any other discuss make those appropriate county decisions and i would say for one that our county to lead it i was kind of proud of is how they approach cruise ships and when a liquor license was required there was uniformity state why would all the other three commissions but my we took action i thought i think it was part of a smart way to get some additional revenue and at the airport for a show that the commission can make good decisions and we need commission us that don't have a problem doing what we feel is the appropriate requirements if you want to have a license in this county and that that shall be required education if we have commissions that don't want to support it then i got good luck on confirmation from the council so i would say we have all week to and make sure that policy gets implemented and i would say that's one of things that we should be asking for is within the parameters of the statute allow each county fair jurisdiction that the child allows them under self governance and i would say that that we make the appropriate call and include things that i feel is i want to support that missed by so brings forward and we need those statistics how much are we getting how much finance generous is it under aged drink clean illegal dispensed scene whatever it be let's go find out where you read what is the categories of issue and then see if you make sense if specific directed programs to address the areas that is creating the problems for us in our community but it needs to be a much more strategic approach to all of this around this thing i was just shooting i want to shotgun and see what hits the wall is not good enough for this county anymore and i think that part of what we're trying to implement in our new fiscal discipline is strategic you need to be strategic in your operational planning and programs so i support the intent of missed by and look forward to legislation that we can support thank you thank you mr holcombe and i am agree with you wholeheartedly i believe that this is just one of many steps that we have to take i think by the awareness and the public being made aware of it i think it's very important one question i would have for you is it possible to get the breakdown as far as the fines and what the fines were based on  county to see if we can get some some sort of say in the liquor laws around here well i'm not disagreeing with you guys i think that we all feel the same way however you know there's an old saying i read take baby steps to get some results early and just go for the big because we sent this down in the last couple years and it's just been shoved a site so let me warn you that i understand the state does not take take this well the night it was they may have put some language did this last year and to you not to see and to open  up the floodgates as far as looking at what the problems are but they're not giving us anything you know it's like t t and all the rest of the subject matters they're not giving us anything they just keep saying we're looking at it we're looking at it and doesn't seem to help us on the county level so i gree you and we still calm and everyone streaming in this respect any other questions if not i will move with no objections to defer this matter thank you very much and we'll take our morning break i will ask everyone to be back by ten forty five because i know there will be ten fifty but ten forty five this meeting is in recess here from the department of civil defense and i have missed the boss here to explain how in the past this fund has worked as mr abbas had mentioned and again i think i have minutes for which he had discussed to for the purpose of funding a public emergency threatening life health property or economic viability of the county we do have funds available in there as of june thirtieth was twenty seven point two million dollars and so you know there's a significant amount in there it's not as much as i'd like to see in there as you mentioned i'd like to see anywhere between fifteen and twenty inactive i think but in two thousand and five and the one use of the fund was in for a storm in december of two thousand and seven bucks one point seven million dollars out of this fund was used for that storm recovery other than that  we have been able to deal with most emergencies with the funds that are appropriate it to the programs and they've been able to absorb those costs there's a caution that you know the funds have departments are now coming to me saying that they may not have enough funds in case of an emergency and so they want to access the emergency fund and i  very much try to keep that from happening but will work towards that we can have this discussion today so i feel and questions about it is focused as here as well she is our civil defense administrator and in charge of our emergency now there's twenty seven point two million dollars shown in that fund the council did appropriate four million dollars additional into the fund so we estimate the balance at the end of two thousand and sixteen to be thirty one point two million dollars thank you michelle so if you'd like to cover a little bit of balt types of emergencies some of the challenges  the funding was not available to us immediately thank you mr baas sated we have only utilized the funds from this one time and that was in a situation where sometimes we will have an emergency or a natural disaster that will affect only one county or only a portion of a county and it will have an impact a pretty devastating impact on that particular community but it doesn't qualify us  for declaration it doesn't meet certain criteria or thresholds before fema would make a declaration so on those types of events where we had for example in the flood in two thousand and seven where we had a lot of debris and things like that that came when we had the microburst of rain very heavily concentrated we had some property damages and we had a lot of damage to county infrastructure at the same time so those costs are then borne by the county departments and obviously sandy talked about a one point seven million dollar use of the fund so when you look at that type of amount now what if our departments were going to be seeing that cost incurred as something that they hadn't really budgeted for and with the inability to make some changes perhaps within their program they might be strapped in terms of being able to meet those funds when we do have enough for a state wide declaration which we had for example last year during is cell we then can submit certain costs that are allowable under the stafford act for reimbursement at a seventy five percent reimbursement rate so those are things like emergency preparedness measures and that's how we were included into this last declaration we did have some damages in certain projects that were also included but the majority of our actions were pretty storm actions that were to prepare us to weather the storm so those costs then are also allowable for him for reimbursement once there has been a declaration so when we look at that there was a significant amount about two hundred twelve thousand dollars in just emergency preparedness measures that were submitted to fema and will be reimbursable at a seventy five percent  rate from fema if we were to have use the disaster excuse me the emergency fund the amount that is used then would be counted as our twenty five percent match to the fema  reimbursement so again there are times where we've are having to take actions head of a storm and incur costs within the departments and if like what has just happened in the last recent weeks with the last two storms what were they killed garo and hilda hilda not so much because we've done some of our preparedness actions for gemmell but there are going to be costs that were borne by the departments that are now coming out of their operations funds that was for we were fortunate that there was not a need for a declaration for that particular event at the state level they have their separate disaster major disaster fund and when there is a declaration by the governor that allows the departments access to that fund at that time but we don't have that kind of provision here it would be something that we would talk with the administration with budget about to see if it was something that we're incurring been extremely blessed and very fortunate that all the storms over the last number of years have really bypassed us or just barely affected us you look at what has happened with the last year in on the big island specially the seniors if it's a matter of when and this is why i think it's important for us to understand that this fund even if it has twenty one million sounds a really big one disaster could initially wipe it all out and hope it never happens but if it does at least we have some mechanism to help ourselves also if i'm not mistaking fema takes quite a while for am i correct in saying that that is correct they're doing their due diligence obviously there's been a huge increase in the number of disaster declarations throughout our country and so when fema goes into a affected area and makes a declaration they're checking every piece of documentation to make sure that the funds were spent as they were to be spent that they've done mitigation measures to try to prevent it from occurring or to lessen the impact in future events and also just to make sure that they're complying with all the local state and federal laws  but seven hundred ninety three thousand dollars was returned lapsed so the only actually was less than a million dollars of the fund so even though counsel said ok you can have up to one point seven million dollars actually spent a little bit less than a million ok thank you and thank you that even though people say oh we have money but you know that can go unheard you know does it take much you know one serious like what you think we're like we saw i don't even want to think about what that has cost and i don't know that they've ever stop paying or ever will stop paying so it's really really important that we put money away so really i have no questions thank you thank you mr cochran cherno no question just commend the department for being a very responsible and really keeping us prepared for such events because hearing through the community i don't hear the panic things happening all the waters off the shelves and toilet papers or who knows what else people get down on for emergencies  so i think the department and it's important that we have friends here for them to utilize and i think that the pardon but i also like to think the state defense and the news media because they're constantly bringing out your emergency kidson you know what you cognizant of preparing us and it's really up to the individual from that point it's not for lack of knowledge it may be lack of willingness to be prepared but i think the knowledge and the news does bring it out consistently and civil defense state wide and county wide has consistently passed on that same message i want to thank my electric cars day always bringing this up whenever a storm comes by they're always reminding us of this emergency and what possibilities of not having power discussion of i think mr taylor wants to bring to the water resources committee a kind of a similar policy were maybe since water water department is an enterprise fund of having a certain emergency fund for specifically for the water fund and having you know maybe fifteen to twenty percent of their annual expenditures you know available in a special fund as well so you know it's  something to discuss right now we're just talking about the general fund this money's general fund money for a property tax monies that goes into its we keep it you know for those purposes i did want to i think i brought this up during the budget deliberations as well when we're talking about discussing this fund is right now it does say that it's for you know public emergency threatening life health property or economic viability of the county and  interpretation has been that the economic viability of the county includes if we don't have enough money to pay our indebtedness that you know this could possibly if it was up to the council to to approve possible funding of that as well and so if you wanted to join and just make that language a little bit clearer in here the bond readers have accepted that interpretation and they have been using the emergency fund reserves as a portion of our reserves when they look at the total amount we have of you know the reserve fund balance and the emergency reserves so it does help to make us look like we're we're a better credit risk because we have the but in the time of emergency i often wonder who will everyone look to because the main hub of the fire department and the police department is here but there's no one really with actually i'll talk about in let me go together but separately if that's ok as well as hannah we've done several things in terms of reaching out to them using communications technology so that they are included in our conference calls that  briefings that we have from the weather service and in conjunction with state civil defense and the other fema and other agencies we have been working under the incident command structure so the way that we have structured is that there would be field commanders in all of those districts and for the most part on in hama and on it tends to fall to the captain of the fire department in charge and in happens to be within the police department the lieutenant there is that our main point of contact so there is some turnover at times we have had quite a bit of consistency though for both han as well as actually in that regard those folks though do have full time jobs within their own departments and so using this incident command structure where their district and their the incident commander for their district they have a clear reporting structure through the emergency operations center and point of contact so it works in that regard as far as the communications and then each of the departments would be carrying out their own operational plans for their own  responsibilities and functions within that system i do agree that we could probably do better if we would do better if we had a part time person that was dedicated to that particular  position to represent each of those counties in the past i believe that we've had people identified who were part time but they were not paid positions they've always been volunteer positions but i would like to explore that in terms of how to create those but the charter allows us to even bar if we need under certain situations my only concern is on the bahrain i'm not sure one percent of the total operation of the ceiling should be the gauge because if we just go wrong numbers that's five million dollars for this year for all numbers i would say we should look at something up to five percent again depending on the need the situation and everything else right thing with you know you know you know all of us have worked very hard to ensure the financial sta nine eleven were the company that responded because we had a financial capabilities to do so by disciplined well i think we mean fifteen to discipline we can respond appropriately this cash if we have to comes an issue then the council better be ready to take the response that we have been able to explain why we in this position is going to take council action to put us in that financial predicament which we've worked hard to avoid and eliminate better indicator that being forced to do which is already something required by the people so seeing that chairman i would just say i think maybe we want to consider expanding the cap on the amount to borrow in an emergency like this it would work i think we can handle up to five percent of the operational budget if need be for that rare occurrence in the counties requirements every guy neil and i you know basis that i can assure be assured that if we had an emergency we knew exactly where and how to get to that point on the island knowing what the understand of so for me chairman i would see and that's my comments and incident command structure more in the operations side because he does have access to that so when you hear me talking about the police and fire as the incident commander they have more direct experience with the structure and the command piece of it and then under the command comes operations finance planning and admin away what's the other one i got it wrong sorry but they have planning and operations and so we do have be there as part of the operations p as well as  to have helter skelter at that point in time so mr guzman i think my my concerns are with the i guess the the analysis between what is written in the ordinance for the purpose which basically in conjunction with what is written in the charter and in the charter it says in section one point fourteen the reserve may be used to meet any emergency and in the in the ordinance under section three point nine six point zero two zero you're narrowing the purposes for the emergency fund to specific emergencies which is life threatening health property or economic viability of the county so my question is if the charter says any emergency how can an ordinance narrow it to specify the type of emergencies and i also agree that economic viability of the county which is part of the purpose is not really defined discussed but a million or twenty years is just a legal question because how can the charter you know in specific language say any emergency and then an ordinance that is supposed to be suburban to the charter specify the type of emergencies i think you're going so in area that i don't want to cover it i can put that as a question i can forward it to corporation coun committees behalf and ask to get a response on that specific question ok ok and then the definition of the economic beilby early viability of the county as one of the purposes for what  only reason why i brought this for was because the ordinance narrows that use so if we wanted to really actually expand it some point which the charter would allow any emergency wardens of venice from doing so  and the definition of economic viability of that county is up in the air you know what does that mean but ok so just to clarify thank you thank you mr white no questions or thank you thank you for preparedness ok we can add that to it i mean i think i think that would be a reasonable something for us to consider in the next review and i'd also add the various over the last three years the various system fund this is our last item of the day and today we have here we lieutenant art yeah come on up and i'm the only reason i'm not introducing your i forgot your name i apologize i'm having today on a part that i thought i could see once you join us and then please introduce yourself but then if you would start jerry sheppard we passed this in the last session and the new fun and char chapter have been recently  revised recently to deal with the numerous false alarms that have been occurring here in ma we conti thank you much to the police department first of all because they brought it forward and used to bring it forward to the council itself and we passed  saw we wanted to know an update on how the implementation has been working so far so off and attended the days would you start and then we can also go to corporation call so if she would like to add anything to it and then we'll have in getting this thing here going right now where in the stage what we've made a request for proposal it was advertised there were some bidders that came to light the evaluation committee selected a vendor were in the process right now of getting a contract and the better is trying to comply with the requirements of the request for proposal so that's where we are at  right now but once we get that it gets it's real quick when the thing gets the contract gets into place the department is ready to move on this thing it's just getting the p so working with the whole police department all of the the people who are trying to go ahead then get the computer systems in line so that we can maintain some kind of database and service charges and registration fees for this fund it's in place already so it's moving along very nicely if you'd like to add just that once everything gets prepared we'll be able to work the contract very quickly and once the contractor comes on line they're providing turn key service so basically all the notifications to the background chair about two and a half years ago i had read in the paper about a false alarm system or at least ordinance from a law who and they were very successful  fines in less than a year or a little bit over a year and then when we had contacted honolulu there their base problem was they had collected so much fines that the their entire department was being inundated with more work as it was slowing down the department and they didn't know how to collect it they were they were behind in collections so they were looking at vendors that would go out and during that year had actually gone in and looked at a pilot program that was presented at m p d and this was cry wolf was one of the vendors that was the vendor that honolulu was using and it seemed very effective in terms of registration would be conducted as well as payment of the registration fees and attachment to that would then be in the ordinance a revolving find how would we pay for the vendors and the implementation of this the program so an attachment to it would be the fund that you have presented here on your agenda so anything that would be collected from registered registration would then be served to pay the services of the vending applications so i think we were we learned from honolulu and we did one i think we took steps to progress even further past that in creating a committee when this came forward and i think we support it wholeheartedly i mean i myself have an alarm system and you know when a false alarm is transmitted in the police department are sent two cars not just want to because they have to have backup right lieutenant score and so that takes two officers off the beat at that point in time for other emergencies i'm keenly aware of it and i think it's time that we get this taking care of it so that people will maintain their alarm systems in the proper manner i think that's when one of the biggest concerns is the improper use and maintenance of alarm systems and so you good it may be time to take action so i'm glad to hear we're on the way  white do you have any questions for the department no question the support the concept and i'm glad to see the movie thank you mr carroll any questions  seeing i want to commend the department and corporation counsel thank you for your hard work in the committee's work to get this brought forward like the others if there are no more questions i will move on now move i want to what you know i think i'm very proud to say that i think we question a lot of different boundaries and i think we've asked a lumber of very interesting questions and hope to get responses in the not too distant future and as i get those responses i will schedule this