The committee met to consider three resolutions: confirming appointments to the Fire Commission and Police Commission, accepting a $125,000 gift for the Honolulu Zoo, and receiving an informational briefing on the HPD Staffing and Retention Task Force's report. All resolutions were advanced for adoption.
I would like to welcome committee vice chair Kia Aina, committee members Nishimoro, Okimoto and Tupala. Pursuant to Section 92-3.7 Hawaii Rights Statute. This meeting will be conducted as a remote meeting by interactive conference technology with the following procedures in effect for the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in person in the council chamber and remotely when each agenda item is taken up as both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii. Pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution and Section 1-13 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Members of the public may testify either in either language. For our testimonies offered in Olala Hawaii, additional time may be necessary and will be allowed for the testify to provide an English translation for the testimony. Before testifying, each person shall state their name. Persons who have not registered will be given an opportunity to testify following the registered testifiers. When I call for anyone else standing by remotely, please utilize a zoom raise hand button to indicate your desire to speak. For those joining us by telephone only, please press star nine to indicate your desire to speak. Geisen Antai to the fire commission of the city and county of Honolulu for a term to expire on December 31st, 2029. And here in person, uh Mr. Geyson, would you like to or Mr. Antai, would you like to say a few words? Hello. Uh alo, Chair, committee members. My name is Geyson Antai. It's a privilege to be here today. Uh currently I serve as in house legal counsel for the Queen's Health Systems. I'm part of that role. I have the privilege of overseeing our corporate risk management uh program. And so a lot of my work focuses on safety, accountability, compliance, um, and really supporting all of our health care providers throughout the enterprise. And with that said, I have a deep appreciation and respect for all the men and women uh of the Honolulu Fire Department. Um I have a deep respect for the role the fire commission plays in stewardship and maintaining public trust. And so it'd be an honor uh and a privilege to serve on the commission discapacity model. Members, any questions? Okay, Councilmember Tupola. Aloha, Mr. Antai, thank you for being here. So did you seek out the position on the commission or did they seek out you and kind of what is your interest in this particular commission? Absolutely. I I did seek it out. Um I reached out to the mayor's office mainly because I wanted an opportunity to serve on a city commission. Um, and I thought fire commission, you know, played well with my experience in health care and working, you know, with our frontline and emergency services uh personnel. What do you think um mainly your main focus will be on the commission? Or I don't I'm not sure if you've actually watched some of the commission meetings already, if you kind of like have some thoughts about how you think you can make it better. But what is your preliminary thoughts about your specific role on the commission? Yeah, absolutely. I think you know, supporting uh the fire department chief and deputy chief would be, you know, uh, I think an important uh contribution I can make on the commission. I think uh with my background, um accountability and governance is really important. Um so you know, I I would I haven't been able to watch any excuse me, prior recordings of any uh commission meetings, but I I'd go in there and listen and support the current members as well as the leadership of the department. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Uh we'll not proceed with in-person testimony in the council chamber. Anyone chair there and then. Okay, it looks like nobody on remotely also, right? Okay. Now members, we are in discussion.