Senate Standing Committee on Higher Education

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our joint informational briefing with the Senate Committees on Higher Education and Economic Development and Tourism. Today's Monday, March 3rd. It's approximately 2:03 PM and we're in Conference Room 229. This is an informational briefing, and we are being streamed live on YouTube.

And in the unlikely event that we must abruptly end this briefing due to technical difficulties, we'll reconvene as soon as we're able to. And in the event we're not able to reconvene, a new notice will be posted on the Hawaii Legislature's website.

Purpose of today's informational briefing is for the Committee to follow up on UH Academic Creative Media System, State Film Studio, and UH Proposed Film Studio with pertinent members of the University System and Department of Business and Economic Development and Tourism. And just a reminder, this is informational briefing, so no testimony will be presented.

We will be asking questions of those that we listed on the agenda, or possibly, depending on the answers and questions, we could call on others that may be present today. Today, we have Chair Lynn DeCoite from the Economic Development Tourism Committee, and for the Higher Education Committee, Senator Fukunaga. And I know others will be coming in.

We did have a caucus, a very long caucus. We just got out. So, that's why we apologize for not starting directly on time. And so, with that, we'd like to get started. Again, this is just informational, and it is follow up. And perhaps we can start with the—with Peter Arnotta. Yes. Yes, would you please come up?

And Peter, if you could identify yourself.

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, Senators. I'm Peter Arnotta. I'm the dean of the College of Arts, Languages, and Letters at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And in that unit is the School of Cinematic Arts or formerly, ACM Manoa.

I think the committees were very concerned about how do we move forward with this. I mean, with a lot of issues are raised regarding the Manoa—the Manoa's program—West Oahu, with the ACM building, and how do we utilize that.

And, you know, how do we make our programs at the University of Hawaii regarding creative media, one that is more coordinated and that we are actually meeting the needs of the workforce development? And certainly, people don't want to criticize the departments or the colleges for the programs that they're already running and they're already doing.

But then how do we enhance it and how do we move forward? And I think part of that is having an understanding of how we reach this point and then, how do we move forward?

Well, thank you for that. I mean, I've been Dean over this program, both as former name and...for 13 years.

So, I probably work longer with this specific program at Manoa than any other administrator at Manoa, though I was not here for the early history of the development of ACM, and I can provide some of that background if you want. But essentially, the program was officialized in 2004.

But there's a prehistory to the program that began in 2001, prior to the hiring of Chris Lee, and that program, that was an effort from then President of UH System, Evan Dobell, to begin his film school at Manoa.

And that was a project and set of initiatives undertaken by a series of faculty and others, under the leadership of Tom Brisland, who eventually became Chair of ACM Manoa, but also, Glenn Cannon, who's very well known here.

And Tom is going to be here.

And Tom is sick. So, actually program—originally, our program was different from ACM and originally, the program was Cinematic and Digital Arts at Manoa. But in 2004, Chris Lee was hired as the Artistic Director, not as the Academic Director.

He could not be the Academic Director because he did not have the requisite desired minimum qualifications in terms of academic credentials, but he was a producer in Hollywood. He was very skilled in that area. So, he was brought in as Artistic Director and Glenn was kept as, as Director of the program.

And then, a series of changes happened, and ACM was developed as the new version of it at Manoa in 2004 and made official. And then the Legislature, as you know, Chris often says 10 positions, but it was actually seven. 10 were requested, the Legislature appropriated seven.

Three more were secured two years later, two from the Legislature, one internally to Manoa. So, that's beginnings of ACM Manoa and some of the back history of it.

So, ACM actually came out of Manoa?

It came out of Manoa, yes.

It morphed into?

System, the ACM system, if you're wanting to know the history of ACM system, I wasn't here for that. Maybe others could provide that background. But Chris requested a transfer to system in 2006, I believe—I can get that date for you.

And then President, the then President of the University of Hawaii System placed him as a person under Research and Innovation—the Vice President of Research and Innovation. I don't believe, this is interesting, he was moved as a person, but there's no Board of Regents' records that created ACM's system.

I can find no evidence in the records of the Board of Regents that a system was created, that, in fact, the language of system was being used for the program at Manoa. But, you know, things changed, and he was placed under that Vice President, and a system vision was then formulated and developed.

And that, again, is external to Manoa itself. I just know the internal history of what happened at Manoa.

So, as it stands now, it's ACM system. So, why was it put under research? Because it really doesn't fall under research.

I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I wasn't here, and it's never been fully explained to me.

Okay, so is that something that we need—with the University and shouldn't be us, but the University should look at, as to how do we move forward?

Because if, in fact, there is an ACM system, I don't know if this is something that the Board of Regents need to formalize, or is it something that perhaps has evolved and changed over the years?

I think it's probably evolved and changed over the years. I mean, I, as an Academic Dean, I work with my counterparts at the other campuses and with the Chair of our program to develop articulation agreements, transfer agreements.

We share the two direct leads of our campus, Christine Ockham and Charlotte. New Age West Oahu secured a $500,000 grant on their own, collaborating between two directors of the campuses. Chris—Director Lee—was not involved in that grant, and it was solely the work of these two very skilled professional leads, and both campuses work very closely together on that.

So, we have good relations around curriculum, transfer agreements, shared, shared grant activity for student support. But that's been done at the, at the departmental or college or university level.

So, why is there so much friction or so much—I don't know if friction is the right word—no cohesion with the University system at Manoa and the film studio, film program there, and West Oahu. And I'm not sure how it?

Our biggest challenge—I think the area of friction you're referring to probably has to do with the actual use of the building itself. The decision to.

When the money's flowing down, that's been also.

Right. Chris Lee has a budget, and so what he would do with his system leads is request—each Chair of a program submits requests annually for support from him. And our history of support, I think you—the Chairs had given you all the history of that support. For many years, we got none.

$And then, recently, we've gotten, you know, $50,000, $50,000, and last year, 100,000. That was rescinded but then given back to us. So, it was given to us, rescinded, and then given back to us by System Director Lee.

Members, any questions as we move on?

So, I want to underscore that the two largest programs are obviously West Oahu and Manoa. We have 367 majors right now. At the level of curriculum and interaction of these programs—students, faculty—it's very good. It's at the higher levels where there has been some, you know, areas to work on.

And that largely has to do with the fact that the facility, the largest facility for film is now at West Oahu. And so, the question was, to what degree would we be able to use the building? To what degree would we be able to get students in the building?

Those have been the conversations. At the ground level with students and faculty, chancellors, and deans, it's been a very good relationship.

So, this in no way minimizes what it is and the program at West Oahu and all that they're doing. This doesn't minimize them, doesn't minimize the program, or their students. We're looking at the building, ACM building, that was actually built with a lot of film and production in mind.

And it's not that West Oahu and the current students aren't using it or shouldn't be using it. It was a matter of how do we maximize.

Understand.

Facility. Okay, I just want to make that straight because I know, I know there are students at West Oahu that feels that we're trying to diminish their programs, and that's not the case.

Yeah. So, that's been the conversation—to what degree can Manoa use or not use that building? And what are our actual needs? As you, as you can well understand, 367 students, they take four or five. These are undergraduates. These aren't graduate students. So, they're commuting, for many of them, although most are local—most are local students.

67%, I think, are from Oahu or Hawaii proper. It's a very large undergraduate degree program. And to go back and forth for classes, when they have four to five classes a week and they have jobs, that's not practical. So, you heard at the last hearing that Chair Occam had been working to use the building for specific projects.

You know, they use the soundstage for three or four days for a specific project. The other conversation—I don't think this has come up—is we have an authorization to plan for, at the very early day, very early stages for a graduate program at Manoa in cinematic arts and animation.

And if that goes forward, allowing students to complete a graduate degree, or rather than having to go to the mainland to do that, then graduate students would have a lot more flexibility about the use of that building because, you know, they're not taking four or five classes.

They're focused merely on that Master's of Fine Arts, that master's, that graduate program. So, I think there's more capacity when that happens. We've had conversations with West Oahu about the vision of a graduate program and how that might be able to use the building.

But clearly, obviously, as Dean, I want to underscore that, you know, we're very cooperative with our fellow programs, and at the same time, we're not opposed to using the building. It's a question of logistics. And yet, we need facilities at Manoa, too.

We have 367 undergraduates, and we need to provide them the kind of baseline facilities they need for the excellence of the program.

So, I guess the next question would be, and probably, we can answer that better than you can, but I certainly want you to opine on it, is that if in fact, the Film Production majors tends to be more at Manoa and the digital and all the other type of media, creative media, then, we put this building at West Oahu.

But wasn't the intent originally, as I was told that it was, we were looking at KCC to put this facility?

Yes, KGT. Yeah.

Can you?

I mean, you know, you want the history of that? Yes, yes, we had worked up a space plan and presented it, and it was approved by the Campus Facilities Planning Board and then signed off in February of 2016 by then Chancellor, Robert Blake Froman.

So, that was a plan until it was determined that the building was unsafe for students, that it had violated many, many different codes. I mean, Jan can explain that to you.

You're talking about the Manoa?

The Manoa Building and that it was.

But I'm talking about initially, the original museum building we look, we looked at, at KCC.

Oh, KCC. I don't know that history. I'm sorry. I don't know that history. I apologize.

And so, we didn't put it at Manoa. We put it at West Oahu. I think it's believed that—the Legislature here believed that second city, West Oahu, as a second city.

But we certainly wanted to have access and allow West Oahu, not just West Oahu, but, you know, being in that area for the students there to be able to utilize that facility and that it was going to be a full range of media, creative media, and not pigeonholed, as it is now. But then that was overruled, right?

I mean, from what I was.

I mean, I mean, you know, I wasn't involved. Ironically, I mean, I have to say this, we were never consulted in the design of that building by System Director Lee, even though we are the film program.

Obviously, West Oahu has film as a component, but we were never consulted in the design of the building, which I find curious.

Go ahead.

So, you know, we did a site visit down there. I thought it was pretty ironic why, you know, there was really no plan. I mean, there was a plan, but then the key people that should have been part of it was literally just left out. How you rectify that where you have this building that you can pretty much do a lot?

I mean, of course you get one nice program going on in Manoa, but you don't have that facility to do it at. How do you fix something like that so that we get the biggest usage for that area, starting from here and then scaling all up to production wise?

You know, I don't, I mean, Chancellor Benham can explain to you how the building's being used now. We have certainly collaborated, you know, as I said, around special projects, around a grant. We have, like I said, very good relations with that program. How you use that building, how Manoa uses that building.

I mean, how would you now take that building and then, you know, get it to where we need it to be? I mean, curriculum. We talked about curriculum, but was like pulling teeth to find out really what kind of curriculum was needed at that point.

I think it's largely serves the undergraduates at West Oahu. I mean, we have tried, we have looked into, and we had made efforts to see if we can move our students back and forth for classes. And it's just not—it's hard with undergraduates.

Like, you know, how do they go out there, come back, it's a full day, and then they miss all their other class, so, it's not going to be practical for undergraduate Manoa classes. We just have to take that off the table, right?

So, as I said, you know, we are moving towards the first stages of a possible graduate program, which would be very good so that students don't have to go to USC or other places, expensive places on the mainland, for that extra professional training. When you're dealing with graduate students, they have much more flexibility in their schedule.

So, there may be possibilities there. There's possibilities for us to use it for, you know, as we, as we attempted to last year for, you know, 3-4 day shoots, right?

So, for special projects, for capstone projects, but on a regular teaching basis for Manoa undergraduates, it's going to be hard and, you know, they're going to vote with their feet. They're not going to want to go out there. They're going to want to stay at Manoa.

So, you know, you talk about students moving out of the state, so kind of like competitiveness or strategies you guys can look at internally to, to look at keeping in there, because I know that there's also a relationship, of course, with creative industry.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, you know, Charlotte was there, kind of giving us some ideas, and when I came back, knowing that, you know, there was a conversation or at least on a board that was put together.

Yeah.

You know, I'm, I'm like, why hasn't that developed? And I know, like you said, some of the stuff you were just completely left out of, you know.

Well, I mean, I think we have good programs. What's nice about the various ACM programs and SCA at MNOA is that each has a specialty, right? You know what the specialty of West Oahu is. You know what the specialty at Manoa is. You know what the specialty at HCC is. You know what the specialty at ACC is.

We've developed relations with Maui, Maui College, and there's early efforts at Hawaii. So, we do have a nice.

So, knowing that we know that specialties.

How do we keep students here? Well, I think for the advanced senior professional jobs, we have to be able to offer graduate training. And that's why at Manoa, we're looking into what's called an MFA, Master's of Fine Art, which is the highest degree in this area.

So, if we can offer that, then our students don't have to go to Tisch School of the Arts in New York or to USC School of Cinematic Arts to do that, that higher level of training. We could offer that at Manoa. And so, that means that's what we're supposed to do. We're involved in graduate training and education.

So, in that sense, that would be the next step for us, in terms of planning. Otherwise, we train our students extremely well. We have excellent faculty and staff. At Manoa, we have the problem of we're still working on facilities. We need more facilities, and, you know, we've made progress.

I've been very happy that we've gotten, you know, two additional lab spaces in the last couple of years in Crawford, but we don't have a soundstage, and we don't have—we don't have a theater. We have no screening room at Manoa. And that's long been a problem for us.

So, we can't even have the Hawaii International Film festival on our campus because we don't have a screening room. So, we, there's—we have some needs. We have some specific needs. We've made good progress and I've been grateful for the additional space we've been given over the last three years. We've gotten new faculty lines. I've been grateful for that.

So, even a new space that you've got, I mean, I cannot see that being sufficient. Or is it sufficient?

No, it's not sufficient. No, we're still—no, we need more. Obviously, we need more.

So, speaking of the facility, I don't know if you're familiar with this plan that was given to me recently.

I am not familiar with that.

It is a master plan done by Group 70 back in May of 2016 to move the College of Education, and then it shows the PBS building, and it identifies the PBS building as the—as for film—the film studio to be moved into that. So, whatever happened, why wasn't this continued?

I mean,

I, I don't—you know.

The building was since, since demolished, right?

It's being demolished now. It's got that thing around it. Yeah.

I think I questioned that and was told that that building is not in good.

Yes, that was the message. That it was not—it had a number of different issues around ADA and other access issues. It was not to code and that it had a lot of deficiencies that would be very expensive.

But according to this report by Group 70, it said that it needed some improvements, but it didn't say that the building.

Yeah, I don't have the specifics on that.

Wasn't it the plan, the intent?

It was the plan, yes.

And what happened? Why was that plan derailed?

I mean, I was informed that spring that the University was moving in a different direction and that the building was unsafe and was not going to be salvageable.

What year was that?

2016.

In the same year that?

That's correct.

Group 70?

I don't know that document. It was 2016. Yes, spring of 2016.

Oh, okay, because, yeah, it's, it's clear if you look into this, it says that, so.

I don't know whether—I don't know. I, I didn't do the architectural assessment myself and I wasn't involved in the specifics.

Okay. So, I'm looking at this letter, dated February 4, 2016.

Yes, that's correct.

Kathy Cutshaw, Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance Operations, from the Chancellor at the time, Robert Ly Roman.

That's correct.

Talking about the KHET building, which is the PBS building, says the Campus Facilities Planning Board has forwarded me their recommendation that the programs at the Academy for Creative Media should be assigned the space vacated by KHET, in the KHET building.

This is a long-standing, approved plan that is ready for implementation as the space is now available to work with effective—affected—units to arrange this reassignment, so.

That's correct. It was a change of direction, after that.

Was it done—who changed the direction?

I met with Jan Gouvea here and David Lassner, and they let me know that the building was not going to be salvageable, that we would move in a different direction.

So, I guess the question is about you—you said the graduate degree about three times. So, you know, I think, has there any been any discussion that that being housed at West Oahu?

No. No.

And why not?

West Oahu, I don't believe does—well, no, I mean, it would, I don't, do you have graduate program, any graduate program in West Oahu? The Kuleana West Oahu is undergrad.

But when you talk about you have all these facility issues and you know, you need space, there's space at West Oahu. So, it sounds like it's a system issue because from what it sounds like is you guys are really looking at it, a silo of Manoa—this is Manoa, this is West Oahu.

But really, we have to be looking at it from a system perspective. And it doesn't sound like you're approaching it from a system perspective. They have a need that you want, you know, that you can fulfill. They may need to fill their building. And yet, you want to create this graduate level program.

And I feel like that's not even on the table to have a discussion. So, it seems like...

Oh, no, if I gave you that impression, it was the wrong impression. We're at very beginning stages of what's called an authorization to plan.

And I get it. But a part of it is a lot of your discussion is going around that you have too many students and you have a lack of facilities, but West Oahu has the facility, right? And so, part of it, when we went to go see what they're doing, and you talk about specialties, I think what's been driving me crazy about the, UH System is that you say, this is what we do, and that's all we do.

You cannot encroach on us, right? So, essentially, what West Oahu is saying is that they can't use the building fully because they can't offer what you offer.

So, part of it is you probably need to take a look and see, maybe they can offload some of your students in their program if they can offer a different degree.

They don't have faculty—they don't have graduate level faculty.

No, no, I'm not talking about the graduate level. I'm talking about just your undergraduate cinematic arts, because they're not even doing film at West Oahu. They're doing all that other type of things, but yet we're saying Manoa is the place you have to go to film.

So, I'm just saying, is there a way to break off part of your program to help West Oahu with their enrollment?

Because what it really sounds like is that you're really trying to concentrate everything at Manoa and they get to have this other type of program, which doesn't necessarily need the building, and therefore, they're not using the building, but you need the building, yet you don't want to give up the program.

How would that involve transferring faculty?

I don't know. You tell me. That's why you're here. Because what we're trying to figure out is we're trying to figure out how to fix this problem, but everyone's looking at it from a campus perspective versus a system perspective. And that was what I think drives us all crazy because.

And every campus can't say, this is my program and we're the only campus that can offer that. We do the same thing with nursing. You know, I think the University says we can't offer nursing at another campus because we already have it at Manoa. But, well, you look at the acceptance rate and it's really low.

So, I'm challenging you—it's not even to you. It's to the rest of the people in this room who's at the system level that you have to look at it from out of your silo because you're letting West Oahu just kind of figure out this problem. And yet you say, oh, I need another facility.

Well, I'm sorry, I wouldn't support giving you another facility until we figure out this West Oahu problem, with an empty facility.

I would not want to divide my program. That's an...

Of course you wouldn't, but when you look at it from a system perspective, and which we have to look at it from, we're just looking like you just want everything for yourself. Because that's the perspective that I'm getting, to be frankly honest.

Is there, is there a prohibition from West Oahu, other than they don't have the faculty? Is there a prohibition from West Oahu? And I asked them when we come up, including film, I know they have like six students in film or maybe a little more than six students, but is there a prohibition?

No, I mean, I can't, I, I, I don't—I'm not part of the academic design or projections for that campus. I know what our specialties are, right, so.

But they can.

They could, yeah. I mean, that's a system issue about, you know, and, you know, on your point, I mean, the students would want to have to leave Manoa for West Oahu. Are you sure they're going to do that?

Well, I think if you offer it, then people can vote with where they want to go. But if we don't even offer the programs that they want, because we're saying this is, we have a specialty at this campus, you cannot offer that same specialty at another campus, then how do you give students the choice?

I guess when you approve the building that was in maybe some of your minds, that you would move some of my faculty and some of my programs?

I don't know. You tell us.

I feel—I don't think, I don't think that's a productive way.

But we have a problem. We have an empty building. You have too many students.

Yeah.

I don't, I think—and I was here, I think, when we did the building—that it was intended to move the students. I think it was to allow, get more of the students that lived on that side of the island the ability to, to enter into a film or other creative media on that side without having to commute all the way to Manoa. So, it's not so much that, but the fact that it's not readily offered for limitations, be faculty and funding.

But that's something that I think West Oahu needs to start to articulate to us, whether—because it's not up to us to determine, and you know, we're just in caucus and we're saying, well, we shouldn't be telling, UH what to put in. And it's not so much we're trying to tell you what to put in.

But, you know, you folks are the experts and you guys need to tell us what, what resources you need, what funding you need. And the regions, I think, need to also make policy that this is what we want to do so that we can follow up with the positions.

And it's not so much we don't want to give those positions. We haven't seen a plan.

Okay. Like, do you have a cohort at West Oahu?

Do I have a Manoa code at cohort?

Yeah.

No.

Well, there you go. So, maybe something to look at.

Yeah.

And that's the purpose for today's hearing, or briefing, is to try to get at the end of the day, to how can we move forward and what can we do so that we have a more cohesive. Senator Kidani.

Do you guys have any tally or count of how many students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa that are from the west side, whether it's in the film,

In any, because if they're not using it only for film and there's not enough students, then what about offering other courses there?

I have...

I don't know what has been done to make use of the.

Of our 2—367—majors at Manoa, 2% are international, 33 are from the mainland, and 65% are from Hawaii or Oahu, but I don't have the demographic breakdown of that 65%.

In terms of residency, I mean, they're residents of Oahu. I don't know how many live on the west side, as opposed to Waimanalo or town or elsewhere.

And what is the university doing to go out to the high schools to let them know what courses are offered where.

We have outreach to various high schools, either at the university level or at the department level.

Could- Could we get information on that? How often you guys visit.

Sure. Yeah. Outreach to high schools? Absolutely.

Thank you.

So sorry. You know what? Everybody in your systems, I mean, just baffled by you guys. Get people creative in the industry by ACM going on you, all these guys that know exactly what is needed and yet the plan has not been developed on best utilization.

I mean, these are questions for system Director Chris Lee, who is Director of ACM System.

So why was his butt not held to the fire when he never developed it?

I can't answer that.

So this makes it hard for us to kind of say, okay, trying to help you guys. When we were there that day, they wouldn't even know what curriculum to set up yet. It seems like we just throwing out stuff here and there.

I mean, perfect example on the west side, you guys get Sea Rider Productions, have that outreach within, whether it be Chris Lee or whatever, sat down to see what the next.

So I think that's also a answer to you, senator, as well, which is understand my job as dean of a college at Manoa, and my responsibilities are for my departments, 17 departments in the School of Pacific Asian Studies. The questions you're asking about system level, why wasn't better coordination made?

That's the Kuleana of the director of the system. Since you have a director of the system. I'm the dean of a college. I'm not the director of the system.

Well, the same reason why we get regents that we've been having a really hard time seeing what they're doing to hold this thing down and figure out do we really have one facility on the other side that they had a say to tell these guys what to do.

And it's kind of where, you know, what we're trying to figure out is how do we help you guys decide? You guys coming to us with the a list of I need this, this and this. Not blaming you, but, you know, it's hard when we can't even get one on a success level.

Well, I mean, if it's not. If you have an ACM Director and you're feeling like that person is not doing the job of coordinating a system, then I would say. And then let the deans, the chancellors and the provost do the work.

So I think this is where the regents come in. Maybe they need to say, okay, this guy is fired, or whichever way you want to put it, or whether or not these regents are, like, just sitting in the background while we're trying to help work with you guys to help put funding there.

But I want to reassure you, senator, we are working together. We just got a half $1.0 million grant with West Oahu. That was the work of two professional women directors at each campus. We've reached out to, you know, articulation agreements. These are all things we're doing on the ground.

If you're asking about larger coordination, coordination issues, that's the regents, that's, UH, President, that system Director of ACM, Chris Lee. I mean, my Kuleana is my responsibility is for my program and my 367 students who I need to help with better facilities and a better quality of education. Thank you all. Thank you all so much.

Aloha. Maenette Benham, Chancellor of, UH, West Oahu.

So you've heard some of the concerns raised, and maybe you can enlighten the members. Have you been restricted from doing film?

The answer is yes, but let me just say that things are changing, given the- the last several conversations that we have had here at the table. So, first of all, the- the idea of system having shared courses and shared programs on a campus.

As you know, we have a Bachelor's of Nursing program on our campus right now that is offered by, UH, Manoa. Right. And so we do the recruitment. Thank you, Senator Kidani. We do the recruitment. And we have over 100 applications for over 50 positions. Right. So we do the recruitment.

The Pre Nursing and Manoa School of Nursing offers the Bachelor of Science for Nursing on our campus. So we know we can do that. We know we can actually do that. Dean Arnade talked about the Master's program in Fine Arts, and it's just in the planning stages. UH, West Oahu is supportive of that.

And we're talking about a BAMFA. So what a BAMFA is, it's that our students would be going through our bachelor's program and matriculate into a Master of Fine Arts program that would be offered on our campus. Right. So our students wouldn't have to drive into town to take classes. So that's part of the MFA program.

Is that BAMFA piece. So looking at ways in which we can bring more campuses onto our campus, in particular Manoa, because they have the graduate programs. We do not have the graduate programs. Since Our last conversation with you, as you probably know, Vice President Cirmos has pulled together a group of the officers. I'm included.

VP Young is included. VP Halbert, who is for Academic Affairs. Let's see. The Vice President for Community Colleges and the chair of our little work group is Vice President Cirmos. So we've had two conversations right now to address the issues that you have brought up. One of the things that we are talking about, you visited our campus.

And so you know that Sharla and her other two faculty are very program specific. Right. Their job was to develop a vibrant program for our students on the west and central side. And that's what they've done. It wasn't part of their job to actually run the facility as well.

On top of all the program stuff that they're doing, connections with industry articulations.

Who are supposed to do that?

Well, when I got to campus in 2017, when things were just building, I thought maybe we would have a director, but we never had a position for a director.

Did you ask for a position?

Yes, we have been asking for positions.

No, for the director position.

We've been asking for more of a facilities manager position.

And the facilities manager position would be that position that would ensure that we would be able to not only take care and maintain all the special equipment in the facility, but also would be a connection to our industry partners as well as with helping with the program. Right. So that's because we have.

Is that part of the budget?

That is one of our requests for this--

Was that included in the last couple years.

In the last couple years. And in this year as well. Also in this year's budget, we are asking for a position for a sound engineer/instructor. As you know, we have that huge sound audio post production.

Now, we can use bits and pieces of it right now, but we don't have professional person and we would like to have an audio. I don't know exactly what the title is, but there is a post production title for this kind of activity and create another degree that would be in post production.

I don't recall seeing this position.

It's in- It's--

I know I still have two custodian positions and three faculty positions.

No, it's- It is I believe what we have asked for is introduce yourself.

Good afternoon. Dave McDonald, Vice Chancellor, Administration. So this year's request for ACM included one faculty position to focus on film. Film production, a facilities manager, as the Chancellor noted, the sound engineer, which we. I think we have as a specialist. Yeah. And then the custodian? Yes, yeah, custodian. And then a general-

general laborer to help facilitate, control and support the building.

Right, yeah. And we do have a film position in there.

Right. And that would allow for how many students or what kind of program that would allow for you.

That would. That would allow us to grow the current program. Because right now we hire program.

The current.

Yeah. So we hired. One of our faculty members is a documentarian and she's an award winning documentarian. She's in her second year with us and she was building out that program and adding on another faculty member can expand what we can offer in terms of film production. So those are all in our requests.

So you guys, are you able to outsource those positions?

We would have to talk with our HR about that. I do remember our last conversation that we had. And we put that in front of our human resources there. Usually we have to hire. Where's Jan? You can ask Jan that question. She knows more about the HR side of it.

But yeah, we usually hire lecturers, like for grants. We can contract people to do certain things through our grants as an option, you know, outsourcing. Yes. Yeah. You know, we did at one time look to hire audio production folks. Now I have to be very frank about this.

They're excellent people, but when they get another gig, they can't be teaching classes.

That's kind of what Chris Lee was doing. Right. When he had another gig, he left. He went off, did his thing and the thing was just left right there by itself.

I don't know anything about that, but.

Well, I just want to bring that up because if you're going to ask for this stuff and the positions, I would want to think it's going to work out versus we're bringing in people that just could be doing other stuff as well. Right. No one's.

Yeah, these faculty positions are faculty positions. Right. And so they're permanent positions. They're held to our policy and workload. How many, you know, classes they have to teach, they're reviewed, peer reviewed.

But isn't that what the artistic- artistic director was supposed to also be? Permanent position.

Who's the artistic director? I don't know about his position. He- That's a system, you know, position.

So from the systems, who would oversee him?

Vice President of.

Question.

So I guess what has come out of these meetings that you've been having as a working group? Because I think part of it is, yes, you can ask for these one offs.

But I think what we really need to understand is what is the ultimate strategy of when you, you get all these one off positions, what is that ultimately getting to? I think we talked about enrollment previously. Right. And I think part of it is that has to equate to some type of increase in Enrollment.

Substantial increase in enrollment at some point. But you know, and part of it is then what? You know, I think we need to understand all the elements. Yes, yes. You can give you these few positions, you can maybe do a sound thing. But is Manoa in the picture? Who else is in the picture?

It doesn't have to be. I'm just giving an example. But what is it that we're going to do to get you to that point where there's some self sufficiency? I suppose.

So we've only had, to be honest, we've only had two conversations so far as a team, and I think we've gone pretty far to actually identifying the need. And we're still talking with VP Cirmos about how we're going to do this to have a sound production faculty member.

If we get the position, that would be wonderful. If we don't, how are we going to be getting it?

So building out the program that you saw or that Sharla introduced you to when you were present, it's really building out that program so that it not only does the remarkable work they do already, but adding on the audio production piece of it, adding on the ability to have a facilities manager that would make this facility more accessible to more people because that person is in charge of the facility.

Okay, so what is the number that you think you can get out of that?

What do you mean the number?

How many students?

The students? Well, depending upon what now we're aggressively.

Okay, less than 50? More than 50?

I would say, like, you know, when we say 3 to 5%, we're looking at between 35 to 70. 40 to 70 students.

Okay, so that's one element. So what else are you looking at?

Well, the coursework that we have in creative media is also coursework that students in other disciplines also take. I get it.

But you have to increase your total enrollment, not just your program enrollment.

No, but what it will do is that it will help to increase the enrollment in other departments. So for example, we just put in a digital marketing concentration, which is our business unit and creative media unit.

So now you're going to have more business students come into the business program because they know like a minor they could do in digital marketing, because it is, you know, a very, very useful tool for people going into the business field these days. Okay.

So, yeah, I think you obviously need some work on that, but I think what you really need to come away to tell us is what is it that will get you the interest? Obviously, I think your enrollment is kind of low at West Oahu because, frankly, they probably don't offer things that people need. Right.

I think it's such a gem of a campus, but there's some issue there why people aren't selecting West Oahu. And we need to fix and figure out what that is and why that is. Right. Why is there 350 students at Cinematic Arts at Manoa? What is it that West Oahu can do to get you those 350 students?

So we're close to 400 students in creative media.

Right. So I think. Well what else is there? What are the other elements that will unlock the abilities for your campus to- to make sure that you can get even more students?

Well, you know, one of the things is that we are a commuter campus way out on the west side. There are three factors. One, you need to understand the demographics that we're working with right now. The second is understanding that when you're- we don't have a residence hall, so we don't have people actually there that-

that, you know, will come full time because they're close by. You know, otherwise they have to. To drive in. So it's the transformation.

I'm glad you have an understanding, but I think that the proof is in the numbers. Right. And so I think we need to see that increase, and you need to break us down, what that increase will look like. And I think that's the bottom line we look at.

You can tell us all these great things, and I hope you're right, and I hope it comes true. But we need to see those numbers go up. Right. And I think that's at the end of the day, we'll know if you're successful or not.

Yes, senator, it's good that you're saying that because people are listening on my campus and they're going to hear that enrollment is important.

Yeah, yeah. And I think to build on what said. It's like when this building was built, we were told a lot of things, and it hasn't materialized. So does one sound engineer create a program?

It will. That is to start it. Right. It'll help to begin to build it and then build the curriculum. The person will not only help to build the curriculum, but also maintain all of our equipment there as well as that begins to, you know, be introduced. And we can-

we may be able to hire a lecturer or, you know, or two that would be able to teach one class. Many professionals will do just one class.

So again, we need to see. We need to see, you know, the steps. Because one sound engineer does not make a program. And we do have the audio program at Honolulu Community College.

And we have articulations, many of their students, two plus two right into ours.

So we need to see how that works.

So are you saying, Chancellor Benham, that there's not a program or curriculum yet.

For audio, for the audio production? I think from what I understand, there's been a lot of conversations about it over time. And so they kind of know what needs to go in there. It's just that the three faculty are three faculty. And our music program as well has their own little sound studio as well.

So how long has the University of West Oahu been in existence.

As a four year at that place? I believe since 2012. And I think we're close to 45 years old right now.

Yeah, well, my point is that there should be much more curriculum as well as students because that was built with the understanding that we were going to try and attack, attract students from Waianae, Pearl City, Nililani, Wahiawa, and you know, I don't know. Do you guys visit the schools?

Yes, yes. I had the enrollment folks actually put together what they have done just this year to help build the 2025.

And how long have you been doing that? Visiting schools and trying to.

Well, since I've been there in 2017. So you visit all the high schools in the area? Yes, yes, and Independence and charter and immersion schools as well.

So we have about. You have about 300 high school students coming in to do the sort of.

The full time, first time freshmen.

Right, well. Or just getting their college credits and so forth. Right. About 300.

The- The early college or the first time freshmen?

Early college, yeah.

I think that's about the average. About 300. Right. Coming in on specific pathways.

How many of that is actually then turned into students? At West Oahu.

At West Oahu. So most of the students will end up going to Leeward Community College before they come to us.

So I was told the percentage of those students are very small, that actually. They do go to.

Yeah, they do go to LCC and then they come to us. A lot of it is cost. The cost is different between the CC's and us. And with LCC in particular, we have real strong articulation programs.

So we always see a bump, you know, in our juniors, in our transfer students from the CC's that's been a large population of students because of the two plus two articulations we have with all of the CC's.

Let me ask UH a general question. You don't have to answer this. Today will be interesting to see of all of the high school pre college, what percentage actually we retain at the different campuses and what percentage we retain that don't instead of going to the mainland. Interesting to see that.

I don't know if we keep track of that numbers now.

Yeah. The other question is that what we're looking at right now is how many of them do go to the continent but come back and what are we doing to bring them back to us as well?

Yeah. In my case I started the uh. And then I, I left. So you know, it goes both ways, right? Yeah, some go. Yeah. And some stay for a couple years and decide, well, we need a mainland.

Right.

Okay. Members, any other questions?

Would be good to know why they went? Why they went? Why they. Why they left? I mean, and then, and then why did they turn on and come back? Survival rate or.

Well, miss home. They miss home and.

Yeah, yeah. And some of us go because I.

Was kind of looking at whether or not it was a curriculum that wasn't being offered, which is why they left. Is that question imposed to them? Yeah. Because the curriculum wasn't there.

No. Many of them come home because they miss their family or the degree program that they were going in, you know, or it cost. A lot of them come back because of the cost. You know, you have to pay residence fee, non residence fees, plus you're paying your dorm rate.

And so cost is a big part of that as well.

One last thing and I'll be real quick. You know, I think the bottom line is I think you have a great campus. I think you have a lot to offer. I think you just have to figure out what is the relevance that why do people want to go to West Oahu?

I think if you can offer the programs that they want and they need, I would imagine that they would want to select that place. But you gotta be the advocate, right. You can't just sit on your laurels and be like, oh, we're just gonna wait for things to happen.

You gotta be the one who creates a lot of these opportunities as the chancellor. Right. I come from the school of Clyde Sakamora. He made magic happen. Right. As the chancellor. And you gotta do that too, Right. I'm really challenging you to make that happen because I think you have a great campus, you have a great campus.

Campus, yeah.

And we have great faculty who are.

Actually, you know, really working, and people work very, very hard before you. Right. Former chancellors to get that facility there. And so you can't. You can't drop the ball at this point and, you know, and let it fall apart. We got to continue the momentum. So. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. I'd like to move on and maybe. Jan, talk about the facilities and what we- what we looking at in the future, what we hope to get. Why.

I think the first question I wanted to go back to is, and I know we've had this conversation, but why is it that the program at Manoa didn't get facilities that they needed? And I think that the proposal that I'm holding here talks about the PBS building, the KHET building, and why that was stopped.

Well, that was the whole intent. Because if I'm reading this correctly, it actually says that the PBS building, we relocate to a new facility they are building on Nimitz Highway. Uh, has decided to relocate Academy for Creative Media to the KHET TV PBS Hawaii building after PBS decades.

And then it goes on to say the former KHTV building, us have decided to reuse this building for creative media, which should appear to be an appropriate conversation. The building is in good condition, so this change in use should be plausible with minor renovation. So that was in 2016.

And then the letter to the chancellor or from the chancellor talked about moving into this space in 2016, but then they were rejected and told that you guys changed.

Courses.

So what happened? Well, first of all, with regards to the report that you're reading, I am not aware of that being, uh, sanctioned plan or study or report.

So it is my understanding it was done by the College of Education.

Right. So that's a, that's a. That's an individual unit that on its own conducted. It wasn't. It wasn't a campus, and it certainly wasn't a sanction plan that comes out of the campus as a, as a priority, even.

No, I understand. I'm not saying it is. I'm just questioning because the chancellor at the time, which oversees Manoa, also talked about it in his letter that that's the plan to move it into that.

And so when we questioned you in the past about why we're demolishing the Pbs, you said that, you know, it wasn't in good condition, it was falling apart, so forth. And it made me believe that it was done recently because the building had deteriorated, which is right, because you're only now demolishing it.

And I know the whole issue started when we saw the change order, when you were moving furniture from that building that you wanted to demolish it.

But apparently, according to what I'm being told now, is that the decision to change courses was done in 2016, which is when this report came out saying that the building is in good shape. And they actually give us a list of actually what needs to be done and how much money it was going to cost.

They said PBS broadcast replaced acoustical ceilings, repair setting and window ahead, remove fluorescent and interior wall, redo the toilets, re waterproof the lanai, repair the metal decking, repair the fireproofing, paint exterior. So. And they give it a mileage. So I'm saying that the building was very much usable in this time, which.

I again, that was not done under the authority of the Manoa facilities team. And so therefore, I'm not. I'm just saying that it. That has. Not that those numbers have not been reviewed by anybody.

Yeah, but that's my question. Why wasn't it reviewed? Because apparently the chancellor endorsed it or said that they should move. But why wouldn't the university.

I mean, whether it's sanctioned or not, I mean, if I hear new information, whether it comes from my colleague or from outside, I would look at it and say, zero, yeah, you know, this makes sense. Or maybe why aren't we doing this?

So, yes. So maybe to put other things into context as well. And I had to, again, I was. I had just started at the university, was not complete, was not responsible for Manoa facilities at the time. And so therefore really didn't.

I don't have a lot of the history to the Creative Media facility, but in going through the records, it does look like Creative media as a CIP line item appropriation. It was appropriated during the 2016 legislative session, which would probably come out right after that letter was memo.

Did you say that that memo from Bly roman was dated February 42016? I would, yeah. Okay.

So I would think that this appropriation came out after that, which presents, I think, new information as to whether or not at a system level it was a priority to expend funds for the PBS building for ACM and then the following legislative session, going through again, some of these records, it does look like there was a Senate Bill 1317 that was making its way through the system and it did request $3 million for the renovation of I think the PBS building.

2350 Dole street is what it says. And that was introduced and heard. We submitted testimony on it at that time. It looks like it was Chair Kahele and Vice Chair Kidani where we appreciated the interest of the Legislature in $3 million or so.

But we did state for the record that we did not know the condition of the facility. And so therefore that was what date we could not support it. This was February 92017. This testimony.

Okay, so it was after. After. Yes.

Came out.

Did the Legislature give you $7 million to fix the PBM and add the sound stage?

No. So what ended up happening in the 2017 legislative session? There was in fact an appropriation made to specific 3 $1.0 million appropriation made specifically to relocate Communications and Academy of Creative Media into a shared facility on the Manoa campus. So it was pretty clear, I think this Bill ended up dying.

So there was, I think at least in 2017, no legislative interest in.

Yeah, but I go back to 2016.

Maybe I can add something. Why don't you come forward? That's the year you started, right?

Yeah, it's right around when I started.

I'm going to give you some anecdotal things that may help. So it was an abrupt decision. You're right. We were told. We spent five years. We came up with a space plan for the building. It's 50 pages long. You weren't there. So it was a 180.

It was a reversal of the decision, but it was timed as, you know, it was never explained to me. 2 and 2 was never put together. But the year we lost the building is the year the Legislature funded the West Oahu building. Right. So nobody I can imagine the two are linked. Right.

I did ask system Director Lee at the time, in the summer of 2016, when I was concerned that we didn't have facilities. I said, what can you do to help? And he said, I'm sorry, I cannot help you. I am building a building out at West Oahu, and you can use that building when it's completed.

So I recall that conversation with him because I did reach out to him, although I had limited communication with him, because he did not come to Manoa very much. He rarely met with us. I did reach out to him about the building problem, the facilities problem, and he said, I.

I tried in the past to get facilities for Manoa. I was then Chancellor Mcclain did not support my vision. And so I think he said something like, you're on your own at Manoa, but you're happy. You know, I'm building this facility for all of you to use at West Oahu.

So did the Legislature give $7 million to fix the PBM Bill?

I'm not aware of that allocation, Senator Fukunaga.

I think it would have been long before that time. It was during President Hanabusa's tenure that year. The Legislature did try to Fund renovations to the PBS facility. And at that time, that particular Bill was vetoed by Governor Lingo. The Legislature, and I think you were here as well, overrode the Veto.

However, President Mcclain did not release the funds. That particular appropriation called for a split between PBS Hawaii, putting in X amount of funding for specific equipment upgrades and other kinds of improvements, and for the State of Hawaii to also pay to upgrade the building.

And so in the aftermath of that, you know, following all of that, the Legislature probably said, well, you know, expansion should probably occur.

No, I mean, Director Lee was very clear with me. The future of the film industry was going to be West Oahu, that it was going to be the building, the Aloha Studios building built, that the hub of creative media was going to be the west side and West Oahu, and that we could join that energy out there.

But at Manoa, it was done advocating for facilities for us at Manoa. And that was when 2016-2017-2018-20192020. Let me just go forward.

This report was done.

No, his vision was to create a very dynamic hub with the film building and the studio complexes that are being talked about right now. And that would be the hub. The term used was ACM 2.0. In fact, you yourselves, Senator, used that same term in front. You said ACM 2.0 would be west Oahu.

So that was the future of. That's where the energy and the industry and the academia would come together. Land was cheaper. You know, building was more possible there.

It just concerns me that the energy and money that was put into this, whether it was a sanctioned study or not, but obviously the College of Education put a lot of effort into it and whether it was something. There are very good information in here.

And some of this information, I think is still valid, but it just behooves me that we ignored it. And today we're sitting here saying that this doesn't diminish the program out at West Oahu, but diminish the fact that you folks need facilities.

We're strapped for money, so it's unlikely that we're going to build a sound stage now in Manoa. At Manoa. But we certainly had the opportunity.

And I don't know if we still have this opportunity, but we certainly had a viable opportunity with not maybe this whole program, but the PBS building, which is a sad situation, but, you know, we need to move on into the future. So is there any other questions on this? Okay, so thank you. How about we.

We move to. You can stay there because it might interest you. And maybe we're going to have to have Vice President Young come up as to where are we going in the future. I know there is. There's been a proposal RFP for soundstage out there.

And then this is where DBED comes in as well, because we have a Kaliloa soundstage that we're releasing from the Navy and the visas up. And we certainly want to keep West Oahu as the hub. And certainly having a soundstage out there will enhance the use of the current building we have and the programs out there.

So I think this is really important. And again, it's not necessarily for us to decide, but it's something that I think the university and DBED need to work closely together to see what we can do for the State of Hawaii, not just necessarily the university, but as one.

So with that, maybe you want to share with us what's happening.

Okay, so there is back in. So this is going to be historical, but to get us up to the current status. So the university on June 152023 issued an invitation to submit proposals ISP to solicit qualified real estate developers and development teams to submit proposals to develop and lease approximately 34 acres at the corner of.

This is at, uh, West Oahu, the corner of Farrington highway and Kualakai Parkway. So it's the right at the corner of the entrance, the current entrance to the campus. This ISP was posted on the Hawaii Eprocurement System, EPS HEPS. The ISP was provided as a courtesy to DBED, the Hawaii Film Office.

Senator Kitani, Senator Favela, Ways and Means Budget Chief at the time, Stacy Ferreira. Those are inquiries that, that we received at the time. While the solicitation was outstanding, the deadline for responses to the ISP was October 132023 so roughly about three to three and a half months. UH received three responses by the deadline.

Two of the responses though only provided comments that while they were interested in developing the property, they did not submit a formal proposal to market due to market conditions. And a third respondent ended up being the selected developer, potential developer, operator. That selection was concluded January 312024.

So roughly, roughly, you know, a year ago, that is the Island Film Group, IfG, which is a consortium of a number of different partners that are proposing to provide the funding and the construction and the operating of a film studio. To be clear, this is not the University of Hawaii Film studio.

The University of Hawaii's participation is to make available approximately 34 acres of land for someone who could develop a film studio as required or provided for in the ISP. The university began negotiating with LFG for terms of an exclusive negotiations agreement, ENA, in order to lay the groundwork for negotiations of an eventual ground lease.

So the ENA is basically an agreement between the two parties, uh, and IfG that we would undertake just between ourselves, without the possibility of interruption or distraction or interference from other, another, say a third party to negotiate towards a lease for the property. That negotiation is currently underway.

The exclusive negotiations agreement was reached between the parties back on September 52024. So as we stand right now, we are currently, uh, is currently in negotiations for components, provisions, terms of what the developer would like in a lease versus what the university would be prepared to accept or offer.

Any eventual lease or development agreement is subject to approval of the Board of Regents. But since negotiations have not concluded and the terms and provisions of the ground lease are not yet solidified, that has not occurred and I am not offering any estimated time for that to be completed.

Do you have a limit as to. The exclusive time that the negotiations the ENA?

Yes, the ENA agreement term is for one year.

So one year from September 52024.

One year from September 52024. Actually, I think the ENA though is actually signed that we finished in early October, so about 30 days after, I would say before the end of this calendar year. It runs, the ENA runs.

There's of course, provisions that it can be mutually extended, but you know, these types of negotiations can take a while.

So if you don't come up with any kind of agreement and don't extend, then you're back to score one.

I think the university would have to reevaluate what it could do with that corner.

Have the University ever talk with the state with DBAN as to facility because of the Kaila Loa facility and whether or not this is something that there could be some MOU agreement, MOA on developing this project? I mean, I know you're. I'm not talking about interfering with. Have you.

Did you folks ever do that prior to sending this out or.

Well, this goes back several years back, pre pandemic. DBED under former administrations have been involved with the Legislature and the university on a potential site at, uh, West Oahu.

There was even legislation passed in, I don't know, 2017 or 19, around that time frame to compel, uh, to give land to DBED for film studio, not this particular site. But nothing became of that.

And I mean, to the extent that DBED assisted, participated on our, the university's invitation for proposals, in terms of reviewing the proposals, working with. Working with proposals, I mean, you know, there's coordinations to that extent. I'm not, I am not familiar with what the situation is with Kalailoa.

And that was not part of the university's issues or interests when we decided to make available this parcel for a film studio.

That decision have to do with the current ACM building that's on West Oahu and its relative process.

What, what decision? The, the decision to make this parcel available for film studio. I think that that was one of the factors that the proximity to ACM and the potential synergies that could exist from an academic perspective, the programming, our students jobs right on site in close proximity to the campus itself. I do think that was big.

You know.

Is that something that you folks have been discussing in your group, your working group, current working group, that Chancellor?

No, no, because I mean, to the extent that again, everybody knows that we are in negotiations with a private entity, you know, there's certainly a lot of sensitive things about negotiating a lease. So those things are, I mean, to the extent that people are aware.

Questions.

How long ago? So it sounds like this is like a relatively new thing, but wasn't the film studio part of some plan for. A while.

Stanford car.

No, no. But in terms of when The ACM building was thinking of being built. Wasn't a film studio being contemplated, being nearby?

Not, I don't know, not to my recollection. Okay.

That was told to me from two chancellors ago. So that, that was.

I think there was discussion, I mean, within the state. I think there was or there has been a lot of talk for, I'm going to say decades about a potential industry of film studios that either supplement or complement Diamondhead and the industry. And I think.

Well, I do know that in that discussion, I can recall a number of possible areas that would have made sense. Noelani Tech park, something at Barbara's Point, uh, West Oahu, someplace in Kakaako, by Waikamila, you know, like a number of like just sites.

But in my 23 years of working in government at the county and at the state, I have never ever seen any of that progress to the point where, you know, it's actionable. Right. And there's a number of reasons that's fine.

I think that's great to your credit that it's gotten this far. But I think in the context of.

Acm, Yeah, I think having ACM develop at, uh, West Oahu, that was probably, maybe the tipping to cut, help lean it towards where maybe, maybe, uh, could make available land for films. Maybe that made more sense, you know, then. But before that, without acm, you know, a lot of the statewide discussion was how to make this happen.

And that's what I'm trying to convey is that this is not, uh, trying to solve the state stadium, the state's studio issue. Right. We're. We're making land available to private students. I understand.

So I think, I think what I was told is that the film studio was the last aspect to make ACM successful. So hopefully you're including ACM somewhere to make sure that their building gets filled a little bit too.

Yeah, well, I guess I don't mind. To the extent that you can at. This point, our private partner is in the room. That's fine. Compromise negotiations.

But I think I can at least say that one of the things that when you negotiate with the university, yes, it's about money, but a bigger part is also about how do we articulate, like academic programmatic tie ins, which is very different than getting like a commercial lease from, say, coming in exclusion. So.

Okay, well, you don't need to look in the universities too much, but I think to the point of the chair is I think ACM has to be part of the thinking. Right. And it sounds like it is, but I think we want to emphasize that. I think in the scheme of things.

Of how I was told how the ACM building came to be, that this was supposed to be a component of it. So just, let's just keep that in mind. I think, yes.

I'm going to bring in DBA unless anybody else have questions, but you can stay there. So what is DBED doing and what has DBED done working with the university? And I know maybe you can share about the Kaililoa lease and where we're at.

Well, first of all, Happy Girls Day. Start off on a good note and hopefully it doesn't go backwards.

Boy's day is coming soon.

Okay, so let's start with the Kaliloa lease because this has been something that's been ongoing for a very long time. I'm sorry. Zero. Yeah, thank you. Jimmy Tokioka, director of the event. Yeah. It's been in the works.

The negotiations for the lease at the Kalai Loa studio has been in the works with them Navy for probably about two years now. And the lease is on a month to month lease right now and we're getting a very, very, very favorable rate.

And so the preliminary numbers which we just got two weeks ago, I believe within the last two weeks is very good in the first five years because of the infrastructure money that we're putting in towards $12 million that thank you to the Legislature for appropriating.

But in the sixth year and because it's not final yet, I'm not going to mention the exact numbers. In fact, I'll just say it goes to one amount in the sixth year and then balloons to three times as much in the seventh year.

And in my personal opinion, because of the condition of the building and we've been very, very, the Navy has been very, very supportive. But in the seventh year it would not make sense for any management company because we don't manage studios. We're going to have to bring somebody in and we're going through an RFP process.

But with the number that is going to be is being suggested right now in the seventh year, it's not going to be affordable.

So is there the need for two sound stages to facilities in West Oahu?

I would say the industry people have said yes. And I know on the private side there's other people that are talking about knowing what we have right now, Diamond Head and Kalailoa and the possibility of West Oahu.

Other entities have said they want to look for land and they want to build a studio if that's going to Happen or not, we're not sure. But I know that's been talked about.

Where other people land, where.

In Wahiawa.

And is there going to be enough?

I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know. This is private. I don't. I have.

But for DBT, you're looking at the film industry and you're looking at production and you're looking at possible tax credits. What's the likelihood that we're going to need three or more sound stages?

Well, I mean, you know, when we were good, we had a good run of 15 years. That run is no longer there. We all know NCIS left, unfortunately, and we were not. We're not prepared for that. I mean, the numbers look good. It was just a decision that CBS made to leave.

But if you look at it right now, we're trying as hard as we can to get productions in. And, you know, with the uncertainty of some of the big players, whether it's Paramount or, you know, Netflix, the industry is changing. You all know that. You don't see the blockbuster movies in the movies now.

A lot of us watch movies at home. Netflix, Apple, just watching a series, Lotus, White Lotus on Apple all weekend. But that's how people watch their content now. So it's different. So the price to bring those productions in. And I can tell you from talking to producers from Hollywood and other places, they follow the tax credit.

You know, a few of them told me, Jimmy, if you don't have tax credit, we're not going to go there. And some of them can do stuff without being in Hawaii. And so I know that you guys have been very, very supportive of that.

And I would just say that if people don't think that the tax credits attract production, I would have them look at what's happening right now. They're not coming. And part of it is the tax credit. Part of it is, you know, the studios that we have.

So the whole plan to rent out the Klein Lo studio would include in the rfp. If somebody wants to come in and run the studio, then they would have to put upfront capital. And we're talking about over $2 million just to fix an old building. And both studios are in bad need of repair. Diamond Head and Kalailoa.

So, you know, we are in a crossroads right now of the film industry and we need to figure out how we can do this.

I do know that some of the producers have said, if you lease that building to me for a long period of time, that they'll put in the investment but if they're going to have to put in a substantial investment to capital, improve the project and then get hit with a balloon expense on the seventh year, it's not going to be financially stable for any producer.

So when, uh, put out the ISP. Okay, you weren't the Director.

No.

Right. But Georgia, you, you were here. Was there any, any thoughts about working with the, with, uh, on this?

Sorry, say again, Senator.

When the ISP came out this back in 2023, did DBED or your Entity Division thought about working with the university? Did you reach out to them?

Yes. Georgia Skinner for Creative Industries, DBED. To go back in time a little bit, because I think this question was posed by you earlier. It is important to work with the university and we do.

At a point in time, there was monies given by the Legislature and we were part of a study that was done which was published in 2016. Oddly enough, 2016 is a big date today. And that included, uh, West Oahu as the number one pick and, and Kalailoa as the number two. That was the B site.

There were costs associated with it. I do have all the memos and I'm happy to transmit it to the Committee if you like. That. And the decision to move forward with the university number one position made sense. I think that as the.

During that time with that Administration, which was under Director McCartney, there was a discussion at the governor's level and at university level really to have DMED kind of take a step back and have university take the lead. And so at that time we still collaborated.

We had a request for information that we were going to send out, and that was done collaboratively. But that was prior to the decision to have it turned over to the university. So I do stay in touch. I have bothered Calvert.

A lot of ISP came out 2023, so thank you for that year back then, but forward now567 years. What did DVET do?

So we have worked in collaboration with the university on a number of fronts, specifically on, uh, West Oahu. We know that the facility has been dormant and so initially reached out in 23 to Chancellor Benham about the possibility of us working together to use it for children training.

Okay. I'm not talking about the ACM. I'm talking about the proposal. zero, I'm sorry, the ISP. When. Right, you put that out in 2023. You said October 132023 was a deadline to, to respond or it was when you put it out there.

No, we, we pub. We. We published the ISP on June 152023. But the deadline for response, the deadline to submit responses was October.

And you sent it to, you specifically sent it to DB and others.

Yes, yes, Senator. Vice President Young just gave me this document that in January, January 262024 the people in attendance to this was himself, Chris Lee, Bonnie Arakawa, Ross Richards, Deputy Director Dane Wicker, Wailea from the Honolulu Film Office, but should be told January 24th, Deputy Director Wicker was at TBIT for less than a month.

So he was, he was circulated with this information, but that was a one month.

But the deadline was passed already because.

The deadline was that list of people that the Director just read was actually the evaluation Committee for the ISP.

Okay, but my question is before that, what was the input from DBED as to. Because you're looking at Kailoa, right? And obviously you see that there's this proposal possibly out at West Oahu.

So in order to service the current industry on the ground alongside of what was happening, to build a purpose built facility which is very different than retrofit with no air conditioning, old buildings from the Navy and this very small one trick pony studio that we have at Diamond Head, which is a wonderful investment by the state, but it can only accommodate one production.

So you have to have in order to fill the pipeline, keep the students being trained from the university level into the industry. It was important to see this go forward, but it didn't preclude us from renting out the existing KIO studio.

But that's not what I'm asking.

I'm asking you knowing that we had the opportunity to State now had another opportunity and looking at partnering with the university to put in a permanent sound stage that eventually in five years, or you wouldn't have to wait till a seven year balloon, you know, you would have that, but then you could, you could literally move over was that.

It's a very important decision and I think it is an important project. So at the beginning of this we made sure that other people in the industry knew that the opportunity existed. And so when you ask specifically what we did, we did outreach to the industry in La, what did the state.

Do as far as working specifically with uh, not somebody else to come in, but the state to come in and because you didn't reach out to other people when you did.

No, no, no. It would have to be it.

Yeah, right. So I'm just saying what did DBA do to actually work with.

The University to help the state.

Okay. So, specifically to that, and I thank you, you brought to my attention on, you know, what was happening with the facility out there, and then I had a long conversation with Vice President Yoang, and then he told me about the exclusive negotiation agreement, so.

So, we're precluded right now, but I'm just saying I want to know what we didn't do and why, you know.

Well, we're, we're, we're here now. I, I cannot respond to anything from the past.

No, but, no, but she was there a long time, so, what, what did you do? Because the only thing I got out of him was that when I met Sharla was, you know, we're talking about this with you, and yet I said, so why was nothing developed at that time?

Or what are the expansion out or adding on? I mean, especially with saying what something Kailoa now, something up in Wahiawa like, I mean, you're creative industry, like you've had that relationship, you know, kind of join bubbles for see which leg belongs to which head right now. But what have you done specifically?

So, specifically, Senator DeCoite, the work that we started with the planning of this new facility began prior to 2016. After that time, we continued to reach out to the University, ACM program, specifically, whether it was Manoa or neighbor island campuses to offer opportunities to connect with industry people to do training.

It became clear that that wasn't going to be possible because of a lot of the restrictions that they had. If you look at the specific, UH West Oahu example, that is important because there had been opportunities for productions to use it, as well as students, as you've heard before.

So, DBEDT has been pushing that idea of workforce development using a different pathway, knowing that they didn't have positions to bring in industry professionals, and it fits in with the long-term framework that we're developing as a plan, to present to the Legislature that shows that this is a continuum that needs to happen.

So, why wasn't I able to break down the barriers of the existing University situation? It wasn't for lack of trying. MOA was developed. Chancellor Benham and I had a good conversation about that. That was back in 2023. Then, I heard from the community and some others that they were having trouble working in the building.

At that point, I did reach out to Chris and talk to him about it. I think it's important that regardless of how things may not have happened, we're here now and we all, I think, want the same end game. And that is, how are we going to get our people from here to work in the industry.

And we have to back into that with the framework that I've shared. The Deputy Director, Jimmy, myself, since this team has come on board, they have been 100% involved in being able to support what we mutually agree is a long-term solution to this question.

So, so, I guess my question for the long-term solution, after all of this, what he came up with, is there still hope and life for ACM and the studio there? And what would that be? Because know the talk of Wahiawa outside...you know.

So, I just trying to get a better handle on we go there or we just leave, leave that, abandon ship, and say I'm gonna work with productions to see how I can bring them from outside in and invest into facilities to take it from here to there versus saying ah, I guess from they're not gonna go over there. We, we can't expand off.

I mean I think that's what my frustration is. How do you make something there that is there to make improvements or, or do just see, we ain't going any further and I'll put people there. I still cannot get students to go there.

I still think it's the best place for a hub and I think everyone has to work together to that end. There has to be ways, not just waiting for a master's program, but being able to do it now. And how do we do that through MOAs with one another?

We have drafted many of them and I think that's an important, important step forward. I think there's so much focus that we have had, as a Department, on the Leeward Coast that we don't want to abandon that idea. Is that correct, Boss?

I guess the question then is then are you doubling down on this studio or are you doubling down on some other studio? Because if you're thinking about it as a system, then this is the studio that you focus on. But then you're talking about this other stuff. So, I think that's what dilutes the message to us.

And I'm kind of getting confused on what the focus is.

I want to kind of help hopefully clarify how maybe we can move forward with all of this. I think for the University, Diane, and everybody in this room and UH West Oahu and DBEDT, we've tried to stay in our own lanes.

You guys are, right now, in the process of considering a Film Commission and I think if you put what direction you want to see the industry and, and connecting all the dots with the film industry and the University, because I know you'd give me scolding.

The last time I was here, you said, well, you should have done that. Okay, you're right. We should have been more proactive. But it would help if there were guidelines so that lanes are constructed that UH West Oahu, the University of Manoa, and all the different film campuses know with ours that this is the direction.

Because it, you know, it can't be President Wendy or myself going in there and saying, oh, this is what you guys are going to do, and them telling us this is what you guys are going to do, so if it's...

I totally get it, but—which is why the Commission came about was because people never know how play nicely or work with each other. And then industry was left out of the conversation to make the program whole. So, I'm not trying to dog you, but what I'm trying to say is I don't blame you.

I blame the guys that was there before you. And internally, even within the other side, it's all, not me, throw the ball back that way. It's like, do we just, like, throw the ball right out of the game and start fresh?

Can I just add, add some perspective to this conversation? Is that when Rockne Freitas was the Chancellor, he and I and Chris Lee had a meeting and we talked about ACM, you know, being at West Wall was the perfect place because of the space there, because access to whatever was needed, including bodies like the students who were there on the campus that maybe wanted to participate.

And over time, you know, Rockne left, things have changed. We haven't heard from the industry for a while.

And so, I'm not sure that this current Chancellor knows about that, that part, and whether or not you guys have been in discussion with them. But it made perfect sense to do it out on the west side because that's where a lot of the productions were happening, at that time.

I don't know what the situation is now, but that's my two cents.

And I think a great deal of production happens currently with Rescue High Surf on the North Shore. Many others that are gravitating toward that. The other reason is that you have a pipeline that already exists from Sea Riders all the way through to the University, which can translate to other campuses.

They all have various degrees of, as it was mentioned earlier, in this UH System, ACM, different kinds of focus areas. Our job at DBEDT, I believe, going forward now, is to look at how we weave all of that together in an articulated pipeline.

It doesn't set out to change the DOE, or the CTE, or the University Programs, but plays to the strengths. And you do that by reverse engineering what the jobs are, the low hanging fruit, working with the labor unions, working with production industry and being able to pull that path forward. The Commission helps to set that up.

Okay, so, you know, I get mixed messages all the time. It's like, okay, we want guidelines, we want the Legislature to tell us this, we want the Legislature to give the money, and then, when we ask for the programs and they get criticized, well, you're trying to dictate to the University what to do.

You're trying to, you know, run the University. Well, it's like, okay, but if the University is not going to initiate it, if you guys aren't going to initiate it, then what do we do?

You know, and so, I'm here, we're here at this meeting to get the parties together because you guys are the ones that should be coming up, but I shouldn't have to be telling the University what kind of programs to run and where to run those programs.

But if, in fact, we invest and put a $37 million building on a particular campus, then obviously the message is there, that there's need to be, the leaders need to look at it and say, how are we going to maximize the use of this? What was the intent? And then, certainly, the industry.

So, I mean, I don't like to be the bad guy, although I end up being the bad guy all the time and being criticized for that.

But in lack of the regents giving direction, in lack of, you know, you guys giving direction, coming up with a plan, coming to us and saying, here's the plan, we want these positions versus oh, we want one technician here, we want one sound stage here. I mean, where is the plan? You know, we want this soundstage.

We want you to give us $12 million to fix this stage. Yet we have University here. I mean, what are we doing? And then years from now, we look back, we say, why did we do that? Why did we give all this money?

Why did the College of Education say this is where PBS, the building and the school should be in? And we don't follow any of these things, or we don't even consider it.

So, certainly we don't.

That's the frustration we have. And that's the frustration I want the public to understand that we go through and why we have these briefings and these hearings.

Certainly, we don't think you're the bad guy, but for your exact point of why it should be documented in the Commission is five years from now, 10 years from now, I don't think I'm going to be here.

People know, people know that this was the, the directives from the Legislature and you know, we can work on what that plan looks like. It doesn't have to come from you folks with the input at the end. We can certainly do that.

And that's what we're looking for.

And that's why I asked like the Board of Regents be present at some of these meetings so they can understand where it is perhaps that they have a role in the policy and why the Vice President's also here because they also have to work and the chancellor is here so that they can work together in trying to put—because you guys are supposedly the smartest people with the degrees.

So, you know, I don't have a film degree, I don't have a media, although I probably know as much as some people on this matter.

I'm gonna disagree with you.

But yeah, we, we, we want you guys to come up and tell us what direction we're, what are the different options we have and, and this is what the cost is going to be, and this is where, where we can, we can help.

Yeah. So, honestly, the cost of the studio, that's one thing. But that's why for us, I couldn't come here and ask you folks to spend, you know, $10 million on Diamond Head Studio, or $5 million, and $10 million at Kaleilo. That's, that's—it's not going to happen.

So, part of the long-term lease agreement with, you know, whoever that manage—studio manager—would be would include that. So, we, you know, we need that and I, you know, I, maybe I shouldn't have said anything because I have no idea whether it's going to happen or not—the Wahiawa, I don't know.

I just heard that that's—some people are looking at property out there, so.

As we move forward and you know, we're in this session, halfway through, but as we prepare for the longer plan and as we look at next session that the budget that comes from the University, have a bigger plan as to what are we going to do with some of these facilities, you know, once—how do we move forward, how do we connect the dots at West Oahu into making it. But you know, not just give us 1, 2, positions here, 1, 2, positions here.

But what's the long-term plan and how we do that? I think you have better success with us in providing that kind of funding if, in fact, we have that.

I'm confident and comfortable that we can work with each other to come up with proposals because we have two totally separate missions and we can come up with the list of things that we think is important.

And I'm sure UH West Oahu and Manoa can come up with their list and we can combine them and figure out how you can put it in a document. So, 10 years from now, or five years from now, everybody know what.

But hopefully quicker than that. Peter, did you?

I would just say...

Would you come forward?