Testimonies received from BFED Committee

Aloha Council members,
My name is Mana Shaw-Rodriguez and I am the Director of Prevention and Education at Maui AIDS Foundation. I’ve been with MAF for the past 9 years. MAF serves all of Maui County through case management of our HIV positive clients, as well a preventative services
MAF is a one-stop-shop for health including STI testing, treatment, to harm reduction, syringe exchange, wound care, and housing assistance through our HOPWA program for our HIV+ clients.
I want to personally thank every one of you, for your continued support over the years. It’s means so much to me, my agency and our clients. We are so grateful.
MAF provides free wrap around services to our Maui County community. Many clients may start in prevention services seeking free STI testing, then are referred to our insurance enrollment specialist for assistance for those uninsured, or while others are referred to client services with a warm hand off if clients are recently diagnosed, or already diagnosed with HIV for further support and care. Others may be referred to our provider on staff Dr. Chin, if clients are positive for STI’s. All syringe exchange clients are referred to our testing department, as many are high risk for Hep-C and we can provide a gift card incentive for those that are high risk through our HERO program. We are all about keeping services accessible, free, and barrier-free.
MAF staff meets our clients where they are, make them feel comfortable, safe, supported and help individuals keep our communities healthy. I want to tell you about one of our most recent success stories in our syringe exchange program. For the last 8 months, a regular syringe exchange client who is unsheltered came to our office for clean needles, food and hygiene products. Since we built a rapport without judgment, they eventually came to us with one question we always hoped a client would ask: help getting into treatment. Within two days this individual was picked up from our office, and they were taken to treatment thanks to our amazing team. We made this person feel comfortable seeking our help, got them off the streets, and onto a path of recovery.
The work that we do is more critical than over. As of last Friday, MAF has been targeted in the federal budget proposed of a 529 million cut to eliminate HOPWA programs. Labeling our essential health services as “radical”. This budget cut would negatively affect our clients living with HIV on our HOPWA program as more individuals would be homeless without funding.
Thank you for your time and your continued support for our agency. We couldn’t have helped our Maui County community without your continued support.
Mahalo.
Mana Shaw-Rodriguez
Director of Prevention

Aloha Councilmembers,

I work as a nurse practitioner at Maui AIDS Foundation (MAF). I wanted to express my gratitude for, and speak in strong support of, continued County funding for our HIV and sexual health clinical services.

Thanks to your ongoing support, we are able to keep the one “free clinic” on island open and operating. We provide HIV prevention and care; STI treatment for syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea; and connections to other health and social services. Free PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) and free PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis) have kept our agency’s incidences of HIV at zero the past two years. Life-saving no-cost HIV medication samples have been in supply, which helped cover when patients experienced gaps in care or when they lost medications due to the fires and floods.

We serve individuals from all walks of life—but especially those who are non-insured, underinsured, and underserved. The people we serve often face multiple barriers to care, and your continued support helps break down those barriers. Including increasing capacity to add more clinical staff–earlier this year we were finally able to hire another nurse practitioner to join our team. Now we can develop new programs that target hepatitis treatment/vaccination, free women’s health, wound care, and substance use disorder treatment.

Unfortunately, our agency recently learned that our federal housing funds for people living with HIV are in jeopardy–MAF was explicitly targeted in the White House’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget to lose this funding. Our housing program is a vital part of the wraparound services we offer to Maui County, along with case management, testing, needle exchange, outreach, food pantry, insurance navigation, and clinical services. Your support for our “free clinic” directly helps strengthen what we can do to keep Maui strong and healthy at a local level.

On behalf of our team at Maui AIDS Foundation, and the community members whose lives are directly impacted by this work, thank you for your partnership and trust. We are truly grateful.

-Bryan Chin, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC
Wailuku, HI

Testimony Opposing Funding for the Ka Ipu Kukui Fellowship Program – FY2027 Budget (BFED-1)

I respectfully oppose the proposed $47,500 allocation of County funds for the Ka Ipu Kukui Fellowship Program.

Maui County is currently facing serious and measurable problems that directly affect residents. Farmers are telling the Council they cannot even process the animals they raise because basic agricultural infrastructure is missing. Residents are struggling with housing where the median home price is roughly $1.2 million while median household income is around $100,000. The county continues to face major bottlenecks involving water infrastructure, permitting delays, and housing supply.

In that environment, every dollar of taxpayer funding should be focused on programs that produce direct, measurable benefits for the public. The Ka Ipu Kukui Fellowship Program is a selective leadership development initiative serving a small number of participants each year. While the experience may be valuable for fellows personally, the public has not been presented with clear evidence showing measurable improvements to housing supply, infrastructure capacity, agricultural production, or other core community needs.

There is also a reasonable question about public perception and transparency. The program’s leadership includes individuals who have close relationships with current government leadership. When taxpayer funds are directed to a private fellowship program connected to people within the local political network, it raises legitimate questions about priorities and the appearance of favoritism, even if no rules are violated. Public funding decisions should be especially careful to avoid even the perception that insider networks benefit from taxpayer dollars.

Leadership development programs can and do exist across the country without taxpayer subsidy. If the fellowship program provides value to the private sector leaders and organizations involved, it should be able to sustain itself through private sponsorship, tuition, or philanthropic support rather than public funding.

At a time when the County of Maui is operating with a government budget approaching $1.6 billion, residents reasonably expect public funds to be directed toward infrastructure, housing supply, agriculture, and essential services.

For these reasons I urge the Council to remove funding for the Ka Ipu Kukui Fellowship Program from the FY2027 budget and redirect those funds toward programs that deliver direct, measurable benefits to the people of Maui County.

Mahalo for the opportunity to testify.

Jolee Bindo, Waikapu Resident

Please add in Haiku Deep Monitor well with full testing for contaminants and continued funding for community stream water testing in Haiku-Huelo

Please include a verification system to support ongoing stream testing in Haʻikū-Huelo
We need a deep monitoring well that
should be tested for salt, pesticides, and pollutants and bacteria.

Please support the testing of streams in the Haiku-Huelo area with a deep monitoring well that tests for salt, pollutants and pesticides. Mahalo.

Support stream testing in Haʻikū-Huelo
We need a deep monitoring well
The well should test for salt, pesticides, and pollutants

Support stream testing in Haʻikū-Huelo
We need a deep monitoring well
The well should test for salt, pesticides, and pollutants

Haiku Community Plan requires water from Haiku be used first for all needs in Haiku. We need streams tested for the health of the streams and for Ag use. We need aquifer tested for the depth of lens. Do ot assume rain soaks into the aquifer at this time…drought has hardened the land causing run off instead of absorbtion.

Support stream testing in Haʻikū-Huelo
We need a deep monitoring well
The well should test for salt, pesticides, and pollutants

Support stream testing in Haʻikū-Huelo
We need a deep monitoring well
The well should test for salt, pesticides, and pollutants

Regarding CBS 7885 it is essential to understand the amount of water that maybe available to the DWS from wells in east Maui. Stream testing should be restored to the Mayor's budget and any well that the DWS drills in the region must be deep enough to serve as a monitoring well.
150 years of intensive agriculture may have pois!oned the fresh water aquifer. Before we can count on it the water potential must be understood on a volume and condition of the precious liquid