Senate Standing Committee on Ways and Means

This afternoon we hear from all four counties regarding their legislative package for the upcoming session. So first we'll hear from the neighbor islands because they probably have flights to catch. So the first county is going to be the County of Hawaii. Good afternoon. Yeah, you can just go ahead. Happy New Year.

Aloha. Chair Donovan, De La Cruz and Chair Kyle Yamashita and distinguished Members of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Finance. Thank you for this opportunity to present our county needs before this Joint Committee at the start of the 2025 legislative session. It's an honor to be here.

I'm Kimo Alameda, Mayor of Hawaii County, and I am 48 days in and I know about 80% of our budget, which is about 100% more than I knew before I started. With that being said, I am concerned about our, our funding for our wastewater similar to the prior Administration.

I mean, you know, we get Hilo, we get hamakua, we get kau, we get kealakehi, and those are obligations that we gotta address at this time. So on top of that is also, you know, concerns for our wildfires. As you can see what's happening in our country and around the world.

You know, we have concerns for fire mitigation that includes, you know, exit routes, buffer zones, fire breaks and such. Along those lines, we also, you know, we have a big island. So, you know, we have some needs on em, you know, emergency responders. As you know, our fire stations are kind of far from each other.

And I'm thinking about Makale right now. You know, we don't have an EMS there. And these are some of the concerns that I've noted here. In addition to, you know, deferred kind of maintenance on our wastewater in the last eight years, we also have deferred construction of new projects, you know, like playgrounds, play courts, comfort stations.

But these are items that I believe we could, we could Fund with our, with our property taxes. Lastly, I gotta, I gotta share with you guys that, you know, we appreciate the transit accommodation tax, the GT tax, fuel tax, you know, because these funds support our infrastructure, especially helping to mitigate the impacts of our tourism industry.

And so we appreciate that. We look forward in continuing to utilize those funds for that. And you know, let me just end by saying too, that, you know, as mayor, I support our Big island delegations requests, you know, especially around infrastructure, because they know our county's needs through the state eyes, and I'm here to support them.

I give them my unwavering support without any, any reservations. And so I yield at this time for questions. Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna try to get to all three counties from the neighbor island guys first and that way people can ask questions just in case one of you have to leave. Sounds good. Thank you. So next we'll hear from the County of Maui.

Good afternoon. Aloha Mai Kakou, Ways and Means Committee Chair Dela Cruz and Vice Chair Moriwaki. Finance Committee Chair Yamashita, Vice Chair Takenouchi and esteemed Committee Members, mahalo for your invitation to be with you today. We appreciate your continued support and aloha for Maui County.

Before I continue, I do want to send our heartfelt aloha, compassion and prayers to the people of California as they're faced with devastating wildfires and begin to confront the overwhelming journey of recovery and rebuilding. We stand in solidarity with the residents and first responders of Los Angeles County just as they have stood by us today.

I'd like to provide an update on our recovery and enhanced emergency preparedness efforts, highlight Maui County's top priorities for 2025 and share a few key state legislative priorities. We look forward to collaborating with you on this session. Reflecting on 2024 was a year of healing, resiliency and new beginnings.

As you know, August 8th, we were struck by three wildfires that only not only profoundly altered the lives of our people, but also affected everyone across our state, including every one of you in this room and your communities.

This disaster tragically took the lives of 102 of our residents, two that are still unaccounted for, displaced over 12,000 people, scorched over 6,600 acres and impacted over 2,200 structures.

In 2024, we began the critical transition from emergency response to recovery by creating the Office of Recovery, which oversees the intermediate and long term disaster recovery needs and coordinates all recovery efforts between county, state, federal and private organizations. We also opened the Office of Recovery Resource center in Lahaina, centralizing critical services for easy accessibility for survivors.

Critical to the success of our efforts is ensuring this recovery is community led and government supported. Likewise, community engagement has been at the forefront of every step we've taken. To date, we've conducted 44 community meetings in Lahaina and Kula, bringing our team and partners almost weekly to share information and stay connected to the needs of our survivors.

Every meeting is live streamed and at the height of our response, we hosted close to 700 in person participants. Our most recent meeting two weeks ago hosted about 200 participants live and just under 9,000 views online.

Another key undertaking and recovery effort was the completion of the Lahaina Long Term Recovery Plan, a dynamic document that will evolve with continued community input.

Over the last year, 3,833 Lahaina residents and stakeholders participated in 11 different community engagement activities and events, serving as a key component to the completion of the plan, which will guide the rebuild and resiliency of Lahaina. The goal of recovery is driven by one core belief. Rebuilding Lahaina means more than restoring structures.

It means returning people to their homes, ensuring we recognize the faces of our neighbors, our kupuna, our Ohana and our keiki. Without them, we will have lost this battle. Another incredible task we faced in 2024 was clearing 400,000 tons of fire charred debris scattered over more than five square miles throughout the heart of Liona Town.

If you can imagine, this is equivalent to nearly five football fields filled 50ft or five stories high. This immense volume of debris, estimated to require 40,000 truckloads to move, was transported from Lahaina to a newly constructed temporary disposal site. Debris removal was critical to expediting the arduous process of returning homeowners to their properties.

Late last year we were able to negotiate acquisition of land and begin construction on our permanent disposable site, which is 26 miles away from Lahaina, adjacent to the Central Maui Landfill. This acquisition will also provide additional landfilling capacity for years to come for Maui County's municipal solid waste collections.

Last year, 100% of all residential lots were completely cleared, representing a total of 1,390 properties. To date, 99% of all commercial debris has been removed from 146 properties properties with only two remaining. The fire caused extensive damage to Lahaina's water, sewer, roadways and drainage systems.

Thanks to a collaboration with the EPA, the county was able to fully restore water service last August, two years ahead of projected completion. Restoration to sewer service in Lahaina is at 67% and involves the task of assessing 90,000 lineal feet of sewer collection lines. The system is anticipated to be fully restored by next month.

February over 3,000 burned vehicles had to be removed from roadways and major repairs have been made to roadways and drainage systems closed since the fires. One of our major thoroughfares in Lahaina, Honoapiilani highway, reopened on August 1.

Thanks to collaborative efforts between the State Highways Division and the county, restrictions on roadways to various neighborhoods in Lahaina began to ease the past September and the final wildfire related restrictions are expected to be lifted within the next month the county launched an expedited permitting system to assist residents in applying for disaster recovery.

Building permits to date, 206 building permits have been issued, 347 permits are in the queue being reviewed. The first homes in Lahaina and Kula were completed before November of this last year and over 150 single family homes are now under construction.

We also have a 200 unit multifamily complex that has already opened its first phase and it's nearing completion. The county also funded another 89 unit multifamily structure that was destroyed in the fire. The project is well underway with rebuilding and is slated to open this summer.

At the height of emergency response, over 8,000 people were housed in non congregate housing spanning over 42 Maui hotels.

Together over the last year, the State, county FEMA, Red Cross, Hawaii Community foundation, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and other partners have completed the task of transitioning all survivors from emergency housing to various temporary and long term housing options. In 2024, over 500 temporary units were built with another 583 set to be completed in 2025.

These units span over eight different projects in West Maui, Kihei and Central Maui. We've made significant strides in strengthening emergency response and fire mitigation efforts across our county. As just a few examples, we've increased search capacity for emergency and disaster response, adding 41 key first responder positions across Maui County, increased education and community outreach around fire prevention.

We've strengthened our county fire code. We are also now utilizing the integration of advanced technology including fire sensors and AI based evacuation route planning to improve situational awareness and operational coordination in responding to emergencies. Our fire and police departments have completed after Action reports. MEMA is slated to release their report next month.

These reports offer a thorough review of Maui's wildfire response efforts and include key recommendations. Of these, 75% have already been implemented are in progress for police and 55% have been implemented or in progress for fire. Moving into 2025, I've established key three priorities to steer the work of the county.

Much like the rest of our state, housing remains our most critical need. Across Maui Nui. We completed close to 420 permanent units in 2024 and are committed to building over 1400 permanent units across the county in 2025 through the work of various state, county and private partners.

Notably, the county is also developing an affordable housing project on Lanai to better serve our residents in rural communities. We've collaborated with our Congressional delegates to secure federal funding for this project and are allocating additional county funds in My fiscal year 2026 budget to continue its progress.

In addition, several key infrastructure projects are underway to support housing, including improvements to roads, bridges, drainage and water source development. One of our largest individual CIP projects is the Central Maui Wastewater Reclamation Facility, for which we are grateful for the state's support thus far in 2025.

We continue to remain committed to supporting Lahaina's healing, protecting the well being of our people, and rebuilding a stronger, more resilient community. The Lahaina Long Term Recovery Plan, paired with various funding sources, will serve as a key foundation in moving our recovery forward. The primary focus of our newly allocated CDBG Dr.

Funding, as Senator Schatz has emphasized, will be housing, housing and housing. This includes the construction and reconstruction of affordable single family and multi family housing units. We are equally committed to programs focused on revitalizing the economy.

By collaborating with the Maui Economic Recovery Commission and other community partners, we aim to advance workforce development, career pathway programs, key infrastructure projects, and housing initiatives. Utilizing federal CDBG Dr. Funds and pursuing additional support through the EDA, we plan to drive economic recovery and growth.

Other key projects include developing infrastructure for R1 water initiatives supported by over $15 million in recently secured federal funding for recycled wastewater projects in Lahaina. Additional priorities include advancing the West Maui Greenway, which also received over $15 million in federal funding, expanding healthcare services and restoring historic structures in Lahaina.

As many of you know, the US Congress has allocated approximately $1.6 billion in disaster relief to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to support Maui's efforts to rebuild homes. Additional funding has also been pursued and secured to support critical water and wastewater projects, enhance resiliency efforts, and drive economic revitalization.

These funds will work in parallel with our Lahaina Long Term Recovery Plan and the CDBG Dr. Action Plan to help keep our residents home. Since CDBGR Dr.

Serves as a funding source of last resort, we are actively in discussion with the State Administration regarding potential state funding requests and have provided additional information to ensure eligibility for various programs and funding sources to address gaps in state funding.

Our third priority is to care for the land from Mauka to Makai by blending cultural traditions with modern science. We understand that protecting and preserving mainui means recognizing that the well being of our people is intrinsically tied to the health of the land.

A key project we will prioritize this year is initiating the planning process to restore Mokula and Loko Mokuhinia. These sacred and culturally significant sites hold profound importance not only for Maui, but for all of Hawaii.

Our focus will also include expanding R1 recycled water systems for agricultural use and revegetation, aiming to reduce the demand for potable water and decrease reliance on injection wells. Additional priorities include watershed planning and water source development to increase water availability as well as the revegetation and reforestation of areas in Kula and Lahaina.

In tandem, we are looking to enhance workforce development opportunities in agriculture, conservation and natural resource management. This will help to support agricultural planning and food security programs as alternative ways to stimulate economic growth and enhance our community self sufficiency. We're also committed to preserving, revitalizing and reconstructing historic and cultural sites.

This year we are anticipating various bills that will expedite rebuilding in disaster areas and enhance our ability to build affordable housing. We look forward to working collaboratively to identify legislation in support of rebuilding in Lahaina in Kula and finding solutions to simplify the pathway to building affordable housing.

As key partners in supporting these goals, we are seeking support to increase the capacity of Seaworm and Shipti to facilitate housing projects. We're also seeking your support of DLNR CIP funding request to expedite the reopening of Lahaina Harbor.

And lastly, we are seeking $20 million for the Waiale Road Extension project which is slated to begin construction in fiscal year 2026. While the road ahead is long, the state has been an invaluable partner in helping our community to heal.

I look forward to our continued discussions and mahalo for your dedication to serving the people of Hawaii and Maui Nui as we navigate this next chapter together. Mahalo.

Thank you. Next we'll hear from the County of Kauai. Good afternoon.

Hi everybody. My name is Derek Kawakami from Kauai. I have a few Members of my team here today. I have my managing Director, Reiko Matsuyama, our chiefest of staff, Sarah Blaine, our Finance Director Chelsea Sakai, and our Legislative Analyst Polly Phillips. To help answer any questions at the end of this session.

I'd like to start off by giving a financial snapshot as to where the County of Kauai is, who's paying for the services, what we're doing on our end to share in the fiscal burden that the, that the state also has to share with us. And then towards the end, I do have some requests.

So I'll start off with a snapshot of our revenue generation. So real property taxes constitute about 80% of our General Fund. And being so reliant on property taxes makes it really important for us to maintain a strong tax base.

And since our tax values are showing only modest increase over prior year, it becomes even more important to focus on our tax rates. So we continue to protect our owner occupied tax class, which is our people that live, work and play in Kauai with our 3% assessment cap and generous exemptions.

But we are forcing the investment properties to contribute more. We implemented our first tiered tax rates in fiscal year 2025, adding more progressivity to our tax code. We we tiered our non owner occupied residential tax class, generating 9.6 million in additional revenue.

And we also tiered our vacation rental tax class, increasing the highest rate from 985 per $1000 of value to 1220, a nearly 25% increase in any value over 2.5 million.

And we have a high level of confidence that we're capturing most of the revenue because our planning Department has done a stellar job with enforcing on illegal vacation rentals.

In fact, since we've implemented a ordinance over a decade ago, I think our enforcement arm of the Planning Department is only really looking at maybe 15 units that may be operating illegally. And they're very quick and sweet to enforce on those as well.

So we feel that we're capturing most of the revenue that's out there to capture in the challenging tax classification of vacation rentals. So that increase generated nearly $10 million in additional revenue. We increase our hotel and resort rate by nearly 9%. And every single dimensional of that increase to hotel resort went to affordable housing.

So our housing agency went from a budget of about 1.5 million when we came in to about 20 million plus. As we speak of today, in total, the vacation rental class combined with hotel and resort make up about 40% of our real property tax revenue.

When you add in, when you add in what you would consider, and we took away this tax classification, but we'll just call it the residential investor tax class. They constitute about 75% of our General Fund, which means that the people that live, work and play, our local residents, only carry about 25% of the tax burden.

So we're trying to keep our quality of life and our cost of living at an even keel for people that live and work in Kauai. We continue to make good use of our get and tat revenue sources and combined they generate about $70 million for our General Fund.

So thank you very much to the Legislature for giving us that tool. We're putting it to good use. With the use of GET, we're able to budget a record setting $35 million towards resurfacing road resurfacing projects in fiscal year 2025.

The asphalt companies are struggling to keep up with the amount of work that we're putting out there for TAT spending. And we're very cognizant that part of the genesis and essence of the TAT was one to support colonies, but also it was also intended to reinvest into the visitor industry itself.

So for our TAT revenue, we focus it on destination management action plans and bringing that plan to life. Our Office of Economic Development is working on the Coconut Marketplace mobility hub, which would include a shuttle from the airport, similar to what was done by the state and Hanalei initiative at Haena State Park.

Overall, for whatever revenue we control, we are making the difficult decisions to increase taxes and fees and then utilizing those increases through programs that will directly benefit our communities. While real property taxes make up 80% of our total General Fund revenue, salaries and benefits eat up that 80% of our General Fund revenue.

This basically leaves TAT and other miscellaneous fees to pay for any and all services that we provide. Our General Fund goes primarily towards public safety, using over half of our entire General Fund.

And while it looks like our General Fund revenue far exceeds our General Fund expenditures, we have to subsidize many of our enterprise funds using that gap. Solid waste, wastewater, gulf and now affordable housing are beneficiaries of our General Fund revenue.

Since those funds do not support themselves with our increase in tax rates, the General Fund contributed a record breaking 14.9 million in fiscal year 2024 and 20.1 million in fiscal year 2025 towards housing. Speaking of Housing. Let's speak about some of our housing accomplishments. According to whoever wrote this, Limaola phase one is jamming.

Our second Keaulaula project at Limaola is totally rad at 32 units of supportive housing that was open in the fall of 2024. And if you folks are unfamiliar with Keolaula, it is very similar to Kahuiki Village. In fact, we took that model and ran with it.

And if you folks are ever on KAUI and want a tour, we'd be more than happy to accommodate. Also in limaola, we've completed 45 units for workforce rental and 40 units for senior housing. Keys are being distributed on all 85 units as we speak.

Additionally, we wanted to take a look at doing something sort of out of the box and address what we would call our working professionals. So firefighters, school teachers, nurses, everybody that makes a little bit too much to qualify for our workforce housing initiatives and makes far too less to qualify for what's on the market.

We built our first eight single family homes in Limaolong and we have new residents in them and they are 99 year leaseholds.

So the ability for our working professionals to achieve the dream of home ownership through leasehold and start working themselves up that ladder is being done on kaui and we plan to take that model and roll it out to 38 more units later on on this Limaola initiative for future development and things that I will not be around to cut ribbons on.

Looking at planning and pre development work for 700 acres total in Kilauea and Waimea. The land was purchased by our Administration and it's getting prepped up and planned for future administrations to be able to take it and continue to administer their vision as far as affordable housing into the future.

Our currently conducting due diligence for more potential land purchase opportunities in the central and south sides. As we know growth is needed in those areas as well.

And since we consider ourselves pretty good partners, we repaid our $12 million DERF loan that the Legislature was so generous to us ahead of schedule because we wanted the state to take that DERF loan and get it out to other counties for future affordable housing needs.

But that in and of itself saved us $7 million in debt service costs which we'll be able to use for our future affordable housing developments. Now here is where I do some of the begging.

We do have some requests which we haven't come in front of the Committee I think last year, but many of you folks are familiar with our Vedina stadium. You provided CIP funds in 2022.

For phase one of this renovation project, which has all been encumbered and will cover replacement of the track, putting in artificial turf for the field and the scoreboard. And we want to do a great job with this renovation. So we are going to be requesting phase two money.

And this would cover Ada compliance, bleacher improvements, lighting, refurbishment of our bathrooms and locker rooms, and food booth facilities. Vidina Stadium is home to the kif. And in case people are unaware, Kauai is the one island where the county provides a lion's share of the high school athletic facilities, including football, track, track, soccer, baseball, softball.

For the most part, the KIF interscholastic sports are played on county facilities and maintained by county associates. Similarly, for Hanapepe Stadium, we are requesting additional funding to be used for structural and safety upgrades, Ada improvements and lighting.

A lot of this, I have to admit, is what we would consider scope creep, meaning we came in as the engineers and contractors started to take a look at the job. They raised additional concerns, many of them Ada improvements. To stay in compliance, we're trying to pursue our first public rodeo facility.

We're the only county that doesn't have a public rodeo facility. And. And while we have the land secured, we're looking to partner with some of our local equestrian operators to build an arena that we can be proud of. Lastly, we're working with our delegation to try and make some kind of headway in our infrastructure issues surrounding wastewater.

We are doing facility plans for each of our four regional treatment facilities. And each of these facility plans costs approximately $5 million as it is a comprehensive plan relating to our aging infrastructure and potential expansion areas.

We're hoping to get a match of 2.5 million from the Legislature and we would foot the other 2.5 million because we believe in meeting each other halfway. In closing, I'm committed to making my last two years very productive and to ensure that areas importance are not kicked down the road.

Our legacy is not going to be known as the Administration that built new buildings and shiny things. Mostly we just focus on infrastructure infrastructure and addressing aging infrastructure issues. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to speak and we'll be around to answer any questions. But thank you again so very, very much. Thank you.

Okay, next we'll hear from Honolulu. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Chair Dela Cruz, Chair Yamashita, distinguished Members of the panel. I've noticed all the mayors opened up differently. I'd like to introduce some Members of our team that are here today. First and foremost, Mike Formby, managing Director Krishna Jayaram, Deputy Managing Director Andy Sugg, Chief of Staff Kevin Wong, our Legislative Liaison.

Kevin Auger, Head of Housing, who's on the other side. Dana Viola, Corporate Counsel Anton Krecky, who's Director of Community Service. In the back over here, Dr. Roger Babcock. Michael Keefe, Director of ENV, Deputy Director of ENV, Deputy Director of Communications, ensuring. There's a group of us because we live across the street.

I'm going to talk today with a PowerPoint, but I don't do really well with PowerPoint, so I'm not going to really be looking at it. But it's here. For your information, I think Chair Dela Cruz, you told me before you should have a PowerPoint in one of these.

And so I have one that said, when we took office four years ago, let me just.

One of the things that Mike and I both agreed on, we shared with our team and our expectations for the challenges that we were facing was that we were guys who really believed in the fact that we didn't want any drama and we wanted to definitely have teamwork.

And that teamwork extended beyond, if you will, in breaking down the silos within the city. And our expectation is that directors would work well together. That collaboration, that cross sector collaboration extended out to City Council and certainly across the street here to the state and all of you.

And I'm really proud, I think, of the success we've had and I'm going to talk about that today. I think thematically throughout every slide you'll see the emphasis on cross sector collaboration because it's proving to create really good results for us.

So in no necessary order per se, of importance, a couple years ago we talked about addressing the wicked problems. It was a term that we picked up when we attended the Harvard Bloomberg City Leadership Initiative, which was still very active with that organization.

And we really looked at that and thought that was relevant because we were facing a lot of intractable problems that seemingly had been around for a long time, were going nowhere, and we were determined to make some success with that.

So in that regard, we looked at homelessness first, you know, because a lot of the work I had done before I ever ran for office was in that area. And it was an area that I knew that we were not really having any success for.

And if we were going to do something, it had to be radically different. So we began an unprecedented assault on this challenge. And, you know, if you take the recent point in time count, which I don't often refer to, but estimated at 4,500 I heard the Governor say this morning, at 6,200, I would take you.

What I normally have always done historically with the homeless service providers is double that number. Let's call it 9,000. And even though at 4,500, as the Governor said today, we were the worst per capita in the country at one time, in our homeless situation, that's a serious issue for us.

But even at 9,000, it still represents less than 1% of the population of this island, yet it's in everybody's face.

And so our thinking was that we knew the compassionate disruption just calling HPD and the preponderance of calls that came into 911 every year, dispatching HPD, dispatching EMS, taking people over to Queens, getting them cleaned up, back out in the street, et cetera, wasn't working, that we needed to go deeper than that.

So we meet each week, as you can see, in the spirit of the groups that come together with our city. EMS Corps, Community Service, hpd, State Department of Health, Department of Health Services, Queens nonprofits, not only IHS and Partners in Care, but they end the meeting each week.

But we also are in constant contact with Catholic Charities, Premier Medical Group, Dr. Miskovich, North Shore Medical, Family Practice, et cetera, all working together cohesively. Mike Champion, Dr. Mike Champion from the state is always in attendance as well. And what we've been able to do is really develop a system somewhat based on best practices.

And what we saw around the country that we liked, that really allowed us to create a mobile crisis unit with core to supplement, if you will, EMS and our fire Department, for that matter, when 911 calls would come in and then take either city lands or acquisitions we made, which we've made, two I'll talk about a moment was Waikiki Vista, and the other was Evely Resource Center, Evil a center rather, and have these facilities to house.

So what we've basically done, and this is where the conjunction of work with the state really pays off, is that we have a capability of picking up people on the street and do this in a humane way, voluntarily or involuntarily, based on the situation. But now we have places to take them.

The Governor has already put up 150kalhale. That's excluding the number of beds that we've created in our various facilities. So we have places to take people. The biggest difference in all of it and why we were successful and have been successful so far, is providing treatment services for these people. Wrap around services.

So that's where the working with the nonprofits come in. That's where the State Department of Health and the monies that they have available come in. And quite honestly, if there was a different way of saying it alone, the city couldn't do it, let alone the state couldn't do it.

Combining our resources in this combined assault, if you will, on the challenge is proven to be very good. So we're starting to take lots of people off the streets.

We've said for this year here for 25, we think we'd take 1,000 people off the streets using all the various resources that you see here and ultimately move them to permanent supportive housing. It's not going to end homelessness, but it's a real challenge.

And the thing of real concern is just last week, just last week, the Wbida, which is also not mentioned here, we work with the Waikiki Business Improvement District Association and their Ambassadors of Aloha reported that 78% of all their cases they're taking now are newly arrived individuals.

And Connie Mitchell chimed in from IHS and said that 58% of the people that they're admitting are new arrivals, one way tickets that came to Hawaii. So this is an ongoing battle. We haven't figured out yet what we're going to do with that.

It's just that as we battle these numbers, you know what, the total count remains to be seen and we're going to look at alternatives and opportunities that we can. It's a little bit different. It's not the same as a border crisis in the South. U.S.

citizens have a right to travel within states and so there's interesting laws that come into play. But right now we are going all out to address as much as we possibly can and we're having unprecedented success. And in large part that has everything to do with the state's help.

What I didn't mention here, and the Governor was kind enough today to allude to it, is the ongoing conversations he and I have about this issue. But we're starting to see things really come together and so are other people.

I can tell you that Chinatown, Waikiki for example, and a number of other areas look completely different than they did before. But with this influx of new arrivals, it's posing a real challenge for us and you need to be aware of that.

So as I said, not necessarily in any order, but that's a good segue into affordable housing. But again, the city state collaboration is making a very real difference in the planning, design and construction of affordable housing and the infrastructure that we need to support that. So again, we Work with a working group.

We have Department of Land Management, Dpp, Community Service Corp. Council. I should say that I found it really surprising 4 years ago coming into office. I'm not here to denigrate anybody who came before me, but the fact that the city had one person in charge of housing and homelessness was a major statement. We had an administrative assistant.

Two of the biggest crises that have faced our community for decades, for decades had one person. That was a humble place to start, especially in the middle of a pandemic, to even get the expertise. As I learned very quickly, the world of housing and development, of housing.

And as Richard Barecker wrote this past weekend, it's easy to talk about it, but getting it done is a different deal, a very complex challenge. And so we looked at the situation, the way the city was organized.

And I said a couple years ago at State of the City, if we're going to be problem solvers in the examination of any problem, when you see the organizational structure as part of that problem, you can't do a workaround on that. You have to address that. So we said we were going to look at three different situations.

One was whether or not we should consolidate Department of Land Management and Housing. Two is whether or not we should break up Dpp. Had it become so big that it was such a juggernaut that it couldn't function efficiently. And certainly a lot of people were thinking that. And the third was whether or not we should.

I can't believe I just did this. I've had a cold. I'm sorry. Can I get some water somewhere, somebody? If Canada. It's okay. One thing I rely on is my voice. And here it goes. The third was whether or not we should separate ocean safety. We can take a recess to.

You sort of sound like Marlon Brando here.

We can take a recess. I can't believe this happened. We'll just. We'll take a recess. I'll be okay. I really will be. No, no, that's fine. Is he Italian? No. Yeah. No coming back. I'm in a quick recovery here.

Steph went to go get water. This is from Derek. This is brotherly love right here. Yeah. You got a job. All right. So the third was whether or not we should separate ocean safety.

I just got to call it back to order.

Zero, you're. zero, I'm sorry.

It. Is it. Okay. I'm sorry. No, can we go back? Can we call into order? Okay, go ahead.

All right, sorry. Okay. Whether or not we should separate ocean safety from Ems. So after a year Study task force, whatever. We announced last year that, yes, in fact, we were going to, and we'd have to do a whole reorg, which we just spent the last year doing.

We're going to connect Department of Land Management and Housing, and for a lot of good reasons, not the least of which is what it affords us. In our attack on this issue. Dpp, we decided to hold together, but clearly what we learned was it needed a very serious investment.

We knew it anyway from the audit that was done in 2020. We knew we needed to invest in people, technology and processes, streamline the processes. I mean, the technology was so bad that our investigators in the field were still using flip phones in 2021. I can go on and on.

And the posse system that we're changing was put in in 1998. I mean, you think about that. It's nine years before there was even the invention called an iPhone. Outdated and so on. And lack of investment in people, lack of. Lack of hiring people. Mike did an incredible job getting salaries up and so on and so forth.

So Dpp, we kept. But we're making serious investments. We know it's a big barrier to entry on housing. It was something that was absolutely essential for us to improve and fix, and we are well on our way. And then we did separate Ocean Safety from Ems, allowing both departments to function in a much better way.

And that's historic, and we're really pleased about that and excited about it. But getting back to the housing part, the city was also not in the business of private activity bonds. Hadn't been in the business of private activity bonds for 23 years.

We've already distributed $120 million in private activity bonds, gave 142 back to the state with the condition that with HHFDC, that that money will be spent on Oahu. And in the second quarter of 2025, we're coming to another 138 million. And we're using those monies extensively with developers to help facilitate housing.

We've also found that the monies in the affordable housing Fund had lapsed. And our first tranche of money we gave out was more than $40 million to different levels to developers and their financial stacks, enabling those projects to go forward. We continue to do that. There will be another offering pretty soon.

And then, of course, we kind of brought Bill 7 back to life. We really liked that piece of legislation, but it was going nowhere. And again, in conjunction with the state and the Governor, adding to the incentive poll, we have now begun to really get some Good traction.

That program, which we just went to an Incredible groundbreaking for 90 units last week in Pensacola is beginning to get some real traction. What got in the way of that program was not what we did.

What happened was what we never figured on was interest rates just went through the roof and the cost of materials because of disasters. Covid and everything else were really expensive and it kind of took away. Because these are all private developers.

This is where the city financially incentivizes in conjunction with the state, private developers to take over private lands right here in the urban core. And there are thousands of lots like this. What all the infrastructure you could possibly ask for with all the amenities nearby.

It's a great concept to take over either vacant lots or dilapidated buildings, knock them down and rebuild. And we're starting to see some real traction. We hope over the next four years that will become really evident as more and more people see success in that.

So I do want to give a special shout out to Dean Minakami and his team because HFDC has been really, really good to work with for us. And we recently also in a combined effort using our city lands, Aden Kapolei did the first phase with the Kobayashi group. 401 rental units.

We'll probably do four phases like that out there with lands that we've owned. It's really a great project. All affordable, beautiful project. If you've been out there to see it. We just had the blessing not too long ago. So we're taking a very practical approach.

I do want to say one more thing about the Evole center and Tod. I could talk a lot more about that. And if Kevin's right here, you know that maybe once upon a time was talked about and I'm going to talk about the rail in a couple of minutes. But that's real now. It's very real.

And it's a conversation we have often. The evil a center and our plans and the acquisition that we made of that nearly 3, almost 4 acres, 3.8 acres along with the First Hawaiian bank which we're currently using as a respite center right now, which is full up there, 62 beds right across from our park.

And that whole area and parcels we're negotiating is all done designed to create thousands of units of housing mixed use facility in that area in the evil aid that we see today in the not too far distant future will be very, very different. And we're excited about that.

In fact, we're hearing and discussing more and more housing opportunities and money's coming in interested in developing on Tod. So I couldn't be any more pleased than Kevin. He's certainly here to come up and talk about that at length. He came from the state, you know, is the business.

We've built a team of people who know the business, who are committed. I don't have to tell you, as I said earlier, it's a very complex situation, but you have to have people in order to get the results you're looking for who know what they're doing.

It took us a while to assemble that, but I stand today before you very confident that this city, our city, city and County of Honolulu will make a tremendous impact for our term and for whoever succeeds us in how to get things done in the housing front.

And that's a very big difference from what we walked into just four short years ago. The rail skyline. Very pleased that despite look when we came in, I still remember the headlines.

Okay, headlines were, well, the month before we took office, they removed the CEO, they pulled the P3, they announced another two year additional delay to Ala Moana to 2033 and a $3.67 billion overrun. 3.67 $1.0 billion overrun, additional delays. Add to that the FTA had not given the city a nickel since 2017.

I had a conversation with Jane Williams, the outgoing FTA administrator said, it's the worst project in the country, you better get your act together. I had a conversation with the incoming FTA administrator, Noria Fernandez. She said, worst project in the country, you better get your act together. And as proof positive they weren't giving us any money.

So proud of the success we had all throughout Covid and everything else. Lori Kayakinis stepping in as engineer. The board that we put together, the resolve that we had, we began operations in June 302023.

I'm here to tell you today that the next leg to Middle Street, which will take us past the two gates at Pearl harbor and Airport, will be ready October 1st of this year. That would create a tremendous difference in ridership. The FTA has now been back. They accepted our full funding grant agreement.

We amended, we amended the timeline and the distance by distance by 1.25 miles. It's now going to stop. It's an 18.75 mile run to South Street and Hale Kauila. And we're working on that area now as we speak as the rail becomes very real as we begin the Dillingham push down the corridor.

So we're really excited about that. I've been less concerned about ridership and more concerned about operations because we knew in the beginning going from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, while that sounded efficient at 22 minutes for a ride, the multimodal situation from Aloha Stadium back in on bus wasn't the most ideal.

And also it wasn't really taking anybody to anywhere where they want to go. Getting through the two gates at Pearl and getting to the airport is going to make a big difference in giving people a reason to ride that. And so we feel really good about it.

And the one thing I do want to say, and I want to thank the state because it's different, as I've learned in a lot of other municipalities where they have long term debt on public transportation.

The great thing about this, thanks to the financial support from the state, is when we get there, we spend the $9.8 million and we get there somewhere in 29, maybe 30 on the outside. The whole thing will be paid for, completely paid for as a result of the get and tat.

That's a tremendous contribution to this island's economy. And so it'll be operational from then. But that's different than a lot of places. I actually will be honest with you and tell you that already discussions are starting to take place on what we're going to do at phase two, but I'm not here today to talk about that.

But I am very proud of what we're able to get done with the rail because we went from a narrative of everybody being angry about it, disillusioned, et cetera, to all the conversations I hear today about more rail and how far can we take it and can we go here and can we go there?

Cross sector collaboration, public safety. You know, we've worked a lot with the state and the Federal Government. You know, we've seen, we've seen things that we hoped we would never see. We're dealing with it the best we can, doing everything we can to build our own Police Department.

We've implemented signing bonuses and anything else and everything else we can do in recruiting, it's not been that easy.

But I would tell you that that ability to come together, as we did in Waianae with the rational shootings, what we did, try to calm that community and go ahead, quite honestly, since what we're trying to do since the aerials on New Year's, it's highly collaborative. You know, if I would tell you if there was a.

I said none of these were more equal than the other, but public safety is the overarching number one priority for us. I'm probably going to address it the least today just to tell you that it's an ongoing thing. And when you're mayor you feel that responsibility. The two kids lost this weekend. They get suspended.

Search this afternoon out of the North Shore. They weren't sure if they drowned or if they were even kidnapped and so on. You get that call, you feel that, you feel the anguish for the parents and so on and so forth. So say a lot more about that. But I'm not.

I do want to say, I do want to thank the state for your help with us in DCS and what we're doing out in Wahiawa with our satellite City Hall. We're getting a lot done out there. And I guess I should mention the landfill while I'm here. You know, we had no options. We had to.

We came into office and the Land Use Commission said, you're out of Waimanalo Guich by 2028. In the year prior to our coming in, Act 73 got passed. And so what we did was we set up a landfill Advisory Committee.

They examined six sites, albeit all of them in no pass zones over aquifers, which as a result of Act 73 was the option we were left with. And then Red Hill happened and it made. The issue of drinking water was already everybody's. I think everybody realized how important our water is.

But it took the conversation and the emotions to a whole different level. And so the clock was ticking fast. We asked for an extension because we had already missed a deadline to name a site. We got a two year extension 22 months into our request.

We notified the state in December by way of letter of the situation, what we're up against. And on December 10, we selected the site in Wahiawa. This is not a capricious decision. It was not a capricious decision. It was a decision born out of the fact we had no options. We had to make a decision.

And I do believe if you're going to be in business of problem solving, you cannot problem solve without a decision. We look forward to working perhaps with the state and the border water supply if there's an alternative. But right now that's not how we see it. So our belief is, and Dr.

Babcock is in the room, that this aquifer that we are over in Wahiawa, we were just at Whitmore Village the other night. If there was a place on Oahu called Nowhere, that's where this place is. Okay, it may be in the middle of Dole's pineapple fields, but that's where this place is from the standpoint of its isolation.

That's number one. Number two, we made a promise to the people on the west side that we would not extend Waimanau landfill, kick it down the road.

That we would, after 35 years, we would come up with a new site 800ft over an aquifer with today's technology, knowing full well the technology that was used 35 years ago, which was just a single liner, which has had no mishaps in 35 years.

And what we would do today, along with the EPA requirements, which have only been upgraded and our pumping capabilities, et cetera, et cetera, is foolproof. But I understand the sensitivity and we've been out there to meet with the people, but that was the decision.

And what a lot of people forget is that Red Hill was built in the 40s, was a single hulled tanks 100ft over an aquifer. Very different with jet fuel. This is a very different situation with respect to H power, what goes to the landfill, et cetera. And so we have a high degree of confidence.

None of us would do anything that would create any danger to anybody under any circumstance. And so, you know, we do. We spend so much time talking about buying into today's technology, nobody's questioning whether the tall high rise is going to fall over. I can go on and on with all kinds of examples.

And so part of our effort has been, along with all the other things, is to modernize the city. The city was not when we came into office on January 22021 the city was not operationally in that time zone. It still isn't, but in some places we've caught up.

So just to give you a perspective, we have toxic fuels all over the island, over the aquifer. They're in gas stations, they're double hulled, but they're all over the island over aquifers. And nobody talks about that. Okay? So I have great confidence in Dr. Babcock.

He can come up here today if you have any interest in finding it out. We've looked at the technology. We know what our capabilities are. And unless we can, you and somebody else has a different solution. I can tell you I have no belief that the Act 73 will ever get repealed.

I'll just be candid with you, which is why I bought into this. Because what that will do is it'll move it closer to houses, schools and hospitals. I think the yell cry on that is going to be even greater. But we are open to solutions, but we had none.

We Made a decision on the only option that was available to us. I feel like I've been up here a long time. There's a lot more I could say. I just want to finish up with Dpp, because I alluded to it earlier. Clearly that Department had been broken for decades.

Clearly that Department was at the source of not only frustration, anger, but quite honestly, very, very costly to the city, to homeowners, all kinds of people. And the Governor talked today about cost of living. That's a subject we talk about all the time and what we can possibly do to alleviate as well.

Dpp, in the spirit of, I hate to sound cliche, time is money. DPP was very costly. We have come so far. I'm so proud of Don Takeuchi Opuna, our Director and her team and the culture that they built there and the things that we're doing as evidenced across the board.

We've been very good at using technology, very good at using AI, very good at hiring people. Now, we've still got a ways to go, but most people will tell you in the know that we've come light years in just a couple of years. We're not done yet. There's much work left to do. But I can.

I can say this, I'll say this with confidence before we're done. In four years, the complaints of yesterday and what people used to lament about with DPP will be a thing of the past. That's how confident I am in our ability to course correct that.

And I think that's a major contribution all the way around to our economic recovery, but to the transformation, continued growth and sustenance of this island. So I'm here today with my team. We'll answer any questions you have. I'm really proud of this group. I thought the way we won in the primary was historic.

It made a statement about our ability to work with the council, to work with you folks to get things done. I tell you right now, in great confidence, it's rooted in the quality of the men and women we put on our team and their commitments and their capabilities. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, so Members, we're going to allow the committees to ask questions. Why don't we start with Kauai? Because I think Kauai actually has the first floor flight so that they can return home and if we can just limit the questions for now to the legislative asks.

So there's a lot of issues that mayor's brought up, but this hearing is really about what they're asking of the Legislature this year. The other issues will probably come up in different bills throughout that are going to be referred to different committees. So which we can ask at when we're done with the legislative ask first.

So Members, any questions of Kauai Rep. Morikawa.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for being here. Oh, thank you.

I guess my question, I don't have much questions for you today, but when I saw the rodeo one, I was wanting to know more information as far as statewide, how does this help a statewide activity?

Well, because rodeo and our paniolo culture and history is of statewide importance and we don't have a specific ask, but we wanted to put it on your radar that our Administration has been focused on kids that are falling through the cracks.

That's why we've taken a strong and aggressive approach to build skate parks wherever there's a basketball courts, to really embrace surfing as our sport. And hopefully it'll be a high school sport. But there's so many of our kids in our schools and our public schools that participate in rodeo. We're hosting the state rodeo finals this coming year.

And even though it's not a sanctioned high school sport, we feel that it's one that our kids definitely need and there's a growing interest in it.

So are there other public rodeo arenas?

I believe on every island there are, yes.

Okay, so Kaua'i was the only one that didn't have one.

We're the only one that didn't have. Just like we were the only island that didn't have high school wrestling until we got a community led effort to make it happen. And now high school is a sport on Kaua'i as well. So we just don't want to get left behind. You know how it is.

We're the smallest island and oftentimes, you know, even unbeknownst to me, I didn't know that we were the only island that didn't have a rodeo arena. So when I found out, I said, well, by golly, we cannot, we cannot let this be our legacy.

So of course we're going to go and do whatever we can to give our kids what the kids on other islands have.

Yeah, good. Good information, because I didn't even know that, but thank you. Thank you for being on top of that.

Oh, no, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Any other questions for Kaua'i?

Thank you, Mayor, for being here.

Thank you.

Quick questions about your CIP request. I'm wondering if you have amounts listed. For each request for the Vidinha stadium and the Hanapepe stadium for your rodeo location and then with your wastewater treatment, if there are amounts that you are requesting for your CIP.

Oh, absolutely. I think we may have it in our written testimony. If we don't, we'll get it out to you. Just off the top of my head, I think, for. You can send that. Yeah, I'll send it over. Yeah, we'll have it broken down. Yeah.

Any other questions for the mayor of Kaua'i? If not, thank you very much.

Go ahead. Mayor Kawakami, thank you for being here. And these are General questions that probably that maybe all the mayors can answer at some point in time. So, you know, when we have situations like this where it is a.

Like, you know, there's situations on other islands, too, where the state uses county facilities for athletics and different things like that. I think one concern is that if, you know, when the state puts in money, then there has to be some assurance that the state going forward has access to that facility. Once we invest in that.

Oh, you guys have untethered access. No, no, I understand. But, you know, it's. I think we need something formal in place because it's like right now, right with you. Everybody trusts that you're going to be a good mayor and you're going to do what you need to do to make sure everybody has access.

But I think going forward, we need to think about something formal that we need to be putting in place.

Oh, we can do it as formal as you want, but I think that we do have some agreements through Parks and Recreation, especially with the relationship that Kauaʻi county has with KIF and our Department of Education. It's never a question of the state using our facilities.

I do think we have formal agreements in place, but I'll go and double check if we do. I'll get some copies over to you.

I think. Even so, one thing that I've learned over the years is even when we have MOUs in place within the state departments and with the county also, it is only as good as the Administration that is before us. So that's why as soon as the Administration changes, then a lot of times these agreements go away.

So that's part of my concern, is that we have to figure out something that is binding into the future. And I don't think anybody has ever thought about that, especially because in many situations, the state does use county facilities. And I understand why you're asking for money in that situation. Sure. Yeah.

But I just bring that up as something that, you know, we, as we partner going forward, that there has to be something binding.

Sure, absolutely. And if you folks are aware of our county not getting access to state departments, agencies, or any of our partners, let me know personally and we'll correct that, because that's just not in the spirit of Kauai. We share our spaces and we take great pride in hosting our state departments.

And so if there's something happening that I need to be aware of, you let me know and we'll take corrective action immediately. Our county facilities all have the fingerprints and DNA of the state and the state Legislature support.

And if our people don't realize where the money is coming from and where the support is coming from, will correct that sort of attitude immediately, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. And then, like I said, these will be General questions for kind of everybody. I think that, you know, in General, there were agreements in place, and I think the city and county is kind of helping the state with this. And Hawaii county is to some degree is also.

But, you know, when there are state projects that is before you for permitting and things like that, there was agreements in the past where the state was afforded conditional authority to move forward without everybody signing off.

And the General thought for me has always been, you know, I understand if it is a private developer or if it is somebody from out of state that, you know, we want them to cross their T's and.their I's before they proceed. But with the state, right. We're not going to go anywhere.

So if something is missing, we delays is what's adding to our cost. As we all know, it is the carrying cost of delays that is adding. Right. We talked to Mayor Blangiardi, talked about it earlier, where it is and others have brought it up where it is. Inflation it is. Right.

Interest rates have gone up, all those different things that add to cost. So we, we want to help the counties with certain things, but at the same time, those delays are adding to costs. So in many cases, in some sense, the money that you are asking for, it's there in the delay cost, right?

So if you can help us by expediting some of our projects that actually save us money, then it's easier for us to help you.

Chair, I'm unaware of us delaying any projects. Usually the departments at a local level work very closely with us. If there's something that you know of that I don't know, let me know.

But as far as I'm concerned, it's a General statement. It's right in.

I just want to know, like, I feel like, is it me or is it somebody other bear? Like, you know, I just happen to be first. I'm kind of, you know, paranoid, right? Is my reputation on the line and everybody listening. I don't want to be known as.

Maybe Just it may be just one person not signing off and that delay is holding up things and it may be something that, you know, can be resolved later.

But I'm just saying that there were things in place before with the state and I'm talking, you know, we have a ton of DOE projects and every county has schools. Right. And there's a good part of our CIP budget is school schools. And a lot of times those delays are what is adding to our cost. Right.

There are so many change orders that come in over and over and it's, and they cite to us many times it's because of delays and it's and okay, let me be clear.

This conversation I'm having with you as far as trying to expedite the process, it's the same conversation I'm having with our own Department that, you know, they are and this is a General statement again, too, it's right. We, let's take housing, for example. We have rental house revolving Fund, the DIRF Fund.

We have, you know, all these different things, these kind of credits. Basically, all this money that we're putting forward for that is offsetting carrying costs caused by us, meaning government in General, whether it be state government or county government. Right. The permit delays, wastewater, you know, just water approvals.

It could be Shipti, it could be Department of Department of Health. Right. All those different things. And like I said, I'm having these conversations with everybody because in the end, subsidizing housing is not, housing is not going to be sustainable. At some point in time, we got to figure out how to reduce that cost.

Sure.

And a lot of that cost is because of us. Right. So we have to. And you know what, in many cases, I believe that it, it doesn't take necessary changes in the law. It can be just somebody working the process and finding out where the bottlenecks are.

And you know, Mayor Blangiardi, I appreciate, you know, your comments as far what you have done, but. Right. There's still delays and it still cost us. Again, it's adding to our cost. Right. So sure thing. My concern is, right, budgets are cyclical. Yes.

And you know, everybody knows when we had, you know, the pandemic, the feds gave us so much money. Right. The Infrastructure and Reinvestment act has been suspended. So we don't know what that means going forward. Right. It's up to us to try to figure out how to bring these costs down.

That's why I bring up all these things in General.

Chair, and I hear you, I think collectively we're all in the same boat, because we all got to get approvals from the state, same County Department, same state agencies. And we ask ourselves a fundamental question. Is the process hindering progress? And absolutely.

I think if we work together, we can find a way to move our projects along, have courtesy inspections so things don't have to come to a screeching halt. But then we also have to have some level of honesty from the project manager themselves.

I will tell you, I get so many calls from builders, big projects, to very small projects, blaming our building division about holding up the project. I will personally go back and track where the permit is, and more often than not, it's with an engineer, architect. That's that our Department is waiting for.

And then you got the owner or the project manager freaking out and calling me. And then I gotta call them and say, hey, go check with your architect. Because our buildings division told them that, hey, this paper is incomplete. Just correct it and send it back and we can move it forward.

And it's been sitting on their desk for a month. But this isn't about finger pointing. This is just about. I hear you loud and clear.

We will take a look at where our inefficiencies are in regard to state projects, because we want to move you folks along sooner rather than later, because when you guys have good projects, it just benefits the colony of Kaua'i as well. So we're all in the same boat.

I appreciate that. And, you know, at the root of your comments is I think we just got to get better at communicating with each other. So that's kind of like a General thing that I think all of us have to work on, you know? You know, I think that's good for now. It's.

But generally, I think that's what I want to work towards. And again, it comes from that. I don't think we're going to be able to subsidize our way out of this housing crisis. We got to figure out how to reduce costs. And a lot of it, like I said, is, I think, borne by us.

And when I say us, I mean state and county. We're both at fault. So we got to figure that out.

Yeah, we just took the very best of the PODC, which is to develop on. On land that we are just kind of wasting away. Underutilized parks. Our Haʻupu View was on a county parking lot that used to be home to trucks, vans, and forklifts, and now it's housing 38 families. The Kealaula was just an underutilized park.

That over time had been overtaken by people that were doing, like, some really unsavory things.

So we just took like the very best of what was discussed in the Public Land Development Corporation, which is to take a look at where wasted assets are, where existing infrastructure already exists, doing infill development, partnering with the private sector and really cutting the cost of cost of goods sold by taking the equation and the cost of land and infrastructure out and allowing developers to be profitable in a very high risk type of investment, which is affordable housing.

Any developer that goes into affordable housing without some sort of government subsidy or without the government willingness to meet them halfway is like, it's crazy because it's so high risk. So I think that's the model. I don't think we can legislate our way out of it. I think it's going to require courage.

I think if anybody, one of us, myself included, really supports affordable housing, that when there's an affordable housing project that pops up, we have to realize that the people living next to it are gonna hate it. But we gotta make room for our kids.

Our kids and future generations just have no options unless we take a stand and say, hey, we gotta make room for our future generations. So I agree with you.

Yeah. I agree that, you know, there were many good things in that PLDC that we should relook at. Unfortunately, you know, we didn't want to work at it, so we just kind of repealed it. But, you know, there was, like, I said good things in there that we should have.

The other thing, the other comment that I wanted to make that I think if the mayors could kind of comment on. Right. Part of what I believe is that we have become experts at using exemptions to move projects forward instead of actually just fixing the problem that's making it go slow. Right.

Part of me wants to, but I'm not going to do anything like this, but part of me wants to just get rid of exemptions. So we actually are forced to work on it. Right. But everybody has. I think the developers and everybody have become experts at using exemptions instead of.

And they have stopped asking us to fix it. And I think that's the work that we should be doing instead of relying on exemptions and emergency proclamations and things like that.

Now, I mean, those help, but I mean, I think what it boils down to is understanding that there's going to be pushback because change is very hard for people to embrace, even good change.

But I can tell you after really pushing and forcing change upon our community over the Last six years, people get acclimated, and sometimes they don't realize that it's a good thing until it's already done. And we're never going to get consensus. But for the greater good, we're all hired to do what's right, not what's popular.

And most times the right decisions are very unpopular. And I think we've got to move through those barriers. And most of those barriers are all internal. Internal to us. And once we can move past them, we'll be able to make some headway. But it's a tough thing to do in our world that we exist in.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Have a safe flight back.

Oh, you kicking me out? Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, next is going to be the County of Hawaii because their flight is shortly after the County of Kaua'i Mayor, any questions for the County of Hawaii? Okay, I guess you can take an earlier flight. Oh, hey. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Oh, you have one. Okay, go ahead.

The itty bitty button. Good afternoon, Mayor Alameda. Thank you again for you and your Executive team coming up today. I appreciate that. And I got your written proposal or your written notes. I just wondered if you had a specific number or specific asked.

I know the wastewater is the $64,000 question in Hawaii county right now, but did you have any specific numbers or if you don't now any timeline to get that?

Sure. For a matter of perspective, just going back to real quick, I wanted to touch upon because the Superintendent and I had correspondence. This is just a previous question on that particular issue. And so, you know, with the permitting within. And so we signed, we agreed. And totally your point well taken.

We agree state not going to place we should move along those permits as soon as possible. So I'm with you on that. And yeah, so we got in the wastewater. So, you know, hey, I mean, Keaukaha Wastewater treatment can go as it's as high as 400 million right now.

It's not including Kealakehi, which is another 50 million you get in Naalehu, Kahala and we get the hamakua. So I mean, estimates tell us could be as high as 750 million to 1 billion. And so I don't have any specific ask around that because, you know, we're still meeting with our finance team.

I did talk to our federal delegation possibilities for federal funding, grant funding, but that's going to be a big, A big issue for us because, you know, we have bonds, but if you utilize all the bonds that can crip our debt Service, you know, we're not going to be able to do any more projects as far as bonding or capital improvement.

So, you know, like I said, I don't have a specific ask, but it's a. It's a big chunk of change that can come out of our. Our budget. So, you know, and of course, like, I did mention fire mitigation. We have a Waikoloa road that prior Administration was trying to complete. That's about 25 million.

We get the EMS request because there's that big gap right in Makalei. They only have hazard hazmat, they don't have EMS. You know, that's nine positions, three shifts, looking at about $1.2 million there. So, you know, and then, of course, our Big island delegation, you know, your request, too. So.

But yeah, wastewater is going to be our biggest. Our biggest chunk of change.

Okay, so you don't have a timeline right now to get us any numbers?

I can get you some numbers within the next week. You know, specific breakdowns. Then I can break them down from each. So we can go Hilo, what that can cost us. Naalehu, Pahala, what that can cost us. Hamakua, get two wastewater treatment facilities there, and then Kalakehe. So I'll break it. I'll break it down for you folks.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I yield.

Chair, any other questions for the County of Hawaii? Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, next we'll hear from the County of Maui. Any questions for the County of Maui?

Can I just say something before we start? I failed to introduce my team when I was up here, and I apologize if you feel like I rushed through.

Well, they lived here last year, so most of us know them.

You do? Can everybody from Maui County, directors, Deputy. Just stand? I'm not going to introduce everybody. Just stand. Yeah, so we brought our team from just about every Department we have, especially in the area of recovery. So you guys can be seated. Sorry, sorry.

And then I have some mayor staff here, too, so if you had any questions, you'll get the better answers from them. But, yes, Chair, I see you with the mic.

So, you know, you can comment on my question earlier. Question. But before you do that, you know, in your request, the one that I don't really know what that is, is the Waiala extension, because there was a rise grant that we had. So this is additional money for some.

Yeah, so that highway is going to cost us about $87 million. We already have a $25 million raise grant for that. We have another 2 or 3 million from FWHA. FHWA grant as well. So we have about 27, 28 million, we think. So we're asking for 20 million more.

But the really important thing about this is this waiale extension opens up all the housing in Waikapu, which is Central Maui's, really the next place that we intend to focus on housing, schools. There's a plan for a super school. There's going to be shops, commercial, but lots of housing, different types of housing.

As you well know, the Central Maui wastewater facility is going to be key to that as well. And again, thanks to the state for the efforts that it made there. So this piece, we really can't move without that. And so the funding that we're asking for is to help with that.

And then, of course, we're going to continue to seek funding as well.

So you're asking for 20 from the state and the county is going to be putting up.

Well, we're gonna try to find the rest of that funding. We understand this is a partnership, and we're not asking for all the funds to come from the state, but it's an $87 million project is what it's estimated at.

So is that project just road improvements or does it include, like, sewer, water and other things like that?

For that, I'm gonna bring up Josiah. By the way, I also failed to mention we also have our Council Member for budget. She's our budget chair, Yuki Lei Sugimura. I know you folks all know her, but I wanted to acknowledge her and Michele Yoshimura, our former budget Director, who also is here. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Josiah Nishita, Managing Director with the County of Maui. Most of the funding would go to actual roadway improvements, including, like, a bridge that's needed to cross the stream in that area.

There are some water and wastewater improvements that will be made to the system, but the county is planning on taking that up with our General excise tax funds.

So that 20 would be only for road improvement.

Yes.

Okay, got it. Okay, thank you. Mayor, would you care to comment on my other questions? To.

Yes, I wanted to agree that we can all do a better job of getting permits approved and getting, I guess, communicating better with each other. You know, I heard somebody say this some years ago, and it had to do with another. It had to do with police.

And the statement was, if you want perfect police, don't hire human beings. And I think the point of that is we have real people doing real work, whether it's in the state or the county departments. In government. And I think that's where leadership comes in.

I think it's the responsibility of me to make sure that I talk to all my directors and deputy directors about where we find choke points, bottlenecks, things that are holding up process.

Because I think I can speak for all the mayors, even the two who've already left, that every single one of us get calls every week, and it's always having to do with a permit that's stuck someplace. I don't care if it's a business, if it's a contract, if it's a homeowner asking a question.

And of course, they provide you with the exact number of the permits so that you don't forget to go ask your Department what's happening with this. So that's probably not the most efficient way to use our time is to go take individual permits and try to push them through or help somebody get them through.

But I think it's a real. It's a real issue that I feel like we all deal with. And I couldn't agree with you more. Whether it's. Whether it's because we want to just work well together or just because it's the right thing to do.

If it's a massive project that benefits the community, there should be little to no delays unless there's a good reason. So I just wanted to accept whatever responsibility it is on our end, the county, by not doing it.

But like Mayor Kawakami said, I would appreciate specific examples or specific projects that are done because, you know, if it's the same person that everyone has a problem with that's not doing it good, then, you know, they're just being sort of hidden someplace in a corner, and we should know about those things.

So we're not just blaming the whole Department or a whole group of people for one or two people who may not be doing good. And I think the sooner it's brought to our attention, I'm assuming, like you folks, the sooner we can get something done about it. Something, you know, that concrete, something tangible.

Yeah, but like, you know, my comment is that the, you know, we. At the end of the day, right. The state is not going to go anywhere. So even if, you know, we didn't comply with everything, but we got, you know, the major things in place that allowing us to proceed can actually save money for us.

I can give you a great example. On Maui, and maybe you'll remember this. A couple years ago, on my first few months in office, we gave a certificate of occupancy for Kūlanihāko'i High School in Kihei that was being held up by, I mean I'm pointing fingers but it wasn't being held up by the county.

And so with my planning Director we overrode the state agency that was blocking it and gave them a certificate of occupancy or else that school would still be vacant.

It's the most expensive school that's been built in the State of Hawaii and you folks got it done and the DOE got it done, but we had to sign a signature. So somebody had to take the liability or the risk to open the school and give it a certificate of occupancy.

And that's a great example of exactly what you just said or else that would have been wasted money, wasted effort and more importantly, our students, our teachers from Maui would have been the ones most impacted.

So I'm not trying to take credit, but since you mentioned it, that's an example of where, yeah, we can step in and override, you know, for something that seems so common sense.

I think what we're looking for is not necessarily that it has to, I mean I appreciate, you know, when you expedite things for us, but that it doesn't have to rise to your level for it to be approved.

That it some of these things, if we have some kind of level of working relationship or agreement that these approvals or having projects move forward can be done at the Department level or at the staff level.

I agree with you and I think a good example, I'm just gonna give a shout out to Ed Sniffin for the State Department of Transportation because half the time I think like he lives on Maui, but that guy runs a lot of projects through the State of Hawaii and a lot of Maui.

And when he calls, he's not calling the, you know, just sort of chit chat. He's got something that is right on the cusp of being approved and he just needs a little bit more to get it done.

And we do the same thing when we need something, we call Ed because he's a guy that's going to get stuff done. I think you guys all know this. If you guys work with him. That's a great example of a working relationship where people trust each other.

People understand they're not just there to spin wheels or even to take credit for anything. They just want to get something over the finish line. And there's a lot of that happening on Maui right now because of our situation.

But I would use him as a good example and I think we try to create Relationships like that with a lot of folks we interact with, especially on a regular basis.

Agreed. Okay, thank you.

Okay. Any other questions for Maui?

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Questions for the mayor of Honolulu, Senator Elefante. Have a safe flight.

Thank you. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Congratulations on another four years to you and your team. And I appreciate all the updates that you have shared with what the city and county has been doing.

The only question I have is on page 5 of your submitted testimony where you mentioned about a combination of the Office of Housing to dlm, which would be Office of Housing and Land Management. There's a paragraph in there, on the first paragraph on page five that talks about DLM going out for development solicitations on underutilized city properties.

I understand that it's on city owned land. Is any of the intent coming in for state money under the emergency proclamation to whether acquired to develop some of these underutilized parcels?

No. Getting a no from Kevin.

And then as a follow up to that, Mr. Mayor, could you provide these committees with a breakdown of your proposed projects once you go out? Yes, absolutely.

Thank you. Can I just address something, Chair Yamashita that I heard you say in the. Chair Yamashita. That's okay. You know, in the spirit of the problem is us that you were saying and talking about wanting to do away with exemptions. One of the things that I didn't get into is the regulatory burden.

We are so, I mean, if I look at one more UHERO report or any other reports, we talk about crippling ourselves, self inflicted wounds. I mean, something has to be done. This is really, I think more on your side of the court than ours. But the regulation, the regulatory environment is. It's far and away.

I mean, I still look at Kyle Barney puts up that one chart and it's a bar graph. And Hawaii's out here and everything else is inside, you know, far away.

So I would just ask for some help with that as well because we look a lot, I said earlier about processes, people, technology, processes, trying to streamline things within the city. I mean, God knows there's enough charter amendments and different things we're trying to navigate through.

But the regulatory environment, if you want to move to a more ideal where we're not subsidizing and we're not relying on exemptions, has to seriously be addressed.

I'll just comment to that. You know, I agree with that totally that, you know, there, there are things that we need to do. You know, the example I'll give you an example. So the. One of the things everybody wants to do is diversify our economy to do all those different things.

And I believe that there are four things that you're supposed to do. One is you're supposed to build a workforce for whatever industry you're building. Second is you build the infrastructure that is needed for the industry. Third thing importantly is fixing the regulatory environment to move to make that go forward.

And the last thing we do right is capital formation, which is tax credits or subsidy, everything like that. Government's problem is always that we throw money at it before we do the first three. I agree with you that those are the areas that we need to focus on first.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Did you have a question, sir? Down here at the end. Did you?

Go ahead. Thank you. Does your office have any. Or does your Administration have any specific asks outside of the CIP arena that might be addressing those from your perspective that you could forward? Not in this forum so much, but.

Yeah, you know, I. I thought we were gonna come in here asking for a whole lot. Michael, you want to try that? No, he's saying no. No.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

No, you're welcome, sir. Thanks for the question.

Any other questions? If not. Thank you.

Thank you for your time and attention today. Thank you very much.