The Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee, led by Chair Yukilei Sugimura, held a community listening session at Hana to hear budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2027. All council members were present. The meeting focused on gathering testimony from residents and nonprofit leaders about funding needs for housing, infrastructure, cultural preservation, health services, and emergency management.
Wow. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the budget finance economic development committee. It is now 6.02 p.m. We are in beautiful HANA. Such paradise. And thank you for letting us be here. When we arrived, all of us talked about how long did it take how many minutes did it take for us to get here? How was the traffic and all of that? And we got here and we said, wow, it's all worth it. It's so beautiful. So thank you for uh letting us uh be in your community. We are the budget and finance economic development committee, and we are here to listen to you. So we go to every district because we want to know what do you see that we wouldn't normally know or be able to experience that you can, and we want to hear testimony so we can provide um priorities, priorities for the budget that we receive from um the mayor, Mayor Bisson. So we take his budget, fiscal year 27, and then we dissect it as council members and put in items or approve things that are in there. So your voices are very important. Um I'd like to first introduce the council members. I'm gonna have Shane introduce the members. Member Senensi. Mahalo. Um starting from my uh far right, and mahalo everybody for joining us this evening. Um from our Molokai Nui Ahina, Miss Kiani Rollins Fernandez from uh Lele, we have Councilmember uh Tamara Palton from our central district, we have Kawanoe Batangan and our uh budget chair, Yukilei Sugimura from up country. I'm Shane Senancy, and next to me is Ms. Noheilani Uuu Hajjins from Paiya, and then from uh Moku Lana'i, we have Gabe Johnson and then finally from the south side we have uh Mr. Tom Cook. Um everybody we're we're on live on Akaku, that's Austin, wave Austin. We have some OCS staff here with us. We have Keoni, Keppa, Ryan, and Lori Ann in the back. Um I see uh Claire from our OED office is joining us tonight too. And then we also have some of our own staff members. We have uh Mavis Madeiris from HANA. We have Uncle Don Ty. And then we have Kate and Sarah also from our district offices. Welcome everybody. And Ryan, our security ambassador, so thank you very much, Ryan. I um want to thank Member Senency for the ONO food. Every time we come to Hana, we're we know we're gonna have Hawaiian food, and it was very delicious. Yeah. So um thank you. It's it was exceptional. Um, I wanted to invite everybody that we need to state your name, what organization you're from, and you'll have three minutes to testify. If you're not done, we'll give you another 30 seconds to complete. We really welcome written testimony, so whatever you're saying, if you would like to send it to us, please send it to the BFED.committee at Maui County.us um because then we'll have a written version of whatever you testified. Sometimes we cannot write fast enough. Well, you can also send it on e-comment link at Maui County.us at agendas, so that's another way of doing it. I also want to say what we tell everybody that if you don't want to give us your name, you do not have to, and you can um you can testify anonymously. We recognize that. So thank you very much, everybody, and we will now listen. And members may ask questions if they have questions of you, but uh please proceed. First testifier, please.