Second meeting of the Committee of the Whole for Council year 2013-14 to order Would you do the roll call Mary? I excused excused He was just in the building a little while ago. Maybe still on his way Here Here present we have a quorum would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance The United States of America Republic for which it stands Indivisible with liberty and justice for all I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the February 2013 meeting Second we have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from February 6th any discussion All in favor opposed chair votes. I Next we have a public forum on agenda items Anybody wish to be speak at the public forum? Dulcey for the record would you state your name and address please? Dulcey Johnson 1306 North Thank you, you'll have three minutes. Thanks The agenda for tonight includes a couple of items related to it So I thought it would be a good time to again express my frustration with the paperless council Board docs was presented as an opportunity For citizens who watch the cable and council meetings on cable to become better informed The agenda documents were going to be displayed on the screen in the council chamber for everybody to see I questioned how it was going to be possible to display the consent agenda which sometimes numbers over 20 documents So that citizens could read that in the one or two minutes that it takes the council to dispose of those documents I was told it didn't really matter because the council had already those items had already been dealt with So what about documents that are referred to committees where if a person? Was interested in an issue they would have time to call their alderman or go to a committee meeting The answer to that was before board docs citizens didn't have that information either so it didn't matter So how are you better informing the public when you don't share that information with them? Cable viewers have never seen a single agenda or document on this electronic system When I was on the council for eight years Mayor Susha read the summary of all Documents on the council agenda now. I know that's not going to happen but perhaps The mayor could read the summaries of the referral documents so that people who might have an interest in a topic would know what was going on I'm a conservationist an avid recycler, and I support the idea of a paperless council But to present it as a concept of a better way of informing the public is really disingenuous Actually, it's a step backwards because now on controversial issues Citizens do not know how their alderman voted it took me six weeks to find out the vote on a particular issue going back to March a person cannot possibly find the names of their alderman to know how they voted because the Information is displayed for such a short period of time and in such an order It's it's displayed by whoever pushes their button first and by the time you get yourself oriented to look at that It's gone. In fact, sometimes the vote isn't displayed at all Now I know that council minutes are printed in the paper and they're available But that's like looking for a needle in a haystack even to someone who served eight years on the council because it's completely disoriented from the agenda and It just takes a long time and then people say well, what about the county? Okay, two wrongs don't make a right. Oh I'm sorry. I talked too fast. I mean, I didn't talk fast. No Okay, thank you. Thanks, Tulsi anybody else wish to be heard Anybody else wish to be heard? We'll move on to the chairman's comments. I'm gonna go through this quickly because we We want to move along as much as we can but I just for the newer alderman Kind of what is the committee of the whole? First of all, how does one become chairman of the committee of the whole? Well, I believe this is my third year as is chairman of the committee of the whole and The chairman of the committee of the whole at the organizational meeting of the council every year I'm elected by my fellow alder persons to this position and as I said, this is my third year and I considered an honor honor and a privilege to hold this position and conduct these meetings and At the committee of the whole we try to discuss items that Where we can spend a little more time on the item So we don't have to discuss those items At the council meeting perhaps spend some time at the council meeting or at the committee of the whole meeting go over Going over those items in detail and we do vote at the committee of the whole But our votes at the committee of the whole are just a recommendation to the full council for the next council meeting So I believe we'll be voting on one one item tonight, and then there's a couple other ones that are just for discussion But since I've been on the council going on eight years now The committee of the whole has always been a valuable tool for the council members to get together and discuss the issues and in in in more in more detail and And then make recommendations to the council and therefore Many times the council meetings can be very long and it's difficult to spend a half hour or 45 minutes on one item so that's kind of The reason for the committee of the whole With the agenda I had some Protocols and I just want to go over a few of them that I think are important First of all, it's kind of important if you can get here a few minutes before the meeting starts If you can't make it or you're going to be late if you can call Mary Mary rager from the mayor's office or Me or me and let me know if you can't make it or are going to be late and And please also remember that the committee of the whole needs a Minimum of nine older persons before we can conduct any business and the last time the first attempt at a meeting We had this year. We were one person short. I thought we had a quorum, but we didn't and If at all possible, you know, if you can if you can call either Mary or myself, so there's no unexcused absences I would also ask that any electronic device That's not being used during the meeting to be turned off and out of sight And I also would appreciate it if you would review documents and be prepared to be an active participant in the discussions if you wish to speak All of the meetings are going to are most of the meetings are going to be on television If not live, they'll be recorded. So it'll it'll be necessary for to use your microphones I'll try to keep the the the meetings moving so that we're not here hour after hour but I do want to have a full discussion on On the items that are on the agenda And then also for the new older persons benefit the mayor is not a member of the committee of the whole The mayor is welcome to attend the committee of the whole meetings But would be seated in the public area and if the mayor wishes to speak at a committee of the whole meeting It's at the chairman's Discretion and and then and as we had tonight We will have a public forum at all of the committee meetings on that on agenda items So I would appreciate if you could cooperate with some of these protocols because I think it'll make for an efficient running committee Thank you Any questions on those at all? On the committee of the whole Okay Next we're going to move item number nine up ahead of the other two items and that's the item for discussion and possible recommendation of the Common Council and Item number nine is Common Council document number four point four from April 15 2013 and are all by this city clerk submitting a communication from older Manjim Boran regarding the city of Shabuig in 2012 and 13 health insurance rates and there was some attachments to that document I Believe Thank you I would move to refer this information to the salary and grievance committee Which will be better equipped to look at these issues in more detail to actually frame what the issues are and explore what City health insurance Obviously one can't just look at rates one has to look at the entire picture. So in that respect I would move for that referral We have a motion in a second To refer this to salary and grievance any discussion Under discussion I'm going to go over a few things as this was my document originally and then We'll go from there with with any discussion from the older persons I received a communication from the from the HR department Indicating what the health insurance rates are for the city employees health insurance for 2012 and 2013 the single plan is $737 a month or $8,844 a month the family plan For our city employees the premium is $1,731 and 40 cents a month or 20,776 dollars and 80 cents And I'll refer back to this later I also had a communication from the HR department the breakdown for Health insurance for our city employees as we have 145 Employees that are in the single health insurance plan and we have 300 city employees that are in the family plan And then also an attachment to the document was some information that I found Back a couple of months ago I believe it was in the Milwaukee Journal and that was some information National data from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health and Research Educational Trust an affiliate of the American Hospital Association And this this Kaiser Family Foundation is I don't know if you'd call it a think tank or whatever, but they do they do Information gathering on health insurance around the country and it's my understanding that generally their statistics are pretty credible They found that the average national single plan in the United States was $5,615 a year and As I mentioned before the city of Sheboygan single coverage is $8,844 So if you take a look at those and subtract them the the single plan for the city of in Sheboygan employees is $3,229 For a per year for a single plan and that is above what the national average is for a single plan The average national family coverage premium for a year Is 15,745 dollars the city of Sheboygan's family coverage premium for a year is 20,777 $776.80 so again if you take that city premium minus the The national average for the public sector. I'm sorry the private sector you find that there's a difference of $5,031.80 Also on a national basis employers on average pay 82% of the single plans Family plans private employers nationally pay 72% of the premium For the city of Sheboygan we paid 88% of the premium so the difference between the the family plan For what we pay here in Sheboygan and the national average the city of Sheboygan again is 88% The family the family plan national average that employers pay is 72% so we are We being the city pay 16% more for a family plan than the national average on a single plan Sheboygan pays on a single plan we pay 88% and the single plan for the Private sector pays 82% so for a single plan the city of Sheboygan plays 6% more than the national average now the the above statistics were for 200 for 2012 and It does not include deductibles co-pays or out-of-pocket expenses then in April after I had submitted this document I found some further information and The source of this information was the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article And then title of the article was 400,000 fewer Wisconsin workers get health insurance through their employer and this article was in the journal Sentinel on April 11th 2013 and This was the private sector, Wisconsin health insurance And this these averages that I'm going to report to you are from 2011 compared to the city of Sheboygan And again a single plan for the city of Sheboygan $8,044 and that's for 2012 2013 Private sector in Wisconsin for a single plan was 5,400 5,414 dollars That's an additional $3,430 per employee per year that we're paying for a single plan over and above the Wisconsin average Family plan again the city of Sheboygan's premium was 20,770 680 private sector in Wisconsin for a family plan is 15,024 dollars for 2011 and that's a difference of 5,752 dollars and 80 cents additional per employee per year that we're paying Over and above what the average is for a family plan in the private sector in the state of Wisconsin Now if we take a look we go back to what I mentioned before where we have 300 employees on the family plan if you multiply the 5,752 dollars and 80 cents by by 300 that comes out to be 1,725 $840 if you take the difference in the single plan of $3,430 and you multiply that by the 145 employees that have the single plan that's $497,000 for $497,350 If you add those together We're currently paying the city of Sheboygan is currently paying for health insurance two million 223,190 dollars a year over and above what The private sector is paying for their health insurance plans in Wisconsin Now Before we get into discussion, I just want to throw out a couple things Some options that you may want the salary and grievance committee to take a look at and there might be a lot of other ones But I just want to go over a few possibilities but before I'm only going to make one one editorial comment in this entire discussion and that is the difference between what Employees pay for health insurance in the private sector versus the public sector is what garbage fees are made of Some possible options that you may want us to consider at salary and grievance number one Do nothing? Everything is okay as far as what we're doing with our employees health insurance. That would be option number one option number two Would be continue and extend the garbage fee for 2015 and beyond to continue partially fund this gap number three redesigned the health plan to make it cheaper for our employees and The taxpayer support now what I mean by redesign the health plan Act 10 was packed past a couple a couple of years ago and that said that Municipalities around the city of Wisconsin can redesign their health insurance plans and for the bargaining units that we still have left Which are main of the bigger ones are fire and police That is a The redesign of the health plan is non-negotiable in contracts. However We cannot ask our bargaining units to pay more than the 12% that they're already paying When it comes time for the next contracts and 14 and 15 I forgot which is which but I think one becomes due in 14 and 1 and 15 at that time We would be able to negotiate higher participation by our bargaining units We could expect our employees to pay a bigger premium share Closer to what this is number four expect our employees to pay a bigger premium share closer to what the private sector pays And now again the US average for the private sector and a family plan Private employers are paying 22% of that I'm sorry private Employees and private companies in the USA are paying an average of 22% for their health insurance coverage Versus the 12% that our city employees pay Number five in the last one Explored and the county is already working on this for the retirees by the way, so Explore the new federal Exchanges health and health care exchanges which are going to go into effect the first of the year In a fed the federal health care exchanges are also referred to Obamacare Explore explore those exchanges for 2014 and 15 Are the exchanges a better deal for our employees both? in What the coverages are going to offer and more importantly what the premium costs are going to be for our city employees So that would be just some options that I came up with so I'm done with with presenting what I had to present And I'm just wondering if any of the aldermans any of the older persons have anything they would like to comment on Yes, this this needs to be discussed at in-depth both salary grievance and here Some of the situation some of the scenarios you put out are perfect scenarios to be looking at as far as Restructuring what the health insurance would look like it's it should be a combination of both restructuring and also premium share that the employee should be picking up and that's one of the things that Hopefully in salary grievance has discussed a lot more in depth than we can do anything here with But these these are issues that should be taken care of sooner than later because I believe October is when they said we set the rates again My room if I'm right Something like that. I was I was part of that in the last last year As far as setting the rates with UMR On top of that It's just very important for us to look at that the amount of money that we've spent 2.6 million dollars in the health premiums dollars of taxpayers money. We need maybe need to look a little bit better at working for our taxpayers and redesigning those plans and also doing the premium share a little bit higher than what we're paying Comparing it to the private sector is a big difference. Obviously I'm in the health insurance industry But comparing it public to private is a big extreme But even public to public there are a lot of other plate public Forums that are paying more than 12% in their health insurance Municipalities in Wisconsin, there's several of them that are paying 15 18 percent I mean, it's not a huge jump from the 12 and a half percent that we're doing now So I think that's something we need to look into on doing 15 18 Going to 20 right off the bat might be a push might be a too big of a jump But I think 15 18 percent would help offset a lot of those premiums so Whoever's on salary and grievance. I would hope that they bring this up In a timely manner. Thank you salary and grievance committee is all our person Donnie who's chair I'm vice chair Alderman Vander wheelie is on there Alderman Hammond is on there and on our new older person tight assler am I correct? I think those are our members and Maybe all our person Donnie who is going to mention this but on July 8th, she's invited our insurance broker to come in and speak with the salary and grievance committee I was very happy to see that because we can talk about these and many other issues. So I'm glad to see that they're coming in Any other comments? Okay. Thank you. We'll move on We will take a vote on that referral To salary and grievance. We have a motion and a second to refer to salary and grievance I think we can probably do all eyes on this all in favor of referring it to salary and grievance. I Opposed chair votes. I thank you Next we'll go down this item these next two items are for discussion only number seven is WSCS TV and Sheboygan south s a sd TV partnership This is going to be an informational presentation by Dave Augustine our IT director city of Sheboygan WSCS TV Dave First of all, thank you for inviting us to the meeting to present this opportunity that Mike and I have Developed and are going to go on with our stations So what the concept is is right now right now we have two TV stations in Sheboygan South High has their program WSCS has our program so there's an opportunity To form a partnership and that's what Mike and I are working on to form a partnership with the two of us So we can better utilize our resources and better cover events in the city Been going on with that. That's kind of what this first Slide represents is working together. So it's actually going to be a partnership of WSCS Sheboygan south and UW as well our current structure again Sheboygan has two TV stations WSCS and Sheboygan south SASD TV There's no real coordination between Programming activities meaning There may be some events where both of us are there covering it and then which leaves other events that aren't being covered We have redundant services Services to the community our equipment purchases and programming. There's two sets of everything. So it's like we're doubling up Which you know obviously is in the days of our you know shrinking budgets and more demand to be more efficient it leads us to Think outside the box and come up with more creative ways So how does this look? And we use spring sports baseball right now, but another really good example is during basketball season This year in our media press box. We would have WSCS and SASD TV Broadcasting the same TV same game on on TV Leaving Plymouth's Sheboygan Falls other community events Uncovered and really truly was a lack of communication a lack of resources and really I think a lack of Just connection between hey, are we doing this to broadcast to School district every broadcast and is for Community or is this really about trying to cover all the great things that are happening Sheboygan at any given night So you can see in the illustration, you know like at one point there's two both of us covering You know the Sheboygan South Baseball, but yet Sheboygan North could be having exciting game or a year or even out in Plymouth And they're not being covered That's what this illustration is Again, we had kind of talked about the public sector We've seen decreasing budgets Increased public scrutiny of tax dollars how they're being used we've seen reductions in staff Increased accountability as well as increased operational cost and obviously with two TV stations That's twice the cost, you know because both are working independently of each other So again We can't survive on this model of that's the way we've always done it that just doesn't work anymore We have to think outside the box We can't continue to do We can't continue to do the way, you know, we continue to do things and we can't cut our way to success either So this is where our plan is being creative And you know just listening to the session before this healthcare all of our public sectors are getting their crunch So how do we work smarter not harder? And that's really as you see the stool up here It's a three-legged collaboration between the Sheboyganary School District between the Sheboygan WSES and the UW Center And what we're trying to do is actually enhance services to our community Educator students better give them authentic learning opportunities and actually do it at a reduced cost Which you know if we do this right a symbiotic relationship means all members of the organization Truly benefit from this and that's kind of one of the exciting things are as I talked to Dave and as we Worked with Jackie Joseph Silverstein on at the Center This really started to come together as something that truly we could could work and really could be a positive for everybody. So What are we talking about? What is the three-legged stool? Well, we know each leg is just as important as the next So the first leg is the University of Wisconsin Center. What are they going to do for WSES SASD? Well first we need to have a adjunct professor teaching courses at South High School and This adjunct professor is also currently a WSES employee and What they do is that adjunct professor? WSES employee comes a self and teaches Broadcasting class that we currently offer at South High. It's a self high students Students get credit for completion of the course. They get college credit They also get high school credits called dual credit Meeting as you're going through you get your your credits that you need for graduation But you also when you're all said and done one class will be worth one college credit at anywhere in UW system The other one will be worth reading that we're working with Jack Jackie on But how does that benefit the center? First of all in our broadcasting class right now? We have some of our top in students and some our valedictorians potential valedictorians in these classes they're going to be using some of the center resources they'll be using some of the Broadcasting editing equipment out at WSES studio And they see what the center offers they get to have college level professors teaching the classes And truly it's a recruitment tool for the center. It's it's enrollment increased enrollment And we're also looking at the opportunity of if we're offering a class a college class at South High Can college students also take it so like a collaboration where we're actually offering more classes to our community from a WSES standpoint WSES will agree to have WSC employee teach the class and Will use actual broadcast materials the benefits by this is With the collaboration once the students get more up to speed past their classes They can be included in camera operations and editing for the TV station. So The win-win here is we can use students to help our production output our camera operators are starting to get up there in age so to speak and This would be a way to help supplement the Resources that we have and work together now This isn't the means to phase out all of our camera operators by any means But at least this is a way to give the kids experience and we can expand our capabilities without adding costs People We'll also give the kids real true life experience in the Materials instead of just having a school project. You did this. Okay. It's done here They'll be actually doing work right for the TV station where people actually get the sea like right now We're on TV, you know, and they can do productions. They can put on cover events The supervision and all the other legalities and coverage involved as well, but it'll be a good experience for that. So The other benefit to it is we can do a coordination of programming efforts where it's all tied together So we can become more sister stations and coordinate our programming activities, you know and working together Better event coverage As well as more public awareness Because it's through the interest it's in people watching and what does it mean for South High and Sheboygan area school district first our district will agree to pay youth options, which is a State guarantee program where students that want to take college classes district pays for so we're gonna pay that to the center We also compensate the WSES employee for their time the extra coverage things that they have to do But you know as David they have mentioned Some of the really meat on the bones here is For our students first of all students really receive high-level instruction their training instruction From actually one of your cameraman at WSES that is a college instructor does a great job He's very engaging the kids are gonna gonna love them Students like I said earlier they get college credit. So you're sitting in the high school class But you're getting college credit. We know what college credits go for these days It's a way to reduce the cost of post-secondary for some of our students the curriculum. You hear a lot about authentic learning As I think back to high school We had homework assignments that we did it's a lot more authentic if what I'm working on here becomes a commercial on TV You know and I can show my friends. Hey, that's you know I got a b-plus in that one see where I messed this part up Those are the part of things that we can do and the homework becomes things that actually are produced for WSES, so it's it's a collaboration of if we by working together. We're actually pooling our resources to have a better product for Schmoyner a school district a better product for WSES and Truly something that's beneficial to the center And you know the last piece I want to talk about too is is in education We're talking a lot about engagement. We want to find ways to get kids hooked into why school is important This is one of those things that we can get kids excited about learning because you know everybody likes to be on TV, so Based on what we had talked about if you take our first illustration now looking at the new big picture with the scenario We're going to be moving towards you can see we have More events covered More things we can show more more events that people can watch now We can send a team out to cover the Schmoyner and South baseball game north may be playing We can cover them or possibly even Plymouth we can cover them as well and get it out there and being you know Shown or we can we can expand our audience to more of the county rather than just the city Again in doing this there's going to be some metrics that we're going to use to measure our success Obviously we're going to start with the number of students enrolled in the broadcasting class So we'll eat if the enrollment goes up, you know, that'll be one of our benchmarks Along with the students it isn't going to be like okay. Here's a class that somebody's going to take off as a blow-off class There's going to be expectations set. There's going to be you know assignments expectations Requirements met and if they aren't cutting it, they're going to get a grade and it's going to be you know So it isn't going to be like a blow-off class where you know like a seventh hour study hall used to be this is going to be You know real down to the earth This is a college level class will be taken So there's going to be expectations held by the UW system that students will have to attain to Actually get credit for these the other point just is um, you know once we Coordinate our programming efforts. There's going to be new programs on WSES as well as SASD TV You know so it's there'd be like sister stations where we can cover multiple things and new new types of programming to expand and one of the things I learned from just starting this conversation with Dave is some of the places that WSES is going with live TV such as this some of the Wireless cameras There's a lot of things that I think our community could really benefit by seeing on TV But in some cases We don't have TVs either turning to the stations or we don't have people interested when we have Multiple students building things you're going to have parents interested what's going on and maybe catching a couple of these sessions Doing some of those things knowing that hey our local cable access is really a viable place to to get entertainment or get news And those are some of the things as we look at outcomes It's are we getting more viewers are our is our community getting reached by this source We pay a lot of money both. Well should we are a school district and WSES to To have the equipment Why don't we share the equipment and actually just reach a broader range of Of our citizens and truly as we said here at the very worst we're budget neutral This isn't costing anybody any more money And it's in some cases where actually could make an argument that we'll be saving money by doing this The other thing we're building into this, you know with our annual reviews or our reality checks so to speak is There's going to be no additional cost to really do this So we'll do you know our regular reviews and we may come to the point of you know, this isn't working So it isn't gonna be anything really lost so there will be you know, it isn't like we're gonna go if you know If it isn't working, we're gonna you know step back and realize as well. So As far as that goes, but I don't really see any problems. I see this being a win-win and the last piece is You know, I think the more we can have government entities working together to collaborate is it's good for our taxpayers It's good for us. It's good for our community You know, I see avenues where we have students taking marketing classes How can I have some of those marketing students work on commercials that work with the video production? There's endless numbers of ways of creating more that authentic learning as we talk about that can be beneficial to To the city of Sheboygan in Sheboygan County truly is a as a whole and and truly it's it's that piece of Increasing some of that experiential learning in our community. That'll be the real positive to to this partnership At this time we will open it up the questions if you have any Any questions all of adversity? Thank you. Does North High not have any broadcasting class any longer? They have a radio broadcasting Over at South High we have all the video broadcasting, but we will allow people from north come over to south Across the river and then and actually we also This two years ago. We had somebody from Howard's Grove We do allow it. We're the only school in this area that actually has a video broadcasting studio in our In our school and due to retirements. This has been a real viable option that we can look at a collaboration The other thing with that with north they have a radio Piece of the broadcasting so we want to take baby steps towards all of this and when this works There's no reason why we couldn't bring in north with the radio and then pipe in north's radio signal over instead of you know Other music that we play now currently, so I see this really growing And the follow-up was with the increased Students that are me doing for college credit SESD is going to continue They I mean increase in credits college credits means increase in funding to pay for those credits and they understand It's it could be a huge increase the way it actually comes out if you Talk about having a full-time employee compared to an adjunct professor that we actually contract services for the district Even paying for those credits would be neutral at best if not a cost savings if we start getting up to 20 30 students Then we'll have to to maybe set a cap on how many students could be in this class But truly the state of Wisconsin doesn't allow us to put any caps on youth options if it's something that we've We offer It's it's you know, I think it's a great way to market Some of the strengths of public education, you know come in get college credit while you get in high school credit Thanks. Thank you Any other questions? Auderman Lewandowski, I actually got two questions first one is how soon would you be able to start this class? And the second one is if it's going to be for college level credit Is that going to mean that it's going to be only for juniors and seniors or would it also be for freshmen and sophomores? Well, first of all, we're hoping September 1st to be launching this so I've talked to some of the students that are enrolled in this class for next year and told them how we're looking at doing this So between Dave some of the employees WSCS in Exploiting Area School District with Jackie Joseph Silverstein getting the credits involved. We think we can get this all done by September 1st. So we're hoping that happens I'm sorry Scott. What was the second part of your question? What great level students can take? It'll be open the entry level class will actually be open to freshmen Through senior now truthfully freshmen schedules are usually so locked up They can't take classes like broadcasting because they're stuck with the core areas. I see more sophomore junior seniors taking this class Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you We'll move on to agenda item number eight and that is City of Sheboygan information technology strategic plan informational presentation by Dave Augustine IT director City of Sheboygan W Scstv Dave. Thank you a while ago. I had a conversation with Jim Amodio about we should do a review on our whole systems and processes In the computer systems we have for the city Because there was definitely some noticeable shortfalls With that, you know, it was always brought around at the AS 400 is old. It's obsolete You know, why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? So I said I would do a review and come up with some recommendations Which then I've turned into a plan and this summarized Presentation is what I've come up with so What have we done so far? We've interviewed I've interviewed or we've interviewed departments on their IT or computing systems that they have We've reviewed the information they currently own in other words. What are they responsible for putting in? What other information do they need access to, you know? Purchase orders or you know spillman any data or whatever. So what information do they rely on from other departments? We've identified issues regarding, you know, IT systems and overall processes And we've actually started to implement some of the plan already. So that's what's been done so far Preliminary findings again. I know this is small. So I'll cover them Basically our information is held in multiple places that we have right now. We have our AS 400 legacy system There's munis. We have market drive. There's spillman. There's data over at the county There's things in spreadsheets Scratch paper people's heads etc. Our information is all over the place in many locations It's not connected or nor is it easy to connect to and there's no single entry point And it's like you don't know where to go to get the information. The same information exists in different formats. I may have a Set of data sitting in market drive, but yet in munis. It's a different set But it's the same data and we're maintaining it in two spots. So you go which one is correct. Our equipment is getting old with our PCs our servers People are not aware of what information is really available to them. They said boy, I'd like to get that I know I put it in but how do I get it out? Where can I go? Likewise, they are What tools are available to me? You know guy? Can I use Excel? What can I use to get it? What program can I use? There's lots of paper generated. We actually take printer We actually take reports print them off get the information keyed into another system get the information there and take that Keyed into a third system that we finally get the results So there's lots of hopping around our systems are run on Exceptions versus what's our process in other words? Well, if it's this so we got to do that if it's this we got to do this It's just we got to do that so they get so complicated and try and make them consistent Spreadsheets are used as workarounds if the system can't do what they want then there's multiple data and spreadsheets And they start using that so we lose some of our integrity of our information Difficult to put information for multiple systems together again, that's making you know joining our market drive data with our Maybe our parcel data from the colony to Spillman parcels, you know with with crime and linking that all together Lack of standard operating procedures Knowledge transfer always doesn't happen somebody may leave. Okay. How do they do that? It's all in people's heads We need standard operating procedures Communication is not always done and if it is is it's manually People don't know why they do things I mean it's just for example to say there's a button every time it turns red you push it You know I keep pushing the button, but they don't know why they're pushing it how it in facts the big picture Training and orientations aren't always done It's just like here you go have at it and have a good time I know when I started I Was showing my office here you go and I had an envelope on my chair with my ID and password and that's how I got started so many one-off programs and It is not always Consulted with you know when systems are purchased now I'm not trying to say it is a dictatorship or kingdom But we do have the ability to help integrate things so we don't get you know somebody buys a software now They want to bring it into the payroll system. How do you do it? Well? This product that we had already would have done it already so It takes a long time to get things done The whole of our plan our goals and requirements as we want to become more efficient effective and reduce cost That's a common theme across everybody We want to utilize our current investments. Let's use the things that we've purchased. That's why we bought them We want easy access from anywhere meaning out in the field You know if I have an iPad or a notebook or a Chromebook or a PC. I want to be able to get at my information Access information from multiple systems. I don't want to have to jump around Let me go into a portal or a system and let me pull the information I need We want to go as paperless as possible. We also want to improve our citizen interaction from our website Why couldn't a citizen, you know apply for building permits and licenses right online on our website? Could they pay their taxes on the website? Can they submit a question on the website? Can they you know more interact and make it more self-service and easier for them? We also want to utilize our dashboards and work center base things in other words Here's my work for the day or things come in. I can look at it and work on them and then the last thing on this slide is roles and relationships, which is the another Slide I want to show you once I find it City of here. Okay What I developed here is An example of a relationship of how our departments can work together of the whole process flow in the city again This is something I put together We have up at the top, you know our city development and our outside factors the public, you know What's going on? So think of our city development and building inspection is kind of a Marketing and sales. How can we promote the city and bring other programs in? Working on all of those we can transition that to what we call support through our main engine Which is the centerpiece? Where we have you know, we have police fire building inspection Municipal services engineering the clerks This is where you know our support services our transactional data and access to this as far as the workhorse of the city Where all this information comes through and then that's turned into you know services, which then the assessors through special assessments Municipal court through fines, you know other fines were financed collects that turns in the revenue Over on this side It's going to move over we have our common counsel Common counsel should be giving us high-level governance give us the plan the high plan and let's execute it The attorney's office. Are we dotting her eyes and crossing crossing our teas? You know that we have legal integrity in place our supply chain Does everybody need the materials that they require to do their operations? Human resources set the policies and let's get the resources in to do the work IT help automate electronic workflows Finance do the numbers add up and then input from the public and other outside sources like the county the state federal regulations whichever which is all outside Influences on our core engine or process when we get down towards the bottom we take this information and then we can make Information out of it. We can build a history for reporting and easy access As well as we need to have quality in our systems with quality insurance That's where the standard operating procedures come in our workflows and processes. We train our staff orientations We come up with our scorecards and metrics kinds like we did for WSES and our partnership was Sheboygan South what are the metrics that we can measure we manage things by project management process management change management? We build in quality design it build that staff at according in other words no wags And then communication both vertical and horizontal. So this is a something that I put together I wanted to share with you as well Moving on recommendations We need to again continue to review and update our workflows Departmental between departments. What are the business functions of each of the departments in other words public works? There are more of a job shop or a work order based environment where parks may be a hospitality You know people want to reserve park sites, you know, what's all involved with them? Again continue to develop standard operating procedures. We want to develop an employee orientation system We want to classify each of the types of job descriptions. We have identify what the training needs are what equipment? What programs do they need and then schedule those training and orientations when people start? We want to continue to document our processes again to get the big picture Again departments to share information with each other Consult with IT regarding software so we can keep it all Consolidated and coordinated and then start equipment replacements on our life cycle again I want to show you an illustration again of a process review that I put together Here again High-level picture. This would be what I put together for building inspection, you know with all the Things that are excuse me This is streets in repair public works not building inspection. I'm sorry I got one for them too But basically it steps through the whole process of where all the other departments and all the other functions work with each other You know from our work orders come in to evaluate it. Do we have the right resources? Do we have the right materials if we have shortages? We order it feeds back to the general ledger. We execute the job We complete the work and what's really neat about this is this Diagram we put together. We just had a demo on munis work orders on some needs for public works and The demonstration of their software of what it does just about mirrored what this diagram is So it's a good template to match, you know what our software needs are to what our processes are versus You know, let's get a software and try and make it so we need to know what it is. We're shopping for it. Okay Basically, there's two paths our infrastructure path and our applications path And I'm just going to go through a high-level summary of what our each are and To keep it simple 2011 when I first came there's some stuff we did right away We put in wireless here at the city We put in wireless at maya wood the whole spillman implementation. We moved to a new crime system So we had to get that all up and running To work with the county as well as the other agencies. We increased our internet x Connection here at no cost. We updated our network here at the shabuigan PD to work with their phone system better That was all things that we did we eliminated our backup as 400 since we were no longer using our existing crime system That saved us $20,000 a year We had a number of servers to our virtual environment at no cost because we had plenty of capacity and what a virtual environment is is think of a big box or a big server with Memory and disk and what everything you can chop that up into little servers Using the same resources without having to buy a separate server for each For each server type so that way then you don't have maintenance on each piece. It's just one piece of equipment And we updated service agreements with the PDs that we support Kohler Shabuigan falls and Plymouth so we have a yearly agreement for each agency for IT hosting for services 2012 we relocated the meg unit where they could save money to a county facility and that was no cost to us Again, we had to increase our virtual server capacity So we could add more and consolidate our servers on to our virtual environment Our whole network had to be upgraded. So we accomplished that We also now had we also put in iPad and smartphone support so people could get their emails and calendar for outlook on their iPads We consolidation of equipment we retired old servers moved them on to our new environment consolidated Maywood connection we had to convert to broadband to get them off the wireless mesh, which we have our PD agencies as well. We have what we call I don't know if you've ever heard is the wireless mesh It's a proprietary ring of wireless network connection and that's getting old and when it gets below five degrees It doesn't work anymore. So then people don't get connected and they get upset So we had to come up with a new way to do that We put in wireless at the senior center Public service we put wireless in we connected waste water directly to us where we're starting to Integrate our systems and have them talk directly to each other And then we equip the conference rooms with monitors so that way presentations like this can be done 2013 we completed the fiber installation Which gives us high speed between our our core locations Which means the servers that were located at each of these places can be brought back here to City Hall Consolidated and eliminated so we don't have less hardware less things to go wrong less maintenance We had to replace our storage capacity So we did that in 2013 We upgraded our city internet connection due with part of the fiber connection so Connection for our squads that connect to Wastewater was upgraded with that as well What was neat about that as we worked with the whole fiber Installation and then working with the broadband carrier. We let the same contractor do the work which really cut down in our installation costs again, we keep Consolidating our servers in eliminating physical servers. We're going to be combining the existing two as four hundreds We have left into one which will be as savings of four thousand dollars a year in maintenance We want to we want to get rid of the mesh obviously and the life And then we want to continue to evaluate cloud solutions for email web, you know and other types of hosting things technologies In other words instead of having it storing in our data center, can we store it somewhere in the cloud? And then continue to leverage our communication technologies over at the PD We have a phone system that we are now looking to expand across the city so we can eliminate centrics and Consolidate going forward 2014 and 2016 our plans are to convert our remaining sites to broadband which is pretty much done It's the only one left the senior center, so we're head on that So that'll be the end of the wireless mesh. We want to have a backup internet connection at the PD for failover We want to eliminate our remaining as four hundreds, which is then be $6,000 additional yearly Savings and then upgrade our infrastructure and again to continue to evaluate applications in the same type of a path in 2011 we developed the whole citizen inquiry thing where people can put submit questions or Concerns on the website and then we keep track of them and they don't fall through the cracks We had additional capability to the s400 with some of our programs for email and PDF capability for printing and what that basically does is that allowed us to Take building inspection and put them on a paperless system, so they don't have to print paper anymore except what's going to the customer Everything else is now paperless. We put in board docs We reviewed our help desk process We established a help desk process where people can support their support their requests online We the whole city website was redone and that was done through with Chad Palaszczuk's help through grants that he got So our whole city website was done We provided spillman project management as well as we did IT process improvement where now we can image PCs Make them the same Remote control standards. We made a database to inventory everything so it's more automated 2012 again smartphone and iPad support we continued We created a PD intranet site for the police department and basically what happened there is we trained them on the tool Set up a group and we turned them loose and they're building their own Intranet site where they're actually taking it and growing it and they're doing a real good job on that Again bi went completely paperless We did for online time sheets. We wrote a Prototype program just to prove that online time sheets could be done and feed our actual payroll system as a template Spillman data extracts. We built a data warehouse of spillman data that the PD can use for knowledge Information management to graph trends make decisions do crime analysis and then we started looking at munis payroll to implement that 2013 as of our first payroll in July that will be running live on the new munis payroll system where we have online time sheets We'll be using the tool that we purchased and the cost to carry out that Implementation was that was the cap that we went through from the council to be 50,000 max It was and we haven't even come close to that to spend that public works put in facilities map and that's a tool that they can take all of their Inventory of their sewers manhole covers whatever and place it on a map for mapping We also want to look at munis financials and the whole purchasing and permits to see to verify You know are we using them as efficiently as we can in fact on Monday and Tuesday of next week. We have the whole munis permits Inspections Assessment coming up. So these are modules that we already own That we have well financials and supply chain. We have implemented. We want to implement permits Market drive. We're finally doing the cut over to that. We're doing modeling this September Get training on that. So we'll actually be using market drive and be off the AS 400 system We're gonna be doing a board docs professional upgrade where the voting Meeting minutes can be typed right in you guys will be able to submit documents right to agenda items online I'm working with the clerk So Richard's on that as well as I want to look at look at clerk licenses and a whole workflow engine And then for the future again, we want to keep that whole department portal thing alive where go to one spot What's my work for today or one place for information? Look at the cashiering modules Inventory and job costing for public works Work orders for public works parking tickets animal licenses the whole citizen self-serve And any other custom applications? We have to develop as well as in by then sunset our AS 400 legacy applications now when I put this together This was a while ago, and I'm presenting it now. So those 24 2014 2016 may shift as we go But I just wanted to put a you know put a stake in the ground and these costs that I've received Most of them were based on munis quotes. I had because that's Where we had originally made our investment So my plan is the first look at munis and if that doesn't work Let's go to a different source if it's there if not, we'll write something so that general steps all departments We want to continue to review and update our workflows You know department orientations with staff HR to partner with departments so HR to work with departments So we can get these updated in these orientations set and then follow our technology path We've already started to replace our PC fleet and are working on that where we do X amount every year to keep them updated and Up refreshed Can it be done yes, it can we're all need to going to participate We all need to work together. We need to look at the big picture would take the baby steps Break down the silos and it's time to move the cheese. I don't know if you ever read the book It's time to move the cheese So in other words, we can't keep going because that's the way we've always done it It was kind of fast and high-level Any questions now I had some detailed Diagrams as well what I'll do is I'll email list all of you so you can review it as well as the WSES presentation I'll email it to all of you, but I just wanted to give you a picture of where we're going and you know Some of the decisions that we are making while we're doing it. So you've got some reasoning behind it Dave I'll get the ball rolling on questions two or three years ago, I took a tour of the with some other city officials of the DPW Maintenance Department in final act and I believe they do the maintenance for their DPW of vehicles They do the transit maintenance there and I believe they do the police and the fire engines also So they do a whole lot and and I never thought to ask Dave this question. I don't know of Jody either but In Fond du Lac at the end of the year if they want to know how many transmissions they bought for garbage trucks They push a button and they got that cost center and every nut and bolt that goes out of that department for maintenance is categorized and For either fire trucks or transit whatever DPW vehicles Has Dave requested that capability or do we do that yet in Sheboygan? I believe that's a work in progress that I know he has expressed interest in how the track it But we don't have the tools really to do it yet. Okay, and part of the whole work order Program that Muniz has an inventory that would give them the capability To do that for maintenance regular maintenance. They can their whole fleet when it's time to do an oil change They can schedule that too You know, however, you want to break it down as far as the fixed asset I mean you can break an engine into multiple parts, you know, how far you want to go But that's something we definitely want to look at right now. We have a cost system Job costing system on the 400 that was home written and it definitely needs a facelift And one other thing Mrs. Johnson had some concerns about board docks is a number of concerns. I think you've heard them Are we kind of stuck with what we've got with board docks or are there other enhancements to deal with some of her concerns? And I and I've heard not only from Mrs. Johnson, but even some of my constituents that watch on TV And I think, you know, we have better. We probably have better viewership Viewership than Monday night football So there are a lot of people out there watching and I get complaints at church people to say well I can't see how you voted on that Alderman-Born, so I tell them but You know, are there any things that things that we can do to make it more Viewer-friendly and address some of the concerns that she has well at the newer version The voting right now we use two softwares the whole board docks and she's flipping through the voting software And it's to keep up. It's click-click. It's up and it's off where the new version Will actually run the meeting through the agenda, so it'll go step-by-step and when it's time to open She'll open the votes. That's where we have to look at devices It'll then everybody will vote and then it'll come up more in a more user-friendly format And that's what clerk Richards and I are working on right now Is there any possibility that that's another thing that somebody brought up to me is why can't it be an alphabetical order now? It comes up. I think in the order that we vote It comes up in threes twos and ones where three is against two is abstain and one is four That's the order it comes up in and yes, the new version it will come up alphabetically. Okay. We've already done demos on that and The parts we're at right now is basically we need to run through mock counsel to perfect the process A lot of that is going to depend upon Sue Richards because of her Schedule for that. I've been working with her to try and schedule time to get that. I mean we have it set up We just have to run it through and get it so I'm hoping to get late summer or fall Any other questions? Thank you, David. Thank you Next on the agenda. We have the next meeting date tentatively You can put down July 10th, which I also think is a Wednesday and that I have to work out the details with mr. Emodeo, but that is going to probably be on the 2014 budget the budget is going to be going to counsel and then the various committees on July 15th I believe it is so I'm I've talked to very briefly with mr. Emodeo and and finance chairman Don Hammond about this as to what format we we want to do, but I think it might be a good idea to Ask mr. Emodeo to go over the budget before it goes to counsel What's in what's out what the changes are that type of thing? So I'm still working on that but tentatively it's going to be July 10th And I'll work with Alderman Carlson on the start time of that meeting if he has if he's having a PPS meeting that night will I'll check with him and see how long he thinks it's going to last and we'll start the meeting accordingly So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn all in favor Opposed chair votes. I we are adjourned. Thank you everybody


Hi, this is Jay Fidel, St. Tech. This is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. We also do entrepreneurial things. And today we have a really interesting couple, Lauren Pierce and Spencer Vanderkamp, of Real Fresh. If you love fish, you're going to love this show. I'm telling you now. And of course, Mitch Ewan. And he will introduce them in a moment. But first we're going to talk to our spokesman from Hawaiian Electric, Peter Rossek, because what he's going to tell you is very important to a lot of people. Hi, Peter. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you, Jay. It's really, it is a very important message for a lot of people in Hawaii. As of September 1st, we're going to start resuming disconnections or non-payment of electric bills. So we know there are a lot of people who have financial problems. We know that there may be, they're continuing with possible additional closures and so forth. So it's really important that people contact Hawaiian Electric if they can't make their payments to avoid being disconnected, which is not pleasant and it's not fun and it costs money to get reconnected. So if you are unable to make your full payments by September 1st, it's really important, and we're going to be saying this again and again, come to HawaiianElectric.com slash payment arrangement and fill out a form there. It'll show you what you can do there. It'll explain the various options that we have. We do have a number of options for stretching out payments. And ultimately everything's got to be paid for, but we understand a lot of people are not in a position to pay everything right away. So and we also have on our website some places for people to look for help. Each county has a slightly different way of getting CARES money and other kinds of assistance. We also have a link to HawaiianEnergy.com, which is, you know, the great source for ways to save energy, which is always good, but it is especially important right now if you can't pay your bills. So, you know, there's a message we're going to be drumming very loud for the next, really for the next four weeks or so, because before, between now and September 1st, it's really important that people come to our website, fill out a simple form about and make some kind of arrangement. If we haven't heard from a customer, we've got to assume they're not going to pay their bill if they're deadbeat. Whether they are or not, we don't know, but we can't do anything until the customer contacts us and says, look, I can't make my full payment. Here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to pay over a four-month period, six-month, whatever. And, you know, like everything else, if you're sincere and you make an effort, get in touch, work something out, we're going to do everything we can to avoid putting you in difficulty with so many people home.  So, what was the name of that sign again, Peter? It is, whileelectric.com slash payment arrangement. All one word, payment arrangement. And you'll find there, that will start you going for links and things like that about how to deal with this. We have other sites that'll tell you where you could pay and all of these other things. But if you're going to have a problem between now and September 1st paying your bills, oneelectric.com slash payment arrangement is a really important site you need to visit. Or just go to the website of oneelectric.com and you'll find links to get you to that. But you got to let us know. That's the main thing. Well, there are, in your memo that you sent, your press release, I guess, you talked about other programs where people could, you know, get some help through the CARES program, the federal care program in the city and county, in Maui County, in Hawaii County. Where do they go for that? You list those possibilities on your website. That news release which we sent out is also on the website. You could link to that on the very first page and that will tell you everything that I'm telling you even more clearly. But so we have those links to the ways each county is a little different, as I said. So you got to pay attention if you're on Maui, Big Island or Oahu, how to get in touch with these people. And there are other, you know, there are various charitable organizations and so forth. But, you know, so there are ways to get help, there are ways to avoid getting disconnected. And it just, it's going to take some initiative by the people who are having a problem making payments. Okay. Well, I hope you'll come back between now and the end of August anyway to talk about this some more. Make sure everybody knows about it. We absolutely will. Anytime, anytime we can get a platform like this will be, you'll see us on, you know, the other kind of television. You'll see us on, he'll hear us on the radio. We are making a hundred percent effort to make sure nobody says, oh gee, I didn't know I was going to be disconnected.  We hate to do that.  So we will do everything we can from our end to help people who are having a problem. We all know people in that situation. That's Peter Rosick, the spokesman for Hawaiian Electric. And that is Hawaiian Electric Hawaii's Electric Company. Thank you very much, Peter. Okay. We're going to move now and we're going to go to our main show. We have Lauren Pierce and Spencer Vandekamp and Michiu and it's going to give us a little background so we can understand them and what they are doing and the excitement of their project. We're really lucky to have Lauren and Spencer here. They're part of the UH Venture Competition, which is put on, I believe, by the Scheidler Business School. And so they gave a pitch. These accelerator programs that teach people a lot about business and how to promote their idea.  And so they have our fascinating idea and they brought a copy of their pitch deck to share with us. So it's not going to be death by power point by any means. So what we want to do is work our way through it. And as Jay said, when we started the program, this is a really fascinating business idea. So over to Lauren and Spencer. So tell us all about real, fresh fish. Yeah. Thank you, Lauren and Spencer for coming on the show just to put it in perspective. This was in the, was it the Business Venture Competition at Scheidler and you presented this program, this entrepreneurial idea and you won in that program. Am I right? I'm going to get to the finals. We've got third place. Okay. And this, this venture that you're doing involves fresh fish. I could be wrong on some of my extrapolation here, but it seems like you get the fresh fish from the fishermen here in Hawai'ine directly. Okay.  And we're going to talk about exactly what that, you know, chain of custody is and how you manage that. But it sounds like a beautiful idea for exactly the right time. And gee whiz, I like to hear all about it. So tell us all about it. Yeah. Thank you for having us. So our, basically the idea is just to give a platform to connect the local small scale fishermen and other producers directly to the consumers so they can buy the freshest fish possible. And the idea kind of started through our own fishing adventures and me being commercially licensed trying to sell fish and seeing the avenues that I had to sell fish or lack thereof. And then just looking for ways to make it work as well as seeing like the amount of markup that you see in the stores from what the fishermen are getting for their fish to what it retails at in stores. There's really like a huge disconnect there. So we started brainstorming ideas to fix those problems. Well, sounds to me like if you put the pieces together, the fishermen's a winner because now he has a market where the market's not so hot. Restaurants are closing all over the place. I mean closing permanently all over the place. And the consumer is in better shape because he pays less for the lack of a middleman. And you become the middleman. Now, are you buying on consignment? Are you buying, you know, the fish and reselling it? Or are you just brokering it in some way, connecting the buyer and the consumer buyer and the fisherman seller? Which way is that working? How is the fish being, you know, handled? So it would be connecting fishermen directly with consumers and we would just be a platform to help facilitate that. And so you can browse whatever fish is caught that day and you can eat it for dinner. Okay, so that means software. It means a pretty sophisticated website. It's a what do you call it? It's a it's a it's a selling website. It's an e-website kind of thing. So I go on there. I guess I have an account. I go on this website and I check out to see what fish and I get and I get to what deal directly with the fishermen and the fisherman then I order the fish through the website. I guess I pay on the website and a lot of fishermen are not going to have their own websites or their own means of payment. So I have to put my credit card on the website, pay on the website, and then you will in turn turn that money over to the fisherman. And now how does this is a question Mitch had before the show. How does the fish then get from the fisherman to the consumer? So yeah that's basically it so far. Be able to facilitate payment would be a great service to both the fisherman and the consumer and then they would be able to to meet up and feel comfortable knowing that the fishermen are vetted and they could go to their house or to right to the dock and pick it up right then and there and be able to either process the payment through the website or handle cash in person or arrange for delivery through the fishermen themselves. A lot of fishermen are willing to deliver the fish or even just the third-party delivery apps that are real common these days. Oh like Uber or something.  Is that right? Ideally not to keep the the fish as fresh as possible and to keep it as affordable as possible but maybe eventually down the line might have like distribution centers or kind of like like holding centers in theory just to make it more convenient for people. Yeah how do you how do you vet the fisherman? I mean what do you say to a fisherman? Is your fish fresh? I promise you he'll tell you his fish is fresh. How do you vet a fisherman? Yeah a lot of fishermen uh there's a bit of a stigma but it's really not necessary. A lot of fishermen know that they they try to take as good of care of their fish as they can to to get the best prices for it but also we have certain guidelines that they have to certify to follow as well as giving the consumer their own resources to to know what they're looking for and to be able to see that this fish is fresh and it was taken care of. You can you can see it if you know what you're looking for. Now one of the structural issues I see in what you've presented is this if you put your buyer and your seller together the next time around your buyer and your seller can deal directly and cut you out how do you pretend against that? Yeah so ideally the trust in the platform and uh and having it be efficient enough compared to the fisherman having to text 20-30 people they can just send out one mass thing and then they'll have that incentive to help them keep using it as well. Yeah and the messages will be facilitated through our platform real fresh. Yes but suppose I'm a buyer I really like the fish I got from Fisherman X okay and uh I have his I have his contacts I have his email or his phone or both and I call him up after the deal and I say you know Mike that was great fish there I really appreciate that and I'd like to order some more from you and I want to do it on the side because I like to negotiate a price that's slightly lower and no we don't have to deal with real fresh it's just you and me I like you a lot why can't that happen and don't you get cut out and don't you lose your profit going forward? Yeah so there's definitely the chance of like the platform leakage so um one thing to combat that issue specifically would just be the the convenience of the fisherman not wanting to deal with to text all his buyers initially as well as that one fisherman may only fish once a week or once every once a month so the the buyer would want to stay on the platform to have access to other types of fish.  The other thing is uh I told you before the show I think it's a great idea wonderful idea it's timely it's right now it wraps in COVID it wraps in local fishermen I mean everybody's a winner in this deal there's so much so that you know it it it shouts at you why don't you do this too Mitch why don't you do this why don't I do this why don't I get some friends of mine to do this this is so easy what you got to do is go down to the docks and write some names on a yellow paper and make a website before you know it you know uh you'll put uh Lauren and Spencer out of business um how do you protect your your your venture? Yeah so one thing that's it's really hard to do with the platform like this is uh it's real easy to enter but it's it's hard to scale so uh once we we can't really create barriers to entry but once we scale and and get a bunch of people using the site it'll be a lot harder for competitors to come in since they have to build up both the buyer and the fishermen side and as well as just our industry connections in the fishing world uh I would imagine a few people have as many uh industry connections as we do so just being able to onboard the fishermen like personally would be uh a great um well I've never thought about being exclusive you think you have you could have the negotiating position in the marketplace to be exclusive say to the fishermen you know we're going to do this and we're going to get you a lot of business and assuming we get you the business we think we're going to get you we want you to deal only through us we don't want you to go around and cut us out and we don't want you to deal with any other supplier Mitch is that legal? I think any kind of a business arrangement is legal you're not restricting trade I mean you know the guy has the uh the option of saying yes or no I mean his own boss so but I'm not a lawyer like you that's why that's why I asked you I wanted a completely non-illegal you know response so but you're going to have to see a lawyer about making an agreement I don't think you can do this deal without having an agreement you need an agreement with both sides you are the hub of the wheel and the spokes lead out to your fishermen you got to have an agreement with them and spokes lead out of course to the consumer and both of those contracts are worth putting in some real thought in real time and maybe real money with a lawyer who can write them up profit and save you from the two risks that I identify you know on the other side what's been the uptake from the fishermen I mean what's been your experience so far with them do they view this as a valuable service that they want to sign up as this is working and and how many fishermen have we got here in Hawaii so what's kind of your market for us as far as your supplier base goes so there's kind of like we've done a sense of amount of like market research and just from our industry knowledge as well we kind of create two market segments one is the long line fishery and then the other is everything else basically so just excluding the long liners at first we're looking at about 1500 commercial licensed fishermen wow and then they estimate about double the amount of recreational fishermen as well that's just in Hawaii presumably you could do this anywhere you could do this globally I guess yes yeah you know one issue is you got a lot of guys down there in the docks you know the ones who you mentioned in your you're gonna go to your slides in a minute you know who make a living at the fish auctions at four o'clock in the morning what are the how are they going to think about you are they going to like you so this the coronavirus thing has really flipped everything on its head and before you've never seen those big long line boats selling directly from the dock but lately with such little demand from the hotels and the restaurants the auction has actually been turning away fishermen and saying we won't take your fish it's gonna it's just gonna flood the market and drop the prices to nothing so they've been selling right from the dock so yeah I think we could even open up that other customer segment to the long liners as well yeah right good thought good thought we have this on tape also you know okay so let's talk about your slides why don't you call up some of your slides and and let's see what you've got going Spencer Spencer I assume you're the CEO yeah correct okay yeah all right and and Lauren helps you in many ways including being an executive vice president or something along those lines yes I'm the CEO okay all right so let's let's talk about your slides what do you want to look at okay um yeah we'll go that we'll jump into the first slide yeah it's kind of like our other little elevator pitch here that um some statistics for people is that the on average consumers can expect to see 30% lower prices than they do in grocery stores sometimes more like 50 or even 100% um savings and then for the fishermen they can see 200 even up to a thousand percent and design just made up numbers the other day I sold an hockey for about like a dollar 80 a pound and then we walked over to Nikos and I saw $21.99 for a kind of ahi wow yeah wow there's a spread there isn't there yep as you can tell when you're trying to buy a fish in stores the selection is not the best and you can tell that the fish is definitely not fresh that's because the fish are actually at sea for a long time can you tell if the fish is uh or yeah a cut of fish is fresh from a picture because uh you know you see pictures uh so I think the picture the fish auctions show pictures don't take somebody's showing pictures uh are you going to be able to show pictures on your website yep for sure they'll be able to post pictures of their their catch they can take a picture with their cell phone right the fishermen can do that in a perfect world the way it's going to work is the fishermen will finish their day of fishing start heading back to the harbor take some pictures of their catch and post it and then they'll have five ten fifteen buyers waiting for them at the pier that'll be ideal scenario okay time to time you're going to go on the boat right you're going to go on the boat and see if it's uh hygienic and see if they're doing what they say they're doing right yeah we kind of have like uh certifications make sure they're following certain procedures as well okay mitch what are the signs that a fish is not fresh so if you can see the whole thing um one of the big indicators is the eye whether or not it's like cloudy or kind of like it doesn't look quite right and then just like the the texture of if it's the whole fish itself is kind of like mushy you can kind of see that it wasn't uh maybe either wasn't cold enough or it's pretty old right so it was the uh follow on question does the fisherman actually package the fish i mean he packs it in ice when he's out there fishing but when he gets back and say i only want a pound he has to chop off a pound of fish and uh as you have his own containers packs it in ice and then i guess uh shuts the container down and gives it to her as a shrink wrap it or how's that part of it handled so likely it'll be a ziploc bags if people want to buy a fillet rather than the whole fish yeah or even um we're looking into some like kind of proprietary packaging that we could use that people would uh could benefit from i guess you can hand out baggies with your logo on it right yeah yeah that'd be cool yeah easy to do is there a fillet in the pipeline here is anybody going to get in the middle of that delivery system and fillet the fish for it so as of now we're planning to have like basically like a wholesale service where the fisherman can say okay i can cut this fish for you or like if you just want a fillet i'll cut off a fillet for you oh very good if they're willing to do that that helps because it makes your market that much stronger yeah for sure yeah and from our experience a lot of the fishermen are willing to do that yeah and if you're talking about the small buyer the small buyer is not in the mood to do the fillet if you can get somebody to help them do that or we can get it delivered that way yeah and we plan to mainly our kind of target market would just be your everyday family but we we don't intend to like disqualify restaurants or hotels or anyone from using the site as well oh yeah we kind of talked about these already mainly like the just low prices wherever wherever they can sell their fish these days so yeah just kind of to give a another overview just fisherman catches the fish posted on the website the consumers who have signed up to be notified will get like a text message that said this fish was just caught in your area if you want to meet it up here's the price and then they can either meet up and then pay through the website or pay cash so are you going to be on all islands what are you planning yep we're planning to launch on all the islands in Hawaii and then hopefully if the the idea works basically you expand the mainland and internationally what's the name of the website real real fresh dot com real fresh we're working on a domain name but um most likely real fresh dot com okay and lauren you're working on the website yes are you gonna are you gonna include recipes yes yes for sure we do plan to have recipes and other kind of how-to videos for consumers and fishermen alike yeah that's just kind of an illustration of our our price differential from like the average wholesale auction price up to the retail pricing stores so are you going to negotiate the prices with the fishermen or just let them set the price so yeah we probably we'll have it so they can set whatever price they want but we will have like resources for the fishermen like a suggested retail price or like today's market price and are you going to tell the consumer what you're paying or what the fisherman is charging so yeah it'll be kind of sort of like craigslist where they they go on that specific profile or that post and it'll say here's a pound of ahi for ten dollars a pound here's a pound of mahi at an each price for like a whole or filet however they want to buy it okay well the consumer be able to figure out or will the fishermen be able to figure out what your cut is yeah we're definitely still considering like different revenue models but uh we're working on either a commission or maybe a kind of like a membership fee to be on the website yeah i think this is a great slide to really show the value proposition here so yeah you can see the savings for the buyers and the fishermen and the fishermen would set the price at fifteen dollars or whichever price they want but you can see it's a big difference if you're buying twenty one ninety nine land and they set the price to fifteen dollars that's a lot of savings especially by more than one pound of fish savings against what though because the market is really in the tank right now so it's the savings against the historical cost right well even you see it's funny the throughout the coronavirus the the ahi prices specifically at the wholesale level have fluctuated from the lowest lows to the highest highs and what you've seen in the stores is pretty much almost the highest highs like it's still expensive in stores yeah that picture from foodland is from three weeks ago ah okay and uh if there is any other type of fishing but that particular fish is most likely a long line fish and by the time it hits the grocery store it's probably three weeks old and the real fresh fish was swimming that day suppose you get a call one day from a Japanese market or a Japanese food wholesaler and he and he says to you Spencer you know we'd like to buy some of your fish we love Hawaii fish so can you freeze this and put it in dry ice and and ship it off to us would you be able to expand your operation to include that yeah we would love to facilitate something like that um so these are some additional value propositions that we have other than the price savings the methods of fishing that we would promote like from the small scale fishermen would have methods of less flycatch and it would help Hawaii be less dependent on imported goods as a whole and that's pretty important these days it also increase transparency of where food your food comes from which is a big demand right now for consumers yeah sustainability is everything but you know mitch doesn't this remind you of the the ahi cage farm project that was off and it failed but it'll come back I think there was a little contention with the local fishermen uh where somebody wanted to do uh aquaculture ahi and big cage um and what kind of technology for it if it comes back how can you click into that with with real fresh I think that we would mostly want to focus on wild caught um ahi but I don't see why there won't be an exclusion as of right now for um cage doggy yeah okay all right there's an organization over at Nelha now that you guys I don't know if you've heard of Hatch but they're an entrepreneurial group they kind of do accelerators as well uh and because Nelha has a has a lot of uh farm fish going on there uh aquaculture so you might want to tap into them with your business model and they're uh global they're out of Norway originally so I highly recommend if you didn't know about them that you go and contact them they're always looking for new cohorts as they call it and uh I understand that they do have money so uh to you know promote the fisheries trade and their experts in the fisheries trade so you might want to look at uh look at that as another option for your business model so what's been the take up so far I mean you just started if you just started this uh have you had initial sales and how how's it going so yeah we've uh we've been doing a bit of uh it's kind of like customer outreach surveys and things like that trying to see whether or not we really want to push forward and go ahead with this uh we've spoken to um several developers and have kind of found the developer we've planned to go with if we can get the funds together so it's a develop what's a developer for this purpose what is your developer software developer and like web designer to help us build the the functionality of the site very important that's another question I had what what are the kinds of products could you sell besides fish I mean once you develop the the app the application and there must be like the world's your oyster you know you could sell just about anything in this line did you say oyster I thought you said oyster I said oyster that's part of oyster too but so yeah we have kind of a bigger hopes for the the website too in that like micro scale production being able to have like say you have a backyard um a mango tree or a little garden in your backyard or aquaponics you'd be able to sell your access to people in your immediate community which would produce like dependence on shipped goods and store bought goods so yeah I would help wise food security I would think the coffee industry might be an interesting target okay uh any more slides you want to talk about or should we go to the future yeah I think we're good to move on okay so you guys are doing like you know minimal sales right now you're developing contacts you're building a website hopefully you're going to build good contracts need that um and uh where does it go from there I mean question I suppose is are you serious about this is this going to be a career for you is this going to be a company that you invest your time into and and money and all the money your family will give you and your credit cards and everything until you get some real capital yeah is this serious yeah we're serious we put a ton of time into it already and we plan to move forward so next step we're basically finalizing a few things as far as like user interface goes on the on the website and then we'll um work on getting together some funds and then start developing to the site so what kind of funding are you projecting that you need what's what's the as I say in the trade what's the raise um we we're trying to get very lean in the beginning really do like a minimum viable product at first so we're looking for about 20 to 30 000 to begin with and we'll probably it'll probably be like kind of pre-seed funding from family and friends most likely and then be able to kind of prove the concept and then hopefully attract some bigger investors and and really improve the site you're looking aside from the developers and all that and I suppose the lawyers with the contract now you're looking to hire anybody and who and who would that be and what would that person do yeah we definitely be interested in um I've been talking a few kind of people more on the technical side um to help us with the the development of the the website and then most likely um some kind of in-house like accounting or financing as well someone who does that through that process yeah this is a great play it's a great play it's a certainly it's at the beginning now but it's a great play and it's going to depend on all the elements we've talked about how well you you do the website and the e-commerce um how well you do the relationship with the fishermen and the marketing with the consumers I mean all these things potentially are doable and doable well and the market clearly is good for you you pick the right moment the right problem to solve and furthermore I mean part of my basis for saying that is we're not done with COVID we're not done with the trouble in the economy we're not done with the failures of restaurants things are changing all around the one thing it's not changing is people like fish they're going to insist on fish it's going to be a staple especially here okay Mitch you want to want to ask him any more questions or close up how you want to deal with this now I think I'm going to close up but I just uh want to give a plug for the University of Hawaii office of technology transfer in the Shilin Business School who are helping our young entrepreneurs uh enter uh the uh the perilous shark infested no pun intended waters of business and it's really good to see uh you two guys of uh are are getting in there getting your feet wet or getting bledded whatever you want to call it and uh getting out there with a really great uh idea and uh I guess we wish you all the best and keep us informed and uh when you got something you come on back and talk to us about it and tell us how you're doing what you learned in the hard cruel world of business so yeah yeah yeah we'd be interested in talking to you again and I and I will leave you with my comment is uh something that that Mitch said it's uh the world indeed is your your oyster there you go yeah we'd like to thank our mentor Mark to Laura for bringing your attention okay yeah thank you guys for for having us on here thank you yeah uh Lauren and uh and Spencer really appreciate you coming on the show and Mitch of course thank you so much for setting this up hello hi you guys all right