The Committee on Governmental Operations and External Affairs (GOEAC) met on August 4, 2026, at 12:00 p.m. in Kailua-Kona, with Chair Jen Kagiwada presiding. The committee reviewed four resolutions and two bills, all of which were recommended for passage to the full County Council. No public testimony was offered.
Welcome to the 39th session of the Committee on Governmental Operations and External Affairs. Today is August 4th, 2026. The time is 12 p.m. I'm Jen Kagiwada. I'll be chairing this committee today. We're here in the Kailua Kona Chambers. And with me today on the Dais, we have Council members Kimball, Kalimba, Vieigus, Connee Lee Kleinfelder, Inaba Kirkowitz and Hustis. Council Member O'Nishi will be joining us shortly. If we can go ahead, we'll go ahead and take it from the top and go straight down. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Do we have any public testimony? Thank you, Committee Chair Kagiwata. We do not. So I'll begin with resolution 614-26, which authorizes the mayor to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, receive a grant to purchase two handheld mass spectrometers for the Hawaii Police Department. The handle mass spectrometers we use to identify low concentrations or trace amounts of illicit substances, specifically fentanyl for law enforcement purposes, introduced by Councilmember Kakiwata by request. Chair motion to forward resolution 614-26 to council with a favorable recommendation. I have a motion by Councilmember Houstis and a second by Council Member Kimball to forward resolution 614 to council with a favorable recommendation. I believe we have Lieutenant Kelly Moniz here with us today. If we do you want to come and just share a little bit about this resolution. Thank you. Sorry, first time doing this. Good morning, members of the council. My name is Kelly Mooniz. I'm the lieutenant for uh the Hawaii Police Department Vice section. Um we're asking for uh money to purchase two mass spectrometers. Uh this is to help us fight fentanyl on the island. Um, right now, one of the holes that we have is field testing fentanyl in low concentrations. There's no real good way to test it. And the only the way that we test it now, it actually exposes us. We have to open the bag, put you know, get a sample and test it. Uh this device will limit our exposure to the fentanyl and eat us in getting charges for people. Um currently, right now, what we do is we will field test it. If it doesn't field test because they're the concentration is too low, we send it to the crime lab. Um the crime lab isn't always available. We fight crime 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our crime, our crime lab works Monday through Friday. Um, they're off on the weekends off at night. Um, they do come in to assist us when we do when we need help, but um there has been times where our crime lab person are on vacation or unavailable, and it makes it difficult for us to get charging. That's not difficult, impossible because if they're not, if we can't get a test result, we can't charge the person. Thank you very much, Lieutenant. Appreciate you. Um I will open it up to the dais, see if people have questions or comments on this resolution. Council member Conley Gleinfelder. Thank you for being here today, sir. Uh handheld, gonna use them in the field, or handheld take them back to the office and and sample from a location, or how does it work? So we can take it in the field. Um we'll probably do both. We'll probably take it in the field, or if for whatever reason it's raining or we're outside, we'll probably just do it back at the station. Okay, and then the 10th police officers both did uh is it area one and two gonna be trained?