Formation of a proposed new Hawaii County agency has stalled following lengthy debates among members of the Hawaii County Council.
During a May meeting of the council’s Governmental Operations and External Affairs Committee, Councilwomen Rebecca Villegas and Heather Kimball co-introduced a measure that would establish the new agency — the Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity and Resilience — which would manage policies and programs addressing the impacts of climate change on the island.
The May 16 meeting generated significant discussion among council members, but they ultimately voted to move the measure forward to the full council.
But after more discussion Wednesday during a meeting of the full council, the matter was postponed.
As initially presented, the bill would establish the sustainability office — which council members quickly reduced to “OSCER” in shorthand — and an administrator position for it that would be recruited through the county’s civil service recruitment procedures.
The administrator would serve a term of six years, which Kimball said was intended to separate the office from the four-year election cycle.
However, Kimball later said that a civil service hire cannot also be term-limited, and so presented an amendment to the bill that would give the option of making the administrator position either a civil service hire with no term limits, or a mayoral appointee with a six-year term limit. The council voted in favor of that amendment.
The bill also would create a Climate, Sustainability and Resilience Fund that would be maintained by the Department of Finance.
Finance Director Deanna Sako said Wednesday the final version of the county budget included funding for five county positions that will become part of OSCER.
Villegas said the measure has been in development for more than two years, adding that she felt the need for a climate-focused office in county government will only become more important in the years to come.
“I see this as an opportunity for our county to adjust to the changes that are afoot among society and … to set our county up to be successful as funds become available in the next few years from the federal government,” Villegas said.
“I have every faith that humanity will adapt, that we will be able to address these problems,” Kimball said, explaining that her involvement in the bill stems from a conversation wherein her daughter said she is unwilling to have children in the face of climate catastrophe.
“What I don’t have faith in is that everyone will be lifted in the same way,” Kimball said. “That there will not be a tremendous amount of suffering on this path for different groups that are either disenfranchised already, lower income, whatever.”
But council members were divided on whether the new office actually could perform its stated goals.
“Creating the department doesn’t create the change,” Puna Councilman Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said during the meeting. “I really do question whether the county creating a department and spending a million dollars a year is going to create the changes we want to see. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, well, I’m not going to say, ‘I said so.’”
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder told the other council members he would vote against the measure Wednesday, as did Hilo Councilwoman Sue Lee Loy.
Lee Loy said the state of the bill wasn’t up to the county’s standards, and that it would be preferable to vote against advancing it to a final reading rather than attempt to perfect the measure while moving it forward.
In response, Kimball moved to postpone action on the bill until the next council meeting on June 21.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
