HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Meeting of December 4, 1999

Waimea Civic Center

Waimea, Hawaii

Attendance: J. Ray, E. Alonzo, S. Bess, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa, G. Martin, J. Santangelo, G. Yoshiyama

Absent: K. Balog, Counsel C. Yuen

And no members of the public in attendance.

The meeting was called to order at 9:50 a.m.

RAY: I’d like to call the Special Meeting of the Hawaii County Charter Commission to order. It’s Saturday, December 4th. We’re in Waimea. Present are myself John Ray; Roland Higashi, Eddie Alonzo; Steve Bess; Marni Herkes; Sue Irvine; Daryl Kurozawa; George Martin; John Santangelo; and Gary Yoshiyama.

Statements from the Public. There are no members of the public present today.

We’ll move on to Minutes Approval. We’re approving today the minutes of October 16th and October 27th. Let’s do them separately. The minutes of October 16th, do I have a motion to approve?

SANTANGELO: So moved.

RAY: Second?

IRVINE: Second.

RAY: Any discussion? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Minutes of October 27th?

HIGASHI: Move to approve.

RAY: Second?

SANTANGELO: Second.

RAY: Any comment? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Okay.

Financial Status Report: Looking at the balance from last fiscal year, we show a balance of $23,723.68, and from this fiscal year $87,423.54. So we’re still in pretty good shape there.

Communications: In your packets, we have the meeting agenda for this coming meeting next Wednesday, letter from Rudy Legaspi. Just want to point those out.

Unfinished Business: Let’s just take off with General Review of the Charter, and we’re trying to identify today, and discuss, major areas of interest and to see what progress we can make in terms of, first, what we want to pursue, and if we do, what we might need in terms of more information or input to proceed. I think at the top of the list is clearly the Council Manager form of government, because I think we’ve acknowledged

that if we were to pursue that, it would pretty much be a rewrite of the Charter, and I’m sure affect our thinking in lots of other areas. So I want to throw that out for discussion and see how far we can proceed on that today. I’ll open the floor to discussion on Council Manager form of government. Does anybody - first, advocating for, if you’re advocating for and what information you might need?

HIGASHI: Are we asking if anybody is advocating for County Manager, or a similar position, is that it?

RAY: Yes. Sue.

IRVINE: Hearing no comments, I move that we cease deliberations on changing our County form of government to City Manager.

RAY: Okay. Marni.

HERKES: There’s a motion on the floor. Is there a second and then we can have a discussion?

HIGASHI: Second.

RAY: Okay, second. Discussion?

HERKES: I didn’t speak because I was organizing my thoughts, and I really think that we need to look at, in this day and age, managing our County a little bit different. I think we need to look at having a caliber of manager with managerial qualifications, rather than electoral qualifications. We need to look at people that have skills that are different than the skills that we’ve relied upon in the past. We’re in a different ball game as far as survival goes here. We’re in a different ball game as far as a global economy, as far as competing. We’re in to exporting; we’re in to importing; we’re in to E-commerce. We’re in to visitor industry things that are on a different level. We’re building a $5 million research facility to improve our agricultural products. There’s a different level of expertise needed, and that’s why I would like to continue the discussion on County Manager, and see how we could make the process work better. And I’m not criticizing the present process because I think it’s worked really well, but I think we’ve had some disasters in the past, and we’re perfectly capable of electing one of those disasters again.

RAY: Gary, you brought up earlier, the underlying issue of a strong mayor versus strong council form of government. I think we need to decide that. Do we want to move away from the strong mayor form of government?

SANTANGELO: I’d like to make a couple of comments on that. One of them is when I looked at this County/City Manager versus Mayor, I felt, if anything, we could do is lay more background and, possibly, punt to the next Commission. And the reason I think that is when I looked at the strong mayor and weak council concept when I was on the Council, of course I struggled against that, but looking at it administratively, how I run my business, the decisions that have to be made really do impact services on the island, I don’t have as much problem with the strong mayor concept at this time. The thing that I’m looking forward to that would be interesting to hear from other Commissioners, is going into this complex world that Marni has described, and how we’re moving, and the paradigms that are changing so quickly, would it now be possible on this island, that we would have smaller forms of government? And having the present form of government possibly take that Managing Director, which has been proposed, and try to strengthen that, but also starting to lay groundwork for what may not be changed, this City Manager situation, but would we possibly have cities, or is it always going to be a County? Is this growth and the changes going to incorporate smaller political subdivisions? And that’s something that interests me. It’s not something that we need to deal with here. So, I, kind of, speak in favor of dropping the City Manager type of thing, look at how we can do a better job in steps and prepare for the next Commission.

RAY: Marni, I understand your advocacy, and I think we all share that in terms of more professionalism in terms of management of the County, but what model do you see in terms of this position vis-a-vis the Mayor and the Council? I think fundamentally, we need to answer that. Is this somebody that would be hired by the Council and basically, the Mayor would then be more the Council chair, or would be considerably less - certainly wouldn’t be the CEO of the County. Is that what you envisioned, so that we basically do away with the strong mayor form of government? Is that what you’re suggesting?

HERKES: I like the Lexington model that we did first where the top vote getter is the head of the Council and the Mayor, and then the Council manages the government and, with that person, they hire the Managing Director who is a professional.

I’d like to comment on John’s township or structure. We did a thing with the League of Women Voters and AAUW. We had four speakers on different kinds of government, and the lady that came from Minnesota, that was on a township board - she had done a lot of research on townships and found that townships are dying. Bigger entities are swallowing them up. That was a shock to us because we were headed down this road and found out there isn’t anybody in front of you. There is an opportunity for every community to have their own neighborhood board, and I’d like to call attention to the Waimea Community Association, as a leader in that particular effort. And you’ll say they can’t vote on things; they have all the power of the voting. Government comes to the Waimea Community Association and says how shall we do this. Help us through this. As my role as the head of the Chamber, government comes to me and said this is what we want to do; how do we do this? We don’t, necessarily, with a 150,000 people, need a structure. It wouldn’t be bad to have. I’m not against it. I’m not against neighborhood boards. But I think the opportunity is there now. We don’t have to have that structure written in. That’s the thing I see coming down the line in the Charter.

I’d like to call your attention to the fact that 2 years is probably the length of planning stage that any business goes through these days. Five years is way long range visioning. When you’re talking about ten years, it’ll be a whole different world. We don’t know what our population’s going to be. In the census, I would guess a 150,000. So, when we get up to half a million, then I think we start looking at different government structures, and I pick that number out of the air. But I think, right now, there just aren’t that many people that we need to have a structured community government. The opportunity’s there. Waimea Community Association is the neighborhood board for this area.

SANTANGELO: But for a point of information, again, we’re talking about City Manager, because I think we could talk and use exactly what you said to build a case for the opposite. But in this City Manager type thing, you said the top vote getter is either the head of the council -

HERKES: I said I liked that.

SANTANGELO: So, we have single member districts which are very, very different -

HERKES: Or 3-6.

SANTANGELO: As Waimea is different from Ka’u, in terms of a neighborhood board, or something. I mean, they’re very, very different single members. So, if you’re talking about a top vote getter, then we have nine single members and the top vote getter would be an individual -

RAY: Let me just interject. We alluded to the Lexington model, and the way the Lexington model works is the top at-large vote getter is the Council Chair, and the Mayor is elected separately, and he attended the Council meetings.

HERKES: I wasn’t sure about that, but we don’t have to follow it all the way through.

RAY: No.

HERKES: As long as the top vote getter chairs the Council and he’s the ceremonial Mayor. Who needs a Mayor?

HIGASHI: With the strong mayor system, we need the Mayor.

RAY: That’s one view. Sue.

IRVINE: I just feel that we can work this out without radically changing to a Council Manager form of government, by possibly beefing up the qualifications for our Managing Director. I was very down on Council Manager until this. Riverside, California has a very simple Charter, and they really do seem to be happy with their Council Manager, but I don’t think we’re ready for it here yet.

RAY: And there again, going back to the Lexington model. They did switch back to a strong mayor form of government.

HERKES: Oh, I know.

RAY: But, it’s interesting, in the transition, their Managing Director now does serve more as the City Manager type, so it seems like that’s the direction we’d like to head in, and if there’s a way we could encourage the Managing Director to be more of a City Manager type, and to have more professional credentials, and have more authority, but ultimately, I think, that is going to be up to the Mayor, so there’s no way around that unless we totally switch forms of government.

So, it sounds like, out of ten of us right now, there’s only one person speaking to pursue the Council Manager form of government.

HIGASHI: So why don’t we vote on the question?

HERKES: We don’t have to vote on it.

HIGASHI: We have a motion.

SANTANGELO: We have a motion. Call for the question. The motion was that we drop pursuing City Manager.

RAY: And I think the understanding is, for now we’re going to drop pursuing it. We always have the choice to revisit it, and if some new startling information, that got us all excited and wanted to get us back on that track, it would have to be probably pretty quickly, but we could always revisit that.

HIGASHI: So we’re going to vote not pursue?

SANTANGELO: Table.

IRVINE: Vote to not pursue. We’re going to take a vote.

SANTANGELO: No, we’re going to take a vote.

RAY: Vote to not pursue.

HIGASHI: Okay. Is that on your motion?

IRVINE: That’s what my motion was, right.

RAY: So, all in favor of not pursuing the Council Manager form of government at this point, say aye.

9 COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed?

HERKES: Nay.

RAY: Let the record show one opposed.

Is it okay with folks if we just proceed down the list -

COMMISSIONERS: Yes.

RAY: Or is that it makes more sense than other?

In terms of the council make-up, Roland has passed out some information today.

HIGASHI: At the Honokaa meeting, this issue surfaced and I was responsible for putting something in writing that we could, kind of, look at, and either accept, amend, or reject. So this is the proposal that I have, composed of nine members. We’d have six districts, three members elected at-large. The members that would be at-large would serve four years. The members that are running from their districts would serve a term of two years, and at this point in time, we still have the term limit in there, not to exceed eight consecutive years. And if needed, we drafted a Reapportionment Commission statement. The present language may be sufficient, but it was drawn up anyway. So Mr. Chair, at this point, I’d like to move that we adopt the proposal that we have circulated.

RAY: Okay, do I have a second?

YOSHIYAMA: Second.

RAY: Discussion? Can I ask a point of clarification on the at-large terms? Would they be a term limit of two?

HIGASHI: Eight consecutive years.

BESS: Yes, we need to specify. We need to clean up that language.

HIGASHI: Yes, we need to, kind of, specify. I think the language should be eight consecutive years.

RAY: But that would be your understanding that the at-large -

HIGASHI: Mr. Chair, unless, at some point in time, we do away with term limits, and want to be consistent, but I don’t want to tie in the term limits with this proposal because people may be against term limits and down the whole proposal.

RAY: I believe it fairly common that the at-large Council members have longer term limits. Anyway, that’s something I’d like to look into, and the rationale behind that.

IRVINE: Longer term - longer term limit?

HIGASHI: But Mr. Chair, I would rather this be in place and the term limit section be separate. I wouldn’t want this proposal to go down because term limits did not pass last time. So I want to, kind of, separate it if I can.

RAY: Okay. Open for discussion. John.

SANTANGELO: I want to speak for and against it.

HERKES: Well, do it one at one time and one at another, not at the same time.

SANTANGELO: I’ll speak ‘for’ first and then I’ll speak ‘against’ afterwards.

The reason that I like this type of proposal is, as it stands right now, if you talk to anybody, they’ve got one Council member to go to because that’s who they elect, and so you’ve got that supposed champion. With three at-large, you’ve got three people that are also beholden because of your vote, and that’s where we seem to be going today, that we only address whom votes for us. So technically, the case can be made that if you go to the Council with a concern, you, supposedly, if it has merit, have four advocates, to start with, out of nine. And that, I think, is a good thing. The fact that we have four years is good and that you’re running people at-large is very, very different from single member, and it maintains the integrity and the wish of the public to have a single member. So, I really support this. I think it’s good government.

The problem I have, and I just bring that up for discussion, is everywhere I’ve taken this, the perception has been that they’re getting screwed, and so we have to deal with that. If we’re going to put something up from this Commission, that’s trying very hard to serve the people, how does that play. And I’ll guarantee you that everything we’ve seen in the Press so far, when we’ve talked about - we’ve never talked about eliminating single member but the Press has always slanted it, and colored it with at-large where the public’s perception, in any discussions we have had, that it attacks single member. So, thank you.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: First of all, you’re right in saying that the Press, or media, is the one that’s slanting, or changing our decisions and discussions, and that’s something we’ve got to take out of our minds. I think, Roland, it’s a great idea. Two scenarios that I have with it, and some feedback from the populace - the four year term; they weren’t willing to accept that in any way, shape, or form, even at -large. But, again, we can work on that. It’s no big deal. I think it’s something that’s a doable situation.

Your second point, in Section 3-17, Reapportionment Commission. Because of the monies that the County really doesn’t have, and we’ve heard that from the get go, with this Commission when we started mentioning a Special Election, nobody has monies. To put another Commission together, I think, would possibly kill this proposal. Now, if you want to keep them together, it’s no problem, but why can’t we just reapportion it as a Commission now, in the Charter, to say we follow the House of Representatives districting, which is six, and then the three at-large wherever they want to come from?

HIGASHI: George, some thought went into that. We can follow the House district, providing we have six House districts on the Big Island; we don’t have any canoe districts if they reapportion us again.

IRVINE: Yes.

MARTIN: We can always put it in our Charter -

HIGASHI: So that’s going to be a problem.

MARTIN: I hear what you’re saying and it was brought up in that manner too.

HIGASHI: So, the reapportionment thing also has in there, under (5), If the island is divided into six House districts, the Commission shall adopt those district boundaries as the boundaries within the six council districts, if it is. But remember, we had these canoe districts some time ago when they went to reapportionment.

MARTIN: Yes, Kohala.

HIGASHI: So, if we have six House districts, then they can easily convene and adopt those as our districts.

SANTANGELO: George, for a point of information, if this is adopted, by the time it’s implemented, we’re going to have a Reapportionment Commission, right? Because aren’t we finishing up the census?

HERKES: No, we’re not finishing up until 2000.

HIGASHI: Based on the census.

SANTANGELO: Yes, but, it seems to be, that by the time this is implemented, we would already have reapportionment going on.

HERKES: No, this would be voted on in 2000? The 2002 is the next election to vote on the reapportionment, and there’d be two elections.

MARTIN: So, if, in fact, what you’re saying is true, John, then no problem if we could couple this with a Commission that’s already going to be set up. What I’m afraid of is putting forth a Commission is going to cost the County more money. Some advocate of spending less is going to come up and say, hey, kill it because of that fact, and it’s a great idea on the top, and it gets killed for the bottom.

HIGASHI: What we may consider is to have the language in Section 3-2, that we shall follow the six Representative districts, and when reapportionment comes, we can address that, at that time, if we change. So, I’d like to add that portion in, Mr. Chairman.

SANTANGELO: This is something that we’re going to work on.

HIGASHI: Well, I think we can vote on it today and fine tune it.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I would like to know what your rationale for this is, Roland. Why do you think this is a good idea?

HIGASHI: Not to just be redundant in what he said, but, my feedback from people that I get, is that I have people that supported a single Council member from a single member district, and have issues, that are not able to approach that person, so when we asked them, on this new proposal, that you have other people that you could go to, they felt very comfortable with that. And, bear in mind, that the single member district proposal, when it was passed, was not a great majority, so I think, people may be comfortable with a kind of compromise that we have, at-large and a single member district. And then, I think, George, the four-year term on an at-large member is reasonable because of the cost involved. It’s like running two times, so I would not yield, or recommend, that we do lesser term for the at-large members.

RAY: Daryl.

KUROZAWA: I just wanted to comment, sort of reply, on what John Santangelo mentioned. I think there’s no question that you’re right. I think the at-large seats will always have some opposition, and I think part of the opposition comes from years ago when they had at-large seats, and all of them came from one district. And so, the concern, I think, that may come up with this is that there’s a potential that you may have four representatives from one area, and have too much control and power. And so, just to muddy the waters a little bit, you know there’s three at-large seats, is there anyway we could do it so that each one of them have to come from certain areas, for example, representing two districts? Because there is going to be a concern, I know for sure that they’ll bring up, that four may come from Hilo, which happened before, and I can tell you, the West side people will say it’s unfair because everything happens for one side. So, I don’t know how we could do that. I guess one potential proposal would be that at-large has to come, each one from two districts each.

HERKES: Senatorial districts.

KUROZAWA: Basically. And so what you have is very equal division of power island-wide.

RAY: Some other models have been put forth. You remember, Keola Childs put forth a model where you’d have four districts electing two each, and then one Councilman at-large. And the last Charter Commission, Pete L’Orange put forth three members from each Senatorial District, and he didn’t get any reception on that, at that time, so it didn’t go forward. It was put forward but that’s more of a different type of arrangement.

Sue.

IRVINE: I’m with Daryl on this, inasmuch as the number of people voting in the various districts on our island, at this time, the East side had the preponderance of votes, and that’s the way it was in the past, and it’s still that way now, so that the possibility is that all of the at-large would come from the East side unless we put in some provision. Maybe two person districts would be a better alternative. They would still be small enough that people wouldn’t have to spend as much to run and, yet, there’d be two people representing any given person. It would keep the Council people closer in touch with their communities, and like I said, they’d have to spend less money to run. I was wondering if people feel that the quality of the County Council has gone down since it became single member. I don’t have a feel for that.

HIGASHI: Let’s not get into that.

RAY: Let’s take a short recess. I want Daryl and John in here on this discussion. Let’s take a brief recess.

RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 10:16 a.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 10:21 a.m.

RAY: Continuing our discussion, Mr. Higashi has the floor. He was discussing his reasons for putting forth -

HIGASHI: What point I want to make is once we adopt a model, we’re going to take it to public hearing, or go back to the public again, and then we can receive more input, and if it seems that people are opposed to it because unbalanced majority may come from one side, we can adjust it then, but I don’t think it’s an easy fix. I mean, it’s two-one unless you’re going to go two-two, but I think the proposal we have before us is a reasonable one, and I think we should move on this proposal. If we face terrific public opposition, or future considerations and amendments, then we should consider that then.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: What I was going to say is somewhat in line with what I think John was saying earlier about not being able to approach your Council member. In some cases, you can approach your Council member and have no problem with the individual, but you can’t approach the other eight because you don’t have any say in their political lives, so if the idea is great between you and your Council representative, it could stop right there. So I think this particular format is great, but what was brought up by the doctor over there, I never looked at in that it could be slated to mean one side or the other would be the vote populace, so I think the vote following the senatorial situation makes sense. Of course, Roland, let’s correct the problems if, in fact, they do come up, but why not put into writing so that the people look at it and say, yes, they do have the right thoughts in mind. Let’s put it in place before we do go to the public meetings, if we have the ability to do it.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: Is the fact that people don’t vote, have the opportunity to, but don’t vote, something that we should use in making our decision. I don’t feel it is. And Sue, I have the floor.

IRVINE: No, I’m -

HERKES: And I feel that, actually, the people in Kona have an opportunity to vote. They have an opportunity to be represented. As far as I’m concerned, when I need some clarification, or something done on the County Council, I go talk to a Hilo Councilman, and that person helps me. I find that all of the Council people are, and this is going on the record - I find that all of the Council people have an open mind and will help you, and I think that what you do is you go to the people that think the same way you do, that have the same interests that you do, no matter where they come from. They do have to get elected from their districts but when you need clarification, or need something to go through, the door’s always open.

RAY: So, are you speaking in favor of this?

HERKES: Yes. I don’t think that the fact that people don’t vote is something that I’m going to use to make a decision. What I want is efficient government. I’d like to see participation, and maybe if the people in Kona recognize that they have the opportunity to have an elected official, they’ll get out and elect one from Kona, an at-large person.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: Marni, it’s not that the people in Kona don’t vote. Actually, in my district nowadays, they vote as poorly as they do in Kona. I did look up all of the statistics, and apparently, I’ve left them at home. It’s Hamakua where they vote at a great rate, and there just are more people on the Hilo side, on the East side, than the West side.

HERKES: Not from the latest census, I think.

IRVINE: Okay, then that, I don’t know about.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: Again, when I gave my reasons, I gave both sides. Frankly, people don’t vote. Tough. On the other hand, can we look at what Roland’s put forward, and I struggle with this because frankly, I’m going to get bit over some of the perception. But is this good government? Is what’s been put forward - is it a model that’s used elsewhere? Has it worked, and do we see it working here? Sue, you’re shaking your head. You mean this isn’t used elsewhere? This is a brand new invention?

IRVINE: No, the trend is to go toward single member rather than the other way, nationally.

SANTANGELO: So, I’m confused. We’re such a unique environment, why do we always follow mainland ways here because we’re ta da, and then when we want something different -

IRVINE: I didn’t say we had to follow them.

SANTANGELO: Anyway, if it works well, and you can’t always be a Marni Herkes and go to anybody.

HERKES: Oh yes you can.

SANTANGELO: In Marni’s world you can, but many people that aren’t familiar with government can’t, necessarily, and if we maintain a strong Mayor position, are we not, in some way, building towards, at least, people that have to address island-wide issues and work that way. I’d just like to see this debated on the merit of it. Is it good government or not, and, then what I brought up before is, are we going to be perceived by the public as moving an agenda forward that is good to the public, and that’s where I struggle with that.

RAY: Other comments? George.

MARTIN: John, what you just said about being a role model, per se, if it works someplace else. It’s good to look into it and get information from wherever we can to address the situation, but this is Hawaii, and it’s the County of Hawaii, not the State of Hawaii. Let’s get our minds down to this position, and say what’s the best for the County. Will it work, and if it does, fine. If it doesn’t, then so be it, but at least we’re trying, and that’s what we’re supposed to be doing right here, is making adjustments that would better our government, and I think it’s a great idea.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Before I call for the vote. I think that we’ve -

RAY: I want to make a comment before you call for the vote yet.

HIGASHI: We had two extremes. We had a six-three that ran all at-large. Now we have a system that’s single member districts, and I don’t think we’re going to find this electorate satisfied 100% with what we’ve got now. May be the personality, may be not the system, but I sure think that sort of a compromise of what we had before and what we have now, would probably be something worthwhile for us to pursue.

RAY: Okay. Somebody that hadn’t spoken. I’d like everybody that would like to speak that hasn’t spoken to go ahead. Steve.

BESS: I just appreciate having the comments of the other Commission members with regard to these at-large positions. To what extent do at-large Council members provide for people who have an island-wide vision rather than a very provincial, just district, emphasis? Because we’ve heard about having more than one person to talk to, but do they have island-wide vision?

SANTANGELO: Which one? The single member?

BESS: The at-large. The three at-large people.

SANTANGELO: That’s what drives it.

BESS: Well, I just hadn’t heard that expressed. I heard it in terms of you have more people to talk to, and that’s the one thing that I would speak in favor of, Council at-large, because you do have people whose constituency is the entire island, and as such, they tend to have a broader view.

SANTANGELO: If I can just interject. It’s a rude statement, and yet it’s what drives this whole thing in my mind, and what I found, and I failed at these rules. The rule in politics is get elected, and the second rule, which becomes the first rule once you’re elected, is get re-elected. And so, when you talk about an at-large person who got elected, then there is that vote driven thing, and it is very, very provincial, and I think, it’s been incumbent upon the people in single member districts to go beyond that, and I know that several Council members, that I worked with, tried that. But, it is very provincial and I think the merit of this is I think the people are much better served by this. Again, what the people think is another thing, and I’ve already been in that before where -

RAY: Eddie.

ALONZO: The at-large system, I feel that the people that be at-large, they have to go around the whole island to make contact with people, and for them to do that, to see the overview of the whole planning of the County, and with the other six, it’s within the district, and I feel that three at-large would be a broader view of everything of the County.

RAY: Gary, you have anything?

YOSHIYAMA: No.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: The reason Roland brought this to us is that there have been people who have been dissatisfied with single member because they didn’t have a global vision, so I think we need to look at the fact, while everybody says, well, we voted for single member, well, we did, but we didn’t pass it by a great number, and there are people who are dissatisfied with the single member districts, so I think that’s why he brought it.

RAY: Other comments?

HIGASHI: Waiting for your comments. Did you have something to say?

RAY: I, personally, like the single member districts. I like the simplicity of it. I like the idea of a smaller common denominator in terms of the district you serve, especially with the dynamic of the County being the only form of government here, and not having townships or other entities below that. It really makes you beholden and you’re, sort of, the Mayor of Waimea, Waikaloa, and Kohala, as well, and I think you’re much better able to serve a smaller area versus a larger area. Another dynamic, and Bill Graham spoke to this, is this is a relatively new change, and it’s still playing out. The dynamics are just playing out, and it’s still playing out in people’s minds, so I think that’s going to be a big part of the negative reaction against this, is that it really hasn’t had enough time to play out in people’s minds. On the simplicity of it, I just like things simpler versus more complex. It’s already people can’t figure out who’s elected from the County versus the State, and they don’t really care. Actually, they just want an answer. They just want it fixed. But to create a different class of Council people where you have, well, who’s the two year guy, who’s the four year guy, and this and that, I just think that’s not necessarily a good way to go. Would it work fine? Sure. It’s a perfectly routine model that works well, and I think there are good points to it as well as the negatives, but I feel most strongly that it’s going to be very negatively received, especially in West Hawaii, and you know I’m biased. I think I’m a fair minded person, and so I worked for the island as a whole, but I did feel like I represented West Hawaii more than East Hawaii, and it’s always been an uphill battle and a struggle to get equity in terms of West Hawaii’s interests, and I think that this is going to be very poorly received, I know, in West Hawaii, and I don’t know on the rest of the island. So we can take this out if that’s the will, but I’d be pretty apprehensive about it. I think people are going to react pretty negatively, and I think, basically, it’s going to be portrayed as a power grab on East Hawaii, and you know, that’s not really supported by the way the population’s going, and I think you could make a case just in the opposite. And Marni, I mean, come out and vote. West Hawaii could make it easier to dominate and control the island, if you really get it together. So, I don’t think that’s supported necessarily, in the reality, by facts, but I think that’s going to be the perception. So that’s another reason I don’t favor this. I think it would taint our overall slate of recommendations, but I’m sure we’ll get a lot of reaction on this. Anyway, I don’t support it, but - Sue.

IRVINE: I was going to ask you if you had any thoughts on the three persons from each Senate district, or making two-person districts if we didn’t go along with that.

RAY: No, I think this is, sort of, the acceptable model, and this is the way it works most places. It’s my understanding that you have a mix like this, and it’s perfectly routine. It doesn’t bother me personally, as far as how County government would work for me. I’m more worried in terms of what the public reaction is going to be to this.

Roland.

BESS: I just have a question, John. With your experience, do you feel that Council members at-large provide for a broader view of the needs of the island, and tend not to be as provincial?

RAY: Yes, I think generally that’s true, but my experience on the Council is I think everybody, on larger issues, were pretty well focused on the island as a whole. Where Council members are really focused on their district, are more specific issues to their district, or certainly to CIP, getting funds for their district. But, yes, they would, sure, they’d be more beholden, and I think John makes a good point; the next important thing is to get re-elected again, so you’re definitely answering directly to a larger constituency, but I didn’t see that as, certainly, effecting majority votes, as a real critical dynamic. The single member districts really having a negative effect. I think what had a much more negative effect, in the past, was party politics, and just lining up with party majorities that just arbitrarily went one way or the other.

HERKES: That’s because you’re in the wrong party.

HIGASHI: May I? We’re kind of wandering off.

RAY: Sure. Roland.

HIGASHI: The one thing that is proven is the Mayor is the only person that runs island-wide right now in County government. The feeling is that those that run at-large from the Council would have as much respect as the Mayor. I mean, they have the same constituency. If we’re going to go with a strong Mayor form of government, at least the Council people who are running at-large, has some perception of having the same kind of constituency, and not the same authority, but have the same people that they talk to. One other thing that may happen is that once we adopt this, and if it’s something that we want to do, we can always add on who will be Council Chair, if we decide that the largest vote getter of the three, he will be, but I’d like to leave that separately. If we adopt this as a basic plan first, and if there’s other feelings of adding on to this, then we can move on.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I did have one other comment. In talking to Helene Hale one day, who I admire quite a bit, about the possibility of having some four-year terms on the Council and some two-year terms, kind of super Council people, she said, oh my God, the people with the four-year terms will be totally meddling in the elections on off years, when they’re not up for election, and I said, oh well, okay.

HIGASHI: Just let me add to that. The Mayor could do the same thing, but it’s been proven that people stay out of other’s races.

RAY: I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, and I wouldn’t necessarily agree that the Mayor - I mean, the Mayor has the budget power over -

HIGASHI: No, what I’m alluding to is that the Mayor does not go into his single member district because he’s a four-term guy, and say I’m going to support this guy over another guy because this guy doesn’t like the way I smile. I think people tend to not interfere with races because they are two or four-year terms.

RAY: Okay, John.

SANTANGELO: I found that two-year Council members interfere in people’s races when they feel they are pretty secure at home. You don’t eliminate that, and again, is this good government or not, and you can’t legislate integrity. That’s got to come from the individual. People who are going to meddle are going to meddle, and people who aren’t, aren’t. I think this works well, and I think it’s a good model. I have to agree with John, and I may be different on this overall. I feel it’s very provincial when it comes to those money matters, the CIP and stuff. But, on the other hand, it was my experience that when it came to the broader issues, the Council did try to deal with it on a broader base.

HERKES: Is that in favor of or against?

SANTANGELO: I’m in favor of this. I’m just saying that John has merit.

HERKES: I just couldn’t understand.

SANTANGELO: Well, that’s all right. You’ll understand as we go along.

RAY: Okay, are we ready? Anybody else have anything else to add? So, we have a motion on the floor to approve Roland’s suggestion on the Council composition and terms. All in favor, aye.

8 COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed?

2 COMMISSIONERS: Nay.

RAY: Two?

HERKES: I just want to point out that the two Kona people voted for this. While you’re saying Kona will be against it, we both voted for it.

RAY: That’s good.

KUROZAWA: I want to say something real quick. I did vote for it but, my feeling about these things, is that the people should vote, and I don’t want to stonewall things as a Commissioner, thinking even if they’re going to vote against it, that’s fine. But I think the people should have a say.

HIGASHI: Opportunity to vote, yes.

SANTANGELO: The question is, I voted, not based on what a few people are, maybe, going to come in here and beat up on it. I think the good doctor stated it very clearly. But, as we go along, if other information comes up, this isn’t written in stone yet. Or is this pretty much we’re going to put this up and we’re going to fine tune it?

RAY: I think this is the strong will of the Commission at this point, to put this up, and that’s the way it should be presented.

HIGASHI: That’s right.

RAY: I don’t think we should be willy nilly about things.

BESS: Exactly. Bite the bullet.

SANTANGELO: I’d like to make a quick comment then. If you’ll look at it, where it points to the terms of Council members, it should say - second line - One member shall be elected from each of the six ‘single’ member districts. That should be put in there, and then later on, it says for member elected in the six ‘single" member districts, because it states ‘at-large’ but it doesn’t say ‘single’ member, and that’s going to be a big thing when it comes to perception.

RAY: Okay, as with everything else, I think we’ll have to have our attorney - so maybe Roland can get together with Chris and get him to come up with some proposed language that we have in the file, that exactly reflects the best language.

HIGASHI: And it also reflects that we’re using six State House of Representative districts as a guideline, if it’s lawful, so that we don’t have to wait for the

Reapportionment Commission.

RAY: Okay. Marni.

HERKES: My feeling, on these votes, is that if we’re voting for or against it, so long as nothing else comes up on it, so that if we want to take it up again, then we can vote again. It’s just like everything else. You can change your mind. Right?

RAY: Right. We will have final votes, officially, on all of these. Okay, good. Making some progress. On non-partisan, I think it was agreed that we don’t need to revisit that at this point in time.

Term limits, as a separate ballot amendment. Do we have any discussion on that?

HIGASHI: We yield to you. You had some strong feelings on that.

HERKES: My very strong feeling is that term limits are up to the electorate, and I don’t like government meddling in my opportunity to elect, or not elect, an official.

SANTANGELO: What does that mean?

HERKES: That means I get to choose.

BESS: No term limits.

IRVINE: She doesn’t like term limits.

SANTANGELO: I agree with her.

RAY: So Marni’s speaking against term limits, okay?

SANTANGELO: I’d like to just state that we’ve been through this. Done it. They voted on it many, many times. I totally agree with Marni, but on the other hand, my experience has been, I will not support getting rid of term limits. It’s just something I’m not ready to do. But you’re right. Why in heck do we have to trash somebody if they’re doing a good job and we want to keep them. But this public has spoken very clearly – very, very clearly in my mind, on term limits.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I’m with Marni, and I think the public, however, will jump on this as well. But, I’m willing to put it out. People should be able to vote on whomever they want to vote. It’s not a popular thing nowadays because people don’t vote, so they just go for term limits to kick people out, but it would be nice if we could give people the opportunity, if we want to.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: I’m probably the only guy speaking in favor of term limits. I think the people did speak when they voted it in, and it was a long cry in the public sector that, if the person is good, and if you read the Charter, what’s to be allowed or not to be allowed, it says consecutive. If the person runs consecutively to the end of their term, they can take a hiatus and come back and run again. If the person is that good, they’ll be able to do it, or move on to another position, if it’s within their will to continue public service. I think the term limit is needed. It is done with the President. It’s done with the Governor. It’s done with the Mayor. If it wasn’t so popular to do with the President, then the whole populace would have changed, but it’s not, and it’s there for a reason. And I agree with it, and I think it should stay.

RAY: Other? I introduced, and we had on the last election, the change in the Council terms from 4 two-year to 2 four-year, and I don’t like term limits either, but I think you’re talking about political nightmare to put this up. You just walk into a buzz saw.

HIGASHI: I don’t know.

RAY: I think you really need - and we’ll be discussing this more and more, the strategy of what the overall package looks like, but I think we have to be really careful. I’ve already voiced my apprehension over the last thing we voted on, so I think if we go for the term limits too, it’s going to be way too controversial, but that’s my feeling.

HIGASHI: We’re not here to worry about if it’s controversial or not. We want to put things on the ballot that maybe people will be interested. We’re not pushing it.

RAY: Okay, but, I think we want to put together a package that is digestible and has a chance for success. That’s part of the strategy.

HIGASHI: As long as we separate it so it doesn’t effect another issue. Term limits is a separate issue, and they vote on that. If we start to tie it into other, like at-large, then it may be more complicated.

RAY: Gary, did you have something to say?

YOSHIYAMA: For clarification, we’re talking term limits for the Council, I assume.

RAY: We don’t have a motion on the floor so -

YOSHIYAMA: No, but in our discussion, all the comments I heard relates to the -

HERKES: Oh no. I’m talking term limits overall.

YOSHIYAMA: So it’s overall, okay.

HERKES: You looked at me, so I’m just going to say I don’t like term limits.

HIGASHI: What’s the Prosecutor?

YOSHIYAMA: It’s not for the Prosecutor.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: Roland, I can’t agree with you more. On the other hand, I’m going to disagree. I think, if we look at this, the overall package that we put out has a perception to it, and if we’re trying to do good business, if we’re trying to do good government, then if I had a druther, I’d rather go with this mix of single member and at-large versus a single member, at-large, a term - I mean, it starts to take on a flavor of its own that could be very negative, and frankly, limiting major things. So non-partisan and something like this, I think, has a much better chance than throwing something that is - it is a buzz saw.

RAY: want to put forth any sort of a specific proposal in regard to term limits? There are lots of possibilities here. Eddie, you’ve got something to say?

ALONZO: Yes. What is the requirements for retirement from County Council?

MARTIN: Ten years.

RAY: And that had a lot to do with the talk about it, as far as the ten year retirement, and I guess that’s still the way it is. Actually, it was interesting. When that discussion took place, that was incorrect. At that time, when it was voted on, you could vest in five years, as an elected official, and most people didn’t even know that. But that’s changed now. I think now it’s ten years. It rolled over. When I was elected, I think I was the last elected cycle, that if I’d have stayed in one more term, I could have vested. So I could have vested in five years.

MARTIN: The old program?

RAY: Yes, under the old program. I believe it’s ten years now but that was part of the discussion, but they misunderstood it.

ALONZO: So if we went term limits, that means we go two terms or four years, they won’t get any -

RAY: Would not. And that was the whole public sentiment, this idea of an ulterior motive and you’re just running for the benefits.

HIGASHI: When we talk about term limits, we’re talking in the office that it serves. Is that kind of correct, Steve?

BESS: Yes.

HIGASHI: Because if a person runs for a single member district and then chooses to run in an at-large district, that wouldn’t prevent him from running for another office, or another seat. Is that kind of a true scenario?

BESS: That’s right.

MARTIN: Well, I don’t know. If the wording is consecutive, no matter how you come up with it, once you do eight years, you can’t go no more.

IRVINE: Yes, but if you’re running for one office, you can obviously run for another, and at-large would be another office.

RAY: Let’s ask our attorney to explore that because that’s obviously something that somebody’s going to think of and it’s going to come up.

HIGASHI: So the consensus is not to dispose of this item at this point, but to continue to investigate the term limit issue?

RAY: That’s fine with me.

BESS: Let’s table it. I was going to move to table it.

HERKES: Second it.

MARTIN: If anybody has an idea if they want to move it from two years, four years, whatever the case may be, the scenario is open, I believe, but the term limit is the key issue. Like you say, Roland, is it going to be eight years or what’s it going to be?

IRVINE: It’s going to be left just like it is when it goes to the vote.

MARTIN: You sure? Positive?

IRVINE: Yes.

MARTIN: You a gambling person?

RAY: Let’s table this for now. I don’t think we have anything firm, ready to vote on, or go on the table. Steve.

BESS: I don’t know what the next item is, whether we’re going to Department of Permitting or not, but I would suggest that we return to the County Manager. Although we voted that down, while the arguments are fresh in our mind, and the issues are fresh in our mind, that we return to trying to beef up the Managing Director’s position, if that’s appropriate.

MARTIN: Wouldn’t that be qualifications of Department Heads? Could we do it at that time?

BESS: Okay.

RAY: We can go ahead and finish up that entire discussion, and I guess the appropriate thing would be to see what language Chris could come up with in terms of job descriptions or possible authority, or do we all have our Charters here? Page 12, Managing Director. So under Powers, Duties and Functions, the Managing Director shall supervise the administrative functioning of all agencies except those under the direct supervision of the Mayor and if you look, directly, that puts Public Works, Parks and Rec, and Fire Department - So, on the Executive Branch, under the Mayor, you have Corporation Counsel, Department of Finance, Planning Department, R&D.

MARTIN: Or even the Managing Director, comes under the Mayor at this point.

RAY: Right.

IRVINE: Yes, they do make a distinction, though, between the line agencies and the staff agencies that the Managing Director is over.

HERKES: Civil Service employees are under the Mayor.

RAY: So, why don’t we have our attorney look at some language, and do some research on that, and see what we can come up with.

HERKES: On what? On the job description for the Managing Director?

RAY: Right.

HIGASHI: Not so much the job description as his area of responsibilities.

IRVINE: Or his area of expertise.

MARTIN: Is that what you wanted, Steve? Or what did you have in mind?

BESS: I think there are two things. One is his qualifications, and to put that in the Charter, and to provide for a high degree of professionalism, and then two is his scope of authority. And, I’m not sure that handing it over to the attorney at this time - I mean, is everybody clear about what kind of scope of authority we want? Are we pretty much leaving that up to Chris? I think we ought to discuss that.

RAY: Okay.

MARTIN: Good point.

KUROZAWA: Just a point of information, actually. We talked earlier about trying to get rid of the Mayor and have a County Manager, but is there any system where they actually have a Mayor and a County Council, but actually have a true professional Managing Director, like a CEO, for the County still? Is that still a possible option for the County here?

RAY: I think it is, and whether that’s the choice of the Mayor versus something that’s strictly dictated in the Charter is what we’re, kind of, exploring. But, I think more that the model is the Mayor’s the CEO, and the Managing Director is the COO, the Chief Operating Officer, or something, of the County, that runs the day to day business. But I think where you get into the conflict is under the true Council Manager form of government. That person hires the department heads and deputies versus the Mayor, and that’s where you get into who do they really work for, or answer to, and that’s the sticky part.

HIGASHI: So that’s why in the strong Mayor type of government, the Mayor is the overall administrator, yes?

RAY: Right.

HIGASHI: So, he still will be running the operation.

HERKES: The difference, to me, would be that the Mayor - excuse me for jumping in, but I need to clarify this. If the Managing Director were the COO, and he hired the department heads, the departments heads and the COO would not be subject to the elections. That’s what I need clarification on. Would they be subject to an election cycle? Would we be hiring a person who could function until we didn’t want them to function, until they got fired or until they retired, like a business?

HIGASHI: Then you go back to the County Manager. It alludes to the same thing.

MARTIN: Then how do you separate the powers at that point, in hiring the individual?

RAY: I think, with the strong Mayor, we’re talking about the Mayor’s going to be hiring the Managing Director, so it is very much subject to election cycles.

HERKES: I would like to see it taken out of the election cycle, but that’s a different story. I’d like to discuss what it would look like.

RAY: I don’t have any detailed answers on this. Steve, do you have any more?

BESS: I don’t have detailed answers but I think we should really discuss this. Maybe we table the discuss and we all think about just how this Managing Director would interface with the Mayor, and how much power we’re going to give him, and to what extent are we willing to depart from this strong Mayor executive form of government, for the purposes of putting in professionalism. I, personally, just have not done my homework to be able to say which way I want to go, but I do feel very strongly, that by voting down the County Manager, I did so on the basis that we could build in professionalism through the Managing Director’s Office, and not just encourage the Mayor to get more professional, but put some teeth in this.

RAY: These are your big line item departments, Public Works, and Parks and Rec, so that is most of the bodies, and major personnel management. Sue.

IRVINE: Could I just quote from this Riverside County Charter, where they do have a County Manager, whom is selected by the County Council. But it says, "the Council shall appoint, by a majority vote, the available person that it believes is best qualified on the basis of executive and administrative qualifications, with special reference to expertise in, and knowledge of, accepted practice in respect to the duties of the offices as set forth in this Charter." So, then they go on down below to say the duties, and they are much greater, of course, than our Managing Director has, because it’s the Managing Director who prepares the budget and things. I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything spelled out anywhere else, as far as qualifications that might help us find somebody who is, like, professionally qualified to manage these more than what we have in our Charter. It’s on page C-12.

HIGASHI: We just need to elect the right Mayor.

HERKES: Well, we’ve done that, but the trouble is we can’t do it again. The Charter says we can’t.

HIGASHI: Steve, maybe the Managing Director is one that is not confirmed by the Council. Maybe you can set some criteria. Maybe he must be confirmed by the Council, like the other department heads, and given some guidelines and qualifications, like Chief Engineer has. I mean we’re going to change it to Public Works Manager, or something like that, but maybe we can insert some language and confirm by the Council so that it is scrutinized somewhere.

BESS: I haven’t given a lot of careful thought, but I have thought of that; about the Council confirming him, and I would prefer that there be a strong Administrative Branch, and that he would be beholden to the Mayor rather than some confusion about Council vote.

HIGASHI: Why don’t we table it and maybe you can form a subcommittee or maybe people can get together and would like to put their heads together -

HERKES: We voted against it.

BESS: Yes.

HIGASHI: No, we’re talking about a Managing Director.

BESS: Managing Director.

HERKES: Where is that on our list?

IRVINE: It’s under Department Heads.

HIGASHI: It just popped up.

HERKES: You now, you guys, I’m pissed off because you voted against it, so you know.

HIGASHI: But it’s coming around -

BESS: Yes, I did because I think that a complete overhaul -

RAY: In terms of Roland’s suggestion and, Steve, your comments, that’s the way the department heads are appointed and confirmed now, and they clearly answer to the Mayor, not to the County Council, so I don’t think that’s really a conflict. I think, if you put in there the criteria so the Council has something to hang their hat on; this needs to be a professional City Manager type and have those types of credentials, so if the Mayor doesn’t bring forth somebody of that caliber, with those qualifications, then the Council clearly has a reason not to confirm them, in terms of their professional qualifications. So, it seems like we could address that because that’s a whole specialized field now, that we could go out and, certainly, recruit somebody. The other areas; we could eliminate the residency requirement because that’s normally done with City Managers. You anticipate that you’re probably going to have to bring somebody in from outside.

HIGASHI: Getting away from the subject.

RAY: Let’s finish it though.

HIGASHI: Not the subject, but, I just get bothered by when we say we need to have somebody from outside; we need a certain level of expertise. I think it should be written where people around here could qualify.

RAY: I’m not saying you have to bring somebody from outside.

HIGASHI: Well, it’s mentioned time and time again that we have this certain level of expectation, or education level. I’d go for it if it’s something reasonable that a lot of our local people who have done it in the past, returning. I think Bill Davis is doing a good job.

RAY: But Bill Davis has no experience in solid waste, and wastewater, and so many of these areas, and anybody else that’s a qualified City Manager, just routinely deals with these things. And we don’t have anybody in County government that knows anything about solid waste. Nobody.

HIGASHI: I’m not knocking that point. Fine. But I don’t think it’s that level where they’re in the operational standpoint. They’re overseeing, they’re professionals. In the Public Works Department, it’s a professional, and who we hire there is important. He should be versed in solid waste, and I don’t think the City Manager would be in the operational part.

RAY: Oh, I disagree.

HIGASHI: I think he’s a management position. So anyway, I don’t want to argue with that, but I don’t think we should be looking at people who are away.

RAY: I’d just like to allow for that opportunity. Marni.

HERKES: I agree with Roland, that there’s a lot of people around Hawaii with qualifications, and when somebody comes to work for our organization, one of the qualifications is that they know the area. They have to know the people. They have to know the geography, and they have to know the politics because they can’t answer questions unless they know where the resources are. So, I think that’s one of the things that you don’t say, you have to live here, but you say you have to know the area, and you have to know what’s going on, and you have to know who the people are and what happens. But I think in the Managing Director’s capability; we talked about this in the Department of Public Works, not necessarily not having a Chief Engineer but having an Administrator. I feel the same way about the Managing Director type. She needs to be able to manage contracts. She needs to be able to manage outsourcing. She needs to understand financing. We really need to have somebody that understands management, and I don’t think anybody in the world understands solid waste. Even people that are in it. But the contracting of the people is the important part.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: We covered it pretty well, but back to what you said, Steve. When the Mayor can select whom he wants, regardless of sexual preference, and the Council approves, it’s having those qualifications that the Council can then hold accountable, and have a reason for rejection, and not rejection of an individual, but of the qualifications. So checks and balances come in, and again, I think we start to level the playing field, so I like that idea. Removing residency does not mutually exclude people who are here.

HIGASHI: No, I understand that.

SANTANGELO: It just opens the gene pool. I kind of like that idea. Thank you.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: I happen to agree with Roland, in that the local population has the ability to do what needs to be done, and I’ll use personal experience. As a mechanic, and being in the field for about 25 years, if I need to know something on a newer system, I go see some of the younger people who just came out of college, and they have hands-on ability to do it. And the point I’m trying to bring up is we have people coming out of our universities right now, within the State, and within the County, that can do a fine job. The thing is our mind set sometimes doesn’t allow it because they’re possibly young or we perceive that they don’t have the experience. I think that we do, and we should explore them if we can somehow.

RAY: Steve, would you be willing to take on the task?

BESS: I’d like to get together with some other people on a subcommittee of whoever might be interested, and let’s meet separately.

RAY: Who would be interested? Marni.

BESS: Roland. Marni?

HERKES: Yes.

BESS: Are you interested?

RAY: Yes, I’m interested. Okay, good.

Moving on to the Department of Permitting. George, you had something to say?

MARTIN: Yes. When these people came with this idea, and they brought forth that flow chart that they had, it looked pretty good. I almost bit into it. The problem I have is that they can do what they wanted to do right now. There’s nothing stopping them, and they should be doing what they’re proposing to be doing. If they can’t work together, what makes them think that a Charter Amendment would make them do anything different, and these people talking about being professionals, these people should be doing what they want to do without the Charter. I think it should be a moot issue.

RAY: Aren’t we headed in the direction where rather than trying to mandate, or dictate, what would happen, we would just make changes in the Charter that would allow it to happen, if that’s the way the Administration wanted to go, and leave it up to them? Isn’t that where we are with that?

BESS: Yes.

HERKES: What kind of changes do we need? When they start to do it, if they run into some barriers?

RAY: Yes, I think mandating that subdivisions are done in the Planning Department, or whatever. Wasn’t it discussed that we might take that out, and then that would remove a barrier, if that’s the way the Administration wants to go, rather than the Charter Commission saying this is the way it’s going to be. So leave it up to the Administration, and the Council to approve it. Right?

HIGASHI: So we agreed to delete the areas that are specific in nature?

RAY: I think Chris has got a handle on this. He’s met with them, and let’s see what he comes up with, but I believe that’s a consensus, right?

KUROZAWA: Right.

IRVINE: Correct.

RAY: The suggestion of putting the Wastewater branch in the Department of Public Works, the Water Department. I think, at our last meeting we heard that the billing issue would be resolved, or that they could, and would resolve it. They assured us that they would. So that seemed to be the major conflict there.

HIGASHI: Did we get something back from them that they resolved it or not?

SANTANGELO: It’s going to be beyond our -

HIGASHI: I think within a month, they said, they’d have an agreement.

RAY: But my understanding was we were not in favor of moving the Wastewater Division under Department of Water Supply.

MARTIN: Correct.

HIGASHI: I’m still open minded.

HERKES: I’m still open minded.

BESS: I am too.

IRVINE: Yes, something needs to be done between wastewater, solid waste and water.

RAY: I’ve got a communication from Laurel Decker who was running Recycle Hawaii. I think she’s gone now. And I asked her to get together with John because he’s been serving on one of the committees with her, in regard to the possibility of creating either a new committee, or even a Commission, that would be involved. John, why don’t you.

SANTANGELO: Well, the whole thing with dealing with just the whole solid waste issue, and then dealing with wastewater, and I agree that some other department, but the scope of the discussion with Laurel had nothing to do with the department. But it did deal with a committee that could very easily be a Commission, and the reason for the Commission would be like an Environmental Commission, or a Waste Stream Commission, but it would deal with setting fees, in terms of if we ever had pay-as-you- throw for solid waste, who would set that fee. For sewers, who sets that fee. And we found that in the instances of setting fees for this, and the political process, it’s been almost impossible because, again, like in sewers, where the Federal Government’s mandated it be self sufficient, and yet, because one Council or two Council members represent those districts, and everybody else doesn’t. So, it was an idea of could a Commission be formed that deals with our waste stream, and would set fees in anything that came along that required fees, and also, work, then, as the fee structures, as the anchor, that they would be involved in advising the County and the Council on matters of environmental issues, and help focus attention, and be that public arm, that helps focus attention on specific issues and problems in terms of alternatives in rubbish, or in terms of littering, in terms of recycling. And, just be that, kind of, public liaison in dealing with predominantly solid waste, but also our wastewater. And my advice was to look at it as a Commission because as a committee, we really do abuse committees, and they really don’t need to be listened to, but if the Commission was able to take on the fee structure, then the Department of Public Works would be then forced, in a lot of ways, to work with the committee side of it in terms of the advisory side because they would have to be involved in getting information for the fees. They’d have an agenda that they’d want to get cooperation from this Commission. It would be, again, appointed by the Mayor, approved by the County Council, in the same format as everything else. But it would be like an Environmental Commission.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I attended some of these hearings that Recycle Hawaii had, and I know they’re really big on charging us to dump our garbage. I don’t think that they were really listening to the people at that hearing, who were saying, if you start charging us, we’re going to throw it in the gullies, and to set up a Commission, if it’s just to set fees because our politicians don’t want to, I think is not realistic. I think the Commission should be advisory on environmental matters like how are we really going to solve solid waste and, maybe, wastewater.

SANTANGELO: That’s right. Sue, we have this solid waste management plan and there’s nobody that’s held accountable or holds anybody accountable with that, or to implement, or to update it, or any of that things and this Commission could do that, and we already have fees. The pay-as-you-throw thing is something that’s out there that has to go through the political process, and that’s a whole other matter. I wouldn’t hold this one hostage to that, but in terms of sewer fees, we already have that. The only thing with the fee structure was with John and I both seeing problems in that politically, and where do we start focusing public attention on the environmental issues, and as long as Public Works deals with this, then if they have, at least, that responsibility, and it’s my political opinion that they do a better job, this Commission, than what the process is now, and then it would also focus the attention on accountability with Public Works, and have a liaison between the public and Public Works. But, keep that aside from pay-as-you-throw because that shouldn’t be the issue here. That’s going to be way down the line.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: I attended three of those sessions in three different neighborhoods and I found that they were way off base from where I thought we should go. They were into garbage pick up, which, in Kona, is ridiculous. They were into charging fees, which is, to me, not the way to go. The fact is, we pay for waste disposal. We pay with our taxes. I would love to have a line on your property tax bill that says this part of your property tax goes for waste disposal. I think that everybody would know that they are paying a big chunk of money for waste disposal, and also the County would know how much they’re paying for waste disposal, because they are paying for it now, and there’s no reason to charge a fee. There’s no reason to charge a commercial hauler. They are picking up our garbage and disposing of it. We pay for our taxes in order to have that done. Now, I like your Environmental Department because I think that does the same thing that Public Safety Department, and the Department of Permitting, is that it’s a management tool. We’re managing our waste through environment safety. We’re managing our wastewater. We can manage our garbage. We can recycle. We can look at alternatives. You might even want to put the electric company under there. That’s an environmental.

MARTIN: Private entity?

HERKES: Yes. I’m on their integrated resource planning. That’s different. We use less fossil fuel. There’s a bunch of stuff that could be managed in that, and I like the Commission idea because the Commission brings the private sector into management. If you put the right people on the Commission, they are people that are in business to do this kind of waste disposal. So, I like some of the things. I don’t like your reasons for doing it.

SANTANGELO: Which are?

HERKES: I don’t like the reasons that you’ve given for having a Commission.

SANTANGELO: Which ones? All of them?

HERKES: The fact that you have to figure out how to do sewers, and have to figure out how to do this.

SANTANGELO: No, fees.

HERKES: Because the County Council won’t do it. That’s no reason to have a Commission. The reason to have a Commission is to manage it better. The fact is that we are all willing to pay for sewers because we know that that protects our water supply, and our water supply is really important to us. No matter how these people scream and holler, and they love to scream and holler, but the fact is that it’s protecting their water supply, like everybody’s water supply.

SANTANGELO: I have a couple of questions, Marni, if I could, real quick. How are you paying for sewers?

HERKES: I don’t own - I guess I do own a piece of the property in Volcano. I don’t own any other property.

SANTANGELO: But they don’t pay for sewers up there.

IRVINE: Nobody pays for sewers except those of us who have a pipe in front of our house.

HERKES: That’s all right.

IRVINE: It’s all right by you. You don’t have a pipe in front of your house.

SANTANGELO: So, it’s just that, duties and -

RAY: I think what we’re trying to focus on is would a Commission help in terms of dealing with these dynamics, and in terms of planning, in terms of administration, in terms of fee structure. That’s what we just threw out on the table for discussion. Let John finish.

SANTANGELO: A real quick thing. Just to read a couple of these things. The primary responsibility of this committee, or Commission, is to recommend actions to the Department of Public Works regarding solid waste management or environmental issues which the committee has reviewed and warrant the department’s consideration. It’s just putting something there that does liaison between the two, and again, it was wrong of me to bring up the pay-as-you-throw issue, which was separate from Recycle Hawaii, and I did work with that myself. If it comes, you’d want a Commission, I think, to deal with it, but the Commission wouldn’t have anything to do with bringing that forward. That has to be a Legislative -

HERKES: I’m sorry that’s being brought up because it’s going into the minutes and it will confuse the discussion.

SANTANGELO: Then, in regard to that, I’d like to say one thing then. It’s an error, I feel, Marni, when it comes to pay-as-you-throw. No renter, and that’s a generalization, sees themselves as paying for solid waste, and there’s no incentive whatsoever, built into any of this, and this is where a Commission could, at least, bring recommendations that create environmental stewardship in terms of our solid waste stream. And so, there are people out there, clumsy as they are, they’re trying to address that part of it, but if you’re not a property owner, and you may pay for it in your rent -

HERKES: That’s right. I’m glad you recognize that.

SANTANGELO: But you don’t see it that way, and the intelligence of a lot of people out there, and their awareness of the solid waste stream, aren’t near what you are, as an individual. And matter of fact, you are unique. And even here with us, dealing with this, we’re unique in the knowledge that we deal with here, and a lot of people, with this single member change. I mean, we see the wisdom in it, but the perception in the public - Anyway, so this was brought forward as what I thought was a pretty good idea and I felt this Commission could deal with it well.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Let me just follow up with some of the questions that I have. Is this Commission envisioned to be like a Liquor Commission? Does it have staff? Does it have an Executive Director? How big is it? Is it strictly voluntary? How do you envision this thing to be operational?

SANTANGELO: And that’s why I was a little reluctant to bring it up at this point, because that’s what needs to be answered. The models that I would look at, real quick, and I have that in process right now, would be the Planning Commission, the Water Commission and the Liquor Commission, and see what they are, and try to focus more on what this body thought would be the focus of this Commission, and see what parts it would bring in.

RAY: So, I think the answer to that is yes, it would be a fully staffed Commission.

HIGASHI: So, maybe we’re talking about an Office of Environment, or maybe we can expand it, rather than narrowing the scope such as that, and I think some of us are looking at something along that line.

IRVINE: I guess that was my question is how can we ignore water if we’re doing wastewater and solid waste?

SANTANGELO: One’s a consumable and one’s a waste. To me, I keep getting confused how they’re even -

IRVINE: Yes, but our drinking water becomes wastewater, as we -

HIGASHI: Do I still have the floor?

RAY: Yes, let Roland finish. Sorry.

HIGASHI: So, my idea is if we’re going to be staffing, then we should look at the more global picture, the bigger picture, of integrating all of our waste, all of our consumables, and I think many of us are thinking about some kind of Office of Environment, and be more encompassing. So, I’m not against the idea, but I think maybe we should carry it one step further.

IRVINE: What about a subcommittee?

YOSHIYAMA: Do we have time for all of this?

HIGASHI: I’m done. I like the idea, though.

IRVINE: I’m vague, yet.

HIGASHI: Yes, I like the idea of having a subcommittee.

RAY: So, Roland, would you be willing to head up an effort on putting together some information?

HIGASHI: I’m committed to him on doing one item.

RAY: How about Sue and John?

SANTANGELO: Sure.

IRVINE: Who else wants to join us?

RAY: Marni?

HERKES: No, I’m on -

IRVINE: Gary’s going to join us.

RAY: Gary?

YOSHIYAMA: Okay.

IRVINE: And anybody else?

BESS: Daryl, you have a lot of scientific input.

KUROZAWA: Can I make a quick comment about this?

RAY: Sure.

KUROZAWA: Are we talking about just a Commission or are we talking about setting up a Department?

HERKES: Both.

IRVINE: We’re looking at them both.

KUROZAWA: Both. So, just my comment for the record. I think it’s a reasonable thing to look into, but it bothers me because we cannot even have Public Works, currently, and Department of Water do their own job, and for us to set up a new department to do what the other departments are supposed to do, doesn’t make much sense to me. We may have to look at how we fix the current system instead of adding a new department to the system that may make it just a little more difficult.

SANTANGELO: And the comment on Daryl’s thing. Daryl, and because I did go out and take County resources, and research this a bit, in a lot of places, especially when there’s big problems like LA or anywhere else, you have something that is environmental, that deals with the waste stream separate from Public Works. It’s fixing buildings and fixing cars, and paving roads and a lot of that other stuff that these are specialized departments, and that is handled separately from a Public Works. So, in essence, and mind you, I’m talking about a Commission, it’s their idea to have this department, but this department may well, and in a lot of municipalities, solve the problem that we’re in today where Public Works is not equipped, and doesn’t have the expertise to do what they’re supposed to do. This department would have that, and so it does answer it in a way.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Daryl is correct, but I think we need to look at this in a futuristic fashion, that immediate problems may not be resolvable right away, but we can work on that. But I think what we’re talking about is something planning for the longer range, the longer haul, and eventually solving some of these problems in a more reasonable fashion.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: And I, for one, am looking at a new department. I’m looking at folding several departments into this department.

HIGASHI: Yes.

HERKES: And I don’t look at any new staff, any new costs. I look at doing it more efficiently.

IRVINE: Right.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: Roland, I heard you make mention of global picture, and too bad you’re not on that committee, but if you look at the systems in which we’ve lived for the past 150 - 200 years in the United States, in regards to environment, they haven’t worked. They’ve never worked. And if you’re going to actually go looking for a model to mold different departments into to address the problems, you’re going to have to look globally. You’re going to have to go to Europe. They’re the ones that’s doing it right, right now, and because of the way of life that we’re so accustomed to, we don’t want to hear it, and we’ve blocked it out, and will continue to block it out. But, if you want a true answer to how to run these departments, per se, a new department and/or a combination of existing departments, and guidance for them to do something, that’s where you’re going to have to look.

HIGASHI: George, you’re correct. I just got back from Japan and environmental recycling is a major, major thing there. They make you very conscious of what they’re doing. As an outsider, if you feel like you want to throw a piece of paper on the ground, you feel really guilty.

IRVINE: Good.

HIGASHI: Cans go where cans are supposed to go, and bottles go where bottles are supposed to go.

IRVINE: Roland, maybe you should be on our committee, as well.

HIGASHI: I’ve committed my time. Inform me of your meetings. If I can -

IRVINE: We will.

KUROZAWA: Just a quick comment. If we are thinking of U.S., for example, Oregon and Washington are probably the highest recycling states in the country, so we can get information from -

MARTIN: I agree with you.

KUROZAWA: I lived in Portland for six years. I felt guilty when I came home, throwing cans into the trash.

IRVINE: I have two daughters in Portland, and yes, they have about fifteen bins in their kitchen.

RAY: So to wrap this up for now, I think we’re through Wastewater, Water Department, Sewer. We’ll have this subcommittee exploring some possibilities there.

MARTIN: No, the Water Department, keep out of it. Clean water’s okay.

HIGASHI: It’s all encompassing.

MARTIN: It is.

RAY: Under Public Safety, we’ve discussed the idea of an umbrella Public Safety Commission which could possibly include, or would include, Police, and then Fire, if we wanted to go in that direction with Fire. Possibly Civil Defense. I don’t understand the logistics of Civil Defense exactly, but also we have gotten testimony in the past, and more recently from the City and County in regard to their experience there, which seems to be pretty positive in regard to a Fire Commission. So, I don’t know if we want to talk about it necessarily under the umbrella, or separately as a Fire Commission, or however you want to approach it. Marni.

HERKES: Reading the Charter, Police and Civil Defense are under the Mayor, and Fire is under the Managing Director. That doesn’t make any sense to me. As I said in my testimony, I look at it from a client standpoint. I want public safety. The safety is one entity. They don’t think of themselves as separate entities, and I don’t think they are. I think that they all work together to manage public safety, and it doesn’t make any sense to me that they’re under different entities, that they have separate Commissions and I think a Department of Public Safety would, maybe, manage public safety a little better than managing the Police Department, the Fire Department.

RAY: So, you’re talking about administratively, one department that would have all three under it?

HERKES: Yes.

HIGASHI: Three departments with one Board? But they all have different missions, though.

HERKES: They all have different missions.

HIGASHI: So maybe it’s one Board, three departments.

HERKES: Yes.

RAY: Okay, I’m not with you. So you’re talking about a Commission that would umbrella three departments, or are you talking about one department; consolidating in one?

HERKES: Commissions habitually are separate. I’m talking about the Police Commission. They have certain roles that they perform, so Public Safety Commission would have certain roles that they would perform for each of the three entities.

RAY: So, would the same people deal with Police and Fire and Civil Defense?

HERKES: The same Commission?

RAY: Yes.

HERKES: Probably.

RAY: I just want to get focused on what it is we’re possibly talking about.

HERKES: I’m not set on this. I know there will be lots of problems.

RAY: Do we have information? Is that the way Public Safety Commissions work? We know there are Public Safety Commissions, right? But is it like nine Commissioners that deal with Police and Fire and Civil - all of those things? That’s a question. So, how does that work, or do they have - Okay. Sue.

IRVINE: I guess the big thing I was wondering is like our Police and Fire Commissions appoint the heads of those departments, and then we’d have one Commission doing that in the future if we were to combine these?

RAY: That’s a question, right?

IRVINE: Yes.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: I think what we’re going to, hopefully, hear coming from, at least, the Police Commission -

RAY: By the way, we should have the head of the Police Commission at our meeting Wednesday.

SANTANGELO: What I think we’re going to hear from them, in having talked to a few of the Commissioners, they seem to be very frustrated with the ineptness, with the lack of, you know, just no teeth in it at all. One of the things, and I haven’t really been in favor, or at least, understood a Safety Commission, but one thing I’d like to see with Commissions, and maybe the Safety Commission answers that, and does pull it together, that if I see what’s wrong with the Police Commission as I’m hearing it from their Commissioners, is they may hire and fire this police chief, but they have absolutely no way of ascertaining whether the chief is doing the job or not. A Safety Commission could be tasked with hiring and firing of the Police, Fire and Civil Defense, because that is safety, with a performance based contract. Then you have to have certain evaluations because, right now, once that Police Captain is appointed, it appears that the Commission has absolutely no way of dealing with that.

RAY: Wait a minute. You’re mixing things up here. It’s one thing to have jurisdiction over the Chief. You’re not talking about the Commission having jurisdiction over the -

SANTANGELO: Right, just the Chief. Just the Chief. The Fire Chief, the Civil -

RAY: But they do now.

SANTANGELO: No they don’t. If you hear from them, you’ll find that they have in theory, but there’s no practicality to that at all. And so I’m looking at something that -

HERKES: They don’t have a performance based contract? They’re hiring somebody without a performance based contract?

SANTANGELO: Apparently they have no way of getting rid of them.

HERKES: Is that in the Charter, that they can’t have a contract and a performance based contract with the Police Chief?

SANTANGELO: I don’t know.

HERKES: I don’t think it is. I think, once again, they’re asking us to solve a problem that they haven’t been able to solve.

SANTANGELO: When you talk about a Safety Commission, and it deals with the Chiefs, I’d like to see it be able to hire good people, maintain that they are good people, and get rid of them when they’re not. That’s what I propose.

RAY: How about, just for the sake of discussion, throwing a Fire Commission on the table. If we’re not in favor, or if the Public Safety Commission doesn’t seem like a good idea, would we want to entertain the idea of a Fire Commission, or is it worth discussing that separately?

MARTIN: I think it should be discussed, in that some reports came back from individuals of the professional ranking within the department, saying yes, we’d like to at least be considered to have one, so again, it comes down to the public beliefs. We put it on the Charter, we put out to vote, and they’re going to decide. Now, if these people can ho’omalimali enough people to pass it, fine, if they can, but, I think we should entertain it. Now, it could be worked into this Master Safety Committee if that would suffice everybody, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen.

RAY: I guess the question is if we were to pursue the idea of a Public Safety Commission, and for whatever reason, decided we weren’t in favor of that, would we still want to look at a Fire Commission? In the County Council, when I was there, we dealt with this on a couple of different occasions, and there’s very strong sentiment in support of a Fire Commission, not only among the rank and file, but among the general public. And when I say strong, I mean there was a lot of expression in favor of it. I’m not saying everybody has thought about it, and is in favor of it, or whatever, but there was a lot of expression in support of it.

MARTIN: So, you’re looking for a motion or something right now?

RAY: No, no. I’m just throwing this out. Sue.

IRVINE: I was just wondering what kind of support. The only thing I’ve heard about this is what we got from the Hawaii Firefighters Association.

HERKES: Curtis Tyler talked about it, too.

IRVINE: Oh, did he? Okay. I spaced that.

RAY: So, how do we want - Marni, I don’t just want to throw it on you, but -

IRVINE: We do have an Emergency Medical Services Committee at this point.

HERKES: Yes, I put EMS in there too.

IRVINE: I had written that down on here somewhere.

HIGASHI: EMS is a contractual deal, though, right?

IRVINE: Yes.

HIGASHI: It could be private, though. We have to be kind of careful.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: I think you brought up an interesting point that do we want to pursue the Fire Commission. If we do, then do we couple it with the Safety Committee, or do we keep it separate in case one fails and the other - you know. But, do we get two bites of the apple? Would that be right? Would that be prudent?

HIGASHI: I have no problem with that.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: I have no problem with looking at it twice. If it fails for one reason on the broader scope that’s presented now, I have no problem looking at it as a Fire Commission, and look at the merits.

HERKES: I think what you’re hearing is a lot of reservations on the Public Safety Commission, but we still want to pursue it. But you’re hearing support for the Fire Commission. Is that a good evaluation?

RAY: Why don’t we take a vote in regard to the Fire Commission, and then if we are supportive of a Fire Commission, it may or may not be part of a Public Safety Commission.

HIGASHI: Maybe if we can have some advocates of this draft.

RAY: We have it. We have it from the City and County. We have the testimony.

HIGASHI: So, basically you hire and fire the Chief.

RAY: Yes.

HIGASHI: Policy review? Budget? How far do we go?

IRVINE: They say overall policy, don’t they, but not interfere -

RAY: We’re losing track here.

HIGASHI: So, it would help me a lot if we have just a couple of paragraphs drawn up and then I know exactly what I’m voting on. So, maybe Gary can assist us in that, since he was the one carrying that letter from the Firefighters.

IRVINE: That’s right. Gary said in his letter, I will be happy to answer questions. I’ll be happy to respond to any questions you might have. Sincerely, Gary Yoshiyama. Quote, end quote.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay.

IRVINE: On a more serious basis, though, one of my hesitations on setting up another Commission, or whatever, we had a long talk about how difficult it is to find people to serve on Commissions, and went round and round and round. And I did make a list of how many people we do have on Boards and Commissions, and how many would have to be appointed every how often, but this would be adding.

HERKES: Not if we did the Public Safety Commission.

IRVINE: Yes, if we go with the Public Safety, it would not, but if we add a Fire, it will be adding.

YOSHIYAMA: John, can I just respond to that.

RAY: Yes, Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: I think we talked about, Sue, at least I talked about it the last time, about this very subject, was we already have an EMS Commission, and then we could marry those two together, the Fire and the EMS. And the EMS is a County Committee.

IRVINE: Is it appointed by the Mayor?

YOSHIYAMA: Right.

IRVINE: We could just upgrade it to a Commission?

YOSHIYAMA: Yes. It is advisory at this point.

MARTIN: So we couple the two together to become a Commission.

IRVINE: So it is something that gets appointed.

HIGASHI: When you put it together, just keep in mind that they exist because a single issue Commission is strictly advisory to the State, not to the County, but advisory to the State. We, kind of, contract with the State with EMS contract.

BESS: Two private entities.

RAY: So that’s one possibility. Whether that would work or not, I don’t know.

HERKES: And I want to say that as we go through this discussion, I do think that all of these public safety things should be under one entity, rather than the Mayor and the Managing Director; the Mayor or the Managing Director.

IRVINE: Marni, the one thing that Chris Yuen had said to us concerning the Police Commission is that he thinks they need to stay in the Police Department because, therefore, they are privy to information which they might not be if they were out of the purview of the department. Did you pick that up previously?

HERKES: No, I didn’t.

IRVINE: Well, if Chris were here, he could tell us. It’s like the department has to let them know certain information because they’re part of the department, but they wouldn’t have to let them know that if they were out of the department. I think it has to do with collective bargaining, and this might be a problem with trying to combine several Commissions, if they weren’t going to be connected to the Police.

HERKES: You’re right.

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: Fire Commission? I may have not been here for a few seconds. What was it that we were saying was the duty or responsibility of this Commission, aside from EMS, which is a State issue which we contract, but the Fire Commission? In the Police Commission, they’ve got all these things that firemen don’t do. What was it we saw? Was it just to hire?

MARTIN: No, it would be the same format as the Police Commission.

SANTANGELO: But firemen don’t shoot people.

MARTIN: Como esta, but they go and pick up the people after they get shot, so there’s some relevance there, okay. But, I’m sure we’d look at it and have somebody write something up that would mirror, per se, the Police Commission, is what I’m saying.

IRVINE: In Honolulu, they adopt rules necessary for the conduct of its business and review rules for the administration of the department, review the annual budget, review the department’s operations, evaluate at least annually the performance of the Fire Chief, and submit a report to the Mayor and the Council.

HERKES: Good, good.

SANTANGELO: I’d like to see that with the Police.

IRVINE: We can look at this concerning the Police.

HIGASHI: It’s a policy making body, it’s not an operational body, yes?

IRVINE: I think it’s policy making, not operational, but they do ‘review personnel actions within the department for conformance with the policies under Section 6-502 of this Charter. Hear complaints of citizens concerning the department, or it’s personnel, and if deemed necessary, make recommendations to the Fire Chief on appropriate corrective action, submit an annual report to the Mayor and Council on it’s activities.’

SANTANGELO: The question you brought up about whether you have to be in the Police Department; it would be nice to ask those specific questions of Sharon and Jo-Anna, if they come, because they may have a whole other spin on the reality of that. But, that would be a good thing.

RAY: Okay.

MARTIN: And to touch upon what you were saying earlier about not being able to acquire people to sit on these Commissions, it becomes an Administration situation that it could be addressed, again as being said, with the right person in office.

HIGASHI: They’re getting better.

MARTIN: Yes.

RAY: Also, Sharron, could you pull together, maybe, some source information on Public Safety Commissions from other jurisdictions, and whatever, so we can understand better how those work?

HENRY: Yes.

HIGASHI: So, we’ll schedule that for action at the next meeting?

HERKES: On Wednesday?

RAY: No, we’ll get to it in January. Can we take just a five minute break?

RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 11:45 a.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 11:57 a.m.

RAY: This is some correspondence from the Legislative Auditor’s Office. I‘ve been working with the Legislative Auditor the last two or three months, and discussing this. I really don’t want to get into discussing it now. I’d like you to get a chance to read it, and if we feel comfortable discussing it Wednesday, we can. But basically, it addresses the function of the Legislative Auditor’s Office; it gets into the program review discussion, and it’s a lot of good insight because they just went through a pretty strenuous exercise with the marijuana eradication grant, so I think it’s pretty valuable input. But, it’s an area of particular interest to me, having been in the County Council, and watched how the Legislative Auditor’s Office worked, or didn’t work, and the professionalism, or lack of, and this is our main brain thrust, to write legislation, and to handle all the key legislative functions of the County. These are all, as is pointed out, all political appointees, and Legislative Auditor, itself, is appointed by the Council Chair, which makes it pretty political in nature. So, I think you’ll really enjoy, and appreciate, a lot of the comments here by the Legislative Auditor, and so I just wanted to defer this to either our next meeting or when we’re ready to deal with it. But, it’s a lot of good background material. It’s well thought out. And this has been circulated, just so you know, among some of the Council folks, and I think there’s general consensus that this is a good direction for us to be headed in.

Next on our list here, Qualification - Department Heads. In terms of where we deal with that in the Charter, there’s some information from Chris Yuen, in a letter, which I think points out that we do have the flexibility to address, as far as the positioning of this in the Charter, and that’s in a communication that we should all have. It’s a recent one. Is this to discuss individually? I know we discussed the Manager of the Water Department. We discussed the Chief Engineer’s position. Is that the intent that we want to go through and discuss these individually? We also had input from Parks and Rec, from their Director. Marni.

HERKES: I have a suspicion that that’s going to come after we decide what Department Heads we have. We have descriptions all over the Charter now. We need to kind of collect those in a specific place, so that we can see what the Charter says now, and what kind of different, or, maybe, more professional qualifications we might look at. We discussed the Department of Public Works, the Chief Engineer’s qualification. Is that a necessary one? Those kinds of things. We need to take, maybe, each department separately.

RAY: So how do you suggest we approach this?

HERKES: I think we take each department separately and different agendas, and, as we go down, look at what qualifications we need for each one.

RAY: Steve.

BESS: If I recall our previous discussions about this, both with respect to Water and Public Works, there was concern about whether or not we should require a person to be an engineer, and I’m not just limiting it now here to those two departments, but I think there’s an overriding concern, and that is that we provide for the best management material possible, and independent of being an engineer or not, is this person capable of managing a department. So, on the one hand, we want professional expertise. On the other hand, we don’t want to limit that professional expertise to a professional area. We’d like to provide for management skills, and so what we might look at is coming up with some kind of language, if we are truly interested in management skills, whether that be a person with an MBA, or Public Administration degree, or otherwise. Maybe that’s what we should be focusing on, is management expertise rather than gearing it to a professional in that field. And then, that would cover everybody regardless of department.

HERKES: I’d like to suggest that the core competencies. I found there are eight of them, however there are six that would be appropriate, and I can get those to you. I used some of them to hire Sharron. But, I think those are some kinds of guidelines that a lot of companies use in team building skills, and leadership skills, and communication skills, and those kinds of basic professional needs.

RAY: So, is that something that you think is appropriate to put in the Charter?

HERKES: Yes. The department heads need to have those skills.

RAY: Okay. Gary, any thoughts on that?

IRVINE: Can you bring those on Wednesday, or something, so that we could -

HERKES: Yes, I will. I can bring them. In fact, they’re just right in my newsletter. I can bring the newsletter.

IRVINE: We always get torn between spelling things out explicitly, and then finding people who are outside the box who are really very good at managing this or that, and that’s why I’m not sure which direction we want to go on spelling what people’s qualifications are.

HERKES: The nice thing about the competencies are that they’re not specific. At the same time, I think that the performance reviews are very important, that whoever the departments are, that the performance reviews are there.

RAY: So, Marni, are you suggesting that in every individual chapter, that we’d list all these things, or how would that work?

MARNI: Yes, I’m suggesting in every individual chapter. When I read the Charter, and I see this one line on a department head, it bothers me. I’m thinking, boy, that’s wide open. We could do that. There’s no description of what kind of government you want in this Charter. They’ve gone overboard in the Fire Chief shall be appointed by the - well, that’s said by ordinance. That’s not a good one, but some of them, I just see - In the Public Works, now this may be in the ordinance rather than in the Charter, and that’s the question that I have. Are these things covered by ordinance, or is there so much leeway in who we hire that it is the Chief Engineer appointed by the Mayor, and it be a registered professional engineer, and powers and duties and functions prescribed by the ordinance. But, there’s no description of the kind of person, or the kind of qualifications, or what we expect from that person. And I see it to be one line, or maybe two, at the most. I don’t see it to be a paragraph.

HIGASHI: Will you have that before the next meeting for us to look at?

MARNI: I will have it for the next meeting.

IRVINE: Good.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: She already read it, and thanks, Marni, for doing it, but the one concern that we had, that the other departments come into play, I guess, at some point in time, as Marni is saying that there is no consistency to follow. But, it was the registered professional engineer; that was the concern, and because of the wording that is in existence, we had, possibly, a capable person doing the job, not even being able to interview for it because he or she didn’t have that registered professional engineering. And that was the concern.

HERKES: Take the Department of Finance. Just says shall be appointed by the Mayor.

RAY: No, that’s one of the ones that’s covered in the later section.

HERKES: That’s right. That concern has already been answered.

IRVINE: Could we ask our secretary to, maybe, make a list of our departments and the qualifications that are in the present Charter for the heads of those departments?

RAY: That’s on page 28, at the top of the page. It lists the Finance Director and Planning Director.

HERKES: Yes.

IRVINE: But there’s things elsewhere also, saying, like the Chief Engineer has to be -

RAY: It’s interesting. The Managing Director is addressed here as well. They’ve got them all.

IRVINE: Well, do they? Okay.

HERKES: But, not well addressed.

RAY: Any more discussion on the qualification of department heads?

Holdover.

BESS: We addressed that.

MARTIN: I thought we did. I thought there was something that was printed up that addressed it, and we, kind of, voted on it.

IRVINE: We did.

MARTIN: Just a thought. I could be wrong.

RAY: No, we did. On Commissions.

Financial Procedures. We have got Mr. Takahashi coming in Wednesday so, hopefully, we can get him to focus in on some stuff, and I think, he’s going to be addressing, as well, this whole idea of financial auditing, and so if we can read the stuff from the Auditor’s Office, and follow up that discussion with him, we should be able to move that further along.

Then, the Impeachment procedure, and Initiative and Referendum. We do have written information from our attorney. Probably everybody hasn’t had a chance to read and digest that. Any discussion at this point?

HIGASHI: On impeachment, what does he recommend? I think the Impeachment section, I’d like to see that beefed up. I mean, it was so easy to file for an impeachment, and cost everybody so much money to get out of it. Good thing, technically, they were wrong this time. They needed a 100 people from that specific area, or district, but I would, maybe, if we keep impeachment in, make it the same as recall, in terms of 25% of the voters from that district.

RAY: I think we’d better wait until we have Chris here.

HIGASHI: But, I’d like to see impeachment beefed up a bit more.

IRVINE: I did type up what the different counties - the number of legal signers for impeachment. If it’s of interest to others, I suppose I could share these.

RAY: Yes, would you?

IRVINE: Yes. The only thing I want to say is when I type something up, I don’t want to guarantee I’m a 100% right because you get to looking at all these different County Charters and you may have hit the wrong one, and put it under the wrong column. But, I’ll share this stuff.

RAY: Okay. Charter Housekeeping: Language; Organization; Publication Notification.

IRVINE: Concerning language, the Riverside County Charter, and this we’d have to ask our attorney, I’m sure, they say in here, the correction of typographical or clerical errors shall not constitute the making of an alteration within the meaning of the foregoing sentence. Is that not possible? And they’re talking about ordinances, and not their Charter. And I suppose, maybe, that we have to have every "i" dotted and "t" crossed.

HERKES: Let’s ask for it.

MARTIN: Let’s ask Steve.

BESS: No, let’s ask Chris.

IRVINE: Okay. It’s probably a matter of opinion, and I’d hate to see people be able to take the Charter and change the meaning, saying it was a correction of a typographical error, but I did see this here, which seemed like it might help us.

RAY: Anything else in that category?

BESS: By the way, just as a matter of clarification, has Chris, in his going through the Charter, did he provide us with a list of housekeeping things, or his opinion on it?

RAY: I don’t believe so. I think most of them have been brought out by other folks, like in the Administration, in terms of little things.

IRVINE: Would it help us to have a list?

BESS: I was just wondering whether or not Chris might also address or pick up whatever we have.

RAY: Yes, we should start to focus on that.

IRVINE: Maybe just make one list of everything.

BESS: Yes.

IRVINE: Good idea.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: Sue has mentioned about that document she is referring to, the Riverside one, and the simplicity of it. Is it possible to do ours in that manner, and make it that simple? I mean, as housekeeping comes into language, why not? Why not have the attorney look at it, and say, yes, this is possible, of a format, per se, to simplify. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that our job here?

RAY: Yes, I think it’s absolutely in our purview to consider that, and whatever else.

IRVINE: Yes, for example, instead of all the language that we’ve been asked to take out in a letter, just today, from Rudy Legaspi. When they’re appointing people and they want staggered terms, they just say, appoint them so that as near as possible an equal number of terms will expire each year. That solves all of that appoint two for year, and three for two years, and four for one year, and it is pretty well written. Page C-17.

RAY: Any suggestions of those types that we can bring forth, I think, would be helpful.

Moving on. Mandatory Program Review. As I said, in the Legislative Auditor’s comments, but without any real solutions unless we want to do away with it, I think her suggestions are making the department more capable of dealing with it. John.

SANTANGELO: John, with this Mandatory Program Review, again, part of the light that’s been shed on it is because of the way it’s been used as a harassment tool. I’d just like to make it clear that when a Council is due diligent, they can ask for, and demand, a comprehensive program review of anything they want. It’s their responsibility. So, if you don’t have this mandatory, which, if you want to talk to some people, and I don’t have all the facts, could show you that the County budget couldn’t possibly afford that sort of, when you say, Mandatory Program Review, of everything we have going. So, I’d be really in favor of people coming out with facts, and trying to delve into this a bit, but to say that if you remove the word "mandatory", the Council can, at any time, demand this sort of stuff.

RAY: Marni, why don’t you talk to Connie about what they just went through and why they felt like they had to conduct such a review around that program, and why that type of review would totally be unrealistic every four years for all 200 programs.

HERKES: Were they not told by the County Council to do the program review? The Mandatory Program Review for the Marijuana Program comes through the Federal Government. It is written into the fund release, as to what the program - And my understanding is that the program review was done in accordance with the Federal Government guidelines for receiving the money. I’m not sure about that, but my understanding is, it was. That the County Council, in their wisdom, mandated that the Legislative Auditor also do a program review. I have not read the report from the Legislative Auditor, but I understand it was the County Council that mandated a second program review and would not accept, whoever got the contract, would not accept their program review. I’m still not going to give up on program review.

RAY: I don’t think anybody wants to give up on accountability, but I think the language is problematic, and so I’ll just leave it at that for now.

YOSHIYAMA: I think the specific proposal, and it may have been from the Police Department, on page 5, Section 3-16, was either we define the word "critically", or eliminate it. That was their big problem because the complaints were coming in that you’re doing a program review, but it’s not a critical review, so you’re not fulfilling the provisions of the Charter. I think that was their big problem.

IRVINE: Whatever it does mean.

YOSHIYAMA: Yes, what does that mean?

MARTIN: If I may, Mr. Chair. If hearing what was being said over here about the Federal Government mandating that you’ve got to review it because it’s their monies and they want to know how it’s being spent, why and because, and the County’s not willing to accept, in fact that it’s true, then even if we change the word "critically", they’ll still have some potential to make decisions on that matter, I think.

HERKES: What about if we change the County Council?

MARTIN; Well, we’ll be doing that shortly, too, but we’ll be changing it to the same people again.

HERKES: Oh yes.

RAY: I think, Marni, though, the language here that the Council shall critically review every program supported wholly or partially by County funds, which the Mayor wanted eradication program, is, whether it’s a federal program or State money, or whatever, it’s still supported by County funds, and it’s right here in black and white, at least every four years, the Council shall critically review every program. I mean, that’s problematic language, in terms of the resources of the County. I’m not sure how to solve it.

SANTANGELO: In the marijuana issue, George, the Federal part of it was, is our monies being used properly, but the public was demanding, through that segment of people, and what the Council wanted to try to clear up, was is it effective. Are we effectively eradicating marijuana; are we addressing the drug program in the County; etc., etc., etc. It’s really out there. And that’s why that wasn’t accepted, and that’s what that program review was supposed to have done. And then you start to set the precedence. You no longer are just looking at a program, and in many programs you don’t want to just look at it that way, but, number one, you want to look at were the monies used for the purpose that they were put there for. Then you go into a whole thing. Is this even a worthwhile program? Does it meet the spirit of the letter of what brought it into place? Should it be continued? And 200 and some of those can get really cumbersome. But in the marijuana issue, the reason the Council took that on, and again, and mandated it, and it took up a copious amount of time. It cost a lot of money at other issues that suffered in the process.

HERKES: That was their choice.

SANTANGELO: Nobody’s arguing that, Marni. But when we talk about 200 and 20 something programs, from the Leg Auditor’s Office that have to be every four years, and to what degree. And I just want to make this one point. When, at any time, a Council feels that sunshine has to be put on something, like the marijuana, they can ask for that. So, taking away mandatory doesn’t take away accountability.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: I just want to bring a point up. As long as marijuana is illegal, it’s going to be eradicated, and if people want to have a say in it, and make a change in the law, and it’s addressed at that point, but to come in and use a wording, and that’s what we’re here for now, critically review it. If that’s the word that needs to be changed, as Gary is possibly saying, or alluding to, I don’t know that that is. As you’re saying, you could still have review and where were the checks and balances. The thing is, if it is illegal, you want to change it. Fine, change it at venue, but the Mandatory Program Review -

SANTANGELO: That whole impeachment process was based on that. That because they were not critically reviewing, right, that it was malfeasance or some darn thing. And as I’m saying, that’s where there was harassment.

MARTIN: You can take pokes at anything you want, at some point in time. The thing is, what are we going to do with this passage.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: My opinion, that if we take this out, or try to take this out, it’s not going to work politically because it sounds like we’re giving up accountability. Therefore, I think we have to find something to replace this by way of saying, each department will have goals in mind, and will, every four years, say whether they are meeting these goals. You know, performance standards, that sort of thing. Something to replace this with.

HERKES: My understanding is this is not department. This is programs.

IRVINE: Okay, well each program in each department.

HERKES: So, as you do outsourcing and managed competition, as these become, and I’ve talked about this before, more popular, you do more of them. Setting up outcomes and measurements in the contracts before the money is appropriated, and that is done by the people that get the money. It’s done in the RFP. The RFP goes out and when the proposal comes back, it has measurements, outcomes, and when the program is over, and the funds then allocated, then all you do is say, give me a report on measurements. These are what you’re supposed to have done. Give me a report on how you’ve met your goals.

IRVINE: Okay. But we can’t be that specific in the Charter, but we could mandate that every department do something like this for each program, and they only have to set it up one time, and then -

HERKES: Tweak it every year.

IRVINE: Yes, tweak it, rather than these pragmatic -

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Mr. Chair, could we ask our secretary to look into the records and see what the rationale, including this, in the last Charter Amendment? It was adopted in ‘79 or ‘89.

RAY: So, I think it’s been there 20 years.

HIGASHI: I’m looking at the ‘79 proposal, and again, find out what was the rationale?

KUROZAWA: I guess I agree with what everybody’s saying, in the sense that we probably shouldn’t take it out, but one thought is we make it very general, in the sense that don’t give any set time deadlines, don’t give any set everything, but leave it up to the Council to review programs at their discretion. Then it becomes the Council’s duty to answer to the public, if they’re doing it or not doing it. But, if we make it too specific, we already know they don’t have the money to do it, and it may not be feasible to do it. So, it’s something to think about, I think, when we do the wording for this.

SANTANGELO: John, just one last comment. Maybe we need to get our information, and instead of, kind of, out here in a vacuum, and what looks good. I mean, it’s not television. Maybe we need to understand, again, who brought it up, why this came up, and what was the purpose of it, and maybe understand a little bit more because we’re dealing in perceptions. And, we’ve done so much damn bad government because of perception, and never dealt with the reality of it, and maybe I’d change my mind.

RAY: Steve.

BESS: I was just going to say that we can get into the details of how to handle this, but it would seem to me, given what’s been said here, that if you said something to the effect that if the Council deemed necessary, it may, and departments shall, in response to that, do this, so that it’s not mandatory. It’s clear that they have the power anyway, to do it, and from a political standpoint, that might fly. It doesn’t look like you’re removing accountability.

HERKES: I have, on a note here, that it says that the Council deems the approval of the budget, as approval of the programs. Do they say that? When they release the budget, does the press release say, by releasing this budget, we are approving the programs therein? This is a program review. It would be a good idea if they would let us know that this is -

RAY: If you ever sat through the budget hearings, it would be a pretty long stretch of the imagination to say that that was your critical review. I think the public would rip that one apart pretty easy. I mean, yes, you do have the opportunity.

HERKES: That’s what the Council people told us is that they deem that as their review.

RAY: Well, it’s an opportunity for review.

HERKES: It’s not my idea. It’s theirs.

RAY: We’ll continue to work on this one. I stuck up there Neighborhood Boards just so that we can officially put that - Is there any support to move forward with the Neighborhood Board?

MARTIN: Only if we move to Oahu.

RAY: I take that means no? So, that’s not on the radar screen any longer, right?

BESS: Correct.

HERKES: You’ll hear from Virginia.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: No.

MARTIN: Think about it, now.

IRVINE: No, I’ve listened to just what we’ve all listened to and that is - You will hear from Virginia probably, but -

RAY: I think Marni brought out a good case that you can have a good community association, and some of them have worked well for a long period of time, have a lot of credibility, a lot of community involvement, and if the community wants to have that involvement, just do it. The cost is minimal and it just requires commitment by the community.

IRVINE: If we could come up with some impetus, as Marni says, she can throw a meeting up here in Waimea and the politicians in the island will come. Puna does not feel that way. They feel that they’ve been ignored, and I imagine they are, compared to - Is there something we could say, if a community voluntarily sets up a Board, their politicians should try to attend meetings. I don’t know, that’s just a thought.

RAY: So, just winding it up, what I’d like to talk about is from now to then, and getting this process wrapped up. These Saturday meetings work really well. I think we get a lot more done than we do in the Wednesday meetings. Right now, we have the two meetings scheduled each week. If another Saturday meeting is too much, we could just have one Wednesday meeting and a Saturday meeting, something like that. There’ll be nothing else this month so we won’t be meeting until January, but any thoughts on that? It’s our first meeting, the second Wednesday is our official meeting, so the fourth Wednesday is optional. It’s a Special Meeting. My sense is time’s going to start flying by and we’ve got to allow a bunch of time to go out for public hearings, and get input, and then coming up with final language, and whatever, so I think we really need to get a lot done in the next couple of months.

IRVINE: Our meeting on the 8th is at 3?

RAY: It’s at 5.

HIGASHI: We handled quite a bit today. What’s on the agenda for Wednesday?

RAY: We’ve got the Police Commission and Finance, and then we could talk about this Leg Auditor letter if everybody is ready to do that. John.

SANTANGELO: I wanted to comment that this works well, that these meetings are turning into an information gathering. It allows people to come and put things before us, and then we try to get some business done. But, coming on a Saturday like this, where we can really work at it, and as we have less and less up there, and getting more and more done, it’s going to move right along. So I support this Saturday, and if we want to drop that last Wednesday, fine, but this works. We’ve got a system.

HERKES: So we have one meeting that’s public input and one meeting that’s for working.

RAY: This is a publicly noticed meeting, as well, so people are welcome to come.

SANTANGELO: But we’re not scheduling people. They have to come on their own.

RAY: We can. I mean, if we need to, we could use that opportunity. Steve.

BESS: I was just going to say that so long as the meeting does not involve having to have the input of County employees, I’d just as soon have Saturday meetings and minimize Wednesday meetings to the extent possible, because, for whatever reasons, these