HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Public Hearing of March 18, 2000

County Council Room, Hilo, Hawaii

Members: J. Ray, S. Irvine, J. Santangelo

Absent: E. Alonzo, K. Balog, S. Bess, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, D. Kurozawa, G. Martin, G. Yoshiyama

And 9 members of the public in attendance.

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman John Ray called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.

INTRODUCTION OF CHARTER COMMISSION MEMBERS

RAY: I’d like to call the 1999-2000 Charter Commission Public Hearing to order. It’s Saturday, March 18th, 9:05 a.m. and we’re in Hilo today. Commission members present at this time are myself, John Ray, Chair; John Santangelo; and Sue Irvine. Unfortunately, I think four or five members were out of town this week, so that’s why we’ve got a pretty low showing today.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

RAY: I have been starting these Public Hearings with a pretty thorough introduction, introductory remarks, to all the amendments, but a number of people, because it’s Saturday and their time constraints, have requested that they give their public testimony prior to that, and I think that’s okay with everybody so I’ll leave it up to you. If you want to go ahead and make your public testimony, we will take public testimony now. If you would like to wait until after the remarks, you can do that as well.

PUBLIC TESTIMONY

RAY: Mike, you wanted to go ahead with your public testimony? Michael Ben.

BEN: Good morning. My name is Mike Ben, for the record, I guess. Quickly, before I start into my testimony, I wanted to submit testimony on behalf of Rick Robinson, my Civil Service Commission Chair. He wanted me to relay that the Commission is very pleased that the Safety Coordinator issue of transferring the Safety Coordinator, and that function, to the Department of Civil Service - the Commission is very pleased that you’ve considered that and proposing a Charter Amendment to that, and they support the proposal.

With respect to my testimony, I have three areas I wanted to briefly touch upon. One is really a substantive matter, but let me first talk about the qualification requirements in general. I notice, in reviewing the qualification requirement, that there ‘s a variety of ways that the qualifications are described. I’ve noted in my written testimony the various instances where sometimes we ask for 3 years administrative experience, sometimes we ask for 5. Sometimes we ask for responsible administrative experience, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we make reference to experience in the public or private sector, sometimes we don’t. So, as a person who probably would be called upon to interpret and apply this, I would very much appreciate consistency if the Commission, in fact, did not intend differences in the qualification requirement in terms of, for example, administrative experience. When you do have different language, the rules of interpretation dictates that you give meaning to the differences. I just wanted to point that out.

The second area is concerning the qualifications for my position, the Director of Personnel. I believe, at one time you folks were considering a proposal that, I believe, followed the HRS, the Hawaii Revised Statutes, and then I notice, in the most recent packet, the qualifications weren’t included as a proposal. I would like to propose that, yes, you do specify, to me, a little bit more detailed qualifications than what the law provides. I’ve suggested following the format that I found throughout your proposals, basically 5 years in an HR function area, and 3 years in an administrative capacity. The current description doesn’t really lend itself to having actual experience. That’s one problem. The other problem is the use of the term ‘scientific methods in public administration’. Me, or my counterparts, have no idea what that qualification is. I, personally, don’t believe there’s a conflict between the qualification in the law and if the Charter was to contain more specific qualification. So, I would suggest that HR is no longer a paper-pushing agency. It encompasses a vast variety of skills, knowledges and abilities, and is, today, recognized as a profession, and I think the qualifications for the position should reflect that also.

The third area I wanted to comment on was the part of the removal of the Fire Chief. My comments is not so much as to that issue, but to the issue of equity among other similarly situated positions. For positions that are appointed and removed by the Commission, which is what the Fire Chief proposal is about, it’s only for the Fire Chief that you provide that before termination, the motion for termination must provide reasons, and the Fire Chief must be given an opportunity to respond to the reasons before actual removal. And all I’m saying is we should treat similarly situated positions equally. First of all, we’re going to be left with that provision for ten years, but otherwise, you are emphasizing, once again, that the removal of the Fire Chief position is distinct and separate from the removal of other Commission appointed positions. In other words, there is a minimal due process involved with the Fire Chief, and because you have distinctly provided for that for the Fire Chief, there is no due process involved at all for the other similarly situated positions. And that’s all the comments I wanted to make. Thank you.

RAY: I really appreciate that input. I’m the one most to blame for the qualifications requirements. That was, kind of, a mix or match, going through different Charters and just coming up with it.

BEN: Well, understand the existing Charter already has different qualifications.

RAY: Right, and the Charters I was looking at were all, kind of, jambalaya like that, as well. In other words, everything I was referring to also has those same inconsistencies in it. We’ll definitely take a look at that. And that was an input we got in terms of make-up of Boards and Commissions, is why can’t you make them all exactly the same, so we took a shot at that and we were equally unsuccessful in coming up with any consistency there. But, I appreciate that.

And as part of my opening remarks, which I haven’t given yet, this is very much a work in progress and I hope it’s not premature to come out with all these proposed amendments, but we wanted to engage not only you folks, but the public sooner rather than later because nobody pays any attention until you actually put down proposed stuff on paper, and then all of a sudden everybody wakes up. So we wanted to go ahead and get stuff out even though a lot of it is still very much under discussion, and a lot of this stuff we haven’t even voted on. It’s just an indication of where it looks like it’s going. Well, thank you very much.

Henry Ross, would you like to testify next?

ROSS: Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I have two subjects that I want to very briefly handle unless you have questions. I’ll be as brief as possible. In the first place, Mr. Chairman, you opened this meeting. It was announced as a hearing. I would like to know what it is.

RAY: It’s a public hearing.

ROSS: Pardon? It is a hearing.

RAY: Yes.

ROSS: And not a meeting. Okay. Because the rules are different for hearings than for meetings. That’s why I’m asking. I want to tell you that I’m not here to, in any way, obstruct, or whatever, the workings of this Commission, but I think I have some contributions to make here from long-time experience that may be useful and there is still time to make changes that are required. Now, I would like to open with - Let me ask something else first. In your rules - you developed some rules somewhere along the line - shouldn’t there be a quorum here today?

RAY: We discussed it and addressed it in an earlier meeting, and we actually took a vote to the effect that a quorum was not required -

ROSS: Okay.

RAY: For a public hearing.

ROSS: Okay, it’s just a question.

RAY: Because we knew we were going to run into some problems with a couple of these Saturdays where a lot of people were going to be out of town. So we did address that to the satisfaction of our legal counsel.

ROSS: Okay. Can you hear me through this mike?

RAY: Yes.

ROSS: Okay. Mr. Chairman and members, I regard the Charter as the Constitution of the County. It is the most important legal document that we have, and I feel that over the years, it has not been handled that way. This meeting, for instance, and I’ll try to point it out because there are improvements possible. There are more hearings coming up. I would rather see this hearing called a public informational meeting, or something like that. It’s just a suggestion. Other Commissions have done that, and it takes a lot of confusion away, but that’s up to you. It has been announced as a hearing and, as such, you missed, in the newspaper, the requirement under Statute 92-41, that the subject matter must be indicated in the ad in the official paper. It isn’t. This meeting, in a sense, this hearing, in a sense, is illegal because of that ad, and there are couple of other things.

RAY: We ran multiple. We also ran ads in the Midweek flyer publication, as well.

ROSS: Yeah, I can’t read that, Mr. Chairman.

RAY: Just to let you know, we ran extra ads that were not required.

ROSS: I have them with me because I was planning, you know, with a magnifying glass, to go over it, but that is not a proper publication, as far as I’m concerned. I have four diopter lens in my eye and that is as high as it will go, and I cannot read it. I have two plastic lens and so on, and I think a public document ought to be publically legible. And anyway, some of these are minor things, but I mention them in going because there is still time to make amends if that should be necessary. Because I could take you - For instance, and how far does Chapter 92 apply to this Commission. It does, certainly, but what of it, and so on. I could, at a later date, take you to court if you do not make certain amends, but there is still time. And my question is would you like to see a court nullify all the time you spent on this because of a couple of mishandled details, and so on. You still have two public hearings to go, I understand. Am I correct?

RAY: We have two more scheduled at this stage.

ROSS: No, three, sorry.

RAY: Two more and we scheduled four this round, and we could schedule as many others as we’d like.

ROSS: But the Charter itself, the existing Charter, calls for six hearings.

RAY: We already did six hearings last summer.

ROSS: You did?

RAY: We held six hearings, yes.

ROSS: You do that in the beginning rather than at the end? Okay, there’s no time sets for them, so -

RAY: We held six public hearings last summer.

ROSS: Okay, so I’m off on that one. I have a problem with your letterhead. I don’t think the Mayor ought to appear on that. The Mayor has nothing to do in the chain of command, or whatever, with this Commission. So, your names are on it. That’s fine. But you can act under the State Seal, if I’m not mistaken, and so Mr. Yamashiro’s name ought not to be there. And I would like to see it disappear because he’s trying to influence, I’ve noticed in other things that I get too, this Commission, and I don’t like that. That is not the idea.

RAY: Mr. Ross, we’ve had no communication with the Mayor since last March -

ROSS: Yes.

RAY: On anything that we’ve discussed. None whatsoever, and I run into him frequently, and have had no discussion with him whatsoever.

ROSS: Mr. Chairman, I’m not saying there is any foul thing going on, or what.

RAY: Well, it’s not foul or otherwise. There’s nothing going on.

ROSS: No, no, no. But don’t forget that the Mayor appointed all of you.

RAY: I understand that, yes.

SANTANGELO: But Henry, once he appoints us, there’s not another living thing he can do.

ROSS: I’ll get to another item, which is way worse than other things. So, anyway, the Mayor’s Office should not be involved, in my opinion, not even administratively. And you should have had your own office, and you could have had your own office because you are allowed to get money allowances, and so on.

RAY: We do, Mr. Ross.

ROSS: You have your own office?

RAY: Yes.

ROSS: Where is it?

RAY: Our Administrative Assistant’s home. We have an independent office there.

ROSS: That’s in Puna. That’s not a government office.

RAY: It’s in Hawaii County.

ROSS: Pardon?

RAY: It’s in Hawaii County. It functions as our office.

ROSS: Well, I don’t agree that that is - I have nothing against the secretary, mind you, not at all, but I -

RAY: Well, our office is not in the County Building. All we do is have a drop-off box here.

ROSS: So, just for the record, I’m stating I don’t agree with that. That’s all. I have a problem. I could not get this document until one day before your Kamuela hearing. I went to the Mayor’s Office, Room 217, and there were three of these documents that’s on the table here, you know, your -

RAY: Summary, right.

ROSS: Whatever the underlined and bracketed stuff, and whatever, the actual language that you are so far proposing, which was to be a public document. And the secretary put three of those, without a name on it, in the basket in Room 217. So I took one because I had been with her on the phone - not that day, but other times where she said if I have distributions to make, or something, you can find them there. There was a girl there. I forget her name, one of the secretaries, who came immediately running up from the back, ripped it out of my hand. ‘I see we made a mistake. We shouldn’t have put this basket here.’ Now, mind you, there was a note on it that says Hawaii Redevelopment Agency, facing me, behind the counter. ‘No, that’s only for the Redevelopment Agency,’and so on, ‘and we’ll put it under the table.’

RAY: I apologize for that confusion. The intent was to make them as thoroughly distributed as possible. We mailed out 280 copies to community groups around the island.

ROSS: Yes, the big question is going to be how many that really get picked up because of all of this, because the people in Kamuela probably didn’t have this. I don’t know. Maybe you had a stack in Kamuela, of those. I wasn’t there. But I was here in Hilo and I wanted to get whatever I could to go to the Kamuela meeting because, on that day, somebody drove me over to Kohala. I cannot drive distances, myself, any more, and then I run into this in the morning. Then I went to the County Clerk’s Office. They had one copy under the counter and I could look at it. Now, my eyes are so bad I cannot read a document like this while other people may be behind me, so on and so on. So, fortunately Mr. Arakaki came by and he said, what’s wrong. I said I would like to have a copy of this document so I can read it with the proper light, which they don’t have, and so on, at my ease, at my pace. And he immediately had another copy made from his copy and that was it, except that I went back to the Room 217 later in the day and they said, ‘oh, after all, you can have a copy because I made a call to Ms.’, I forget names easily so, the secretary and she had clued them in that, yes indeed, that was for the public. Now, these are misunderstandings that shouldn’t happen. These people have nothing to do except have that basket there, and -

RAY: Mr. Ross, I already apologized for that, okay? We’re doing the best we can to get this information out, okay?

ROSS: Yes, I’ll leave it to you how to handle that. So, these are just some technical things that I wanted to call to your attention, that you otherwise may not have heard. I want to say something about the Police Commission and the Police in Chapter 7. I think it’s item 16 on your list, and by the way, what I don’t understand is in the mail, I got this agenda which differs from the agenda in the paper. I don’t know what we are going to do here. I’m not going to stay after my speech. I can’t sit that long, but there is a whole list of things here on this, which may be comprised in the four items that were in the paper. I don’t know. But there are two agendas right now in circulation. And this, by the way, is not on the table here, I think. The agenda is out. What is on the table is this stuff.

RAY: Summary, yes.

ROSS: So this is to, sort of, (indiscernible) confusion, I clue you in on what is there. Now, about the Police Commission. In 1985, we had a Statute that was something like 30 pages long. I have it with me in case you want to see it, about the Police and Police Commission. And that Statute was not perfect. Very few are. But it was demolished. It was HRS 52. It was demolished by the Legislature, and it became 52(d) which is four pages. The only advice that our naive Legislators took was from a Commission of six people; the four Chiefs of Police, one Specialist Major of the Honolulu Police Department, and a Union man, a representative of the Union. Now that is not exactly a cross section of the population. What do you expect from such a one-sided advice. That was just gobbled up and swallowed and it disappeared, and so on, and anyway, we got this. The four Chiefs, who had the majority in this Commission, wrote that Article 52(d) in such a way that it pleased their intentions and so on, so they got things out that they didn’t like, and they gave themselves more power. That is not the idea, of course, but that’s our Legislators’ mistake. I think the Charter needs, therefore, some elaboration on that point, and I will give you, in a moment, a short list to pick from, of things that I think you might want to put a few of into the Charter. And please ask for the details if you find it necessary for understanding it because I’m going to do it in a very brief fashion. I have to tell you that many of these things come forth out of the fact that I was arrested four and a half years ago, and without resistance. On transport from the police of 20 miles, my neck was broken, and still is broken because the Neurologist claims it cannot be repaired, and my shoulder ligaments were torn in both shoulders. I was 75 years old. It was the transportation, mainly, that did it in police cars. Too small, and so on. I was hanging in it diagonally, hit my head on the seat rest of the driver, and things like that. The Kamuela Station Chief told the Police Commission investigator that the arrest, that was without a warrant or probable cause, was not really necessary. They did it for their convenience. Now, I don’t understand that we have situations where people can be arrested for the convenience of the police. I don’t see that.

RAY: Are you suggesting we put that in the Charter?

ROSS: I think that this is of such vital interest and it should enter into the Charter.

RAY: That the Police cannot arrest someone for convenience?

ROSS: Pardon?

RAY: What’s the suggestion, Henry, in regard to the Charter?

ROSS: I can write it out if you want a suggestion. I mean, I can make a proposed -

RAY: That would be very helpful if you could submit -

ROSS: It will be? Okay. How long can you wait because I have -

RAY: We don’t have to have it today.

ROSS: No, of course not. But if you get it in about three weeks, is that okay? No?

RAY: I would rather have it -

PRANKE: Before April 1st, Henry. Before April 1st.

RAY: I would rather have it sooner than three weeks.

ROSS: April 1st? I can’t do that.

PRANKE: Before that.

ROSS: I can’t. I have (indiscernible) in Honolulu.

PRANKE: That’s their last meeting, Henry.

ROSS: Okay, as soon as possible. Let’s say probably two weeks. I’ll put two weeks. How’s that?

RAY: Yes, we’ll be considering changes, Mr. Ross and Mr. Pranke, for way past April 1st.

ROSS: Okay, of course, and it’s up to you what you pick, and you can change the wording and everything. That’s your right.

RAY: That’s right. Right.

ROSS: Now, then what happened is the arresting officer, one of the five arresting officers - Imagine, 75 years old - And the Case Manager of the Kamuela police stated to the Police Commission investigator - I have those papers if you want them added - that they don’t know what the Constitution is. They did. I mean, you know, they were sworn in on the Constitution. They didn’t know, when I said the word ‘Constitution’, they didn’t know what I was talking about. ‘I don’t know anything about these things’, and so on. I think, you know, this deserves some attention and sufficient to put it in the Charter maybe. Okay. The Police Commission did not ask for statements under oath from the policemen, which is absolutely a mistake. It was all done under the table in a secret meeting and so on, which is absolutely unnecessary because there’s no privilege involved accept addresses and phone numbers, and they can leave them out. As far as I’m concerned, they can leave a lot of other things out too, but it ought to be a public hearing. All courts are public. This was a kangaroo hearing. I don’t know what they discussed at all. Anyway, it concluded that my complaint was unfounded, maybe not that word, but whatever. I just made this up.

IRVINE: Henry, was this the Police Commission you’re talking about?

ROSS: Yes, the Police Commission.

IRVINE: Okay.

ROSS: They refused me a contested case hearing, which I have a right under Chapter 91. They refused that, and they’re going to refuse it again in an upcoming case. All deliberations were behind closed doors, and as I said, that was illegal under Chapters 91, 92, and 92(f). Then I found out later the police erased a part of the tapes of the case which had timely been asked the prosecutor to preserve, and with a copy to the Chief of Police, etc., etc., they are not there. I have statements in the form of depositions and so on, that the guy in charge of the documents in the police station does not have anything else but the police report and one other document. The rest has been destroyed, obviously, if you ask me, to hide their mistakes that were made, like the unnecessarily being arrested and things like that, and whatever, upon a false complaint, by the way.

RAY: Henry, could you submit to us exactly what you’d like to see changed in the Charter? You asked to go first in terms of your testimony -

ROSS: Yes, I’m almost done.

RAY: And you’re really just going over this one particular instance, and the issues involved in that, and I think we really need for you to submit to us -

ROSS: I’m giving you the background. You’re not aware that these things are happening.

RAY: I’m very familiar with the background, so I’d just like you to submit to us what you’d like to see addressed in the Charter, and how you think it could be better handled in regard to the Charter.

ROSS: Okay. Then let me carry on because I don’t want to waste time, if you don’t mind. It should be clear from that, and other things, that something more, in the way of fundamentals, should be put in the Charter. Now, you can say, yes, but the Police Commission can do what they like already, and so on. No. The Police Commission has to be told by the Charter what it should do. Recently, I’m talking a few weeks ago, I was ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt. I have a doctor’s statement in my pocket. It was ignored. It went to court already. The judge dismissed the case. Here I am, falsely accused again. These things shouldn’t happen. I wasn’t arrested, by the way. The case is still coming up. That is what I am going to bring a complaint for in Police Commission, and Corp Counsel has let me know that I’m not going to get a contested case hearing. Well, the rest is useless. Police can say whatever they like. They’re not even under oath, and so on, which is a big mistake. And I have stated that everything, as far as I’m concerned, is public. I have no privileges. Then, I don’t know if this is really your kuleana, so I have to apologize if it isn’t. Now, my brief list is the following: - Forbid the use of hollow point bullets, which should be done under the Hague Convention of 1907.

RAY: Henry, I really don’t think those areas are under the purview of the -

ROSS: Pardon?

RAY: I don’t think those are areas that are under the purview of the Charter.

ROSS: I think it is. The County can make sub-rules to anything that it wants to. It says in the Charter itself.

SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, personal privilege. Mr. Henry was taken out of order as a privilege to you, Henry. You have people sitting here who have been there for well over half an hour to 40 minutes, listening to you, and you’re taking their time too. I would ask that the Chair speed this up a little bit out of regard for other people. Henry, there’s more to this government than just you, and you can give this to us. We understand you.

ROSS: I’m already on my last page.

SANTANGELO: Well, you’ve been saying that for about 15 minutes.

ROSS: The time you are spending, telling me this, I could have finished. Honest.

SANTANGELO: I know you, Henry.

ROSS: - Hollow point bullets should be in the Charter, forbidden, because we signed the Hague Convention in 1907 that we won’t use hollow point bullets.

- Make Police Commission hearings open. Only phone numbers and addresses are privileged.

- Number 3, prime duty of the police is to protect the public, not to harass it, and I have plenty of stuff to show you, how the public is harassed, in the paper from last week.

- Police must have a minimal high school education, and what they have now is an 8th grade education plus whatever additional makes it equivalent to a high school education. The Chief started out as a jail guard. I’m not saying that he didn’t take courses later, but those things shouldn’t happen. They cannot write. If I show you the ticket that I got the last time, it’s totally illegible. They cannot write. They cannot read. So, minimal is high school.

- Use disposable plastic handcuffs tied to a front belt, like the jail people do, in connection with HIV. It’s like needles and so on. They have a book this thick that no policeman reads, about how to use rubber gloves and how to clean the handcuffs after each use, and so on, and so on. Nobody reads that. Just tell them, use the disposal plastic handcuffs. You get less damage, too, to your wrists.

- And then express, in the Charter, that the new rules about contested case hearings go both ways, not only from the policeman. Chapter 91 says that all the parties have the right, but apparently, it has to be put in the Charter to get that done.

- Maltreatment of the public, in my opinion, must be punished with double penalties, and not let them off the hook because they have such a difficult job. Nobody forced them to become a policeman, and our soldiers in the field have it much more difficult.

- Convictions of police for crimes must be enhanced. Not less than the public gets. They should be set as examples. There must be appealable answers to the complaints of the public and the police must make case files. They don’t have case files for their complaints. They have loose stuff all over the place.

- And my last one is the Police Commission must be enabled by the Charter to propose Legislative changes because the seatbelt law is illegal, that I had to go to court for. I don’t want to tell you details. If you want them, we can do that over the phone. It is illegal. The text is illegal. It was handled illegal. Nobody does it same as just one little example you have to wear a seatbelt over your shoulder. That’s all I have now.

RAY: Okay, thank you. Del Pranke.

ROSS: And I apologize for being so long winded, but a number of things had to be mentioned. And if any of you have questions, my phone number, which is not in the book, is 937-7739, 937-7739. I will also mark that on the paper that I submit to you.

RAY: Okay, thank you.

IRVINE: Can I say one thing to Henry before we go on? We have added, under Police Department, in our proposal that standards of recruitment shall be designed to attract into the service, persons with high degrees of education, intelligence, and personal stability. Hopefully, that is something we were thinking of putting in that might help with your business of the police not knowing.

ROSS: Ms. Irvine, that language is too loose.

IRVINE: Yes.

ROSS: Every court will throw it out, and you see, a short anecdotal thing. You have seen big ads in the paper for police recruits. Now, there used to be little ads like that. That’s no longer enough because I forced the Police Commission to have psychological tests done on the recruits. And they do that now. And 60% of these recruits drop out on the psychological test. Now, here comes the problem. They are then trained by old hands who were never tested, and they do it totally wrong. You know, that’s why we have this hush-hush business there. Do it my way because otherwise you’ll never get anywhere here in this department.

IRVINE: Thank you.

RAY: Thank you. Del, do you want to go now or wait?

PRANKE: I’m waiting for you to give your statement. I know you have your - that’s fine with me.

RAY: Okay. Milton Pavao.

PAVAO: Good morning Chairman Ray and members. My name is Milton Pavao. I’m the Manager of the Department of Water Supply, and first of all, I’d like to thank you very much for this opportunity to provide comments to the Commission. I, as with Mr. Ben, brought a comment sheet from our Water Commission, signed by our Vice-Chairman, Mr. John Tolmie, due to the fact that our Chairman, Mr. Clark, was out of town. Our Commission would like to comment on the requirement that the Commission be consisted of nine members of each of the nine Council districts. Our Commission feels that the present set-up works really well for them, especially in a Department of Water Supply such as us, where decisions are made based on the island-wide water system. To have individuals from nine Council districts would tend to encourage the ‘what’s in it for my district’ philosophy. We operate now with six representatives of the geographical districts and three at-large, and I think the three at-large brings in a good mix of comments and decisions. And as I said, the present make-up has worked well. We found it a little unusual that one amendment being proposed now contradicts the amendment that is being asked of the Water Commission, and we find that kind of unusual, but I guess, as you can read, and I passed out copies of Mr. Tolmie’s comments, that we would prefer that the Water Commission remain as is. And as the old cliche says, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ because it does work well.

On another matter, this is in regards to Qualifications of Heads of Department of Public Works and the Department of Water Supply, I am a registered engineer in the State of Hawaii, and I would like to provide these comments in opposition to the proposed Charter Amendment that would eliminate the requirement that the Heads of the Department of Public Works and Department of Water Supply be registered engineers. As far as I know, registered engineers head a great majority of the utilities and the Departments of Public Works around the country, and specifically in the State of Hawaii. In our case, being a water utility, the essence of the service we provide relies heavily on logical scientific considerations and sound engineering analysis. For me to effectively lead and direct my department, I need to know the specifics necessary to make these decisions, and a lot of times when we do things, the cost is involved too, and we need that background and that engineering and scientific requirements to make these sound decisions. It would not be in the best interest of the public, department, nor to an individual to take on technical responsibilities without the education and training necessary to do so.

In our County government, and speaking from my past experience, I’ve been asked to speak to a lot of groups on a variety of subjects, and the public is no longer satisfied with general information. Many times they want to know specific information for things that you contemplate. Being an engineer, having that background, answers can be given right on the spot because we know the history, we know the scientific reasons and logistical rationale for what we’re doing. Kind of like ‘we’ll get back to you’ answer if the head or the manager does not know is not good for anyone. We don’t feel it is. Our department, when we go out and do presentations, we want the people to trust and respect the department by providing them answers as readily as we can. It is, therefore, beneficial to the public and the Department Head that he has an education and training to properly field these questions. In summary, we feel that a requirement for registered engineer as the head of the Department of Public Works and Department of Water Supply is in the best interest of the public, the county, and the department. We therefore urge you to withdraw the proposed Charter Amendment. Incidentally, on my comment sheet, if you take a look at the bottom, this was discussed at one of our sub-committee meetings of our Water Commission, and the Water Commission concurs and supports the comments made by it’s Manager. Any questions?

SANTANGELO: Milton, in this representation thing that Tolmie has here, you have nine Commissioners now.

PAVAO: Correct.

SANTANGELO: Could you tell me which ones don’t live in the Puna/Hamakua/Hilo area?

PAVAO: We are one short right now so we only have eight. I don’t know the answer to that.

SANTANGELO: Because I defended you. I said that we should have more Commissioners from this side of the island because we have a lot more water to deal with.

IRVINE: Yes, he tried.

PAVAO: I don’t want to get there.

SANTANGELO: No. It really is an attempt to try to, kind of, and I understand where you’re coming from, but if you could just make comment to - and trying to be a little bit more open to this, and maybe we’re trying to be consistent too, in terms of this representation from around the island. And it was interesting, Milton, that you said you’re trying to be representative of the island. We have an awful lot going on economically on the other side of the island, and geographically they’re given basically one Commissioner, and it just seems if we could - I understand on a Council level, that’s what happens. You have this parochial territorialism. Commissions tend to be, because of a willing to serve more than a political agenda, I found it to be a little bit more open minded, and I think that’s the attempt there, is to try, in a way, uncomfortably force a little more input into the picture, and the strategic plan for this island. Now, you’ve got your mokus and then you’ve got the at-large. What’s the requirement on the at-large?

PAVAO: There’s no requirement on the at-large. As long as the six representative districts is represented, then the remaining three can be from anywhere.

SANTANGELO: Can come from anywhere.

PAVAO: Anywhere.

SANTANGELO: And like you said, that statement of ‘I’ll get back to you later’, a lot of what we’re looking at, the Commission is trying to look at the island as a whole, and not get back to them later too, so I’d hope you’d understand that.

PAVAO: Right. No, I certainly agree with that, and that’s the reason why, I guess, our Commissioners went on record to oppose this because, as I said, in Water Supply, decisions have to be made island-wide. Although systems are specific, the decisions on priority spending, things like that, have to be looked at systemwide. You can’t have people pulling for separate things in their own districts which can happen. And by having people further separating the districts into nine specific areas, I’m not saying that it’s happened, but the potential for it happening is much greater.

SANTANGELO: On the other hand, there’s a logic that says that you’re supposed to come to these Commissions with the tools and integrity, and we admit there’s an advantage to having district representation, and what we’re trying to do is create a little more district representation to enfranchise the people. But you’re feeling that that enfranchisement might be at too high a cost.

PAVAO: Well, I guess what I’m trying to say is what’s logical doesn’t always happen.

SANTANGELO: Been there.

RAY: Milton, just one other question in regard to the qualifications of the Head of the Department. Would you describe your job as more administrative in nature or more technical in nature? I mean, the bulk of what you do, or takes up your time, because, obviously, that’s where we’re coming from, and we’re making the assumption that the Head of the Public Works Department and Head of Water Department is more of an administrative position.

PAVAO: I appreciate that question. That’s a real good question and I think I can, kind of, answer it by saying the degree of administration is not as severe, not as much, as the technical portions. Good examples: I have an average of about 3 or 4 meetings a day. Most of the meetings are with developers wanting to do projects, and if I didn’t have the engineering background that I had, I couldn’t understand what they were trying to do. It really helps because I know the system. I’ve been with the department a long time. I have the engineering history of what happened and that is a huge advantage because developers want to develop, and they want to know how to develop it, and if I didn’t know how to do it, they wouldn’t have answers. The management part, administration part, is a part too, but from what I’ve seen, it’s, I wouldn’t say minimal, but it’s not a major part of it. Administration would include personnel, direction, stuff like that, and believe me, you learn fast. You learn fast.

RAY: Okay. Sue, do you have a question?

IRVINE: Yes, I guess I did, concerning the same thing. They were having trouble in Public Works with this business of registered engineer. Would you mind if we just took the registered out of there and said engineer? Would that -

PAVAO: I think that would be a disservice because say, for example, Public Works and us, when we design plans, when we have consultants to plans, whatever, it has to be signed by a registered engineer. So if the Department Head is not a registered engineer, then he cannot put his name on the plan and take responsibility.

SANTANGELO: So there’s a delegation here. If you had to delegate one or the other, you’re saying you’d rather delegate the administrative part of it to an assistant, or something, rather than the technical?

PAVAO: I already have. We have a wonderful personnel specialist that I constantly seek advice from. That’s in the matters of personnel.

SANTANGELO: And as far as signing off on plans, if you’re not a registered engineer, say hypothetically, like Ms. Irvine mentioned, if you have staff that are -

PAVAO: They could sign it.

SANTANGELO: They could.

PAVAO: As the plans have to be signed by a registered engineer.

SANTANGELO: And does that, in any way, erode your authority or your ability to -

PAVAO: I would feel uncomfortable if somebody else is signing something for me that I’m responsible for. I need to know what I’m signing, what’s it for.

IRVINE: I know this is a little bit out of your kuleana maybe, but is that true in Public Works as well, that registered engineers would have to sign certain documents?

PAVAO: I’m certain it is.

IRVINE: I see some heads nodding in back. Okay.

RAY: Okay, thank you, Milton.

PAVAO: Would it be beneficial for me to stay when you go through that, or is this -

RAY: We’re just taking input today, so we’re not going to be discussing it further.

PAVAO: Okay, thank you.

RAY: Okay, Curtis Beck.

BECK: Mr. Ray, Mr. Santangelo, Ms. Irvine, good morning. My name’s Curtis Beck. I am a Professional Licensed Mechanical Engineer, registered in the State of Hawaii since 1983, currently employed by Hawaii Electric Light Company. I’ve attached my card for identification only. I’m here to represent the Hawaii Society of Professional Engineers which I’ll refer to from now on as HSPE for brevity, being opposed to the proposal that the Heads of the Department of Public Works and Department of Water Supply be licensed in the State of Hawaii as Professional Engineers, or P.E.’s. First, I’d like to say that there’s some confusion in the terms ‘licensing’ or ‘registration’. They actually mean the same thing. I understand that the Board of Registration is trying to get away from the word ‘registered’ engineers and trying to go to the term ‘licensed’, so I’ll try to use the term ‘licensed’. Both of the positions, that is the two heads of the departments, require application of engineering expertise and skill in administering programs dealing with public health and safety. Some would say that these positions require more administrative and managerial skills than technical skills. HSPE believes they require all of these skills. Further, HSPE believes that engineers make excellent managers and they should be promoted to policy-making positions, especially when the management of the engineering functions is involved. Finally, the professional engineering licensure process gives the public confidence that the engineer in charge is competent and responsible, and will apply a disciplined, scientific approach to problem-solving in the real word. The HSPE feels that the Professional Engineer, the P.E., best meets the multi-faceted needs of these positions.

We are aware that qualifications for similar positions around the country are diverse, far from uniform. We did go to the internet, to the site of the American Public Works Association, where they list positions that are available across the country, and we found that approximately 60% of the listings either required or preferred the P.E. licensure and the rest were silent on this, although many did ask for at least some technical or engineering qualifications. Nonetheless, HSPE encourages the County of Hawaii to retain P.E. licensure requirement for the two positions in question, as the county’s best means for safeguarding public health and safety, as well as for meeting the unique technical challenges in providing for quality, cost-effective public works and infrastructure on the Big Island.

We understand there is concern over the difficulty in the county of recruiting and retaining qualified, licensed engineers within the County government so we think that the County should continue to encourage their engineers to obtain their license and establish programs that reward the engineers who, not only become licensed, but who also continue to enhance their professional competency after licensure, and that the County should continue to provide opportunities for engineers to develop leadership skills that will qualify them for the department-level positions in County government, particularly the ones that are in policy-making positions.

So, therefore, I urge you to shelve Amendment 11, not place it on the public ballot this November. Thank you.

RAY: Okay. Questions? John.

SANTANGELO: I have one comment. I guess it’s a question. I find it interesting here, just because you are representing these people, it said that they will apply a disciplined scientific approach to problem-solving in the real world. Do you have Society members working on that Waimea Road?

BECK: I don’t have specific knowledge. I wouldn’t be surprised though.

RAY: Okay. Any more questions?

IRVINE: None.

RAY: Okay. Well, thanks, Curtis. And we’ve talked about this. The genesis of this discussion came out of the retirement of our Public Works Chief Engineer, and the Deputy not being able to fulfill that position although it seemed like it was pretty much universally recognized that he would be qualified to do that. So that’s what brought this up, but I appreciate your comments.

BECK: Yes, I don’t think we’re here really to criticize non-licensed engineers. We know some very, very qualified engineers who are in positions of responsibility that do their jobs really well. We’re here to uphold the standard, I think, in principle. I think this is a good thing for the County to retain. Thank you.

RAY: Peter Boucher. Good morning, Peter.

BOUCHER: Good morning, gentlemen and lady.

RAY: You know you’re to blame for this.

BOUCHER: Of course.

RAY: This all got started with the proposal to place the Wastewater Department in the Department of Water Supply and so that’s what started generating this mix and match scenario, and this is what we came up with.

BOUCHER: Well generally I find out, if you look deep enough, I end up being the cause of most of the problems.

SANTANGELO: Might be the area you work in.

BOUCHER: Anyways, I come here both as a private citizen and as a representative of the County Department of Public Works. And maybe, quickly, just so you get a feel for, maybe, what the general public at-large might - you’ll see what one vote would have to think about some of your proposals, I’ll just run through quickly some of my thoughts about some of your proposed amendments.

Number 1 and 2, non-partisan elections and the at-large seats, I completely agree with. I think they’re very good ideas for helping our government become more representative and efficient.

Contrary to that, I think item number 3, strengthening the authority of the County Managing Director, I think would be counterproductive. I think it’s important to have a strong Mayor to set the tone for where the County is headed, and what we want to do.

RAY: Peter, have you looked at the detailed language in regard to this? Because this does, in no way, change the authority of the Mayor, a move from a strong Mayor position. The Managing Director still appoints this person. We are suggesting that they have to be confirmed by Council, but it’s really encouraging the County to use the Managing Director more as the Chief Operating Officer of the County, and to fulfill that role more. It’s in response to an awful lot of public input we’ve had in regard to more professional management of the County. So, it’s still very much a strong Mayor form of government. The buck stops here, and ultimately, it’s up to the Mayor how he uses that position. All this does is it, sort of, rearranges the Executive Department in the Charter to encourage the Mayor to use that position more in that capacity, but it in no way undercuts the ultimate authority of the Mayor to make decisions. So what we’re suggesting is still very much a strong Mayor form of government.

SANTANGELO: But the question was had you read the deeper part of it?

BOUCHER: To be honest, I have not studied all these proposals in detail, and again, this is as a private citizen, and I don’t know when the average citizen goes in the voting booth, if they will have studied these issues in detail also. This is, sort of, coming from the general feeling, if you can follow what I’m saying. I think it’s important to have a strong Mayor, and just the tone of this seems to sound like we’re trying to move to a more Managing Director form of government which, in the mainland, is often -

RAY: We are very much trying to move towards that in terms of more the day-to-day administration. As you’re well aware, basically anybody can be elected for Mayor with virtually no qualifications whatsoever, and I think that opens up a lot of concern in people’s minds that that person is the day-to-day administrative head of the County government vs. more of a City Manager type that would fulfill that role. So that’s the model we’re looking at, but like I say, still very much retaining the ultimate authority under the Mayor. We looked long and hard at lots of models and lots of information on Council/Manager forms of government, which are a total shift in terms of the authority. In other words, the Council hires the Managing Director, so that’s a total shift, but that’s not where we’re going with this. We’re going, hopefully, to a stronger administrative and professional model, but still having the authority there with the Mayor.

SANTANGELO: The reason I brought that up, Peter, is because I’m finding that, with other Chambers and stuff that got this, that are looking at it, are totally opposed to this, and I think that the problem, and the mistake we made, was putting in the word ‘authority’, because in no way were we increasing the authority of that Managing Director. As our Chairman said, we were trying to set a line of command in which people could look at government and see how it was structured. But, also try to help, at least imply that we’d like the Mayor to get a fairly professional person to help him, but leave it to the Mayor, because we’ve seen this Managing Director under Council have a lot of problems too, and we got that. But when we put in here ‘strengthen authority’, I’ve gotten many inputs already that are totally opposed to something, if I explain it to them. So I hope we haven’t shot ourselves in the foot, and that’s why I asked if you’d read the other part. Because they hadn’t either, and we put this out and we’re going to have to take responsibility for it.

BOUCHER: I apologize for not doing all my homework.

RAY: No, no. Just take a look at it and see. And basically where this came from was it’s the Maui County Charter and the way they have their Executive Branch arranged, and it’s just a different organizational chart which we liked, the way that sets up and, hopefully, where it would go.

IRVINE: Yes, I agree with what these folks have been saying. I had the same experience that John Santangelo had, that people said, oh, you’re creating another Department because we’re actually calling it the Department of Management in here, as Maui did. And we’re not doing that at all, and we aren’t really increasing the authority, strengthening the authority, the way we stated we were so it’s kind of our fault. We’re, as John Ray says, cleaning up the line of fire rather than authority.

BOUCHER: Okay. Well, we may want to present that. Make the public aware of that. Because my impression, reading it briefly, was, like you say, Council appointing Managing Director, I think would be a big mistake.

RAY: No, that’s not what this proposal is about.

IRVINE: No, that’s not it. I think the way we worded it in our summary. This is a work in progress.

RAY: And this is really pretty much identical to the way Maui County operates under their Charter, so to give you a model. But, they are, as we know, very much a very strong form of government, and functions that way.

BOUCHER: Well, in general, Maui runs very well, I think. Okay, well, I stand corrected, perhaps. But maybe we need to make the public aware of -

RAY: Yes. We’re just starting. This is our second public hearing and we’ve got eight months to go before the election so, hopefully, people will engage the discussion.

BOUCHER: Item number 6, Planning Department Functions. I think that’s a good idea to move to Public Works. Often these responsibilities are very inter-related already, and I think it’s a good idea to try and consolidate as much as possible.

RAY: Okay, so there again, Peter, what this does is - This was also an Administrative suggestion that we create a Division of Permitting, and take over all the administrable functions. We decided not to go with that suggestion in total, so what we’re proposing is just to eliminate language in the Charter which would preclude a future Administration, if they wished, to reorganizing. So, in other words, all this does is takes some language out of the Charter which would mean - If you wanted to do that later, you’d have to make a change in the Charter, so it just eliminates that language so, if in the future, the Administration and the Council wanted to back a reorganization, so that’s what this does. It’s not setting up that Division of Permitting as was requested by the Administration. It just makes it easier for that to happen if it should be pursued in the future.

BOUCHER: Well, I think that’s a good idea. I think that’s a good move.

RAY: Okay.

BOUCHER: Number 12, Impeachment. I think some of the events we’ve seen recently would strongly lead one of the average citizens to endorse clarifying some of those issues. I think it’s a little bit ridiculous what’s been happening lately, so I support that.

SANTANGELO: And Peter, with that, we went far and wide, across the country, how was that handled, and it is a way of empowering the people to hold their public accountable but to try to also address harassment. So, you’re right.

BOUCHER: Right, and I think it’s very appropriate. Number 13, I think, is just a housecleaning amendment for you, and I support that.

Likewise, number 16, the Police Commission. In light of events, I think it’s appropriate.

Number 18, also in light of events, although I may have a conflict - I don’t have a conflict of interest. I think it’s appropriate. It’s sad that our Civil Service employees often times make more than their supervisors, and I don’t think that’s correct. But yet, the Council is under pressure from the public not to - You have to put your vote out in the public on whether you should raise their salary, and that’s a difficult position to be in. I can appreciate that, so I think it’s good to put it in an impartial Commission.

RAY: By the way, this is something else, not that we want to be total copy cats of Maui County, but I think they implemented this in Maui in 1994, and I talked to ex-Mayor Lingle about it, and it seems to work very well there. It hasn’t caused any huge salary raises, and it’s been very well excepted, and it’s been just a lot more professional - pay raises to reflect the competitive nature in the private and the public sector. So, I think it’s worked well there. I think this one will be a tough one for the public to embrace, but we’ll see.

BOUCHER: I think it’s completely appropriate. For what it’s worth, I’m glad to hear you’re trying to model on Maui because in my division, personally, I use Maui often as my model. I think they’ve done a lot. They’re very progressive.

RAY: We took some stuff from City and County as well, and also from other Charters we’ve looked at in other jurisdictions.

BOUCHER: But Maui, I think they’ve done a very good job.

RAY: Yes, we liked a lot of the stuff.

SANTANGELO: I think the Salary Commission, as you said, the way it’s got to be sold, and it’s up to people like yourself, so it’s really good to hear this, Peter. This empowers a Commission of the public to come in and take a look at things. And really what it’s supposed to lead to is better government. Because I sat here, John sat here. We know what the agendas can happen here, and a lot of times, they have nothing to do with better government or how the service is rendered to the people, or how that impacts quality of life, and if we can put it in the hands of people who are stockholders in it.

BOUCHER: And finally, Cost-of-Government Commission. I think it sounds like another layer of government, or another leaf of the tree of government, but it’s obviously something that we need to be looking at, and I don’t think there is anybody -

RAY: No, it’s just every other year, the Mayor would appoint a Commission to, basically, input County government on how they might be more efficient, and reduce the cost of government. So, I think creating a formal structure for that type of input is healthy, and I think it will be a pretty negligible cost to do that, and would be a good forum, like I say, to independently look at cost of government.

BOUCHER: Right, and actually I am in support of it. It does add another leaf to the tree but I am in support. Obviously there is nobody looking at this specifically.

IRVINE: I was going to say, also, in the more detailed proposal, this is a Commission that would be appointed one year, run for one year, and then be pau. It’s not something that would be ongoing forever, and therefore ignored. It would be every two years, they’d do their thing, they’d disband and two years later, they’d start over again with a new Commission. You couldn’t serve again on the same -

BOUCHER: That’s an interesting approach. Where did that model come from, if I may?

RAY: Maui.

IRVINE: Maui.

BOUCHER: Oh, really?

SANTANGELO: Peter, you did something that surprised the heck out of me. You went from 4. What happened to 5?

BOUCHER: I’m speaking as a private citizen here.

SANTANGELO: So, you have no comment on 5?

BOUCHER: Right now I’m speaking as a private citizen, Peter Boucher.

IRVINE: Thank you for separating those.

BOUCHER: Now, I’m getting ready to speak as Peter Boucher, the Head of the Wastewater Division, the Department of Public Works.

RAY: Right.

SANTANGELO: I like the private citizen.

BOUCHER: Yes, much nicer. Much more easy going, right? Anyways, regarding item number 5, Department of Environmental Services, yes, I am in favor of this, but with some caveats, of course. Number one, let me start off by saying I think you should change the title of this to Department of Environmental Management rather than Services. It’s sort of a philosophical approach, like Services sounds like we’re trying to correct the problem, and Management sounds like we’re trying to control, overlook the whole thing, prevent problems, taking the holistic approach.

RAY: How about Department of Waste Management? That was a suggestion that came up. We were just trying to, kind of, couch this in Green terms, or whatever.

BOUCHER: I think Environmental is the correct way to put it.

RAY: That’s the term that’s being used universally across the country, and we’ve looked at all sorts of models of this, and they all call it that.

SANTANGELO: But you’d rather see Management rather than Services?

BOUCHER: That’s my opinion. It’s more philosophical. Services implies, again, were they to clean up something that’s already a mess or, if you will, rather than trying to look at how we fit into the whole environmental - everything is inter-related. Management implies more a holistic approach, if you will.

SANTANGELO: So, could we use Services for a couple of years? - No.

BOUCHER: Yes, that’s not funny.

SANTANGELO: I’ve giving you a hard time, Peter.

IRVINE: I think we need to let you get on with your testimony, probably, but I’m sure you have read the details part of this.

BOUCHER: Right.

IRVINE: And we’re asking to set up a Department of Environmental Services that would manage solid waste, wastewater, and recycling problems. And after we wrote this up, it came to our attention that possibly landfill diversion, rather than just recycling, or something a little broader there would be good too, because recycling implies just recycling things, and often people say we don’t have an end product here, whereas landfill diversion is obviously a real goal for this County by way of how you ordered things differently, you re-use things. It’s not just recycling. You know what I mean?

BOUCHER: Right. And that leads right into my next comment, is basically the recycling and/or landfill diversion functions already fall under the solid waste areas of responsibility, so I don’t necessarily think there’s any need to mention that at all. I think the solid waste function is completely adequate. It already falls under the Solid Waste Division. However, I might recommend that you consider adding non point source pollution in lieu of recycling functions because that is another area of responsibility that is currently carried by the Engineering Division. And I hate volunteering for new responsibilities again, which I seem to always get myself into this, and it could be a bucket of worms because it’s still tied in with the drainage issues here, but often times, the issue of non point source pollution is not really looked at from the Department of Engineering. They look at it strictly from a drainage perspective, and I think you may want to consider including that. Again, here I go volunteering.

RAY: Yes, I don’t know how much we want to micro manage this from the Charter standpoint, there again, the Administration. But that being said, obviously we’ve decided to micro manage and take a more aggressive stance on this than the Division of Permitting, which is somewhat inconsistent, in other words, but I hear what you’re saying. Okay.

BOUCHER: I mean it is tied in if we’re talking about environmental management. And we may want to put something about the air quality. Currently the County does not have any air and noises ordinances at all as the City and County of Honolulu does. If we’re talking about establishing the range of responsibilities of this department.

RAY: Yes, something that’s come up in our discussion of this is the creation of this department would encompass future activities, and we would envision greater responsibilities being addressed by a department, and that’s one of the rationales for having this department. In terms of the regulatory framework, it’s greatly increasing and the County will have to assume more roles in this area, and so, therefore, a department might make sense.

BOUCHER: You may want to broaden the language then to, sort of, allow it to take on these responsibilities as the Council adopts ordinances, rather than limiting it to -

IRVINE: We did say ‘other related functions’ but maybe these aren’t really related.

RAY: Any suggested language you could give us on this would be helpful.

BOUCHER: I don’t have anything right now but I can try and come up with something. And lastly, perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t seem like this Commission doesn’t have any power that you’re recommending. That is the key to the whole issue, I think. If the Commission doesn’t have any power, number 1 and foremost, to establish rates and financing capital improvement projects, we’re not really much better off than we are now. We just added a new Department Head, which obviously, I guess I should have mentioned that, the need is great. The Chief Engineer of the Department of Public Works has a tremendous responsibility, and I’ll be speaking on that also. And I think the Department of Public Works has just grown too much. With all the new regulations from EPA and all, I think it’s very appropriate to have a new department, but this department should have the power. The way you’re proposing it, it’s just a separate -

RAY: Well, it is proposed as an advisory Commission to be another layer of input in regard to this issue, but I guess the call was we didn’t feel it was politically -

BOUCHER: Well, that’s the big -

RAY: There’s a lot of sympathy for moving that whole function over, so I guess we’re looking at this as more of an intermediate step in getting there vs. -

BOUCHER: You could be correct there because that’s the one bug-a-boo. It’s almost a defacto tax increase, if it was a separate Commission that had the right to establish rates, particularly in regard to solid waste because wastewater, we’re independent now for the most part. We fund ourselves notwithstanding capital improvements.

RAY: So it would be a Commission more to address that situation and a forum to engage the public and, hopefully, move them in that direction and get more acceptance and a more responsible attitude towards all of us being responsible for our contribution to the waste stream. But our feeling was that we’re not ready to go there yet.

BOUCHER: Yes, you could be right because I think it might not pass if -

RAY: And as you’re well aware, Charter Amendments can be made three ways; by petition, by the Charter Commission every 10 years making recommendations, but any Council person, and prompted by the Administration, can put a Charter Amendment on the ballot at any election.

IRVINE: But it takes a two-thirds vote.

RAY: So, it’s not that you have to wait ten years. When I was on the County Council, I proposed a Charter Amendment which was on the ballot the last election. So in other words, if we wanted to move the Commission sooner rather than later into that function, and it still would be a Charter Amendment, and would still have to be voted on by the public so our thought is that it certainly is not something that has to wait ten years to get there if that’s where the Council feels like they want to move this. Obviously, the dynamics are very different from us being comfortable making recommendations and the Council County, so I certainly recognize the politics of all that. In other words, it’s politically easier for us to make proposed amendments than it is for the Council in a lot of cases and this would certainly be one of them.

BOUCHER: Actually, in that light, I think I see where you’re coming from.

IRVINE: Can I add one more thing? We had thought about taking ‘advisory’ out in the top paragraph of our statement. Even though it still would be advisory, we were thinking that putting it in the Charter would give it a little more emphasis than the way things have been now, with a Committee Ad Hoc set up that isn’t mentioned in the Charter, that if you have a Commission established by Charter, that it would therefore give it a little more weight than Commissions that the Mayor can just appoint and ignore at their own discretion.

BOUCHER: And there doesn’t appear - Oh, it does say - I take that back - regarding the geographic distribution of the Commission. Okay, in light of - I think I see where you’re coming from, so I agree with that.

Item number 9, Safety Coordinator. This is a very important issue, particularly in wastewater safety. It’s a very dangerous environment that we work in, and I think by having a Safety Coordinator who is hired based on his qualifications rather than by a political appointment, I think would be a strong - not meaning any disrespect to our current Safety Coordinator, but I think, in general, just having somebody who is hired based on his qualifications would be a very strong help to the County, and I strongly support that item.

And lastly, item number 11, Qualifications, the Head of the Department of Public Works and Water Supply. I don’t think I can say anything more than what has been said by Milton Pavao and Curt Beck -

RAY: Are you speaking on behalf of the Chief Engineer?

BOUCHER: No, I’m speaking on behalf of the Division Chief of the Wastewater Division.

RAY: Okay, because we haven’t had any input on this issue, and you might bring that to Mr. Yanabu’s attention.

BOUCHER: I haven’t spoken to him about this, but I strongly oppose this amendment. I think it was very well spoken, the arguments that have been placed before you very well by the two speakers before me, and I don’t think I can add anything to that other than these are very responsible positions and you need somebody with the technical background and the credentials to put their name on the front of these plans, and to be responsible to supervise licensed engineers under you. You have to have -

RAY: But as you mentioned, the size of the Public Works Department and the additional duties they’ve had to take on, especially with the regulatory framework, I guess where we’re coming from, with all six divisions, that it really is more of an administrative position than an engineering position, and they certainly need to be well versed in that background. And maybe this is just a misunderstanding, but that a major function of the Chief Engineer is actually being the person to review and sign plans, maybe to be a person that could sign off on plans, but in terms of that person’s responsibilities and duties, and the time they’d have, I just can’t imagine that you could administer that whole department and have time to sit around and review and stamp plans.

BOUCHER: No, as a Manager, even myself -

RAY: Anyway, that’s where we were coming from on this.

BOUCHER: How many times I sign these plans, I don’t review them, but I delegate the reviewing, as does Milton, to people who he knows are responsible, and who he trusts to review them properly, who are also licensed engineers.

RAY: Right, and you have plenty of licensed engineers in the department.

BOUCHER: Right, but you are taking the responsibility at that point, and it really runs contrary to the whole ethic of professionalism that you can supervise. Basically you’re overseeing a licensed professional engineer, if you’re signing over their name. I’m strongly opposed to it.

RAY: I think that kind of runs contrary to the way most businesses run. How many heads of substantial businesses or corporations, or whatever, are technical vs. administrative people? I think you’d find that, almost universally, they’re people with business and law degrees vs. engineering degrees that supervise -

BOUCHER: I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that. I think if you look at some -

RAY: I don’t want to get into that. I really appreciate what you’re saying and it’s definitely made an impact on my thinking.

IRVINE: Yes.

RAY: This is something we’re going to take a good look at, and like I say, we really wanted to get this stuff out here to get you and everybody else to engage it, so it’s very much in progress, our thinking on this.

IRVINE: I think we had no engineers on our Commission. I was just thinking of that, which is kind of unusual, probably, in the County of Hawaii, to set up a Commission that doesn’t have one engineer on it.

BOUCHER: So, I would urge you to delete this amendment. And while you’re at it, perhaps the Head of the Department of Environmental Management should also be a licensed engineer.

SANTANGELO: Environmental Engineer.

BOUCHER: Not necessarily. Just a licensed engineer, I think would be adequate because a Civil Engineer is also trained. Environmental sort of followed through Civil Engineering. It sort of evolved into it’s own little area, but it’s basically Civil Engineer.

SANTANGELO: Okay. Well, the thing you guys have on your side is that simple is better, and we have an awful long shopping list here for Charter Amendments, so something probably should go, and if it doesn’t have the proper support, it should go.

BOUCHER: I strongly urge you to drop that one. That’s terrible.

IRVINE: Thanks.

SANTANGELO: Just leave it at what you said before, Peter.

BOUCHER: Thanks.

RAY: Okay, thanks.

SANTANGELO: Thanks, Peter.

RAY: Would anybody else like to, at this point, offer any testimony? I’m going to go through the Charter Amendments. There’s nobody left but Del.

PRANKE: I’ll give my testimony before. You don’t have to do that. I mean I’ve read it.

RAY: We want to make this as much of a two-way communication.

PRANKE: Sure.

RAY: So you’re welcome to come up, offer testimony, and ask us any questions on anything as well.

PRANKE: I’ll stay and listen to you then but why don’t I do this now?

RAY: Okay.

PRANKE: I’m signed up, but I guess he wants to do something.

RAY: Well, if nobody’s going to -

PRANKE: Well, I don’t think he’s signed up but he says he wants to say something.

RAY: Chris, you want to - So, Del Pranke.

PRANKE: Yes, thank you. Thank you for the work that you folks have done. I know you have worked real hard at it, and you have an excellent helper there with Mrs. Henry. She has been very, very helpful. I think the idea of having this on the web, on the internet, has been very good. I’ve been able to read the minutes even though I wasn’t able to make the meetings.

I want to start out with page 2 of the County Charter. I think I talked about this once before, before you, and that is the very basis of what the County is. And again, I still have some concerns about how we can say the Island of Hawaii, which includes some ceded lands, would be the County of Hawaii. I don’t believe we have the authority to consider those lands as part of the County of Hawaii.

RAY: We have had legal counsel address this issue, and come back, and he has put some stuff in writing which we can share with you. But at this point, we are comfortable with the existing language, and it has been brought up to us as an issue.

PRANKE: Okay. All right. I’d like to go to page 8, that would be Section 5-2.3, the conflicts with the Corporation Counsel. That’s the Powers, Duties and Functions. Now when the Corporation Counsel provides an attorney for any Board or Commission, and then provides an attorney for a person who comes before that Board or Commission charged with something, for instance, the Ethics Board or the Police Commission, and provides that person with legal counsel, that’s a conflict of interest. I mean nobody believes that that isn’t a conflict of interest, or nobody that’s being serious. And there’s a current situation where a police officer in Waimea has filed a complaint against a Police Chief. Since he is an employee of the County of Hawaii, if the Police Commission rules that his complaints are under the scope of his duty, which he apparently has written in his complaint, then the Corporation Counsel would be required to provide an attorney for the person being charged, an attorney for him, and an attorney for the Commission. This is just way out of line. I think we need to fix that conflict of interest. We’ve got to fix it in some way, and I’m not sure exactly how to tell you to do that. I’ll work on that some.

IRVINE: Del?

PRANKE: Yes ma’am.

IRVINE: Would this be addressed by the Corporation Counsel being able to hire special counsel?

PRANKE: No.

IRVINE: Because that person would still be working for them. I talked to our attorney at great length yesterday, sort of about this, and he said that our Commission is kind of unusual inasmuch as we can hire our own attorney. But in general, State agencies, or nationally, or locally, the Corporation Counsel’s Office does provide overall advice and they are the ones because they can’t have one Commission saying one thing, and one Commission saying another, if that Commission is allowed to hire an outside attorney. It’s complicated.

PRANKE: Well, we’ll get to that.

IRVINE: Okay.

PRANKE: We’ll get to that in a minute. I have something that I’ll talk to you about. I’m going to go on through here with the things that I have, and we’ll move it along quickly.

Page 14, Section 7-2.1 that has to do with the Police Commission organization. We’ll get to this thing I was talking about. As you can see, 7-2.1 says ‘there shall be a Police Department consisting of a Police Commission, a Police Chief’, etc. In 1995, the Chairman of the Police Commission attempted to slander me and I filed a complaint. I’m not going to get off like Henry Ross. And I filed a complaint asking the Police Commission to look into this because I assumed the Police Commission was part of the Police Department. This is the Corporation Counsel’s Opinion. ‘Neither the Police Commission Chair, nor any of it’s members, would be considered as an employee, officer or member of the Police Department as defined by the rules. The Commission members are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the County Council. They’re not paid and they’re not hired by the Police Department. They’re not in a position classified by the Department of Civil Service. Therefore the complaint is not within the jurisdiction of the Commission.’ Then they skip down and they say ‘further indication’ - I’ll get you each a copy of this. I’m sorry. If I had known there were only three of you, I’d have stopped by Sure Save and copied it - ‘further indication that the complaint procedure described in the Rules is not meant to apply to a complaint concerning a Commission member is that the result of the Commission’s investigation is to be turned over to the Police Chief. In this case, there’s no point in turning over the investigation results to an individual who has no control over the party complained about. The Commission hires and fires the Chief.’ Now is that different than what they’ve been told? We’re getting bad information, not because they’re bad people over there. We’re getting bad information because of the conflicts of interest. The Corporation Counsel is appointed by the Chief Executive, and the Chief Executive wants to keep - now, politically we know that it wants to look good. It wants to do a good job. And if doing a good job sometimes involves steam rolling some citizens, sometimes that happens, and that happens, I think, because of the conflicts of interest, of having the Corporation Counsel give advice to the Boards and Commissions, and give advice to the people who come before it. That’s got to be changed, I think.

Okay, page 30 and 31, Section 13-20(b). This is a housekeeping thing almost. Down at the bottom, page 30, the last sentence in Section (b) there, it says ‘where personal matters effecting the privacy of an individual are to be considered, the Council, Board or Commission may, at the request of the individual involved, consider such matters in closed session.’ Now the Sunshine Law says that you can go into closed session if the Board or Commission makes a determination that there’s a matter of privacy. The Police Commission, especially, is really bad about this. A police officer who is coming before the Board or Commission - and this is something that Henry was talking about a little bit - will simply write a letter and say I’d like to go into Executive Session. There’s no proof in the letter that there’s any matter. The Police Commission accepts that as the reason for going into Executive Session. This needs to be made a little stronger so that they have to follow the Sunshine Law. They have to determine that there is a matter of privacy. As Henry says, if it’s already been fought out in public, then there’s no matter of privacy. If anything that’s going to be talked about is a matter of public knowledge, there isn’t any privacy, and even the Corporation Counsel agrees with that.

And finally, on page 31 concerning - I’m sorry. I’m going a little fast. If I’m going too fast, please tell me. I’m trying to keep this short and simple, and not get off. In the middle of page 31, on Section (d), it says ‘Business conducted by the Council, Board or Commission during a meeting which does not conform to the provisions of this section shall be null and void.’ I’ve pointed out to the Council several times the things that they have done where they violated the Sunshine Law, but there’s no provision, unless you want to take them to court, to make that work, so we either need to get rid of that or put some teeth in it. There needs to be some way that this can be dealt with. Theoretically, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is the one charged by the Sunshine Law with enforcing the Sunshine Law, but we’ve had virtually no response from the Prosecuting Attorney concerning these things. I have made about five complaints. The most recent one was within the last two months. Never have received a return from them.

Okay, page 32, on the Board of Ethics. Now, I know we talked about the Police Commission, and Mr. Yuen said you can’t move - he doesn’t want to move the Police Commission out from under the Police Department because they get inside information. Well, right now we’re being hanged on our own petard because the Police Union went to the Legislature two years ago, and got a law passed which gives them even more protection from having anything that they do, as far as their job, not be made public knowledge. I think that’s what the basis of the County Council’s complaint, or information to the Police Commission is that they can’t violate that with the Chief because he’s protected under this. And I don’t know that he is protected under that law, but apparently that’s what they’re saying is this law exists, so they can’t ask him any questions about this because it has to do with his privacy and it probably has to do with the ongoing court case. But, the Board of Ethics and the Police Commission at least, and possibly the Liquor Commission Board of Review and the Planning Board of Review are oversight committees, and they should not be appointed by the Mayor. They should not be appointed by one person. The Police Commission overlooks nothing except people in the Executive Branch. The Ethics Board, while it could overlook things in other branches of the government, most likely is going to be overlooking things in the Executive Branch. You shouldn’t have the head of the department that they’re going to be looking at appointing the people who are the members. If you go along with what Mr. Yuen says, and decide that we shouldn’t remove the Police Commission from the Police Department, we should at least have these oversight Boards appointed by the County Council, and they should be appointed with each Council member appointing someone from their district, with the approval of the rest of the Council. That’s a simple change, and I’m not saying to take those other Boards and Commissions away from the Mayor because he has to run the government, but the oversight Boards should be removed from being appointed by one person. Yes sir?

SANTANGELO: Del, that begs a question just real quick. The Council is a Legislative Branch dealing with policy.

PRANKE: Right.

SANTANGELO: The Executive is not a professional, only allowed to serve for a limited amount of years, and is island-wide representation. In other words, runs an island-wide race, and given the island-wide mandate to come in with that person’s policies and mission. Why wouldn’t it be appropriate for that person to be elected, and come in and say this is how we want this overlooked? I’m not, in any way, in conflict with what you’re saying, but just trying to look at the balance of power because I’ve struggled with that too. You move it to the Council and you have such a limited scope vs. the overall that you get from the Executive Branch, so in a way I’m confused. It seems to me it is appropriate for that elected person, who then oversees a bureaucracy.

PRANKE: Well, the Police Commission, as it’s currently set up, there’s supposed to be one person from each district, so I would suggest that, theoretically, the Legislators from that district should know their district better than a Mayor. The current Mayor was elected by just a little over a third of the votes.

SANTANGELO: But you know, as long as we’re going to allow other parties than just two, we’re going to have that.

PRANKE: I understand that but they’re elected by a little over a third of the vote, okay?

SANTANGELO: But I agree with you.

PRANKE: So that’s the point. But I’m only talking about the oversight committees, and I’m not certain that the Liquor Commission Board of Review or the Planning Commission Board of Review, but certainly the Ethics Board should be nine members, and the Police Commission should be appointed, and that gives us a diverse opinion rather than - because I think we’re seeing with the Police Commission right now, the problem of that. I wasn’t supposed to say this. Mr. Mills went to the Waimea Police Station the day before the Police Commission met, and attempted to get the police officer to withdraw his complaint. That’s totally out of bounds and it may be a violation of the County Charter. But I really wasn’t supposed to say that but I did anyway. It’s not a big secret but it’s just atrocious the way this thing works, and that, to me, looks like politics at its worst. And my friends on the Police Department are just livid right now because they’re getting such a bad rap because the politically appointed people are doing that to them. There’s guys up there working their behinds off and doing a great job, but they’re getting kicked in the butt because of some of the politics. Okay, that’s my feeling is the politics.

I’m going to skip that Mandatory Review Program.

Now here we have another conflict. Here’s the Reapportionment Committee who reapportions the County Council, and they work under the County Council. Now, I realize they’re appointed by the Mayor, but again, they’re appointed by the Mayor with the approval of the Council, every ten years. And there’s some question. Since 1991 was the reapportionment year and they were supposed to be appointed by March 1st of that year, this should be the year they’re reappointed, because it says every ten years and this is the tenth year. That’s a minor thing. That Commission should also be appointed by the Council. Now I think that combining the Reapportionment Commission and the Charter Review Commission, and having a running Charter Review Commission would be a good thing to do. In other words, each Council member should appoint somebody to the Charter Review/Reapportionment Commission, which would work all the time. Now, you don’t have to have them stay in a long time. I don’t think a lot of people are going to. Okay? But, when the first Charter was done, if you go back and look at the records, every two years - every year, as a matter of fact, they had new members come on and old members go off. It was a rotating kind of thing. And to have each Council member appoint somebody to that standing committee, then if citizens want, like I’m always complaining about something in here, I would go to the Charter Review Commission, try to make my point to them, and if they said okay, the Council should vote on this, and they put it to the Council, then you’d have a provision, I would think, that if the Charter Review Commission thinks it’s a good thing, the Council would not have to have a super majority to put it on the ballot, but only a simple majority. That’s only one vote, but it makes a lot of difference when you’re talking about nine members. Now, you talked a little bit before about the Council being able to put things on the ballot, but only with a super majority, only with six out of nine members voting for it, and that still makes it a little difficult. And there are just clerical errors in here. You know, just typos that should be fixed.

IRVINE: I think they’re going to get fixed.

PRANKE: Okay, good. There are some in there. Okay, that was that. Now, page 28, 13-4(c). I went before the Council the other day. The way Boards and Commissions are appointed right now is the people who are appointed are appointed by the Mayor. They go before the Council at a committee level, and then they, theoretically, go before the Council one more time to be appointed. Then there’s another step. They have to be sworn in, and we’ve never seen where they’re sworn in, and I assume Rudy Legaspi swears them in down in his office. But we ran into something here because the Charter talks about ‘appointed by the Mayor’. Now if a person were appointed, as soon as the Mayor accepts them and sends their name, if that becomes an appointment, then that person is an officer of the County right then because of the way the language is for Boards and Commissions. It talks about who is an officer and who’s not. Now, we got into some confusion, and I tend to agree with the Council, that these folks are not appointed by the Mayor. They are nominated by the Mayor. But the language in there is confusing and (a) it should be fixed, but (b) everybody who comes before the County Council, they should be required to come twice, once at the committee level, and once before the full Council because those are the only two times that the public gets to put questions to them. And we don’t do it directly. We talk to the Council, and then if the Council chooses, they ask them the questions. Those are the only two times. Then that person should be sworn in, if they’re accepted by the Council, before the County Council. And the reason is – This is a letter from Mr. Billy Friel, January 31, 1995, and he tenders his resignation effective February 28, 1995. He resigns. But he stayed on and he kept voting. We have a record of him being at the June meeting of the Police Commission. So, even though he resigned, he stayed on. Now when does a person resign? When are they actually a member? The Charter says that the Mayor is the only one that can ask to have the Council remove somebody, so I think the Council is the final arbiter. And the Council should swear these people in, and if somebody resigns, the Mayor should immediately send that resignation to the Council, and if they accept it, then the person is resigned so we know when they’re on or not on the Boards and committees anymore. It’s a confusing thing, and this isn’t the only time that this happened. Ms. Leithead-Todd, I think, resigned and when we tried to get a copy of her resignation letter, we were told by Mr. Legaspi, well, that’s up to the Mayor. Well, it’s not up to the Mayor. I would think that there should be a procedure where he has to send that to the Council for them to rescind that.

Okay, I’m sorry, I’m going on here but I want to go through the summary of your proposed changes. Now, the Police Commission and the Reapportionment Commission both have nine members, and it’s said that they are appointed.

BRILLHANTE: Excuse me.

PRANKE: If you need to give your testimony, I’ll break mine.

BRILLHANTE: We didn’t really have testimony. We wanted to thank you guys for your time, and we just wanted to say that at the Board of Realtors - I’m the President of the Board of Realtors - when we first went through this, we actually were in opposition to a lot of them just because of the idea of creating larger government, and after getting more information, and meeting with a couple of your members, that is changing. And we’re not in a position right now to submit -

RAY: Well, give us a call because we feel like we’re going in the other direction so we want to be able to make a case for that. You know, we’re trying real hard to make government -

BRILLHANTE: Well, some of them, like creating new departments and -

SANTANGELO: A lot of the times it’s just taking it out of another department.

RAY: I think the bottom line is if government operates as usual, it probably will create more expense, but we’re strongly encouraging a much more professional operation here, so if that were the case, I think we’d be saving.

BRILLHANTE: We appreciate that and interacting with all of you, with certain members of your Commission, we are getting that idea. And so, actually, you are changing our opinions.

RAY: As soon as you can give us any input and concerns for anything that’s not clear, let us know.

BRILLHANTE: There is some clarification that we would like so we’ll submit you guys some questions.

RAY: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Del.

PRANKE: The Police Commission and the Reapportionment Commission currently have language in their rules in the Charter that say that they are appointed by County Council seat. Same thing you would have with the Water Commission, I guess, if it gets changed. Well, that would seem to collide with this number 2, where you would have this change. So, if the voters should vote this, then there would be an immediate need to change two other parts of that.

RAY: What we’re, and this is not a perfect solution because if number 2 were voted in, then the nine Council districts would cease to exist, but because we do not want to change the representation, we still want it to be tied to those geographical regions, or to smaller geographical regions, our legal counsel has said that he thinks we can come up with language to address that, and whether it’s ‘appointed from districts as existed in the year 2000', or whatever, he’s indicated that we will be able to retain those geographical districts, and tie the Boards and Commissions to those, because that was a real issue that we didn’t want to dilute that area.

PRANKE: Okay. Well, it was my understanding that the purpose of this was to make it easier for the Elections Division.

RAY: Yes.

PRANKE: One of the reasons because then they would just be going with House Districts.

RAY: That was testimony offered to us by someone from the Elections Division so that’s his viewpoint and you can’t question, from a simplistic standpoint, if you just had the existing State Districts. So we’re not suggesting that we would officially maintain those Council districts if number 2 were voted in, but that we would figure out a way to tie the Boards and Commissions to those existing.

IRVINE: As of the year 2000, or something.

PRANKE: I understand except for this. In order to maintain the fairness of those districts, we would still have to have the Reapportionment Commission keep looking at the size of those districts. I mean the districts couldn’t stay the same as the population changes. Puna is growing faster than any other district, and I expect that Lower Puna and Upper Puna will be separated at some point, and I’m not sure how.

RAY: So we need to figure that one out, look at that more.

PRANKE: Yes, I would say that if the public should vote, and I got to tell you, most people are not in favor of this, that I’ve talked to, excuse me. They tend to look at it as another attempt to change the way that they voted since 1990. But if they should vote on this, then we have that problem of maintaining those districts in a fair manner so that the population’s the same. If you’ll look at Councilman Chung’s, he’s just got a real small portion of Hilo as his district. Well, at any rate, you get the point.

IRVINE: Yes.

PRANKE: And the Water Commission, of course, if you change that, that would be in the same position, and the Planning Commission. Now, about that Water Commission and the Planning Commission. Having even the ex-officio members from one agency and another, sitting cross-membered like that, it’s seems to me, it causes some problems with the lines of authority, and I would strongly suggest that we remove those things. There shouldn’t be that crossover. There should be channels of communication -

RAY: I think it’s good to maintain that you have that department representation there. I mean to insist that you have those folks there at Commission meetings. To me, that’s a plus, that you have somebody there representing those departments.

PRANKE: Oh, I don’t have a problem with that but I don’t think -

RAY: I mean they’re just ex-officio. They don’t vote.

PRANKE: Well, I’ll let that go, but it just seems that we always have these crossover things in the County.

The Legislative Research Office. I think we should find some way to provide that the Legislative Research Office should provide research for citizens too, without overburdening them with a bunch of stuff. But, as long as we’ve got a Legislative Research Office -

RAY: I know, but I think that’s via your County Council person.

PRANKE: You would think so. Okay. Impeachment. We’ll come to this and then I’ll stop. Maladministration is probably going on right now. When Mr. Yamashiro came in, one of the first things he did was he got into the fight about the privatization thing, and that cost us some large amount of money for legal representation. The previous Administration looked at that possibility and the Corporation Counsel for that Administration said no, that wouldn’t be legal, so there was already a precedence. When he went ahead and did this, I think there was probably a good case for maladministration in that situation. So I don’t think we should remove maladministration.

Now, I looked through this election thing, and apparently if the citizens should vote in three at-large districts, if you wanted to remove the person from your district, they would have to provide 2,100 signatures?

RAY: No. We’re making it island-wide.

IRVINE: Pardon?

PRANKE: That’s what I’m saying. That’s 77,000 registered voters in the last election.

RAY: Right.

PRANKE: Three percent of that would be 2,100 voters.

RAY: Yes, but they wouldn’t have to come from that district.

PRANKE: No, but if I were to say we want to remove Mr. Smith, we would still have to get 2,100 voters, just the same as we had to get 2,100 to remove an at-large. That’s the way it looked like it’s written, to me.

RAY: That’s the way it’s written.

IRVINE: I think, yes, it is.

PRANKE: Mr. Smith only got 2,400 votes to get elected. Ms. Jacobson only got 2,200 votes to get elected. That seems rather onerous.

IRVINE: You can go island-wide to get them, the way it’s written.

PRANKE: I understand that, but here’s the problem. When you look at the impeachment statute, it says that ‘the Court shall sit without a jury and shall follow the form of the court’. I assume that means the Rules of the Court. The Civil Procedure Rules and the Rules of the Court all have a concept called ‘standing’. You have to have standing to be able to bring something before the court. In other words, if I were a French citizen, I couldn’t come here and say I want to remove this person. If I were a citizen of Puna, or a resident of Puna, I couldn’t remove the person from Kohala, and I don’t think we can change the Court Rules with the Charter. And if that’s the case, then I don’t think you can allow people from outside of the district to sign a petition, and I told these folks back here, when they went after all the Council members, I said you can’t do that. You can’t put people on a petition to remove Mr. Smith if they don’t live in this district. I said the only person that you can get all those signatures for -

IRVINE: It was suggested to us that, indeed, Council people are ruling island-wide. I mean they are making island-wide decisions and therefore, people from without that district would have standing.

PRANKE: I don’t know. If you don’t vote for them, I don’t see how. You know, I don’t vote for the President of France, or I don’t vote for the Governor of Oregon.

RAY: Yes, I’m not entirely comfortable with this so we need to explore it.

IRVINE: Correct. I agree. It’s problematic.

PRANKE: Yes, so that’s the legal point, I would say. Now, when I talked to Mr. Chung about this, he says ‘I never thought about standing’, when I told him about this. Now, the third thing about changing this impeachment thing. There’s only been one impeachment try that I remember. So we’re trying to fix something that really isn’t broke, I think. And the thing that holds people back from this is that you have to go to court, and if you act per se, you’re not going to win, and if you don’t, you’ve got to spend a lot of money for a lawyer. So, I don’t think changing it from a simple 100 people - Now, you want to tie this to the number of registered voters, but a lot of people don’t vote, but they are citizens, and I know that the courts have held that you can do that. But why should a person have to be a registered voter to sign a petition about their own government?

Back in the part where you talk about non-partisan elections, I would support that if, at the General Election, you have ‘none of the above’. If ‘none of the above’ wins, it doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have somebody. You’d take the person who got the most votes, but perhaps, they wouldn’t be able to veto a bill, or something like that.

SANTANGELO: Just have the election again.

PRANKE: Well, I know it gets complicated, but the point of the fact is I often times don’t vote for either candidate. That doesn’t mean that I’m not a public spirited citizen.

SANTANGELO: Good point.

PRANKE: Okay, I’ll pass on that. And I thank you again for the work you’ve done. You’ve got a great secretary there. I think, and I know this sort of takes away from it - they have petitions and memorials here. I think when this is all over, she should get recognized before the Council. I know you all should but -

SANTANGELO: So, we have an unusual ability, with the Chairman we have, the Counsel, and the secretary, it’s a heck of a staff, I admit, Del. That ‘none of the above’, If you have anything on that, I’d love to get it because I’ve opposed that, in my own mind, for years, and then more and more people are winning me over.

PRANKE: Yes, I don’t know how that would work because, obviously, you’ve got to have somebody in the office.

SANTANGELO: Well, they’re doing it elsewhere. I think you redo the election.

PRANKE: Well, you would, but that’d sure cost us a lot. I’m always trying to think. Somebody said we should elect the Police Commission and that. I’m not for more election, more people on there. That costs more.

SANTANGELO: It does.

PRANKE: So having people that are already there, appoint them is a cost saving thing. I forgot one thing here, and we talked about it. Concerning the impeachment, I would support this a little more if you would add to this ‘any officer of the County may be impeached’. ‘Any officer who is appointed by an elected official or any Board.’ Right now, if that were the case, the Police Chief could be impeached, and I know a lot of people would go along with that, but the idea is if you can only impeach the people - You can’t say the Mayor’s wrong because the Police Chief is his choice, but the Police Commission voted him in, so there’s separation. But any officer of the County who is not a Civil Service employee should be impeachable.

IRVINE: Del, can I just ask you one thing?

PRANKE: Yes ma’am.

IRVINE: You’re saying that court costs are what prohibit people from impeaching.

PRANKE: Oh, yes, I think so. It’s several hundred dollars just to file, and then if you need copies of anything, they’re not cheap over there. It’s a $1.00 a page for the courts. So anybody that goes in there on their own - And you’ve got to know the Court Rules. You’ve got to know the Rules of Civil Procedure, all kinds of things. I don’t think it’s an easy proposition. If you want to make it harder, then make it easier to actually go through impeachment. What would be good would be if a judge would sit like a Small Claims Court and decide whether there really is an issue.

SANTANGELO: Merit.

PRANKE: Yes, merit to the case, and then if that’s the case, then send it on to be heard. Then you could make it harder, actually more signatures. But I have some question as to whether we can even tell the Court. I don’t know that we can say in here, that the Court shall sit. Nobody’s ever questioned that, but how can the Charter tell the State Courts what to do? But we have the authority to do the Charter, I guess, under State Law. Yes, Okay.

IRVINE: I think that’s what impeachment by definition is, being thrown to the courts.

PRANKE: Well, we have the authority to set up the Charter under State Law, so I guess that probably - I’m certainly through and I know you’re tired of hearing me.

RAY: I’m going to dispense with my review of the Charter.

PRANKE: I will write five of these up. I’m not going to bombard you with everything, but I will write five of these up, and I will have them to you before April 1st. I didn’t get a chance because I’ve been doing some other things.

IRVINE: Would you put these in priority, as far as which you feel is most important, or something because one of the problems we find is that we didn’t want 30 amendments to the Charter, and that’s why the Charter has inconsistencies and things, because sometimes it’s not worth going in and making an amendment just to straighten a word out.

PRANKE: Then even more than having those people appointed, I would say a standing Charter Review Commission to constantly review these things and make sure that it stays right. I think that would be great. And people serve two years, and go off. Two years, and then go off, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

RAY: Thank you.

PRANKE: Thank you. If you guys want to go, I’ll listen to you in April.

RAY: I think I’ll dispense with the review.

ADJOURNMENT

RAY: By the way, this meeting’s adjourned.

The discussion ended at 11:20 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharron C. Henry

Secretary-Administrative Assistant