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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Meeting of April 12, 2000

Hawaii County Liquor Commission Conference Room,

Hilo Lagoon Center

Attendance: J. Ray, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa (from 5:20 p.m.), G. Martin, G. Yoshiyama, Counsel C. Yuen

Absent: E. Alonzo, K. Balog, S. Bess, J. Santangelo

And 6 members of the public in attendance.

The meeting was called to order at 5:09 p.m.

RAY: I’d like to call the April 12th meeting of the 1999-2000 Hawaii County Charter Commission to order. We’re at the Hilo Lagoon Centre.

Attendance. Presently, myself John Ray; Chair; Roland Higashi, Vice Chair; Marni Herkes; Sue Irvine; George Martin; and Gary Yoshiyama.

Statements from the Public. We have several people signed up. I’m going to do this a little bit out of order. I’d like Mr. Wurdeman to come up first because we’re dealing with this Hawaii Redevelopment Agency issue, and Mr. Wurdeman’s testimony, actually, is what triggered bringing this issue before us. So, we’ve all got Mr. Wurdeman’s testimony in front of us. Could you just briefly describe -

WURDEMAN: Okay. This is in regard to the HRA, and as some of you may recall,

several years ago, before I came into this job, there was an attempt to abolish it - Feeling was that it had served its purpose - by the Council, by resolution. I believe it was by resolution. And subsequently Mr. Ross brought to everyone’s attention that the law requires that the only way to get rid of it is by Charter change, such as Honolulu has done in regard to their Redevelopment Agency. So, we were forced to reconstitute it and it meets about every two or three months, and doesn’t really have a whole lot of business to do. And in my humble opinion, is an unneeded bit of bureaucracy and so I recommended that it be placed on the ballot so that the public can get rid of it, and get rid of it legally.

RAY: Okay, thank you. Any questions for Mr. Wurdeman? We have our Planning Director here. Since she is here, Ms. Goldstein, do you have anything to add to that?

GOLDSTEIN: Not really. I think, though, that there is a duplication and maybe overlap in jurisdiction, although it’s clear that HRA is the one that needs to grant, at this point, the approvals on the uses within the area. The Kaiko’o Plan has an end date built in, which is both July and August of this year. And given that, I’m not sure then what the ramifications would be if we had an HRA that continues on and the plan itself is no longer in effect, whether they then have to reevaluate the situation if they’re still in existence and have to then adopt a new plan or what the effect would be.

RAY: So, that might be another argument to do away with it?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes. I think our position is that it’s no longer necessary.

RAY: Okay. Any questions for Ms. Goldstein? And now, David Reed, and David, could you state your position in regard to HRA, please?

REED: Yes. David Reed, Chairman of the HRA. I would agree with the two previous speakers. We have, through Mr. Takase’s help, determined that the agency’s sunset is sunsetting in October of this year, so it is probably not going to exist by the time the election comes around. And I think that the agency members would agree that its life is coming to an end. We do have meetings once every three months, and have had a couple of special meetings, and we do see things passed on to us by Planning and Public Works as far as their considering to be our jurisdiction, as far as approval or disapproval, but certainly, yes, it could be deemed as a duplication. Any questions?

RAY: Questions?

HERKES: I have a question, David.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: As you know, we all worked with the HRA a long time ago. Maybe this is Virginia’s question, but if there were not an HRA, to whom would the downtown questions be addressed? Would the Downtown Improvement Association take those over, do you think?

REED: The Downtown Improvement District was added to the jurisdiction of the HRA. I’m not sure when that occurred. But originally, when the Downtown Improvement Plan came out, the Downtown Improvement Association was supposed to have some say as to design aspects and things like that. That never really came to fruition as far as them ever being asked. My assumption is that Planning and Building, the individual departments, would take care of their own business.

HERKES: Okay.

RAY: Okay. Sue, you’ve got a question?

IRVINE: Yes. I actually just went and looked at our Charter concerning the Hawaii Redevelopment Agency, and the only thing it says is ‘The status of the Hawaii redevelopment agency shall not be affected by this charter.’ That lends me to believe that maybe we can’t do away with it by Charter.

REED: We understood that it can be, but we understood, also, that the life of the agency was for, according to Mr. Takase, 35 years after the first building permit was issued after the ‘60 tidal wave. So, I guess it took four or five years to issue the first building permit once this whole area was cleared out and things started to develop after that. There was probably a moratorium on building for several years.

YUEN; Actually that provision has been in the Charter since 1968. There was a Hawaii Redevelopment Agency before we had a Charter. It was established under State Law that all the counties could have redevelopment agencies. At that time, there was federal money that came in and would be funneled into these redevelopment agencies. So there was this agency. They did the Kaiko’o Redevelopment largely. The Charter had that in there, probably because nobody could figure out what to do with in the Charter at the time, because it’s sort of a half-State, half-County type-agency. They had it going. They didn’t want to mess it up by putting something different in the Charter so they just left it there. After the Kaiko’o Project was done and built, there were a number of regulatory-type issues that remain. All the buildings have things that you might call like restrictive covenants. They’re not exactly restrictive covenants, but they’re controls on buildings. And the redevelopment agency retained the right to approve or deny changes like that, uses of the buildings, and so forth. And so it had that function even when it stopped having money. In the mid-80's,

there was some hope that downtown Hilo could be redeveloped and the redevelopment agency, which had not had any members for several years, was re-established, and came out with the Redevelopment Plan for the Downtown, which has some design-type criteria which, I think, are being reviewed by the redevelopment agency currently. And those functions could be transferred to the Planning Department to do as part of their permit reviews, and to the Department of Public Works as part of their permit reviews. The hope, in the mid-80's was, that there would be some redevelopment money to come in to actually do projects in the downtown but that never materialized. So, in brief, you folks will have to remind me, if we put this in the Charter, to take that part out of Article XVI, that says it shall not be effected, and the Charter can be changed to eliminate the redevelopment agency.

HERKES: So we can just take it out? Do we need to insert the other language, or can we just eliminate it?

YUEN: I’m not sure it would need to be printed in the Charter. It could be adopted as an amendment, the agency becomes abolished, and then would be just not in the Charter anymore. It’s just abolished. I’ve got to think a little bit about the best way to do that. And the other thing I want to look at is I want to talk with Gerald Takase about this sunset in ‘99 to make sure that this is necessary to abolish it. If it is the wish of the Commission to do away with it, I think we are going to need to abolish it because I think what happens in ‘99, is that it loses all its control of the Kaiko’o Redevelopment Project but would still remain in existence as a Commission with nothing much to do.

HERKES: Well, somebody’s liable to find something for it to do and that’s the concern.

IRVINE: Yes.

RAY: Any more questions for David? Thank you very much for coming in on this short notice. Virginia, do you have anything to add after that discussion?

GOLDSTEIN: No. I think the only other clarification, I think, it’s something that Chris just brought up, and that is, I guess, the way we had looked at it, the Commission itself would remain. The plan was going to have its sunset, and that’s not exactly what Gerald Takase is saying, so I think if you just look into it, that’ll be okay, however.

RAY: Okay. All right, thank you very much for coming in. Dwight Vicente.

VICENTE: Good evening. My name is Dwight Vicente. As usual, it’s under protest because of the documents dating back to the 1887 Constitution, called the Bayonet Constitution, the Proclamation of Provisional Government, the Republic Constitution of 1894, the Joint Resolution and called Treaty of Annexation of 1897, 1900 Organic Act, the State Admission Act, or the Admission Act, they call it, of 1959 where the Colony of Hawaii entered the Union. So, I would say that this so-called Commission doesn’t have any authority to write any law, nor does the State. I can see, looking over this, that by Commission, they’re trying to usurp power to do things. Oh, there’s one thing I notice here. It’s the Article V, Section 5-1.2, Qualification. ‘Any citizen of the United States of America who has been duly qualified as an elector of the County for at least one year’. Well, most of the jury duty, all these things are based on U.S. citizenship, but they come in conflict with the Public Law 103-150, where it says that ‘those of Hawaiian descent are not U.S. citizens’, so I have a big problem with that. I don’t know what Americans are doing running the show here, but I think they’re in the wrong country. There’s only 13 United States. They haven’t gained any more legally. Under Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1, ‘new states may be admitted into the Union’ and you’ve got to be recognized as a state, according to the definition in the Declaration of Independence. You have to be able to wage war, conclude peace, sign treaties, and do all the things that nation states does. Here’s another Commission that usurps power, that comes into conflict with the U.S. Constitution. It’s Article VII, Chapter 2, Police Department. The Police Commission is actually created by 52(d) in the HRS. Being that the police force is, in fact, the military force, it’s dangerous. They were opposed to that when King George did it in the colonies, and that’s why they condemned that in the Declaration of Independence. And if you look at the U.S. Constitution, all military powers rest with Congress under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 11-18.

RAY: Dwight, I think we’ve got all this on the record. I believe this is pretty much the same argument you’ve already made, which has been duly recorded before this body.

VICENTE: Well, I want to make sure I’m consistent and make sure you guys get the message.

RAY: Okay, I think we got the message. Any questions for Dwight? Okay, thank you.

VICENTE: All right, thank you.

RAY: Patrick and Harold.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Charter Commission. My name is Patrick Kahawaiola’a. I’m a Native Hawaiian as defined under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. I am here, this evening, per instructions our last appearance here, wherein the language, as we were asked, and it was suggested that we write, or submit to this body, the language that we believe would be appropriate for what we came forward the last time. And I hope I had made enough copies so that all of you at least received a copy of what we believe the language should be incorporated into your County Charter, that would deal specifically with our concerns, and how your Charter, as it stands right now, as far as we’re concerned, does not address the problems that we, as Native Hawaiians, are having in dealing specifically, not in general, but specifically with the County of Hawaii. And we believe your County Charter is, as described within it’s covers, the laws that govern how you operate as a local self-government. I would, as an example, before I end my part of this summation, is that within your Charter and your proposed recommendations, you have a section that is dealing with the Planning Department and, I would assume, new language that is underscored is what you want to include, ‘the powers of the Planning Director with respect to subdivisions, zoning enforcement, variances or permits under the Zoning Code may be transferred to, or shared, with the Department of Public Works if so prescribed by ordinance’. And I would assume that ordinance would have to deal with the County Council having to come up with some kind of a legislative deal to so incorporate that, and then taken to the voters. However, the problem that I have with that, because I’ve made my fact known to the County Council, would be if we dealt with the Planning Department in by itself and the zoning, it is clear - it’s an undisputed fact, that this County, without the jurisdiction, and I’m only basing on the Planning, has no jurisdiction to re-zone our land. So, if you’re writing in your Charter that says this here’s going to effect everything else, that’s why our language, we believe, is appropriate, that because it’s an Attorney General Opinion back in ‘69 that made it clear to this county - in fact it was filed in this county and the decision was rendered in 72-21, that made it clear that this county does not have the right to re-zone Hawaiian home lands. So, if we were just to take that on its face, then this language would be everything except it wouldn’t deal with Hawaiian home lands, thereby our reasons for submitting this type of language. And if there’s anybody sitting on this County Charter that believes that the zoning laws apply, obviously it’s not because it’s there, and Virginia could attest to that. However, that is not why I’m here. I just happened to look

at one of these, and within here was an example I thought I could be able to use to express to the members of this Commission that that’s why we believe the language that we submitted, or asked to submit, is consistent with what you’re trying to do and accomplish within your Charter. You’re trying to go through here, shift things around, and make it proper, and giving authority to other people. And in this case, I believe I read it just to say you’re giving authority not only to the - as long as ordinances is passed, that shared a transfer to the Department of Public Works. It sends a message to the Native Hawaiians that if it stands as it is, maybe Public Works now can come on our property and tell us what to do, which we believe is inconsistent and can’t be done based on these Opinions that have been there. So, that’s basically why I’m here, and again, I thank the Vice-Chairman and members of this committee, for allowing us at least come up with some language, a dialogue, that we can come forward and present to you, and I hope that my example I tried to show you was just to make some clarification in the body’s mind that this is where the Native Hawaiians have a problem. Among other things, but this was a clear example of trying to show a discrepancy so again, thank you very much.

RAY: Thank you. Mr. Jim, you’ve got something to add?

JIM: I’d just like to add a little. One of the things that Pat didn’t mention, and I’d like to address. First of all, the Hawaii Constitution, Article 12, which is the Hawaiian Affairs, it’s in your Constitution and it’s mandated by this Commissioners, or County Officers, or everyone, the State Officers, that they have to follow because it’s the law of the State. The problem that we had in the past, and probably in the future, is that when it comes up to changing the Charter, the problem we find they never include, or exclude, Article 12, Native Hawaiian Affairs. It is clear, by the Supreme Court decision, Cayetano vs. Rice, that the Native Hawaiians, by Statutes in the Constitution of Article 12, we are special class of Native Hawaiians, distinctly separate from the body political. In Article 1 and Article 8 of the Constitution, which is the county, local government, does not apply to Article 12. It’s not withstanding. It’s clearly identified by the Rice case, and the Ninth Circuit as well. Our position is that those facts has been there all the time, but it takes a Supreme Court to make it aware. Our position is very simple. We’d like this body here to address the issue of Hawaiian Affairs in your Charter. You’re in or you’re out. And it’s clearly identified – we’re separate, identified by your County Council. This last week your Corporate Counsel, clearly on television, letting everyone know for the first time they don’t have jurisdiction over Hawaiian home lands. That’s the Wal-Mart sewer system. So, our position is - it’s very simply we come before this body as Native Hawaiians. Please, we would like you to address the issue in your Charter to be clear. The law is clear. All you have to do is read Article 12. It clearly tells you. If you want a copy of the Supreme Court decision, we have the transcripts. Your attorney can get that. Clearly identifies we are a special class. We are separate, and the County have no jurisdiction and the State have no jurisdiction. It clearly made it cases that the Commissioners operate and manage Hawaiian home lands. And going over your Charter program, reading it, I find it never include Hawaiian home lands. It is the law of this State. Article 12 clearly tells you that you adopted it. Please don’t leave us out. Thank you.

RAY: Questions for either Pat or Mr. Jim? George.

MARTIN: For both gentlemen, actually. But in general, what you’re asking us, I see no problem with as long as the body can come with grips to what you’re saying. Again, a point of clarification. All we would do is put it on a ballot, and the people would then vote on it. Now, I do have a question in regards to if it were to pass, what happens to police and fire protection? What is your concept on that?

JIM: Well, our concept is very clear, that your State - I call it police powers, your body legislation, they have the rights under the Constitution, Article 12, in Section 1, to amend the Act. It is clear that identification, that the County, like I mentioned the last time, in Section 220, has authority within Hawaiian homes. Right now, it’s to maintain the roads. It’s in your Constitution, Article 12. They have the powers. That’s all. Nothing more, because they’re forbidden, under a Section they call 206, it has to be within the Act before they can perform. It has to be part of a provision before anybody can perform. Your courts, in Article 17 of 217 in the Hawaiian Home Commission Act, his limit - the law clearly identifies that he has to have the powers from the Commissioners and his powers only - you can look at the provision - is only for contempt of court, nothing more. He don’t make no decisions. He goes over the order. Your answer is just like I try to describe. You’ve got to get to the body legislation with the Department of Hawaiian Homes, as well as the Native Hawaiians in the community, to go through it and to amend the Act as such, that need for the benefit, or even the safety, welfare, of the police powers which we well know about, could be added. But right now, we find it is unlawful and they’re committing fraud and conspiracy. We are taking people to court. Police Powers. Right now, I just talked to Wurdeman. We have gone to court. I’d like to tell you one of the most powerful case that we’re going to use. We have the right to go back to the Ninth Circuit or the United States District Court in Hans vs. the Department of Justice, that is Aupuni ‘O Hawaii, the group I represent called Uhane Hemolele. We were the plaintiffs and we went in there and they came out and says if they continue third party issues, then they’re liable. We can come back in. And they have constantly done that. And the reason they don’t address the Constitution and the law that they uphold, and to follow, there is a preempt law. In other words, there is a federal jurisdiction to hear the case in case of any violation, and I believe that this body can resolve a lot of pilikia between parties. That means problems within the people; misunderstandings. And they are slowly opening up, the County Council realizing the (indiscernible) jurisdiction. We will be going to the Police Commissioners. We’ve very disappointed with them. I’m taxpayers. We pay money for people that do things wrong.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: And may I, Mr. Martin, just because I’m in this example mood, based on your question, is the fact what we’re saying is they wanted, and this is the State of Hawaii along with the Native Hawaiians, wanted to amend the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, as you all know - if you didn’t now, you need to be 50% blood. When they wanted the successor to be 25% of blood, they went and had it amended, and Congress approved it, and that is now the law that says your successor does not have to be 50%. But the process was taken to amend it. So, by example, that is what’s available. There is a process out there to do it, and your question, again, is if you need the fire protection, you already have the ability to go in and maintain the road, and trust me, this county’s getting paid for doing it. There’s a section in the Act that says that what you do, so you can do in there, within that section, because that section clearly says if you need, you go inside to the legislature and you get your funds. We don’t know. The process might be a record keeping something. It might be inclusion. I really don’t know, but there is a process. What has been left out is we’re left out of the process. And people say they assume that they can continue to do it because we’ve doing it. That’s what the Native Hawaiians hear. We can go on your land and do what we do because we’ve been doing it. We can go here and do this, and make the sewers, because we’ve been doing it. Well, that was the big controversy within this county in the last week, the County Council. Why do we have the right to go on the land without having the land dedicated, without having the right to get on there? Perpetual easement. And they’re not getting it but they’re saying it’s all right, after saying no, we don’t have the jurisdiction, the Corporate Counsel said, but we’ve been doing it so we can continue. That’s an assumption until someone challenges it. For 20 years they let only Hawaiians vote for OHA until somebody said hey, wait, maybe I’m being left out of the pie. And when he challenged it, it was challenged and found 20 years they were doing it wrong. So, I’m just trying to express to you, by example, that by virtue of language, they say we’ve been doing it and it’s all right. And we’ve come forward to say we do not believe that. We believe there’s a process and the right way to do it, and do it the right way.

JIM: We’re not against the police powers. We’re not against police powers over Hawaiian home lands. We believe that’s safety for public. What we find what is wrong is that there are some things being abused and some are not, so you need to balance. But, that’s not the issue with us. Our issue is the law, and you need to follow your law, and that’s where it’s at. And there’s process to balance it. You’re going to get your up and down, but there’s process to balance it. It just takes time. I know it’s very odd when you find Native Hawaiians like us coming up before you, and we only ask you that - in the past that I’ve seen and heard, they ignore their law, the Constitution, Article 12. They just ignore it and just do what they want to do. And we took process five years ago, and take lawsuits. Now we’re prepared to go and fight, and now we will fight unless somebody change it. And this body, I believe, is the right step to start it off. Thank you. Any other questions?

RAY: Questions? Daryl.

KUROZAWA: I just want to have a clarification, actually. In the recommendation you have for changes, for incorporation, is it - I know that the incorporation portion, you seem to basically exclude Native Hawaiians from incorporation. I may understand this actually, but is it your feeling that the Charter shouldn’t apply to Native Hawaiians? Is that what the wording means?

JIM: Read Cayetano’s transcript. Read everything. We are special class, separate. Your Constitution does that.

KUROZAWA: Okay, then I understand that. Then my next question to you is do you think that, if this is put into the Charter, would there be a problem with Native Hawaiians saying well, I’m not going to follow what the county says in the Charter because it doesn’t apply to them?

JIM: Your Corporation Counsel clearly says that. That’s a problem, okay? And I’d like to address that so maybe you’d have a clear ground rules with our thinking. All of us, we need to find a process to allow some kind of regulations upon Hawaiian homes that be equal to the public. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian Home Commission Act was brought from the territory over, total restrictions. They made a lot of restrictions. And we are not the people. You and us can make it so the way it’s supposed to be. That’s simple as that. There is Constitution Amendments to do it and the Admission Act, Section 4, allows it. Your Constitution allows it. We just got to get together to work it. It’s simple. It is because when it was mandated, they made certain laws. Trust me, you’re going to have the people that don’t like the idea, and you’re going to have that like the idea. And that’s the problem you’re having. I’m one of them. I’m old. I’m 68 years old, and I’m going to die a Hawaiian. With respect to what I’m doing, but I believe that dying and knowing that there’s no balance is not right. That’s where I come from. That’s why I’m here. It’s not right.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: And Mr. Kurozawa, may I address that, and this is my own personal experience, not as President of Keaukaha Community Association. I’m not here speaking as them today, but I give you my relationship as that - is that the confusion among the Native Hawaiians is I’ve got the Native Hawaiians now calling the police, saying my neighbor kids are drinking underage in the yard, boom boxes going all night. That’s one Hawaiian who said policeman come. The policeman gets there and they go to that house, and the person in that house says hey, wait, all the kids are on my property. This is Hawaiian home lands. And the policeman jumps back and say well, oh, yeah, it’s a private party. Because I inquired as the President of the Community Association; hey, what’s the problem? Boom boxes, 3 o’clock in the morning. We don’t know or we do know. Can we go, or we no can go? It’s a private party or is the law being broken? Is it unlawful underage drinking? What is the problem? You see, that’s where we get the confusion. So, I believe, to answer your question, will they want it? I guess some will, some won’t. As Mr. Jim said, I do believe the process should be put there because there are still people who believe full heartedly in America, and we’ve been assimilated into the society, and whatever. I thought that way for several years because I volunteered to join the military, served in Viet Nam, and did what I needed to do. However, I’m like Mr. Jim. I decided I’m going to die one Hawaiian. They made me a Hawaiian. They made me a citizen of the United States in 1952. Everybody born in the State of Hawaii, in the islands, the Hawaiians were of a different class. We were not citizens born just because we were part of a territory. But I had to do the research to find out that the process was that in ‘52, the United States made me a citizen, whether I liked it or not. So I decided I’m not going to vote here. I’m going to be this Hawaiian but I fought in 1963 to 1969 for America. See, so, that was my impressionable age, 17 to 20 something, so I did that. So to answer your question, I would believe if it’s put in there, there might be some that don’t want it, and you’re getting that right now. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You say will the people say, hey, I want Hawaiian - they’re doing it right now by saying well, I don’t know if you can. And the response that we’re getting, as a community leader, I’m having the problem of trying to mitigate two Native Hawaiians within the community. Well sister, you’re wrong and she’s right. She’s right and you’re wrong. Where’s the law that tells us how we can do it? That’s why we’re coming before this body, to find out. Because I believe there is a body who’s supposed to be taking care of it. We think we addressed it. We told you it was the Hawaiian Home Commission that’s got the power. Your Corporation Counsel said this – Because this county is non-administrators of the Act, you’re restricted by Constitution, you’re restricted by language in your Constitution, that the burden should be on the people who is supposed to be running it. Right now, for lack of a better word - please don’t get offended - This county, this body, and everything in this county is being used as a donkey for someone else to say you guys, you carry the burden for us. You know, we’re just going to look the other way, or we’re going to assume that something going on. So, I think when you’re saying whether they like it, when it’s in or not, it’s not there now and the people are telling you, hey, I’m this Hawaiian and you’re not supposed to come on my land. What is the difficult part is that individual who’s out there, trying to protect life, liberty, pursuit. The people are saying well, gee, I’m wondering if I can. I don’t know. And I’m quite sure all of you know that it’s happening. So that’s what we need. We’d like to have continuity too. No one’s included, or excluded, us and we’d like to have continuity too. And we believe there’s a body out there to help do the work, and I think this body should, at least, maybe if we could, work to find out how we can resolve it. And that’s why I thank this body again, to the Vice Chair, for allowing us to at least submit something. This is the first time we’ve ever been allowed to do something. We were just shined off before as some erratics and sent out the door.

JIM: Let me give you an example so I can answer your question. It will help this body that they can make a great future for the newer generation. I’m very disturbed when a policeman come in there and cannot enforce because it’s the next neighbor that face the consequences. Unfortunately, you get group like us going to sue the policemans and all of that. It’s because of the fraud and conspiracy of a crime, and maybe that’s the only way the State will take action to do something. And we found in the future, when we raised the question in the court, they hear. We even have the Interior right now, and the Attorney General made tremendous investigations. The Hans case one, we had a whole year investigation before we filed the lawsuit, and we sued the Federal Government for not fulfilling that investigation. We have right now, (indiscernible) your County Council, and Wal-Mart is right ongoing now, and we’re prepared to take a lawsuit again. It’s unnecessary. The reason we’re doing it is to bring it out so when it gets out, it has to be taken care of. It’s not to be put on the shelf on the bottom, and don’t even include, or exclude, the Hawaiian Affairs. With respect to what I’m going to say, you’re fathers to us. Read the Constitution. You are the people that’s supposed to take care of us. Read the Constitution. That’s what it is. You are.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: The Constitution is clear. The State and its people will uphold the Hawaiian race. I mean, that’s as clear as it can get. I don’t know who I am if you guys don’t believe I’m a Hawaiian race.

JIM: I’m very disappointed in what you guys are doing, and that’s why I’m taking steps to make sure you do it. And it’s not respect to individuals. There’s other people abusing it, and taking advantages of this State. You need to bring it out. Once you bring it out you’ll take steps, like the third party; Wal-Mart, the sewer. We have the key to open that door to get into the courtroom and take action.

HIGASHI: Mr. Jim.

JIM: Yes.

HIGASHI: Excuse my ignorance, but Article 12, is that the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act?

JIM: Hawaiian Affairs, yes, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7.

HIGASHI: Only deals with Hawaiian homes land.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: It deals with everything that’s Hawaiian in that Section of the Constitution, Article 12.

HIGASHI: Are we talking about only Hawaiian homes land in reference to the Charter?

JIM: I’m going to change the language. It’s clearly identified by the Supreme Court. There are Statutes in there which is the Hawaiian Affairs. The first paragraph. I have it here but I can give it out - in Hawaiian Affairs. It says nothing in this Constitution withstanding Hawaiian Home Commission Act of the class of a Native Hawaiian. It’s a Statute right now. It’s racial. It’s no doubt that courts out there saying that. And you and the State and it’s people, in Section 2 of that, the people that take care of us and the management of that. And there’s a definitive in that.

HIGASHI: Wait, you’re confusing me. You’re confusing me. Is Article 12, that you have written in your proposal -

JIM: Yes, it’s Hawaiian Affairs.

HIGASHI: There’s a difference between Hawaiian Affairs and Hawaiian Homes Commission and -

JIM: No, that’s the title.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: That’s the title of Article 12.

HIGASHI: Okay. 5(f) lands and stuff like that?

KAHAWAIOLA’A: It deals with everything that’s Hawaiian Affairs. You will not find it nowhere else.

JIM: Nowhere else.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: They’ve incorporated it. It used to be Article 11. When they made the ‘78 Constitutional Convention, they moved everything into the Hawaiian Affairs, Article 12, at the ConCon of ‘78. Not private land, it doesn’t talk about what can be done. All the volumes in Article 12 deals with Hawaiian Affairs, the Admissions Act, all those types of Statutes that deal with Hawaiian Affairs.

JIM: Article 12, Section 2 – it’s a compact that the State and its people, which you are, to uphold the Hawaiian Home Commission Act. It’s as simple as that.

HIGASHI: So, we’re not talking about a Hawaiian who owns his own land, has his own destiny/control.

JIM: It’s all in one.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: Yes, I understand what you’re saying. And maybe you can correct me. Are you saying if a Hawaiian owns something in Kaumana, that this language was impact on that up in Kaumana. I don’t think so. I think it’s clear in the geographical locations. My point being, the geographical locations as described in here, says ‘limits the Island of Hawaii and all the lands within the’. Well unfortunately, the map should say, and I think somebody gave me a graphic illustration once, that the map of the Island of Hawaii should be there with a lot of holes. The holes are those pockets that were identified as Hawaiian home lands, and that jurisdiction, I think, still is not questionable, but it is unquestionable that this county does not have the - And that’s, please, not Kahawaiola’a who said that. It’s the Corporation Counsel of your -

JIM: Matsukawa made clear findings on it. Very, very clear, your County Council, under Lorraine, and Mr. Wurdeman made it very clear on his Opinion. He used -

HIGASHI: For us, it’s got to be Mr. Yuen, has got to make it very clear to us.

JIM: Okay, yes.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: And, obviously, he knows those individuals.

HIGASHI: Somebody needs to do the research. Well anyway, I was just concerned, Patrick, that if somebody outside owns and, and he says I’m Native Hawaiian, so you cannot -

KAHAWAIOLA’A: Yes, I understand. That’s why I said I needed to make it clear what you meant. No, because I think this language only talks about except on the lands of Hawaiian homes.

JIM: Article 1-2 is -

KAHAWAIOLA’A: Only the lands.

RAY: Marni, you had a question?

HERKES: I suppose I would ask Mr. Yuen to ask Mr. Soon of Hawaiian Homes Commission, Department of DHHL, if this is something they want. They control that land. That is under their jurisdiction. I’m not sure that I feel comfortable with exempting parts of land from the County Charter, parts of the island. But if we had a political body that would take responsibility for it, that’s probably a different story. So that’s just what I have to say.

RAY: That’s one possible tact. So, any other questions for these gentlemen? You’ve given us a lot to think about.

JIM: Thank you.

KAHAWAIOLA’A: Thank you very much.

RAY: And I appreciate you coming up with these concrete -

KAHAWAIOLA’A: Mahalo.

RAY: Okay, that concludes our public testimony, so moving along the agenda, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 sets of minutes to approve. We’ve got to do these separately so, Minutes of March 8th, 2000. Do I have a motion to approve?

HERKES: So moved.

RAY: Second?

IRVINE: Second.

RAY: Okay, discussion? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: March 11th minutes. Motion to approve.

IRVINE: I move.

RAY: Second?

HIGASHI: Second.

RAY: Discussion? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: March 18th, 2000.

MARTIN: Move to accept.

HERKES: Second.

RAY: All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: March 25th, 2000.

MARTIN: Again, move to accept.

HERKES: Second.

RAY: Okay, discussion? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: April 1st were just distributed so we’ll deal with those on the 29th.

Financial Status Report. We’ve got a combined report now, so the total balance, $75,779.89. That’s as of 2/29, so it’s a month and a half ago. That reflects a balance out of the total $130,000 appropriation.

HERKES: What are we going to spend that on? Do we have a budget for the rest of the money? Do we have a budget that we’re following?

RAY: We do not.

HERKES: I’d suggest we get one.

RAY: Well, I think it hasn’t been determined the length of the process, including the staff required to deal with that process, administratively and legally, to give us an idea of where we’re going. I’m not sure. We’ve talked about wrapping things up but I really don’t have a sense of how much, especially legal counsel, is involved in terms of - I mean we could create an awful lot of work for Mr. Yuen, depending on how we handle the rest of the discussion and dealing with these amendments. So, that’s the best answer I can give right now. And then I guess where we could, and probably should, devote more of a budget is in regard to the process for printing and educating -

HERKES: That’s where I was heading. That’s what I would suggest.

RAY: Sharron Henry has done some initial research and gotten some costs together. We could follow up on that. Roland.

HIGASHI: I was going to the point of that. We should get the sample of what they did last year and if we did any advertising, in trying to publicize what was in the Charter, we should get samples of that. At least we’d have some idea what was done in the past, and then price that out.

HERKES: I think that ten years ago, we didn’t have webs. We didn’t have e-mails. We didn’t have the Na Leo. We didn’t have a bunch of things that we have now, so in that context, there’s probably not going to be a lot that’s relevant.

RAY: Well, I don’t know if that’s true. My sense is we’re still going to be beholden to paper and postage, and have to send out physical material and notices, and I don’t think we can rely on - I mean, we can enhance our effort with all those other mediums, but I still think we’re going to have to print up the brochures, mail them out, pay for a certain amount of advertising as well.

HERKES: We might want to look at a budget for what we’re going to do.

YUEN: If I could just make a suggestion. I think we’ll want to run a newspaper ad in the Tribune-Herald, the West Hawaii Today. It will probably be a full page which will be the digest, or summary, of all the Charter proposals. I think it probably can be done in a page. It might require a double truck, but most likely it would be a page. We could also price out the mailing to all registered voters. The digest itself, or the pamphlet itself, is not that expensive. Would probably be a couple of thousand if it’s professionally done. And if it’s amateurly done, it can be done basically for free. So if we could get that, then we’d know, kind of, the minimum. And those would be the big ticket items. And then we would decide if we wanted to run the newspaper ad. We could run it once or we could run it twice probably.

HERKES: We just need to start looking at what the costs are and put something down on paper.

RAY: Sharron has done that.

HERKES: Good. We just haven’t seen it.

RAY: Right.

HERKES: Okay.

KUROZAWA: John, just one thing. Actually, if we’re getting prices for paper, you know there’s a free mailer, the West Side Weekly, that comes to the P. O. box. It’s through West Hawaii Today. It’s basically a mailing that goes to every P. O. box, as far as I understand, which may get to more people. A lot of people don’t buy the paper and read it. And I don’t know if the Hilo side has something like that. It comes once a week and has all the flyers in it.

RAY: We’ll start looking into that and figure out what all the options are, and then discuss it.

Item No. 6, Communications. In our packets today is a variety of correspondence, testimony on specific Charter recommendations. There’s a summary put together by Sharron Henry in regard to public hearing input. There’s the Hawaii Redevelopment Agency documents, or testimony from Mr. Wurdeman, and then a letter, or testimony, from the Hawaii Portuguese Chamber of Commerce on the Charter Amendments.

Unfinished Business, General Review of the Charter. I’m not sure how to go about this. What I did, and I know some of you have done this in part, or in total, and we’ve got this information from Sharron - all I did in preparation for pulling all of this together was just to make a handwritten list of everything I could think of to write down that had come up, either in testimony or things that maybe we had discussed, or maybe things I had thought of, and I could -

IRVINE: Should we go by number, our nineteen numbers?

RAY: Yes, otherwise we’re not going to be able to keep any semblance of order here.

IRVINE: That’s the way I did it, so I guess it would be easier, but I have, kind of, an overall comment having done, sort of, what you did. I just tried to take in everything that’s been said to us. I did try to apply it to the 19 areas we’re looking at, and then ‘other’, and some people did talk to us about overall philosophy – what were we trying to do. And I thought it was good to think about that because I’ve, sort of, come to the conclusion that I’ve put in an awful lot of time on this, and we’ve come up with a lot of ideas, but unless they’re really going to change something significantly, I don’t think we should clutter up our ballot for the voters, because I think it’s going to get confusing, and just plain turn people off if we have anything that’s more than necessary on the ballot.

RAY: So, do you want to go through your list? How about if I go through -

HERKES: How about if you just start at 1 and ask for comments?

IRVINE: Start at number 1 and let’s see.

RAY: Yes, why don’t we do that. Okay. Good idea. And then we’ll do ‘others’ after we go through the 19.

So, on non-partisan elections. In my mind, the comments have been generally favorable, generally in support of, and generally non-controversial in terms of people being able to understand and then relate to this issue.

IRVINE: I guess I’d have to differ with that somewhat. I mean, obviously, the Green Party is violently opposed to this because they feel that it is destroying the attempts of third parties to get started. I was interested in what Roger Evans, Republican, said up in Volcano, and that was that if it’s truly non-partisan, we’d have to outlaw parties from contributing to these people because otherwise, the one party in our State which has been in power for many years, would finance the two top candidates that would be on the ballot. I wondered if Chris had any comment. Is it possible to say a party cannot give money, or something, to a candidate?

RAY: I would just look to the fact that close to 80% of all municipal governments in the whole United States are non-partisan. Every other jurisdiction in the State has voted non-partisan elections, so I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial issue. I couldn’t even understand what Roger was talking about.

IRVINE: You didn’t understand what he - He said that if parties can give to candidates, then the one party that runs our State - he is a Republican. I think he always runs as a Republican - will provide money to two of their members to be the top candidates in the General Election, and I don’t know whether other jurisdictions have, or whether it’s even legal or anything, to say -

RAY: Well, it’s not. The amount of money that the parties can give is limited.

IRVINE: Okay.

RAY: And that was upheld in the last Governor’s election, if you’ll recall, when the Lingle campaign was talking about bringing in outside party money, so I don’t think there’s a way that the party can overly influence in terms of their contributions. It’s my understanding that the Republican Party can only give the same limits as the individual. Isn’t that right, Roland?

HIGASHI: Right.

IRVINE: Okay.

HIGASHI: Well, I’m not sure, but as a practical matter, on the County elections, the parties don’t give monies to the candidates. They support them in other ways, rallies and stuff like that. But if it’s a non-partisan, they still can belong to a party but run as a non-partisan. They don’t have a label. But, as far as giving money, it’s not a common thing, that they give money to candidates.

YUEN: If I could just make, along the same lines, one more comment. If there’s more than one Democrat running, I don’t know how the Democratic Party would decide which person to give the money to in the first go around, which is the -

HERKES: They would give to neither. They wouldn’t do it.

MARTIN: They wouldn’t.

HIGASHI: They don’t.

HERKES: They don’t.

MARTIN: And in the past, what transpired is the Primary Election. The winner comes out and that’s when the Party, in fact, goes behind and supports them 100%. As Roland indicated, though, on the County level, there’s no monetary gratuities. Again, the fear factor that the Green Party has, and what we’ve heard from the individual in Volcano, is that they’re going to lose some identity. And I don’t see that happening. As a Democrat myself, you run on your ability to do the job. And actually to me, being non-partisan, it cuts ties from, per se, the ‘ old boy network’, if you will. So, the hysteria that we’ve heard from the Green Party and this one individual Republican is just that, hysteria. They’re going to lose their identity and possibly the ability to do what they’ve done in the past. Yes, I see that possibly happening. There may be some validity to what the Green Party is saying, but if they are that good, it should enhance them, and not deter them.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: I’d like to get back to what Sue said about policy setting. If we are, in truth, trying to attract more people to run for office, trying to open up the system, this is not rocket science. It’s not something that we’re blazing a trail because 80% of the jurisdictions have non-partisan. All of the counties in the state have non-partisan. There’s a reason for that and that’s because it has been proven to open up elections, to be able to have people that don’t have ties to political parties run for elections. So, I’d like to put my oar in the water in favor of non-partisan in spite of the fact that I’m going to get in trouble for it.

RAY: Well, we’re not taking any votes tonight.

MARTIN: I think we should have some sort of a straw vote to see if we want to leave it here or not. Is it going to take to the next meeting to decide if we’re going to leave something, or begin to consider hacking away and getting rid of it? I mean, when are we going to do that, if that’s what you’re looking to do? No time like the present.

KUROZAWA: But John, I think your idea’s a good one. If we can go through each one, talk about it, give our input, and then decide whether we’re going to, because some of these will drop out probably, and some will stay.

RAY: Yes, there’re only 7 people here tonight, so unless there’s some huge shift in -

HERKES: We are the 7.

MARTIN: Yes, I was going to discuss that too. At some point in time, do you expect everybody to show up?

IRVINE: Maybe 9.

YUEN: Let me make a suggestion, and this is really out of the spirit of fairness to everybody on the Commission and also out of spirit of fairness to getting proposals passed that a majority of the Commission may be in favor of. I would suggest that, at some point soon, the final up or down vote be scheduled on all the amendments, and that the announcement of the meeting go out to all the Commission members that this is going to be it. And the reason is that you are going to need, as we discussed before, 6 votes in favor of a measure for it to go on the ballot, and if you take a vote tonight on something, for example, and it turns out 5 to 2 in favor, I don’t think it’s really fair to say well, we killed it, at that point. But if you have a meeting that everybody has had ample forewarning of, rather than just continually voting on things meeting after meeting and hoping that enough people show up to pass it, the fair thing to do is to let everybody know that if they care about getting something on the ballot that they better show up for a particular meeting, and if the votes are not there then it doesn’t pass.

MARTIN: Question, Mr. Chair. In that venue, as what Chris just indicated, and this is purely hypothetical, but is it possible to get a proxy vote from another Commissioner?

YUEN: No.

HERKES: I’m going to give you proxy votes if you do it on the 29th. I’m going to give you a lot of trouble too.

MARTIN: No. The answer’s no.

YUEN: No.

MARTIN: Okay.

RAY: We have a meeting scheduled April 29th.

MARTIN: I’ll be on the mainland, but that’s okay, no problem. Take all the votes you want.

HERKES: I’ll be on the mainland too, but it’s not okay.

RAY: Wait. And then our next regular meeting would be May 10th. My suggestion is we set May 10th, that we have a good work day on the 29th in Waimea, because there’s also a bunch of new stuff that we need to discuss that may, or may not, go forward. And then try to schedule a vote on the 10th and let people know right away to make every effort to be here.

HERKES: Good suggestion.

MARTIN: Well, I won’t be here. I’m still on the mainland, and I’d like to attend, but that’s all right.

RAY: Are you going to be on the 29th?

MARTIN: No. I leave on the 29th for a two-week venue.

HERKES: Let’s go back. Can somebody like George write us a letter saying I’m for this?

YUEN: No.

HERKES: No? Okay, Chris.

YUEN: No, you must vote at a meeting.

IRVINE: I guess I was wondering too. We have two members that haven’t been here for several months. Do they still have the right to come and vote on things that they haven’t -

YUEN: Yes, they do.

IRVINE: Okay.

RAY: Anything else on non-partisan elections? Okay, number 2.

HIGASHI: Mr. Chair.

RAY: Yes sir.

HIGASHI: On the 29th, we’re going to have a meeting, and on the 10th, we’re going to vote. Can we postpone this to, maybe, the 29th?

RAY: I’d rather not.

HIGASHI: So, we’re going to grind it till 8 o’clock, whatever?

RAY: No. Let’s just go through this. I don’t think it’s going to take this long. You know, Roland, a lot of people haven’t been at public hearings. They’ve missed a lot of input, so I’d like to, kind of, share that and get a sense of how people are feeling based on public input. So, let’s try to go through this quickly.

The at-large seats. We’ve received a lot of testimony on this and so does anybody have anything? I’ve got a couple of comments on this.

HERKES: I was surprised at the testimony against it. As you know, I voted for it and I was very much in favor of it because I want to vote for four people rather than just one, but it was so overwhelming. And I think a lot of it has to do with our elected officials using their lack of power and blaming other people, and so they blame other people so that makes it more difficult for government to function. You know how West Hawaii loves to blame East Hawaii for all their ills. And it’s too bad but I’m ready to give up on it if it’s going to be a deal breaker. And that’s where I’m worried about it.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I think Marni’s quite perceptive. People were definitely calling it a total deal breaker. I think Bill Graham described it well as a ‘bad apple’. Others were less polite about it. But Peter Martin, from Kona, did -

HERKES: Threaten.

IRVINE: Okay. I read his written stuff. West Hawaii voters are a minority of county voters, and are projected to remain so for the next ten years and more. He was looking at the Hawaii State Department of Business and Economic growth. By 2010, East Hawaii is projected to have a 119,000 residents, while West Hawaii will only have 86,000, not all of whom will be registered to vote in this state. So, he was, more or less, saying that West Hawaii would not be that well represented under this, and I think he has a point.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: In fairness, I’d like to think that what we’ve come up with, to this point, are valid ideas and possibly could be sent out to the public as such, but when the individuals in Kona said you take this out or we’re not voting for anything you come up with. In my opinion, be a man about it. If you don’t like that one issue, fine, but to categorize everything that we’ve done to date and say it’s all bad because of this one thing, I’ve got a real problem with that. As far as this issue goes, whatever the body decides it wants to do with it, I go along with that.

RAY: Okay. Daryl, you had a comment?

KUROZAWA: Yes. Unlike Marni’s perception, I, kind of, had a strong feeling that we’d have a lot of opposition on this, and there’s no question, at least from the West side and Kona side, that there is a suspicion that if you have just at-large seats that everybody’s going to come from Hilo. And so that’s why I think a lot of the opposition. And the one statement that came out, that may have been a middle ground, was to have the three at-large people from the Senatorial Districts so it’s geographic. So, just to toss it out. We, kind of, talked a little bit about that in Waimea months ago, and I think if that were to happen, there might be some support. There’s no question that if it’s just at-large three, there’s going to be very little support, probably, for it, at least on the West side.

RAY: Other comments? Okay. I don’t think we ought to overreact to the total deal killer type thing because I don’t really think people, because of one item, are going to vote against the whole package necessarily. But I do think that this is such a divisive issue that it’s just going to have a negative effect on the whole island. The reality is every mayoral candidate is from East Hawaii. I think West Hawaii is definitely going to look at this as a power play, or a power grab, by East Hawaii. I think that’s the way it’s going to be perceived by a lot of people. But, most importantly, I think this is giving one of the parties, the Green Party, just some incredible tools to divide and conquer. If I were the Green Party, I’d want to have this one there. It’s a great campaign tool. So anyway, I think we ought to really think this through also in terms of does it have a chance of passing. I don’t think it does.

HIGASHI: I think we should just vote what we think is right, rather than trying to philosophize what’s going to happen to this, and, kind of, move on.

RAY: Okay, but I think a strong majority believe in four-year terms, and we’re not going to put that out because we don’t think that makes sense based on how things have been voted. And in regard to this issue, most people have got it so set in their mind, and are confused on this, that we’re going back to the old at-large system. They won’t acknowledge that we’re not, that this is very much different. It’s an in-between type system. But I just think that’s the way people are viewing it.

MARTIN: Perception, sure.

HERKES: John, I just want to point out to Daryl the fact that you pointed out to me, that if we do Senatorial Districts, all three of our Senators live in Hilo.

IRVINE: That’s true too.

RAY: Yes, I think people would catch on to that one pretty quickly.

MARTIN: I’m sure they would present it in that light, but the fact remains that the Senatorial Districts go right around the island. They could come from anywhere. It just so happens that they all live in Hilo.

HERKES: That’s right.

RAY: Just like the at-large seats could come from anywhere.

MARTIN: Exactly. They could all come from Kona.

IRVINE: On the other hand, John, if we’re going to do this, there was that subsequent issue that we hadn’t settled about whether we should be staggered with the Mayor’s election, and I think we probably shouldn’t.

HERKES: Now that’s a discussion I don’t think we need to have tonight.

IRVINE: Okay.

HERKES: Because that goes on and on and on.

RAY: Yes, but a discussion that is pertinent is if we don’t do this, then we won’t have this conflict with the Council Districts which would be a lot cleaner way to deal with that.

Anyway, number 3, County Managing Director.

HERKES: In spite of the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, I’m very much in favor of this. I’d like to speak for it. I think it clarifies a lot of County government. I think it’s better management. I think it’s easier to put in the qualifications for Department Heads. This, to me, is the most important part.

RAY: Any other comments on the Managing Director?

IRVINE: I guess my comment on this was when Roland and I went to the Big Island Business Council, Barry Taniguchi said the perception is that we’re creating another department.

RAY: Okay, we’ll deal with that. I haven’t talked to any group that didn’t immediately understand it when I went through it, explained it to them in the language, and I’ve talked to quite a few groups about it already. So, I think we can do a good job educating on that.

Fire Commission.

HERKES: Hooray.

RAY: Just for simplicity sake, I’m going to suggest that we do a nine-member Commission vs. a five-member. It just seems to be more uniform and it just seems to make sense in people’s minds why we’re creating a Commission smaller in number. I can’t think of any good reason actually. I mean, it’s a little bit simpler. But we’re not like City and County, which is so much smaller and more homogenized. We have a whole different dynamic in terms of the size and diversity of the island. So, I think people really like the nine districts representation.

IRVINE: Obviously people like the nine districts, and we’ve had a lot of testimony about that, and there were people that mentioned our inconsistency, and I would agree with you, that we should probably go nine and have them coming from each Council district as set up now.

RAY: Okay, so then we have other testimony in regard to the Fire Commission from Mr. Holschuh, language in regard to emergency medical services. He also testified in regard to the length of experience for the Fire Chief. His recommendation was expanding that to10 years. I don’t know how anybody feels about that. And then also from Mr. Ben we had testimony, Michael Ben, written testimony in regard to Department Head Qualifications and removal of the Fire Chief. So we need to look at that and discuss it. And he had a number of questions in regard to the consistency of qualification requirements. So we need to, everybody, take a look at that and see how we want to address it, including adding qualifications for the Director of Personnel, which I left out with my original list of qualifications. So, I’ll play around with that before the 29th and see if we can improve on that.

YUEN: The Civil Service Director position is spelled out in State Law and there’s a State Supreme Court decision that says that the State Law supercedes anything in the Charter. You’d have to put in exactly what it says in the State Law anyway, and rather than bother doing that, I think we’d be better off just leaving it.

RAY: See, if you’d have been there, all these public hearings, we could have cleared that up right there. Okay, well, that’s a good answer for that one.

Department of Environmental Services. I, kind of, like the name Environmental Management’ more.

HERKES: Environmental what?

RAY: Management. The other thing that’s come up in regard to this is the testimony from Mr. Boucher about including non point source pollution. I don’t know that we necessarily need to do that in the Charter. That can be something by ordinance that they could deal with.

HERKES: I think if you do it, you’ll end up with a laundry list of things that people want.

IRVINE: I think that’s a really important - Everybody I talked to, sort of, in these other departments and stuff, said that that’s what it’s all about. It isn’t a specific little thing. Recycling is much more specific than non point source pollution.

RAY: So, what is your suggestion?

IRVINE: That we put it in. That we do include it. The other thing, I had a little deal that I wrote up. I had the feeling in the Maui County Charter, and we pulled some things from there, and Honolulu, for Police and Fire. We then had a statement of the purpose of why this department even existed rather than just going into saying we’re setting up a Commission and a department without saying what their purpose is, and I had a feeling, maybe we should add that to this Environmental whatever we want to call it, Services or Management. I like your idea of Management, actually. I think that sounds good. But, the statement I came up with was that ‘The Department of Environmental Services is established to protect, preserve and enhance our island’s environment by promoting wise management of our waste for the benefit of current and future generations. The department will pursue waste management strategies, promote landfill diversion and prevent non point source pollution.’ That’s, sort of, all encompassing. I haven’t run it past Mr. Boucher yet.

RAY: Okay.

HERKES: Can we put that in our minutes and have it next time?

RAY: Yes, maybe bring that to the 29th meeting.

IRVINE: Actually, I made copies.

RAY: Planning Department functions and Planning Commission powers. As far as the first one, the Planning Department function, the suggested deletion of the language, I have mixed feelings about this. It seems hard for people to deal with, very confusing.

IRVINE: What are we discussing?

HERKES: 6-10.

RAY: The deletion of the language in the Planning Department which would allow for a Division of Permitting to be created in the future. I’m wondering if that makes any sense. It’s just hard, in my mind, to engage people on something that may, or may not, ever happen.

IRVINE: John, it seems to me that we had quite a bit of testimony from, like, contractors, or this or that, who didn’t like to see this muddying of where can I go if I need a permit. They want to know that Planning has that power rather than Public Works, which is more like engineering, and knows how to build a road but isn’t into where a road ought to be built. You know what I mean?

RAY: I guess the bigger question should be if it isn’t broke, why fix it. In spite of it being two separate offices, my sense is that’s not a major imposition, or problem, right now. But we’re not mandating that change anyway. All we’re doing is making it possible so that if a future Administration wanted to make that change, they wouldn’t have to amend the Charter to do it. Marni.

HERKES: But, as you pointed out several times, it is not difficult to amend the Charter, and in this particular instance, there is no plan in place. There is no will by a current Administration. We’re, kind of, taking pie-in-the-sky stuff and putting it in here that doesn’t really have any grounds to it. If we were going to omit something, this is probably something I would think that really isn’t necessary to keep in there.

RAY: So, in other words, if future Council Administration wants to take this up, they also have the ability to vote on a Charter Amendment to make it happen, and so I’m just throwing that out there. Any other comments? We’ll discuss this further on the 29th.

In regard to the Planning Commission powers, Chris wrote a lengthy legal opinion. There again, both of these, especially we heard a lot at the Kona public hearing, seemed to be very difficult for the public to understand and be put in a real negative light that somehow we’re giving extra powers, additional powers. That’s the way it’s being portrayed. So, I think we should consider, anyway, whether it makes sense to include these two as well.

IRVINE: I got the same feeling you did, but I thought either just skip it, or give the Planning Commission some real power and have them elected. Well, they do their thing and be elected. At least these people wouldn’t, at least, keep saying well, the Planning Commission does this and that.

RAY: Well, I think, in that case, you’d make the Planning Commission advisory only, and the County Council is elected and they’d make these decisions. Anyway, Chris explains that process, I think, real well. I know we just got it so we need to all digest that a little bit, but I’d like to throw out that we consider whether these really make sense to go forward with. Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: I have a question. If we don’t need it and then we go through a second round - I’ll count this a second round, Chris, right? And it gets defeated, or voted down, are we in a more difficult position than we were in the first place? Unless we say, in the intent of this thing, or on the record, that it’s for clarity purposes only.

YUEN: That’s a good question and I thought of the same thing. I think it actually doesn’t change it if they vote it down. My ultimate conclusion on the Rules and Regulations was that they had the power to do it, and if you try to put it back and then the voters voted it down, then they would still have the power to do it, but it’s a little hard to explain, then, to the voters why you asked them their opinion if it didn’t matter either way. The same thing holds true, and perhaps even more so, for the special permits, Special Management Area Authority. I didn’t write this up in the letter but the Planning Commission requested that it be put specifically in the Charter. If we don’t do anything with the Charter, they will continue to give the Special Management Area permits, as they have been doing for the last 20 years. If you put it on the ballot to give them the power and then the voters said no, then we’re in a little bit of a quandary, I think.

RAY: Legislative Research Office. I’ve been thinking about this one. I met with the Legislative Auditor today, and her recommendation is we drop this one. That it doesn’t change anything and there again, it’s confusing. The normal reaction we’ve been getting is people like the auditing function. You say, well, that’s not what happens. Well, why don’t you make it happen? Why don’t you make a Charter Amendment? So, I think this is another dropper.

IRVINE: I got the same impression you did. What people would really like to see us do is set up some way to actually audit rather than dropping the whole thing.

RAY: But I do point out to people the language that strengthens the County Managing Director position. There are two additions there, (b) and (c), which give a lot more fiscal management direction in regard to that position, so I do think that’s something we can hang our hat on.

IRVINE: Well maybe, but that’s not the Legislative Branch. It’s the Administrative Branch. And theoretically, the Legislative Branch should have some sort of audit power there, but it’s not possible under the present situation, and I don’t think it would be if we changed our thing the way it was. Connie talked to me also, and actually I think she felt it would be more confusing, even though we thought we were helping strengthen things.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: I would envision the Cost-of-Government Commission having something to say along this line, that they are probably Administrative, but also would have some Legislative suggestions that there be an Audit section set up if they found that was necessary.

IRVINE: That sounds better than Managing Director to me.

RAY: Okay, Holdover Boards and Commissions. That seems to be pretty non-controversial to go ahead with.

Safety Coordinator. I can’t sense what people think about this, to tell you the truth. People, kind of, look at you. I don’t really have any sense of whether people think this makes sense or how they react to it. I haven’t gotten very much of a read on that.

IRVINE: Just tell them we’re taking one County Party away.

HIGASHI: But I think it makes sense.

HERKES: I was just going to say I think it makes sense, so let’s put it in.

RAY: So, I don’t think there’s any reason to question that.

Qualifications of Heads of Departments of Public Works and Water Supply. We’ve gotten a lot of testimony in opposition. Granted, it’s been almost entirely from the engineering community, from registered engineers, but the testimony in opposition that rings through to me is that on the one hand we’re making an argument for increasing the qualifications of different department heads, and it seems to be that we’re going in the other direction with this. So that’s sending out a confusing signal. So for that reason, this is worth reconsidering anyway, whether this makes sense. And I don’t think, practically speaking, if that’s your criteria, that it really amounts to a hill of beans one way or the other. So, if it isn’t going to be a significant change, is it worth doing? But, go head, Marni.

HERKES: I think that the five years experience is more important than the engineer, and I would urge that we leave that in there, along with adding a registered engineer.

RAY: The engineer’s already in there so we wouldn’t add.

HERKES: So we leave the registered engineer and we add the five years experience, administrative experience.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: I need to study what kind of budget they work with. I think fiscal responsibility is a major ingredient in how you run your department.

RAY: Well, read all this testimony.

HIGASHI: I read it.

RAY: Okay well, talk to these guys.

HIGASHI: I mean, they’re all engineers.

IRVINE: Yes, they are engineers, but I think what impressed me was that they, more or less said, I mean, the head of the department has to sign off on engineering permits and things, and it might be a little odd to have that person unable -

HIGASHI: I don’t envision a Department Head looking at a plan in detail, and micro managing that, and saying -

IRVINE: No, no. Do they sign off? Individuals.

HIGASHI: Not as an engineer. They sign off as a Department Head, so I mean, that’s my point.

HERKES: It has an engineer’s stamp on it when it comes in, or it’s supposed to.

IRVINE: Okay. To the Head of the Department.

HERKES: Public Works.

IRVINE: Oh yeah, I know that.

RAY: Any more discussion on this?

HIGASHI: I’m open minded but we can move on.

RAY: Okay. Impeachment.

HERKES: I like the Portuguese Chamber 5%.

RAY: The one item we’ve got to clarify is in regard to if we’re going to allow signatures from outside the district because that will influence the number of votes required, that we wouldn’t have the same standard if signatures were limited to a single district vs. island-wide. So, we’ve got to answer that first before we can answer what number of signatures we want to go with.

HERKES: Can Chris help us with that? What does the Charter say now? It says anybody can impeach anywhere. Right?

YUEN: Well, it’s not clear. It wasn’t changed when it went to single member, and my read would be that you can sign from outside the district. But it’s really not 100% clear.

HERKES: Do we have other Charters? I’m sorry. I have it right here. Has anybody done research on other counties?

YUEN: I think the more typical thing would be that you would sign within your district.

HERKES: Within the district?

YUEN: Yes. I’m not sure what the others say specifically, though.

IRVINE: Certainly the testimony we got, people don’t understand that somebody else should be able to come in and sign a petition -

RAY: Impeach their Council person.

IRVINE: Yes, and I can see their point. I guess the other question I was going to ask because Mr. Pranke has sent us copies of things he thought should be incorporated, and he was saying that impeachment should apply to ‘any officer of the County’, even those appointed.

RAY: There’s a whole packet submitted by Del that we need to look at, and if anybody wants to bring forth, make an argument for -

IRVINE: I just wondered if, actually, appointed officials can be impeached. Is that something that -

YUEN: You could put it in the Charter if you wanted to. It’s not in existence now.

IRVINE: Oh, okay.

YUEN: Right now the Charter only allows elected officials to be impeached. It’s a matter of if the Charter says so, you can do it.

RAY: How unusual is that? Is there any precedent for that?

IRVINE: Yes, that’s the kind of thing I was wondering about.

HERKES: But do we want to do it?

YUEN: I would think it’s quite unusual because right now, the Department Heads can be removed by the Mayor with the consent of the Council. They can be removed, the appointed Department Heads, The ones that are appointed by the Mayor, I think, require consent of the Council. The ones that are appointed with the consent of the Council require the consent of the Council to be removed. You think that’s wrong, Roland? I know Corp Counsel requires consent of the Council.

IRVINE: I looked this all up today and put it on this thing, and everywhere it says as in Section 13-4, people appointed by the Mayor, confirmed by the Council , not that more than a bare majority of one political party, five-year terms, and removed in the same manner. But that’s the Commissions. And then the Directors themselves are appointed and removed by the Commission.

YUEN: Right. No, I’m speaking of things like the Planning Director. I know Corp Counsel requires the consent of the Council to be removed and I have to look at the others.

HERKES: John? Maui says ‘appointed or elected officers may be impeached for malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance in office or violation’ and then ‘such impeachment proceedings shall be commenced in the Circuit Court’, and the charges. And they use 5% of the voters registered in the last General Election island-wide. 5% for the whole county, island-wide.

RAY: Okay, that’s a good one. That would give people a sense of empowerment.

HERKES: If it’s 5%.

RAY: That might be a good one to consider. Okay, and that might be a trade-off in getting it through, right?

IRVINE: That’s the kind of thing I was thinking of. If you want to up the number -

HERKES: Then we do island-wide, countywide.

IRVINE: I don’t know about -

RAY: We’ve all got to digest this and think it through. The rest of these we can go through pretty quickly, I think.

Special Counsel. I think we’re okay there.

Board of Appeals. I think we’ll pull that, right? It doesn’t make sense. That was tied to the other.

Department Head Qualifications, we’ll work on.

Police Commission. Seems okay.

Water Commission. District membership seems fine.

Salary Commission. Some raised eyebrows but I think that’s definitely worth pursuing.

IRVINE: I think they thought we were creating a Salary Commission sometimes. I think we need to make it clear that there’s already one there and we’re just giving them a couple of little -

RAY: Right. And then the Cost-of-Government Commission. I think the idea that Keola came up with in regard to not meeting every two years makes sense. Meeting every four years in the second term of the Mayor. Although Steve Bess shared some interesting thoughts with me on that, hopefully, we can get him to come to the meeting on the 29th. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it seemed to make sense at the time.

IRVINE: I had written down, under that one, that maybe this is the Commission where some mention of audit ought to be because Cost-of-Government -

HERKES: I think we just get elected to it and then we’ll put it on there.

IRVINE: Elected? It’s not elected at this point.

RAY: Yes, it would be up to them if they wanted to take that up. Okay, let me just run through the list I’ve got, so if anybody doesn’t have these. We have a whole packet from Del Pranke. The one thing he did say that, not the only thing he said that made sense, but one thing, Chris, is that in the language that the Mayor ‘appoints’ the Commissioners, and he ‘nominates’ them. Is that something that we need to change? Is that substantive? Because he nominates and then the Council approves. He doesn’t actually appoint.

We’ve covered the EMS language and Fire Commission. Do we want to expand the Fire Commission to more than five members?

I’ve got a good one. I don’t know if I brought this up before. To mandate meetings on some sort of regular basis, the County Council meetings to take place in West Hawaii, or in Kona. What I came up with, it seemed to make sense to me, was to mandate - in the Charter right now, the Council is mandated to meet the first and second Wednesdays of every month, 12 months a year - to mandate that they meet quarterly, once every three months, in West Hawaii. Can we come up with some sort of language like that? The thought being that if they were mandated to meet on a regular basis in West Hawaii, that would be really positive in terms of people just being able to engage and go to Council meetings on a regular basis. I think that’s something that would be healthy. You can think about it. I talked to the County Council, the Clerk and Services and whatever, and they didn’t seem to think that would be any big deal. That would also avail them with the opportunity to hold partial or full committee meetings in West Hawaii on a regular basis if there’s stuff in Planning, in particular, that’s more West Hawaii related. So, I’m going to try to come up with some sort of suggestion along those lines. I think that would be healthy and it wouldn’t be prohibitively expensive. And if they met there on a regular basis, I think that would be good.

HIGASHI: Do they have facilities there that can handle that on an ongoing basis?

RAY: Pardon?

HIGASHI: Do they have facilities that they have in West Hawaii, County facilities?

RAY: They have to rent. No, they don’t.

HIGASHI: Okay.

HERKES: We might build a County building and they could meet there.

HIGASHI: That’s what I was afraid of.

RAY: No, but I think, on a quarterly basis, it wouldn’t be any huge expense.

Suggestions, and this one seems kind of, because it’s so far in the future - an elected Charter Review Commission. But the other one that I liked is the cycle of reapportionment vs. Charter Commission. In other words, it seems kind of backwards that we’re -

HERKES: I was going to bring that up. I think, from having been on this, it seems to me the Charter Commission should meet after the reapportionment. They meet every ten years, a year before the census. So we faced some problems in where is the population and we could write language into the Charter that says this Charter will be in effect for eleven years, and after that it will be 10 years.

RAY: Or just convene after the following Reapportionment Commission.

HERKES: I don’t know. How do you guys feel about that?

HIGASHI: That’s fine.

RAY: Everybody understand the logic there, that it just seems like it makes more sense to do the reapportionment before the Charter Commission, to take that into account?

IRVINE: I thought if we were going to start messing with what the Charter Review Commission does, would we have been better off if we started meeting about a year earlier and we didn’t have to meet every week?

RAY: No. I think I’d maybe argue the opposite that it would have been better if we would have done this is a more compact fashion, and finished it up in a shorter period of time.

HERKES: Yes.

IRVINE: It took us six months to hire an attorney and a secretary. Maybe that was unnecessary.

HERKES: No, it didn’t take us six months to hire a secretary.

HIGASHI: Okay, let’s move on.

RAY: There was a suggestion, but we haven’t received any input in regard to mandating outcomes based budgeting.

HERKES: Mike Christopher was going to send us something on that.

RAY: But that’s certainly not anything that has to be addressed in the Charter.

And finally, Hawaiian issues. I guess we can all think about that.

HERKES: I have one.

RAY: Yes Marni.

HERKES: The Code of Ethics, in response to Del Pranke and his ‘let’s not have them if they lie’. It’s in the Maui Charter, Article 14, Code of Ethics, page 32, on the Maui Charter – or I guess it’s Hawaii County.

‘Elected and appointed officers and employees shall demonstrate by their example the highest standards of ethical conduct to the end that the public may justifiably have trust and confidence in the integrity of government.’ That, to me, answers this whole scenario of elected officials that destroy trust of the public in government for their own benefit. And I have it written out for you, Sharron.

IRVINE: This is one of the same kinds of declarations of policy that Maui seems to put in their Charter that I had looked up as well, and I think it really does help. If we’re messing with a section of our Charter, to go and look and put in these declarations of purpose or policy, which we did on the Police and Fire.

RAY: I agree with you in general. We need to pull all of this together pretty quickly.

IRVINE: Only where we’re modifying something anyway. I wouldn’t go traipsing through, coming up with new.

RAY: So, we hadn’t anticipated a change to the Code of Ethics so far, so this would be an additional amendment, right? So in that light, but we talking about taking out three or four things.

HERKES: It’s additional because there’s nothing in our Code of Ethics that says government officials have to behave at all.

KUROZAWA: Can I ask you a cynical question?

HERKES: Sure.

KUROZAWA: Do you think, if we put this Code of Ethics in there, that’ll make them be more ethical?

HERKES: I think that it will call to their attention. I intend to use it in testimony a lot.

IRVINE: That’s what I was going to say. I mean, other people will bring it up if they’re not meeting their obligations.

RAY: Yes, Chris.

YUEN: I was just mulling over something that Daryl brought up on the 6-3 Council, and just to mention – there’s been some discussion of ways to divide up the island in three so that they would not run at-large. The only other way besides using Senatorial Districts, you could have the County Reapportionment Commission divide up the island into three districts, and possibly, if it were the intention to guarantee at least one West Hawaii seat, to instruct them that, and I don’t remember the numbers of the districts but, say the districts represented by Wayland and Rath, or their approximate boundaries, would have to be one of the districts.

RAY: Thank you.

KUROZAWA: I have just a quick question, and I don’t want a long answer. We can talk about it next meeting, but for Chris to think about. Native Hawaiian issue. I’m sure we’re going to talk about it a little bit, but the reason I asked him ask the question was because I was concerned that if we have an exemption for Native Hawaiians, will there be a problem that Hawaiians will say well, I’m not going to pay taxes. While I’m thinking about this the next few weeks, that’s always a concern for me that if they’re exempted from the Charter, will that be an issue, depending upon the language, if it’s put into that?

YUEN: I don’t see any rhythm or reason to exempt Native Hawaiians from the Charter. I don’t know what that would even mean. Native Hawaiians have the rights to vote and the privileges of a governmental service under the County of Hawaii in a non-discriminatory fashion. Although there was some very long answers to the question of the police and fire protection on Hawaiian homes land, I think the answer was that they did not think that the County had the authority to provide police and fire protection on Hawaiian homes land. If I were a owner of a home in Hawaiian Homes, I would be very concerned about that, and I would not appreciate someone suggesting that the County should not put out a fire at my house if it started to burn down. There are two things raised here. One was exempting Hawaiians generally, and then the second was exempting Hawaiian homes land. It is a clear implication of taking Hawaiian homes land out of the Charter that the County services would not be provided to Hawaiian homes lands any longer, nor would residents on Hawaiian homes lands have the right to vote. That’s what it would mean to take the Hawaiian homes out of the Charter. As I mentioned last time, there are gray areas over what the County’s jurisdiction in certain respects, like zoning, is over Hawaiian homes lands. However, in some other respects such as the power of the police, I think it’s quite clear that the police have exactly the same powers and duties to enforce criminal law on Hawaiian homes land as they do in any other neighborhood in the county.

RAY: All right.

HERKES: Mr. Ray, one more thing before you get through. The Liquor Commission staff stays for these late meetings. I know there’s compensatory things. We have the Chairman today. But I think it would be nice if we provided some kind of gift, or some kind of recognition, maybe a basket or something, for them just to say thank you. They have coffee for us. They’ve done a bunch of stuff for us.

RAY: Good idea.

Under New Business. Hawaii Redevelopment Agency. We’ve received testimony on that. Go ahead, Sue.

IRVINE: I just hope that whatever we’re doing, because it says, the end of the Charter there, that we can’t do this. If Henry Ross is going to come back and say -

RAY: Chris is going to look into that, but that’s another check off that we may want to consider. We’ve gone through the review of public hearing input, verbally and written-wise. Done the general review of the Charter.

Announcements. Next meeting date, 4/29, 9 a.m., and also May 10th, 5 p.m. So, let’s really make an effort to be at both those meetings and to encourage our wayward brothers, if they are going to participate in this Commission, that if they’re going to at least be responsible, that they make some effort to review the material and get up to speed on what it is we’re going to be voting on. I recognize the right of all those people to come and vote, but I’m going to be pretty upset if they haven’t even reviewed the material and taken the time to talk to us about it.

IRVINE: You know, George has been a very regular attendee of our meetings and we’re setting this vote for a day when he’s going to be on the mainland. Could we put our meeting off by a week?

RAY: We could do anything we want to do, I guess.

IRVINE: Could we put our regular meeting off?

HERKES: Well, can we? Are we binding? Do we have to have the meeting?

YUEN: You could schedule a special meeting.

IRVINE: And we don’t have to come around on the 10th as well.

YUEN: If you’re going to cancel your regular meeting, you’d just have to put all the notices out that the regular meeting is cancelled and a special meeting is set for the 17th, and it has to go to all the people that get the agendas and be posted.

IRVINE: I so move.

YUEN: And I’m not sure. I think, if we decided to do it now, it would make the pamphlet.

IRVINE: Oh, the 17th. I don’t move that. I’m leaving for the mainland that day. I’m sorry. I rescind my motion.

RAY: Chris, we’re not held to Wednesdays, right, if it’s a special meeting?

YUEN: Right.

RAY: So, George, when do you return?

MARTIN: I believe we return on the 13th, which is a Saturday.

RAY: So what if we scheduled it for Tuesday, the 16th?

MARTIN: Not a problem.

HIGASHI: May 16th.

IRVINE: Try wait. I’m leaving the day you come back. That’s true.

HERKES: You’re leaving the 14th?

IRVINE: I’m leaving the 12th, actually. I’m leaving on Friday.

YUEN: One thing. There is a provision in State Law for participating in meetings by teleconference.

HERKES: Isn’t that a wonderful thing. We came down 12 months and you finally came up with that. I have a teleconference phone.

YUEN: But it can be done.

MARTIN: It’s not a problem. I probably could arrange that. Use the Union Hall.

RAY: And when are you going to be gone, Sue?

IRVINE: I’m leaving on the 12th.

RAY: For how long?

IRVINE: I’m not coming back until the 28th.

HERKES: We need to take a vote. I move that we stick with the 10th.

RAY: Well, I’d say we meet on the 10th.

HERKES: Yes.

RAY: You can’t pick a perfect date. And there are a bunch of people that aren’t here that we don’t know what their schedules are either.

IRVINE: I was just trying to be nice.

HERKES: Can I ask a question?

KUROZAWA: John, I seriously could look into whether we could do it by video conference. We could do it Hilo Hospital. We could actually do it from Kona if we didn’t want to drive over, and if we can find a place in San Francisco to hook up into. The State says it can do it for us if it’s okay. If we couldn’t do it, then I won’t look into it.

RAY: Does it have to be video conference or can we just -

YUEN: Let me look into it. I’m pretty sure it’s by video conference hook-up that we’re talking about. It’s an awkward way to have a meeting. If everything’s been discussed and you’re primarily there to vote, then I think that works. In other words, I wouldn’t encourage us to have the major meeting where the Kona people stayed in Kona and the Hilo people stayed in Hilo, but if we were trying to get somebody who’s on the mainland, so that they can vote, then it can be done. It’s just a matter of logistics. It’s legal to do it, though. I wanted to clarify that because I said earlier, in response, that you had to be here to vote, but there is this exception.

RAY: George, when do you leave?

MARTIN: The 29th, the morning of.

HERKES: I wanted to ask about meeting attendance. There’s nothing that I could find that says you have to attend meetings, and everybody makes mistakes. Everybody makes commitments that they can’t fulfill, and things happen. There’s really no way to resign from this Commission. I suppose you could, and nobody’s resigned. We have at least two that haven’t come to meetings for six months. So I would suggest that we make, in our notes somewhere, a suggestion to the next Charter Commission that they put in their rules some way to replace Charter Commission members who cannot attend meetings, or who do not attend meetings. It’s hard on everybody to have to come because then there might not be a quorum. So it puts the responsibility on the rest of us to attend.

YUEN: You’d have to put it in the Charter that a Commission would have the power to kick out members who didn’t attend so many meetings because, at present, it says that you can resign. You have the right to resign. And the Mayor can remove a Commission member. But those are the two ways.

HERKES: Well, there we go. That’s what we should have done.

HIGASHI: But the appointment date is specific, when they appoint.

RAY: Okay, we’ll just have to hope for the best. I can’t think of a better way to resolve this May meeting and, like I say, there are a bunch of people that aren’t here that we don’t know about anyway, so I guess that’s the best for now.

A motion to adjourn?

HERKES: So move.

RAY: Second?

KUROZAWA: Second.

The discussion ended at 7:06 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharron Henry

Secretary-Administrative Assistant

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