HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Meeting of February 5, 2000

Waimea Civic Center

Waimea, Hawaii

Attendance: J. Ray, S. Bess, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa, G. Martin, J. Santangelo, G. Yoshiyama, Counsel C. Yuen

Absent: E. Alonzo, K. Balog

And 2 members of the public in attendance.

The meeting was called to order at 9:17 a.m.

RAY: I’d like to call the meeting of the 1999-2000 Hawaii County Charter Commission to order. It’s Saturday, February 5th, and we’re in Waimea at the Civic Center.

Attendance. Attending, myself John Ray, Chair; Roland Higashi, Vice Chair; Steve Bess; Marni Herkes; Sue Irvine; Dr. Daryl Kurozawa; John Santangelo; and Gary Yoshiyama are present at this time.

Statements from the Public. We do have a couple of members from the public here. If you folks have anything to say to the Commission now, or it’s pretty informal, so if you’d like to talk with us about anything later, that’s fine. Let the minutes reflect no statements from the public at this time.

Minutes Approval. These are the minutes as circulated from January 15th. Do I have a motion to approve?

MARTIN: So moved.

RAY: Second?

SANTANGELO: Second.

RAY: Discussion.

IRVINE: There’s a correction on page 65, Fred Koehnen. Should we put Meg Kon in there just because people know who you’re talking about?

HENRY: Do you have the correct spelling?

IRVINE: K-o-e-h-n-e-n, I think.

HERKES: That’s right.

HENRY: And Meg’s last name?

IRVINE: K-o-n.

HENRY: Thank you.

RAY: Any other questions? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Okay, the minutes are approved.

Financial Status Report. We don’t have an updated report from the last meeting so it’s basically the same as shown in the last report.

Communications. In your packets: Agenda for the meeting next Wednesday, the 9th, that we have in Hilo. Remember, it’s at 5:00 p.m. That’s our regular scheduled meeting. A letter from Mr. Scott and a communication from Mr. Ben of the Department of Civil Service.

Unfinished Business. I guess we can just go right down the line and deal with these one by one, in this order, and then I’ll just need help from everybody in terms of bringing up other things that we need to cover. But, as I communicated in the memo that I sent out, if we’re going to follow the tentative schedule we talked about, I don’t think we have a whole lot of latitude in terms of more time. We need to pretty much wrap things up as far as our preliminary recommendations, so that we can come up with the dates and set a series of public hearings, so we can go through that phase of input and have time to refine and incorporate that input into final Amendments, or recommended Amendments, and develop the language around those, and have our attorney have time to do that so we’ve got ample time to, there again, take that out to the general public. So, I think there is some sense of urgency, especially if it’s anything at all major. Let’s try to get everything dealt with today, at least as far as deciding if we’re going forward or going to table it.

We’ll start with Unfinished Business, A. Environmental Department/Commission. Does anybody want to speak to that? Sue.

IRVINE: I guess I could add that I did do a little more homework on this. I went to website for Longview, Washington, which has, like, 34,000 people. It’s more rural and smaller than the other places I looked at. They do separate their Public Works Department into Utilities and Public Works, sort of, along the lines that I mentioned previously. I then talked with Mr. Boucher at our Wastewater Division about the possibility of an Environmental Services Department, or Commission, and he certainly thought it was worth a try. I haven’t talked to Bob Yanabu, who heads Public

Works, but Public Works is a gigantic department and it has a lot of things to cover, and Boucher thought that wastewater, solid waste, non-point source pollution which is storm water, and individual County water systems could be included in an Environmental Services Department. Right now, before the Legislature, there are a couple of bills to consolidate Parks under County and Highways under State. Right now, we have both State and County of each of those, and he didn’t know where that legislation might be going, but at this point, the State also handles those individual County water systems, and they could be put under the County, if we set up a second department. As to just making separate Division, or something, inside of Public Works, I think there seems to be, at least from the people I’ve talked to, less support for that. Of course, I have mostly talked to people who are involved in County and City governments rather than people in the private sector. I wasn’t able to figure out who to talk to or reach anybody at the various waste companies on the Island. I did find that we were all given the City and County of Honolulu Proposed Organization from 1998, when they, apparently, came up with a Department of Environmental Services, and it was going to involve refuse collection and disposal, and wastewater management, and they also had included their Board of Water Supply and Water Department, but that meant that they had to have a Charter change, and I don’t think this happened. But there is a chart that shows that. And that’s where I am right now.

RAY: Comments? John.

SANTANGELO: As I said before, I would like to ask this Commission to really push for a separate department. It wouldn’t require more people, of this Environmental Services, and it is a pretty common model, in which the waste stream is consolidated in that. And it’s really simple to do. It would require the Council and the legislative body to fill out, through ordinance, how that department would operate. The question that it raises with me is, then do we model something like the Water Commission in which there is a body that helps to manage that, and set the fees, because this should be something that stands alone. The thing that I like about it is that it creates some sort of environmental stewardship because then it would have to be self-sustaining, and that would create fees in which people had to support it through their own waste habits, and would really help a budget in terms of separating out the burden on just the property tax, and placing the burden on the end user. So, there’s that possibility in what comes out of that.

HIGASHI: John, I would support that concept. However, if we have something that is general and broad in the Charter and then, like you say, can be enacted by ordinance to supply the details, I think that would be the way we should be going. But also, in the Charter, we should make it -

RAY: Let me ask you this, Roland. How would the language read in the Charter in regard to triggering, or mandating, the creation of that department? That’s what I don’t understand.

HIGASHI: My thinking, all along, is that if we have it in the Charter, it would be permitted, whichever Administration chooses to create it. If it’s not in the Charter, I don’t think they’ll be able to do it. But as long as it’s listed in the Charter, the department, and if the next Mayor chooses to move ahead, and timing is right, fine. I’d like to interject that I looked at the Charter allowing privatization in this field. There may be department, maybe managerial type operation, but not necessarily mandating an operational entity of government. So, I don’t know. That’s why we have a legal counsel, to kind of figure this thing out. I mean, that’s just where I come from. We can create the department. We can create it in the Charter so it can be formed, but we need the flexibility, whether it’s managed competition, or whatever, that we have that in the Charter so it’s allowed, and not mandated to be a Civil Service type department.

RAY: Okay.

SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, addressing the vagueness of it, and really it isn’t vague. But, if you just take the Department of Public Works, and you just model it right after that. Mr. Yuen knows better, but under Organization: There shall be a Department of Environmental Services, consisting of an Environmental Engineer, or something like that, and the staff necessary. This Environmental Engineer shall be appointed by the Mayor, confirmed by the Council, and may be removed by the Mayor. Then Powers and Duties. And it seems like all these departments are set up that way. And here’s this gigantic department set up with the powers, duties and functions of the Department of Public Works shall be prescribed by ordinance, and shall be exercised and performed by the department.

RAY: And so, in your mind, would the Administration and/or Council be mandated to create that department?

SANTANGELO: If this is voted on by the public and placed into the Charter, then there’s a normal governmental way of fleshing this thing out that’s been done in the past, and unless someone could show me the flaw in that, I would expect that that’s how this would be done also.

RAY: So in your mind, it would be mandated.

SANTANGELO: Absolutely.

RAY: That’s what I didn’t understand from Roland. Roland was saying that we enable the creation of it, by putting this in the Charter, but it’s not necessarily mandated.

HERKES: Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Chris, is everything in the Charter mandated? If it’s in the Charter, do you have to do it?

YUEN: You can have a ‘shall’ and a ‘may’ agency in the Charter.

HERKES: Okay, that’s what I thought.

YUEN: So it could be done either way. The Council can also create a department, on it’s own, without it being in the Charter, which I don’t think they’ve ever done. But I think the advantage to doing it in the Charter is that, in a way, it pre-clears it with the voters, which is, I think, the concern for the politicians of creating another - because you do have another set of appointments. It may not actually end up costing you more money to have another department, but you would be able to have an appointed Director, and possibly a Deputy, which multiplies the number of appointed positions that you have, which may be, in this case, something that you want to do if you’re trying to upgrade the status of certain services in the County.

RAY: And then, in regard to Roland’s remark, as far as allowing managed competition, or privatization, do you have any thoughts on how that sentiment would be incorporated, or not, in Charter language? Is that something we’d have to address?

YUEN: I think that the main thing is not to put any obstacles in the way of doing it, in the Charter, so there’s nothing that anybody, in the future, can point to the Charter and say you can’t do these functions by contractual services. What’s happened is privatization, just to give an overview, is held up on the State level by the State Supreme Court’s decision on the County Waste Management case here in Kona, where the State Supreme Court said that Civil Service law, by implication, prevents you from farming out, and privatizing, additional Civil Service functions. And just to give you a little bit more background, the Hawaii Supreme Court said, in one of the really basic decisions about County-State relationships back in the late 1960's, that the State Civil Service law superceded anything in the County Charters. So that, for example, you can’t put in the County Charter that certain positions are going to be not civil service when, according to State Civil Service law, they are civil service. So we can’t put anything in the Charter that overrides the State Supreme Court’s decision on privatization because that is based on the State Supreme Court’s interpretation of Civil Service law. So what I would do, is just make it clear that, as far as the Charter is concerned, it was not the intent to restrict any farming out, by contract, of the services being provided by this particular department. But, for it actually to be implemented, there would have to be changes on the State level on the Civil Service law.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: Right now our County does not recycle or pick up garbage so, to me, it’s hardly a matter of privatization. They don’t do it at this point so it’s not a County service. We do service the dumps, but it seems to me like it’s not something we’ve done traditionally and, therefore, it would be quite easy to farm it out. The other thing. Making a shell department, we have several divisions within Public Works which would, pretty much, automatically belong in this department at this time, so I don’t think it would be shell. It would a matter of moving those into a free standing place, and obviously, we’d want to make absolutely sure that the Department of Public Works is cool with this, and that maybe we could even include Water later. That’s what Honolulu wanted to do.

HIGASHI: I think you’re correct, but if we need to take it to a higher level, then we need people with higher expertise than what we have now, and in my mind, that’s what I’m thinking that we ought to do. People who are in the lower tier level are managing the environmental services. By creating this department, then we may have people with more experience, more expertise, more training, and so it will be on the level of a Public Works Director. So that’s my thought. And my thought on the managed competition is in the last session, or two sessions ago, through the Legislature, didn’t we have the managed competition bill?

HERKES: They’re still working their way through the rules.

HIGASHI: But the law did pass. But promulgating rules and regulations is still ongoing so that may be a vehicle we could use.

RAY: I’m mainly concerned to what degree we have to deal with that in the Charter.

HIGASHI: In the language you can have necessary staff or contractual services, or something. Chris, rather than just having staff, is there language ‘necessary staff’ or some other language that enables us to perform the job, but not necessarily by employees of the government?

YUEN: I understand what you’re saying. We certainly could say that in the Charter because the departments, as listed in the Charter, say ‘consisting of a staff’, blah, blah, blah, and we could make it clear that the functions can be performed by contracting out.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: Just to disagree a little bit, Sue. I believe, regardless of how Public Works feels in this, period. Because there’s a different set of expertises, and allows for so much more, and in the proposal, it’s ‘shall be’, so the ‘shall’ is there, so once this is passed, if the people pass it, they have to do it. My question then goes back to how do you operate this in terms of, if you look at the Water, it says ‘there shall be a semi-autonomous...’. Because this is the opportunity, do we want to go anywhere near that, and if we do, then the language is there to set up a Commission that does operate, and sets its policy, and sets its budget, and then levies fees in terms of its operation to sustain it. That does remove it from the budget a bit. That does make it a little more autonomous, and it’s kind of like what they call enterprising, and that opens doors for other possibilities, too. So, do we want to venture into that? I don’t think it’s real complicated because we have language here that exists in the County.

IRVINE: Were you suggesting that we make this department semi-autonomous, as Water?

SANTANGELO: Yes.

IRVINE: Okay. It’s certainly a thought. I do think that we were talking, initially, a lot about a Commission, an Environmental Commission, and I definitely think we should attach a Commission to this department, who might be advisory to even the Water Commission as well. I think Water does need to get integrated with this at some point.

SANTANGELO: Sue, the reason I went there was just a Commission has very little impact at all, I mean, on anything. It’s advisory and people don’t listen. If you make this semi-autonomous, understand that I think that Commission is definitely, as with the Water Commission, they’re dealing with millions of dollars, they’re setting policy, they’re setting the budget, they’re hiring and firing, and they’re the ones that say which tanks get set up and what new lines get put in. They are definitely different from any other Commission, quote, in the County government, and I just warn you about that. It’s different.

HIGASHI: I feel uncomfortable by having a Commission in this case because they cannot support themselves. To begin with, Water has a source of income, where a department like this may not have an adequate source of income to operate itself, so we may have to recognize that portion of having a semi-autonomous group.

HERKES: The Commission could be in the ordinance.

RAY: I think the question is, recognizing that there’s not that source of income, does it make sense to set it up that way?

SANTANGELO: But is that true, Mr. Chairman?

RAY: George, you had something to say?

MARTIN: I think it’s a pretty simple solution to that problem. If, in fact, it goes semi-autonomous and they don’t have a working budget to begin with, we put in the Charter that for the first four years, or whatever, they shall be budgeted by, and after that time, they either sink or swim.

IRVINE: I think they might sink. I hate to say that. People are more likely to pay for water than sewers.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: In the scope of this thinking, and we’re talking about source of income, we’re not considering putting the Water Department into this department, are you?

HERKES: Not at this time.

IRVINE: Not at this time, no.

HIGASHI: Okay, just to make it clear.

MARTIN: There’s got to be a separation.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: In terms of income, there’s nothing that this department would do, at least in the beginning, that they aren’t already doing. Hopefully, they would do more, and do it better, so the money is already there. It’s already been budgeted, number one. Number two, it might bring fees around to where they belong, and where Roland may have been headed. We already know it’s somewhere between $35 and $85 a ton to bury this, and these fees are generated at that point of disposal. Once you start to get into that, you can start to create - See, here’s the thing, and this is dangerous water, so I just warn you. If you have this department that’s semi-autonomous, the budget is there, and it has a revenue source. It has a cost center. Then what happens is people can no longer, say, go to their local little place and dump their garbage, quote, free. That creates a revenue source that then funds other people that can go out and collect rubbish because they have to pay somewhere, and a lot of times, they’ll pay you to pick it up rather than go down and do it themselves. And so when you say semi-autonomous, yes, it needs a budget, and that’s generally where it leads. That’s murky waters, and that’s why I brought it up.

HERKES: Mr. Chair?

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: Actually, we collect disposal fees now in our property taxes and our taxes for the Counties. Somebody pays for disposing. They pay for operating the landfills. So, that is just a diversion of funds that would be separated out to run this, once you figured out how much. I want to go back to, and I think it was John that brought it up, the qualifications of an Environmental Service Manager. In the Department of Water Supply, there’s no qualifications for the Manager. It says they have to be an engineer, but there’s no administrative qualifications. There’s no educational qualifications. They’re chosen by the Water Commission. Can we insert some language that the Administrator of this Environmental Services Department shall have environmental service experience and education, maybe even an Environmental Service degree, so we have somebody that has some expertise in environmental services? Thank you.

RAY: The reason I sent all these suggested changes on Department Heads was just for that reason, so we’d at least thought it through. We talked about some of these, and others not, but I just pulled language out of different charters; Maui, City and County, and whatever, just to throw it out for discussion. I would assume we would look at that position and the Department Head the same way, on what was appropriate. So I would think the answer would certainly be yes, whatever we felt was appropriate, and I’m not sure what that is. Roland.

HIGASHI: So, Mr. Chair, should we move to the center and say whether we’re going to create this department? If we do, then we can work on the details. If we’re not, then move on to the next subject.

RAY: Anybody can make a motion. I’m a little bit caught off guard, to tell you the truth.

HIGASHI: At least we can have the framework. We can ask Counsel to put language together, if we’re going to pursue it. If we’re not going to pursue it, then leave it for next meeting, but I’d like to, kind of, dispose of some of these issues.

RAY; Prior to accepting a motion, if there’s anymore preliminary discussion. Gary, do you have something to say?

YOSHIYAMA: Yes, I want to go back to privatization and I’m going to keep calm about this. It seems that what I’m hearing is it’s just like the State or the County don’t have any private contracts, or they don’t do privatization or contracting. There are thousands of contracts in the State. There are hundreds of contracts within this county. So, we have privatization and we have contracting out, so I don’t see why we’ve got to put more language in there to say it’s allowable.

RAY: Okay.

HIGASHI: As long as it’s not prohibited.

RAY: The Chair will entertain a motion in regard to creating a Department of Environment, or whatever we want to call it.

IRVINE: I would like to move that we create a Department of Environmental Services which would take care of wastewater, solid waste and recycling, non-point source pollution and individual county water systems, among other things, and I would further like to move that we have an Environmental Commission, of some sort, attached to this department.

SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, point of information, just for clarification. I was ready to second this motion but I stand back because it appeared to me that you were including the Department of Water.

IRVINE: No. Wastewater, solid waste, non-point source pollution, which is storm water.

HERKES: Pollution?

IRVINE: I think that they call it pollution.

MARTIN: Storm drains, right. Correct.

IRVINE: Anyway, storm water, and individual county water systems.

MARTIN: What do you mean by that? If I may, clarification.

IRVINE: That means, I think, a hotel or people who have their own catchments.

YUEN: You mean individual wastewater systems?

BESS: Water systems other than the county. Is that what you mean?

SANTANGELO: No.

IRVINE: I don’t know. I think, you’re right. It would be wastewater. I’d be happy to pull that particular point out right now.

RAY: Right now, the State has jurisdiction over those systems, Department of Health.

IRVINE: I think you’re right.

RAY: So whether it’s Parker Ranch’s wastewater system or Hualalai, or whatever, that’s administered by the State. In fact, the Department of Health still has jurisdiction over cesspools and septic tanks. They’re in the process of trying to work that out to transfer it to the County now, but that’s still a State function. So we need to do our homework on how this works right now, and what makes sense in terms of proposing.

IRVINE: That we could take it over if the State does get rid of it. They’re trying this year, I think, is what was my understanding.

YUEN: Let me make a suggestion. I think you want to say some of the functions that would be transferred over but it’s not critical to make an exhaustive listing of those because it can be fleshed out later. You would list the major ones and then you would say whatever functions may be assigned by ordinance, because this gets to the level of detail that it’s, I think, difficult for the people sitting at this table to make a judgment in the future, as to whether the personnel - Like if individual wastewater systems do come over to the county, in actual fact, are the personnel that do those going to fit better in this new department than in the Department of Public Works. It’s hard to know sitting here right now, so I think just saying wastewater, solid waste, and recycling would cover it, and then you just say, and further functions that may be assigned to it by ordinance. There’ll have to be a follow-up ordinance that actually transfers a set of positions over.

IRVINE: Can I ask that Chris’s wording, right here, would be my friendly amendment to my motion?

RAY: Okay, and let’s clarify the Commission part of it, as well. That was also part of your motion. Is it your thought that this is an advisory commission to this department?

IRVINE: The County folks have asked us for a commission to set sewer rates, and I would assume that this commission would be doing that sort of thing, taking the politics out of sewer rates, as well as advising on the environment.

HIGASHI: So, is it an advisory group?

IRVINE: I don’t know how you set that up, but that’s what Public Works, and I don’t know who all else, had testified to us from the County about the fact that the Council just has a hard time setting sewer rates.

RAY: Let me ask our legal counsel. What are we actually talking about in terms of having the commission have that authority, such as the Water Department?

YUEN: I’ve heard different types of commissions being discussed. One, you would say you could attach a purely advisory commission, which would help the department in, basically, community interface. They would meet with the Director of the department. They would be community people. They could be people who are in the area of recycling, or litter control, or whatever.

RAY: In regard to rates, they would make recommendations.

YUEN: They could make recommendations, yes. You can also set it up so that this is under a commission that has the power to set rates. You would say so in the Charter. I think then you might wind up creating a concern from the people that pay sewer charges about the responsiveness of that group to their concerns. You know, the flip side of the whole political question. It can be done, but that ties it more in with the third kind of commission, which is like the Water Commission where the organization is self-funding. Let me put it this way, though. If you have a Sewer Commission that sets the sewer rates, that’s an appointed commission, but the organization itself, the Environmental Services Department, is not self-funding, the Sewer Commission has no incentive to maximize the rates because the only thing that’s going to happen is, if the Environmental Services Department is set up like the Department of Public Works, or the Department of Parks and Recreation, or the Police Department, that is basically funded by an appropriation that comes from the County Council, and the services are paid for in your tax bill, like virtually all county services except for the Department of Water Supply - If you set it up that way, but you have a Sewer Commission that sets the sewer rates, there isn’t any incentive for that Sewer Commission to raise the sewer rates, and sit there and take all the heat, when what’s going to happen is the County Council is not going to let you keep the money. They’re going to cut your appropriation, as a result of your raising more of your own money.

IRVINE: Chris, I thought there’s some sort of federal mandate on these sewers.

YUEN: They’re supposed to be self-funding. The rates are supposed to be set that way, but that’s true whether it’s the County Council that sets it or if you have a Sewer Commission that sets it.

SANTANGELO: Point of information on that. The requirement by the Federal government for the sewer system to be self sufficient is based on its grant. That’s a loan requirement. Once that is no longer there, we do what we want. The problem I have with that, Sue, is only a few people are sewered, and yet we all benefit from that. But I’m wondering if we could take the commission up separately. Maybe we all agree that we want this department, but we could really disagree about the commission. So that one isn’t held hostage by the other.

IRVINE: Fine by me, too.

SANTANGELO: Because we need to second something.

IRVINE: Yes, or bring it up next time.

RAY: My inclination is to incorporate an advisory commission that would advise the department. Seems to be the reasonable way to go. And then at least you have an independent body that’s weighing in from a public policy standpoint that can have some influence over the County Council. Gives them something to hang their hat on to make a tough political choice in terms of rates. Sue.

IRVINE: Sounds good.

SANTANGELO: Then I’d like to second that.

YUEN: So, the motion is with a pure advisory commission.

IRVINE: Correct.

RAY: Does everybody understand the motion? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Chris will work out some proposed language, incorporating the sentiments expressed today in regard to the whole issue of privatization, managed competition, or whatever. Let’s let him come up with some language that would reflect the lack of impediments, or obstacles, to that being considered, and see how we all like it.

Well, congratulations. That was a big one. I didn’t even know that was coming up.

HIGASHI: It’s on the agenda.

RAY: I was thinking that was one we were going to take off.

HIGASHI: Mr. Chair?

RAY: Yes sir.

HIGASHI: I’d like to just move back, several months back, remember the Board of Water Supply and the Department of Sewers were negotiating an agreement -

RAY: To handle by billing?

HIGASHI: To handle by billing, and we were holding this issue as, kind of, a vehicle to encourage them to move along faster, so I think we should, kind of, follow up to see how they are doing on that.

RAY: To see what progress is being made, or not?

HIGASHI: Yes.

RAY: Anybody need a lua, coffee break? No? The next one. This may be a surprise too. Department of Public Safety. We’ll ask Ms. Herkes to lead the conversation here.

HIGASHI: Let’s move to the Fire Commission.

HERKES: Roland wants to move to the Fire Commission first, and that’s probably not a bad idea because it does effect this. When I lay out the way the Charter is arranged now, we have, under the Mayor, R&D, Planning, Finance, and Corporation Counsel. And under the Managing Director is Department of Public Works, and Parks and Rec, and Fire. And we would move Fire, if we adopted a commission, under Commissions. So Commissions would be Civil Service, Police, Liquor, Water, and Fire.

RAY: That’s why I sent out this memo with language from Maui County in terms of the possibility of rearranging the whole Executive section of the Charter, because unless there’s a reason not to do that, that seems to be, in my mind anyway, a cleaner way to do it, and to put the Managing Director as the overall management executive for all the departments. It’s the same powers that exist in our Charter, but it’s arranged differently, and they don’t seem to have felt the need to put it in three separate sections the way we have. Because their Commissions, the Fire, the Police, operate pretty much the same way ours do, and they don’t have it in a separate section. So I don’t know that we need to worry about that. We’re going to discuss that further anyway.

HIGASHI: The reason I asked Marni to take the Fire Commission first, if that’s the will of this group to put it in, then we know exactly what we’re dealing with. Because if there is no Commission, we’re going to have to deal with this differently.

RAY: Okay. I thought we’d already voted on that.

MARTIN: I thought we did too.

RAY: I believe we voted at the last meeting to move forward with the Fire Commission per the language submitted by Gary.

MARTIN: And you were going to find out some information on it.

HERKES: I think we deferred the vote because we just got the document that day.

IRVINE: I know we were going to talk with Honolulu about whether their system worked well because we were using their language, and there was some question about -

RAY: We have already gotten that input, Sue, that they seem to be very happy, the City and County, with the way it’s working. We got that early on in the process.

IRVINE: Okay.

YUEN: It was passed. I thought it was, and on page 50, it was passed as a preliminary vote to have a Fire Commission per Gary’s draft, and then I think I jumped in with a little bit on suggesting modification of the procedure for removal of the Chief. And I did draft something up that none of you have seen yet. I was going to pass out when we got to that today.

RAY: Are we all clear on that? We did take a preliminary vote, but understand, all these are just preliminary votes. We can take another vote. We can change our minds if we want. Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Are we going to come back to Fire Commission because I have something to report?

RAY: Let’s deal with Fire Commission right now. So, we’ve established we did take the preliminary vote at the last meeting, and so we are moving forward on the same basis we have on everything else. We’ve taken a preliminary vote to develop language and flesh out any other concerns, so in regard to that, Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Sometimes I’ve got to thank Roland of reminding me of some stuff, and he reminded me of an assignment I was given. I was supposed to do some follow-up with the City and County of Honolulu. Sorry I don’t have a written report because I did it kind of late, but I did talk to the Fire Chief, Leonardi. I talked a little with the Fire Fighters Union, and I had two lengthy conversations with Fire Commissioners Patsy Young and Norman Ahakuelo, and don’t ask me to spell his last name. But, they all agreed that the Fire Commission is a very good commission for the City and County of Honolulu. They are very happy with it. The Fire Chief and the two Commissioners I talked to - the first thing they told me was it took politics out of the Fire Department, and they all mentioned the same thing, from the selection of the Fire Chief to political campaigns. And then they went on to say about the professionalism, the selection, the criteria for picking the Fire Chief, and then some operational matters. It’s running very smoothly. They’ve only, really, about two years of experience, but they don’t have any glitches. The Fire Chief seems to keep them very well informed. I have some other information if you want to ask me some questions, but I’ll end with this. The budget is very small. Initially they started out with a $12,000 budget, and that was mainly to buy equipment, computers, etc. But they’re now operating on $3,500 a year. They meet once a month.

RAY: Any other questions for Gary in regard to that?

HIGASHI: I have one.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: So, in essence, they’re using the staff that they have now. They don’t have a Commission staff?

YOSHIYAMA: They have their own staff. It’s a part-time clerical, steno-type, employee, and they tell me she works part-time, and they need her for the services of this position when they meet once a month. That’s it.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: The primary function of the commission, as it’s implemented in Honolulu, is to hire and fire the Chief.

YOSHIYAMA: That is a primary responsibility. Also to hear public complaints, similar to the Police Commission. Review the budget. They review the budget for the Fire Department with the Fire Chief. And recently they met with the Mayor and his people, along with the Fire Chief, the Fire Commission, and they hashed out the Fire Department budget. So those are, I think, the major areas.

HIGASHI: And as I recall, they also review personnel action?

YOSHIYAMA: We didn’t talk about that.

RAY: So, that didn’t come up?

YOSHIYAMA: No, that didn’t come up.

RAY: I hope I didn’t confuse everybody by putting this on because we included things that we have voted on but we need to flesh out other concerns or details. Chris, so you’ve got some -

YUEN: Yes, as I mentioned, this was passed last time and there was a little bit of discussion, maybe I instigated, on the procedure for removal of the Chief, and I prepared something. I just finished yesterday so I’m going to pass out. I changed the language from what was in Gary’s draft. I followed the Honolulu Charter and I changed it very slightly as a suggestion. There are two changes from the Honolulu draft. One change is that instead of ‘charges’, I used the word ‘reasons’, and I think the word ‘charges’ implies some kind of misfeasance in office, like taking the fire truck joy riding, or - I don’t know what the Fire Chief would do. It seems to me that the Fire Commission should be able to remove the Chief for things like inefficient functioning of the department, which I don’t know really fits into a statement of charges. So, that’s one change. The second change, and this is really up to this Commission, of how easy they want the procedure to be to remove the Chief. The Honolulu Charter, and actually our Charter for the Police Commission, says that you cannot remove the Chief until you’ve given the statement of reasons and the Chief has had an opportunity to respond to them at a hearing. And what that implies to me is that you can’t do it all in one meeting because you have a motion, you present the statement of reasons, and to me, when you say you have an opportunity at a hearing to respond, it doesn’t mean you just, okay, what do you say about that, and that’s it, and you’re out of there. I wrote this so that it didn’t say at a hearing, and so this could actually all be done in a single meeting. And it’s up to this Commission if you don’t want to have them be able to do it that way, then say at a hearing. Otherwise, just leave it stated like this. Then it would have to be on the agenda; evaluation and retention of the Chief; and then they would have a meeting, and somebody would make a motion, ‘I think we should get rid of the Chief because the Chief hasn’t upgraded the equipment or they bought the terrible radio system, it doesn’t work’, or something like that. And then the Chief would have the opportunity to respond to that, and then the Commission could vote, and if they voted to remove the Chief, that would be the end of that. So that’s what this language is meant to do.

RAY: Comments to that? Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: I move for incorporation of legal counsel’s amendments.

HIGASHI: Second.

RAY: So, you’re voting to support the facilitation of the removal without that whole process?

YOSHIYAMA: Right.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: I think that Gary’s original draft had the same language but now Chris is just making a change to that language so it’s actually an amendment to your original.

YOSHIYAMA: Yes, incorporating the change.

IRVINE: No commission is going to go through a meeting and say these are the reasons we’re going to fire you and vote to fire them, are they?

MARTIN: Why not?

RAY: I think we did get testimony that that’s actually the way the Police Commission had operated in the past. On Monday you’re in and Tuesday you’re out. But, hopefully, we’ve progressed in terms of our political behavior.

We have a member from the public that would like to make a comment, since you folks are here.

AKANA: Eddie Akana from Waimea. I just want to know, during the hearing now, if the Fire Chief’s job is on the line, at that time can he have an attorney at the hearing and all that?

YUEN: Yes. If you have a hearing, yes, the Fire Chief could have an attorney.

RAY: But we’re suggesting not having a hearing.

IRVINE: Right.

YUEN: Not saying that there is a formal hearing. There is an opportunity to the Fire Chief to respond. Let me just say that I think, typically, just to give a typical situation where a Director is hired and fired by a Board or Commission, you could take the Superintendent of Education, for example. The firing is done quite quickly. It is a typical thing. When it happens, it typically happens very quickly. It may be building up for a long time. The other scenario does make it considerably more difficult because, and let me just flesh this out, if you have a motion to remove somebody at one meeting, and then you schedule the meeting for two or three weeks later to actually vote on it, then, of course, the person then has the opportunity to invite public testimony at this time and it does make it considerably more difficult if it does not all get wrapped up in one meeting. Now, that’s for you folks to make a decision on how difficult you want to make it, but that is the scenario that I see possible when you say that there’s a hearing.

HIGASHI: It’s not covered by Civil Service? Does he have a choice to keep it closed meeting or open meeting?

YUEN: I think it could be closed at the request of the individual involved because of the personnel matter. It would be Sunshine Law exemption for a personnel matter.

HIGASHI: Okay. I’m not worried about the firing too much. Implementation of something like this, supposing it’s approved by the voters, the next go-round normally the Mayor appoints the Fire Chief. In this case, what would be the scenario?

YUEN: I think the implementation under the proposal as passed last time is quite clear that you have a new Mayor coming in, and the Mayor would appoint the whole Fire Commission, and then the Fire Commission would appoint the Chief. So, in essence, you have immediate implementation. There’s another thing in the Charter of how you stagger the terms, so that some people would be appointed for a full five years, so you would have people dropping out, over time, from the Commission.

HIGASHI: Would rule making apply here? You know, appointing a new commission, is there time for rule making and procedures and formation? What I’m just trying to find out is if the implementation will take a while we may have to put in some interim language as to who is the Fire Chief, whether he holds over, or appointed by the new Mayor interimly, or something, so that’s the only thought I had.

YUEN: Let me look at the Fire Chief. Actually, I think the Fire Chief holds over anyway, under present -

IRVINE: In our thing, there are transition provisions concerning the Fire Commission. The Fire Chief serving on December 31, 2000, shall serve as Interim Fire Chief. Should the Fire Chief vacate or be removed from the office before appointment of a Fire Commission , (a) the Deputy Fire Chief shall serve or, (b) the Mayor may commission an Interim Fire Chief.

YUEN; Let me suggest something here. The language that you just read, and I’m sorry, I should have looked at this a little more carefully - Probably what you want to do is, you’re right, it may take the Commission a little while to either decide on whether they want to keep the old Fire Chief or hire a new one. In the meantime, it seems to me that the most logical thing would be to have the old Chief hold over, rather than have the Mayor, who comes in on the 5th of December, on the first Monday in December, appoint a Chief who, then you are in the position of having to get rid of. Or, in a sense, it may be too much of a signal from the Mayor as to who the Chief is supposed to be. But that December 31st language is not good because it’s not December 31st. The new Administration comes in on the first Monday of December. I think, as the Charter is set up now, the Fire Chief does actually hold over until removed by the Mayor, but we can work on that little bit of language. That’s a technical point, but you’re right, if I’m gathering people correctly, that the transition should just be that the old Chief holds over until the Fire Commission appoints the new Chief, and if the old Chief decides, for whatever reason, for example to resign, I think that Gary’s language says here the Mayor appoints a -

IRVINE: Yes, the Deputy steps in or then the Mayor may appoint if neither one of them.

YUEN: Oh, I see. The former Deputy becomes the Chief for that time period. Okay.

RAY: Steve, do you have a question?

BESS: Yes, I have one question. Chris, you have given us your opinion with regard to changing the language here, particularly the use of the word ‘respond’ to the statement of reasons, and not entitling the Fire Chief to a hearing. And I’m wondering whether or not the language, as worded here, he or she is given an opportunity to respond, and whether or not some resourceful attorney may say that rises to the point of ‘I have a right to a hearing’, and my question is, one, whether our record is abundantly clear that a hearing is not intended, or whether we should, in fact, add to this language to make it clear that response is not a hearing?

YUEN: You’re right that a resourceful attorney could still say that the opportunity simply to sit there and respond to the motion that’s been made is not equivalent to a hearing. If you wanted to go further, it could be made more clear. Yes, that could be done.

BESS: So I move that the attorney put in that kind of language to make it clear that a hearing’s not what we’re looking for here.

RAY: Is that regarded as a friendly amendment?

YUEN: Yes.

HIGASHI: Second.

SANTANGELO: So I’m to understand that this commission is appointed by the Mayor and approved by the Council, so we have that balance of power, and that what we’re looking at is the hiring and firing. It’s a temporary person anyway. They’re brought in to administrate. When they’re hired, they know that this is to run that Fire Department and it may not be for life, so the hearing thing is a good thing not to have because that’s not like somebody who’s looking for lifetime employment. And so I totally support this, and I like the checks and balances in it.

IRVINE: We did talk last time - right now, our Police Chief gets a hearing, right?

SANTANGELO: No.

BESS: It’s the same language, respond.

IRVINE: To me, I thought we were talking about being consistent and I really like this Fire Commission stuff from Honolulu, the way the powers and duties, and whatnot, are set up, and I thought we were talking about maybe making our Police -

RAY: That’s why we agendized the Police Commission so we’ll be going into that.

IRVINE: So, if we’re taking this out here, would we then be thinking of taking it out -

RAY: That’s a separate discussion, but we’ll be getting to it in just a minute. Okay, we’ve got a motion on the floor and amended to Chris’s language, amended by the addition of Steve’s recommendation. So, is that clear to everybody?

IRVINE: Yes.

RAY: All in favor of those changes and reaffirming our earlier vote on the Fire Commission, say aye.

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Okay. We get two gold stars. Let’s take a five minute break, a little coffee break.

RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 10:17 a.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 10:27 a.m.

RAY: Let’s reconvene our meeting. Now let’s jump back, since we’ve covered the Fire Commission, the Department of Public Safety. Marni.

HERKES: I think the reorganization under the Maui Charter accomplishes a lot of what the Department of Public Safety would have done. I still like that idea. I notice Maui has a Public Safety Commission, but only the Fire Department’s under it. I admit that up front. But the Public Safety Commission and the Public Safety Department, I still think is a good idea, but I, kind of, agree that it’s a little late to move that. We don’t have time for testimony from all those departments, and things, right now. To put Police, Fire, Civil Defense, Detention, Animal Control, and Emergency Services, as well as Building Inspection, under one department would be a major change. But in the reorganization, under the Maui Charter, all of those departments would be under the Managing Director, and in the long scheme of things, it might be possible for him to group later on. And future commissions might like to look at a Public Safety Commission. Okay?

HIGASHI: So for now, we just -

HERKES: For now, I think we’re -

YOSHIYAMA: Sounds real good.

RAY: Okay, Police Commission. Just so you know, I’ve still received some comments, and I think, certainly, profited by all the public scandals, and whatever, is there something we need to do to address the situation with the Police Commission. I got a call last night from a Police Commissioner that really needed to talk to me but I didn’t get hold of her, but Roland did. Jo-Anna Herkes. But I really put this on here because there was that conversation, that came up today earlier, that folks like the language from the Fire Commission, and maybe we should look at incorporating some of that, and I thought that was more for clarification, a cleaner language, kind of spell some things out better, rather than substantive changes. The floor is open for discussion in regard to the Police Commission. Marni.

HERKES: I make a motion that we adopt the language that’s been submitted for the Fire Commission in it’s entirety, and adopt that as the Police Commission language in the new Charter.

RAY: Second for discussion?

SANTANGELO: Second.

RAY: Okay, let’s discuss. John. Well, first off, let’s everybody take a minute and see if we can pull that out to see what we’re talking about specifically. Let’s hold all discussion and let everybody get a chance to get it. So, everybody needs to open up our Charter and look at the Police Department.

MARTIN: Chapter 2, page 14.

RAY: And then the Maui County. Okay, who had the floor? John?

SANTANGELO: I guess I asked Marni. She had a difference of opinion. But I’m wondering, with this, we were talking about making all these commissions conform under the same rules, set up the same way. Is there any way this can be a part of that general housekeeping stuff, or does it have to be handled totally separately, because I can see where it could get a bit confusing. But, I support this a hundred percent. I’m now wondering how best to handle it.

HIGASHI: Conformity is one thing but the responsibilities of different departments is another thing, so I feel uncomfortable with having some of those things -

SANTANGELO: Okay, it was just a question.

RAY: Do you want to address that specifically, as far as what -

HIGASHI: I don’t have a copy. I only remember about the personnel procedures goes before the commission in terms of the Police Department. I feel somewhat uncomfortable of micro managing personnel actions through the commission. And I don’t have a copy but I remember that one point.

RAY: Can you give him a copy there, Sue?

IRVINE: I can.

YUEN: Just a couple of things. For a point of clarification, looking at your motion, this would be to change the powers of the Police Commission to include the powers in 6-4.6 of the Fire Commission?

HERKES: Correct.

YUEN: Because there’s a bunch of powers that don’t apply. These are more general.

HERKES: Okay.

YUEN: And on John’s question of housekeeping, I think that to make changes like this, in this section, to the Police Commission, would be a significant change in the powers, and so it would have to be done as a separate ballot item.

RAY: You’re talking about (e) under Section 6-4.6?

HIGASHI: Right.

RAY: (e) says ‘review personnel actions within the department for conformity.’

HIGASHI: Mr. Ray.

RAY: Yes sir.

HIGASHI: Under the Police General Orders, are these things covered? They operate under General Orders, as part of the operation, and if they change their General Orders - I mean that’s the way they operate. They don’t operate similar to this, and it seems to me that we need to read their General Orders, what is covered and how they operate.

HERKES: Police Department or the Police Commission?

HIGASHI: Police Department.

HERKES: He’s talking about the Commission.

HIGASHI: Well, the Commission, in this language, kind of operates the Police Department. The other way, they hire and fire the Chief, and that’s their job, to hire and fire the Chief, and make him accountable. The Fire Commission goes into a lot more detail into the operations and approving of this, approving of the policy, approving of the budget, review personnel policies or personnel action. I’m not inclined to support that detailed of an operation for the Police Department. I think they’re, somewhat, more complicated in their operations than the Fire Department.

RAY: I was trying to pull out, in City and County - they did revise their Charter in regard to be Police Commission recently, and the one change that stands out in my mind was the five-year hiring of the Chief. I know they implemented that, but I was trying to look in the City and County, since we’re looking at their model for the Fire Commission, and what they have in regard to the Police Commission. But I don’t have the recent changes that they made. But it seems like that would be a logical place to look since we’re looking at their language for the Fire Commission; how they address the Police Commission. Okay, other folks’ comments on this?

IRVINE: John, I really, really like the way the Fire Commission, Honolulu, reads at the beginning, statement of policy under 6-4-2. It’s declaring that they have the purpose as to establish in the county a system of fire, and we could put police, protection and prevention, and they set up, right there, standards for recruitment shall be designed to attract into the department, persons with a high degree of education, intelligence, and personal stability. It gives some real overall guidelines, and I think people, at this point in our island, would be really appreciative of having, like, a policy or a goal like that set up so that they had more confidence in how things were being done.

RAY: I thought that was the sentiment, more along those lines, is why we brought this, actually, up rather than the specific duties so much. More this organizational language that seems to be more appealing.

HIGASHI: Are we adopting this in total, perform police work and investigation? You’re going to have all of that in here, under performing, you know?

HERKES: Yes.

HIGASHI: It says perform firefighting and emergency service. Are we going to detail all that the policemen have to do? Is that what the intent is?

IRVINE: Protection and public safety, or whatever you say, yes.

HERKES: Perform public safety -

IRVINE: Obviously, there’d have to be a few changes but -

HIGASHI: So, why don’t you come up with a draft rather than adopting this thing, as a whole?

HERKES: Okay.

RAY: Somebody needs to look into City and County, because I’m looking at that and I can’t figure out - I mean, they have a page and a half on the Fire Department and one paragraph on the Police Department, so I don’t know where the rest of this stuff is.

IRVINE: Is that page 14, 15? In the ‘96 supplement, I think there’s more. But, you’re probably right, that maybe we need to have Chris write this up as it might apply to our Police Commission, find out about General Orders, or whatever those are.

HIGASHI: If it’s covered under the General Orders like training.

IRVINE: Who knows about General Orders? Who would we ask?

RAY: I don’t think we have enough information to make any decision on this. We do have a meeting next Wednesday so if, just in the meantime, maybe Marni, you could do a little more research.

HERKES: I’ll rewrite it. There are five members on this commission rather than nine. Did we have any discussion on that?

RAY: No, we didn’t.

HERKES: Okay.

RAY: But, that’s a good point you brought up so that’s something we need to deal with on the Fire Commission, right?

YUEN: Well, it got adopted as written up with five, right? So if you want to change it, you’ve got to decide what you want to do.

HERKES: I like the five, but I’m open.

YUEN: There are two different kinds of things that are being talked about with the Police Commission. One is a, kind of, general statement about what the Police Department is supposed to do, which is not really in our Charter. You could say duties of the Chief of Police; arrest lawbreakers, prevent crime, that sort of thing. That’s a general statement. Then, there was a motion by Marni which was, I thought, to adopt as the powers of the Police Commission, something similar to 6-4.2, similar to what we had put in on the Fire Commission. Let me just describe what is significantly different between the powers of the Fire Commission and the powers of the Police Commission under the present Hawaii County Charter. First, I think, and I’m looking at the Fire Commission, not the Police Commission: (a) is already in there; (b) is already in there;

BESS: And the Council.

YUEN: Okay, to the Mayor and the Council. It’s basically similar. (c) is review the department’s operations. That is not in there for the Police Commission, so that’s different; (d) annual evaluation, is not in there for the Police Commission presently; (e) review personnel actions for conformance with policies, is not in there for the Police Commission presently; (f) complaints of citizens, is in there for the Police Commission with different wording and, actually, a little broader because they actually have the power to adjudicate, you know, make findings on complaints; and then (g) the annual report is in there for the Police Commission. There is an annual report. Then this non-interference except for purposes of inquiry is in there for the Police Commission.

RAY: So, we’re really only talking about those three items; (c), (d), and (e), expansion of, so let’s just keep that in mind and we’ll get some more information to continue this discussion on Wednesday. Marni.

HERKES: Do you want me to withdraw my motion?

RAY: Yes.

HERKES: I withdraw my motion.

IRVINE: I guess I was wondering, Roland mentioned General Orders in the Police Department. Is that something that we need to know something about to do this?

YUEN: Well, the Police Department has a bound volume of what are called the General Orders, and they’re administrative in nature. They’re things like -

AKANA: Haircuts, uniforms, basic.

YUEN: They’re administrative rather than being really broad policies. They are specific rules for the conduct of the Police Department. They overlap, sometimes, with things that are in the contract, like car allowances and meal breaks. You can get a copy but I think that what we’re doing is at a higher level of generality than the General Orders.

IRVINE: Okay.

RAY: Moving on. Salary Commission. We have correspondence from Mike Ben. We have correspondence from Gary Yoshiyama, which I guess is Mike Ben’s response, a follow-up on that. And then in the memo that I sent out I included a draft on Compensation; Salary Commission, and this is just pulling language off the shelf from other Charters. Everything is pulled out of other Charters. The last sentence, I did editorialize a little bit, so I came up with some language there, and it says, Commission shall review and compensate all county elected officials and appointed directors so that their, and this is what I added, total salaries and benefits have a reasonable relationship to both the compensation of civil service employees and the private sector. And, to me, if I were a Commissioner, that’s the kind of direction they would look at, a total salary and benefits package that would use civil service pay and private sector to come up with recommendations for these executive pay raises, because we’re competing with both. This is on the table. We did not take any vote on this at the last meeting, so I’ll open this for discussion. Roland.

HIGASHI: Are we looking to empower the Salary Commission to set the salaries without confirmation from the Council?

RAY: That’s my understanding, right. And just a little background. I spoke with Maui County, actually ex-Mayor Lingle about this a couple of weeks ago, and she said they instituted it on Maui and it seems to work well and people seem to be very happy with it. Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: John, you were talking about your last sentence there, and you make reference to the reasonable relationship to the private sector. What I would suggest is rather than state civil service employees, we would broaden that to, maybe, just say public sector, because it’s much bigger than civil service employees. They’re all different classes.

RAY: Yes, that’s good because, like, if you’re looking at a new, a more empowered Managing Director position, you’d probably be looking to a public sector employee in that field. That would be your competition.

HIGASHI: Is a motion in order to adopt the amendment?

RAY: Wait. Mr. Ben’s submittal to us, if we could all refer to that. We asked him what executive positions would he recommend be effected by this. So, other than the Department Heads and Deputies, included on this list are the County Physicians who I’ve never known what they did. And also, it’s got the Safety Coordinator. It’s got the Band Director.

HERKES: I thought we took out the band.

MARTIN: No, and we’re not going to.

BESS: Why is the Prosecuting Attorney not in here?

RAY: I don’t know.

YOSHIYAMA: That’s by Council. The Mayor and the Prosecuting Attorney. I read that somewhere.

YUEN: He’s elected.

IRVINE: Elected is already covered.

RAY: What would we need to do if we wanted to incorporate all of these executive pay into this amendment, Chris? How do we do that? In an attached addendum or something?

YUEN: No, you would more generally refer to all appointed Department Heads and their first Deputy. I think that’s what he’s got here.

RAY: What about the Band Director and the County Physicians?

YUEN: Then you would list those separately because he has a few in here who are - The Housing Administrator is a Department Head. It’s not a chartered department but it’s a department. And the Safety Coordinator is it’s own department.

IRVINE: It’s their own department. We moved them to Civil Service, but they’re still an appointed position, as far as I know, right?

YUEN: Yes.

RAY: But logically, wouldn’t it make sense for a Salary Commission to look at these for the same reason?

SANTANGELO: Because they have no one representing them.

RAY: These types of positions.

IRVINE: John, I just hate to put those County Physicians and, say, the Band Director in there. Let’s just remain silent on them because they’re probably positions which should not exist.

KUROZAWA: What does a County Physician do, Sue?

IRVINE: They do pre-employment physicals and they are being paid, that half-time, is somewhere between thirty and forty thousand dollars a year.

YOSHIYAMA: They do other things too.

IRVINE: They do other things? What?

YOSHIYAMA: Other kinds of examinations also. It’s not only pre-employment.

IRVINE: They have some little eye program, I know, but these doctors can’t do eyes. They had something where county employees were supposed to get their eyes checked every couple of years. But, that is certainly one of those places where, it seems to me, if you pay for service rendered, you would not be paying these kinds of salaries.

RAY: Chris, can you flesh out who would and would not be covered on this list in this language, maybe, and we’ll look at it?

YUEN: Yes, if we just said Department Heads and a Deputy, the ones who would not be included would be the County Physicians, and the Safety Coordinator, the Band Director, and the Legislative Auditor I have to put a question mark because the Charter, as I wrote a letter to you, does not say that there is such a thing as a Legislative Auditor’s Office. It just says there’s a Legislative Auditor, but why don’t we leave that like that’s a question mark because there’s a discussion about formalizing what the office is and does, and in that case, it would be a Director and would be covered by the salary ordinance.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: I don’t recall where the Director of Office of Aging and Harry Kim, Civil Defense - I don’t know if they were converted from Civil Service to non-Civil Service type positions. To me, it’s something similar to the Housing and Community Development being in the Mayor’s Office, this kine. But in any case, I take it that Mike Ben and Barry Mizuno are going to attend our next meeting.

RAY: Yes, I’m glad you brought that up. We have requested they attend next Wednesday’s meeting. It would probably be good to get their input on this. Maybe we should table this until then.

IRVINE: Okay, John, one other question. What about all the Mayor’s Executive Assistants? Are they not - Kokubun, this kind of thing - Is this just the Mayor’s discretion?

RAY: He’s the Deputy Planning Director. But anyway, no they wouldn’t be covered under this.

YUEN: No, they’re not covered under Mike Ben’s proposal. Positions in the Office of the Mayor, Marcia Reynolds, people like that, are Civil Service exempt but they’re in a pay plan that’s approved by the Council.

RAY: Let’s everybody just think this thing through and then we’ll get some input from Mike on Wednesday and, hopefully, we can move it forward. My sense is that we’re going to approve something, it’s just a question of what.

Managing Director, and this was the thing I addressed more in the memo that I sent out, and what I did, of the recommendation, was two things: (1) looking at a total reorganization of the Executive Branch of government, along the lines of Maui County. And, basically, what Maui does is they have a section that generally describes the Executive Branch, generally describes the Mayor, but then all the departments are listed under one section, and they just have the Managing Director at the top of that section, the Department of Management, at the top of the list. So that’s the reorganizational part of it. So I called Chris and said, as far as the way they lump everything, including sections that have Boards and Commissions, is there any problem there. I don’t believe there is if that’s the way Maui County’s been doing it for years. And then, the thought there is that it just doesn’t change the powers of the Mayor and the Managing Director. It just puts it in a more logical sequence where it seemed like he’s the key management person. And then in the last page of the memo I sent out, that has specific language on the Department of Management, this is language, sort of a hybrid of Maui County, City and County, and the Lexington Charter. So, under Organization, it says there’ll be a Department of Management, consisting of a Managing Director and the necessary staff. And then under the actual Managing Director, the significant language, or expansion, there is that ‘shall be appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council’ and then as far as the job qualifications, this is language taken out of a couple of Charters, including Lexington, that we had talked about; five years of experience in an administrative capacity, and shall possess demonstrable educational and/or professional experience in the art and science of government management as required by such office. I was just throwing it out for discussion.

Powers, duties and functions. I’d say the significant ones that are included there that are a little bit different are (c), that the managing director would recommend to the Mayor the annual operating and capital improvement budgets. It just puts him more in that process. And then the section (d), I think, is mostly lifted out of City and County in terms of oversight on reviewing all the departments and it also has an inclusion that says ‘make reports to the Mayor and the Council’. I included that to tie that in a little more. And then this language about Commissions, I lifted out, and that seemed to be applicable if we have Commissions and lumping everything together, that you tie in the Managing Director to these Boards and Commissions as far as those oversight functions. And (e), (f), (g) and (h) are identical. There was nothing in there. So, I think the big choices are do we want to organize it this way, and then, as far as powers of the Managing Director, or appointments, do we want it confirmed by the Council. How do we want to describe the position, and then do we want to spell out the fiscal responsibilities the way they are more in (d) where it says more of an oversight for management and performance. While we’re on this, and I hope this is not out of order to take it up, is after I sent this out, I was going through the Maui County Charter and became intrigued by a Commission that they have, and it’s on page 22 of the Maui County Charter, and this is a Cost of Government Commission they have in Maui County. I’m just bringing that up because it’s all, sort of, the same subject of oversight and how all this works. So that’s something we might want to consider, and I chatted with a couple of people about it. I’ll just throw that open for discussion, all this stuff. First, Chris, in regard to the way this whole thing is set up, are there any red flags in your mind, as far as if we were to want to organize it this way in our Charter, along the lines of Maui?

YUEN: It can be done that way. I think that what you have in mind actually goes a little bit farther than what Maui does because I think Maui leaves it more up to the Mayor to decide what agencies, if I’m understanding correctly. It’s, kind of, up to the Mayor to put them in there.

RAY: Well, wait a minute. Look at 6-1.3, (a) Act as the principal management aide to the Mayor, (b) Supervise the administrative functioning of all agencies, department, boards and commissions assigned by the mayor. It’s the same language we have now. It doesn’t -

YUEN: I just want to make sure I understand. Right now, our Charter is organized where there are some departments that report to the Managing Director, like Public Works, and Parks and Recreation, and some that do not, like Planning, although the Mayor could tell the Planning Director that henceforth I want you to report to the Managing Director. Do you want to organize it so that all, what are called in our Charter, the staff agencies that report to the Mayor now, that are not listed under the Managing Director, would necessarily be under the Administrative control of the Managing Director, or do you want to leave that up to the Mayor?

RAY: I think that’s open for discussion.

MARTIN: I think it leads to the question I was going to ask, as far as I see no place in here that this Managing Director, I’m sure he would though, make recommendations for the other Department Heads, or if he would have any say in who the other Department Heads would be.

RAY: That is language that’s included in the Lexington Charter, just so you know, and I didn’t include it in this, but we certainly could. Like it says in here, that the Managing Director, Administrative whatever they call it, does make recommendations. I’ll pull that out. He does make recommendations so that certainly could be included. Other discussion?

IRVINE: I have a question, John, and it’s under (d). Maybe it’s for our attorney. If we set up this oversight of the budget process, and appoint the necessary staff to assist in such evaluation and analyses, and to assist the executive agencies in improving their performance, etc., the way I read it, it sort of sets up a budget function under the Mayor, and it’s my understanding then, that those positions would be appointed rather than Civil Service?

RAY: Yes, I think so.

IRVINE: Which really changes -

YUEN: No.

IRVINE: Right now we have a budget division under Finance which is staffed with Accountants.

YUEN: No, this creates a Department of Management and then, if the positions were created - Does the Managing Director have staff currently?

HERKES: Yes.

YUEN: How many people does he have?

HERKES: Two.

YUEN: If you have a Department of the Managing Director, the staff that gets appointed to that would be Civil Service, definitely, except for the personal secretary of the Managing Director, who is exempt.

IRVINE: Okay, I see.

YUEN: You’re not creating positions in the Office of the Mayor. You’re creating positions under a Charter Department.

HERKES: John, that word ‘appoint’, it creates an impression that this is a permanent position to evaluate a department, or a program, and I think that there’s quite a bit of latitude there for contract people to be able to evaluate performance and things, so I have a problem with the word ‘appoint’. May ‘secure’ the necessary staff, so that they can go outside if the expertise is not available, and they don’t want to hire a permanent staff.

IRVINE: I guess I have a question on that. To what kind of agency do you go to get expertise in that sort of thing? I know the Government Organization of Financial Advisors, or whatever, do that sort of thing, according to the National Association of Counties stuff I’ve read. But is there any company, or organization, on this island, or in Honolulu, that you could hire to do a, sort of, audit that goes beyond just the numbers and on into efficiency and such?

RAY: Yes there is, and right now, the Board of Water Supply in Honolulu is going through a total reorganization, and they have contracted with a national consulting firm that specializes in this kind of thing, so there certainly are, whether that would fit what we’d want here, or not, I don’t know, but there certainly are companies that do specialize in that kind of thing.

IRVINE: It seems to me, then, that instead of appointing the necessary staff, we want the job done, we don’t care how they do it, and so maybe that is something we could look at.

HIGASHI: Mr. Chair, I think the Maui Charter, pretty much, covers the things that’s covered under your proposal, except in a broader manner.

IRVINE: Yes, it does.

HIGASHI: I could support Maui’s language, which is broader than ours, and not as detailed as the one that’s proposed.

HERKES: Is that a motion?

IRVINE: Yes, this just makes me a little nervous because, I guess, I don’t understand exactly, but Maui is, definitely, I think, along the same lines and easier to go with, but that’s just my impression right now.

RAY: All of this is just thrown out there to move the discussion along. I’ve tried to incorporate the different things we’ve talked about, and looked at, as far as just putting it on paper and how it might look, but -

HIGASHI: For purposes of further moving it along, I move that we adopt, for consideration, the language in the Maui Charter under Chapter I, Department of Management.

HERKES: Second.

RAY: Does that include the general organization of the -

HIGASHI: Just Chapter 1 for now.

HERKES: And having seconded, though, just Chapter I?

RAY: You’re not talking about all of Article VIII, the County Departments structured in this way?

HIGASHI: Well, start with Chapter 1 and see where we go under Chapter 1, how it’s described and then we can move on further and complete the whole thing.

HERKES: The big difference I see between Maui and Hawaii County is that the Commissions are separated out from the departments. The Commissions are under Article VIII; Civil Service, Police, Liquor, Water, and Fire. The departments are under the Mayor/Managing Director, and the Maui Charter integrates the Commissions with the departments, and that, to me, makes a lot more sense, and it’s a lot simpler organization chart. I’m ready to talk about Article VIII, all of the County departments; integrating the whole County department, Article VIII, into Hawaii County.

IRVINE: I guess I’d just like to ask John, why did you go to City and County of Honolulu and put that (d) in more detail than Maui had it? Is there a rationale for that?

RAY: Just from the discussions we’ve had about more fiscal management performance review, trying to incorporate those kinds of sentiments, and oversight, just to spell it out in more detail. And I think it also lays it out for the Mayor a little more clearly, the role and the involvement of the Managing Director.

MARTIN: Mr. Chair, if I may interject. Excuse me but I believe there’s a motion on the floor, and it was seconded.

SANTANGELO: We’re in the discussion.

MARTIN: Okay.

RAY: So the motion on the floor would be to adopt the Department of Management language in the Maui Charter vs. the language in the memo that I furnished.

HIGASHI: No, I’m not even considering your memo right now. I’m considering only having this thing described as Managing Director and it’s functions.

BESS: But that conflicts with what John’s prepared on this one.

HIGASHI: Yes.

BESS: So you’re saying that you’d rather have the Maui one than his.

HIGASHI: I want to start with this.

RAY: Right. I thought that’s what I said.

HIGASHI: One of my reasons is under the Managing Director, under the description, five years experience in an administrative capacity, and shall possess demonstrable educational and/or professional experience in the art and science of government management. I think maybe business people have a lot to offer in terms of business experience, running government, so I’d prefer broader language giving the Mayor an opportunity to select somebody with experience as prescribed in the Maui Charter, in public or in private.

RAY: Okay. Steve.

BESS: One of the things that I see that John is trying to do, and certainly I would agree with that, and Marni is there as well, is that, personally, I really would like to see a County Manager. We recognize that this was not the right time to do it. I think we were going to have to rewrite the whole Charter. It was too much. And so that this is an interim step towards, hopefully, the next Charter around, they will see fit to adopting that form of government. So, that’s why there is the degree of detail in here about, hey, this guy is a real manager, and recognize that he’s a manager, and put language in there that removes some of the stuff where the Mayor looks like he is the CEO. He’s still the CEO, but we’re putting more and more power in that Managing Director position. And so, with regard to (d), I think that’s important, and I like some of the detail. I am concerned with a couple of the things in there where, and I’m straying from the point here, but on Section 6-1.3(d) that John recommends, where he’s saying that there will be reports to the Mayor and Council on the findings and recommendations, the reports are being made to the Council. Again, we’re working towards that County Manager. The one thing that I would say, and I mentioned this to John earlier, and that is is that I’m wondering whether or not in the reports to the Mayor, there ought to be routine reports setting up bi-annual reports so that there will, in fact, be reports, so that the Managing Director can’t wait out the demands of others saying, hey, make reports.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: I just want to speak to John’s proposal in broad spectrum. What I appreciate about it is where it’s coming from, and it’s coming from an individual who I worked with, who understands government and worked as an elected official, is no longer, in any way, a professional politician, and has looked at the flaws and how the system does and doesn’t work, because it’s not mutually exclusive. You can have a business minded person, but I think you need some of this other in there, and I’m appreciating that part of it. So, I just say let’s look at it from that viewpoint, and maybe we can reach an agreement.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: If we can amend Section 6-1.2 with the Managing Director’s description under Maui 8-1.2, I would have no objections to the other parts.

RAY: In response to that, I really wasn’t not only not wed to this arts and science of government management. That doesn’t really appeal to me that much. It’s just that I couldn’t think of anything else. That was just one of the examples.

MARTIN: See what you get for being cute?

IRVINE: I, kind of, like that.

HIGASHI: We still have the Mayor form of government, and he’s going to appoint somebody who’s going to implement these things, but I think that, if you adopt, in my opinion, somebody with experience in administrative capability both in public or private, I’ll buy that. And as far as item (d), I have no objections to that. I think we’re heading in the right direction.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I guess, on (d), what Marni mentioned about appoint the necessary staff, is there some way we can state that so you could go -

HERKES: Secure?

YUEN: I have a suggestion for that. And that is that you already have it at the top here, and it was interesting to me that under our Charter, there’s nothing that says the Managing Director has to have necessary staff, and I think the Managing Director does not actually head up a Department of Management. That’s why I asked, and I was trying to think, they have two people. So, you don’t need to say in (d) that you have necessary staff to do (d) because you have necessary staff up at the very top, and so they can appoint necessary staff to do any of the functions that they have.

RAY: More input? Steve.

BESS: I just thought that it might be helpful to assist the executive agencies in improving their performance, and make one suggestion, bi-annual reports to the Mayor and the Council on the findings. And likewise, it may be necessary to put in some time provisions on the Police Commission and the Fire Commission, as well. Or the other alternative is to make it so that the Fire Commission and Police Commission could request the Managing Director to go ahead and do that, and that he should report in response to that.

IRVINE: We can put the Police and Fire in one sentence, saying Police Commission and Fire Commission will be reported to when their respective departments are - pardon?

SANTANGELO: Don’t we have to wait until we have a Fire Commission?

IRVINE: Well, that’s the kind of language that we’re going to let the Corporation Counsel straighten out after we get done, right? If there is no Fire Commission, we’re going to let him or her take that out, hopefully.

YUEN: You have to put a little footnote in this, and this is one of the tricky things about the ballot. Actually, I think what I would say is, probably, all Commissions would prepare an annual report and just leave out Police and Fire, but then you have Liquor and Civil Service, but yes, you could make them have an annual report too.

MARTIN: Yes, we had twelve meetings. Thank you very much.

YUEN: Yes. Well, the Executive Commissions would produce an annual report. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. That solves your problem of whether or not you have a Fire Commission, which you’re not going to know until the voters vote.

IRVINE: Okay.

RAY: In regard to Steve’s concern about spelling out the review periods. There again, if you use Maui as a model on this, their Cost of Government Commission is bi-annual, so whether you had a Commission or not, that’s another discussion. Maybe that would make sense.

BESS: Okay.

SANTANGELO: John.

RAY: Yes.

SANTANGELO: To move this along now, we have what might be a friendly amendment to that one section that would allow us, then, to come back. Chris could come back with a general discussion and give us something that we could vote on. I just ask where are we at on that?

RAY: My understanding is that I think we could say we have a motion on the floor to adopt the Department of Management language included in the memo that I sent out, but in Section 6-1.2, instead of using the language in my memo, we’d use the language from the Maui County Charter. Is that right, Roland?

HIGASHI: That’s right.

HERKES: Well, no.

HIGASHI: Let’s take that as a beginning point.

IRVINE: And we, sort of, mess around with (d).

RAY: And (d), Chris can reflect the comments we made about the staffing, how that works, having to include that. So, we’ll just move that forward to the next meeting.

SANTANGELO: So, call for the question.

BESS: Point of clarification. Number one, we discussed the language relating to art and science of government. Also, in your provision, you have confirmed by the Council. The Maui Charter does not have that language.

RAY: My thought on that is, Steve, you talked about the thought is we’re moving toward more of a Council Manager form of government. This just seemed to be a part of that. In the Council Manager form of government, the Council hires the Managing Director, so it just seemed like, if you want to move in that direction, that you might want to consider including the confirmation of the Council, and if they had this language that spelled out the duties more, it gives them something to influence the type of person that gets hired for a position like that.

IRVINE: Does Roland have a problem with confirmed by the Council?

HIGASHI: How about confirming him and not confirming the Department Heads? I mean, he’s going to be the manager.

HERKES: Does the Council confirm the Department Heads?

IRVINE: Yes.

HERKES: They do, don’t they.

HIGASHI: Yes. I mean, it’s a double whammy. You’re going through all the Department Heads and how they operate. I’d go one or the other.

RAY: I’ll tell you, having been there, it’s very unusual, and it’s not that big a deal, for the Council to confirm these positions.

HERKES: I don’t hear that from the Department Heads, John.

RAY: Oh, come on, it’s a couple of hours of guff they have to take. But, the bottom line is you have to have a pretty strong reason not to confirm.

HIGASHI: The last Public Works Director was 5-4.

YUEN: It’s happened.

HIGASHI: Yes. It’s happened.

RAY: It has happened, but I think, in terms of a balance of power -

HERKES: Are we putting the Managing Director in charge of this County? And are we getting somebody that’s experienced in management that the Council gets to confirm? And if they are experienced in management, do they get to pick a team that will work well, or do they have to conform to the wishes of the Council? It’s a real big question.

RAY: I think what they have to conform to is the wishes of the Mayor. We’re not changing the nature of the strong Mayor form of government. The Mayor’s still the CEO, and that’s who the Managing Director answers to. We’re not suggesting that the Managing Director appoint Department Heads, as would a Council Manager form of government, so that’s a whole different animal. You can put in there that the Managing Director can have input, or make recommendations, but the Mayor’s the guy picking his team so the Mayor’s the guy in charge. That’s not where we’re going. We’re, sort of, headed in that direction.

HERKES: That’s where I’m going.

RAY: A hybrid, but the bottom line is that the Mayor is in charge. Let me share, I was talking at the break about this, two conversations I had in the last couple of months. I was at the Hawaii Association of Counties Conference on Kauai and a guy, Vernon Gray, was there. And Vernon is the head of the National Association of Counties, the big enchilada. I had a long conversation with him about Charter stuff, and I told him we were really considering the Council Manager form of government, and he, kind of, chuckled and shared some stuff with me. He said, yeah, you know, that was really a popular move at one time, couched in government reform, and this and that, but he said more and more people are finding it is not as an efficient way to run government as with a strong Mayor/CEO. And I got an article from Jay Sasan just yesterday, as well, about a Managing Director position in Northern Virginia, where a guy who’s one of the top Managing Directors in the country - he was in Hampton, Virginia and he then went to Fairfax County, which is a large Northern Virginia County with a two billion dollar budget, da, da, da, da, but it’s kind of similar to us in that it’s a large county that has very divergent districts, or poor and rich, it has single member supervisors so they’re representing their specific constituencies that are very different in the county, and this guy, arguably one of the hottest managers in the country, just suddenly left after a year and a half, and said, you know, I just can’t work with this situation; it’s just too many bosses, and whatever. So, I just want to share with that. I don’t think the Council Manager’s the silver bullet.

IRVINE: John, do we get a copy of this article?

RAY: Yes. But anyway, I did just want to pass this on to you. But, to answer Marni’s question, what we’re recommending does not change the current levels of authority and the basic powers of the Mayor. I think what it, hopefully, does is encourages the Mayor to use the Managing Director more as a City Manager type, or a Chief Operating Officer. But it doesn’t make him do that.

SANTANGELO: John, just to speak to that just real quick. We’ve got a thing coming up on this Council make-up, and again, the public can decide, or not decide, and it’s controversial for their kind of government. But as a Commissioner looking at this proposal that’s on the table right now with this Managing Director, I have a stake in it because I think we’re going to be better off with this. And so, it’s how do we couch this that makes it also passable. Is there a point of no return, where we go so far where it becomes controversial, and where you’ve stopped is a place where I’d be very proud to have brought this county to. So I speak strongly to what’s been proposed. Roland has asked for a compromise in there. We’ve gone along with that. Chris is going to flesh out the other part with Steve and Marni’s suggestions in that area, and I’d ask if we could move on on this particular thing. I think it’s a good thing, and it will be good on the ballot.

RAY: Discussion?

HIGASHI: I think we’re almost there. It’s a matter of whether it’s confirmed or not confirmed by the Council.

RAY: I speak in favor of having it confirmed by the Council. I think you’ll get more buy-in, and I don’t see it as problematic in terms of -

IRVINE: I second that amendment, if it’s an amendment. Is that an amendment to the motion?

HERKES: What’s the amendment?

IRVINE: That we put in ‘confirmed -

RAY: It is an amendment because it’s taking the language out of the memo form and inserting it into the Maui County, but it’s not necessarily a friendly amendment, so -

IRVINE: No, it’s an amendment. I second the amendment.

RAY: We need to deal with it-

MARTIN: There’s no need for an amendment because that’s the way it’s written.

RAY: No. Roland’s suggesting using the language from Maui County for that particular section of Managing Director.

HIGASHI: No, no, no. I think Steve Bess put it best, that the motion, as it now newly reads, is to adopt what was circulated by you except with the exception of Section 6-1.2, deleting that, and inserting the language from Section 8-1.2 of the Maui Charter.

RAY: Okay, that’s what’s on the table, so does somebody want to make a motion - I probably shouldn’t make it - About amending that to include the ‘confirmed by the Council’ in 6-1.2.

SANTANGELO: Yes, I’d like to move that this is confirmed by the Council.

YUEN: Just as a matter of procedure, I think Roland has to control whether the motion that gets voted on has confirmation by the Council or not. It’s his motion so, I mean, he can state it either way, but that’s the clearest way. So, let’s just go on and have him state it.

HIGASHI: My compromise language is to insert 8-1.2 as is.

SANTANGELO: Call for the question.

RAY: All in favor, say aye.

COMMISSIONERS HIGASHI, HERKES, KUROZAWA, SANTANGELO:

Aye.

RAY: Opposed.

COMMISSIONERS BESS, RAY:

Aye.

MARTIN: I think you gave the wrong number.

IRVINE: I didn’t know how to vote because can we then amend this next. Chris just said we had to vote on this, but I thought you could always amend the motion, and then you would vote on the amendment first, and then you’d - you know what I mean?

HERKES: We voted on the motion already. It’s over.

IRVINE: Okay, then I now move that we insert ‘confirmed by the Council’. Okay?

YUEN: You can do that.

IRVINE: Can I? Okay.

YUEN: You can change it.

IRVINE: I just did so.

YUEN: I think that the members of the Commission want to adopt this new language, and there is a disagreement among members of the Commission as to whether there should be confirmation by the Council. So, if it wasn’t clear - I thought it was that you were voting that there would be no confirmation.

IRVINE: Okay, then I should have voted no.

YUEN: Were there six votes with you voting? I didn’t count them.

IRVINE: Three of us voted -

MARTIN: I know myself and Gary didn’t vote.

YOSHIYAMA: I didn’t vote.

IRVINE: Then it didn’t really pass yet.

RAY: What’s the best way to get us out of this mess?

HERKES: These are preliminary votes, right?

HIGASHI: Why don’t we reaffirm the vote, show of hands.

YUEN: The motion is to not require Council confirmation on the Managing Director.

HIGASHI: The motion in the compromise was to adopt certain language from the Maui to insert in John’s section.

MARTIN: Question. Clarification on the language that’s going to be implemented, because I heard two things here. First I heard Roland’s indication that he wanted -

HERKES: Public or private business.

MARTIN: Right, correct.

MARTIN: And then I heard -

RAY: That he wanted what?

IRVINE: Maui. Roland’s doing Maui.

MARTIN: The experience part of it, I believe is what I heard Roland indicating.

RAY: He’s inserting the 8-1.2 Managing Director section from Maui County, as is, in 6-1.2 -

MARTIN: Okay.

RAY: Which does not include confirmed by the Council.

MARTIN: Point well taken.

RAY: So, all in favor of Roland’s motion, raise your right hand.

COMMISSIONERS IN FAVOR:

Higashi, Kurozawa, Santangelo, Yoshiyama.

COMMISSIONERS OPPOSED:

Bess, Herkes, Irvine, Ray.

COMMISSIONERS: ABSTAINING:

Martin.

HIGASHI: As it reads now, what are we considering now? Nothing at all?

RAY: The logical thing to consider would be using 8-1.2, but just inserting the ‘confirmed by the Council’.

SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, I so move.

IRVINE: Second.

RAY: All in favor, raise your right hand.

COMMISSIONERS IN FAVOR:

Ray, Bess, Herkes, Higashi, Irvine, Kurozawa, Santangelo, Yoshiyama.

MARTIN: Abstain.

BESS: I just have a comment. One of the things that’s happened here is just that by taking the action that we have, and adopting Maui’s, I take it that the Charter Commission doesn’t think that the Managing Director ought to be recommending to the Mayor the annual -

SANTANGELO: No, just this.

RAY: No, Steve, we adopted this with just the insertion of the one Maui section.

BESS: All right, sorry. Got it.

RAY: So, all that’s in there. You want to try to tackle a couple of more?

HIGASHI: Sure. Let’s go. Maybe I won’t be attending Wednesday.

YUEN: Confirmed by the Council was passed, and added to 1.2.

RAY: Chris is going to explain to us some of the issues in regard to the overall structure of the Executive Branch, and things I asked him to think about, in terms of the powers and how this would work. So, do you want to do that now?

YUEN: The way I read the Maui Charter is that the Managing Director does not have a set authority and jurisdiction over certain departments the way that our Charter does. It says that the Managing Director supervises the administrative functioning of all agencies, departments, boards and commissions assigned by the Mayor, which means that the Mayor, on the first day, can bring the Managing Director in and say, I want you to work with Public Works and the Police Department, and the rest are my babies and you keep your hands off of them. Our Charter is set up with a three-part division. Part one is what they call the Staff Agencies in our Charter, being Corp Counsel, Finance, Planning, and Research and Development, and miscellaneous. Then you have the Managing Director, and agencies under the Managing Director, and the Charter says something like ‘the Managing Director supervises all executive agencies except those directly under the Mayor’, and so the Managing Director has Public Works, Parks and Recreation, and Fire. This is a formal organizational chart. Then you have departments under Commissions, and those are run by the Commissions, and in the last paragraph, it says they come under the general control and supervision of the Mayor. And my question is do you want to keep this the same? Do you want to make it purely optional what the Managing Director’s authority is, or do you want to put all of these under the Managing Director, which would be the three choices that I see?

RAY: George.

MARTIN: Question, Chris. On that, as it’s implemented and run now, has it been run successfully to this point?

RAY: No.

MARTIN: Then a change is in order.

RAY: When I say run successfully, I mean that it hadn’t been run under that format.

IRVINE: You mean under the format that it explains here in the Charter, like the Mayor’s in charge of some and the Managing Director in charge of others?

RAY: Yes. I don’t think there’s been any sort of a clear delineation of authority, the way things are run now, and I think the Managing Director is more a general assistant to the Mayor.

HIGASHI: Like a management aide?

RAY: Yes, a management aide, and the Mayor’s really operated as much more of a hands on administrator. So I think that the sentiment is that we’d like the Managing Director to be the hands on administrator rather than the Mayor in terms of the day-to-day administration.

MARTIN: So I guess a recommendation from you, Chris, would be in order as to what do you think this Managing Director should be in charge of, or does anybody else have any ideas?

RAY: I think that’s really our choice, not Chris’s. We make the choice and he tells us how to do it.

MARTIN: I agree, but the legal section -

RAY: He’s given us the options and it’s up to us to discuss them and come up with it. Steve.

BESS: I was just going to say I’m strongly in favor of putting them all under the Managing Director because having worked with the Charter before and the Corp Counsel’s office, you’ve got to flip back and forth, who is it now. Let’s just focus all of the managing supervision in the Managing Director’s Office and, obviously, the Mayor’s going to have a lot to say about what that Managing Director’s going to do.

IRVINE: I think that’s a good idea.

HIGASHI: Steve, I agree except, maybe, the Board of Water Supply.

BESS: That’s under a semi-autonomous commission so that would not be.

HIGASHI: Right, but it’s still listed under the control of the Mayor.

BESS: Oh, I see.

IRVINE: Those under Commissions are a little different.

RAY: I wanted Chris to answer this because I didn’t understand that. They do lump them all in Maui but Maui’s Board of Water Supply’s semi-autonomous too, isn’t it?

HIGASHI: No. I just read it here.

HERKES: Does the Board of Water Supply have a Director (indiscernible) and necessary staff?

RAY: I think it is, and that was my question. How do they do it?

HIGASHI: Board of Water Supply consists of nine members appointed by the Mayor with approval of the Council. The Planning Director, Director of the Department of Public Works - It’s on page 19.

IRVINE: It says the Council can issue general obligation bonds for benefit of the department and may provide capital appropriations.

RAY: Let’s don’t go all over the place.

YUEN: I don’t, for the functioning of the Department of Water Supply, think it would make that significant a difference because it would just put the Managing Director in the chain. The Mayor is still at the top, and all you’re doing is you’re putting the Managing Director in between the Water Manager and the Mayor, for the purposes of administrative supervision, and they’re doing the same thing with the Planning Director and the others. So, it does not really change the status of the authority of the Commission. The key thing that makes the Department of Water Supply is this special fund thing.

HERKES: The revenues are kept in a special fund.

YUEN: That’s what really makes them much more semi-autonomous than anything else in the County.

HERKES: So, basically it’s like the same thing.

MARTIN: Yes, we’d like to keep it that way.

IRVINE: So we’re talking taking all the delineations that agencies that are under commissions, agencies under the Managing Director, and agencies under the Mayor, and just listing them County Departments?

RAY: Right.

HERKES: Here.

IRVINE: Okay, just to clarify.

RAY: Can I have a motion to that effect?

YUEN: There was a motion. Wasn’t there a motion? Okay, I’m sorry.

HIGASHI: Steve Bess’s motion?

YUEN: I skipped one.

RAY: I think he spoke to it, in favor of it, but didn’t make a motion.

BESS: I move that all departments fall under the Managing Director’s administrative supervision.

RAY: And that is similar to the way it’s organized in the Maui Charter under County Departments?

BESS: That’s correct, so that what we’re doing here is we’re taking away these distinctions between commissions under the Mayor, and what have you.

RAY: Do I have a second?

HERKES: I second it.

RAY: Discussion. Is that clear? I don’t think this is that radical a departure because I think it all works pretty much the same on Maui County. They organized it this way. It hadn’t been a problem for them, so I don’t think it effects the autonomy of the Water Department, or whatever.

IRVINE: John, also, in what we just adopted, it does say that the Managing Director, or whatever, supervises the administrative functions of all agencies, department boards and commissions assigned by the Mayor. So if the Mayor really wanted to take the direct responsibilities for any of these departments, he or she could, right? So, that’s why I hope our amendment isn’t going to screw up the ability of the Mayor to make that sort of decision.

MARTIN: Good point.

YUEN: Well, my understanding of what Steve Bess is proposing is no. This is like a practical vs. organizational chart. As a practical matter, the Mayor and the Managing Director can do whatever they want. As a matter of organizational chart, I think what Steve has in mind is that no, this is the way it works, and this is the way it’s set up, and all these things are under the Managing Director.

IRVINE: Are we being sort of schizophrenic then, when we say -

YUEN: I would say if Steve Bess’s motion passed, then I was going to suggest that that language be changed, that was adopted before, just to make it clear that it’s not up to the Mayor to pull things out of the jurisdiction of the Managing Director. That’s where I thought this was going.

MARTIN: We put the cart before the mule then.

YUEN: No, and I think that the gist of the first motion that passed was to change the powers, change the qualifications, and I think that’s fine. It’s hard to keep all the balls juggling at the same time, so it could have been done either way. You haven’t voted on Steve Bess’s motion and you’re still discussing it, but I think that the way he had it in mind was no, that this is the way the organizational chart works and the Mayor is supposed to let the Managing Director have the administrative responsibility over all departments.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I guess I’m just wondering whether these things like Planning, Finance, and whatnot - I guess we’re beefing up the Managing Director, and that would be what we’re doing here, right?

RAY: Look at it this way. Theoretically we could elect a Mayor with no experience, qualifications whatsoever.

SANTANGELO: We really could.

IRVINE: Okay.

MARTIN: I think we should strike that from the record.

RAY: In light of that, doesn’t it make sense to create a Chief Operating Officer position?

HIGASHI: Do we need to vote?

MARTIN: There’s a motion on the floor. Further discussion before the question is called for. I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the Mayor will appoint these individuals. Once they’re appointed, the Managing Director takes over. That’s the way I’m hearing it.

HIGASHI: Day-to-day stuff, yes. Operations.

MARTIN: As Roland is saying on a day-to-day, but the only person who can remove these people is the Mayor, so you give up control to the Managing Director. The Managing Director will not technically have control, and I’m just being devil’s advocate, because he can’t hire or fire these people.

RAY: That’s right.

YUEN: I think that, and I was listening for this, the motion said ‘administrative supervision’. Now, what is administrative and what is policy? Those kinds of things, there’s no hard and fast line, and they always have to be worked out, but the basic idea is still, for example, that the Planning Director is establishing Planning policy, but there is an administrative control. This motion puts it under the administrative control of the Managing Director.

RAY: All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Great.

YUEN: And just so we’re clear here, if you would give me a little leeway to work with 6-1.3, particularly (b), to be consistent with what we’ve just done. That’s what I just discussed a minute ago.

RAY: Moving on. Legislative Auditor. We received information some time ago from our Legislative Auditor, Connie Kiriu, and I’ve had some discussions with her in the last couple of weeks, and Chris has as well. So, based on those more recent discussions, Chris sent out a memo just in the last day or two. Okay, everybody, I want you to get that in front of you. Does everybody have it?

YUEN: I have hard copies for everybody. I faxed people.

RAY: Additionally, this addresses some of the concerns we had about the title of the Office, and the confusion around it being a Legislative Auditor vs. what’s their real function. So Chris, you want to go over this?

YUEN: Just to tell you my thinking on it, I started off preparing two different drafts because I thought there were two different types of offices, and the difficulty, I think, is that the County, probably, does not have the resources to support two different offices. One is more a direct services to the Council members and the other is more the kinds of services provided by a Legislative Reference Bureau, or a Legislative Auditor’s Office. In the end, I prepared one draft with the understanding that you can only go so far in this situation because you’re creating an agency that ultimately serves the Council under the control of the Council, and if the Council members turn out to want more an agency that provides more direct services to the individuals rather than drafting services, or research services, or other kinds of services rendered to the committees or the Council as a whole, there’s only so much you can do about that, or say about that, in language like there is in the Charter. However, like the draft presented by Connie Kiriu, this is intended to make the office more an office that does function as research, staff assistance to committees, drafting of bills, review of the budget on a technical level, and the like. And there are a number of choices. This is just the discussion draft because I certainly recognize the Commission has not voted on anything so I’m not writing up what the Commission’s voted on, nor has there been any kind of a consensus, I think, on this. And there are a number of choices that can be made at each step and each go-round.

RAY: Has everybody had a chance to read? You want a few minute to read through this? Let’s take a five minute break.

RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 11:55 a.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 12:07 p.m.

RAY: Let’s reconvene the meeting. We’re on the Legislative Auditor proposal. So, let’s just open that up for discussion.

HIGASHI: For discussion, I move that we adopt the draft circulated.

MARTIN: I was just going to do that. It’s a good point. I think that Chris has done a fine job on this one and it still leaves the opportunity for the Council to massage it, if you will. It doesn’t tie their hands where they can’t bring in their buddies anymore, not that they’ve ever done anything like that in the past, of course, and I want the record to show that.

RAY: Did we get a second on that?

YUEN: Yes, George seconded it.

HIGASHI: Great speech. Was that a second?

MARTIN: I second it.

RAY: So, we’re discussing the draft language that our attorney came up with. Any specific thoughts on that? I know that, Sue, you continually brought up the question of the auditing function, or lack of, and the confusion in the title. This reflects a Legislative Research and Audit Office. Does that seem reasonable? John.

SANTANGELO: I have a question. In (a) it says that the Council may, so we’re not mandating this, right?

YUEN: Right. I suspect that they would do it, but if they don’t want to, it seems like they shouldn’t have to.

HERKES: They might give it to the Managing Director.

RAY: Understand this is under the County Council so we’re not going to change that.

RAY: It’s kind of like the thought behind the Managing Director, we trying to push it in the right direction.

IRVINE: I think, like you say, maybe you are trying to push it in the right direction but I really do wonder if we’re saying ‘audit’ here. I don’t think this office is capable of that sort of thing, as presently, or under this proposal, I just don’t think they’re going to be doing that. I think we put language for the Managing Director that would be more of an auditing function.

RAY: But my sense is that people want that type of activity so let’s create the opportunity for it, and if the Council wants to respond to that, they could take on more of that function. Steve.

BESS: I’m concerned about the financial audit function, and particularly where the staff of this agency is appointed by Council members, who, if they don’t have enough political appointments to make in their own office, may use this office as a place to plant people who are supportive of their election efforts. From the standpoint of this being a Council services agency, fine. When we look at the other function, (c), (1), I’m not so sure that this system may work in providing the Director with the kind of people that he or she needs to conduct this kind of post audit.

SANTANGELO: John, I’d like to respond to that.

RAY: Okay.

SANTANGELO: Again, I think the key word here is ‘practicality’, and we can elect just about the highest or the lowest common denominator, and frequently we are doing both. And unless you’re creating another department of Civil Service layer, you’ve got, I think, to just cut through the fat here and face reality, and it’s going to be appointed. We’re taking a step in the right direction. If a Council member, or the Council as a whole, wants to just fill it with a bunch of inept people, and flounder, they’re going to do that unless you completely remove this from it. I have to admit that I have a lot of questions about this, and there’s a lot of this that I don’t like, but it is probably the best effort that we could put forward under the circumstances, and I don’t mean to whitewash it at all. I know what goes on in the Leg Auditor’s Office. I saw it, and as a minority, I saw how it can hurt or help a person. This is a good effort, and it does support the process, as such. And as terms of an audit, if we don’t want to do them, if the Council doesn’t want to do it, fine, but if the public wants to put pressure, and they have the ability, then they can move on it. It’s a darn good effort in the right direction.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: I just have one question. Annually, the County has an audit by a auditing firm. Is that under the control of the Council or the Administration?

SANTANGELO: Administration. And just to add to that -

RAY: And that’s called for in the Charter, right? Internal audit?

YUEN: Somewhere.

IRVINE: Financial procedures, probably.

SANTANGELO: And Council members don’t necessarily know how to read that audit. I came from business, and I understood a Chart of Accounts. I understood Cost Centers. I understood a lot of that, and it’s complicated. Most of those people don’t have a clue, and if they choose not to, but you’ve got to have the resources to be able to help the Council, and that’s your checks and balances with Administration.

BESS: I really agree that it’s a great effort, and Chris, I’m really relieved with the language in (d) because I know that’s going to take care of it, because it’s going to be on an independent objective basis and impartial with respect to individual Council members. Thank you very much.

IRVINE: I’d like to say that I think this may be the best we can do, but I think we should change the name to Legislative Research and Council Services, and not pretend that we’re doing an audit. Even though we have the audit language in there, I would be willing to vote for that language because I think this is an improvement over what we have now, but I think let’s just call it Legislative Research and Council Services. I so move.

HERKES: Mr. Chair, we don’t have any qualifications for this Director. We don’t have what kind of person should be looked for, for this Director.

SANTANGELO: Point of order. We have a motion on the floor.

IRVINE: Well, not unless somebody seconds it.

RAY: We had a second, I believe.

IRVINE: Oh, we did?

HERKES: We have a second for the motion on the floor. We don’t have a second for Sue’s.

RAY: So we’re discussing the motion.

IRVINE: What’s the motion on the floor?

HIGASHI: Point of clarification. We’re talking about the motion did not have a second. Is that the motion that -

MARTIN: She wanted to change the name so it’s a friendly amendment to the motion that Roland made and I seconded, I believe.

IRVINE: That’s right, we did. That’s true. Okay, I would like to add that then as a friendly amendment. Is that -

SANTANGELO: I don’t know that that’s friendly.

IRVINE: I guess I’d have to ask Roland.

HIGASHI: Why don’t we restate it and if there’s no second, we’re going to move along.

IRVINE: Actually I have to ask you, I think, if I want to make a friendly amendment, don’t I? I’d have to ask him if he -

YUEN: Well, he has to consent to it.

IRVINE: Yes, would you consent to that? And then it changes the -

HIGASHI: It doesn’t require my consent. The motion belongs to the body. If you have a second, it’s fine.

YUEN: Yes, okay.

IRVINE: Try wait. Just a minute. Somebody makes a motion and then I say, would you mind if we made a friendly amendment to change the name of the department? And if you say that’s okay, I think that becomes part of the motion, right?

HERKES: And if you do that, I’ll vote against it.

IRVINE: No?

HIGASHI: The motion belongs to the body. It doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s made and seconded.

SANTANGELO: So it should stand on its own.

IRVINE: All right.

MARTIN: I think so.

HERKES: So, have you withdrawn your motion?

IRVINE: I’ll withdraw my motion.

SANTANGELO: Good, now we’re in discussion.

YUEN: Probably, the easiest way is to have a vote on the amendment -

HIGASHI: Yes, if it’s seconded.

IRVINE: And mine got a second, did it?

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SANTANGELO: It wasn’t seconded.

YUEN: Legislative Research and Council Services Office.

IRVINE: Yes, Office of.

HERKES: So that motion is dead. So now let’s go back to the qualifications. If we’re going to use the word ‘audit’, which is what Chris is recommending, I think it does almost mandate some kind of qualifications for the Director of the office.

YUEN: You know, this is something that I struggled with. Most of the functions were taken from Connie Kiriu’s draft. The difficulty I have in - If you remember when - And the materials she’s attached had qualifications, but they were for, what you would call, a pure auditor type position. What she pointed out when she came to us was that Marian Higa, the present State Legislative Auditor, is not an accountant, or a CPA, does not have any of these qualifications. We could put in very general qualifications that say something like suitable experience and background, etc.

HERKES: Administrative experience, yes.

YUEN: Beyond that, I couldn’t come up with anything that would really fit the job without possibly eliminating very qualified people. My thought about the way auditing would work in this is it would be similar to the way it is being done now, which is that the Legislative Auditor has never been, I hate to say never, but at least for quite a long time, has not been a CPA or what you would call an audit person.

SANTANGELO: Chris, if I can interrupt. What was Harry’s job. Harry was the Legislative Auditor for a long time.

YUEN: Yes, but is he a CPA? I don’t think he is, no.

HERKES: Audit can be used in other terms besides money, and it really is accountability of programs.

YUEN: Right.

HERKES: And that’s how I was thinking you were using it.

YUEN: But (c), (1) here is a financial audit, and my thinking of a financial audit would be that if they wanted to create a position in this office that was a financial auditor, then they would create it and fund it. Because the nature of the office is not primarily financial auditing, I didn’t want to put in a qualification that the head person had to have that ability. But, as I say, it was difficult to come up with qualifications beyond something quite general, which would be fine to put in.

HERKES: My reasons for the quite general, is to bring to people’s attention that there might be some qualifications necessary for the office. I think that in evolutions of every organization, as well as the County, different qualifications are needed at different times, and if you get too specific, you’re right, you might drive people out, but at least it brings people’s awareness to the qualifications for the office, and if you leave them out entirely, then that awareness is absent in a lot of places.

SANTANGELO: And to add to that, one thing, Chris, you might not be aware of, just as practical speaking, Councilman Chung knew and treated the Leg Auditor’s Office as it should be, so it was a general type of thing. He allowed, or caused to be allowed, his appointment to be that auditor. They actually brought someone in who had expertise in that area. So they do look at these things, and they do try to do what’s right occasionally.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: In (c) in item (1), we must conduct an independent post audit of County’s financial transaction. Is that something that’s being done now, or is it duplicating a financial audit done by the Administration?

YUEN: No, now looking through this, I would like to make a change in that because in the financial procedures, Section 10-13, Post Audit, talks about an independent audit being done of the accounts of the County, and I think what the Director, and it says ‘the County Council shall provide for this’, and I think what we should say in (c)(1) is that the Director administers the independent post audits, rather than conducts or causes to be conducted. The 10-13 calls really for an outside, independent audit to be done, so we shouldn’t say that the Director of the Legislative Auditors Office - it sounds like we’re making them do another one, which there shouldn’t be.

IRVINE: Chris, should this be an internal post audit then, rather than an independent because the independent County Auditors tell us every year that we should set up internal audits within the County? Like you say, is it internal rather than independent?

BESS: To a certain extent, haven’t we taken care of that in the Managing Director’s position, an evaluation and analyses?

RAY: Gary, you have a question?

YOSHIYAMA: I want to talk about Civil Service, and I’m going to talk from the standpoint of independence of this office, conducting various independent audits or whatever, patriotism, and different temporary and permanent type of jobs. So the question I throw out is if we consider this office to be like a department, and independent, why aren’t we allowing the Auditor to hire his or her own staff? And to say that because we don’t want it to be Civil Service, we’ll have the Council to hire, I don’t understand because then the patronage question then arises. I know that in audits, or contracting out or whatever, you can hire temporary staff, if you want to do an audit, financial or otherwise, and these positions need not be Civil Service because they’re of a temporary nature. And even if you have Civil Service positions, if there is no longer a need, these positions are abolished. We have seen, on the State system, several thousand positions were abolished in the last few years, so I don’t understand. This question comes up, we should determine Civil Service or non Civil Service, and therefore, who should hire. The question I think that I’d like to address is is this office independent or not, and then we proceed from there.

IRVINE: Very well spoken.

RAY: Yes. I think the way Chris explained it, and where we are right now, that it’s not independent.

IRVINE: Right.

RAY: It’s not an independent audit office. It’s really part of Council Services.

YUEN: If I could just say, this is why I highlighted this in my letter, that the Commission can make a policy decision