good afternoon the meeting of the housing human services and transportation committee when i'll come to order it's about one thirty two p m on thursday january seventh twenty sixth the before we beg we all turn off or silence our cell phones or other noisemaking devices at this time i'd like to introduce our committee our voting members the chair  our non voting member of my white may be joining us later at this time i'd like to introduce our administration representatives with us is our newly appointed i know how much it's been announced  someone from the planning department as well as a representative from finance with us also from corp consul as jerry shepherd deputy corporation called so thank you for being here and in the gallery is mr ed khushi committee staff who diligent do their due diligence on our behalf is  and our legislative attorney carla nakata members we have a single item on the agenda to be so let's get started with public testimony in reference to is no one really thank you we have no coverage for the honda office our aid from the honda district office is not available today so for our public testimony for individuals who will be testifying in the chamber please sign up at the desk located in the eight floor lobby just outside the chamber door if you will be testifying from the remote testimony locations specified on the meeting agenda please sign up with the council the location testimony would be limited to the item listing from the agenda today pursuant to the rules of the council each testifier will be allowed to testify for up to three minutes per item with one minute to conclude if requested when testifying please state your name and the name of any organization you are representing at this time thank you deputy director from planning michel make dean for being here thank you mr mike white thank you as one of our non voting member chairwoman and council members my name is lee chaplin representing the maori bicycling league i'm here today to voice my support for the bill under discussion establish an maoi metropolitan planning organization also known as the governments can move forward with critical transportation projects like new highways and transit lines with the commerce that they will have a federal partner over the long term the federal partnerships roll to the states to provide funds guidance and standards to do this this is done by requiring that a metropolitan planning or as they should be designated for each urbanized area with a population more than fifty thousand people in order to carry out the metropolitan transportation planning process as a condition of federal aid r s function is something of a counterweight to state local governments this is important because different levels of government have different set of spending federal transportation funds now has this complex cities with diverse places urban and rural regions neighborhoods with some thriving and others more challenge effective efficient transportation networks are key to a healthy fully functioning community design of patient often transportation networks a complex problem requiring much focused time and commitment county councils time and commitment to this issue can be greatly reduced to the confidence of the m p o bears great responsibility for accomplish this task even more time to address the many other issues throughout the year beyond what is necessary to create the optimum transportation network metropolit planning organizations bridge these challenges them peels dedicate the time and used performance space planning and programming which emphasis is a deliberate thoughtful and structured approach that ensures transportation projects are based on full information benefit commitment to an investment in bicycle facilities in walking that works which have shown help create communities that are cleaner have healthier air less congested roadways and are more livable safe and cost efficient other states have adopt planning organizations have either successful extent of improve the testing and bicycle transportation networks that provide functional connections and has transportation choices so my bicycles belief is that the m p s function to serve an overall coordination metropolitan planning organizations and request the formation of the m p o be required to have a technical advisory committee or a citizen visors committee dedicated to bicycle issues being a league stands ready to be part of this committee or committee dash tonight the committee is in receipt of county communication fifteen dash two nine four from the director of transportation transmitting the following a proposed bill to fulfill federal and state transportation planning requirements the purpose of the proposed bill is to authorize the mayor to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the state of hawaii to est metropolitan planning organizations so that the county is eligible to receive federal funding for transportation planning and able to carry all coordinated and integrated metropolitan transportation planning the committee may receive a presentation on the proposed molly metropolitan planning organization including the proposed intergovernmental agreement and federal and state requirements for funding eligibility for transportation planning the committee may discuss the proposed bill and members there's no real legislative action that will be taken hearing this extremely important document that has that can have very detrimental consequences with our funding if we don't move it forward it's essential that we  process move this process along because we're about three years behind the deadline to do this without further ado i'd like to turn it over to deputy talk i'm worried to handle thank you very much again thank you chair and committee members thank you for having us today to allow us to provide you with some information on what i appeal is and this function in this presentation i'll be quickly going over the over the federal laws that govern the metropolitan transportation planning process what a metropolitan planning organization is what its required products are and what the potential structure of the mali m p o so before the fed or so before the federal government can require states and counties to create the metropolitan planning organization they need to create an authorization act such as map twenty one and most recently fixing america's surface transportation  act which establishes the funding programs maximum funding levels and legit eligibility requirements these laws are found in the united states code in both the federal highways and ministrations side and the federal transfer administration side what is a metropolitan planning organization or m p o well m p o is a federally mandated and federally funded transportation policy making organization m p s are triggered when the u s census designates a urbanized area of fifty thousand people or more congress created in pos in order to ensure that existing and future expenditures of governmental funds for transportation projects and programs are based on a continuing cooperative and comprehensive three c planning process them peel must corporate terribly develop and approve the required products so this map outlined in the outlined in the both green color shows the metropolitan urban zone area which again is a census designated urban area with a population of fifty thousand residents are more the metropolitan planning area is the boundary of which the metropolitan transportation planning process must be carried out the current metropolitan planning area for the maui m p o is the island of maui at a minimum the a or the metropolitan planning area let's include all of the census defined urbanized areas and areas that are urbanising and or areas which are expected to urbanize in the next twenty years there are four major planning products that is required of the m p o with population greater than fifty thousand people there are they are the unified pining work program the long range transportation plan the transportation improvement plan and the public participation plan the first planning product is the unified pining work program which is essentially the m p o is operational and your budget it also identifies transportation related pieing studies its sources of funding schedules and responsible agencies it also includes federally funded studies that addresses federal planning requirements such as for example monitoring the impacts of projects low income and minority population the metropolitan transportation plan or also known as the long range transportation plan for the metropolitan area the long range transportation plan is this is a statement on the way the region plans to invest in the transportation system over the next twenty to twenty five years the current long range transportation plan is handled by the state of hawaii however once the m p o is formed it is the duty of the  create and update the long range transportation plan for maui it covers at least twenty years when i dotted and is updated between every four to five years it must be financially constrained and makes progress towards national state and county performance targets some of the things that are covered in the long range plan is identification of transportation facilities system performance reports financial plans and transportation alternatives and associated transit improvement activities along with community input transportation improvement plan or tip is a prioritized listing of transportation projects covering a period of four years that is developed by the m p o as part of the metropolitan transportation planning process consistent with the metropolitan long range transportation plan and your squad is required for projects to be eligible for funding under the federal laws under title twenty three u s c and title for the one year see chapter fifty three the tip must be financially constrained by year our projects on my island in the metropolitan planning area must involve public input be reviewed and then approved by the m p o and the governor in order to be place in the state by transportation improvement plan our state the last product of the m p o is the public participation plan or p p p the plan is the process by which interested in affected individuals organizations agencies and government entities are consulted and included in the decision making process it will help promote a continuing corporative and comprehensive transportation planning process the public process will be integrated throughout the development of all imperial activities and work product of federal aid transportation funds for the ma in metropolitan planning area the policy board but appoint and determine the powers and duties of the executive director of the policy board would also be able to  committee such as the technical advisory committee and you can't forget about the public as public participation is vital in the metropolitan planning process the policy board is responsible for developing the metropolitan transportation planning process and must act as an independent decisionmaking entity in order to receive and minister federal transportation planning funds currently the proposed make up of the policy board the seven members of the hawaii state d o t director three members from the county council with two x officials and the county planning public works and transportation directors is to seventy nine d each policy board show a point if time executive director of the metropolitan planning are going to who shall be independent of the state and county agencies and lastly the technic technical advisory committee will most likely be at a minimum be comprised of representatives from the state d o t county county planning county public works and county transportation department however the structure will be determined by the  policy board the technical advisory committee shall keep the policy board informed as to the technical merits and issues of any plan studies projects or other products or processes of the m the policy board also has the ability to create other committees i guess based on if they feel it is necessary so that is determined by the policy board as well in closing there are essentially two things that is important to remember due to the twenty ten census and the designation of the new urban zone area here on maui we are required by federal and state law to establish a m p o if we aren't able to move forward with the  o offered early funded transportation related products on maui including both county and state projects would lose funding currently in the step it is approximately one hundred eighty six million dollars allocated over the next five years so that's quite a lot of money to potentially lose if we aren't able to move forward with with and peel thank you thank you members we have before us our resource people also as i mentioned earlier earlier department of public works department of planning department of finance and i will open up the floor for questions for our representative from the department of transportation members it all works out then i think you got the right person in that as the lead dog here i'd like to congratulate mr miller there on his appointment i've worked with him before and i know he's going to do an outstanding job for the county particularly in this area and this is a big undertaking because we're starting something new and of course when it involves the feds the state gets very complicated i was wondering does anybody have any idea where this is going to be located because it looks like there's a new staff that's going to have to be taking care of somewhere and it's an independent body right if i understand this correctly he in their department of transportation basically once the comprehensive agreement is able to move forward the policy board would be able to determine where their new organization would potentially be housed so it's a little difficult for me to say because i guess i'm not really on the policy board and so so it's a little too early to say because of the federal monies every would receive for the operational budget for the m p o i guess the best way to to to get the most bang for our buck would be having the county provide some resources to the m p o so we can then use more of those federal monies to do some more studies now i think that's really great and you know that's a good answer so we would have a federal mon at maximum mostly it would be that the twenty percent but also what what if the county which will be at the table because my most of our projects here on the island are county projects  a lot of the staff members that would be helping with the m p o from the various departments could be used as in kind match as well i said so imagine can be in kind or cash correct that's good that's really helpful because i'm sure the co sir for your comments because some of those were the questions i had for instance you mentioned that the employees the executive director and any staff would be under leave the policy board so that it's not a state federal or county function its own separate function is that how that works the yes so the policy board would be the entity there would hire the executive director and the executive director would be the person that would hire its staff and i guess based on the amount of money  county provides some type of office space as a in kind match i guess the man lost my train of thought well while you're thinking about that lead into my other question the funding is going to come from partially from the county and you're suggesting twenty percent the rest comes from the vast money yeah yes it would be from the federal government is federal government is actually shared state wide so we would be taking us allocation from that monies they shared with the deal ok yeah and lastly  would this be with these folks be civil service or would they be is this completely separate entity and not subject to seventy six they would be employees would not be civil service employees i guess if they're housed in the the county if they're housed in the county where they would not be civil service they would be exempt ok can misplace and we've stated that they're not going to be civil service employee is so can somebody explain what is the legal structure of this imperial what is it considered it i believe that this policy board and this n p r organization are an individual entity i don't know that they have a business type they are going to be a policy board making  planning coordination recommendations to the counties planning branches and the counties planning branches participate in the maui planning organization the metropolitan planning organization so sort of like a co existing committee and the bill is designed to allow the county to acknowledge the existence of this organization so that it can be funded through federal monies passed down to the state and the county and then it's just a stand alone organization created for compliance with federal law i know that's going to disconcerting to me you have this thing floating out here well who is it responsible to you it's not really responsible to anybody it's responsible under the federal law for coming up with planning recommendations how well funded what kind do it well the funding be going through because it's not a nonprofit unless the board will establish such what is what is said in the intergovernmental agreement as to the type of structure that we will set up for is functionality i see my lustrous boss approaching capricious nothing like that it's a government agency created by pursuant to federal law it's a stand alone or a commission created by federal like you we need to place them somewhere in our county code to get an organization that helps well i don't care what movie not with it so it's got to be accountable to ask later as we if jon's petition can sort of brief us with the intergovernmental agreement summarize it it needs but in answer to our question the organizational structure we understand is dead but who does it report to basically all of the projects that planning projects that are being done on maui in the metropolitan planning area would would i guess if it's fiscally constrained it would make it and it would be made on to the transportation improvement plan which would then go into the steps of once those projects are finalized in the tip the policy  void for that and if if everything looks good from the policy board standpoint that is then transmitted to the governor which then the governor and the m p o have have to sign off on that to make it into the step so i so basically anything that is happening down at the policy or n p r level still needs to go up to the governor has to approve it as well as the federal highway and track and transit side they also have to approve that what you're saying about approving the actual structure but it doesn't it doesn't give us a fine line as to who the policy board as well as the  organization properly then we don't get funding so in terms of the hierarchy of who has a last straw say i will see nobody but their regulations are in place to the m p u they have their own separate books and money or how does this work mr tuck them or the in the enter government agreement there's a section that allows the m p o to set up by agreement with the department of transportation our county department transportation as an administrative function so that any monies that were or any fines that would come down through from the feds through the state to it would go through the county through our department as a grant to the m p o so it kind of sounds like whether it's not formal or not that you would be kind of paying attention to what they're doing i mean i'm concerned about because we're talking comfort level about how this is going to be monitored if any yes basically the the the makeup of the policy board the decision making by this is in making body of the m any questions i guess should should the county council have any questions or concerns so does this make sense that once the policy board  is established or are set up they were set up the structure and then get the approval or submit their recommendation what does it go to the governor for approval determine what they feel is necessary and how they feel that how they need to structure i guess the m p o basically they need to follow all state and federal requirements so the so basically the state and the feds are still going to be looking down to see what molly embryo is up to and if it's not meeting their expectations they can definitely cut off any funding to them  had to stand that misplaced tear when i look at this this is what i'm looking at and it's very clear you know once we have a policy board and we have an executive director we have technical committees and if basically from the from the trainings that have been given and the metropolitan planning process basically the policy board or the o is really overseen by the public because because this whole structure is based on the i guess the planning process for the island of maui i mean it is very important that the public is involved in indeed in kind of helping along the various projects so so technically if if the n p r is doing something that the public doesn't like i mean that's that's sort of a big fight in the sense that the feds are created this to make sure that public input is vital we understand that we're just trying to fi in the organizational structure if the reports to ship are these products that the m p o will be producing will be submitted to the state to be incorporated with the state's transportation plan they're also communicated to the federal government and based on all of that as long as they're complying with the comprehensive ongoing requirement to cooperate in this universal transportation planning process then we continue to receive the monies when we stop doing that we stop getting the money because that helps i understand what you're saying but i have been around for a very long time and i have go with multiple boards and about us not watching what's going on in our community so it's important to me i want to see this m p u s stablished it s a p it terrifies me that we're three years behind time and we could lose federal money if we don't move quickly  really be happy if there was one entity that would have different responsibility to oversee and pay attention to what this policy board does because the fact that they have jobs to do doesn't mean it's going to happen i'm sorry set in law but it and it's not a matter of do we want to do it or not i think the feds are saying we have to do it you know so i'm again the policy board is on its own three or four members of this body will i if i may ask when i look at the the agreement under composition and authority it mentions members of the policy board if i see committees as some committees and so it doesn't it just says that doesn't say the other day mr couch thank you i maybe i can help and correct me if i'm wrong on we're making this ordinance with this agreement so i think ultimately it's the council because we can change the ordinance right at any time in my opinion but we are also looking that we are also looking at this from a maui county point of view they're all over the country and i  give you portland for example portland has multiple cities in multiple counties and they have one metropolitan planning organization that sits above them not responsible to anybody it's whoever puts the members on the board and in counties around there because they're the ones that have to make sure that the roads connect the problem is here we don't have multiple cities and counties and everything we have maui county and the state we already have that kind of agreement sort of we have disagreements ok but it's one of those things where it's just going to be us people now accounting department so if we put it here in the language i would think we would be able to change that language is that right we don't know you could always i mean i mean you know we can always amend the law i mean if if you create this now and doesn't work out there are some problems on it right to an amendment subject to federal approval so this is subject to federal approval to well i mean we are trying to comply with the federal law right ok amendments to it we best this draft on to the way the feds have kind of some oversight via the state federal highway transfers transfer administration but we have the capability of changing the composition of the board changing some of the agreements but the state has to agree doing so it's kind of a nebulous saying like i agree with mr khushi a little extra unnecessary red tape but only because the way we are even any of the counties in the state of hawaii are completely different from the mainland and we're being shoved into that little box that doesn't really fit but we have to make it work right so there is no real morgue ok hold on let me guess the as you can answer that off the top of my head it's an executive director and then you have their staff they also have planning staff i believe they have a transportation planner a community relations type of person one person who handles all the financial financial or administrative type of work but they operate separately from the city and county of honolulu so above the executive director bryan gibson is the law who n p o and that are the policy board and that is a pretty big board you have  several council members that are voting five council members i believe you also have state legislators taking part in that board then you have your directors of transportation planning  own board and they've been in existence for over twenty years now i believe so it's been a while aisle since a n p o was formed in the state of hawaii and part of our challenge and trying to find a good model is you know we're separated by water our our roads do not connect directly with with honolulu and their transportation issues are much larger they are considered a large transportation management area because they have over a million over two hundred thousand people or as in our in our case for our urbanized area we had just fifty thousand or more and that's how we got that designation so it correlates with the m s four i mean after the us census that's where we got kicked into in this for an embryo status but speaking from a public works perspective we recognize that there are some consequences if this structure is not developed we have been working with federal highways and the state in developing our  our stick since two thousand and thirteen when the talk of an m p o had started so since then you know we've been still following that same process of the state needs our are the transportation meetings as they develop the projects that are ours we all develop the projects that are feller federally eligible and then oftentimes will well first thing funding will change we neither gain or lose additional monies i think are locked in for federal funding i'm not sure what the federal funding is going to look like after twenty eighteen but from now until twenty eighteen it still remains the same if we kick into the m p o it neither gains or loses but the difference would be the way we plan our projects there would be greater public participation through the policy board there would be greater review and coordination with our departments so now you have planning department public works transportation and the state working together to review the projects that are state projects and county projects that are federally eligible there is a public component through the public involvement plan right now that public involvement plan is through the state but we would have to do is come up with our our own plan that's one of the work product products that mark had mentioned earlier you also mentioned earlier the long transportation plan that was i think are the the one that just got created was done in two thousand and fourteen so we have a break from now until two thousand and twenty when we have to go back and do it again right that plan was done by the state when the m p o gets form it becomes our or the responsibility through the m p o so it's it's a challenge trying to think in that way ok that a government agency is that through colony how is this independent but the way i see it it's there is oversight by the federal government they create the federal law that triggers the need for us the requirement for us to do an m p o and we have some work or the m p o has some work that they need to do if they don't follow through with that work then funding is either i mean there's consequences to the funding both projects and the planning operational funds  another thing i wanted to point out is that now there's a greater communication i'm hoping because now you have an on the policy board council member and ministration and the state working together so it's kind of what i wanted to say but i do support the formation of an m p oh i think it will be positive there are some questions and i know we will be able to get to the questions during this time perhaps a suggestion maybe to have someone from the federal highway administration or state department of transportation their planning branch attend future meetings so that we can all discuss how this comes together both so through the whole infer are step you have the federal monies that are allocated there's a formula that's used to determine how much federal funding reconstruction so we had the federal monies and we had county of match to it when i say that remains the same that's what i mean the the local monies that have been designated from two thousand and eighteen to two thousand and fifteen both i'm sorry federal and local monies they remain the same there wouldn't be just because you're an m p o doesn't mean we gain more monies so are we do is more money it's these the same trying to come up with a better way to say this now let me backtrack a little bit so the state of hawaii gets a big pot of money through the surface transportation program and then it gives state department of transportation has they oversee how that money gets allocated there's a formula to the different counties so the formulas use money gets a portion off who gets a portion collide the big island this is federal highway site and i believe it's the same for the transit site as well but that money for us it stays the same even if we do an n p r but that indicates that there is no is that county funding or federal funding that is going to state highway projects flexibility to move the body were they most needed throughout the state right that money stays the same it was they their allocation would stay the same their allocation in total or and is there a priority given to the urban area over the non urban areas and in respect of funding for projects the reason i bring it up is because we've that if there's no flexibility in th that would be again a discussion with the m p o board the policy board and then you'll have your technical advisory committee providing input to help the board make its decision  working with the state they've developed a set of priorities for congestion management creating or a additional just take for example congestion management that's one of their priorities so they'll put priority on those types of projects but again i think it it'll all go back to what the public input there based on the structure there are five cop city council members all appointed by the council chair it is in there all of voting there is actually thirteen members total on their policy committee but i guess part of the reason why they must have so much people on their policy committees because they are a i guess a large urban area which i don't have a problem with our number being the reason behind that is because we felt that just keeping it as small as possible would be best and then we felt that having the inclusion of the of officials so that was kind of just a thought process initially we started with one voting and then we figured oh well we should add a few more just because and subject matter experts could could be part of the process ok comrie but it also means that you could also change that or amend to have just one voting member and no it's official i mean one representative from the council or or you can have three can change this right if we decide to make three members and no acts of fishy oh we can do that right ok yes thank you may i yes so i think based on the  five city council members i believe on oahu they are city council members are voting based on their districts i think that's part of the reason why because on molly everybody guess that can be changed but i think it under my understanding of are the reason why it was done that way is because i guess on oahu members are not elected at large and so we figure present the whole island so what we this is what i remember a lot who m p o are all bull they've had some issues because their policy board is pretty large so that's one thing you'd want to consider in the make up of the policy board is than once a year saw i would want to consider that in your decision making the ability to get quarrel and i believe that's one of the reasons why it was suggested that a  look at this is an obvious attempt to have the majority of the council sitting on the board and then of course being in support of whatever happened so i think that's a good idea i mean you know if you have five members you've got the majority and they're going to support you know need which is good because we want the m p u to have what it needs so you can do what it needs to do but i'm i'd like to also take a look at page eleven of this agreement down at the bottom dated june seventeenth twenty fifteen they're actually only have three three members from the honolulu city council so i'm sorry about that so i just want to make that correction ok good well that puts them in a different have matching funds so it would be within that work plan is that is that you or is that your question no not really what i'm trying to figure out if is if you have  board is going to submit what about we don't mention anywhere in here how they get money from the county is what i'm trying to say and they need money from the county because they got a match in  address but not counting money because we're going to have to cough up county money minute so that was one of the questions ok maybe that comes with the different departments i'm not sure but we well can you make a note so that we will do more research on that matter yes i'd like to make a suggestion would it be helpful and i know you're trying all you can to get this thing through but would it be helpful if we could get somebody maybe from  for the next time we get together so we can ask yes directly what's going on i'm sure i think it would be very helpful to us to understand what you're doing department of transportation and as well as if you will this is different and it's bigger and whatever but we can just scale it down to us yeah yeah so a staff will put that on the site for us to follow up on and we'll collaborate that with the department of transportation  operation for twenty years or so so they've got a fixed budget i would have or maybe not six but a large budget if you take the money out for the appeal from the total federal funding what's left from our what are we looking at as a as a budget for this operation the funds would come from two places one from the federal highway side there is there going to be providing some funds and then from there for a transit administration side so based on our calculations from the from what we think the amount of monies are going to come to the m p o called mining funds that can be used for operations as well as studies those would be around four hundred thousand dollars a year so we would match eight hundred thousand no twenty five to twenty percent of four hundred thousand the department of planning would like to make any comments especially thank you chair even though planning is in the title of this organization the planning department doesn't have as much of a stake in this process as transportation and public works because we do not plan specific transportation projects and we do not implement transportation projects and transit projects so even though planning is in the name and this is part of a planning process the reason that planning is playing a more prominent role is because it's really public works and transportation that are currently very much involved with federal funding and coordinating with the state we're happy to be involved and participate on the policy board and so forth and in the first meetings that we started attending when this when this came to us we really tried to structure an organization that was as simple as possible and that would allow our existing process to continue as much as possible as as council member chair point a council member couch pointed out been as council member which pointed out don't have a variety of municipalities that need to be coordinated together it's relatively simple here compared to other places and so trying to come up with a structure that allows our existing process to carry on as much as possible and yet still be compliant with the federal requirements that was the goal that doesn't mean that there's still can't be modifications and tweaks made to it but that was that was what we were endeavoring to do and so that's why there isn't a more rigid structure and hierarchy the policy report to council members are accountable to the public the directors are accountable to the mayor and accountable to the council and you know on the state side accountable to the public officials who individually are accountable and all of these projects go through the council budgeting process at some point so there's also that accountability as projects move forward thank you any questions thank you chair not really were here at your request the finance department and i had not heard of an m p o before yesterday afternoon so i'm here as a resource what that is i'm not exactly sure but we appreciate the invite thank you thank so this this document was created by the partner transportation so correct the comprehensive agreement that was developed primarily through our department with input from public works and planning and it kind of it follows to seventy nine de there actually have a section on your report and they require the metropolitan planning organization to summit an annual report to the legislature of all activities conducted by the during the year immediately preceding the submission of the report so that could be something that is also submitted to the council we can we can definitely relate that in so that you guys know what's going on as well spending our afternoon here in the gallery thank you and i see here we also have our department of environmental management in the gallery thank you for being here members without objections i plan to schedule this for a future meeting or a real soon meeting and for now will be for this matter you have no objection ok thank you our agenda we have completed today's agenda i'd like to thank the representatives