HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Meeting of October 13, 1999

Hawaii County Liquor Commission Conference Room,

Hilo Lagoon Center

Attendance: J. Ray, K. Balog, M. Herkes (from 5:03 p.m.), R. Higashi, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa, G. Martin, J. Santangelo (from 5:04 p.m.), G. Yoshiyama, Counsel Chris Yuen

Absent: E. Alonzo, S. Bess

And 8 members of the public in attendance.

The meeting was called to order at 5:02 p.m.

RAY: I’d like to call the Special Meeting of the 1999-2000 Hawaii County Charter Commission to order. It’s October 13th. Present at this time; myself John Ray, Roland Higashi, Kevin Balog, Sue Irvine, Dr. Daryl Kurozawa, George Martin, and Gary Yoshiyama, and I believe we’re expecting Ms. Herkes and I believe that’s it this evening.

On the agenda we have the Minutes Approval. These are the minutes from our last meeting of September 29th. Do I have a motion to approve?

IRVINE: I move.

RAY: Second?

HIGASHI: Second.

RAY: Discussion? Any? All in favor or approving the minutes of September 29th, say aye.

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Minutes approved.

Let the record note that Ms. Herkes is now in attendance.

Financial Status Report. Following format of our other reports, we have dual reports from monies encumbered in last fiscal year and this, so out of a balance of $30,000.00 encumbered in last fiscal year, we show a balance of $22,479.64. And out of the $100,000.00 encumbered in this fiscal year, a balance of $90,515.86.

Communications. Just want to point out, in our packets that we passed out, we have a Letter to the Editor from Del Pranke. We also have a news release from Data Processing, Gail Rock, and accompanying that a graphic outline of our web page, and we are up on the web and we are current. There were a couple of agendas missing and our Administrative Assistant has just picked those up, so I think we’re the first Commission, first group, that’s up on the web. We’re kind of a leader on this. As current as we are on our minutes, we are very much up to date in terms of having the information out on the web, so I’m happy to report that.

Let the record show Mr. Santangelo is here, as well.

Also, there’s an article regarding City Manager, City/County Management, in your packet, and this comes out of a current edition of the American City and County, and I just got this magazine today so it’s a more lengthy article than what I passed out, but if you’re interested in getting more information on this, see me about that and we can pass that out. No other communications.

Public Hearing. This is to go through the format of adopting our new Rules of Procedure so I believe I need to state that we’re opening the Public Hearing to review, and then vote on, hopefully, our revised 1999-2000 Rules of Procedure. Is there any discussion on the Rules of Procedure? You know these are very minor changes. It’s really format changes and to comply with our meeting dates and whatever, so we’ve discussed this and reviewed it. Any comments on those? Okay, I’ll officially close the Public Hearing.

Let’s move to the Unfinished Business. Adoption of the 1999-2000 Rules of Procedure. Excuse me, Mr. Tyler?

TYLER: Yes, Mr. Chairman, your agenda indicates that there’s Statements from the Public on items on the agenda. Is it possible, if you have a Public Hearing, to call for statements from the public?

RAY: Sure. Would you like to?

TYLER: Very briefly. Thank you. Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I have some other comments which I’ll be able to make at another portion of this agenda, is that right, Mr. Chairman?

RAY: Yes. I was just trying to do this one after the other, but you’re -

TYLER: I have five items that I wanted to discuss with you, just very briefly today.

RAY: Are these on the rules?

TYLER: Yes, there’s the rules. Do you want me to only speak about the rules?

RAY: Yes, can you -

TYLER: And another time for Statements from the Public?

RAY: Yes, you can stay right there, but just do the rules first.

TYLER: These are the rules which I received a few minutes ago and I’m not sure what changes you made to whatever rules you currently have because this document does not reflect what the proposed changes are, however, I do still have some brief comments.

With respect to Rule V, I would just ask that your notices be done in compliance with Open Meeting Laws. I’m sure, with your attorney, that you have reviewed this. I’m not sure about the language. And also, whenever possible, and I understand congratulations is in order because as of yesterday, your minutes and your agenda are posted on the Hawaii County website, and you beat the Hawaii County Council. Congratulations. And so I would, maybe, insert there, that you would also maybe use that as a means. And just a brief comment about the notices. Make sure it complies with the Open Meetings Law and the Charter.

And No. VII, with respect to quorum and transaction of business, I would strongly urge you to take the lead of many decision-making bodies in this State, and that is that concurrence of the majority of the members to which the Commission is entitled so establishes decisions. I realize that under Rule No. XIII, Decisions, number C, that you have incorporated such language and I would ask that, in the spirit which I think the law’s intended, like the Council and the Legislature, I believe that, certainly the Council, no decision is valid unless a majority of the members vote yea or nay, the majority of the members to which the Council is entitled. So, unless there’s five yea or nay votes, there is no official decision made by the Council. I would just ask that you consider that. Perhaps you already have, and if you have, and made this decision, I apologize for my redundancy. That’s all that I have with respect to the rules, sir, except one final thing and that is, I think they’re very easy to read and appear to be quite complete and straight forward, and I congratulate you for that. Thank you.

RAY: Any comments from the members? You understand the process? If we make any changes now, we have to go back out through the whole process again. We have to publish these and go through a waiting period if we do.

TYLER: And I wasn’t trying to slow up your work. I don’t know what the changes are. It’s the first time I’ve seen this so I just wanted to give my comments.

YUEN: The only real changes are a change in the meeting dates and a change in the address of the communications. Otherwise, the rules are the same as we used ten years ago and they’re also the same that were used 20 years ago.

TYLER: That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re -

YUEN: Sure. The majority vote, that you’re talking about, that is the intent of the voting provision. The only real official action that the Charter Commission can take is to decide to send a proposed Charter Amendment to the voters, and that does require the approval of the full membership of the Commission; that is six votes. And I think that’s made clear in Rule XIII.

TYLER: Yes it is.

YUEN: Rule V. The intent of that provision that you read, the majority of the members present, is for procedural types of motions like putting things on the agenda or deferring discussion to another date. That can be done by a majority of those present.

TYLER: May I respond, Mr. Chairman?

RAY: Sure.

TYLER: I can understand that and I would say that if this was not as diligent a body and a committed a body as we have before us today, that at some point this might be necessary, but I think it’s quite clear from your rules and from your commitment to date, that a majority of you, if not unanimously, are committed to doing your work here, and I realize it may be the intent to have a majority, but clearly Rule VII states that the majority of the members present, and I don’t want to belabor the point because apparently, based on what I think I heard, you have already adopted some rules. Is that correct?

RAY: No.

YUEN: No.

TYLER: Oh. Well, if you haven’t adopted some rules, how have you published any changes?

YUEN: These are the rules from the ‘89-’90 Charter Commission. The Commission has basically been operating under the old rules, but wanted to make the changes because there is a different location to send communications and the Commission has chosen to make a different day for the regular meetings.

TYLER: I’m sorry. I thought you had some other rules and some additional - I hadn’t seen them so I was a little puzzled, but it was not my intention to come here and slow your work down. I just wanted to make some comments, vis-a-vis since it is a public hearing. You will obviously make any decision you wish but I urge you to consider those. Thank you.

RAY: Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: In light of Chris’s explanation, I’d like to move that we adopt the rules as presented to us.

RAY: Second?

BALOG: Second.

RAY: All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Okay, rules approved. Curtis, since you’re already at the table, you can go ahead. Is that okay, Del?

PRANKE: Yes.

RAY: On the agenda item statements from the public, you can go ahead and address your other items.

TYLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we’ve covered two of them already, of the five that I had. I wanted to say that, subsequent to the last meeting which I attended, which was two or three meetings ago, a gentleman who was here spoke about a possible inclusion of Fire Commission, and I don’t know what action the Commission may have taken with respect to his suggestion, but I did want to let you know that he did submit to me, a substantial amount of materials related to Fire Commission. I also have some materials in my possession as a result of some discussions that we had in the Council when Mr. Santangelo was there, as well as Mr. Ray, and I’d be happy to furnish those to you if you are considering such a possibility. I know that I’ve had a number of calls from members of the Fire Department. I think the Council, during the time that Mr. Ray and Mr. Santangelo were present, also expressed an interest in having a Fire Commission, and I’m not sure where you are with respect to that, but I wanted to offer this material since it was sent to my office subsequent to the last meeting.

RAY: We haven’t formally taken it up but we have discussed it and so we would appreciate the materials.

TYLER: Yes, and if your staff person would contact me, we’ll get this to you.

Two final items; one dealing with the possible different type of County governing system, and that is to consider a County Manager, county executive, these kinds of things. I know that I’ve spoken with some of you individually with respect to consideration of this matter. I understand that you have some materials before you today regarding one of the counties in Kentucky, and I’m sure that, based on some of the materials that Ms. Pisicchio and I shared with our Kona representative, she has probably shared those with you. I also realize that you have received a rather lengthy communication from former Council member Keola Childs, who is not in favor of a County Manager, and he gave his reasons. Therefore, I just wanted to state to you my own personal experience. In talking with fellow colleagues from other counties in the Continental United States, many of whom, it appears to be a majority of whom, use a County Manager system, and who previously had a system similar to that which we currently have. And what a huge difference it makes in terms of more accountability and direct relationships between the public and their elected officials as opposed to, really, a two-tier track that runs on and the Council and the Mayor does that, or doesn’t do that, and the Council doesn’t do this. In talking with many people over the last three years, as I’ve studied this possible proposal for this County, comments from individuals with whom I’ve spoken, seem to be quite favorably disposed towards wanting to consider this. It was not my intention to come here to go step by step through Mr. Childs’ analysis, which I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Childs, and his reasons. Some of them are quite persuasive, and certainly have merit and deserve your consideration, but in my own experience, given the very positive comments I’ve heard from so many elected Council members, as well as those who are tiers of the Council, or Board of Supervisors, which are the official Mayor, the one that signs the proclamation, unties the maile and kisses the babies, that type of thing, is that it is far more equitable and fair, and more efficient in terms of getting the work of the people done, so I believe I’ve presented, at least to our Kona representative, most of my materials as well as some websites, and also to Mr. Ray, but if there’s further information that you desire from me, I’ll be happy to do what I can to provide it to you. I just ask that you consider this and I hope that the voters will have an opportunity to make a decision on this matter, one way or the other.

And finally, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, I just wanted to state, very briefly, a thought that was recurring to me in the last three months, during recent Council meetings and Committee meetings, and that is that beginning in the month of July and continuing through, I believe it was, the month of September, the Council received it’s usual Report of Transfers, and these are transfers made in accordance with a portion of the Hawaii County Charter which the Charter affords the Mayor the opportunity to transfer, and not between departments but within departments. And I just wanted to let you know, in three of the transfers, or a number of the transfers that came, that this was subsequent to the approval of the Operating, as well as the CIP Budget; that there were transfers, and this was subsequent to our internal calculations regarding the funded balance, which played a very, very important role in balancing this year’s budget, as I’m sure you have read, or at least probably talked to some of us about, over $3,000,000.00 in transfers. Some of the individual transfers were in excess of $500,000.00 each, and I stated on the Council floor, so I’m not speaking out of school here, that I felt this was a usurping of the Council’s authority. Transfers are really meant to facilitate changes that occur after a budget is adopted but it’s not meant to take the place of appropriations, and in my own estimation, there were at least two, possibly four, transfers which were clearly circumventing the Council’s wishes not to appropriate funds for certain projects. And I would ask you, please, to consider the possibility of having some language in there, not eliminating the Mayor’s right to transfer, should we continue with a Mayor, but to limiting the amount to a reasonable amount, in order to conduct business. I know the Mayor has to make these kinds of decisions, they’re very important decisions, and I wouldn’t want to take that away from the Executive Branch of government, but I don’t believe they should take the place of the normal appropriation process. And I think you’ve heard from Mr. Childs with respect to strengthening the authority, responsibility, and if you would call it, the power of the Council. I think he called it ‘having a stronger Council’, and I believe that this very small change would play a very important role.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have regarding any of my statements. Thank you.

RAY: Ms. Herkes.

HERKES: Three questions on all three points. I’ll take the last one first. Council Manager. If we proposed a Council Manager operation, would you still limit the amount of money that could be transferred in the departments? You’d still suggest that with the Council Manager?

TYLER: Yes. Well, I wasn’t talking about a Council Manager. I was talking about a County Manager.

HERKES: We have changed the wording here.

TYLER: Well, I’m sorry. I wasn’t privy to that, but we know it in -

HERKES: You know it as County Manager. We have Managing Director. There’s a ton of words for it, but if you had that form of government, would you still want to see that limit of transfer?

TYLER: Yes I would because there’s a straight line accountability between the people, the elected officials and the hired County Manager/Council Manager, whatever you want to call it, CEO really. It’s a CEO.

HERKES: Or a COO.

TYLER: And therefore, that person would have a direct relationship with the Council to be able to say, hey, look, we’ve got this situation; better change this appropriation. That’s the way we normally do it.

HERKES: On one of the other questions, when you’ve been talking to people from other counties, have you talked to anybody from Louisville, Kentucky? Did I say it right?

IRVINE: It is actually Lexington.

HERKES: Because that’s the latest favorite, but I’m not saying there won’t be another favorite next week.

TYLER: I don’t recall having talked with someone there. I certainly have talked with David Crockett of Chattanooga, Tennessee. You may know him. He’s a very interesting guy, but I’m sorry, I don’t recall.

HERKES: Well, it’s close, but I don’t know if it’s the same form. Okay. We have something like, examples from maybe 20 operations, and they’re all different, so I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’re not into that yet. We’re into the smaller things and the easier things. On your information that you have on the Fire Commission, would you recommend one?

TYLER: Let me answer that by saying that one of my colleagues, Ms. Leithead-Todd, was talking, at one point, about having a combination Public Safety Commission. That possibly has some merit, although in talking with the firefighters, and some police officers, they believe that the model that is used in the City and County of Honolulu is working so well. It’s such an improvement over the way things used to be, especially with respect to the Fire Commission, that they would heartily endorse that, and I think you heard some comments from members of the Council, as well as the Corporation Counsel.

HERKES: We did.

TYLER: The issue that I have with all of this is one of the fiscal constraints under which the County operates, and I was ready to propose a Fire Commission. Mr. Chung and I talked about it a number of times. He says, well, go for it because there certainly seemed some desire on the part of the Fire personnel, but looking at the budget, it seemed to me that the best way to do that was to take the Police Commission budget and divide it in half, and I didn’t think that I would get five votes to be able to do that, and I wouldn’t make any friends with the Police Commission.

HERKES: No.

TYLER: If you go to a County Manager system, you’d probably save the County two or three million dollars a year and that would more than pay for a Fire Commission. So, how’s that for an answer?

HERKES: Thank you.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: You did mention this document we had from Keola Childs, which is critical of us going to a County Manager form of government, and he’s quite strong in saying that trying to get a paid manager to move into our County, which is full of political preferences and a medieval land use environment, that’s a quote, end quote, that we’re kind of a big physical and political problem that would be too big for an appointed person, possibly from away, to solve. Do you have any comment on that? Also, in some of that literature that may have come from you, there is mention that you need a ‘cohesive’ political entity to make this a successful form of government.

TYLER: Yes. Thank you for asking the question. I would like to comment. Mr. Childs did send me his first draft of that by e-mail and I did remember his comments with respect to that. Begin by saying we certainly

can’t go backwards and change what is or what has been, but I think we have, as we come into the new millennium and a new century, the unique opportunity to really improve accountability, and in terms of how we, as elected officials as well as appointed and hired, function with the public. And I think the days of partisan politics and deal making, while it exists in some areas, is actually becoming a thing of the past because of things like the internet, websites, ability for people to travel to meetings, and become informed, and perhaps some more vocal people, like myself and others, who bring things to mind, whether you agree with them or not. It stimulates attention. Personally, I don’t think it’s a valid reason for not trying to do the right thing, and I happen to think it is the right thing, however, as I said earlier, I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Childs, and I think that he probably reflects a feeling that, perhaps some of you have, here on the Commission, certainly members of the community, but there’s really no time like tomorrow, and the future, and you, I think, have the opportunity to at least put it out there to the people to consider. With respect to the cohesiveness, let me just say that, as someone who is part of a family that has followed the Council for decades, and someone who has personally followed the Council, actually for more than two decades, long before being a part of it, it is my opinion, at this time, and perhaps I’m so close that I can’t see the forest for the trees, but it is my opinion, based on my own experience as a member of the Council, but more importantly, as someone who has received comments from the community, that the community feels very strongly that the Council - I think that’s the right word - strongly that the Council is operating in a more bi-partisan or nonpartisan way, perhaps more than it ever has before. Personally, I believe that to be the case. I think there are very few votes that happen along party lines, and very seldom does the mention of a party come forward. So, I think in terms of cohesiveness, that the Council has come light years from where it was a few decades ago, or even a few years ago, when people were calling each other names in the press and there on the Council floor, and felt maybe we’re closer and maybe we’re at the time where we can be more cohesive.

And finally, I’d like to say, although you haven’t mentioned it, I did talk to Mr. Ray about this when we came back from St. Louis, the last NACO meeting, that there are resources available who are able to provide contractual samples of how to go about this. Personally, I view it as an opportunity to have a more performance-base, outcome-base management system, as opposed to he said/she said, go see that person and, some of you have experienced this already. You spend a lot of time running around trying to figure out who is a decision-maker, so I think it’s very important that you utilize, or at least seek out information, from those resources. I mentioned one to Mr. Ray, the University of Georgia. One individual in particular, who is in charge of helping a lot of counties with setting up the contract. What’s critical is, of course, as you point out, is the policing, but the Council needs to understand what the role of this person, he or she, is going to be, and therefore, set up some parameters so it’s not a failed situation. And also there, I would say to you that I believe that it would be in the best interest of the public, as well as the Council, that we spend adequate funds to hire, if I may call it, a head hunter, a professional search person, to come up with the ideal candidate, who may well not be a person from Hawaii. We don’t have a corner on all the good ideas in the world. And second of all, I believe that this person should be very well paid. Very well paid. Probably a hundred thousand or more, so we can attract the right kind of person who will be accountable and will be able to take the necessary steps, but I also would say that the Council will play a critical role in this because the Council will be the body that establishes the policy and contracts with respect to this person, and it’s not going to be easy, but I believe it’s worth pursuing. Thank you.

RAY: Sue, are you finished?

IRVINE: Yes.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Would you support a Special Election to put this question before the voters before the next election, or would you be satisfied that it be settled in the next election and implemented four years henceforth?

TYLER: At this time I do not support a Special Election, and I understand the reasons for considering one, because the person who would be elected Mayor would only serve, possibly, four years, should the Charter Amendment pass, however, I think -

HIGASHI: The implementation would take four years before we could implement it.

TYLER: Yes, of course it would take four years unless, of course, you put some provision in there that if it passed, they’d have to resign, but I can’t imagine that somebody would run under those circumstances, but hope springs eternal. I think my main reason is the cost, and I think you heard very clearly from personnel from the Elections Office, including our Clerk and others, that it’s almost an impossibility to do this in a timely fashion, based on the kinds of deadlines that the State imposes on the County. So, I think, for those reasons, if it came before the Council, I would not vote to give you folks the funding. I know what your counsel has said, but I believe that your charge does not preempt the Council’s authority. Nevertheless, you have your counsel.

RAY: Roland, are you finished? Let’s just go on around the room. Daryl? No? Kevin.

BALOG: Two questions. The first one is just to follow up with Roland’s. You said that the County didn’t have the money to pay for a Special Election, but earlier you said that if you switch to a management, CEO type of Executive Branch, you’d save possibly three to four million, so if you’re looking at saving three to four million vs. spending a quarter of a million, I mean, what’s it worth to people who believe in that concept? I mean, if I’m a person looking at money, which you guys do now, wouldn’t it be worth your while to look at saving three to four million if that’s what you really believe in?

RAY: That’s three or four million per year times four.

BALOG: Yes.

TYLER: I don’t believe I said three or four million. I said two or three, or something like that. I don’t know. I said some millions of dollars.

BALOG: Well, I’m a million off, but let’s say two and a half times four is what, ten million?

TYLER: I think we’d have to look at an analysis to say whether or not my figures are correct. It’s my gut feeling. I know that it would give some of us a great deal more peace of mind than we currently have, if we could change it in the next election, but from a fiscal responsibility standpoint, in terms of what our budget currently is, I have some very strong reservations. But I think the most important reservation is the one that I wouldn’t want you to rush your work because what I heard from the Elections people is you’ve got to have things done by a certain date, and you all asked some really key questions which you need to know, and I’m sitting back here going ‘no way’, and you probably saw me saying ‘I’m not going to approve that if it comes before the Council’, but I go back to Kona after that and I said, my God, there’s just no way that this thing can be pulled off, and address all the other important considerations that you have before you, so maybe that’s a lame answer but -

BALOG: Okay. I got one more question, not to cut your line there, but the other one was, you talk about the managing form of government. If the current Council’s elected for two years, what kind of term, and you say you want to pay someone a hundred thousand, and Marni kind of quietly chirps in, a couple of hundred thousand - They pay the football coach, I think, at the UH three hundred thousand and he has a longer contract than two years, so are you thinking of binding another elected body to keep the CEO, possibly if people are not elected back into office under the current two-year term?

TYLER: With the two year term, it does create some interesting situations, to say the least. I think Mr. Ray knows that I haven’t supported a four-year term, even though it certainly would make life simpler for those of us. My reasons have been quite simply because I think there needs to be real accountability. What I would certainly entertain, and I hope you will consider, and this has apparently worked quite well in other venues, other counties, is after the term, which would be two years, you then go to a four-year term. In other words, you’ve proven yourself. The people aren’t up in arms because, let’s face it, four years is, as you well know, is twice as long as two years, but if people were happy after two years, then you would run for a four-year term.

BALOG: Is that Council members?

TYLER: Yes, Council members. And that has apparently worked quite well in other counties, so I would certainly be willing to consider that.

BALOG: So you realize you’d have to change the amount of years you’d be eligible to serve on the Council because right now it’s limited to eight. So, you going to go two, four, two? Two plus four plus two.

TYLER: No, I’m sure you guys can work this out.

BALOG: No, I’m just curious. Would you say two-four-four, twelve-year terms? Because what you’re saying is going to effect how you’ve got to consider a City Manager.

TYLER: Right, I realize that, and I realize that there are members of this Commission as well as members of the public who feel that the term should be longer. Perhaps no term limits at all. I know that the public has spoken with respect to term limits and I am certainly not coming here today to advocate, as an elected official, that term limits be abolished. Okay? I do not wish to speak against the public, however, I believe that it’s in your purview to review this. The public has spoken on a number of occasions regarding this issue, but this is a matter which you have to consider, and I realize it’s a puzzle, that things are inter-related, but I’m sure you asked the question because it may be that, with a staggered term, that it needs to go to a two-year probational term, if you will, and two four-year terms which that makes ten years. I don’t know. Maybe the public would be willing to go for that.

BALOG: The only reason why I’m asking this is I’m just trying to get clear because of, really nothing to do with the terms, what the length of term of the City Manager you view. The Council term is tied to that because you’re proposing the Council hire this person, so I’m just trying to figure out the term that you believe the City Manager should serve.

TYLER: I would defer to those counties who already utilize this system because we do not currently utilize this system. You’ve indicated you have quite a few models before you and I’m sure that with all of you here, you can figure out how that might work. I don’t envy you in your job but I know you can make that kind of decision. How’s that for passing the buck?

BALOG: Okay. Very good.

RAY: Daryl.

KUROZAWA: Mr. Tyler, you have spoken to a lot of counties that have this system, and my only question is, from our standpoint, it seems like a very attractive system because they’re accountable to the County Council. How effective is it, in some ways, when the Council is hiring them and can fire them? And have they had problems in the sense that the Director may sort of just do what the Council wants all the time, and not what they feel is proper?

TYLER: That’s a very good question. And that’s why I say, the true responsibility, and real work, falls with the Council, and that’s why you need a professional person like this guy from the University of Georgia, the Graduate School, who works with counties to develop the kinds of agreements and understandings that are necessary to facilitate the kinds of work that we all have to do. And I agree with you, if that kind of hard, up front work is not done, then yes, you’re going to have yes men or women, or they’re going to be beholding. But if people agree up front that these are the expectations, that’s why I talked about performance standards and outcome base management, which I’m happy to report is being considered in the budget this year -

HERKES: Program review.

TYLER: That we can, hopefully, avoid this kind of conflict, but it’s certainly one that has to be thought of by you, as well as whoever is charged with that contracting, and perhaps, something needs to be in the Charter toward some guidelines. I don’t know.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: On that concept of your so-called ‘probationary’ two-year and then a four-year term, say there’s a scenario that the incumbent runs for the four-year term and he gets defeated, what happens to the guy who was successful? Does he go on a two-year term again or a four-year term?

TYLER: I can’t answer that question. I honestly don’t know.

HIGASHI: So you think there’s a problem there?

TYLER: Well, no, I just think it’s an opportunity. I don’t see it as a problem because I know it works in other venues. I didn’t raise the question, when it came up, I just asked people, now what do you do in a situation like this, and they said, oh, we solved that because, in terms of direct accountability, if the voters voted the wrong person in for whatever reason, and they want to remove that person because they didn’t expect this, or whatever it is, then during this first term, or partial term, then they can take action, but as to the mechanics of it, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something from one of those counties. Thank you very much.

RAY: Any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Tyler.

TYLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

RAY: Del Pranke is our other registered speaker.

PRANKE: I’m Del Pranke and I’m from Puna. I really only wanted to talk about the Police Commission but the opportunity showed itself for a couple of more things. I apologize. I won’t take long.

As far as changing the County government, the type of government, I would suggest that you make the Mayor a two-year elected term and see how quickly the voters approve that. The voters have voted overwhelmingly for term limits. I don’t think they want to get rid of the little bit of control they have over the Executive Branch, by being able to vote for that person. There was a recent impeachment case just a couple of days ago. Anyway, what happened was a person from one district tried to impeach people from another district. That’s not possible, using the rules of the court. The court says you must have standing, and the Charter says that you use the rules of the court for impeachment. These folks brought these charges against the County Council member. Somebody from Puna cannot impeach anybody from another district. It’s not allowed and the rules of the court would prevent that so if you have a manager-type system, the voters would be one step further removed from being able to vote for their county executive. They would not be able to vote for a county executive in that sense. I’ve gone back through the Charter Commission minutes from the first Charter Commission, between ‘64 and ‘68. They talked about this strong Mayor-Council type of government quite often in there. It’s imbedded in the County Charter, and in order to change to a different form of County government, you’re really going to have to dig into the Charter, and probably rewrite the entire thing, because there are so many little threads. And you see this when you read these old minutes down in the Archives.

I’ve come to you, as I said, about the Police Commission, but I want to talk about on Page 7 of the County Charter, it seems like, the current executive, we continue to go behind trying to clean up things, and there was a recent furor over him saying that he might decide to quit his job, or to resign, and run again. Obviously, we’re going to have to change the Charter, and that would be in Section 5-1.2 Qualifications, the last sentence where it says the Mayor may serve for more than two terms of office but shall not serve for more than two consecutive full terms. If we just change the word "serve"; the Mayor may be elected for more than two terms of office, but shall not be elected for more than two consecutive terms. Change the word "serve" to "be elected". Give the voters the opportunity to do that and, I assure you, they’ll probably do so, and that will solve that problem. I read back through the Charter Commission minutes from ‘65 or ‘66 and they talked about this at some length, and their concern about how the wording for this, and the way they put it, they didn’t want a machine building up that the voters would not be able to have control over, and that’s kind of what we’re up against here. But I would suggest putting that before the voters and I’m sure they would probably approve it. Thank you. That’s all I had to say about that.

MARTIN: Before you go on any further, Mr. Chairman, may I speak to his last statement? If you were to make the changes that you have just mentioned, it would still allow a person to resign and run for an election. The terminology, itself -

PRANKE: They would have to resign and run each term.

MARTIN: Not necessarily.

PRANKE: I don’t think the voters are going to put up with that.

MARTIN: I understand, possibly not putting up with it, but changing of the words that you’ve just mentioned would do nothing to hinder what you’re trying to stop.

PRANKE: Cannot be elected for more than two consecutive terms?

MARTIN: That’s the key, the consecutive terms. If you take that word out, possibly.

PRANKE: Yes, and that’s the case now, and that’s what it is now. The person can serve for two years, sit out a term, and run again.

MARTIN: Correct.

PRANKE: Okay, that’s okay now. So what’s the problem?

MARTIN: There’s no problem but what I thought I heard you saying was the intent of our present Mayor, if he were to resign, would he then be entitled to run again.

PRANKE: Yes.

MARTIN: And under the Charter, it’s yes. And even if you were to make the changes, and that’s what I think I’m hearing you saying, to disallow that, the changes that you made mention to would still allow a person to run again.

PRANKE: It cannot be elected for more than two consecutive full terms.

MARTIN: No.

PRANKE: Okay.

BALOG: But if you resign, you’re not serving a full term.

MARTIN: Thank you.

PRANKE: Yes, you’re probably right. Okay, I see what you’re saying. I didn’t think that through, but there should make a small change in there.

MARTIN: Thank you, sir.

PRANKE: Probably should say ‘shall not be elected consecutively, more than two terms’. Something needs to be done about that because, obviously, that’s a legal technicality.

SANTANGELO: Del, just real quick on this Managing Director and the election part of it. One of the things I struggle with on the election part of it, is that in a Council Manager, County Manager, position, what we’re finding is that the emotional part of an election. You know, a lot of times we are very capable of electing people that are not qualified, and more and more, we have, in this day and age, a need to really know what we’re doing on an administrative level, so with a Managing Director, it does place more responsibility, and also that responsibility is encumbered by the public, to elect competent County Council that would then hire this Managing Director, but the idea behind the Managing Director, and I’d like to get just a comment on that, real short, that the idea behind a Managing Director is the ability to have your best shot at a qualified, intelligent, experienced individual to manage that administrative part, the Council still setting the policy. They’re still okaying the budget, but there’s that administrative part of it. Now possibly in a scenario that might come up, the Council Chair may become a non-voting member, except to break a tie, and become that Mayor that satisfies the State Charter and other ceremonial functions, but there’s that whole thing of having ability to have consistently, at least do your best shot, at a good person. Could you comment on that?

PRANKE: The only way that I could see that that would be appropriate in a democratic society is if the people have a simple recall of that Managing Director. A simple recall. Not this junk they’re always pulling where people go out and get petitions and then there’s always some technicality why the petition doesn’t work. If enough people don’t want somebody in, they ought to have a simple way of recalling that person, and if there’s not, then you divorce the people in a democratic society, from the person that will be using their money and running their government. And don’t forget, all you got to do is read the first Article of this. We are all the government. It’s not the people who are sitting up there at the County Building. We are the government.

SANTANGELO: And I guess, just as a point of information, from the information that we’ve received on counties that are peer oriented, that a huge preponderance of them operate under a managing type situation, and have successfully for a long time.

PRANKE: I lived in a county that did that, and there was still the same kinds of political problems and it didn’t solve anything.

SANTANGELO: Thank you.

PRANKE: It didn’t solve the political problems.

I have presented for you, and I apologize for my printer. I will get a new printer cartridge tomorrow and get you good copies. I didn’t realize this was going to happen until the last. This is a proposal for the revision of the Hawaii County Charter to provide for an independent Police Commission. As the Charter’s written now, the Police Commission is a part of the Police Department, and the Police Commission has really, since the people voted to have a Police Commission back in 1990, done an abysmal job. All you have to do is read the headlines of the newspaper to see there’s something wrong. Something rotten is happening. Whether different factions that are vying against each other, whatever, it doesn’t matter. To the good cops on the beat, the cops that are trying to do their job, it’s very demoralizing to have this junk going on at the upper echelons of the Police Department, and the reason it’s going on is because we don’t have an independent Police Commission, which can accept input from the public, or from police officers, and the police officers know that the information won’t be used against them. I’ve proposed a simple change here. In my change, Section 7-2.1, Organization, would be changed to omit the term "Police Commission", and Section 7-2.2 would be deleted, and essentially moved under Article IX, put under the Prosecuting Attorney’s purview. The reason for this is because this is an oversight Commission, an oversight Board. We have about four of them: the Police Commission; the Ethics Board is supposed to be an oversight Board; the Planning Board of Review and the Liquor Board of Review, but I don’t believe those two Boards can logically go under the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, the Liquor Board and the Planning Board, because of the separation of powers problem, but the Police Commission, I do believe, and the Ethics Board, and I made a presentation to the Board of Ethics, essentially the same way, and I will get that to you also. Essentially the Police Commission would be moved under the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office where the Prosecuting Attorney, and not the Corporation Counsel, would provide legal counsel, secretarial support and investigative support, for the Police Commission. As it is now, the Police Commission members are appointed by the Mayor and sit under the Corporation Counsel, who’s also appointed by the Mayor, and in essence, we have the watch dogs inside the hen house. They’re not doing the job that they should be. The Police Commission should be an independent review board. We should look at something like New York City, where their Police Commission is independent and not part of the Police Department. That’s essentially what I have. The other major change is that the Police Commission would not be appointed by the Chief Executive but rather by the County Council, with each member appointing a member to the Police Commission. The Police Commission would be expanded to nine members. It’s already expanded to nine members, I’m sorry. Each member would appoint a person to that Commission, with the approval of the rest of the Council, and then that Commission would be under the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and would not come under any of the Legislative or the Executive Branch at that point. That was my proposal.

RAY: Questions for Mr. Pranke?

HERKES: I just have one comment. We’re probably going to have to pay the Prosecuting Attorney more than we are the Council Manager by the time we get all these things under the Prosecuting Attorney.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I did have one comment. We’ve had some other testimony saying maybe we should elect the Police Commission. We’ve tentatively moved the Planning Board of Appeals into the Corporation Counsel’s Office so things are swirling around in our minds. I think your suggestion sounds rather interesting to get Ethics, and the Police Commission is obviously having quite a bit of trouble right now, or the Police Department is having a lot of trouble with managing themselves, and maybe if they went off to the Prosecutor’s Office, it would make more sense.

PRANKE: Yes, and so is the Ethics Board. I don’t mean to belabor this but let me give you two examples about the Police Commission. First, when the current Police Chief was chosen back in ‘94, I believe, I’m not sure, but at a meeting just prior to his being chosen, we found out at a Police Commission meeting, I believe it was in Kona, that the Police Commission had turned all of the confidential folders of all of the police officers who were vying for the Police Chief’s job, to the Mayor. When we asked about this, one of the Police Commissioners said, well, I don’t see anything wrong with that. Turning over confidential records to the Mayor. The Mayor is not supposed to be in the process of choosing. We know, that in this case, the person that he wanted was chosen, and part of the reason was the rules were broken, and the rules were broken by giving these confidential records. This is in the Police Commission minutes. This is not me making it up. Now, the second thing that happened at the Police Commission at about that time was the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Police Commission attempted to slander Mr. Pierson and I before the rest of the Police Commission. Fortunately, we found a couple of letters that these two had written, under the Police Commission motto, on the Police Commission stationery, without the approval of the Police Commission. The Police Commission decided, for that reason, to get rid of these two guys, or not to re-elect them as Chair. But they were in the process of attempting to slander the people who came before them to bring the processes to them. This is clearly out of whack, and we need an independent Police Commission. The Police Department does a pretty good job here. There are a lot of dedicated police officers. My next door neighbor is one of them. But when I talk to them, I find out that there’s a lot of morale problems within the Police Department because of the things that are going on, and an independent, civilian Board of Review is what usually helps stop those problems. Now, the problems with promotions, that’s going to be something else. I don’t think that an independent Police Board is going to be involved in promotions at a higher level, but as far as getting police officers’ complaints heard, them having a place to go without violating the so called ‘code of blue’ would be a big help for morale, I believe. The Ethics Board has a situation. By rule of the Charter, each Board and Commission gets an officer, a lawyer from the Corporation Counsel’s Office. Whenever someone is brought before the Police Commission, the Board of Ethics, etc., etc., and they are an officer or an employee of the County, the Corporation Counsel’s Office sends a lawyer to advocate for them before the Board. If that happened in private practice, the judge would disbar the whole law firm for having people on both sides from the same law firm. That’s a problem that we have with the County Charter that needs to be remedied. One of the remedies is to move the Police Commission and the Ethics Board from under the Corporation Counsel’s Office. But you can’t remove all the Boards and Commissions and put them over in the County Prosecutor’s Office. The ones that I’ve talked about are only those that have oversight responsibilities, those four that I know of, but as I said, the problem with separation of powers gets to be a problem when you get to the Planning Commission and the Liquor Commission. But the Police Commission and Board of Ethics; there’s no problem with moving them and putting them under the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, just a quick comment.

RAY: Okay.

SANTANGELO: Del, it never ceases to amaze me how intelligent and dedicated people in the community are about their government. It makes you feel great, and this is a great proposal. One of the things I liked about what you said, and I agree, not that you said this, but you can’t legislate, you cannot dictate ethics. That comes from within. But we can lead. And independent Commissions, like this, that deal with a department that has to deal with the public the way it does, and I agree you, I sat with Curtis and John on the Council. This was a hard one because we know that police officers are under a lot of morale problems with all of this going on. They don’t want to see this stuff out there. But if we are able to help have better oversight. If we’re setting an example, at one level, that can hold other people and get through leadership, you draw others to a higher ground, so I appreciate this very much. Thank you very much.

PRANKE: Sure.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: You mentioned about nine Council members, each member electing one person to put on this Commission.

PRANKE: Yes.

BALOG: I drink coffee almost every morning with different policemen in my district, and you know what’s the one thing they cannot stand? Is Council members calling them about itty bitty problems, that colleagues call them about, that really aren’t police problems.

PRANKE: Then they should tell them to call the Police Commission.

BALOG: So, I just think it’s funny that you said you wanted an Executive Branch so you had a check and balance. It’s the people’s way to get a chance. But the Police Commission, you said that the Council member should pick the person, so where’s the check that Council member is picking the best person?

PRANKE: Where’s the check that the Mayor is?

BALOG: The Council has to approve them.

PRANKE: And the Council would have to approve that one too. That’s what I said. Each Council member would pick one of their constituents, with the approval of the rest of the Council.

BALOG: But I can let you know, not that I want to argue this point, but from personal experience, you can be nominated by a Mayor and still be denied at the Council level.

PRANKE: Not very often. Once in the last four or five years.

BALOG: Once in 30 years because it’s me. But I find it hard to believe, if you have five members, and you’re telling these members, you’re giving them the chance, you pick that person. Each of the nine are going to be lobbying each other, eh, that’s the person I want, so you help me get this person in, I’ll vote for you for that person.

PRANKE: Tell me who does that and I’ll take them up for violation of the Sunshine Law.

BALOG: No, I’m just saying, though -

PRANKE: I mean, it should all be done out in the open.

BALOG: It is done in the open, but roughly, in laymen’s terms, that’s how politics works.

PRANKE: Sure.

BALOG: I just wanted to give you a little point there.

PRANKE: I understand that.

BALOG: So it possible, just to let you know, to get denied by the Council.

PRANKE: It’s also possible for the Mayor to sneak people through without the Council approving them. We seem to have gone behind this particular Chief Executive, fixing up things since his term on the County Council when he would not send people’s names before the full Council and hold them up in his Committee. So we changed the Charter in 1990, supposedly, to fix that. A couple of times, four times as a matter of fact, he has sent names to the Council so that the Boards and Commissions did not have time to meet twice to approve these people before they became approved by the Charter. In essence, when the Council met to vote for these folks, they were already approved, without the approval of the County Council. That’s how things get changed around. No matter how good an idea we might have, things are going to be effected.

BALOG: So in other ways.

PRANKE: It works both ways.

BALOG: Okay, that was my point.

PRANKE: If you’d have had him put your name in quickly enough, they wouldn’t have had a chance to disapprove.

BALOG: Well, they would have had a chance.

PRANKE: They could have said no, but it wouldn’t have mattered because you would have already been approved by the rules of the Charter. I understand. I know the situation.

RAY: Thank you.

KUROZAWA: John, I have a very short question. In your mind, if the Council actually selects Commission members, when the Council member leaves their term, say in two years, is it your thought that they should change the Commission members every two years also?

PRANKE: Well, that’s another thing that I didn’t put in here because, I think, that needs to be dealt with by greater minds than mine. I did put a last sentence here that says "Upon approval of this section, the council shall appoint new members to the commission in a manner which provides for staggered commission terms." Now, we did that before with the Police Commission. My thought is you may want to change the members to two-year term, to three-year term, I don’t know. I don’t know. I think that that’s something that needs to be decided upon, perhaps by this Board, or perhaps by the citizens, putting their input in, but it is possible that it could change the term limits for the Board. To have five-year terms when the Council member only has two-year terms, I don’t know. Did I say, if you put two-year term limits for the Mayor right now, I’m almost sure that the people of this county will approve it?

HERKES: Mr. Pranke, some of your ideas have real merit and we’ve been struggling a lot in our discussions on the fact that there is a scarcity of people who want to serve on Boards and Commissions. If they were appointed by the Council, do you think that that would bring more people forward to serve on Boards and Commissions?

PRANKE: I don’t know that. I do know that a lot of people have more empathy with the person that they have on their Council from their district, because that person comes from their district, but I don’t know that, and I don’t know what process. I know that, for the current County Executive, people are given police background checks in some cases. There are various kinds of other things. I suppose, politically, that’s important. Democratically, it’s not.

HERKES: It’s important to me but I think that’s fine.

PRANKE: It may be. You know, most of us probably wouldn’t want a child molester sitting on some Board, but the point of the fact is that everybody does belong to this democracy, and the question of limiting people because of certain traits, we have to be real careful about how we do that, I think. A person with a criminal background, doesn’t necessarily mean that they wouldn’t be as good a Commissioner on some Board or Commission as somebody else, but that pretty much precludes them from being on Boards and Commissions at this point.

RAY: Any other questions? All right, thank you. Is Mr. Ross still here?

?: I think he left. He’s not here.

RAY: Okay, Coco Pierson. Then we’re going to take a five minute break after Coco is finished.

PIERSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Charter Commission. My name is Coco Pierson. I’m also from Puna and I’d like to range over a couple of things here, but I won’t take too long. I sat in this very room when the Police Commission was holding its meeting here, and one of the Police Commissioners was irritated at public testimony. It is terrible, you know, to have to listen to the public sometimes. And, even though it was not on the agenda, this Commissioner made a motion that henceforth, all public testimony will be in writing. It was seconded and it passed. And I said, when will this take effect? Next month. Okay. A representative from the Corp Counsel’s Office was here to give some guidance to the Commissioners so that they would do things legally, but that guidance was not forthcoming. It didn’t happen. I protested that any action has to be on the agenda, advance written notice, you cannot deny oral testimony and require it, it’s not legal, and the representative from Corp Counsel’s Office will affirm what I’m saying, I’m sure. So, the representative from Corp Counsel’s Office was asked, said yes, I’m afraid that Mr. Pierson is correct, and it’s not legal. But, only, he spoke up when he was asked. Okay. So, from what I’ve seen, and I’ve been to many Police Commission meetings, it’s a joke, and it’s a real bad joke for the public. If you can’t consider something along the lines that Mr. Pranke has suggested, then consider, and I think he gave two possibilities, I’ll give you a third. Eliminate the Police Commission. Just take it out. As a citizen, if you don’t like what the police are doing, then just vote the Mayor out of office, and if he’s only serving for two years, you won’t have too long to wait. But, don’t put up a false hope that the Police Commission is going to deal in an honest, forthright manner with anything that comes before it. It’s not going to happen. It hasn’t happened in the past. Can anyone remember anything the Police Commission has done? I don’t think so. The papers are full of many things. Why didn’t the officers take their complaints to the Police Commission? Why are we paying for a lot of attorney fees? Why wasn’t this solved at the Police Commission level? It’s because each and every Police Commissioner is basically a puppet of the appointing authority, and the Legislative Branch, who must confirm or reject the Police Commissioners, as it now stands, has not done their job. People appointed by the Mayor have come before the County Council and lied to the County Council. Lied to the County Council, and still be approved. Ditto for the Ethics Commissioners, the members of the Board of Ethics. They have lied. I’m not talking about in their prior activities, or unrelated, but to the County Council, and still be approved. So, where is the oversight? Where is the review? It does not, or has not existed enough. A shortage? You mention a shortage of people willing to serve.

HERKES: I did.

PIERSON: I haven’t got a call yet. I have a phone.

HERKES: Are you on file?

PIERSON: I have an answering machine. I went to talk to Rudy Legaspi and Rudy Legaspi told me, don’t bother, we have our own people. Because I sent someone in, so I cannot accept that there’s a shortage of people.

HERKES: Rudy told you that?

PIERSON: He told me that we already have a list. I was going to recommend someone. I took the application. I gave it to a person that I thought would be fair and qualified. So, I can’t buy into that.

HERKES: Okay.

PIERSON: You folks have a big job, a real big job, to try to make improvements in this system, and believe me, there’s a lot of improvements that need to be made. If there’s going to be Commissions, basically these people just turn out to do advertisements for the Mayor, the appointing authority. That’s what we see, but it’s possible to have one Board or Commission that does the function of several right now, and some cities are arranged that way. The American Civil Liberties Union has a publication that describes a competent Police Commission, or Civilian Oversight Review Commission, whatever they call it, Board, and if you folks have an opportunity, and care to do so, look it over and see how the present system we have here falls short of that. It falls very short of it.

One thing you folks will want to do, if you’re going to work on laws and changing the system, you will want to obey the system that we presently have, and you have not done that with this right here. This is already illegal. There are people here that should know better. Example, Minutes Approval. Why does the public not have an opportunity to speak about minutes approval? I’ve been to numerous meetings of the Police Commission and the Board of Ethics, and the minutes are not true. They’re not true, and yet the public, who may have been misquoted, does not have an opportunity to speak about that. Here it is. Statements from the Public, but you can’t speak about the minutes, huh? Okay, that’s wrong. Public Hearing, 1999-2000 Rules of Procedure. Is the public welcome here? I think that the law says that it should be, but it’s not. So, this is wrong. You folks needs to start obeying the law yourselves, before you try to make laws for other people. Thank you.

RAY: Comments? Mr. Martin.

MARTIN: I have two points, I guess, and I’m going to lose one shortly here. You made the comment on Del’s proposal for the Commission, and that the Council would, in fact, make the appointments, and I believe you are in agreement with that. Correct?

PIERSON: Yes.

MARTIN: Then, you went on to make a statement that, in its present form, they’re puppets. What considerations would you have that now Council member appoints, and this person is no longer a puppet? Where is the adjustment on that?

PIERSON: Council people are elected every two years, and it’s very possible, but the Police Commissioner from that particular area would be tied directly to that Council person, and the person to serve on the Police Commission, who was chosen by the particular representative from that district, still could not be approved, or take the position, without being approved by the majority of the other members of the Council.

MARTIN: I understand that, and I agree with that because that’s a democratic way of doing it. What I’m saying is, your statement was that the people are puppets to the people that appoint them now. All I’m saying is, where’s the difference? Why wouldn’t they still be puppets?

PIERSON: They could be. They could still be puppets.

BALOG: Hey, Mr. Pranke, you’re not supposed to coach him. He’s asking this guy, not you. If you want to say something, you should come back, right?

PRANKE: I’ll be glad to. I thought I could cut that out.

MARTIN: Point of clarification, Mr. Chair. There’s one conversation going here. Thank you.

RAY: Okay, any more comments?

SANTANGELO: To leave it on a positive note, I’d like to make a comment. One of the things about Del’s proposal, coming from a Council, and I have no favorite, one way or the other at this point. We’re going to debate that here, if it comes up. But, if Council members are appointing, you have a pool of nine members pools rather than one pool so I think it does help disseminate it a bit. I’m a little bit disturbed that we’re appointing people to Commissions to do a job. It’s kind of like the Supreme Court. The President doesn’t appoint every single Supreme Court Justice, but at the time an opening comes up, then you need an appointing body, and so I think a lot of it does change. I think there’s a lot of merit that can be if we want to look into it, and I appreciate the public coming and giving us this comment. I just wanted to offer that a little bit because it does answer some of that a little bit. Thank you.

RAY: Mr. Balog.

BALOG: I just have, I think, two questions, if I don’t forget one like my colleague over there. One of them was that you made mention that the Council isn’t doing their job now, and it really bothers me, because if they aren’t doing their job when someone is sending them a nomination, I can’t believe they’re going to do their job when they get a chance to choose them individually from their own district. Is the other eight people now going to do their job that they magically weren’t doing before? I mean, the proposal is that if these Council members have a chance to pick one person per district; there’s nine districts; what’s going to make eight other people do their job when an Executive Branch sent a nomination, and nine of them didn’t do their job? I don’t understand how, all of a sudden, they’re going to be so interested that they’ll do their job. Because you said they aren’t doing their job. You follow?

PIERSON: I believe that Mr. Ray is quite familiar with one particular case that I referred to, where a liar was approved to go on the Board of Transportation. Testimony was given at the open opportunity for public testimony. Such and such and such happened, and then the person nominated to be on the Board of Transportation said otherwise, and without any further investigation, did this happen or did this not happen, this person was approved. Okay? That’s the way it came down. A member of the Police Commission was presented, and all of these people are presented by the Mayor, huh?

BALOG: I understand.

PIERSON: Okay, came forth and this person was a political Independent from Ka’u, and Brian DeLima said, but sir, I know you as a Democrat. Have you been active at the precinct level in Democratic politics? Ah, yes. Well, sir, I think that makes you a Democrat. To this day, the records reflect that person is an Independent. How can that happen? I’m not even sure that it should make any difference if no more than this many members can be from one party. I’m not sure it makes any difference. Certainly the way it is right now, it doesn’t because they lie.

BALOG: They put whatever they want on the application.

PIERSON: So, that’s another thing to consider. Do we have to limit the number of people? So, it’s a really, really bad system and I would like to see, if we can’t make it better somehow, that it’s just eliminated so people aren’t fooled into thinking they’ve got some protection with this Commission and that Commission. God help us if we get a Fire Commission.

IRVINE: Mr. Pierson, could I ask you one thing? I want to make a statement first. You were saying we weren’t necessarily following our rules. I think this Commission, our Chair, has been real, real careful to bend the rules, as best he can, to let everybody say whatever they want to say here, and we’re trying to get all the information we can, and on that note, if you have those ACLU guidelines on an independent commission, if it’s brief, or even if it’s longer, it could be shared with our Commission by sharing with our Assistant here, and she’ll make copies for all of us, because we’re interested in looking at everything.

PIERSON: I have it. I’ll make it available, and if somehow I cannot locate it, the Police Commission has one.

RAY: Any more questions? Marni.

HERKES: I want to ask our legal counsel about approving minutes, about having the public approve minutes of meeting minutes. That’s not -

RAY: I don’t think the question was approve.

HERKES: Comment on?

RAY: It was commenting or testifying.

HERKES: Have we ever restricted anybody from commenting on our minutes? I mean, we put them on the web page so that everybody could see them.

YUEN: No, I think that he does have a point, though, that if we are voting on the minutes from the previous meeting, and we have that vote before we take statements from the public, and a member of the public did want to object, or correct, those minutes, that they wouldn’t have a chance to before the Commission had acted on those. So I think we should move the Statements from the Public up ahead of the Minutes. It didn’t occur to me previously, and I think this only would happen, because we have been approving the minutes in a very timely manner, and so typically, we have been taking the last set of minutes.

RAY: Any other questions for Mr. Pierson? Thank you.

PIERSON: Thank you.

HERKES: And thank you for calling that to our attention.

PIERSON: You’re in good company. The County Council has been violating it for years.

RAY: Let’s take a five minute break and then we’ll convene.

RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 6:25 p.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 6:37 p.m.

RAY: Let’s reconvene the meeting. We’re going to just handle two more items this evening, the Police Department and Police Commission. At the last meeting, I think it was our understanding that the Board of Appeals might be able to meet prior to this meeting, and it turns out, that they were not able to and are not going to be meeting for some time, so we’ll have to delay that. Corporation Counsel is not present this evening to get their input on both the Board of Appeals area, as well as their recommendation in regard to the Police Commission, so we won’t be able to get their input this evening. So let’s just ask up the folks from the Police Commission and the Police Department. So Major Mahuna, do you want to come up first from the Police Department? Now, we have a letter dated September 30th from Chief Carvalho, so does everybody have that? This is in response to the proposed Charter Amendments which we received from the Police Commission.

HERKES: Mr. Ray, why do I have one that says September 30th and one that says October 15th?

RAY: Yes, the October 15th is the -

HERKES: Is that the one?

RAY: Yes, excuse me. Okay, we’ve got a September 9th communication from the Police Commission, from the Chair, Sharon Scheele, that we had since the last meeting. This is their proposals from the Police Commission. In response to that, we have the October 15th letter. Okay? Major.

MAHUNA: Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the Charter Review Commission. I’m not going to be here to recite, basically, what you have in front of you in our October 15th memorandum, or letter, to the Commission, but I would welcome any question that you have in regards to the contents of the letter and I can give you the position of the Police Department, and hopefully, give you the position of the Police Chief. Any questions?

RAY: Can we get the representative from the Police Commission up to the table, too? Maybe that would get everybody at the table. Yes, Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: I didn’t have anything to say.

RAY: Does everybody have this proposed Charter Amendments from Sharon Scheele? This is a September 9th communication. Can you both state your names for the record, too?

OKABE: Will Okabe.

RAY: Representing?

OKABE: Police Commission.

RAY: Okay.

MAHUNA: I’m Assistant Chief Lawrence Mahuna representing the Police Department.

RAY: Excuse me. Assistant Chief. Do you want to go over the proposed Amendments from the Commission, Mr. Okabe? Do you have these -

OKABE: No, I do not. I don’t have that form.

RAY: Are you familiar with them?

OKABE: Yes, we had a Public Hearing on that particular thing, but when I came here today, I thought other Commissioners were going to be here today, so they called me up to come down because Sharon Scheele got this letter from, I believe it was, Sharron Henry. I don’t know if she called you, or anything, but this is a last minute thing. They just called me up at school, but if you have any questions about any of the proposals.

RAY: Basically, we have the proposed Charter Amendments from the Police Commission which, pretty much across the board, the Police Department disagrees with. So, all of you have this information? Do you have any questions for either one of these folks? Roland.

HIGASHI: It seems to me, Mr. Okabe, that the Amendment you had, and what’s in the Charter, is already redundant and you just rearranged it. Is there any reason for that?

OKABE: No. I mean, we reviewed the Charter and what had happened was we had discussed it with Corporation Counsel to make it clearer, so we did readjust some things in the present language. So we didn’t make a radical change but we just -

HIGASHI: Rearranged it in different sections.

OKABE: Yes.

HIGASHI: Is there a reason for that?

OKABE: No, when one of the members of the Commission had brought it up, they’d asked Corporation Counsel to look into this matter to make it cleaner.

HIGASHI: You have a section in there where the Commission had to review and approve of all legislative matters for the Department. What’s the rationale on that?

OKABE: Which one is this? The second page?

HIGASHI: Yes.

OKABE: We oppose the proposal of subparagraph -

MAHUNA: No, that’s -

OKABE: Which one?

IRVINE: Review and approve legislative positions being taken by the department?

HIGASHI: Yes.

OKABE: To review the positions taken by the department.

HERKES: To review and approve.

OKABE: Yes.

HIGASHI: Review and approve, that section.

OKABE: To review and approve.

RAY: Can you refer exactly to which section?

HIGASHI: I don’t have a copy. I take it from memory.

IRVINE: Here.

HIGASHI: Do you have a copy, Item G, review and approval legislative positions taken by the department? It’s a proposed Amendment by the Commission. What’s the rationale? You have a policy making body for review? I mean there is a lot of legislation that goes on in the Legislature. Are you proposing that you review and approve each position that the department has before they testify in the Legislature? Is that what they’re saying?

OKABE: We felt that the Commission, as a body, that we needed to have the opportunity to review the information that was given to the Commission. Okay, in other words, we wanted to have that opportunity to approve positions that when complaints come to the Commission, the Commission has the opportunity to review all of the investigative situations, such as the complaints or the Police Department, their complaints, and also, we are trying to ask for some kind of investigation, any kind of investigation. We want that power, or that opportunity, to get that information so that we can make a fair decision.

HIGASHI: I appreciate that, but in G, it’s specific talking about Legislative positions.

RAY: It’s the one at the bottom.

HERKES: To review and approve.

RAY: Do you have this? I’m sorry. The one at the very bottom.

OKABE: I have no -

HIGASHI: So you have no objection with delete?

OKABE: We’re going to have a Police Commission meeting this Friday so I will have to discuss it with the Commission.

RAY: Let’s stay in order. Mr. Higashi’s got the floor.

HIGASHI: There are times when the four departments take a united position and go to Legislature, and for them to have to come back to you for approval each time there’s an issue at the Legislature, I think it’s cumbersome and unmanageable. So, I’m kind of surprised and wanted to know the rationale behind that recommendation.

RAY: You finished, Roland? Okay, Ms. Irvine.

HIGASHI: If he’s finished with his answer, then I’m finished.

OKABE: I would have to go back to the Commission to ask them for the specific rationale for that particular G. I do not have that information.

RAY: I think what we’d like to make sure is that, at your next meeting, that you respond to the response from the Police Department so that we get everybody on the same page, here. So, Ms. Irvine, did you have a question?

IRVINE: I guess the other thing that they did in here was say that the Commission will set general policy, and then they said, no individual member of the Commission shall interfere, in any way, with the administrative affairs of the department. Now, previously, it said that the neither the Commission nor an individual would interfere, and I’d have to get to the page of the Charter that that is, but our Charter, actually, is in line with the Honolulu Charter and I just wondered why they felt that the Commission should be able to interfere in the administrative affairs of the department, because that doesn’t seem to be the pattern, anyway, in Honolulu.

OKABE: Well, first of all, listening to the people that were talking about the Police Commission, I personally do not feel that we’re puppets for the Mayor, or any particular individual in the County Council, so therefore, I believe that when they were drafting up this information for the Amendments, we wanted to have the opportunity to be, not as Coco mentioned about being independent, in a sense of the whole total structure, but that is one of the reasons why we wanted to do that. I mean, because the perception would seem is that we are as he mentioned, but we are not.

RAY: Sue, do you have any further on that?

IRVINE: No, just to note that Honolulu, and previously ours, said that the neither the Commission nor individual members could interfere, and I’m not real sure why they’re taking it out.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: Just following up to that. Not to bring to light the newspaper article that someone was trying to flash around, but would what you’re trying to accomplish mean that, in other words, Administration would be something like how they handle promotions, or how they handle investigations? Is that what you guys were thinking about?

OKABE: No, we do not work on any promotions.

BALOG: Okay, so try explain, when you said Administration, what you guys were thinking about, because you’re saying the Commission would now like to be able to look into the administration of the department?

OKABE: No, we’re not trying to micro manage. That’s not our role.

BALOG: Right, but you’d like the chance, if something arose, like what was the example given?

OKABE: To be independent, in a sense that we’re not trying to micromanage. That is not our role. The Commission is not to micromanage, so we do not get involved in promotions or anything like that. We are civilian review, where the civilians will come to the Commission if they have a complaint on the Police Department or a police officer. If they have a complaint on a police officer, they bring that complaint to the Police Commission’s office, and the Commission then reviews the information they were given from the police officer, and from the civilian, and if the officer should ask for legal counsel, the Police Commission can, or will not, grant approval of legal counsel. And we also have investigative powers so that we can ask for investigation to bring to the Commission to see if there are any charges that are substantial. But that is our main role, not to micromanage the Police Department.

BALOG: I’ve got a question then, if you could take back to the Commission, why they wanted to change that portion. What example? There must have been an example they discussed when they proposed that Amendment to the Charter, if you don’t mind.

OKABE: Okay.

BALOG: Thank you.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: That same question came up from the Corporation Counsel and I think we have to somehow deal with it, and would you take it back to the Police Department, that somehow we have to deal with this because once it disappears, and, it’s my understanding the Police Commission handles the investigation, and then it is referred to the Police Department, and it disappears. Nothing comes back to the public and that’s a concern, so I’d appreciate it if you’d take that back to Chief Carvalho. Tell him that is a concern. We’ve heard it three or four times in this kind of process, and it may not be something that even is appropriate for the Charter. It’s a process that is broken somehow, so it needs to somehow be solved, and I understand there’s confidentiality, there’s a lot of different civil liberties that can be breached, but there’s got to be a solution to it somehow. And I want to tell each of you, in our major overall goal that we’re doing here, we’re liable to end up with a whole new document, a whole new Charter. To simplify, to make it more accountable, Program Review, a lot of different things that are more accountable to the public, that the public will feel more comfortable with. For instance, we’ve got the County Band in the County Charter. There’s a whole bunch of things like that, that over the last 20 years, have kind of been inserted because there was some very emotional vocal testimony for it. So when we’re looking at this, we’re trying to look at it as a clean slate, like throw out the whole thing and go back and say how do you really want to do this. When you look at a simpler, more effective governance for public safety, I’m really attracted to a Public Safety Commission. One that will protect me. One that’ll protect me in civil defense. One that will protect me in the police. One that will protect me in the fire, and I’m the major recipient of government actions, so I’m looking at it from a client’s standpoint rather than from a Commission standpoint. What’s going to work best for me. So, I haven’t seen any testimony in favor of Public Safety Commissions, in fact, we’ve had quite a bit against. But I’d like you to kind of look at what will work best from my standpoint, rather than working best from who appoints it, from working best how it looks, or from an emotional standpoint, is what’s going to protect me the best. What’s going to be the most effective governance tool that we can use, and you kind of have to wipe out the slate and not read the Charter, and kind of look at it from a different standpoint than what is there now. So, I’d appreciate it if each of you would come back with some kind of -

MAHUNA: Just some clarification on that.

HERKES: Okay.

MAHUNA: You mean in lieu of a Police Commission you would have a Public Safety Commission that would oversee the fire, civil defense, police?

HERKES: Yes. Those are the things that protect me, from County government. Not from County government, but they’re the things from within County government that protect me. Those are the kinds of tools that we empower County government to provide to protect our citizenry.

MAHUNA: I guess, and this is not something that comes from the Police Chief, but I would think that, just looking at the size and the scope of having a Commission like that that would be empowered with overseeing a multitude of public safety entities, would be an enormous task. I think it would be a task that would be almost doomed to failure unless you had a big Commission and you separated them to specifically look at Police Department, the Fire Department, the Civil Defense, and everything else that effects your public safety. I think that, even at this point in time, you’re looking the Police Commission, I think they have

an enormous job, taking care of complaints against Police Department people, taking care of recommending certain things to the Administration, reviewing policies and procedures that come out of the Police Department, and I think they spend a lot of time, and in fact, probably an inordinate amount of time, listening to complaints, seeing that these complaints have some merit or they don’t have any merit. I think that a lot of their function, as a separate entity to investigate some of these complaints, is governed by the budget. You know their budget has been cut enormously, and so if it’s dependent upon the budget, you’ve got to look at, not only creating something that will take care all of the public safety issues, but you have to also look at the enormity of the job, and also giving them a budget that they can do their job with. And I think that severely inhibits that, and I don’t think that has probably anything to do with the Charter Commission at this point, but that’s just my private opinion.

RAY: Other questions?

IRVINE: I do have one more for both of you. Essentially, it’s been mentioned to us, several different things have been brought to our attention about the Police Commission, including the fact that maybe they should be elected. Maybe the Police Chief should be elected. And the most interesting idea I heard mentioned was maybe the Police Commission should be under the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and not where it presently is. I was wondering if police officers would feel more comfortable going for a hearing in front of a body that wasn’t under their own department, that sort of thing. Would moving them from where they are over to the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office help?

MAHUNA: I don’t see what that would accomplish, if anything.

IRVINE: Well, your staff would be prosecuting attorneys on the Commission rather than Police Department, so it would be outside the department.

MAHUNA: On the Commission itself, we don’t have any Police Department individuals.

IRVINE: Police Department staff for your Commission, or your offices are there, or what?

OKABE: We only have one staff, the secretary. It’s right next door.

MAHUNA: And the reason why is because it would serve really no purpose. If a complaint is referred to us from the Commission, and we investigate it, and we find that there is criminality involved, the Prosecutor’s Office is the first people that we contact, because we, more than anybody else, would like to police our own police officers, because not only do they present a liability to us, but they also present a liability to the community that they serve.

IRVINE: Theoretically, you’re right, but I mean, we’ve been reading the paper this week. It’s been a difficult process.

MAHUNA: Well, irregardless of that, we’re talking about improprieties that I think, that go beyond the scope of what the Police Commission could do.

IRVINE: I wonder if one of these officers would have felt comfortable coming to the Police Commission with the problem that he saw at the Police Department if your Commission had been at the Prosecutor’s Office rather than under the Police Department, where it is now.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: Point of clarification. If an officer has a complaint, is it the Commission that he goes to, or is there another body that he goes to? I think there may be some confusion on that.

MAHUNA: A complaint against?

MARTIN: I guess, if he saw something. Let’s say, his Sergeant is doing something. It’s handled internally, isn’t it?

MAHUNA: That’s correct.

MARTIN: It doesn’t go to the Commission, right?

MAHUNA: Right.

MARTIN: That’s what I thought. Thank you.

RAY: Daryl.

KUROZAWA: We’ve heard a lot of testimony tonight concerning the appointment of Police Commission by the Mayor, and actually, I heard twice tonight, saying that if it was appointed by an independent body, that morale in the department may be better. I know a lot of police officers, actually personally, and I don’t know if I agree with that statement, but what’s your take? You’ve been on the force for a long time. Does the Police Commission have anything to do with your morale issues in the department, or if there was an independent body helping out, would it change morale?

MAHUNA: It depends on what the issue is. I’ve heard a lot of complaints too, in my position, and a lot of it has to do with probably not enough manpower, probably working a lot of times overtime when they shouldn’t be. They like to be home with their families. Working on assignments that carry them through the holidays where they’d like to be with their families. A lot of stress-provoking incidents that they become involved with. One of these things may be promotions, and maybe they feel that the system is unfair. That may be part of the whole picture, but there’s a lot of separate issues here, that I think, are addressed, or we attempt to address them administratively, and we only have a certain amount of monies, and we’re trying to fill the positions. We have, I think, something like 20 some odd positions left to fill and we’re trying our darndest to fill these positions so that these people will not have to work the overtime, so that we can fill all the civilian vacancies so that they will have some more people to do their reports, to do clerical tasks that maybe some of the police officers are feeling that they have to do. So there’s a lot of things that we’re doing internally in the Police Department to rectify a lot of these complaints. And the point of the matter is, they have an avenue to come and tell us. As administrators, we’re looking at problem areas, and we’re not pompous enough to feel that we know everything that happens in the Police Department. I’ve been a policeman for 27 years and I find out that the guys that are on the street, working the street, I no longer work the street, these are the individuals I depend upon to tell me what their problems are. I’m not responding to the domestics at 2 o’clock in the morning. I’m not responding to gunshots that may involve the multiple homicide, so it’s my duty to support them in terms of training, equipment, the number of men that are allowed to respond, proper supervision. Those are the type of things that we’re trying to address, and yes, you may hear, like every large Police Department, and we’re considered a medium size Police Department, you’re going to hear people who are disgruntled. You’re going to hear people that say it’s not fair, but that happens and occurs in every Police Department, and I’m not making excuses for what you’re reading in the paper right now, but I tell you this much, in my career, I have not seen a Police Department in this State that’s statistically as good as this Police Department, sans everything that you’ve heard about the promotions, and about inequities in the system itself. We have a good Police Department, period. I can show you statistics to prove that. We’ve got good policemen working for us. We have a good system of ferreting out potential people that would not make good policemen, that would become a liability. So when you look at the Commission, and should they be more involved in the day to day operations? Should a Public Safety Commission be made? I don’t know if that would cure the problem because most of the internal stuff, complaints about policemen against other police officers, or about their ranking officers, there is a system in place to address those issues.

RAY: Okay. John.

SANTANGELO: Thank you. I agree with you. If we want to improve morale, there’s a whole lot of things we can do, and again, it’s letting people be with their families, giving them fair pay for a fair day’s work. There’s a lot of things that we don’t deal with on an economic level. But let me ask you this question. Do you think yourself, or other officers in the Police Department care, or is it very important how the Commission is brought together? In other words, if the Mayor appoints or if it’s done independently, as long as it’s doing its job?

MAHUNA: As long as it’s doing its job, the end result is all we care about.

SANTANGELO: So how it’s chosen really doesn’t matter?

MAHUNA: It doesn’t matter.

SANTANGELO: But how its function is carried out.

MAHUNA: Exactly.

SANTANGELO: And I think we’re talking a lot about how we bring that Commission together, and then there has to be a separation of powers, that administratively, the Police Department has to be able to handle its own affairs, but the Commission deals with the public and the police. Thank you.

RAY: In regard to the testimony we have here from the Police Commission and the Police Department on, sort of, the language changes or whatever, does anybody else have any input for these gentlemen to take back to their respective departments? My personal view, is that I pretty much tend to agree with the Police Department in regard to their response to the recommendations from the Police Commission, so you can pass that on from me, individual member, that I tend to pretty much support the comments of the Police Department in regard to the suggestions made by the Police Commission, and some of these larger issues, I think we all need to take the information we’ve received tonight, the public testimony, and think about it, and really put a lot more thought into some of those substantive issues, but in terms of the recommendations from the Police Commission, and the response by the department, does anybody else have anything to add to these folks, because we’re not deciding anything tonight. We’re just getting input, and I appreciate your being here, and we’ve gotten a lot more input and a lot more things on the table tonight, and we need to get Corporation Counsel involved in this discussion, as part of all this, so we’ll make sure we do that before we pull all this together. Marni.

HERKES: I would agree with you because of the legislative issues, and because of some of them, and we really, actively solicited input from the Police Commission, so we appreciate that we got some, and from the Police Department. This has not been easy to get out of you guys, so it’s been great to actively get some, and maybe it was because we so actively solicited department. But what comes out of both of these testimonies, to me, is that you guys are not talking to each other. You’re not communicating well, and I think that might be something that you both can work on because there’s a real antagonism in both of these statements, and so I think it would be great if the communication would really be worked on between the Commission and the department. Because it would help all of us to have it functioning better. Thank you.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: I agree with both of you. I disagree a little bit. If there’s anything, in my experience, I’ve seen abused, because I know of a couple of instances in the past, it’s been Commissioners on the Police Commission interfering with the police, and there’s a couple of classic examples. We could go back just a few years.

HERKES: I don’t think we should, though.

SANTANGELO: No, we won’t. So I think, probably only surpassed by Council members who like to micro manage. And when you have a Police Department with the mission that they have to carry out, I think there is an importance and a brotherhood that goes with that, and certainly, I understand why you may not, but I do weigh in, with this particular document, with the police. But we’ve got our work cut out and I think we have a pretty good sense of where we may go with this, and I think both would be best served by it. And I appreciate the input, and like you say, it’s not the messenger that you get, it’s the message you’re looking for, so I thank you both, but I agree with the Chairman.

RAY: Any more comments?

MAHUNA: One more comment.

RAY: Sure. Larry.

MAHUNA: The Commission and their suggested changes. I think it’s healthy that they have a divergence of opinion from us because if we, as a Police Department, and we talked about it, and we had the same feelings and the same proposals to Amendments and stuff like that, I think that that’s not healthy. I think it’s healthy to have opposing views. If the Police Commission feels that they should have certain things and we disagree, that’s healthy. That’s good government. I think if we come back and we say, well you know, we’re both buddies and we have a great synergy between both of us, and we have basically no complaints that should be changed, I think that wouldn’t behoove this Commission in looking at what needs to be changed. I mean, do you listen to the Police Department or do you listen to the Police Commission? And I think the division that we have, the separateness, but we have certain legal responsibilities, I think is healthy. I think it’s healthy that they come up with certain things that they feel are important, and if we disagree with it, so be it. And if our justifications are better than theirs, then listen to ours. If not, if it has basically no justification behind it, then of course, lean towards them. But I think government, in itself, if we were trying to become one entity, and that’s what I think we don’t want to become, a Police Commission/Police Department. They have their duties and responsibilities and so do we. They have obligations to the citizenry of the County of Hawaii and so do we. And I think the separateness, and I think, some of the divergence of opinion is great. So we don’t agree on everything. Thank you.

RAY: Okay, great. Thanks, Larry. Any other comments for these gentlemen?

Let’s call it an evening. The next meeting is going to be this Saturday in Waimea at the Waimea Civic Center. That’s in the Courthouse/Police complex there.

HERKES: In that back building where we were before?

RAY: In the back building, right. At 9 a.m. and we’ll plan on working until we feel like stopping but I was thinking we’d go from 9 to 12, then probably break and all go out to lunch together, and then come back, and hopefully, work another couple of hours. Okay?

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

MARTIN: So moved.

RAY: Second?

HERKES: Second.

The discussion ended at 7:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharron Henry

Secretary-Administrative Assistant