House Standing Committee on Public Safety

Aloha Kakahiaka. Today is Wednesday, January 29, 2025 9:00am. We are in Conference Room 411 and we are convening the very first hearing for the Committee on Public Safety for the 2025 legislative session.

Members, I'm going to spend some time just to do a little bit of housekeeping because this is the first hearing and so we can ensure that everyone knows how this Committee is going to be running moving forward. So just as a matter of introductions, I would like if each member can introduce themselves.

If you want to share your district number and then we'll go on.

Sure. Kim Coco Iwamoto, representative for District 25. That's Ala Moana, Kakaako and downtown.

Aloha, everybody. My name is Kanani Souza and I am the district representative for District 43, Makakilo and Kapolei. Thank you.

Good morning. Dee Morikawa. I represent the southwest side of Kauai and Niʻihau. Welcome Chair to this new committee.

Good morning. Representative Garner Shimizu, District 32, which is Moanalua, Red Hill, Halawa, Aiea, Pearlridge, Foster Village, Aloha Stadium. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. As other members come in, we will introduce them. Legislators have a full schedule. We have to do multiple hearings. So members will come in and we will introduce them as they come in.

Just as a-- again, as a matter of housekeeping, Members and to the public, testimony was posted at around 10am yesterday, both publicly and to Members. So I do want to inform the public that our deadline of 24 hours, if you meet that, you will for sure get it before the members and they will have it before them to prepare for this meeting.

Members, we will continue to process late testimony and that will be provided as well. But again it is going to be provided to both you and the public at the same time. In terms of testifying, there are-- I will manage the time. We will not have strict timelines for members of the public.

In the event that we have bills that draw a lot of testimony, then I will impose likely a two minute deadline. But I do want people to feel like they can speak about their testimony. Again, because members have received it, it's also efficient to highlight, simply highlight what you have to really hit the points that you want to make sure members understand.

Because morning hearings must adjourn prior to the noon floor session, my practice will be to conduct hearings and then to defer decision-making to the end of the agenda of that day.

This will allow members to also plan accordingly. I will manage that if it becomes something that we need to set a firm time. I will also typically look at 11:30am as a decision-making time so that members can get to the floor promptly for the 12 noon hearings.

We do have hybrid testimony, so if you are on Zoom, please keep yourself muted and your video off while waiting to testify and after your testimony is complete. We have wonderful staff who are managing the Zoom chat room. Please do not use any trademark or copyrighted images if you are in the Zoom room.

If you are disconnected unexpectedly, you may attempt to rejoin the meeting. If disconnected while presenting testimony, you may be allowed to continue if time permits. Please note that the House is not going to be responsible for any bad Internet connections on the testifiers. And so we really encourage folks to make sure that they're set up for Zoom.

In the event of a network failure, it may be necessary to reschedule the hearing or schedule a meeting for decision-making. In that case, appropriate notice will be posted for the public and for members. All right. And I know that this is the state of Aloha. I know that we will act with civility.

I do ask that folks refrain from profanity or any uncivil behavior. Such behavior may be grounds for removal from the hearing without the ability to rejoin. But I know, I just know that this is not going to happen in this committee. So with that said, let's start off.

First hearing is House Bill 673, relating to emergency management. We have testimony from Mr. Barros, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. James Barros, administrator for Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, we stand on our written testimony opposing this bill.

And thank you. And we have joining us Representative Mahina Poepoe from Maui. If you want to introduce your district.

Aloha. Mahina Poepoe, District 13, East Maui, Moloka'i, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Molokini.

Thank you, Rep Poepoe. Okay, next up, we have comments via Zoom from Director Ryan Yamane, Department of Human Services. Comments from Office of Information Practices, Carlotta Amerino, Director. Testimony in support from Ted Kefalas, Grassroots Institute. Testimony in support from League of Women Voters, Doug Meller. Testimony in support from Brett Colbus. Any testimony here in the room?

Any testifiers via Zoom? Seeing none. Members, any questions? I have a question for-- Oh, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead.

I have a question for Department of Defense. Is there a difference between-- Excuse me. Is there a difference between an emergency order and a state of emergency?

I got to get back with you. I'm not sure on the question.

Yeah, I guess the reason I asked the question is there's language in the bill that states that the county does not have the right or the authority to declare an emergency order. But later in the bill, it does talk about the mayor's authority to declare a state of emergency. So I was just wondering if that's confusing for you as well.

We'll look at that piece of it because from my understanding is the mayor can sign an emergency proclamation declaring that in the county there is a state of emergency. So we'll look at how the language is. Might be confusing.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, I have a question, Mr. Barros. I know your opposition is based on preserving the unity of command approach. One of the measures in here is to allow for the legislature, by affirmative vote of two thirds, to terminate a state of emergency.

You are aware that other states do allow and does authorize the legislature to engage in this kind of checks and balances?

Yes.

Okay. So are you open to us maybe considering some of that language? You know, I think in the Senate hearing, there was conversation. If an emergency is ongoing for such a long length of time, then it shouldn't-- it's no longer an emergency at a certain point. Can you comment to that?

And I think the concern grew out of COVID-19 and the extended time of that state of emergency. I think it's on the emergency management enterprise to set the conditions for the executive to say, what is the state of emergency? And at what point are we recommending that he--

And that those conditions would be shared with the elected officials and the public. But I'm opposed to the bill because of that page 14 E and F where the leg or the council can override the executive who's managing that state of emergency.

Okay, what about-- And maybe this isn't your kuleana, but, you know, we have a state of emergency declared for homelessness and affordable housing. At some point, you know, maybe that's where we need to have a discussion about whether or not that can be extended indefinitely.

And again, coming from my perspective, it's setting the conditions of when this state of emergency is over. So for Maui, for weather, that would be my kuleana. And for other instances, it's got to be someone else in the agency or the departments.

And then just for the committee's education, the conversation about when to declare an emergency over, who are you having that conversation with? It's obviously within your shot, but is it also with Attorney General's Office? What other--

Yes, Attorney General's Office and the governor's office.

Members, any other questions? All right, seeing none. We'll go to the next bill hearing. Bill number 596 relating to emergency management, clarifying types of events that constitute dangers and emergencies for purposes of emergency management. First up, we have in opposition, Mr. Barrows.

Yes, we stand on our written testimony opposing this Bill. Chair.

Okay, I'm sorry, I did not call up Major General. Excuse me. No. Ted Kafalas, Grassroot Institute of Hawaiian Support, operating Engineers Local 3, in opposition. And in support, Jenny Yagadich, individual. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via zoom. Seeing none. Members, questions?

Chair? Yes, over here. Not a question. I just wanted to point out that the testimony from Operating Engineers appears to be for the wrong bill.

Oh, thank you. We will correct that. Thank you.

It's for HB 956 and this is 596.

Okay, thank you. We will correct that. Mr. Barros, any questions? Ms. Barros, can I ask a question? So I know you said it restricts your capacity, but when I look at this, I mean, I feel like this language defining what a disaster is actually covers everything under the sun. Almost.

No. It provides a laundry list of what we define as a disaster today. But I'm trying to keep an open ended of what we don't know at this point, what could happen in the future. So it does, from our hazard mitigation perspective, it answers all of that. Yes, absolutely.

But what other hazards or threats that we may face as a state? That's not listed on here.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Chair, I have a follow up question. Go ahead. Just to expand on what other hazards might come up that aren't listed. Do you have examples of things that aren't listed that might come up in the future as examples of what you just said?

So Covid would, would have been a great example, you know, five years ago if we changed addresses, some of that. But we didn't know the, the nature of, of that pandemic. So.

So Covid wouldn't be covered in disruption of state services or disease or contagion outbreaks.

So what I'm saying right now is I oppose the bill because I don't know what's next. I don't know what's out there. This gives us the knowns.

So I understand. I was just trying to understand if this list could be expanded to cover some of your concerns of what potentially might happen.

Okay. We can look at that and provide that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions? All right, seeing none. Moving on to House Bill 1060. This is relating to emergency preparedness and the Community Readiness Center's program. We're moving into more comfortable territory now. We have testimony and support from Major General Stephen Logan representing the.

Yes. And Adjutant General in support of the bill.

Anything you'd like to amplify as part of your testimony?

So this, this is coming out of our look at building community hubs and resiliency down at the very local level? Yes.

Mr. Dudley, you need to mute yourself until we call on you. Okay, go ahead.

Yeah. So that's where the genesis of this Community Readiness Center. And we don't use resiliency Hub, we're using Readiness center because from Jaima's perspective, we want to build readiness down at the very local level in all communities.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Barros. We have testimony, comments from Department of Taxation.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. Garrison Kurth, Department of Taxation. The Department stands on its written testimony providing comments and I'm available for questions if you have them.

Thank you. Testimony and support. We have Mr. Chris Benjamin from the Climate Advisory Team. Thank you, Mr. Benjamin, for being here in person. We didn't know that you were going to be here in Zoom, but it's always wonderful to have people in person.

Well, thank you, Chair, Vice Chair, Members, thank you for the opportunity to make a few comments this morning. So the Climate Advisory Team is a volunteer group convened by the governor to develop community informed policy recommendations to help make Hawaii more resilient.

We published a policy paper in which a central theme was resilience hubs and the importance of resilience at the community level. And so we are in support of the intent of this Bill. We have had some meetings with Administrator Barros and shared some of our thoughts and we'll share them with you today.

One of our primary objectives is that resilience hubs be developed within the local community by nonprofit grassroots organizations with support of the state and hyima.

And so we would simply ask that from a principal perspective, the development of resilience hubs, or readiness centers, as Haima is calling them, be very much rooted in engagement with the community, with those nonprofit organizations, with community groups.

And that there be that it be done through the H HARP program, the Hawaii Hazards Awareness and Resilience Program, but then it be done in close collaboration with the community. So those are our comments and happy to answer any other questions later.

Thank you, Mr. Benjamin. We have testimony from Mr. Tom Yachika, tax foundation of Hawaii, via Zoom. In opposition.

Aloha, Chair and Members of the Committee. This is Jane Mcmillan. On behalf of the Tax foundation, we submitted she'd been noted comments on the measure. Our comments are directed primarily at the special Fund, noting that the criteria for special Fund is listed by the Legislature.

There are two of the criteria violated noted in our testimony being that there's no nexus between the program and the revenue source. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any other testifiers here in the room? Any other testifiers via Zoom? And I'm wondering if Dr. Dudley is going to want to testify. And this is on House Bill 1060? No. Okay. All right. Seeing no other testifiers. Members, questions.

I have a question.

Go ahead.

Question to you, Mr. Barros. Do you have any idea how many. How many of these centers will be.

Required, ideally for every community throughout the state? Right now, the target, through our H HARP program that Mr. Benjamin brought up, we're targeting through a federal grant to identify the top 10 communities. And we'll start with the H Harps building that there. And. And then the readiness center would be a building for those H HARPS.

So right now we're looking at primarily 10 for now.

So 10 to start with and it'll expand to a bigger number? Ideally, yes. Do you have a number? What is that ideal?

When we sat down and we looked across the state, we looked at almost 100 communities that could use. Not some communities. The center might be a little smaller, some communities are a little bit larger. But the number we were looking at, it was roughly 100.

And that's statewide. Statewide, yes, sir. Do we have any. Can I. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Chair, do we have any idea how much the cost would be for. For every center?

No, sir.

All right. Thank you, Mr.

Barros. Please stay there. Any other questions? Okay, so I know that this is growing out of work that you have done in our. You've done some preliminary work in other communities. Can you speak to some of those communities that you've. You've kind of tested this out, and that's the basis for this proposal of community readiness and urgency.

So with the H HARP program right now, the team has three communities that they're taking these communities to H HARP 2.0. The H HARP program is an older program that never really got the momentum of and support to the communities that we currently have now.

So there's a team that supports the training and the engagement throughout this H HARP process to take them from wanting the intent to have a Community h harp to a validated H HARP. There's a whole process. We take the community leaders through and then the community leaders will bring in people from around the neighborhoods.

So there is a very deliberate process that we'll take a community through to become a valid h harp in the eyes of the State of Hawaii. And we're starting with three right now. Waimanalo, the villages at Kapolei and Palama.

And they just had conversations yesterday with vibrant Hawaii on the island of Hawaii on how does that look on Hawaii Island? And we're having conversations with Amos on Maui on what that looks like for Maui.

So there's a. There's a physical aspect of these community readiness centers. But Speaking to what Mr. Benjamin said, it's really about community engagement, identifying, working with leaders in the community and making a community ready for disasters. Is that correct?

Yes, ma'am. So the Bill is talking about providing a physical space for that H HARP to congregate.

And then in that space just to highlight for Members. You're talking about also having the ability to store. Can you speak to that and what that might look like?

It would be that center would provide emergency communication when the networks are down. We'd have backup communication, we'd have backup power. We'd look at storage of water and food, not enough for the entire community, but in emergency supplies there for that particular H HARP and Members.

I'm going to keep asking questions what I want to really understand. And if members, you look at the bills that we are hearing on this agenda, we're looking at preparation of the community in these other bills, retrofitting of buildings.

But this is really the administration's approach to if we have a major disaster, you want to have these community readiness centers up and running potentially in multiple communities across the state?

Yes, ma'am.

How does that help you in the event that, say, we do have like a major Hurricane 5 level, and I'm not even sure if I'm using the right words, but, you know, if we have that kind of mass disaster, how does these readiness centers help the overall operations of what's going to be a statewide emergency?

Ideally, in really the vision for emergency management in the state is this community, this harp. We take them through their process. They have their plans, they understand their plans, they understand their hazards, and their entire community knows what to do. They congregate in this building that would be safe.

It's not a shelter, but it's a provide safe refuge. And when the storm passes, we turn things on. There's power generation, we have emergency water we have emergency food. They congregate there. What that does for us across the state is we recognize that this community is ready and they're responding internally.

This community who did nothing is not ready. They're going to need more support. And for us to get across the state, it will take time. This community will be better prepared to wait as we reestablish the routes of communication, as we reestablish power, as we reestablish water, they'll be better prepared to.

For that period where this community will not be.

Thank you, Mr. Barros. I mean, right now, I think a lot of the community thinks of going to their local school for services during an emergency. I mean, that's been in the traditional direction.

Why do we need to build new physical sites when we can just maybe ask a school for a room to start making that the center? I mean, is that an option? Can we use one classroom to store some of this stuff?

That's a possibility. What we want to do with sheltering too is we're in conversations with DOE because we want to move that away from the schools so that the schools can get back to. Once that incident happens, they get back to business and it's not. But having maybe building it on the school, I don't know.

But using school property or school classrooms, there's a lot of challenges there.

Yeah, I mean, I guess. What is the physical size of this structure? Is it, you know, 10 by 10ft? Is it. How many, how big is it? How much would each structure cost?

We would, we would have those conversations with the community because part of it is we could retrofit an existing building right under this program. So it'll depend on the community itself to their needs.

Right. There are a number of bills that I think speak to as we build new schools to make them, you know, have the infrastructure to serve where this community, some of the Members of the community can go during a hurricane, level 5, level 5 hurricane or something like that.

Wouldn't it be make more sense to build the resource where the people go during an emergency? And if it's the school right now, then it should be near the school instead of way on the other side of town from where all the human beings are?

Yeah, so it's a definitely course of action. But again, we want to keep kind of DOE to that. When the event happens, something happens, we have a place that the students can go back to. And what the. When I had a conversation with. With.

The Superintendent, you know, the, from his perspective, the, the support network that the students get Once we get them back on campus, that's what's really needed. And they can't do that if as an emergency manager management agency, I'm occupying their cafeteria for sheltering for the community.

I have a follow up question just along the same lines as what she mentioned. I guess in the Bill there's this assumption that the Community Readiness center is a permanent structure that has ongoing services, correct?

Yes.

Okay. So I think what the Bill doesn't make clear is the distinction between this Community Readiness center and an emergency shelter. Right. Because I think you had mentioned that this is not an emergency shelter where people can go in the event of an emergency. Is that correct?

Because we get the term shelter, this would be a place of refuge.

I guess the question is, are we encouraging people to also show up at the Community Readiness center as well as the emergency shelter during an emergency for refuge?

Yes. And then when we get into a sheltering mission, the requirement is more space.

I see.

So this would be more of a hardened building to hunker down to let the hurricane pass and then come out. But still where we congregate now when we say shelter, okay, I'm going to put you in a, in a shelter.

I'm going to put you, I'm going to give you a space, you'll have your cot, you'll have your, you know, your 10 by 10 space. Everybody has, and we're all spread out where this is, come together, hunker down, let it pass. I come out, we do assessments.

Okay. Yeah, I guess, I guess my concern is just maybe perhaps if this does come to fruition, just messaging to the public, because I think that there could be some confusion as to what this structure actually is. And we want to make sure that we're sending people to the right places in the event of an emergency.

My second concern I think is relative to equity. I feel like you've maybe identified the top 10 locations where this could be most useful and start with, with that. But I think that perhaps there should be another plan in place for the long term as to.

As you guys keep building these centers just to make sure that we're not marginalizing certain communities over others. Is that something that you guys are looking at too, as far as equity for our communities?

Absolutely. We'll look at the, the threat and hazards. Threat to the community itself. And what does that mean? Cause across the state, different communities will have different hazards and different threats. So that would be a criteria that we would use.

Okay, perfect. Yeah. I just wanna make sure that one community is not suffering More in the event of a disaster over another community just because they had this resource. But thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Oh, sorry, go ahead. Representing. Thank you.

So in listening to the conversation and reading the bill, this sounds a lot like community resilience hubs or similar to that, are an existing effort in our communities across the state to like tailor the needs of the community into the hub and into the area looking at existing buildings or land that can be hardened up.

So I'm just curious if there are efforts currently or if you plan to coordinate with the. The existing community resilience planning.

Yes, the team has conversations with them all the time. I think they meet monthly with them on where their efforts are and what Hyma is doing and what communities we're engaging.

Do you envision this being separate from that in the way of like physical space or could it be in some areas potentially combined?

Yes, combined. Yes, absolutely, combined.

Thank you.

It wouldn't be, it would make sense for the state or the community to have something here and we come in and do something here. But looking at what the community needs and what's their intent and where they're looking at and then combining our efforts.

Okay, great. Thanks, President Morikawa.

Thank you, Chair. If this does go into effect, I'd like to offer up Kauai as the pilot program, I think, because on Kauai we have community centers in many districts and I can see where this is going to help build those centers to be that area in addition to, you know, the community having access to other events.

And then when the emergency happens, we have all of this in place. And we're also close to schools too, so we do use the sheltering part in the schools.

And you know, we've been through Ineki, so we understand how long you're going to be without resources and we also understand how important it is for the kids to get back to school.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr.

Follow Up Question.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

So she's talking about Kauai. I have to just clarify as to what were you discussing regarding the villages of Kapolei specifically? Just because that's in my district you met, you had mentioned that there was three different areas, so, so can you explain further about what's happening?

So they're, they're engaging the community leaders to establish an HRP and take them through the very deliberate process to become a valid hr. So there's constant engagement with community leaders there.

I wasn't engaged, so maybe you guys can add me to the list. Thank you. Yes, Ma'am.

Sorry, Representative, choose you. And then I'm going to pull rank and I'm going to ask, and then we're going to move on. Go ahead, Representative.

Thank you. I have a question for you. Thank you, Chair. It states in this Bill that the agency shall utilize the partnership established through the Hawaii Hazards Awareness and Resilience Program to maintain each of the community Readiness centers. So that addresses the ongoing maintenance costs because there. There is some effort and costs involved with that.

So I was wondering, what is this partnership that's stated here that's going to be counted on to provide this maintenance that.

That valid H HARP? That valid community organization? Oh, that's that. Yes, sir.

Oh, I see. All right. Thank you.

Okay.

Mr. Barros, I want to share one example of what's happening, and I think what I hope what this illustrates is that there are communities already in the process of preparing, and they're not waiting for Hyma to say, we're going to do this. They're already doing it engaging other government entities.

So, for example, in Makiki, which my area is a hugely dense urban area, there is a group called Nice Neighborhoods that is pulling together and identifying businesses, schools, engaging leaders, identifying people in the event that there is some kind of tragedy. So recently, like, you know, when there was the Yonge street fire. Right.

You know, phone lines are going off and people were talking and sharing information. And so that's an example of, for me, a readiness center. They have engaged with Serene, I believe that's an agency that Mr. Benjamin is familiar with.

So we have, for me, with the Community Readiness centers is it's about a place where there can be some storage and sheltering, but just for immediate terms. But it's more about the relationships and making sure the relationships are established, protocols are in place. And that's where also Hyema comes in with a training piece.

It's training the communities to respond in a way to so that they're ready. Is that a correct statement?

Yes. And Chair, you're absolutely correct. Communities are already doing stuff. They're putting together. They're looking at their hazards and what their shortcomings may be and that network of people. So when we engage about H HARP and building that community resilience, from my perspective, it's not an either or.

You don't have to come and become a Hyma H HARP and do away with Good neighbors Makiki or whatever organization it is, it's now just taking it and elevating and saying, hey, we want you to be part of this emergency management enterprise.

So that H HARP is really federated in the community and we understand their response and how they're going to react and they understand our response and how we're going to react to get to that community.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barros. I see a lot of nodding heads, so I think if there's no other questions, we're going to move on. Thank you, Members, and thank you for this great conversation. Moving on to House Bill 883 relating to emergency management.

Now, this is going to be a request to actually inventory all designated emergency shelters. Testimony in opposition, Mr. Barros?

Yes, Chair. We submitted our written testimony in opposition just because in 127 Alpha 19, the sheltering mission is already the kuleana of the counties. So HI-EMA is a coordination entity and we support the county efforts in sheltering.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. We have comments from Superintendent. Testimony in support, Mr. Benjamin, Climate Advisory Team. Testimony in support, Honolulu County Republican Party, Anna Hudson. All right. We have numerous testifiers in support. I will not read all of the names. We did have also testimony from Hawaii Self Advocacy Advisory Council.

Any other testifiers in the room? Any testifiers via Zoom? Seeing none. Members, any questions?

I have a question.

Go ahead, Representative Shimizu.

I'm not sure if this question is for you, Mr. Barros, but this bill tasks HI-EMA to inventory all shelters statewide and list their ability to withstand category 5 hurricane and publicly list availability of these shelters. I guess I'm wondering, isn't that already done? Do we already have that inventory and assessment and the list?

With the counties, yes. Yes, sir.

Okay. So we're not asking you to do anything more than what's already been done.

Yeah. Through the counties, yes.

Okay, so more-- Can I follow up?

Sure.

So more appropriate to say then is not to require it of the HI-EMA but just to say, asking the counties to publish, which do they already do that?

Yes.

Okay.

But you know, so you're trying to roll out these statewide resiliency centers and so you're asserting a kind of statewide thing. I'm surprised that you opposed and just didn't support and said, sure, we can put one page on our website site that lists every, you know, shelter by county. You know, it seems like I'm surprised that this is something--

Well, you're right, we can. And we can do that right away. I don't think we need a law to tell me to do that. That's just where I'm coming from. It's somebody else's kuleana.

If, you know, we think we want a website that lists and show by site what the assessments are--

Right. And again, this kind of goes along with the other bill that we spoke about. Like if the resiliency centers are in proximity, I mean, because all the water you mentioned in the food storage and maybe the power generators, I would imagine they should be where the people are. So you should-- I mean, it would make sense that you have all that information in one place.

Yeah. No, I mean, like I said, we can do that. I don't think we need a law to tell us to do that. Just if it's something that we need and we want, we can definitely do that. In fact, no, I was-- I told my GIS guys to start looking at it.

All right, thank you. Any other questions? All right, Members, moving on to House Bill 357. This is again relating to hurricane shelters. This one appropriates funds for Office of the Governor in collaboration with the Insurance Division and HI-EMA to strengthen existing hurricane shelters and develop new hurricane shelters to withstand specifically category five hurricanes.

357. We have testimony in support from Mr. Barros.

Yes, Chair. We support any effort that strengthens our resiliency. And we already execute CIP funds for this effort. So, more money, HI-EMA is all about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Testimony in support from Insurance Commissioner Gordon Ito.

Good morning. Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto and Members of the Committee. I'm Jerry Bump. Hawaii Insurance Division will stand on our written testimony offering comments. But I'll echo Mr. Barros' comments that anything that can be done to strengthen the resiliency of our communities is good also for the insurance market.

Thank you. Comments from Superintendent Keith Hayashi. Testimony in support, Climate Advisory Team. Testimony in support, Dr. Dudley via Zoom.

Can you hear me, Madam Chair?

Yes, go ahead, Dr. Dudley.

Good. Did you know that we don't have a single hurricane shelter on Oahu? We have 38 hurricane refuge areas, but we're not allowed to call those shelters because none of them meets the qualification of a shelter. We are told also that they are the last resort places to go and to stay away if you possibly can.

Emergency management agencies expect 200,000 people to seek these shelters, but they only have room for 100,000. That means another 100,000 will have no place to go. But that's in a Category 1 and 2 hurricane. In a Category 3, 4 and 5, those shelters won't stand up. There's absolutely no place to go.

The question is, where will you go? Where will your family go? You know, there is no place to go. So we've got to start really working on shelters and fortifying the ones that are there and building more. And this bill is geared to do that. It also puts the responsibility in the Office of the Governor.

Luke Myers, who is in that office as the Advisor for Emergency Management, really would like to have the authority to do that and to have the money and funds. We have another bill that has funds to set up. And the whole reason that nothing has moved ahead is because we've never had the people to do it and the funding to do it. This bill would do that.

I think that this is a much better choice than the bill HB 883, because, again, it puts the office in the Office of the Governor and it is just overall a much stronger and better bill. I do want to note about the Department of Education.

There are people working with emergency management trying to see, I guess they're working with the county trying to see what the schools need to be further strengthened and so forth. And in the past, the real focus has been on gyms and on cafeterias. Now they're looking at the classrooms in the multi-story buildings.

Multi-story buildings are usually cement or brick. And that means that only the windows and doors and tie down for the roof is going to be necessary in order to fortify those. So, you know, things are moving ahead. We now have windows that can withstand 200 mile an hour winds and the things flying at them, debris.

And those windows are only 40% higher in cost than regular windows. So, you know, it's time to move forward with this and we really ask for your support.

Thank you. Dr. Dudley. Any other testifiers in the room or in Zoom? Seeing none. Members, questions? I have a question for Mr. Barros. So right this distinction of shelters that are hurricane level one ready and hurricane level five. What is the difference between shelters for those five?

It's going to be the rating for the wind and the ability to withstand the wind.

Okay, so how hardened does a building have to be for level five versus a level one? And these three projects that's already been-- that's in the pipeline for Laupāhoehoe, Moloka'i and Wailua, what are they being built to?

Those are at a three. Okay, so those were in the pipeline and it takes a long time for, for the projects to go through. So they were already initiated before I took over HI-EMA, and we're still going through that process. And then on Kauai, the other project we're still working is the war memorial.

And that again is a long time to get from design to it's a shelter. And we're looking at a Category 3 level.

What is the largest hurricane that we have sustained here?

Historically?

Yes, historically.

I've got to go back and look at the historical data.

But knowing that climate change is bringing these, you know, stronger, more disastrous kind of events, what's the anticipation of us having a hurricane five, level five? I know, I'm asking you, this is an unfair question but--

That's what keeps me up at night. Even a category two. So a Category 5, we would, the state would be in trouble. But even at a Cat 1 or 2 with strong winds and the ages, you know, of our homes, it keeps me up at night.

All right, Members, any other questions?

I had a follow up. So you mentioned that the current facility in Maui that you're working on is for Category 3?

So we have, sorry, Moloka'i, Wailua, Laupāhoehoe in the works, and we have the one on Kauai.

Okay, but they're all level three.

We're trying to get them to a three, yes.

And so what is the price difference between a level three and a level five repair?

So our cost estimate at a level three for a school cafeteria or gym is about 12 million. So it would take us about 12 million to take where they are to get them to a Cat 3 addressing the windows, the roofs and some of the ceilings.

Yeah, so we just heard Dr. Dudley mention it's only 40% more for windows, I think. If it's 12 million, how much-- Is it additional million? Is it 24 million?

It'll go 24-- It'll be above 24 million. To get, say, the Wailua, right now, we're at about 8 million from what we spent. To get them to a level five? It would be beyond the 24 million.

All right. Any other questions?

I have a question, I'm sorry. I guess I'm trying to reconcile our discussion about the previous bill 883 and your statement that you do have a list via the counties of shelters and their conditions. So if you had to upgrade the facilities, you would have to coordinate with the county, is that correct?

Yes, sir.

So I guess I'm just trying to understand why you weren't in favor of HB 883 but you're in favor of 357. Because in my mind, it does a very similar thing as far as assessing the need for the shelter and upgrading them to what is needed.

So right now the county does the assessment. They'll decide when we say, okay, we're gonna have a hardy name project under a certain FEMA funding, we'll need matching funds. The county would turn to us and say here's the priority. They will tell us what projects they want at the top of the list.

So it's being generated from the county to us. So we didn't choose Laupāhoehoe, the county did.

That's under the current situation, right?

Yes.

So if it was under HB 883 or HB 357, would that scenario change?

I would have to look at the impact of what 883 would require.

Okay. Yeah. I mean there's no doubt that these bills are promoting good things and we want to be ready and, and protect our people. We're just trying to understand the specifics of it, the implementation and pass bills that make sense. Thanks for the answers. Thank you Chair.

All right, Members, moving on to House Bill 353. This is one that's going to appropriate funds for grants to low income residents and condominium associations on behalf of low income condominium owners to fortify residential real property against hurricanes.

So we have testimony in support from Insurance Commissioner, comments from Attorney General and this is comments about how we have to put kind of grant provisions into this bill. We have testimony in support from Climate Advisory Team, Mr. Benjamin. Testimony in support from Hawaii Insurers Council, and testimony from Dr. Kioni Dudley.

Dr. Dudley, did you want to say anything? This is on the grants for fortifying for low income residents and condominium associations?

Yes, I would like to say something. In the first place, let me tell you that Hurricane Iniki was a Category 4 hurricane and they did have winds of 227 miles per hour. That's something that you can find on the Internet. The measure of the wind was a machine that was blown off its foundation.

And you know we're going to have the same thing. Hurricanes are getting stronger and stronger. We have to go to Category 5 and 200 mile an hour wind in order to protect our people. We have, as far as my testimony, we have roughly 187,000 wooden houses in the state.

Most of them will not be able to withstand even a Category 1 hurricane without strengthening. Apartments are another major problem. They weren't built to withstand hurricanes. Many will have most of their windows blown out and people along with that. The purpose of this bill is to help struggling families to fortify their houses and their apartments.

This bill will grant money. This is not a tax relief, this is granting them money for people making only 80% of the median income or less. These people don't make enough money to fortify their homes or their apartments. Their homes will likely also need more than average work to strengthen them too.

The grants would be between 25,000 and 50,000. For people living in apartments, their problems will primarily only be windows and sliding doors, so they can apply for up to 10,000 only. If condominium associations want to change the windows and doors of all their apartments, they too could apply for this money to upgrade any apartments belonging to people making only 80% of median income or less.

We really do need to help these people. It's something that is terribly important and I really hope that you will pass this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Dudley. Any other testifiers? Zoom or in the room? Seeing none. Members, questions? Seeing none. Okay, moving on to House Bill 358. This is a bill that would require all public buildings constructed after January 1, 2026 to be designed to withstand Category 5 hurricanes and be used as shelters. We have testimony in support. Mr. Barros.

Yes, Chair. We support any effort that strengthens our resiliency. But again, as we spoke earlier, getting to a Cat 5 will increase the costs tremendously.

Testimony in support, Insurance Commissioner.

Stand on our written testimony, providing comments.

Thank you. Comments from Department of Education? Comments from DCCA? Comptroller Keith Regan?

Here for the Department of Accounting and General Services. We offer comments on this. But I'd also like to make the point that as Mr. Barros has talked about earlier, for projects that are already in the pipeline, our budgets will have been set on designing to Category 3.

Okay, so what we're asking in our comments is to adjust the effective date such that it would only be for projects for which funds were appropriated in the 2026 session or thereafter.

Thank you, Mr. Wood.

Thank you.

Testimony in support, Department of Correction and Rehabilitation Director.

Good morning Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto, Members of the Committee. My name is Melanie Martin. I'm the Deputy Director for Administration testifying on behalf of Tommy Johnson who couldn't be here. So we support the intent of House Bill 358 and our support is contingent on the caveat that we house justice-involved individuals.

So our ability to shelter the public is very limited. Thank you.

Thank you. Testimony and support climate advisory team Mr. Benjamin, Dr. Dudley, in support via Zoom.

Yes. Thank you. Chair. We all know that In a category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane there is no place to go, no place for you and your family to go. We need all future buildings and public schools to be constructed to serve as shelters and to withstand these 200 mile an hour winds.

I want you to know that I will be talking with Representative Ed Case tonight. We really need to get the Federal Government to help us out with funding. I don't think that all of this is going to be just the state at all.

So I really, you know, I want us to keep our eyes on 200 mile an hour winds and on hurricane fives. Some good points have been made in the testimony of others. It's true that prisons are public buildings and we can't make those into shelters. And there are buildings on school campuses that are inappropriate for shelters too.

So in section 2D at the end, which begins with all public buildings, including public school buildings, I would add, that can reasonably be used as hurricane shelters. The point has been made that buildings which receive appropriations in this session will be caught without enough funding.

So I would cross out constructed after January 12026 and add and for which appropriations are made in the 2026 legislative and county Council sessions and in the years following, and I think we need to be more specific about the wind speeds and access to bathrooms.

To the words designed to withstand category 5 hurricanes, I would add with winds of 200 mile an hour and have interior passages to bathrooms.

So section 2D then would read all public buildings, including public school buildings that can reasonably be used as hurricane shelters and for which appropriations are made in the 2026 legislative and county Council sessions and in the years following shall be designed to withstand Category 5 hurricanes with winds of 200 miles an hour and to have passages to bathrooms, interior passages to bathrooms so that they can be used as shelters in the event of an emergency. I thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Dudley. Members, any questions? Wait, sorry. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via zoom? None, Vice Chair.

Thank you. Dr. Dudley, how long does a hurricane last? How many hours? You're muted. I think.

You usually have to be in a shelter for 10 hours, but sometimes if it stalls, you could be in there for days.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

Questions? One more question. Go ahead.

Yes, I have another question for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. So I know you supported the intent, but I just want to clarify that you are a shelter. I mean, you shelter people who are in the incarceral system. And so obviously you have a duty to keep them alive during a hurricane.

So I would imagine that any. For that reason. And also if it's a low, I'm not sure if you're responsible for not, I guess, where they incarcerate non serious people. That for instance, I can imagine where the community. If that was the only shelter that could survive a hurricane. 5.

I know I would want to seek shelter there if the choice was sharing space with somebody who's been convicted of a crime versus dying. I mean, so just to be mindful of that, that that is some place that I would seek shelter.

Thank you. Yes. So in our testimony, we. Excuse me. We do mention that we are in the planning phase of the Oahu Community Correctional Facility, Correctional Center, Kauai and Maui as well. And we will consider that design of to withstand category 5 hurricanes. Thank you.

Can you stay there? I mean, I think for education of the Committee currently. What is the plans if there's a hurricane threat? What do the facilities generally do and if it's. If you could just briefly give an overview so that Members can understand what happens. What are your protocols that you folks follow?

Well, there's a protocol in place that will ensure that all of the justice involved individuals are safe and as well as a staff. So, I mean, I can get that information for you in more detail if you want, but we always put the safety of our staff and the inmates first.

And this might go to our later conversation about the State of the facilities, because my concern is that, you know, some of our facilities are in flood zones or in certain situations, they can't shelter in place. And there has to be plans for other things. Correct. So we can go down that road later. But that's going to be for our future conversation Members.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Actually, Mr. Wood, because you're here.

Yes, hi.

You know, based on the conversation we've had about the other Bills. Right.

If we had a complex of public buildings like a school, for instance, certainly, while I wouldn't want to say let's choose to go to the lowest level like, and just prepare for category three, but could you conceive of a design plan where we have one building that is designed for Category 5, centrally located within a complex of buildings, but that the others for cost purposes are at a lower level, and would that be an acceptable situation?

Well, I will defer to the Hawaii Emergency management because they're the experts on that. I'm an architect. We do go into schools and we harden specific facilities within the school to serve as refuges and so forth. So that is already part of our way of protecting the people of Hawaii. Okay.

So it's possible to have, again, a complex of buildings and have different standards for the different buildings, depending on, from.

My point of view as a non expert, I would think that that would be a reasonable approach. Yes.

All right, Mr. Barros, you're up. Even though you did not provide testimony, if you could answer that question. And again, it's about priorities, right? Members, when we write a Bill that says all public buildings, then that raises a certain expectation.

But maybe it's considering that within a series of buildings and we have places, right, we have, you know, University buildings that are centralized, we might not need to have everything category 5. So can you speak to that?

So we are talking with the community colleges and looking at projects there, but they don't have a shelter, and we're not asking them to do a sheltering mission for the public. What we're saying is if we can harden something, and even if we don't harden anything, if they house their faculty and their students.

So at the University, at the community colleges, other state agencies that we're looking at going, okay, you can't, you're not going to open up to the General public, but for your employees, for your faculty, for your students. But the idea of having a complex area. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Chair.

That the other one we're we're going to have conversations with is with the state libraries. What does that look like? Well, how do we reimagine the state library in an event of an emergency and then building around that perhaps. Yes. Chair yeah.

So I like this approach. We don't have to do, we don't have to maybe mandate everything, but it's how we be selective and we craft the law so that we can actually accomplish in real ways the things that we want to do to protect our community. Yes, thank you. I'm seeing. Yes, she may offer a comment.

I think that the intent of this Bill is somewhat different from what you're talking about. And the intent is to say we have this huge inventory that's already built and it's not built to Category 5. Let's make sure that going forward, each building, each new building that we build is built to category five. Okay.

And so we will start to have build this population of buildings that can withstand this.

Okay, Understood. All right, Members, any other questions? Representative Shimizu.

I'm sorry, sir. I didn't catch your name yet. I don't see your name listed on the testimony. You are an architect.

I'm Gordon Wood. I'm the state Public Works Administrator. And yes, I am an architect.

Gordon Wood. Yes. And I'm sorry, you're with Daggs?

Yes, I'm with Daggs Public Works.

And your position on this Bill is?

We are. We. We are in support of the intent and we're offering comments. Okay. Very similar to Dr. Dudley's comments, actually.

All right, thank you, Mr. Wood.

Thank you.

All right, Members, great conversation. Moving on to House Bill 1059. This is the measure that would convert emergency management specialists positions at level 5 and higher in HI-EMA from civil service status to exempt status. We have testimony and support from Department of Defense Major-General Stephen Logan or Administrator Mr. Barros.

Yes, Chair. This is one of the bills that HI-EMA proposed and put forward to Department of Defense. And we're looking at our vacancies at this Emergency Management specialist, the six and the five levels. And they. They are the supervisors within HI-EMA. And we're asking that they become exempt.

And we understand that it shouldn't be forever, but perhaps a period of time so that we can build up our EMS cadre as we move through and recruit into this emergency management specialist.

Okay, thank you. Testimony in opposition from HGEA.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Louise Sebastian with HGEA. We stand on a written testimony in opposition to this. I do want to emphasize that exempt employees do not have civil service protections, particularly they are considered at will employees, and they are not afforded disciplinary protection of the grievance process.

This measure will also goes to the larger issue, which is that the civil service system must become more flexible and competitive and adaptive to the current job market.

And to meet the public demands, the Legislature last year passed Act 234, which is a repricing Bill which kind of codifies in statute a process to reprice positions or increase salaries and keep them at civil service.

So if it is, if the intent of this measure is to increase position pay, we encourage this agency to go through that process with us. Furthermore, we believe the state just needs to look at decreasing the hiring time to hire employees. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other testifiers in the room or in Zoom? Seeing none, Members. Questions?

I have a question for HGEA. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony on this Bill. And we, we could have. We missed you in Water and Land yesterday on a similar issue of exempting civil service workers.

How long given you just mentioned the act that describes the process, how long does that process should it take to be able to recalibrate how much the employees make?

Thank you for your question, Representative. I think I don't have a, I guess a rough date or a date for you right now. The measure just passed. So we're really kind of, I guess learning or not learning, but kind of understanding how that process goes.

So, yeah, I guess I'm wondering because it feels like so people are submitting bills. So that takes like four months. I mean, so I feel like the departments are saying, hey, we'd rather go this route that takes four months in this whole legislative process instead of just working more internally.

So, yeah, and I think, you know, from our end, we prefer to work internally. I think exempting positions and continuing to exempt positions is just really bad policy for government. And like I mentioned in our testimony, the civil service, the civil service system just must become more flexible.

And so that falls on DHRD. The more staffing DHRD has to process applications. And would that speed up the process?

I would generally say it, yeah, possibly. Yeah.

Okay. Any other questions? Representative Morikawa.

HGEA, stay there. I'm remembering repricing back in the day when I was working. Wasn't it just that you would agree with other jurisdictions and employer and, who else, and the union to agree to reprice the position to a higher.

Correct. So prior, I guess prior to the passage of last year's act, the current repricing process, there would need to be agreement between the employer's jurisdiction and then the exclusive representative. However. However, there was no impasse procedure regarding a repricing request.

So if us as the exclusive representative, for example, feel that a certain group of positions need to be repriced due to vacancy, et cetera, effectively the state or the employer can just say no and decline.

And you're okay with that because your employee is still in the civil service sector. And then the employer would be happy because they can hire right away at a higher level. What makes, what makes it easier to get an exempt employee in.

So I would imagine it's. It's because they can, they do not have to go through the civil service hiring process. So they can. They can hire faster.

So they can select anyone off the street that they feel is qualified?

Correct.

And there is nothing to double check that and they can get rid of the person whenever they want to?

Yes, I would imagine. Yes.

So my question to Mr. Barros. Yeah. Why are you going to this route and not wanting to go through the civil service route or repricing? The position is vacant, I'm assuming.

Yes, ma'am. So for the two years I've been at HI-EMA, I've been able to hire in my civil service four people with countless, I think countless job postings. It goes out.

So what is the obstacle? Is it the pay?

Two times it was the pay, yes. At the six.

Aren't you able to hire with a shortage? Doesn't shortage allow you to pay a higher level?

We went in for our state human resource went in and we offered a little bit higher step and range, but it still didn't meet their expectation.

Did you go to the higher, highest level possible?

According to our human resources department, yes.

Okay. So the exempt position would be hired at a level that's where?

We would, we would use some, the General Fund, that is for the EMS 6. And I would look at leveraging our public assistance and some FEMA money, public assistance and mitigation money to offset the salary. And this piece, the FEMA piece would be reimbursable back to HI-EMA. So I would take the.

So right now, the EMS 6 civil service, it's only the state money that will pay the salary. If I, if we exempt it, then I can take that state salary. And what we would do at HI-EMA is add either mitigation or PA monies to that salary to bump it up.

Okay. Something that just doesn't make sense because civil service, the incentive is to be civil service so you can enjoy all the benefits, retirement, what have you. I'm just not getting why so many agencies are coming in for exempt positions. Because I'm reading the exemption policy and it says that exempt positions will convert back to civil service.

But I don't know if that has ever happened. It just seems like we're getting more and more requests for exemptions and I believe it's because it makes it easier for you guys to hire who you want to.

From HI-EMA, it's hire who we want and to be able to leverage again FEMA money to increase the salary.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for that.

Entertain one more question and then I'm going to have a question and then we're going to wrap.

My understanding is there's.

Mr. Barros.

Excuse me, I'm sorry. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Barros, how many people are in your staff.

Right now? We're at 102.

And how many unfilled positions do you have?

Of the 102, 45 are civil service and half of that is filled. So where I'm at half on the civil service side. So 45 positions, civil service.

So you're saying out of 102 positions, you only have 45 people staffed, is that correct?

No, no, sorry. The total staff employed right now at HI-EMA is roughly at 100. Of the, of the 100, 45 are classified as civil servants. The rest are exempt.

Okay, and how many are unfilled that you want to have exempt?

Of the 45, it's 9. 9 at the EMS 6 and 5 level.

And these are supervisory positions. So how does that affect your efficiency and operation having these nine positions that are not there?

So I'm using grant funding, the FEMA grant monies, to have a exempt employee oversee the responsibilities that these EMS Sixes would do.

So you're getting by with that kind of distribution of work, is that my understanding?

Yes, sir. Just getting by? Yes, sir.

So you're not experiencing a lack of production or efficiency or. I'm trying to understand you're requesting exemption status to fill these positions. But you just explained that you are getting by, so it doesn't seem like there's a really high need for filling these positions or correct me if I'm wrong.

No. So, for example, one of the positions, one of the EMS 6, is the supervisor for the state warning point. So supervising the 24 hour, 365 day operations of our state warning point. That's been vacant since I've been, since I got the job two years ago.

We haven't been able to fill it through the DHRD process to get people through. If, if we exempt it, I can take the state monies that you guys provide for this position.

Right, I understand that. I'm just trying to understand that if the public safety is being jeopardized because these positions are not being filled.

You asked if we're just getting by. We are just getting by. We can do a much better job if I have these positions.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Can I ask a question in another way, Mr. Barros, to say that I'm gonna ask two questions. Is the threat of burnout real for the people who are in these positions and doing the jobs. And that's, that's, that's the concern that you have.

Absolutely.

Okay, then my second question is, have you received instructions from DHRD about how to engage in the repricing process.

Through our department's human resources folks.

Okay. Have you pursued that process?

I gotta double check on with them exactly what the process is, but every time we look at a vacancy, we're trying to figure out how is the best way to get this done. So this. In this past two years, we've taken some fours, EMS fours and we downgraded two of them to EMS twos.

So that we can build some capacity to grow within the system. These Ems, this emergency management specialist. So we've, I want to say that our Department of Defense human resource folks have engaged in every possible solution set for us.

I think as this Bill moves forward, I think to be able to explain to the Labor Committee the effectiveness of the repricing process that was initiated by Act 234 and to really press, what are the obstacles with that? Okay. Because that is. I think everyone wants to see that happen.

So if there are obstacles to making sure that that process moves forward, we need to identify those obstacles. We can continue to move these bills along, but it's not the satisfactory solution. And we're hearing it in all of the different committees. So you're not the only one. First of all, you're not the only one.

But if there are obstacles to the implementation of Act 234, we need to make sure. And it might not be a law, it might be internal to the Administration to getting on board and figuring out a process that can work for numerous agencies, not just you.

Okay.

That's the message to send. And we'll send that message to Labor Committee as well.

All right. Thank you, Members. Seeing no other questions, we are going to recess for decision making. We will do decision making on this at the end of the 10:30am agenda recession.

Thank you.

Good morning. Convening our hearing. Public Safety and Water Land first, but only for Wednesday, January 29, 2025. 10:30 a.m. here in room 411. Members, on this bill, on this hearing, we have two measures related to fire protection and responses to the wildfire Lahaina. The Lahaina wildfires in part.

So Members, I set aside some time for us to really dig into this information. We will first start up with House Bill 1064.

This is the Bill relating to fire protection that amends the laws concerning the office of the State Fire Marshal to best effectuate the recommendations of the Phase 3 forward looking report by Fire Safety Research Institute on the August 23rd Maui wildfires. Members, we have testimony in support from Major General Stephen Logan, Adjutant General.

Hey, good morning. Aloha. Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto for Water and Land, Chair Hashim and Vice Chair Lamosao and Members of the Committee. I'm Major General Stephen Logan. I'm the Adjutant General for the State of Hawaii Department of Defense. And I'd like to stand on my written testimony in support of House Bill 1064 this morning.

And I'm free to answer any questions you might have based on that written testimony.

Thank you, General Logan. We're going to have lots of questions, so we'll take testifiers first and then we'll have Members open up with questions.

Okay?

All right. Testimony and support from the office of the Governor Will Kane, Senior Advisor. Testimony, comments from DLNR.

Onno hi makae aloha. My name is Michael Walker. I serve as a statewide fire protection forester for Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife. The Department has comments on the measure. There's. As the bill is 63 pages long, there's multiple things we could talk about and I think the.

The key point that we wanted to get across is that the State Fire Council, which I also serve on as a member representing the Department, is that the Fire Council would like to be consulted on the measures in the bill and the location of where the Marshal and State Fire Council will sit. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Testimony and support, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Hello. Chair Belatti. Chair Hashem. Members, David Rodrigues with the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. We stand in strong support of this bill. Thank you. And available for any questions.

Okay. Thank you. Comments Hawaii State Fire Council via Zoom. Okay. In person. Thank you.

Good morning. Chair Della Belatti and Members of the Committee. My name is Gary Lum. I represent the State Fire Council. You have our written testimony on comments and will be available for questions.

Thank you. Comments from Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, Elizabeth Pickett.

Good morning, Chairs and Committee. I'm Elizabeth Pickett. I'm the Co-Executive Director of Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization. We're a nonprofit celebrating our 25th anniversary this year of being the hub of wildfire research, planning, education, etc. And we've submitted comments.

I wanted to highlight a few of those here, which is just that we have done a deep dive.

We've worked with the Attorney General's Office and with state fire marshals from across the US, and a deep, deep dive with Oregon and Colorado to learn best practices, to learn their watch outs and pitfalls, to learn from some of the things that they've had to learn along the way as they've built up their state fire marshal programs and offices.

And I included that in my comments, as a briefing, because I summarized all of those transcriptions into their lessons learned. And we just wanted to make that available, as you work toward amending and improving this Bill. So, I'm available for questions if you have any.

Thank you, Ms. Pickett. Testimony in support, Climate Advisory Team.

Thank you, Chair, Vice Chairs, Committee Members. I'm Chris Benjamin. I'm representing the Climate Advisory Team, which is a volunteer group, convened by the Governor, to provide recommendations on resilience for Hawaii. One of the strongest recommendations that we made in our report to the Governor was that we needed proper funding and authority for a state fire marshal office.

And so, we submitted testimony in support of this Bill. Subsequently, we have reviewed the testimony of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, because we had spent a fair amount of time with HWMO, as well as FSRI, the Fire Safety Research Institute, as part of our research, looking at some of those other state models that Elizabeth Pickett just referenced.

And we would encourage the Committee to look closely at the testimony and the comments from the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, because we believe that the effective functioning of the Department is going to depend very much on the specific authorities and responsibilities that it has. And so, with that, happy to take questions later.

Thank you, Mr. Benjamin. Testimony in support from Lahaina Strong. Testimony in support from Wildfire Safety Advocates of Waikoloa. Matthew Chalker?

Hello. Yes, I'm Matthew Chalker, Founder and Executive Director of Wildfire Safety Advocates of Waikoloa. We stand in strong support of literally anything that we can do to improve fire safety here in the village, which, as was noted in the Attorney General's second report, has a higher risk of wildfire than even Lahaina.

Anything that we can do to make it safer for us in the village and everywhere else in the state, with the new fire marshal and increasing their funding, we support. I support everything that HWMO has submitted, just like everyone else has been saying, and we're available for questions as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Testimony in support from Hawaii Insurance Council. Testimony, in person, in support, from Hawaiian Electric.

Good morning, Chairs, Vice Chairs, Committee Members. My name is Jim Alberts, testifying in support of this Bill. We recently filed our Wildfire Safety Strategy three-year plan with the Public Utility Commission, but because we know this is a whole of society issue, we applaud the efforts to advance this Bill for the state Fire Marshal.

And we really like the idea of being able to fund this position in a way that it has the authority and the autonomy to be able to help implement new and innovative ways to fight wildfires, including working directly with electric utilities, to help make the state even safer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Alberts. Testimony in support, Kamehameha Schools. Testimony in support, AARP Hawaii. Testimony in support, Robin Knox. In support, David Foster. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers on Zoom? Seeing none. Members, opening it up to questions. Any questions? Go ahead.

I'm not sure who this question is directed to, perhaps the—those—who helped draft this document. On Page 33, around Line 20, Line 15, it references the county authority to amend and adopt the Hawaii State Building Code. So it, it basically gives a lot of authority to the fire marshal who has—I understand.

So, I appreciate—obviously—everything that's come up in this, and I appreciate that the Fire Marshal is thinking about fire safety specifically. The County Council Members have a lot of other things to think about, not just fire safety. They have to think about affordable housing, long-term health impacts to their citizens.

What if there is—what if the Fire Marshal says we need to only build with plywood soaked in a chemical that we realize later is like similar to PFAS, and so, there's long-term health impacts in environment or to people?

There—is there, again, it feels like the narrow scope of the Fire Marshal doesn't take into account other implications.

And I'm just wondering, if there's some wiggle room to say—to give counties the room to say, hey, we hear that this requirement is related to fire safety, however, we would like the opportunity to look at a wide range of impacts and compare and make a decision, but acknowledge that we're going to get—we're going against the fire safety protocol, but we're doing it because of the economic hardship or the long-term health impacts or environmental impacts.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you didn't.

That was a question about would you be open to that—sorry—would, would there, would there be room?

Yeah, and I think, I think it's probably. It's Adjutant General.

That's your question.

Okay. Sorry.

So, a short question is—or a short answer would be, I don't know. I don't come from a strong fire background. I wasn't a fireman. I haven't set codes or anything like that.

I believe that this section, the underlying portion of Page 33, is to kind of align the counties with the Statewide Fire Code, that the Fire Marshal and the State Fire Counselor then going to develop and implement.

So, I'm not sure if there's a provision elsewhere in here, whereby they can grant an exemption or exception to this specific section, at the present time.

Okay.

Representative Ichiyama.

For Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, Ms. Pickett. Thank you very much for your testimony.

I was wondering if you could tell us some of the best practices, that you learned from other states, about what a State Fire Marshal's Office needs, in order to be effective, and in order to, really, I think, accomplish the things that the FSRI Report said that Hawaii needs to do, to make sure we don't have another Lahaina.

Can you talk—speak—to that?

Thank you for that—thank you for that question, or for the opportunity. I'm going to go a little bit out of order with—according to the briefing that I provided.

Just to also follow up on the last question, which is that one of the best practices is actually to have a diverse steering committee, or advisory board, or something that is made up of our county, state, federal fire agencies, but also, our building folks, building developer—developers, utilities. There is land use and community planning involved in fire safety.

There's—all of these issues are really well understood in other states, 49 other states.

And so, one of the best practices is to have a diverse advisory panel that then can review and, and think through all the considerations of the issue, so that by the time the State Fire Marshal provides a directive, it has been vetted and understood within the greater context of all the other goals that also need to be achieved.

You know, we have a housing crisis. We need to build a lot of houses. We want them safe. Those are all considerations that would be part of that conversation, so that then the directives are in consideration of those types of things.

So, that's one thing, is that the best—one of the best practices we learned is, for instance, Oregon State Fire Marshal's Office has a diverse Steering Committee in that way, and they do have those conversations and work things out before directives are issued.

The, the—another best practice is to make sure that they have—they're tucked up close to the Governor and they have statutory authority to really provide that statewide umbrella. But again, in consideration of, of fire chiefs and that diverse Steering Committee, but they do have statewide jurisdiction and the lines of authority, and the roles and responsibilities are very clearly stated.

It's a little bit muddled, as is written here, but that's also very important. And then, getting the structure and the vision really sealed and agreed upon, ahead of time, and then having a plan for a build out.

Because State Fire Marshals are often overseeing lots of diverse things from codes to land use planning, to the built environment, to natural resource management and vegetation. There's a lot of different things going on to, to create wildfire safety, including wildfire, but also other types of fire.

And so, there should be a structured build out, or a plan for a build out, so that over time, the Office can start to address the many diverse factors, or components, that go into safety.

Could you also speak to maybe data collection? Last year, the Legislature appropriated money to University of Hawaii for wildfire mapping, wildfire vulnerability assessments. I know HWMO has done a lot of that work and I didn't see that in this Bill.

It's not, and that was actually some—some of our concern, because collecting data consistently and understanding our trends and patterns, understanding where the priority areas for mitigation, for community programming, for risk reduction, that's really, really important. And right now, we don't have the easiest setup to collect that data.

And so, our organization has been doing that for 20 years. There are hazard maps available, but we are hustling all the time to try to find funds to make that possible, so that we can really know across the state what we're working with.

And having that as part of the State Fire Marshal's Office is best practice and is very standard across the country. A lot of folks depend on that information to know where to channel resources, where to prioritize with limited funding, to know where we need to shore up the safety considerations, or resources, or personnel, etc.

So, it's, it's an essential component of a State Fire Marshal's Office.

Isn't that also important when we apply for federal funds—that we have accurate maps so that we can qualify for grants? Is that important?

Yes, actually, so, Hawaii doesn't do a great job of upward reporting our fire occurrence, and it's because of the data management—the lack of data management, consistency. It takes a lot to quality control everything that's coming in, in all these different ways. And we do that in house.

But actually, we don't have the authority to then upward report, and our state and federal—actually all of our agencies do in some way, but it's not comprehensive or consistent. And so, Hawaii has received less federal resources than we might otherwise because of the way we're not able to report accurately and consistently.

Thank you. Ms. Pickett. If I could do a follow up, Chair, or?

Let's see if other questions. Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Pickett. For General Logan—I think there's maybe some more work that could be done on the Bill. Would you be open to making some of the changes that HWO recommended?

We would be open and in reality, this is a—what we're looking for is unity of effort. Like I said, this, this current State Fire Marshal doesn't currently reside under DOD, so it's kind of a new, new ground for us.

The purpose of the Bill would be then move it under DOD, subsequently acquire the funding, hire the State Fire Marshal, whether that happens between now and then, or somewhat after this session, and then, of course, be open to look at building out that office so they could be more effective, and provide all that input from the State Fire Council, all that rich history, and also, with the, with the expertise of the person that's hired, yes.

So, the answer is yes.

Well, thank you. So, things like the data collection, having an advisory council, some of these best practices from other states?

Yes, definitely, Representative.

Okay. And then, it sounded like—and this is my last question, Chair, so, sorry—it sounded like maybe there wasn't a discussion with the State Fire Council about moving over to DOD. Did, did you have that conversation, or anybody in that Department, have that conversation with the State Fire Council?

I spoke to the Chair on two separate occasions, with Chief Todd. I spoke to the Maui Fire Chief, while he was down here in the Capitol. Next week, I'm visiting Maui. I'm going to meet with the Maui Fire Chief.

I've already—the day after, so, on Friday, I'll meet with the Honolulu Fire Chief, and in March, I plan to visit Kauai on another visit and plan a visit with that Fire Chief. But the intent would be, from now till the end of the session, to meet with all Members of the State Fire Council and try to gain their perspective.

And DLNR, DoFA, is also part of this?

DoFA, the Airport Fire Rescue Section also, and all Members of the State Fire Council.

If it's possible, I would just ask that you try to expedite those conversations. I think it's important that everybody is comfortable with this move. So, if you can, do that. Thank you.

Definitely understand. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Along these same lines, actually, I think it's good for education of the newer Members, including myself. Maybe, Department of Labor, can you just provide a little bit of background? I mean, and if it was just because you were the last Department standing last year, can you explain why it was placed with Department of Labor initially?

I believe the State Fire council was attached to DLIR before my time. The DLIR is just a team player, and we've been a team player all along.

And our testimony has always said that we will accept the State Fire Marshal's Office look—with the hopes that you folks would find a permanent placement in the Executive Branch, so that those functions are properly done. We're not fire experts,and it doesn't really match our mission.

We don't even have a mission statement because we have this fires council and, in our office, right. So, we—administratively, we've, we've been very supportive of them.

Okay, maybe the next question is for Ms. Pickett. Since this placement is part of—I view this Bill as having very two parts. Right? There's the placement of the office of the State Fire Marshal, and then, it's the things that is going to be responsible to do.

But in your, you know, study of the best practices—in other states, where is the office of the State Marshal typically located?

It varies, and it usually, usually is a reflection of where different kinds of activities are located within the state, in general. Typically, it's, it's connected to law enforcement, or to natural resource management, or to community resiliency, sorts of sustainability resiliency.

So, I think we have some options to kind of think through what that would look like in Hawaii and where it should land. But those are the examples that are set by our other states.

And then, in these other states that you look at, what is the, where you, do you see it—I see the alignment with emergency management, with Department of Defense. I mean, it just seems very natural, because those are the folks we also call into action at the moment of crisis.

So, did you—in the scanning of other states, do you see that also, as a close relationship?

Sometimes, where there is actually a strong fire component already. However, for, for us, when I look across our state departments, we have a State Department or Division that's really already wildfire-trained, fire aware, on the State Fire Council, and that's at DLNR, Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

And so, for me, that might be a more natural fit because as General Logan mentioned, they're new to fire and they're willing to take it on, but we do have expertise that's already lying within the state, which is at DLNR DoFA.

So, we have, we do have—we have an option where there is fire expertise, but I'm not saying there couldn't be other options.

All right. Members, any other questions?

Sorry, Chair. One more question for the State Fire Council. Are you folks in the process of hiring a State Fire Marshal now?

Yes. We received about 14 applications and currently under review right now. Because of limitations from Chapter 92, on the State Fire Council to meet and make decisions, we formed a permanent interaction group to review the applications and give recommendations.

Do you think it would be maybe prudent to pause, until we figure out where this Office will go and how it will function?

Well, we just met last Monday, and this Bill came out after we posted the agenda. So, I'm not sure on that answer to your question. There were suggestions we paused. But yeah, I'm not sure about that.

Maybe if you can take that question back to the State Fire Council, of whether or not it is prudent to pause on the hiring, before we move forward with this really intensive description of the scope and jurisdiction of the State Fire Marshal. Because you don't know, right?

You're hiring somebody for a job that you don't know what the job will be yet.

Yeah, we're just following Act 209 that was passed last session. So, it scoped out that we needed to start the process. We got funding and generate roles and responsibilities and job description, etc.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Members, any other questions?

I have a question.

Go ahead.

Forgive me for my question. I think General Logan—maybe you might be able to answer this. And some of the discussion has touched on this, but the Bill says that the Office of State Fire Marshal and the State Fire Council will transfer from DLIR to DOD. So, is that transfer just intact transfer? I'm not sure.

I'm trying to envision the functionality of that, besides the alignment of supervision and the departments. But is it just a transfer intact? I'm just trying to understand—how does that look like?

Good question. And I think what would happen, it would become an attached agency to the Department of Defense, much like our Office of Veterans Services. So, it's not really assigned to us, but we take care of some of the administrative, the financial, and the contracting piece, thereof.

So, where it would be beneficial, and I think it's already been stated by one of the other speakers, is we already have the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

So, we could nest the development and build out of the Office of the State Fire Marshal, along with some of our mitigation, response, and recovery techniques that we've already developed through the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

While I say I don't have experience in firefighting itself, we do maintain the Hawaii Army National Guard's capabilities of our helicopters with the buckets, that can then be augmented to the state correction—the county or state fire structures are ready. So, we do have a little bit of firefighting capability.

But we would envision that it migrates over to the Department of Defense as an attached agency, along with the State Fire Council, and then, operationalize it because of some of the recent events—the Maui Wildland Fire of 2023, obviously the fireworks incident of New Year's Day, the unfortunate tragedy with the Honolulu Fire Department a few days after that—and be able to operationalize it that much, that much quicker is what I think the thought process would be.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Members, any other questions? All right, thank you. We're going to move on to House Bill 1064, and this is relating to fire prevention, requiring certain owners and occupants of properties located in hazardous fire areas to maintain effective fire breaks within 30 ft of the property, and to practice other fire prevention activities. I'm sorry, HB 113, yes.

What did I say? Oh, I'm sorry. 113. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. First up, we have testimony and support. DLNR DOFA Don Cheng.

Aloha Chairs, Vice chairs, Members of the Committee, Michael Walker, Statewide Fire Protection Forester for the Department of Land Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife. The Department supports the measure and is providing some comments to summarize the testimony.

There's just some clarification on the definition of defensible space, kind of elaborating more and breaking down the zones further than what the Bill provides.

And then in terms of the part 2, Section 2, which refers to the community Wildfire fuel reduction, Community fuel reduction project, there are some issues the Department raises in terms of the authority as well as liability of the Department or particularly the Division of Forestry and Wildlife working on other state lands.

That needs to be clarified and also the funding and increase in staffing that the Department would need in order to accomplish this goals if this measure is passed. And I'm available for any questions you have. Thank you.

Thank you. Comments from Superintendent Kita Yashi. Comments from Hawaii State Fire Council.

Good morning, Chair Au Belatti, Members of the Committee. Gary Lum representing the State Fire Council. We stand on our written comments that were submitted.

Okay. In support, Kauai County Council, Council Member Felicia Cowden. Support climate advisory team. Mr. Benjamin. Okay. Comments from Kamehameha Schools, testimony and support from Wild Safety, Wildfire Safety Advocates of Waikoloa. Mr. Chalker on Zoom.

Hi. Yep, I'm here. Welcome. We here in Waikoloa are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of dry grass that are not legally obligated to be managed. We have been talking about this with our fire chief, Chief Todd. We've been talking about this with our own HOA who refuses to clean the lots.

I have been advocating for some sort of action. I've been specifically discussing using a wildland urban interface to open up Chapter 17 of the fire code. But this Bill, Bill 113, does very much the same things, and I'm very, very supportive of it. We need to force the landowners to do something.

If we don't, the fuel keeps on growing and it's going to burn. That's just what's going to happen. So we got to cut it down, we got to get it grazing on it. We got to do something. Otherwise we're in for a really, really big problem. So we are very much in support of this, and we're available for questions if there's anything that is needed. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chalker, and thank you for joining us via Zoom. We have testimony, comments from Life of the Land, testimony in support from Mr. Plum, who's been waiting so patiently.

Good morning, Chairs, Vice Chairs, Committee Members. My name is Bill Plum. I took a look at this and I'm not a fire expert, although I have had close calls in my sister's place in California which fires, but I happen to be an attorney and I looked at it and noticed that the definition and I've supported the Bill.

So you just got to tweak the definition so you don't get into trouble later. That's what it's coming down to. If you take a look at a triangle. And back to high school math, if you've got everything flat 30, I would just take the first example. 30ft. Well, that's great. It's 30ft.

But what happens if it's a steep slope and Hawaii is not Kansas? Right. We all know that. So everything moves in different directions. So you've got to put in something to clarify the definition of what happens if you've got a 20 degree slope, 40 degree slope.

By coincidence, I just happened to go onto Google and I just typed in what happens when this happens, and AI popped up to the California CAL FIRE website, great website. You guys check it out. They got a whole chart right here which shows exactly what to do. And they've got 30ft.

In fact, I think somebody cut and pasted exactly the 30ft, 100ft, exactly where that says, except their statute and their rules actually say what happens when you got a hillside? And I mean just within minutes of here, we got hillsides. And on every island we got hillsides everywhere. So what happens? And we got steep hillsides.

So what you get is these fire ladders is what they call them. So if it's flat, things burn. But if you take a match and you light it and you tip it up, of course it burns quicker up the stick. So you might want to take a look at that. And it gives two different definitions.

Like for example, if you've got 10ft between trees, but you've got a, what does it say? 20 degree slope, then you need 20ft between the base of the trees. And if you go to a 40 degree slope, which we have here across the state, you have to go 30ft between the trunks of the trees. And for brush, it actually even stretches it out farther. So anyway, this, there's data out there, you guys can take a look at it, make the decision.

But just from a legal perspective, if somebody came to me as a homeowner or property owner and was trying to either own the land that had the tree on it or wanted to keep the trees away from their house, the first thing I'd look at is, well, what's 30ft?

Where do I bring the tape measure and how far? So take a look at that, hopefully that'll help. Also, you might want to add in there. I did notice in other websites the state defines, and it's just like California, they define certain trees as being more combustible than others, certain brush more combustible than others. In California.

I know my sister's place had a eucalyptus tree next to it. Almost got burned down because the fire came right up to the edge of the house. And everybody's joking. They call the eucalyptus trees, they're a firebomb because once they hit, they blow as compared to other trees that are hardwoods which won't go.

So you got different combustion abilities that you guys should, might want to put in at least a starter list. In this state we've got a eucalyptus, we've got ironwoods, which are fire, I would call them a firebomb. You've got other brush that ignites quicker and burns faster.

So you might want to toss that into the Bill while you're at it. So my comments.

Thank you, Mr. Plum.