Committee on Government Operations and External Affairs Meeting - December 2, 2025
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Committee on Government Operations and External Affairs Meeting - December 2, 2025
The Committee on Government Operations and External Affairs convened on December 2, 2025, to review public testimonies and vote on three key agenda items: the appointments of Wesley Sagawa as Director of Public Works and Daniel Gervin as Director of Environmental Management, and the adoption of Resolutions 398-25 and 399-25 regarding workers' compensation counsel and immigration enforcement protections.
Consent Calendar
- Appointment of Wesley Sagawa (Communication 622): Council moved to close the file and forward the appointment of Wesley Sagawa as County Director of Public Works with a favorable recommendation. The motion passed with a vote of 7 in favor, 0 opposed, and 1 absent (Councilmember Kleinfelder).
- Appointment of Daniel Gervin (Communication 623): Council moved to close the file and forward the appointment of Daniel Gervin as Director of Environmental Management with a favorable recommendation. The motion passed with a vote of 8 in favor, 0 opposed, and 1 absent (Councilmember Kleinfelder).
- Resolution 398-25: Council voted to forward the resolution authorizing a three-year employment agreement with the law firm Young Guni Hero Brook and Kim for special counsel regarding workers' compensation matters. The vote was 7 in favor, 0 opposed, with 2 absent.
Public Comments & Testimony
Testifiers in support of Resolution 399-25 included:
- Sam Guggenheimer: Expressed wholehearted support and recommended amendments based on a "No Secret Police, No Troops in Our Streets" toolkit, including banning joint terrorism task forces and limiting state deputization of federal agents.
- Martina Wing: Expressed strong support for the resolution, characterizing federal actions as "horrifying" and urging the Council to move beyond a symbolic gesture to a meaningful statement of autonomy.
- Corey Harden: Expressed strong support for the resolution but advocated for an amendment requiring the termination of all existing Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with ICE and Homeland Security.
- Noelle Lindenman: Expressed support and emphasized the resolution as a first step against a "fascistic slide" by the federal administration, recommending the demolition of all 287G agreements and joint task force collusion.
- Kendra Gurung (Sierra Club Hawaii Hawaii Island Group): Expressed strong support with a recommended amendment to end all MOUs with ICE, HSI, and Customs and Border Protection, citing constitutional violations by these agencies.
- Patty Cook: Expressed strong support, citing the recent joint federal task force intervention on Kauai as a "horrendous" violation of civil rights that requires immediate local and state action.
- Terrence McDonald: Expressed strong support, stating the resolution is a vital "statement of where our edges and where our borders must be" and hoping for a unanimous vote.
Discussion Items
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Nominations and Appointments:
- Wesley Sagawa (Public Works): Testified on his transition from the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) to Public Works. He outlined a vision focused on data collection to shift from reactive to proactive maintenance, streamlining the permitting process, and improving customer service. When questioned about affordable housing, he suggested exploring concessions within building standards to facilitate construction, while the Mayor emphasized a team-based approach to prioritizing infrastructure and housing needs.
- Daniel Gervin (Environmental Management): Presented a vision centered on achieving "zero waste" goals, addressing chronic staffing shortages through training investments, and collaborating with the community colleges. He discussed the massive Hilo Wastewater upgrade project, the complexities of cesspool conversion in rural areas (recommending composting toilets as a partial solution), and resource recovery strategies for landfill gas, sharing a success story from Michigan where landfill gas was converted into fuel for steel manufacturing.
- Staffing and Contracts: Several council members, including Galimba, Viegas, and Kirkowitz, raised concerns about staffing levels, the need for a shift in union relations from adversarial to collaborative, and questions regarding potential conflicts of interest involving Sagawa's private consulting firm. Viegas specifically questioned the department's contract history and the late submission of comments on Bill 83 (disposable plastic serviceware).
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Resolution 398-25 (Special Counsel): Corporation Council staff confirmed that the firm Young Guni Hero Brook and Kim was the sole qualified applicant for the workers' compensation counsel position, with reasonable fees recommended for a three-year agreement.
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Resolution 399-25 (Immigration Protections): Councilmembers Kagiwada and Kimball introduced the resolution urging the State of Hawaii to protect citizens from unconstitutional federal immigration actions. Key provisions requested of the state include:
- Prohibiting masked federal immigration officers.
- Mandating language access for detainees.
- Protecting sensitive community spaces.
- Prohibiting the sharing of confidential data with ICE/DHS.
- Prohibiting fulfillment of ICE detainer requests.
- Requiring identification of immigration officers.
- Prohibiting unmarked vehicles for immigration enforcement.
- Prohibiting 287G agreements between state/local agencies and the federal government.
- Councilmembers discussed the legal landscape, noting potential risks to federal funding under recent executive orders targeting "sanctuary jurisdictions," but reaffirmed their support for the resolution as a necessary message of community values.
Key Outcomes
- Motion Passed (622): Wesley Sagawa was recommended for appointment as Director of Public Works (Vote: 7-0-1 absent).
- Motion Passed (623): Daniel Gervin was recommended for appointment as Director of Environmental Management (Vote: 8-0-1 absent).
- Motion Passed (398-25): Resolution 398-25 authorizing the special counsel agreement was forwarded to the full Council (Vote: 7-0-2 absent).
- Motion Passed (399-25): Resolution 399-25 urging the state to adopt protections against federal immigration overreach was forwarded to the full Council (Vote: 8-0-1 absent).
- Next Steps: All appointments and resolutions are to be presented to the full County Council for final action. Management and Council members agreed to continue dialogue on staffing, union relations, and the specifics of affordable housing policy during the upcoming budget season.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 23rd session of the Committee on Government Operations and External Affairs. Today is December 2nd, 2025, and the time is 9 a.m. My name is Jen Kagiwada. I'll be chairing this committee. We'll go ahead and say who's here today, and then we'll take some public testimony. This morning, uh joining me here on the Dais. We have Council members Galimba, Kimball, Viegis, Inaba, Oneshi, Kirkowitz, and Hustis. Councilmember Conili Kleinfeller is absent today. Mr. Clerk, could we please go ahead and see if there's public testimony? Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Just noting that we do have testifiers via Zoom and here in the HELO chamber. We also have testifiers in our Kona chambers. So what we'll do is we'll start with them and then we'll take our HELO testifiers and with our Zoom testifiers. So Scott, if you could start us off, please. Thank you, really. This morning we have Sam Guggenheimer in support of resolution 399 to be followed by Martina Way, also in support of resolution 399. Sam, go ahead, state your name for the record and proceed. Your three minutes. Shall I go ahead? All right. So I submitted written testimony. I uh that you have. I am going to summarize the testimony. Um we wholeheartedly support resolution 39925. Um I think it's great. We think it's great that the county council is taking such wonderful leadership on these issues of protecting civil rights of all residents. In addition, we want to call your attention to a toolkit that has been uh published online by six organizations. The National Immigration Law Center, ACLU, Indivisible, Local Progress, Not Above the Law and Public Citizen. It is called No Secret Police, No Troops in Our Streets. I provide a clickable link in the written testimony to this. There is model legislation proposed in the ninth section of this toolkit, which includes not only the provisions currently in resolution 399, but additional uh provisions which we would recommend be used either in an amendment to this resolution or in further action by the council. In particular, I want to call out four limiting the state deputization of federal law enforcement agents for generalized policing, a task force ban, limitations on the state's National Guard, and no acquisition of prohibited law enforcement equipment. The task force ban 30 seconds in particular is uh to prevent things like the joint terrorism task force cooperation with the FBI, which we believe is also an important issue. And finally, we'd like to see some public advocacy. I've provided a uh copy of our Aloha over ICE in public testimony, and I believe Patty Cook and Hilo will reference this too. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Matina, go ahead and start your testimony. You have three minutes. Good morning, Chair and Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Martina Wing, a longtime resident of Kaluakona, and I'm here to express my strong support for resolution 399-25 and the council taking action to protect our residents from federal agents overreach. I grew up in a democratic form of government. I immigrated to US as a citizen, believing in the same form of government. I consider our local and state governments are still run democratically messy and entrenched as they are. What is happening on a federal level is horrifying. The list of deeply troubling actions of the executive branch is long. Combined with the spineless Congress capitulating.
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