Multimodal Transportation Committee M I N U T
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MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE Council of the County of Maui M I N U T E S Council Chamber July 1, 2019 CONVENE: 9:01 a.m. PRESENT: VOTING MEMBERS: Councilmember Yuki Lei K. Sugimura, Chair Councilmember Riki Hokama, Vice-Chair Councilmember Tasha Kama Councilmember Kelly T. King (in at 9:04 a.m., out at 9:59 a.m.) Councilmember Alice L. Lee Councilmember Tamara Paltin Councilmember Shane M. Sinenci STAFF: James Krueger, Legislative Analyst John S. Rapacz, Legislative Attorney Stacey Vinoray, Committee Secretary Dawn Lono, Executive Assistant to Councilmember Shane Sinenci, Hana Council Office (via telephone conference bridge) Zhantell Lindo-Dudoit, Council Aide, Molokai Council Office (via telephone conference bridge) Don Atay, Executive Assistant to Councilmember Shane Sinenci ADMIN.: Michael J. Hopper, Deputy Corporation Counsel, Department of the Corporation Counsel Marc Takamori, Director, Department of Transportation Michael Du Pont, Deputy Director, Department of Transportation OTHERS: Seated in gallery: Paula Henry, Director of Operations, Roberts Hawaii Chris Kim, Manager of Operations (Maui), Roberts Hawaii Della Lampkin, General Manager (Maui), Roberts Hawaii Debbie Cabebe, Chief Executive Officer, Maui Economic Opportunity Harry Johnson, Transportation Director, Maui Economic Opportunity . Plus (4) others in the gallery PRESS: Akaku Maui Community Television, Inc. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CHAIR SUGIMURA: . (gavel) . Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. Today is July 1st. Can you believe how fast this year is going by? It’s…I know. It’s 9:01 a.m. and we’re starting our Multimodal Transportation Committee meeting. Welcome, everyone. Please silence your noise-making devices. And my name is MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE Council of the County of Maui July 1, 2019 Yuki Lei Sugimura, I’m the Chair of this Committee. With me today is Riki Hokama, my Vice-Chair. VICE-CHAIR HOKAMA: Good morning. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Good morning. Shane Sinenci from Hana. COUNCILMEMBER SINENCI: Aloha and good morning. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Aloha. Alice Lee. COUNCILMEMBER LEE: Madam Chair, gunaydin. And that means good morning in, if you were traveling in Istanbul. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Istanbul. COUNCILMEMBER LEE: Yeah. CHAIR SUGIMURA: You’re amazing, good morning. Tamara Paltin, good morning. COUNCILMEMBER PALTIN: Aloha kakahiaka, Chair. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Aloha. Tasha Kama, welcome. COUNCILMEMBER KAMA: Aloha kakahiaka, Chair. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Aloha. Thank you, everybody, for being here. Kelly King, looks like she’ll be on her way. Mike Molina and Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, who are not Committee members, are welcome to attend if they’re around. Michael Hopper, from Corp. Counsel, thank you for being my Corp. Counsel advisor, good morning. Also today, we have from Administration, Marc Takamori, who’s our Director, and Michael Du Pont, Deputy Director for Department of Transportation. As all of you know, this means our bus service. And, as well, we have James Krueger and Stacey Vinoray, who are the OCS Staff, and I welcome them to join this meeting. I also see in the audience, because of the subject matter of our item, I want to welcome Roberts Hawaii for being here, as well as MEO. So, from Roberts Hawaii, we have Paula Henry, who’s our district…Director of Operations. Is it statewide? So, you actually from Honolulu and you’ve come here? Thank you. Chris Kim is the Manager of Operations for Maui, is that what this is? And Della Lampkin, which is from Maui also, so, thank you, thank you. From MEO, we have Debbie Cabebe, thank you. And Harry Johnson, who is in charge of the transportation for us, really appreciate that. Oh, John Rapacz, thank you very much, who’s our Legal Analyst from OCS, thank you for listening in. Our Molokai District Office is Zhantell Lindo and Mavis Olivera-Medeiros, our Hana Office. Our Lanai Office is closed today. Today on the agenda, we have one item, which is Audit Review of Department of Transportation, which is MT-10(7) and I’m bringing this item up, this is the only item on my agenda, I wanted to do this because the Department has been working on this since they took - 2 - MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE Council of the County of Maui July 1, 2019 over from January. And I wanted to, nu mber one, commend them for taking this audit and walking it forward to try to make the Department better and for our taxpayers and for our residents of Maui County. BEGIN PUBLIC TESTIMONY . CHAIR SUGIMURA: Do we have any testifiers, Mr. Krueger? MR. KRUEGER: Chair, there is no one in the Chamber signed up to testify. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Okay. District Offices, from, do we have any testifiers in the District Office? Hana Office, Mavis Olivera-Medeiros, do you have any testifiers? MS. LONO: Good morning, Chair. This is Dawn Lono at the Hana Council Office and there’s no one waiting to testify. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Dawn Lono? Oh, welcome, Dawn Lono, nice to hear your voice there. MS. LONO: Thank you. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Is Mavis there with you also? MS. LONO: No, Mavis is not in today. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Okay, thank you. Molokai Office, Zhantell Lindo, do you have any testifiers? MS. LINDO: Good morning, Chair, this is the Molokai Office and we have no testifiers. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Thank you. Lanai Office is closed. At this time, I would like to request to close public testimony. COUNCILMEMBERS VOICED NO OBJECTIONS. CHAIR SUGIMURA: No objections? Thank you, Members. Public testimony is now closed. END OF PUBLIC TESTIMONY . Note: Public testimony closed at 9:08 a.m. CHAIR SUGIMURA: Welcome, Kelly King, to the meeting, nice seeing you here, good morning. - 3 - MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE Council of the County of Maui July 1, 2019 MT-10(7) AUDIT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (RULE 7B) CHAIR SUGIMURA: So, on our agenda, as I said, we have one item, which is the Audit of Department of Transportation, MT-10(7), and pursuant to Rule 7B of the Rules of the Council, the Committee intends to receive a presentation from the Department of Transportation relating to the recommendations in the report entitled County of Maui Performance and Fiscal Audit of the Department of Transportation, March 22, 2018, by RSM US LLP and other related matters. I’m going to be deferring this item, as I think they are still working on this audit, but I look forward to hearing the Transportation presentation. And, Members, the reason why I wanted to bring this up is because I commend the Department, when they took over in January of this month, this year, they took the audit and, basically, Michael Du Pont and Marc has been working on trying to implement the findings of the audit. And this audit was done in 2018 and it provides us a background of what’s happening within the transportation community and some of the challenges that we face. And, by reading the audit, just some background information that I wanted to give the Members, is that the bus transportation, it talks about growth and ridership. Right now, Maui County has 165,000, or Maui nui has 165,000 employees, or Maui does, within an additional 2,000 visitors that come to Maui and also uses our bus system, we appreciate that. And there has been a growth in ridership from 2008 with 2,000 trips per year to 2.5 million in 2018, that’s huge. And it really is why we have the bus service and hopefully it will provide opportunities for there to be less cars having to utilize our roads and to utilize alternate methods of transportation. In 2002, when we began, there were five fixed DOT routes and one privately, and one private route, and it was basically a $1 million project and it grew to $6 million in General Fund subsidy, so that was in 2002. In 2006 is when the Maui Bus began and it had 13 buses with 4 million and grew to 11 million funding and that came from the Highway Fund. We work by contract, as you all know, and so our Department, I think we have six employees, and but what…the way that we operate our bus system is that we contract out the work to be with riders and, drivers, and the management of it, through Roberts Hawaii, with fixed routes and commuter service programs, and MEO does the paratransit program, very important partnerships and very important for the County of Maui. At a HSAC conference that myself and some of you attended in Kauai, I got to visit the Kauai bus operation and all the Kauai bus drivers and the buses were all parked, I think it was a Saturday, all the buses were, a lot of ‘em were parked, it was early in the morning, in their yards. And we were told that Kauai has 100 bus employees and a lot of ‘em, or I think most of ‘em, are exempt employees, as they fall under the Mayor’s Office or their operation structure is very different than ours. So, I can really, truly appreciate what our DOT staff has to do because administratively we operate with six employees and then through the six employees we are able to provide bus services with the cooperation of Roberts, I really appreciate you, as well as MEO. So, you’re all important to the outcomes that we have. I wanted to mention the DOT mission so we all get a understanding of what they’re charged to do in our behalf and then we can go through the presentation. The DOT mission is to oversee and support transportation systems that facilitate the movement of people throughout Maui County, including public transit, commuter, paratransit, human services transit and air ambulance in a safe, efficient, and cost-effective manner.