Alo and good afternoon, everyone.

It is 1 p.m.

Thursday, February 5th, 2026.

I called a meeting on public safety and economy meeting to order.

I would like to welcome committee vice chair Kia Aina, committee members Nishimoro, Okimoro, and Tupola.

Pursuant to Section 92 3.7 Hawaii Revised Statutes, 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 item is taken up.

As both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii, pursuing 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 in either language.

For our testimonies offered in Oila Olelo Hawaii, additional time as may be necessary will be allowed for the testifier to provide an English translation of their testimony.

Before testifying, each person shall state their name.

Each speaker may not have anyone else read their statement and is limited to a one-minute presentation on all on each item.

All persons who have registered to testify in person will be called upon first.

When the timer goes off, please conclude your remarks promptly.

Persons who have not registered will be given an opportunity to testify.

Um following the registered testifiers.

Once in-person testimony has concluded, I will proceed to remote testimony.

All persons who have registered to testify remotely by video conference or telephone will then be called upon.

When your name is called, please monitor your screen and activate your audio feed when prompt.

For persons who are testifying by telephone only, I will identify you by the last three digits of your phone number.

When your phone, when your number is called, please listen for the prompt to unmute and press star six.

When I call for anyone else standing by remotely, please utilize the 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.

So friendly reminders.

And I think this is a great way for me to do that.

Um, and I'm open to questions.

Members, any questions?

Councilmember Tupolo.

Aloha, Ms.

Alanaki, thank you for being here.

Quick question about um admin organization.

So, in looking at the structure of how um, I guess from deputy to assistant chiefs, not that it has to be the same as HPD, but HPD is operating with quite a bit more admin, right?

They have six assistant chiefs, two deputies, and then various other positions.

I guess my question to you is, especially as a former HFD, do you think that maybe in some of the areas there are people that are are doing a lot, maybe too much.

Maybe there would be a need for either another deputy or maybe another assistant chief, or do you think that the load is pretty evenly distributed as is.

Hello.

I'm glad you brought that up.

They are currently going through a reorganization, which, if I remember correctly, they are um requesting additional staffing in those positions in their executive staff at the current moment as they transition.

I do believe there is their span of control is exceeding um an efficient ratio.

And so I applaud them for taking that step in um providing a recognizing that to begin with, and then providing a new organizational structure to um support what they're doing.

Yeah, I think they're very very capable.

And sometimes when people are so capable, they end up taking on more and more roles.

But I think as a commission, if you guys um you know support this move, I think it's gonna be important.

You know, I don't know HFD as well as HPD, but I can say that I do think that there should be a little bit more admin.

I think for some of you guys' assistant chiefs, there are they're over like 16 people, sifting 16 people under them.

The management structure I think is a little bit overwhelming.

So anything we can do to support, and especially in regards to possibly transferring more of the marketing over to HFD from recruiting, you know, that's kind of what HPD had to do too is kind of take it under their own wing so that you can you guys can move when you're ready to move and not necessarily at the mercy of DHR, which you know could help them in turn as well.

I'm not sure if you have thoughts about trying to move that recruiting under HFD.

I actually do.

Um they've had great conversations and in um with DHR uh human resources.

Um they've made changes to their uh maybe not the recruitment side of the house, but with their um with their promotion process, um, the applicant process, I would like to see them give a little bit more emphasis on the recruitment part though.

Um I understand across government in general, we are having difficult times.

Um bringing people in and um encouraging people to to join our organizations, and fire is not immune to that.

So um I have had preliminary conversations with them about that.

It is on my checklist of of things to um follow up with them on.

Yeah, I know that's great.

I just think that as you serve this um second term, it's a second term, right?

Yes.

Yeah, as you serve this second term, we need to get all the wisdom we can out of you.

You are a gem.