Pages

Kamis, 02 Februari 2017

will county health department food sanitation


>>mahealani: food brings ustogether and sustains our bodies and souls. atrestaurant it's and around our tables, we demand that our foodwith fresh and healthy. but do we really know what we'reeating? how can we we become more savvy eaters? coming upon insights on pbs hawaii, do you know what you're eating?>>mahealani: coming up next on insights on pbs hawai'i, do youknow what you're eating? >>mahealani: aloha and welcometo insights on pbs hawai'i. i'm mahealani richardson. asan island state, hawai'i

relies heavily on importedfoods. but locavo are. es and slow food advocates want tomake sure we have more local options everywhere fromfarmer's markets to fine restaurants. how do we knowwhich foods are not only best for our bodies but also bestfor the sustainability of our islands? what should we bedoing here at home to help increase the availability offresh hawai'i-grown edibles? and what can we do to make sureour food is safe, whether it's fresh from a garden or straightout of a kitchen? tonight on

insights, do you know whatyou're eating? we invite to you join our conversation bycalling, e-mailing or tweeting your questions an comments.now to our goests. peter oshiro is the environmentalhealth program manager for the department of health. peteris helping launch hawai'i's new restaurant rating systemwhich will help diners decide where it's safe to eat. kaleoten is a community organizer for kanu hawai'i. kaleo'srole includes leading kanu's grow local campaign. for2014, kanu is challenging

people around the state to eatlocal for the entire year. kasha ho is hawai'i'scommunity and outreach coordinator at the center forfood safety. working with a variety of hawai'iorganizations, kasha helps put fresh local produce into thehands of low income and elderly residents. and danielanthony is a poi pounder for mana ai, family run businessthat offers hand pounded poi and paiai. daniel doesn'tjust make and sell poi. he teaches community members topound taro themselves. what a

great topic. food. what isthe center for food safety? >> center for food safety isactually a national nonprofit ethicacy group. we work onissues on public health, human health and environmentalhealth. especially focused on looking at the destructiveagricultural technologies including geneticmodification and overuse of pesticides. that's whatwe've been involved with here in p hawai'i for the past 10years. we're actually just about to launch or localoffice. i'm one of two of our

first local hawai'i staff.>>mahealani: kaleo, kanu has similar philosophy as thecenter for food safety. how do you differ and where do youstand on things like organic foods and local food.>> local right now is kind of the focus to get people to growtheir own food and eat locally grown food. i like to thinkthat it's about local first an organic when necessary. intothat's right. so when you're in the store, there's so manychoices these days and now, you feel that it's actually betterto eat local as opposed to

organic?>> i would.say it's better to eat local than organic.organic is always going to be, typically a healthier choice.but for the economy, for the community, eating local isgoing to be my option versus imported organic.>>mahealani: daniel, why don't you talk about your quest tospread awareness about poi and paiai.>> poi. traditional product, doesn't require refrigerationpressure. can last for week, months or even yearsunrefrigerated.

>>mahealani: what'sinteresting about that is there was an issue with youactually being able to sell it it in retail. how do you getover there and what was the issue with the department ofhealth. >> we both had the sameintentions. it's about communities health andwell-being. we had two different perspectives that wewere coming from and so we were able, my personal self and ourfamily, were able to learn tremendous about food safety.got just the regulations, with

you how important it is in anytype of eating, whether it's establishment or your home.so we came to understanding that we both had the samemission and we just were using different terminologies.together, we were able to come up with a solution that allowedfor both of our values to remain. their value of thecommunity, recognizing that guess what? fresh handpounded taro does not come out of a certified kitchen and thatyou need to have some risks being which means being aconsumer paying attention.

for us, freedom to be able toshare our artisan craft in such a way that didn't impose uponour culture. so we've been making it like this forthousands of years. we have no shame in telling people,it's not made if a certified kitchen. but yes, eat at yourrisk. >>mahealani: peter, what doyou make of that? >> no. it's great workingwith daniel. educated me so much in the ancient culturalpractices. a lot of it does make sense. you think itwould be counter intuitive,

what he just said about leavingpoi out forever and it's not going bad, but it does have avery definite scientific basis. poi is a starch that asit gets older, the acidity level rises which presreupbtsbacterial growth. once the ph falls below a certain level,the product is essentially nonpotentially hazardous andshelf stable. very interesting talking withdaniel about the ancient practices and what they did anda lot of it didn't extend to us. so we didn't advocate for therule. daniel advocated the

legislature to change the lawswhich was compelled the department to make rules toallow for the sale of paiai, hand pounded poi directly tothe consumers. we're very successful working withdaniel. i think we've set up some kind of guidelines andrules where we're also protecting public health.daniel is one of the most educated or in his industry,he's gone over and above what the regular industry isrequired as far as education where he is food safetycertified. he did take it

very seriously what we weretelling him about personal hygiene, how to introducebacteria into foods and prevent that. we're veryhappy with how he's turned out and his business and the wayhe's operating right no. >>mahealani: department ofhealth is on the verge of a new restaurant rating system.you brought your placards. can you explain what that is.>> big impetus for the rules is 3 fold.we're going to increase fees onto industry to pay for all ofour program enhancements and

staffing. adopt nationwidestandard for food, current scientific thought. thirdthing was restaurant grading system. starting off withthis past placard, during our routine inspection, if youhave one major violation or less, inspector will give youa pass placard. what major violations are are violationsthat are directly related to food borne illnesses. theseare not things like dirty floors walls an ceilings.these are things like attention to personal hygiene,making sure foods are at the

proper temperatures, whetheryou're cooling things enough, and whether you're sanitizingyour dishing, dishwashing practices are proper. onemajor violation or less, if it can be corrected prior to theinspector leaving the establishment. he will issuea pass placard. hung in the most visible place possibleprobably within 5 feet from the entrance where everyonecan see it. >>mahealani: you've got yellowand red placards. red is a major violation. what aboutyellow?

>> what the yellow placard is,this is a conditional pass. during the routine inspection,the restaurant gets two major violations or more, even ifthey can be corrected on the spot, two major violations tous indicates that the firm is going slightly out of kilter.so they do need a reinspection. so this conditional passplacard will be placed up and it's a public notification.there's 6 categories that we basically look at. foodprotection, employee hygiene and personal health,protection from

contamination, foodtemperatures, facility and equipment sanitation, insectrodent control, and unapproved food sources. these are thesix things and various permutations inestablishments that are directly related to food borneillnesses. >>mahealani: kasha, when youlook at restaurants, a lot of them are touting we have localproduce in our menu items. is it any healthier that they'refocusing on local foods now. >> i think local foods havehealth impacts not only for the

individual but also for thecommunity. i think we can definitely say that local fooddoesn't travel as far, right? we're in the middle of thepacific owing. if 85% of our food is imported, it'straveling at least 3,000-miles to get there and those foodswill not need to be picked at the peek of ripeness becausethey won't make that trip over here. local food is treasure,tastes better may be healthier for us. as we talked about, hehealthier for the community. start to build relationshipswith local farming families so

you know exactly where yourfood came from and what kinds of practices were used duringits growing cycle and harvesting and how it got toyour plate. i think that it's really looking at health in amore holistic way of kind of how does it affect ourcommunities, how does it affect our ecosystem.>>mahealani: kaleo, you're trying to educate people aboutgrowing their own food. how realistic is it especiallypeople who live in small one bedroom condos and don't havethe space to grow food?

>> i live in an apartmentbidding myself. i'm growing food in pots. it's an easy asgetting a tomato and squeezing it into from dirt and leave itthere, it's probably going to grow. if you start somewhere,you're doing something. >>mahealani: what about youdaniel, do you actually grow taro in your backyard or wheredo you find the taro to make your poi and paiai.>> we source taro from a variety of farmers fromdifferent islands. we are farming on oahu. one of ourphilosophies is that if you're

not farming taro, you're notreally in the taro game or the taro business. so what we'vebeen searching for for the 7 years on oahu are prime landsto farm taro in a serious manner. we're in the back ofkahaluu where we're storing ancient terraces. due towhere water system is at. we don't run an awai system. werely on rainfall. >>mahealani: you call taro asuper food. why is that. >> you know, if you wereallergic to your mother's breast milk, if you had severeallergy to wheat, gluten, this

is a food that is a source oflife. it has the smallest starch granule, so it makes forof for easy digestion. the beneficial bacterias thatare cultivate the when you have a traditional poi eatingregiment, which is really having a bowl of poi on yourtable, you keep the ph at a certain level and that's sour,but it's safe and very flavorful. so in thatconsistency, for people that have cancer, that are goingthrough chemotherapy, not only are they able to be sustainedfrom it, but those beneficial

bacteria help to regeneratethe bacteria in their gut system. so we're finding thatfood is medicine. when you're medicinal food is the staple ofyour family, it's really has the effects just keep goingoutward. >>mahealani: the department ofhealth has more restaurant inspectors now, peter. whatare they finding out there? i mean, sometimes you read thosereports. they might be pretty gross.>> well, again, when i first started in the program managera few years ago, nine people in

the field that were in chargeof over 6,000 establishments here on oahu. that meantinspections every 2 years, to 2 and a half years. so wecannot expect consistent compliance with food safetyregulations if you're in the facility once every 2 years.fda recommends that we need a staffing level where weinspect the most high risk establishments at least 3times a year. medium risk twice a year smallerfacilities once a year. in order to do that, we hadincrease our staffing levels.

we pay for restaurant permitfees. now at 25 people in the field. we will hire five morepeople this year. we'll have a total of 30 people people.in charge of 6,000 establishments. very much inline with they'llable able to keep up with that restaurant.>>mahealani: what kind of violations have you seen?>> again, most typical for any food safety program throughoutthe united states, number one thing everyone sees ispersonal hygiene. not washing hands frequentlyenough and especially not

washing hands when you're movebetween raw and cooked food. that's a real big hazard that'scommon for much. also temperature controls.refrigerators that are not properly cold enough and hotnot hot enough. very common things.>>mahealani: kasha, kalia from waikiki has this question.she thinks farmers markets are great but ho how can weconsumers of produce from farmer markets knows what kindof pesticides or fungicides are being used on the producewe buy? there's usually no

labeling.it's just all the produce there.>> definitely. one of the really wonderful things abouthaving a face-to-face relationship with where yourfood comes it from. i work at some of the farmer markets.if you have questions about how the food is grown, talk to thefarmer about it. they're very forth come willinging it toldyou what kind of sprays they use what crops thatinformation is available and gives you an opportunity tobuild that relationship.

kind of like a communitybuilding activity as well. >>mahealani: kaye kaleo forfood at the farmer market, all of the produce, do you think italways comes from a small local farm or do you think sometimeslike the big producers somehow get in there?>> well, i don't know for sure. i wouldn't talk about too manypeople. you can look at some of the boxes that are stackedup with the food there. but like kasha said, talk to thefarmer and talk to people selling it and find out what'sgoing on. also depends on

which farmers' market youyou're going to. some are more known for people in thearea growing their food and bringing it to the market.>>mahealani: daniel, how have you seen poi growcommercially, not only culturally, but commercially.there's so many poi products out there.>> we're going to continue to see this as a trend because weneed to find a starch that's suitable to grow in hawai'i.taro is a proven starch, super starch that was establishedwell over 20,000 acres. so if

we want to live in 2014, we'regoing to have to eat paiai pizza or crackers or you knowwhat i mean? the reality is the world is where we drawingredients and inspiration from. so if we can look at ouringredients and see how they fit into the world, then ithink we're going to find that more people want to eat here.>>mahealani: you've created recipes from paiai that looklike just every day things that we might see at a restaurant,pizza, pasta, that sort of thing.>> pizza, pasta, cinna bonds.

we even do a vegan sashimi.>>mahealani: does it taste any good.>> i shared it with hawai'i tourism japan.the ladies were speechless. we aged it and the mold aroundit when you cut it and plate it made it looked seared. whenit sours, it looks pink. looks like sashimi put on aplatter with diced cabbage and wasabi. the flavor andcrunch. yum. >>mahealani: making us hungry.kaleo, you have a goal of having people eat local for anentire year. is that

realistic?>> well, the goal is 10% increase in local foodconsumption for the year. i think it's realistic. goingto the farmer's markets and going out there and just kindof opening up your pallet is going to be kind of part of thesolution. i'm not sure if everyone is eating paiai rightnow, but go out there and try it. and growing some thingsat home definitely going to help. getting green onionscutting it up and putting it inside there and eating that.>>mahealani: kasha, do you

think that we have enough landto totally support local food consumption?>> you know, that's a really good question. i think thatit's one that a lot of folks are trying to answer here inhawai'i. what we do know is that we won't have enough landunless we really prioritize it for food use and foragricultural use. it's challenging for localfarmers to find accessible affordable land in hawai'i.one of the issues is that some of our largest agriculturalinvestigators are being used

not to produce food for localconsumption but being used to produce genetically modifiedseeds for export to the mainland and other placesaround the world. prime agricultural land are notbeing used for food production. some of thoseissues need to come to light to answer that question. can wefeed ourselves. >>mahealani: peter, thomasfrom waikele has an interesting question aboutfood trucks. they're really popular right now. he wantsto know, will the health

department rating system beapplied to food trucks? >> yes. they will. appliedto anyone that currently has a permit with us. so the ofthousand permits we have oahu, 10,000 statewide, haseverything from convenience stores, five star restaurants,lunch wagons, institutional kitchens, schools. anybodythat sells food in any shape or form has a permit with us willbe part of this grading system. >>mahealani: what are youfinding right now in terms of food trucks is these areusually small owners.

mobile. they're not reallylarge operations. do they have more violations than yourtypical restaurant in. >>>>. typically not. pretty much the same as any other foodestablishment that serve it's similar type of menu. nothingmore to fire or be wary of if it is a truck. main thing isto talk to them, ask if they have permits from the healthdepartment and ask to see them. make sure they have them onboard. they are required to have the permits with them andthe permit numbers on the side

of the trucks also.>>mahealani: kasha, the senator for food safety has aninteresting perspective on genetically modified food.very controversial on both sides of the issue. where doyou folks stand on that. >> well, what we're reallyfocusing on right now is our right it now. as consumersand as community members in hawai'i, we're really trywillinging support the efforts of local community groups antindividuals would want to know a, as a consumer, is the foodthat i'm eating genetically

modified. that comes to theissue of labeling. since we don't have labeling right now.federal level, it's been something that's been comingup at a state level here in hawai'i, actually half of thestate, 26 states in the united states last year, introducedlegislation that are really was looking at labelinggenerally ethically modified organisms. as a consumer,that's one issue. as a community member, for thefield trials that are happening, in agriculturallands near our homes and near

our schools, what is it thatthey're growing there and how much and what kinds ofpesticides are they using? so those are some of the issuesthat have been coming up here locally that we've beenfocusing on. >>mahealani: daniel, were youpart of this movement. you were attending rallies againstgmos at one point. now you backed off. why is that?>> you know, really, it's focusing on solutions. it'salso seeing that the movement here is grown and solidified.we don't need every single

voice to shout at the sameproblems. we need to each individually look at what arethose solutions. for me, i believe that i have a clearvision that taro is a solution that taro water takes waterfrom future gmo use. from future agriculturalindustries that are going to be using heavy chemicals andpesticides. we're going to promote a tie of agriculturethat is important for our future, one that doesn'trequire input from out side of hawai'i. when all of ourinputs are made locally. we

need to talk about the future.i'm really happy that kasha has your office has come herebecause we need a much clearer picture. hawai'i for this gmoissue, is such a focal point worldwide. and if everyone inthe world that wanted to fight gmos sent us one dollar, wewould win this year. that's all it comes down to is money.so instead of fighting against money, which i'm more thanhappy to do, but i have to put my sword down and pick up my o'o because planting taro is going to sustain those that arefighting. we are feeding

them. our commitment is toplant taro while they're battling this because thosepeople that are fighting for us, they need food and theyneed support. >>mahealani: let's talk aboutmoney because kaleo, a lot of people they want to eat local.they want to eat organic but it's just really expensive.you go to a health food store and you're going to pay a bigpaycheck for good healthy food. it's a lot cheaper toeat stuff that's processed and not. how do you help peopleeat healthy foods when it's

more expensive?>> yeah, that's the question about health in general too.i mean, how much do we pay for health care? maybe the foodthat we eat can correlate to the price of your health care.if you eat healthier food, maybe you'll be healthier.i'm also not so sure that all food really needs to be cheap.maybe you pay more with your pocketbook, or maybe you paymore with your labor work in the community garden,volunteer. meet one of your neighbors.>> they might have an

experience growing food andhelp them out. and so i'm not so sure that it really needs tobe cheap. let's keep a healthy that going.>>mahealani: peter, there's a lot of questions about therestaurant rating system. people are still trying to findout about it. one person wanted to know, well, foodhandlers and super market-- delis be rated.>> yes. that's going to depend on the super marketitself. it's going to be their choice whether tosegregate each of their

departments or under onepermit. leave it to industry how dothat. we've had indications from the larger marketsthey're willing to pull out a separate permit for thebakery, separate for the delhi, seafood section and onepermit for everything on the floor. whether they do thator not, the deli handlers are all part of the inspectionprogram. >>mahealani: if you findsomething you're going to put one of those placards on.>> exactly right. if the is to

store is worried about maybethe seafood section cause causing problems with the restwas store, if it's all under one permit, then that just onesection could i guess result in a can pass on the facility. ifthey have all segregated out, maybe only that seafoodsection will have a conditional pass and the restof the store will have pass placards.it's up to them how they want to do it.>>mahealani: what's interesting is it seems asthough the industry is

supportive of this because youwould think that they would say, there would be a negativeeconomic impact if there's a yellow or red. but yourexperience was they actually supported it?.yeah. when we went to the public hearing, verysurprising. we had very little blow back fromindustry. the one concern that industry did havehonestly was the conditional pass placard and how long thedepartment of health would leave that up. we committedto industry that once they tell

us they fixed all violations,we would return within one business day to do areinspection to follow up. if everything has been corrected,we'll take down the yellow placard and put up the greenpass placard. >>mahealani: kasha, how do youthink people can really choose healthy foods when they'reeating out? >> when they're eating out,.>>mahealani: there's so much tempting stuff out there.>> there is. i think that one thing that you can do as we'vebeen talking about is eat

locally grown. i think thatthat's a great option. often results in a healthier meal.i think that one thing to consider too is not just thehealth of our bodies, but also i think about who are theworker it's that brought the food to you and what kind ofconditions were they working under. that's something thati try to keep in mind when i go out to eat and as we've beentalking about, i tried to know as much as i can about therestaurant, locally owned business, do i know the familythat owns that restaurant or

food truck? so it's anopportunity to build relationships while eating outas well. >>mahealani: daniel talk aboutthe price of paiai. there's a pretty big significant pricedifference between what you're producing and just the bag ofpoi in the super market. >> in our movement, there is alot of lessons learned. if we wanted to see a healthy taroindustry, we had pay it forward. start paying for thekind of quality of taro that we wanted and needed. over thelast few years, farmers have

really risen up to that. sowhen you purchase taro at 3 to 4 times the commercial farmprice, that increases your cost. when you hand pound it,the labor increases your cost. here's what most people don'trealize. if you use department of health standardsfor poi, one pound of paiai being 99% taro will make 3 to5 pounds of ready to eat poi. so ready to eat poi isclassified as poi containing no less than 15% solids. 85%water. and so that's 3 to 5 pounds of hanalei or tarobrand refrigerated poi for one

pound of paiai. if you'regoing to go to regular poi, which is 27%, i believe, thatwould paiai would make 2 to 3 pounds of that. if you justtake a look at price of paiai and factor it in that formula,it's actually very reasonable. which makes you consider howcould the commercial industry buy it at four times less thanus, have a huge machine that does it, yet when you actuallymeasure apples to apples, we're pretty much in there.>>mahealani: this couple questions for peter oshiro.6,000 restaurants, 30

inspectors, how many visitsdoes this break down in a year for the individual restaurantor food truck? >> target for that staffinglevel was to have the high risk facilities inspected threetimes a year. so many food trucks will fall into thatcategory. fast food outlets typically will be inspectedtwice a year. smaller single item outlets like the cookieplaces, ice cream shops will be inspected annually. we havethe staffing level to inspect at that proper frequency.>>mahealani: there was a big

unroar over those rats inchinatown a while back. how are things now and is it safeto eat food from chine town? >> absolutely safe to eat foodin chinatown. i'm not going to say that's rats have problemhas disappeared. but what happens is the food handlingpractices of the merchants has changed quite a bit. so theidea if you cannot get rid of the rats in the community, youhave to protect your food supply. each. markets andfacility realize when they close up shop, everything hasto be rolled in containers.

nothing left out in the open.that's the key. when they open up in the morning, wash,sanitize, wipe down all the surfaces that were were wereexposed to keep people safe. we have many food bornillnesses and outbreaks coming out of chinatown t is safe toeat there. >>mahealani: talk about foodsecurity and why kanu decided to make that a priority.>> kanu works towards sustainable in general. foodis one aspect. then there's energy and waste. what growlocal campaign is about is

getting people to grow theirown food. that is a cheaper way for people to did thatversus going out to a restaurant or trying to findfood in like a natural food store, a lot of things are moreexpensive. when it comes to sustainability and that as awhole, it kind of starts with food.>>mahealani: if hawai'i was cut of off from the rest of theworld, how long will we have with our current food supply?>> i think there was sb937, a bill that went out there. inthat, it at that talked about

10 days. what it would be.10 days of food on shelves. after that, i'm not so sure. ithink people in hawai'i are kind of resilient in general.definitely, on other islands, molokai and big island, wherethey're growing a lot, and people are fishing.so even on the fish industry in hawai'i, i mean, there's a lotout there. we collect like the most fish that goes out tothe rest of america. so but the rest of the stuff, riceimported. beef is imported. that's probably not going to bearound.

>>mahealani: peter, is this anissue that your department actually looks at in terms offood security? >> no. that is not part of ourmission. our mission is food safety. so the food securityside i guess belongs with the administration. they need tolook at those issues. >>mahealani: what about you,kasha? where do you stand in tomorrows of food security andmaking sure that we can sustain ourselves?>> well, i think that food security is a really importantissue for hawai'i. we've been

talking about. reallyisolated. most isolated land mass in the world and we're sodependent on outside imports. if anything were to happen,natural disaster, labor strike, we were cut off fromthose import it's, we would be in really dire straits prettyquickly. i think that as consumers, it's a reallyimportant issue to look at and i participated in kahu's eatlocal challenge for quite a few years and it really, iencourage everyone to try it. i tried to eat exclusivelylocal for an entire month. it

was hard.>>mahealani: that means no rice.>> no rice. no pasta. only starches were taro and breadfruit. challenging but home to me personally how dependentwe are on outside imports and how many food we wouldn't eatlocally in our current situation. so i think thatit's really important for us to look at that and we have animportant role as consumers to focus on locally grown and wecan really use our consumer power and our consumer dollarsto have that focus on local and

sustainable and start to buildup industries. >>mahealani: tonight oninsights, we're asking do you know what you're eating. joinour conversation by calling e-mailing or tweeting yourquestions and comments. call 973-1000 on oahu. and1-800-283-4847 from the neighbor islands. let's goback to peter oshiro from the department of health. sandrafrom waikiki wants to know, is there any way to ensure thatproduce is really locally grown? in the farmer'smarket? how can you enshe's

that it's safe?>> again, that also more department of agriculturewhere they promote local produce. very hard toregulate that kind of thing. i think a lot of it is itvoluntary. urging people to properly label their proproducts especially the country of origin. we don'treally get into the economics of who can sell what productsand what they call it. >>mahealani: daniel were yousurprised that department of health started working withyou in trying to help you sell

your paiai in the market.>> the reality was that the department of health wasresponding to the community. and the community became awarethat there was this rich food product that we had beenmissing for almost 100 years. and you know, really,individuals, i did my part, but it was all the aunty it's antuncles and kupuna that said, oh, i remember that. it wasputting those things together that really brought togetherthe community. kalo alo, poi is very sticky. brings thingstogether. the a which we act

when we eat poi, all thingsthat are important to the health department and to us.so it was frightening when the health department initiallycame and said that we needed to stop. and we actually changedour practices and focused on education. but in the coursereally realized that it wasn't really an issue, but it wassomething that we needed to move forward on. thedepartment of health willingness.>>, i mean, they said, look we're going to change the rulesregardless if you guys do the

legislation. we felt thoughthat getting the community to that point, for everyone to buyin and support it, that we wanted to finish. so weactually did the legislation. but the department of healthwas very clear to us that it was kind of overkill. so we werevery thankful. yes. >>mahealani: kaleo, howrealistic is to completely cut off our dependence on importedfoods? >> well, people diet and pallethave changed over the years. so i wouldn't advocate forthat. i think people want to

eat different foods and i thinkthat's fine. increasing it by 10%, local food consumption by10% is more the key. that's going to create a lot morejobs. and it's going to keep a lot of money circulating inthe state. so i think that's a more realistic thing to bethinking about. >>mahealani: kasha, some ofthe populations that you've been working with are lowincome and elderly residents. why are those populations moreat risk than not eating healthy food.>> that's a good question. i

should just clarify. thatwork is actually through another project that i'm doingthat's called green wheel food hub. we've been workingdirectly with low income communities and folks who havedifferent challenges to getting out and buying locallygrown food. that might be a mobility challenges. we'reworking with affordable housing, kupuna center out inewa beach. so we actually buy local produce from local farm,and bring it directly into the kupuna housing facility there.and then the elderly can come

right down from their rooms andpurchase the locally grown food and we provide the ebt,program formerly known as food stamps. we provide ebtaccess, folks can swipe their cards and buy locally grownproduce in their facility. it's nice because it's hard forus to get out to farmers markets sometimes. there'svery few opportunities to use ebt cards to buy locally grownproduce. that's what we're focusing on.>>mahealani: i know that kalo is your focus. someone wantsto know about bread fruit and

where do you see that industry,if at all, where do you see that going in the future.>> look at ahupuaa. segregated into different foodsources so that you could eat well, have a great lifestyleall year long. so ulu is a part of that component. takesmore time. longer investment than taro. something that isequally as rewarding. the one thing i love about ulu is youplant it once and it showers food. so yes, i think ulu isvery important. and some of the challenge it's are going tocome down to the does the

community today know how to eatit. i think as we all learn and grow, ulu, kalo, sweetpotato, all the starches of our ancestors are going to be theobvious once. you're going to see that as we begin to eat moreof them, we begin to feel better. i mean, one of thethings that we haven't all talked about is how eating goodfood makes you feel -- for someone that has really made acommitment, we eat poi 3 meals a day, 7 days a week for thelast 3 years. 4 years. and our cal bash has been full. wehaven't washd it or emptied it.

it can happen. it changesyour lifestyle. a little bit. but so much for the better.when i make poi with our family, we all get together.family time. we spend 4 hours together, putting our loveinto our food. that 4 hours feeds us for 3, 4, 5 days weeach have a little calabash that's tupperware becausegetting wood is hard today. and we wrap it up. we take ourlittle calabash to lunch and sometimes we'll go to arestaurant. i'll pull my calabash out ofthe chinese restaurant. and

my chinese food and eat my poi.you think isn't that hard? with people say what is thebest thing about eating poi for every meal? i can tell youwithout a doubt, it's being satisfied at the end of everymeal. >>mahealani: kaleo, have ithis question for you. this is anonymous. comment to thepanel. so feel free to jump in any of you. it goes to sort oflike a rumor that people have talked about for a long time.this person says, i want the panel to realize that mostfarmer claim to grow their

produce, but are actuallybuying produce from costco and sam's and just repackaging itin the farmers markets. do you have any proof that that'shappening or is it just a rumor that people are talking about.>> well, i don't know if it's a rumor or no. i've seen someof that myself. i mean, that comes back to the key which isrelationships were the people that you're buying from. fromthe farmers and i know the guys that kaleo farms, i talk tothem. i know the guys that are at osigi. i know a lot ofdifferent people and i talk to

them. i buy the pro heproduce, we have a conversation. we're friends.a bit of a trust. >>mahealani: i've beenshopping before. so where is this? they seem hesitant.some of them. without the big labels. they're not the maofarms. they're not some of the larger farms out there.it's sort of you kind of have a gut feeling sometimes.>> yeah. that's there. visit the farms sometimes tooand see what's going on. >>mahealani: peter, do youhave any advice for someone who

is questioning whether food isreally coming from. >> farmers markets are all runby different factions. ask the people operating what istheir goal, achieve. they control the vendors. theyknow whether these people are farmers, people that are justwholesaling food from somewhere else. everythingis good as far as eating fresh fruits and fresh vegetables.that's the main goal, change peoples diets in that fashion.if you want to know whether it's locally grown or not, talkto the people and ask them.

they're pretty much veryforthright about it. if you ask everyone down the line, theones that are the farmers will tell you, oh, i don't thinkthat one is a farmer. so they kind of all know who is the realfarmers or not. >> i would second that. someof the farmers markets on oahu exclusively require all oftheir vendors to be local farmers. you could shop atthose farmers markets and rest assured that they spend a lotof time with their vendorses making sure that everythingthey're selling locally grown.

>> when you go a restaurant,some restaurants have fish on there that might sound likeit's local, when i ask, they're like, it's actually more southof this island. even in that place, want to check to seewhat's going on. >>mahealani: this is aquestion for you from ty. ty is a student at windwardcommunity college gold farm program where they educatefuture farmers. what are the post important thinggovernment needs to to help farmers succeed in what is avery challenging profession?

>> i can tell you, policy is abig hurdle for a lot of small farmers. we've been soreactionary to our needs, and haven't really set forth aplan, i spent this last few days on kalaupapa. one of thekupuna shared a story about how important the farmers are.they're the most valuable people in our whole system.they feed the politicians, lawyers, doctors, news people,department of health people, center for food safety, kanu,even myself. after they fed all of us, then they eat. soin that system, they already

value us more. and we need tochange that focus and say, look, if you're going to farmfor me, i'm going to go out of my way to make your lifeeasier. our program, we run about 70,000 pounds of tarolast year and supplied it to families on oahu. we'reshooting in 2015 for 200,000 pounds of taro forfamilies on oahu. it's really connecting those links andhelping the farmer, talking to the farmer. going to thefarmer market and ask your farmer, what's your biggestproblem? because maybe

caterpillars is the biggestproblem and you're look to make butterflies n our community,we don't talk enough. there isn't a database that connectssmall farmers. there's the farmer's union and the farmbureau. but their reality is our best farmers are farming.how can we keep them doing that. i think educationalprograms making land affordable. making the redtape to get on the land. making the land competitivewhere if you get the lease and you're not farming it in theway that you said, guess what?

you're out because get hundredfarmers that are training right now to take your place.guess what? for those hundred farmer, we get 101 lots. so weneed one more farmer to join. it's really taking a differentapproach. right now, from. that i hear, it's aboutliability. all landowners refuse to let farmers live onyour land. look, if you're not living on the land, you'renot farming. the whole concept of a maka ainana is theperson that's there, watches the food grow so that i don'tneed to spray because i see

this happening in myenvironment. intuitively, i counteract it before itoccurs. >>mahealani: that's going tobe a conflict that will be around for a long time.kaleo, when you look at just food in general, is thereanything that you refuse to eat knowing what you know now?>> wow. you know, those kind of questions are alwayssomething to answer when it's in front of me because if i wasa vegetarian and you put me in mongolia where there's verylittle vegetation, it would be

mean to say i don't eat meat.so i don't think there's anything i wouldn't really eatin particular, in general. i'm fairly open. there's alot i prefer to eat locally grown. i prefer to eat thingsthat are in season. i don't want to eat things outof season because that usually means they're moving itaround. using more resources to grow it. and.>>mahealani: kasha, is there anything that you will not eat?>> i think that i would say similar to kaleo. i don'thave anything that i expressly

don't eat. but i do like toknow as much as i can about my food. and that reminded methat i wanted to show the viewers that since we don'thave gmo labels on the foodings that we have, we did producethis shopper's guide that you can take to the grocery storewith you and it helps to provide some information aboutwhat foods are most likely to be genetically engineered.so we know that about 75% of processed foods anything in abox or package will probably contain genetically modifiedingredients. you can

download this from ourwebsite. center for food safety.org. it's also oni-phone and android app. you can bring it on your phone tothe grocery store with you. >>mahealani: it'sinteresting. year not against gmos but you're not onthe industry side either. you're just trying to educatepeople? >> we're trying to educatepeople. we really feel like it's a right to know issue.and that people cannot make educated decisions withouthaving the information

available to them.>>mahealani: daniel, someone wants to know, what are theother types of crops that can really help create asustainable hawai'i food system?>> for hawai'i. can grow anything. our ability to putsomething in the soil and see it produce way better than itproduces anywhere in the world, we have seeds from thewhole world. what do people want to eat? i mean, we'retalking about a local artisan market where people areproducing things that other

people want to eat. rightnow, you can break the market into a bunch of differentsectors. if you need to make money in the short term, plantlettuce. if it's the mid term, havesweet potato, taro, long term, ulu, awa. there is thingsthat whole pantheon for farmer, it's really where areyou? if you're on the ewa plains, you're not going tomake one loi. so it's looking at where you are and it'severything is place based what resources do you have? whatis your soil? if you don't do

a soil test, you never knowwhat's in your soil and never taking full advantage. typeof plants that are best suited for that plates.>>mahealani: kaleo, someone wants to know, how can weencourage our younger generation to farm? i knowthat it's already happening at certain schools. planterboxes. some classes have designated farms systems.how can you encourage more people to take that on?>> getting people that already in the community around thekids that are farming, get them

showing that it's normal.this is what's normal. this probably people in the canoeclub, people out surfing, that actually happened to growfood. maybe they go visit some surfers or visit someone.after they're done with that, show them some plants andthings. >>mahealani: have you ever meta child or someone who was young who goes, i didn't knowwhat that looked like? >> yes.>>mahealani: what was the particular tinge that theywere talking about?

>> well,? general, actually,one of my favorite questions i ask my friend, his son, who isprobably like around 15, where does your food come from. andhis first answer was, small styrofoam containers. soyeah, there's a lot of understanding where food comesfrom. another time, i took coconut to the our dance class.chopping it open and giving it to the girls.they start taking pictures with them and didn'tunderstand that it doesn't come from a box.>>mahealani: there's a lot of

education out there.>> looking at the whole picture. one of the proudestachievements i think with our department of health was welaunched the first shellfish oysters out of the state inover 17 years. that was a very collaborative project with thepeople that wanted to get this oyster and shellfish farm offground. kauai has a farm out there. producing freshclams. they're going to delve into oysters. got the firstoysters out of kualoa ranch recently. we haven't seen in17 years. shelf fish coming

out of hawai'i. what a bigthing. for me, that has such great potential to seeindustry out there. my rule was to enable people likedaniel, help industry. even though we're not looking at theecnomic side, but realize the importance of helping industrythat is producing food also and to produce it safely is ourmain goal. >>mahealani: how educatepeople to handle food safely? is it just through therestaurant inspection process or is there something else arestaurant owner can learn how

to handle food.>> we need to take our program and expand it also. after weget the restaurant industry, we plan to also push thisprogram out into households. the same basic rules that wehave for the restaurant or food service industry out there,practice that at home also, you also keep yourself healthy andsave yourself a lot of medical bills because a lot of our foodborne illnesses that are reported in the state are notfrom our licensed food vendors. a lot of it arecoming from households. very

important that people know howto handle food properly and safely.>>mahealani: people are getting sick from their own.>> no question. >>mahealani: usuallysomething simple like hand washing?>> typically, not knowing about cross contamination.when they handle raw chicken, raw poultry, raw beach, notusing the same cutting board to start cutting fresh tomatoit's for a salad. common sense thing. people don'trealize what they're doing.

>>mahealani: daniel,interesting question from george k. he wants to know,can you grow taro in aquaponics?>> we just had this conversation today.aquaponic technology is getting better and better. iwill tell you as a taro connoisseur, what i've seen isaquaponics doesn't get enough pressure to the root of thecorn for the corn to mature properly. what i've tasted incorn did grow in aquaponics they kind of tasted liketalapia poop. in the

mitigation of this, you couldactually clean your water from the talapia through differenttypes of plant to get. you could have a system thatproduces good taro. what i've really been aquaponics in tarois luau leaf. if you love aeat luau leaf. traditionallywomen, where they got their proteins, good come flexescome from laulau. >>mahealani: what is thebenefit of people eating more local? besides the communitybenefit. are there any other benefits?>> keeping, well, yeah, the

nutrients and the vitaminsthat you get from fresh food p. food that's import the takes alot of longer to get here. a lot of time they're sprayingit. with organic food outside of hawai'i, when itgets here, it's often sprayed with chemicals and pesticidesfor the trip. so it can stay safe from bugs, but then you'regoing to eat that. so that's a questionable thing. ifyou're eating leak locally grown food, you're going toknow what's on it and what's in it. a lot more nutrients andvitamins.

>>mahealani: kasha, even somefoods that are sold in the health food store, they havecertain chemicals or ingredients put on them. forexample, apples, some of them have wax. do you think that'ssafe to eat? >> hum, you know, that's aquestion i don't really know the answer to.>>mahealani: does anyone on this panel know?>> we had discussion about that.>> the base you can rule of thumb, for anything that cameout of the ground, coming from

tree wash it prior to eating.take care of 99% of your problems. wash any produce,vegetables, fruits, prior to eating. that's the best wayto keep yourself safe. yes, it is approved.>>mahealani: there's a whole array of special washing soapsand these kinds of things. >> those are very unnecessary.with all the bacteria, medical community feels that it isgrounded and overuse of anti-bacterial soaps. youdon't need that kind of stuff. basic soap, washing your handswith the pressure from the

washing, removes 99% of yourgerms from your hands. fda, cdc has never recommend usingantimicrobial soaps in food service or any other type offacilities. >>mahealani: even those spraysfor the fruits and everything, just use simple soap for yourfruits and vegetables? >> can you just wash it inwater. that's the main thing. physically scrub the fruit,make sure you wash everything off.>>mahealani: what do you have to say about that kasha interms of actual food safety,

simple tips to help make makesure what they're eat something safe.>> sure. your question, i don't know the answer about waxbut ti remind me i read something recently from theepa that says your average pietsch can contain up to 57different toxic chemicals 14 of which are knowncarcinogens. it's one thing to keep in mind when you'reweighing the issue of organic versus conventional to knowthat some of those chemicals might be present on and in yourfood. so if it's genetically

modified, it might bephysically in the genes of your food. if it's sprayed withchemicals it might be on your food. it's something toconsider when you're making decisions at the grocerystore. farmer's market. >>mahealani: local food couldhave it's not organic. how do you make that choice whenyou're at the grocery store? >> i think that especiallythese days, with limited incomes.>> you have to make those decisions on a personal basis.as you can. the more that you

know about who is growing inand how they're growing it, better educated you can be.>>mahealani: kaleo, someone from up country on the the bigisland wants to know. what are the programs or resourcesout there to help and give advice about growing their ownfood. >> well, kanu, we have ourfacebook page and you can always check there fordifferent recipes and different how to's. they'reon there. this is local gardens community gardenseverywhere. you can go out

there and see what's going onand check into those things. >>mahealani: college says, shelost all of her lettuce to dear. i'm not sure you haveany advice on that. >> get a fence. ungulates inthose areas is a big thing. on lanai too. that's been a bigchallenge. not just growing for locally but just forremediation of the soil so you kind of have to find somehunters. >>mahealani: danielobviously, you're not spraying your taro. how do you keepbugs out there to keep the farm

as live?>> it's a lot of observation. it's about creating the rightconditions. it's about looking at theresources that i have. and not bringing new pathogens.what i've seen with my previous use of chemicals is that theydo one thing good, but they invite other things. so bymaking it a more pact to stay away to weed, just pull weeds.weed-eat. by doing these things, the health of myenvironment has grown which is really mitigated the need forpesticides, for herbicides.

so you know what? sometimesit happens. i lose some crops. it doeshappen. i got phytofura leaf over this past winter.it's leaf blight. i need to plant my plants further apartso the leaves aren't touching during the very still, kind ofhumid mornings. maybe i not going to get the yield that imay want out of it, but one of the things about farming,farming is like fishinging. it's not catching. farming isyou have to put effort into it. you're cultivating something.you're creating something.

so in all of years of farming,you get better at it. >>mahealani: daniel, i wantedto thank you for being on our panel. kaleo, kasha andpeter, thank you so much tonight. i think our viewersmight be a little hungry after this conversation. themaster plan for kaka'ako calls for building more high-risesand workplace housing for residents who want to live inhonolulu's urban core. many residents are excited aboutplans for placing kaka'ako's industrial structures with newhims, shops and restaurants,

others are worried about how alarge influx of new residents will tax the existinginfrastructure. is kaka'ako moving in the right direction?next time on insights on pbs hawaii. i'm mahealanirichardson. a hui ho.

asian health meal

will county health department food safety


[ music ] good morning. i first walked into this room almost eightyears ago to the day. not as an fda employee, but rather as a state employee with the floridadepartment of agriculture and consumer services. i was here to receive training on how to conductacidified food inspections. and for those of you who are not familiar with the subject,acidification is a process for which you take a low acid food and you turn it into a acidfood. and if you've ever home canned beans or vegetables, then you've created an acidfood. most vegetables are low acid foods. the results when done properly is a safe shelfstable product, but when done improperly the

spores of a bacterium clostridium botulinumcan germinate, grow and produce the most acutely lethal toxin know, botulinum toxin. in onewhere mere nanograms an amount smaller than the naked eye can see, can cause death. oneof the first speakers at the course was a gentleman by the name of captain calvin edwardsand he recounted the story of a husband and wife, high school sweethearts by the namesof sam and grace cochran. and it goes like this. it had been a hot stifling day in bedfordvillage, new york and sam and grace cochran thought what better than a nice cool bowlof vichyssoise soup for dinner. now vichyssoise soup is traditionally served cold. so gracecracked open a can of bon vivant vichyssoise soup and almost immediately noticed an offodor with it. nevertheless, she brought a

shallow bowl to sam and asked if he thoughtsomething was amiss. sam took a spoonful of soup and placed it in his mouth and immediatelyspit it out. simultaneously grace placed her spoon to her mouth and before putting in hermouth sam stopped her and said, "i think the soup is spoiled, let's have something elsefor dinner." soon after they ended their day and the next morning sam awoke complainingof double vision. a few hours later he had trouble moving his arms and legs and by day'send sam was dead. doctors were baffled and it wasn't until grace began to exhibit similarsymptoms that they began to suspect botulism. after all it had been over 40 years sincethey last seen botulism in their area. by week's end grace's life was narrowly saved,but left in the wake was a devastated family,

a nation on pins and needles wondering ifthe soup in the cupboard would lead to their demise and an industry teetering on the brinkof collapse. help was needed. so recognizing that process standards were very much in need,fda was asked for assistance and soon after the low acid canned food regulations werecreated. and shortly after that regulations governing the production of acidified foods.the story of sam and grace was powerful and captain edwards training approach effective.after completing the course a return to florida to help train the 150 strong state inspectorateon how to perform this type of inspection. i recounted the story of sam and grace andof the bon vivant company. by the way, if you visit the lobby you'll see a glass displaycase and within that display case you'll see

an actual can of the bon vivant vichyssoisesoup. as chance would have it, about a year later i was back in this room, but not asa state employee, but rather as fda's lead training officer on the conducting acidifiedfood inspections course. important events have transpired in this room. not only formy career, but for the direction of our training. we're meeting here this week to discuss topicsthat are important to all of us. how can we improve our training program? where can wefind opportunities for collaboration? how can we leverage our resources? these are justsome of the questions we'll begin to answer at our training summit this week. and it'swith hope that about a year from now we're back in this room, or maybe another one likeit, sharing our stories of growth and collaboration

as we continue our work towards achievingour part of an integrated food safety system. today i'd like to share with you informationon partnership for food protection training certification work group. who we are and whatwe're working on, but before doing so and as someone who's spent much of their careertraveling and training, i wanted to take a moment to quickly discuss some of the materialsin front of you, namely your folders. so if you look within your folders you'll see aset of maps. there's a dhrd map and it will help you find locations that are close byto eat on breaks and during lunch. there is also another map for the even hotel for guestswho are staying there that identifies nearby eateries. a third map is for the dc metrosystem. after all dc is just a hop, skip,

and a few metro stops away on the red line.you could check that out there. there's also a brochure right here that will help you stayconnected with training and certification initiatives and also give you some informationon the training summit goals this week. the fourth and final piece is the main curriculumframework, and i'll speak more on this later. now, a few moments ago i mentioned that ispent a good portion of my career traveling and training. i always found it interestingto learn a little bit about the place i was visiting that i didn't already know. abouthalf of us here today are local to rockville, the other half are visiting. you may or maynot know that rockville was once known as hungerford tavern. as is the case with manyplaces, over the course of years the names

of cities and towns change. in 1750 a manby the name of charles hungerford created a tavern bearing his name. it was an importantplace to socialize, share news and stories, negotiate business deals, and enjoy a littleentertainment all while having a beer or 12. [laughs] it was also a place to discuss politicsand george washington, benjamin franklin, thomas jefferson, patrick henry, and manyothers considered hungerford tavern important part of the lives. and in the coming yearsthis place helped fan the flames of revolution. on june 11, 1774, hungerford tavern hosteda group of maryland patriots and they wanted to protest britain's new taxes and also proclaimsupport for the city of boston, which had seen it' harbor blocked after the boston teaparty the previous december. from their discussions

came five decorative statements or resolutionsknown as the hungerford resolves. and one statement ranked above all the rest. therewas a call for freedom and independence from great britain. a fairly significant statementand one that was made a full two years before the declaration of independence, which islargely credited to another hungerford tavern patron, thomas jefferson. it's also a statementthat allows us to meet here today to discuss another somewhat revolutionary topic in termsof training, and that's national curriculum standard development. before i speak moreon that, i like to tell you about the training certification workgroup and who we are. theworkgroup is one of the original three partnership for food protection workgroups, and got itsstart following a 2008, 50 state meeting.

today it's made up of approximately 50 federalstate and local food and feed investigators, inspectors. we also have [inaudible speaker]and they also have knowledge on laboratory analysis. the group is advised by four co-chairs,who in turn deliver regular updates and the products of the workgroup to the governingcouncil. our first co-chair is stan stromberg. stan is a state member. yay. yes. [laughs] i say that all the time wheni introduce him myself too. [laughs] from the oklahoma department of agriculture, foodand forestry, where he serves as the director, stan is also the president of the associationof food and drug officials or aofado. jim

phere [phonic] is a federal member from fda'soffice of regulatory affairs, division human resource development or dhrd where he servesas a manager over the integrated food safety team of which i'm a member of. jim has spentmuch of his career working with federal, state, and local stakeholders improving the qualityof and access to training. keith johnson's a local member from the custer health departmentin north dakota where he serves as the department's health administrator. now, keith and his teamlearned of some fairly significant news a few months ago. after being at the same locationthe county courthouse for over 60 years, they were asked to relocate their offices to accommodatethe arrival of a new district judge, right? yes. now, that seemed like a daunting taskto find a new location in a short amount of

time, however as is the case much of the time,things turned out fine. they were able to find an even better location. i mention thisstory because taking on the development of national curriculum standard is by no meansa small feat and may seem like a daunting task, but i assure you that everything willbe okay and your input matters. in fact, it's essential and very much welcomed. a finalco-chair is alan bateson. alan is a federal member and social science analyst here atfdadhard. by trade he goes by different title and quite frankly one i'd never heard of before,psychometrician io psychologist. when i first heard that i thought this is certainly someonewho deals with electric shock therapy on a day-to-day basis [laughs]. unfortunately that'snot the case at all. he just tests people

and measures things. not as exciting as ionce thought, so we really don't talk much [laughs]. joking aside, alan has a very importantrole in our workgroup. he's a certification expert who among other things helps validatethe efficacy of testing in the workplace. we have all four of our co-chairs here today.gentlemen, can you raise your hands? it's keith and stan and jim and alan in the back[applause]. i encourage you all to take a moment, say hello and meet with our co-chairssometime this week. see if you can figure out who sings in a bluegrass band and seeif you can figure out who has a passion for visiting our national parks and probably haveseen more of them than many of us combined. see if you can figure out who is an avid cyclistwho's ridden their bike across the state of

iowa and see if you can figure out who wasa farmer before entering the regulatory profession. a challenge our workgroup faces, as do theother pfp workgroups, is that we're spread all over the country in different officesacross different time zones. in order to work towards completing our initiatives we holdquarterly meetings, if not more often with our members via conference call, through webinars,and when possible face-to-face meetings. since face-to-face meetings on a regular basis arenot possible, most of our meetings take place online using a web conference tool calledwebex. we utilize webex to share news, updates, and discuss opportunities for participationand we regularly post updates of those meetings and the minutes of those meetings to a sitecalled food shield. how many of you are familiar

with or use food shield? so quite a few ofyou. almost all of us. for those of you not familiar with food shield it's a web sitewhich got its start largely from laboratory community and their need for searchable web-baseddirectory of laboratories. through discussions with usda, fda, the association of publichealth laboratories, and america association of veterinary laboratory diagnosticians, foodshield was born. at first it acted largely like a directory. however, over the yearsit's grown to do much more and today there are over 200 workgroups that utilize foodshield to help share and review documents, present training, and keep members acrossall levels of government connected and informed. it's a comprehensive infrastructure supportingthe protection and defense of our nation's

food and agricultural resources and includesthe scientific and technological diversities of the laboratory community. by now you shouldhave received a food shield invitation. in fact, i sent you another reminder this morning[laughs] . if you have not already joined, i encourage you to do so. we'll use this siteto stay connected and informed following our meeting this week. now, the training and certificationworkgroup, as pat and barbara mentioned, receives their charges from the pfp strategic plan,which was released in november of 2014. the plan outlines objectives for each of the workgroupsbeginning in 2015 and culminating in 2020. the plan identifies two major objectives forthe training and certification workgroup with the first being to recruit a diverse groupof subject matter experts or smes to provide

input on the development of a national curriculumstandard for training. the second objective is to present a training summit where stakeholderscan meet to share the vision for developing a national curriculum standard for trainingintegrated food safety system regulators using best practices and learning to discuss developmentof curriculum and find opportunities to continuously improve the quality of and access to our training.at our training summit today there are 74 of you representing various federal, state,and local departments offices and agencies, collective agreement grants, regulatory associations,institutions, and alliances. in fact, we have rita johnson here today representing the seafood alliance. rita also happens to be my former boss at the florida department of agricultureand consumer service [laughs] and the person

who sent me to that conducting acidified foodcourse i told you about earlier. rita, welcome and thank you for welcoming to the floridafamily and giving me a shot all those years ago. we also have with us some internationalpartners. where are our colleagues from mexico? they are in the back there. [foreign language][laughs]. thank you. and where our colleagues from canada? in the middle there. [foreignlanguage] [laughs]. and to all of you welcome to our training summit. now, let's take acloser look at the work group's first objective, national curriculum standard development.if you ask yourself what does that mean, then you're probably not alone and it's a goodquestion. when i look at this title two words stick out for me, "curriculum" and "standard."on their own these are fairly common terms,

but it's a good idea that we take a closerlook at these. a curriculum is simply defined as the aggregate of courses. in college youmay recall that you had to have a certain number of 100, 200, 300, or 400 level coursesor hours for your major. this essentially was your curriculum. now standard is generallydefined as something considered by most as the basis of comparison. so putting this alltogether, what do we mean in the context of training? we define national curriculum standardas a set of competencies essential for us food and feed protection professionals acrossall jurisdictions to perform comparable regulatory activities within the integrated food safetysystem. within this definition there's another important term "competency," which is themeasurable and observable knowledge, skill,

ability, or behavior needed to do or performthe duties of the job. by creating a national curriculum standard we're taking a big steptowards creating a competent workforce doing comparable work. if you do a search of nationalcurriculum standards, several results will populate. they're standards for social studies,math, science and so on. here we're talking about creating a curriculum standard basedoff competencies needed by food and feed regulatory professionals. when speaking about curriculumstandards one must also consider standards for training, as they very much go hand-in-hand.after all, what good is curriculum if you don't have an effective method of deliveryand what good is training without having sound content to deliver? a search of national trainingstandards again, yields many results. there

is standards for teaching assistants, firefighters,canada, and so on. in our context when we're speaking about training standards, we're reallytalking about the quality of our instructors and our delivery methods. instructor skillstraining or instructor development workshops are a step towards establishing national trainingstandards. there are several steps when working towards developing a national curriculum standardwith the first being to define the curriculum. for us this came out of a building processthat has its roots in the old ora schoolhouse you can see here, and also mel showed youbefore. it was originally defined by the worker smes from the office of regulatory affairsand the office of resource management who developed a set of competencies that werelater built upon through a broader set of

smes, including those from the training andcertification workgroup. later we partnered with international food protection traininginstitute arrive pti to further refine the process and products. tools such as needsassessments, job analyses, job task analyses and jtas are used to define what competenciesare needed for the development of the curriculum. now that we defined the curriculum the nextstep is to build the curriculum. the workgroup is actively working on these first two steps.as we build and validate competencies we can begin to develop training content towardsthose competencies, which will collectively become the curriculum. we can utilize toolssuch as gap analysis to measure whether existing training satisfactorily addresses the requiredcompetencies. content that does not meet the

requirements is revised so it does, and contentthat does can go directly into the curriculum. the next step is to implement the curriculum.you can look at this step as a prepackaged needs analysis. smes have already identifiedand validated the expected content and proficiency needed. their design documents and style guidesthat been created from this that provide a development training pathway. at this pointit's a matter of putting the work to practice by all of us. the final step in [inaudiblespeaker] and the process is to evaluate the curriculum. this step has a continuing presenceand improvement of their curriculum. by evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum we canidentify ways to further improve upon it. now, none of these steps are achievable unlesswe work together. the partnership for food

protections training certification workgroupipti, fta and other federal, state and local partners are working together to make a nationalcurriculum standard for training our integrated food safety system regulators a reality. sowhere are we today and what does this work look like? well, it looks a lot like this.this is the main curriculum framework. feel free to grab it out of your folders, you havea copy. it has a lot going on and it's taken the work of many people over the course ofmany months to create. our next speaker is jerry witola [phonic] and dr. craig kamel[phonic] will give you much more information on the national curriculum standard history,process, and mainframe. but essentially what you're seeing are content domains representingcompetencies spanning four career levels,

entry, advanced, technical, and leadership.it's from this framework that the national curriculum is being developed. now this concludesmy presentation today. i hope you have a better understanding of the pfp training certificationworkgroup. who we are and what we've been up to. i'm happy to answer any questions youmay have in regards to the group now. thank you. [applause]. i've got a question in theback. yes sir. well, as the training certification workgroupmembers participated in a curriculum to develop a process, did you notice that they were jealousabout the process being successful? that's a good question and one at all thati wasn't expecting at all coming from my boss [laughs]. you know, it's a fair question andto be honest, yes, there were doubts. and

the doubts largely revolve around the processand not being familiar with the process. this has been a new, somewhat new avenue of learningfor many of us. and going through the process with ipti has been eye-opening for many ofus and as we understand more about the process, we become more comfortable with it. so thedoubts kind of faded away over time. so at first, yes, but as we progressed and beganto build and just using the number, the diversity of our stakeholders, getting input from everyoneit's helped, you know, build a solid product where there is less doubts about it. and we'restill in the building process of it, so there's always room for input and we welcome that.so, you know, if we can do it better we want to hear it. yes sir.

i would add to it as far as having been there,not from the very beginning, but close to it. but all of the people that were thereare representing the different constituencies that the trust level [inaudible speaker] overthe time period contributed immensely. and the biggest example would be the [inaudiblespeaker] people and the [inaudible speaker]. so when were able to bring those two groupstogether and have everything [inaudible speaker] everybody seemed much more able to acceptthis was really going to work. yes, very true. and thank you for not askingme to speak in french [laughs]. any other questions? just one more, will.

yes, ma'am. this is a gorgeous [inaudible speaker] ofwhat we have, but [inaudible speaker] first or second time, how do you recommend you digestthis thing to get the most out of it? what is the best approach? right. well, it's very much built and it startsat the bottom and our next speakers will really give you more information on that, so i don'twant to steal the thunder. but it starts at the bottom with 25 general education competencyor domains, which include competencies for that subject matter. and from that it buildsup, so there are four levels, the entry, advanced, technical, and leader. and as you work upthe content domains kind of there are fewer

of them. so the general knowledge is acrossthe bottom and as you master that you work yourself up. and it's based on, you know yourdesire. if you don't want to be a leader, you may stay at a certain level, and that'stotally fine. that's, you know, what people want to do and that's entirely okay. but itbuilds up and if you start at the bottom and as you mastered those courses or domains,you can see if the next step is right for you and then you work your way up from there.any other questions? we'll get a lot more on that following this presentation, so staytuned. everything you want to know about the main curriculum framework is coming up. allright. if there are no other questions, thank you so much. [applause].

thank you all.

asian health meal

will county health department food permit


>>thank you very much, leonardo,and thank you for those kind words. it really is great tobe with you all again. it's hard to believeit's been a year. i certainly want to thankleonardo and chairman miles coffman, and the rest of theboard and chamber staff for having us here today. and i want to particularly thankmy wife robin and our four children.

(applause) >>this year, robinand i are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, so thankyou very much for sticking out. (applause) >>i'm not sure sheknew what she was going to get into 30 years ago,but here she is. also, my daughtermary is with us today. she actually was my super plungepartner this year at the polar bear plunge supportingspecial olympics maryland. this was my third year as asuper plunger, but her first. i told her the water reallywasn't that cold at sandy point

state park, and shesaid sure, she'd do it. so mary, thank you very muchfor being there with me. that's 24 times in 24 hours. (applause) >>and we're alsoexcited to have one of mary's closest friends, alyssa parker,with us today, who was just named to the u.s. national field hockey team. (applause) >>alyssa is a glenelggraduate who will be joining the team usa in itstraining program.

and we really hope to see herat the 2020 olympics in tokyo. alyssa, we couldn't be prouder. (applause) >>and i knowbig doug's looking down. the state of the county gives usan opportunity to reflect back on the previous year. this past year, we lost twohoward county leaders - hugh nichols, our 3rd countyexecutive, and chuck ecker, our 5th. hugh, who passed away indecember, will be remembered for

his wise and steady leadershipand dedicated public service. chuck, who passed away inoctober, was known for his easy-going nature and tirelesscommitment to public education. and i recall, at chuck'smemorial service, i think it was dick story that talked aboutthe frogs and that - chuck eckerisms. and i think about that i haveused that a lot since his memorial service because he usedthese frogs as an example of when you're dealing withdifficult issues and when you

have to do somethingyou don't really like. and his comment was if you haveto eat a frog, eat it fast. (laughter) >>and the corollaryto that - the ecker corollary is if you have to eat a lot offrogs, eat the biggest one first. (laughter) >>and i've beentrying to take that to heart, but chuck was a tremendousmentor for me and i miss him a lot. this year, i want to also startoff by offering special thanks

to the howard county employeesand dozens of others who helped the county recover from thelargest snowstorm we've ever had. (applause) >>i spent severaldays in our emergency operations center - a top-notch facility -and several nights sleeping on a cot in my office - not sotop-notch - and i wish every resident had the opportunityto see the eoc in full swing. the coordination between countydepartments, the maryland national guard, the columbiaassociation and others - it's

truly impressive. i'd like to acknowledge ourdirector of emergency management - ryan miller - for hisoutstanding leadership throughout the storm, and infact, throughout every storm and crisis we havehere in the county. i also want to thank tommeunier, our bureau chief for highways, for histremendous efforts. (applause) >>try todrive on those sometimes. i did that out at thefairgrounds last summer - it is

not easy. and also - speaking of driving asnowplow - and also i'd like to acknowledge someone whorepresents the many, many unsung heroes of the storm- darren sirk. darren, stand up please. (applause) >>darren is asnowplow driver who put in 16 hour days for 5 days to makesure our residents could get to work, to the store and totheir doctor's appointments. darren didn't see his familyfrom friday morning until

tuesday night. few people realize justhow hard these folks work. (applause) >>you know, we workedas hard as we could to get the roads cleared, but of course,some people get very frustrated when they don't get plowed out. in fact, we got somepretty colorful emails. (laughter) >>one of whichsuggested that i do something to myself that i don't thinkis physically possible. (laughter) >>but, you know,people get frustrated.

i can understand that. now friends, i'm pleased toreport to you today that the state of our countycontinues to be strong. it is strong because of thechoices we make as a community. the first budget myadministration put together had the highest education funding inhoward county history with 59 percent of the operating budgetdedicated to k through 12 education. i'd like to particularly thankthe county council, all of whom

are sitting right here, fortheir support during this process and for the firstunanimous budget vote in eight years. (applause) >>last year, istressed the importance of sustainability and thatapplies to budgets too. we're optimistic the economywill continue to improve, but i have to make one point clear. the days of substantial revenueincreases and large surpluses are over.

we need to proceed with cautionwhen considering sizeable increases for programs,departments or initiatives because there are many competingneeds and only so much new revenue to go around. and as we work to prepare thenext budget, we will again prioritize government servicesthat are essential to our quality of life, such aseducation, public safety, maintenance of our roadsand infrastructure. and we will be mindful ofliving within our means.

the past year has broughtmany challenges and many accomplishments. it was a year of rethinking,rebuilding, reorganizing and restructuring - a process thatwill continue through the year and beyond. we're focusing our efforts onfour major areas: community services; open and efficientgovernment; revitalization and infrastructure; educationand economic development. these areas reflect ourcommitment to making real and

discernible progress to directlyimpact and improve people's lives in howard county. let's talk first aboutcommunity services. based on feedback from mytransition team, community leaders and experts, i amreorganizing the departments of citizen services and housing. i filed legislation in januaryto make structural changes to both departments. these changes will expand thedelivery of human services and

make them moreefficient and effective. the department of citizenservices will become a more robust department of communityresources and services. and in the interest oftransparency, the housing commission will move out ofthe department of housing and community development to makeit clear that it functions independently fromcounty government. we also looked at how tostrengthen services for our growing aging population.

in the next 20 years, residentsaged 65 and older will increase from 10 percent to almost 22percent of our population. we're committed to implementingthe recommendations of our 20-year plan, "creating an agefriendly community," which we released last fall. and our delivery of humanservices will follow a philosophy called "no wrongdoor," which encourages government agencies to usea comprehensive approach to improve services forpeople needing support.

for example, a person with adisability and suffering from depression and worried abouthousing shouldn't have to contact three agencies toget his or her needs met. we can avoid service silos bycreating a service delivery system that addresses thefull spectrum of issues. i am pleased to announce todaythat my next budget will include funding to support the creationof a non-profit center. (applause) >>this center willbring together the department of social services and the county'sfront-line human service

organizations. the center will allow us toconsolidate services, increase collaboration among agencies,improve the efficiency of space and enhance the visibilityof our service providers. as you know, one of mypriorities has been to improve mental health services. working with the horizonfoundation and howard county general hospital, we added abehavioral health specialist to assist with the healthdepartment's community care

teams. and we piloted a programwith way station to provide outpatient crisis stabilization. to date, in just five months, wehave served 174 people who were in need of urgent care. so thank you horizon foundation- thank you howard county general hospital. (applause) >>now we are veryfortunate in howard county to have a police department withcaring professionals who are

dedicated to keeping us safe. as recent events in harfordcounty demonstrate, we should never forget the dangersthey face every day. in september, we announcedinitiatives to combat human trafficking, and we arealready seeing an impact. we just had anotherarrest yesterday. we created a dedicated accountto fund victims' services and police training, added a secondfull-time officer to investigate human trafficking cases and werequested state legislation to

assist law enforcement effortswith monitoring massage parlors to weed out the few that arefronts for prostitution and human trafficking. i'd like to thank the howardcounty state delegation for their unanimous, bipartisansupport for this legislation. as part of our ongoing effortsin community outreach, i have consulted with the policedepartment about moving forward with a pilot program to evaluatebody cameras for our officers. following a recommendation fromthe citizens' advisory council,

police chief gary gardner isforming a work group to initiate a pilot program. this group will address manyissues that come with this technology, including cost,usefulness and policy matters, as well as transparency,accountability and privacy. while no decision has been madeabout instituting a permanent program, the pilot will be thenext step in evaluating body camera use in howard county. we have a fire and emsdepartment in howard county that

is constantly innovatingand improving. in october, we launched pulsepoint, an app designed to help save lives. we were the first county inmaryland to use the app and already have more than1,000 residents signed up. pulse point contacts people whoare trained in cpr and willing to provide assistance whensomeone nearby is having a cardiac emergency. at the same time, the appreaches out to emergency

personnel for response. preparing our community is justanother way we are making a real difference to improve people'slives in howard county. now when i was elected, ipledged an open, responsive and inclusive government and we'vemade strong progress with that. i pledged to continue my townhall meetings beyond the campaign moving them throughoutthe county and i have kept that promise. we had four last year and willdo another four this year.

in fact, our next town hallis scheduled for tuesday in elkridge - come on out. these meetings areopen to everyone. i'm committed to this becauselistening to you makes a difference. i learn of problems andfrustrations that need attention. and some of our best ideasand solutions come from you. and remember, i work for you.

one thing i heard about over andover was that residents wanted greater involvement andtransparency in the planning and zoning process. our department of planning andzoning suggested we create a citizens planning institute tobetter engage residents in the process. we listened, we agreed and wewill be launching the institute this year. i want to particularly thank stukohn, president of the howard

county citizens association- please stand stu. (applause) >>stu is someone whoadvocates for greater community engagement and is a leader inthe community on many, many issues. we learned that american flagswere being discarded improperly, understandably upsetting,especially to our veterans. so we created a flag retirementprogram at alpha ridge landfill to allow flags tobe properly retired. i'd like to thank the americanlegion post 156 for assisting

with this program. another way to communicatewith you is to have a more user-friendly website. i think everyone who uses thecounty's website will be happy to hear we've justcompleted a redesigned site. the new site, which went livetuesday with a soft launch, will improve your ability to findinformation whether you have a phone, a tablet or a computer. and this year...

(applause) >>...yeah, i wasactually in the office on wednesday morning and somebodysaw me in the hallway and they came up and said, i just want tothank you for that new website. and that was only a day laterso that was really great. and this year we will be kickingoff trackhoward - a performance measurement program which willallow us to use data to improve the delivery of county services. for example, the time ittakes to get a permit. using trackhoward, the actualtime it takes will be measured,

available for review andwill show areas that need improvement. strengthening our infrastructureand revitalizing our aging neighborhoods is another keypriority of our administration. we're using our availableresources and collaborating with partners in the publicand private sectors. we started with long reachvillage center, which was purchased by the countybefore my administration. after five public meetingsseeking input from residents, we

completed an urban renewal plan. the next step will be findingprivate developers to bid on the project. i would particularly like toacknowledge and thank council chairperson calvin ball for hisassistance with this process. (applause) >>we're also lookingat oakland mills village center, which, believe me, wedo not intend to buy. (laughter) >>but through acollaboration, we hope to jumpstart redevelopment there.

county government, the columbiaassociation and the oakland mills village board areworking together to complete a feasibility and design study. the study will consider whetherthe center could support a destination anchor and factor inthe impact of blandair regional park to the east and downtowncolumbia to the west. the county has also been closelyinvolved with developing a comprehensive, affordablehousing plan for downtown columbia.

it's a project that has involvedmany, many players, and we're close to the goal line. i would particularly like toacknowledge county councilperson mary kay sigaty for all her hardwork and dedication in helping to bring this plan tofruition - thank you mary kay. (applause) >>it's hard tobelieve columbia turns 50 next year. as we turn the half centurymark, there are many exciting things happening downtown.

downtown columbia is an economicengine which will help drive the county for years to come. merriweather's new stage andother improvements are starting to take shape. two new office buildings areunder construction - the first new commercial buildings builtin downtown columbia in more than a decade. i'd like to acknowledge davidcostello and kingdon gould, who are over here.

would you please stand? (applause) >>david and kingdonare partners in little patuxent square, a nine story, $75million, mixed-use building going up across fromthe columbia mall. and many of you have driven pastand wondered about the building going up on the corner ofbroken land and little patuxent parkways. we've gotten lots of questionsabout what's happening there. and today, we have amajor announcement.

medstar has not only agreed toremain in howard county, but will expand its operation andbecome the first tenant in howard hughes' crescent project,occupying 97,000 square feet. (applause) >>medstar is a leaderin health care and we are pleased that they will retaintheir headquarters in columbia - thank you howardhughes for helping. all of this new developmenthasn't distracted us from our aging infrastructure. i'd like to particularly mentiontwo projects i believe are

critical. first, our circuit courthousesimply does not meet the needs of county residents orbusinesses anymore. we are moving ahead with plansfor a public-private partnership to build a new courthouse. i'd like to thank administrativejudge lenore gelfman for her leadership and assistancewith this effort. (applause) >>second, followingmy announcement last year to appropriate funding to beginflood mitigation in historic

ellicott city, i established thehistoric ellicott city flood group, with the help of jonweinstein, which recently submitted its report to us. i look forward to continuing ourflood mitigation efforts and building on the progresswe've made this year. and i do want to thankcouncilperson jon weinstein for his continued supporton that and leadership. and also debbie slack-katz, whocouldn't be here today, but she'd chairing the workgroup - thank you jon.

(applause) >>one of the mostcritical areas of infrastructure in the county is ourtransportation system. we announced plans lastmonth to dualize rt. 32 from rt. 108 in clarksville tolinden church road. this is one of my toptransportation priorities because of the congestionand safety on that roadway. during rush hour, it is thesixth busiest stretch of road in the state - busier than manyparts of the dc beltway.

i certainly want to recognizecounty councilperson greg fox who suggested the idea oftapping into the county's unused excise tax fund, which couldonly be used for a project like this - thank you very much greg. (applause) fortunately, governor hoganheard our call and i want to thank him for his willingnessto fast track this project, splitting the cost betweenthe state and the county. now strengthening ourtransportation system is more

than just roads. in january, we presentedbikehoward, the county's bicycle master plan, which includedinput from over 750 residents. i definitely want to recognizeand thank chris tsien, for his advocacy on this issue. at the same time we announcedbikehoward, we also announced a county-wide complete streetspolicy that will serve as a guide for making roads safe andconvenient for travel by foot, bicycle, car and public transit.

complete streets is a big stepforward in creating a more sustainable community. i'd like to recognize countycouncilperson jen terrasa, a dedicated advocate in supportof transportation options. i think it's appropriate thatthe first complete streets project we're including in ourcapital budget is the savage area complete streets in herdistrict - thank you jen. (applause) >>and of course,our number one priority in our community and ouradministration is education.

we continue to support theimportant work of the howard county public school system. this year, we were again rankedas the top school system in the state and i want to thank ourteachers, staff, students, parents and school systemleadership for their hard work. since taking office, i havevisited 55 of our 76 public schools and look forwardto visiting the rest. i have enjoyed participating inread across america, steam day at thunder hill elementary,the 50-year anniversaries at

waterloo and clarksvilleelementary schools, national honor society inductions andall 12 high school graduations. and of course, there's myfavorite - the annual simulated congressional hearings wherefifth-graders learn about the constitution and theirresponsibilities as citizens. i want to recognize my goodfriend kim eggborn, coordinator of elementary social studies,who runs the program. (applause) >>and as my publicservice message of the day, please considerparticipating as a judge.

i know that kim has formsif you want to pick them up. (laughter) you'd be amazed by the level ofresearch and preparation our students put intothis every year. i've been doing it for probably13 - 12, 13 years and it really is amazing. and just - if you could take oneday to do that, it means a lot to the students, to the teachersand you'll learn a lot as well. i'm also impressed by thevariety and quality of programs

in our top-ranked howardcounty library system. i love attending the annualbattle of the books and managed to get to all five last year,even though they took place at the same time - little trick. (laughter) >>i get a specialkick out of programs like down on the farm. even though it looks like funand games, our children are learning a lot while attendingthese free programs. they're not theonly ones learning.

this year, i'd like to recognizecari gast, who oversees the library's children and teencurriculum - cari thank you. (applause) >>cari's leadershipin the design and delivery of this curriculum for young peopleis one of the reasons our library system has developed anational reputation as a trend setter. (laughter) >>i know, i know - aslonnie robbins would say, heads would roll, heads will roll. can we move on?

(laughter) >>it's a littlelonger than i thought it was there mr. miller. our community college alsoenjoys a stellar reputation and continues to develop newprograms and initiatives to meet the demands of studentsand today's workforce. i'd like to recognize threefolks who are here - mark edelen, dave hinton,and athar rafiq. are they over here? oh, there they are.

(applause) >>these three guysat howard community college, in partnership with the howardcounty economic development authority, will be creating anew 3-d innovation hub at the community college- very exciting. this effort demonstrates theperfect nexus of economic development and education. stay tuned for more on this. at this time, i'd also like toacknowledge and remember patti keeton.

patti keeton made tremendouscontributions to this project we just talked about and alsoimpacted our community as a whole. as you may know, pattiunexpectedly passed away earlier this week. so please keep her and herfamily in your prayers. we are truly fortunate to havean amazing educational resources in howard county. but, as lucky as we are, westill have families who struggle

every day - to make a living, topay the rent and to help their children succeed in school. there are steps we can taketo improve outcomes for all students. we understand that to succeedin school, children have to be school ready. and much of that is a result ofthe stability - economically and socially - of their families. this is where partnerships,collaboration and innovation can

make a difference. in september, i met with thelocal children's board and asked them to focus their efforts onboth the governor's priorities for children and my priority ofeliminating the achievement gap for all studentsin howard county. i believe there is a need toexpand successful programs to improve school readiness forchildren from birth to age five. for example, through our officeof children's services, we are increasing the capacity of our"parents as teachers" home

visiting model. earlier, i talked about howeconomic development is important to sustainingour quality of life. we are in an enviableposition in howard county. our unemployment rate is thelowest in the state at 3.8 percent. our median income isamong the highest. our commercial vacancy rates arelow and our commercial tax base grew by $180 million last year.

we've leveraged the use of theintercounty broadband network to provide free wi-fi in publicareas, such as main street ellicott city, the columbialakefront and our county parks and to increase distancelearning opportunities for our schools, communitycollege and libraries. and for those of you in westernhoward county, who have struggled without high-speedinternet service, last week we announced a public-privatepartnership to bring high-speed internet service to householdsand businesses that didn't have

it. i'd like to recognize davidfurman - david please. (applause) >>davidlives in mount airy. for two years, david tried toget internet service to his neighborhood without success. he didn't give up andthankfully he didn't. he worked with his neighbors andthe county to help develop this public-private partnership- thank you very much. folks, we're making a real,positive difference improving

lives of peoplein howard county. sustaining our future requiresa sustainable economy. we've prioritized economicdevelopment, and i'd like to thank the many companies thathave decided to locate or expand here. i'd like to highlight just one. tenable, which is headquarteredin columbia, recently announced a $250 million dollarinvestment in the company. tenable's expansion will mean300 new jobs over the next few

joanne rasch, is here, vicepresident of corporate communications... (applause) >>...fortenable network security. joanne, i just want to thank youand also the ceo, ron gula - i know he couldn't be here - forinvesting in howard county - thank you very much. in addition to our largeemployers, our locally-owned, small businesses continue to bethe backbone of our economy. in november, i signed anexecutive order to establish the

local business initiative whichencourages the use of local businesses forgovernment contracts. i'd like to acknowledgejason peay - is jason here? jason - thank you jason. (applause) >>jason is thepresident of versatech. jason's company, which providesinformation technology, engineering support andmanagement services, was the first business to self-certifyunder the new program. our maryland center forentrepreneurship continues to

spur local, small businesses. today, we're excited to haveevan lutz, ceo of hungry harvest - please stand evan. evan started his businessthrough the center and not only is he running an innovativecompany that cuts food waste and donates healthy food to peoplein need, he was recently, as you see, on the tv show "shark tank"and secured a $100,000 deal. that was a fun night evan. evan is an example of a howardcounty innovator who makes a

real difference thatimpacts people's lives. we've got a lot going on inhoward county and it's all exciting. i'm committed to fostering astrong business environment in howard county. i have charged the eda to workwith county departments to make it easier for companies toexpand or relocate here. i also kept my word to residentsand businesses regarding the unfair and unnecessarystormwater fee.

along with councilpersongreg fox, we have submitted legislation to the countycouncil to eliminate the fee - by 50 percent in fiscal year2017 and completely in fiscal year 2018, while ensuring thatwe have the resources to meet the federal mandates. now you'll notice there -that was no-shave november. (laughter) >>and not my bestlook, but i do want to thank those - there are a lot offolks in this audience who participated in no-shavenovember so thank you very much

for doing that. it was a good cause. i don't know ifi'll do it again. (laughter) >>last year, wetalked about the need for sustainability in economicdevelopment, infrastructure and agriculture. we've made strides in economicdevelopment and infrastructure, and in this year, we also havemade progress on agricultural sustainability.

we held two roundtables withcounty farmers and future farmers from the 4h program;launched the farm academy to teach residents to learn moreabout our farm tradition and expanded the local foodpurchases for the roving radish. we challenged our staff toutilize local produce and products, and they haveincreased the amount purchased from howard county farms from5 percent in 2014 to almost 38 percent in 2015. i know how important our farmingcommunity is to our economy.

soon, i will name an ombudsmanfor the agricultural community. this individual will develop anagricultural subcabinet to help me support ouragricultural economy. (applause) >>it has been anamazing, humbling experience to be county executive of the placei have called home for more than 50 years. as i said, the state ofour county is strong. maintaining that strength willdepend on how we manage the challenges we face.

i am confident that we areon the right track and by continuing to work together, wecan keep howard county great. as i close, i'd like to talkabout something that is very important to me personally andalso the county as whole - the harriett tubman school. a reminder of our county'ssegregated past, this school had been closed as an academicinstitution and is being used as a maintenance facility forthe public school system. for more than two decades, manyin our community have been

fighting to preserve thisimportant landmark with little success. well, we've taken thefirst important step. we have agreed to an arrangementwith the school system to transfer the ownership to thecounty so that we can work with our community partners topreserve this building as a cultural and educational center. my capital budget will includea new project that will ensure that this happenson a set schedule.

i'd like to recognize two peoplewho are very important to this - bessie bordenave, a graduate ofthe school and president of the harriett tubman foundationof howard county... (applause) >>...and rev. dougsands - another tubman graduate. (applause) >>they are two ofthe many people who worked tirelessly to save thisimportant piece of history. and i also want to note dr. fussand the school board for your support with this because itcertainly wouldn't have happened without the collaborationso thank you.

(applause) we need this. we need it now -maybe more than ever. there's a resurgence of angerand hostility that we've got to address. openly expressed anti-muslimsentiment - openly expressed anti-african americansentiment - this has to stop. i was raised by a civil rightsleader who fought for equality it saddens and angers me that somany great leaders fought and sacrificed to stop injustice anddiscrimination in our county.

people such as silas craft,morris woodson, elhart flurry, leola dorsey, rev. john hollandand of course douglas sands. but, today, here in howardcounty, we are still dealing with racism in our community. this is not acceptable. as residents of this diversecounty, as community leaders, as parents, as role models, weneed to work harder to promote acceptance and civility. and just as my father did, iwill talk about this whenever

and wherever i can. this will not be done overnight. but it will be done. why? because i believe in howardcounty - i know that we are a caring community. a community committed to justiceand equality and together, we will demonstrate that howardcounty is a place where every person is valued aspart of our family.64300:32:55,266(applause) thank youvery much for listening.

asian health meal