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John Santangelo, by consensus, was appointed as the Interim Chairman and called the meeting to order at 1:00 PM.

Members in attendance were Eddie M. Alonzo, Kevin M. Balog, Stephen G. Bess, Marilyn Herkes, Susan B. Irvine, George A. Martin, John Ray, John Santangelo. Daryl H. Kurozawa arrived at 1:25 p.m.

Roland Higashi was excused due to illness.

Chairman permitted members to introduce themselves.

JOHN RAY: John Ray, 25 year resident of the island, small businessman, (restaurants, aquaculture), member of the County Council the past four years, now president of the Hawaii Leeward Planning Council, which is a non-profit organization in West Hawaii.

EDDIE ALONZO: My name is Eddie Alonzo, past Vice-Chair for the Planning Commission, also a Councilmember in 1992. I am an auto technician for BJ’S 76 Service Station.

GEORGE MARTIN: Long time employee of the Sugar companies. Worked my way up in the union process there and President of Ookala Community Association. Graduated high school here, went into the service, came back and luckily got a job, lost it and luckily got another one. Hope I don’t lose that one in the future.

SUE IRVINE: I’m basically your sucker volunteer all sorts of boards and commissions. Lived in Hilo for the last 26 years. I am with the League of Women Voters.

GARY YOSHIYAMA: I am Gary Yoshiyama, a labor representative for the past 24 years with The Hawaii Government Employees Association. I guess what might come up during the course of all our deliberations and hearings is that I am representative of all our organizations; representative of public employees of the State and County governments, representing seven of the 13 bargaining units – 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 13. It might not mean much to you at this point. I was born and raised in Hilo and am non-partisan.

STEVE BESS: I am Steve Bess, originally from Honolulu. Came to the Big Island in 1972, worked for the Corporation Counsel’s office, was the Corporation Counsel. Went into private practice for four years. Went back to Honolulu and worked for Kaiser Development Company, Benford. Now I am with Parker School. I work with Parker Trust as well as Parker School.

KEVIN BALOG: I am Kevin Balog. I moved here when I was three years old so I’ve been here 31 years. Raised in Hilo, got married and moved to Paauilo. I am the past president, president and vice-president of the Honokaa Business Association, all at one time or another I’ve been on the Planning Commission. I’m a Lion Club Member and involved in a lot of different community organizations. I work for DeLuz Trucking.

MARNI HERKES: I am Marni Herkes and I’m President of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce. I’ve lived on the Big Island for close to 50 years. I have three kids that live on the west side of Hawaii. I have been involved in a lot of different community activities, one of which is the League of Women Voters, and I’m still involved in a lot of community activities, which will come up as we go along.

JOHN SANTANGELO: I am John Santangelo from Ka’u. I served on the Council for two years. I’ve been in Hawaii since 1966 and I immigrated to the Big Island in 1975. I’ve owned a business for twenty-some years in Ka’u with my wife. I’ve served on almost every community organization that comes up in Ka’u from Little League to PTA, and I am very honored to be sitting here with a group such as you all. I think the Mayor put together a heck of a group.

RUDY LEGASPI: We have Richard Wurdeman, our Corporation Counsel to brief you on three items.

RICHARD WURDEMAN: I’ve been asked by Rudy to talk to you about three subjects that will affect you. First, the Financial Disclosure Law. Those of you who have been with the County before know there is a requirement that a statement be filed. It’s a pretty general statement. You make your entries by code letters, which relate to various categories. It really should not be any problem, although these matters by ordinance are kept by the Ethics Commission and are confidential unless brought up by the Ethics Commission pursuant to a complaint, you really have to assume that whatever you put down may become public. So if there really is something that you don’t want known, make your own decision.

SANTANGELO: Richard, in reference to this, people like John and myself who just filed, do we have to do it again?

WURDEMAN: I would say yes, it’s a different position. Any questions on that? Second, the Sunshine Law. As a commission set up to do very important business, you are subject to Chapter 92 of HRS, which is commonly called The Sunshine Law. Essentially that means that all of your proceedings have to be in public, in the open, and properly noticed. There some exceptions. Before I get into the exceptions, let me say that there is a lot of people in this County who come to all kinds of meetings with all kinds of opinions about the Sunshine Law and sometimes these opinions, to be quite frank about it in my opinion, are merely rendered to sort of sabotage the orderly proceeding of government. So you shouldn’t be intimidated by it, but it is the law. The penalties are, conceivably, though I’ve never known anyone to be prosecuted for it, subject to, it’s a misdemeanor. There are criminal penalties. The exceptions: Some of these exceptions are new, relatively new, and they were put in as sort of a utilization of the law because of the hardships of the original form of the law put on doing business. There is one for emergency meetings, which I doubt if you’ll ever use, but it’s there, if there’s an imminent peril to the public’s health, safety or welfare. There are others. One is to consider and evaluate personal information relating to individuals applying for licenses, that doesn’t apply to you. To consider hiring, evaluation, dismissal or discipline of an officer or an employee, which may or may not apply. I don’t know if whether arrangements have been made or whether there will be staff retained by you. To consult with the board’s attorneys on questions and issues pertaining to the powers, duties, privileges, immunities and liabilities – that is most commonly used when there is a law suit filed. We hope that doesn’t happen. It’s sometimes misused, not to my knowledge in this County, but I’ve seen it misused at the State level in particular, where Boards think that if they go into their back room with their attorneys that they can do anything that they want, and I recommend against that. Here’s one:  To consider matters relating to the acceptance of private donations. That probably won’t apply. And there is a prohibition against "chance meetings". So, beware of that. "No chance meeting shall be used to circumvent the spirit or requirements of this party". A new section that was put in in 1996, and some of you may not be fully aware of it, "92-2.5. Permitted Interactions of Members. A.   Two members of a Board may communicate or interact privately between themselves to gather information from eachother about official matters to enable to perform their duties faithfully so long (and this is the important point) as no commitment to vote is made or sought." So, two of you on your way home to Kohala or wherever can talk about Board business, but be very careful about promising your vote. B. Two or more members of a Board but less than a quorum, may be assigned to investigate matters relating to board business providing that the scope of each members’ authority is defined at the meeting of the Board, all resulting findings and recommendations are presented to the Board at a meeting of the Board and deliberation is held at the Board. That provides that should a particular matter come before you and you want to appoint some kind of a sub-committee, or study group to go out and gather facts, that’s permitted. Discussions between two or more members of the Board, but less than a quorum is permitted, concerning the selection of Board’s officers. And the rest don’t seem to apply. So two of you can talk about Board business, no more than two. A group of more than that but less than a quorum can be assigned to go out and gather facts and come back with a report. Those are the two most, I think, probable exceptions that you might wish to take advantages.

SANTANGELO: So if four of us end up in the same place having lunch, that’s cool?

WURDEMAN: But you got to be careful about discussing Board business.

I’ll try and put everything together and get it to you through Rudy. Questions will come up, people will come before you, and I’m confident, allege violations. When they do, you should consult with myself or a member of my department or whatever attorneys might be assigned to you. Don’t be intimidated by this and be careful about, I know there’s people who are here who have been on the Council who know that there are people who come in and make wild allegations about Sunshine Law violations, normally without substance. But sometimes they become intimidating and really, the important thing is that you do your duty and don’t let some of these people who have more leisure time than the rest of us do to come to meetings disrupt you. Any questions on that? Okay, the third is Rules of Procedure. There are Rules of Procedure that Rudy supplied to everyone that were adopted by the last Commission and which are still in effect. There are things in there that you may or may not like. My recommendation is that since they are in effect, you start off with those rules and if you wish to make a change, there is a 30-day notice requirement for a public hearing.

SANTANGELO: Do you have to have a public hearing?

WURDEMAN: Yes, to change a rule. It’s the law. So perhaps you might consider scheduling a Public Hearing early on and the question of rules can be debated and any changes made pursuant to what comes up at that hearing. In the meantime, you can operate with these rules.

BALOG: One question. In Rudy’s outline, he said that we should look at when we would like to schedule our meetings. But if you’re saying you’re going by the rules that were adopted, it already says that on the 3^rd Wednesday of each month, at 3:30, we’ll meet. So, do we have to have a hearing on what day and what time?

WURDEMAN: You can change that, but you’re going to have the rules to change it. You can have a special meeting, but a special meeting has to be noticed in the newspaper, and that kind of stuff, it is a special meeting.

IRVINE: It says unless otherwise specified, therefore couldn’t we just specify otherwise?

SANTANGELO: And that’s in reference to the regular meeting?

IRVINE: A regular meeting, yeah.

WURDEMAN: Well, I don’t what you would specify.

BALOG: To me it’s clear, it says, "Regular meeting will be held on the 3^rd Wednesday of each month at 3:30 PM unless otherwise specified." And if you read through this whole thing, it doesn’t say where else a regular meeting will occur.

WURDEMAN: Right, so a special meeting, you’re free to call special meetings, a majority of you say you want a certain time and place and you vote on it then we have to get it noticed and..

SANTANGELO: And that would be in addition to the Wednesday meeting?

WURDEMAN: Yes.

IRVINE: Which means we are already off our whole procedure, right? On a Saturday afternoon here?

WURDEMAN: Well, this is an organizational meeting. I believe it’s been noted. If Wednesday is a bad day, that’s the first change you should make. You’re starting off here, and these are the rules that we have, and they can be changed, but they have to be changed using the correct procedure.

HERKES: We have not adopted these rules yet.

WURDEMAN: Well, they’re still in effect from the previous, so I guess my recommendation would be that sometime next month, it takes a few days to get notice in the newspaper, but, how long do you thing it takes to put an ad in the newspaper, Rudy?

LEGASPI: The ad will be drafted, but we need a 30-day notice.

WURDEMAN: Yeah, so four or five days plus 30, that you set a meeting and a public hearing on rules and then you can make the changes you wish to make at that time.

YOSHIYAMA: The meeting would have to be called specifically for the rule change?

WURDEMAN: No, it could be in conjunction with a regular or special.

BALOG: I have a question. If this is our organizational meeting, saying the 3^rd Wednesday is when we’re going to meet, if we post that on the agenda of next month’s 3^rd Wednesday that that’s what we’re going to do, we’ve had our organizational meeting, and we get a notice out to the paper.

WURDEMAN: It has to be 30 days for rule change.

HERKES: It’s going into March, the 3^rd Wednesday in March is where you’re looking at. The 3^rd Wednesday is the 17^th.

LEGASPI: It might be a problem, because the Council meets I think that 3^rd Wednesday.

RAY: It’s supposed to be in the Liquor Department conference room.

LEGASPI: Can you discuss this when we come to that, just let Richard go through the rules first?

WURDEMAN: Okay, you can all read them. Any questions on the rules? I think they’re pretty standard, and where an item is not covered under the rules, according to the rules, Robert’s Rules shall be used, which I guess most of you have had some exposure to. One more point I should bring up about Executive Session, should you have any, this goes back to the Sunshine Law. There is a requirement that minutes be kept of Executive Sessions and that they be made public at such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists. So, I guess even in Executive Session, you should be aware that at some point whatever you say or do will be made public. You should bear that in mind. Any other questions.

SANTANGELO: One more question. Can we consider ourselves, we did declare, are we a committee of the whole right now with just a temporary chair? Can we assume that or is that important?

WURDEMAN: Yes, I think you should get organized. Is that on the agenda? Election of Officers?

RAY: Yes.

LEGASPI: Will there be a specific attorney assigned to this Commission?

WURDEMAN: There will be but for now, I’ll assist the Commission. Previous Commissions have had special Counsel. What’s your budget situation?

LEGASPI: We’ll have to decide that.

WURDEMAN: It has been the general rule, if that’s your wish, that’s fine. If not, then it’s my duty to assist you.

RAY: Do we have option of who assists us from your office?

LEGASPI: We’ve always had an outside attorney.

WURDEMAN: As I said, it’s my intention to personally assist you, at least until everything is rolling smoothly, and then I guess we can discuss such conflicts.

RAY: It’s just that in terms of continuity of legal advice and whatever, I’d like to have somebody on board who’s going to be there. Not necessarily starting out, but once we do have somebody assigned, that person is with us throughout the process.

WURDEMAN: One other consideration you should keep in mind is that the people in my office are sort of sub-specialized in various things like public works, finance, things like that and for any particular subject matter that is on the agenda, it might be better to have the person that knows that area best rather than have the same person all the time. But we’ll try and assist you as best we can.

RAY: We have access to your office in addition to our own counselor?

WURDEMAN: It’s our job to provide you advice; we don’t provide advice unless it’s asked for.

RAY: If we are going through a specific section by section review, we can ask Corporation Counsel to be part of that review?

WURDEMAN: Of course.

SANTANGELO: I guess under B – Election of Officers. Options: outright, offer a slate and defer to the next meeting or appoint a nominating committee. If I understand right, we have two officers to elect, a Chair and a Vice-Chair. So at this committee as a whole, I open it up, what’s the will? Do we want to elect outright today, do we want to offer a slate for next meeting, or do we want to appoint?

RAY: I know that John Santangelo called some members of the commission in regard to this appointment and I know that he put my name out there so I just want to speak to that. When John called me I told him I’d be happy to serve, I’ll also be happy be happy to serve with whoever you guys feel would be best qualified. And as far as the process, whatever everybody is comfortable with, whether we choose somebody today or whether we appoint a nominating committee, I’m fine with that too.

SANTANGELO: And to make that clear, my phone call was who I supported and asking for the people to consider that. I don’t think I asked anyone to vote in a particular way. And just to qualify that too, I think I talked to everybody here and the people I didn’t I tried to get a hold of on the way in, was simply just trying in my opinion, no fast dealing, was to create something that was very fair and open to both sides of the island. I’ve worked with John Ray, I’ve argued and fought with him over certain issues. He’s a process oriented person that’s clear thinking and very fair minded. And I like the way he ran his committees and so it was just simply my way of getting out there. So back to this.

HERKES: Do you want a motion? I’d like to do an outright election today.

SANTANGELO: Okay, we have a motion to do an outright election. Do we have a second:

RAY: I’ll second for discussion.

SANTANGELO: Okay, open for discussion. We’ll take one at a time. If no discussion, call for the question.

IRVINE: I think everybody should be comfortable with this before we do it.

SANTANGELO: That’s what the discussion is for. Anybody else have any input? Are we ready for the question? All those in favor say Aye.

ALL: AYE.

SANTANGELO: Opposed? Okay, we are now open for nominations for Chair. I think I’ve made it clear where it’s at, so is there anyone who would like to make a motion? As Chair, I don’t know if I can make a motion.

HERKES: I nominate John Ray.

SANTANGELO: We have a nomination for John Ray as Chair. Do we have a second? Any other nominations? All those in favor say "Aye".

ALL: AYE.

SANTANGELO: It should be just unanimous. Thank you very much. Vice Chair.

HERKES: Do we move to close the nomination? Can I make another motion? I make a motion to cast a unanimous ballot for John Ray for Chairman.

ALONZO: Second.

SANTANGELO: Then we have to vote on that. All those in favor say "Aye"

ALL: AYE.

SANTANGELO: Opposed? Thank you very much. One thing I want to add, so that it would be out here, when I talked to Roland, he had no problem with what just happened. He did mention that he wouldn’t mind being Vice Chair; there may be other persons, but since I did talk to him and I don’t know if he’d said that to anybody else, I wanted to put that on the table. So thank you. So, I’ll continue just with this, then. Nomination for Vice Chair?

YOSHIYAMA: I’ll nominate Roland Higashi.

HERKES: I’ll second.

SANTANGELO: We have a second. Do we have any other nominations?

BALOG: Close the nominations.

IRVINE: I don’t want to close the nominations. I really feel that it would be nice to have a woman as a second person on there just because it’s important to me, and Roland is also very closely aligned with the administration.

SANTANGELO: Would you be willing to serve as Vice Chair?

IRVINE: Yes.

SANTANGELO: And we have a second?

YOSHIYAMA: Second.

SANTANGELO: Now that we have two people, can we openly do that by show of hands or do we have to do a secret ballot type thing?

WURDEMAN: Show of hands, but you have to close the nomination.

BALOG: I move to close the nomination.

YOSHIYAMA: Second.

SANTANGELO: Okay, all those in favor say. "Aye".

ALL: AYE.

SANTANGELO: Contrary minded? Then lets take it as it was presented. We have Roland Higashi, who has been nominated as Vice Chair. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. I see six (Alonzo, Balog, Bess, Kurozawa, Martin and Yoshiyama). Those in favor of Sue Irvine, please raise your right hand. It’s four (Herkes, Irvine, Ray and Santangelo). It’s six to four. Roland will be the Vice Chair. Thank you very much.

RAY: Proceeding on the Agenda. Item C – Consideration for Commission’s Budget Requirements for various time periods. I feel like we’re a little bit over our head here without having any background on what our limitations, or possibilities are, what’s kind of normal or been spent in the past.

LEGASPI: Maybe you can defer that until you get to Section D, then, whether you want an outside attorney.

RAY: Well, all these budget items, to me we need to look at those in detail in terms of our own expenses to get a sense of the duties of a commission attorney. I have no idea what we are talking about hourly in terms of past commissions, I mean the number of hours.

BALOG: Just one thing that I was thinking about with the budget. It might be worth our while to have Rudy go and get a few rates from law firms and what the going rate would be so it could be presented at the next meeting for the simple fact we aren’t sure what rates there are and what the hours will be and from there, depending on whether we want to have an outside attorney part time or full time to assist with a Corp Counsel attorney which you brought up.

RAY: But is it your sense that we come up with this budget by saying that we’re going to have one meeting per month, just take so many hours per month and that’s our monthly budget? How are we going to come up with a budget for the attorney?

BALOG: In general, I don’t think any attorney is going to work for you eight hours a day. If we go outside, they’re going to have their prep time before that date and time after that meeting. That’s why I’m saying I feel it’s only fair that you ask for quotes from law firms.

RAY: But don’t you agree we need some backup information on how the Commission operated in the past in terms of..

BESS: What Rudy just provided us with, the number of hours spent by each attorney for the last couple of Commissions.

WURDEMAN: I hate to throw a curve ball in here, but we do have an procurement law and the proper way to go about selecting professional services is to put an ad in the paper stating what you want and then you got to get the responses when they come in.

IRVINE: It’s all in what Rudy gave us about how they hired…

WURDEMAN: The law was different then, it was much looser.

IRVINE: It still went out to every attorney on the island and…

RAY: Mr. Wurdeman, we have a letter here from Bob Bethea from 1989, which describes the process and it was pretty exhaustive back then, so…

WURDEMAN: What the law requires is an ad in the paper, a general statement of what you’re seeking, what’s the qualifications that you require, then you’re entitled to contact people you like to make sure they respond, that’s not prohibited. Then when the responses come in, you can meet and that would be permissible as an executive as a personnel matter and you can evaluate what you have and make a selection.

RAY: Do you have any, being an attorney yourself, any background on what Kevin had to say in terms of hourly rates and what would be realistic for an attorney to be involved say on a monthly basis for a meeting.

BESS: Not having had any experience with the number of hours that are required, as far as rate goes, I think we can throw out a figure of $110 bucks, something like that, just to play with. Richard, what do you think?

WURDEMAN: I was going to say $125.

HERKES: I noticed in 1989, the 1989 Search Committee, who did the evaluation on the criteria and did the background and research and then came back to the group with some suggestions. And I would like to suggest we put together a Search Committee.

BALOG: Just sticking within the budget guidelines, another question we might want to ask Rudy is what was the past budget?

LEGASPI: $100,000?

BALOG: Okay, then that would be the proposed budget for this Commission because we need to know, as all other government agencies, how much money you have available to spend and that will in fact determine what route we are going to go after that. And then we can get into the other part in Section E, choosing either a Secretary and/or an Attorney or a search committee, or whatever. But it’s important to know what amount we have to work with too.

IRVINE: Either an attorney or a secretary. Somebody has to put in some hours doing something besides just writing minutes or coming to our meetings, with getting us some research on the issues. I’m not sure which person it would be.

RAY: I don’t think it could be both. I don’t think the secretary could do a fair amount of research.

BALOG: Depending what kind of secretary you hire. The other question, getting back to the budget, though. What is the proposed budget?

LEGASPI: Zero at this point. We’d like you guys to come up with an amount.

BALOG: So we come up with our own amount, present it to the Council and they approve or disapprove that budget?

LEGASPI: I’ve got a guideline right now, $30,000, for the balance of this fiscal year. This is what they are thinking about appropriating for the balance of this year, June 30. It’s a ballpark figure right now.

SANTANGELO: I agree that we need to go over this budget, but again, within the timelines, it would be really good if we probably could look towards a secretary. I think it would be good to get a search committee together and I’d like to offer some input at that time. I think maybe if we took it agenda by agenda, it would be better off, we’re doing an awful lot of discussion over attorneys when the budget itself maybe should be discussed. But I think we need the secretary very soon, and I’m sure not in a hurry to get an attorney. I’d like to do the job right.

RAY: So should we defer Item C.

SANTANGELO: I’m curious, there was a proposed budget for $30,000 until the end of the year…

BALOG: So, what’s the procedure? To me, the next question, since we’re still on budget should be, is that proposed from the administration or the Council?

LEGASPI: We’re talking about $30,000, but if that’s not sufficient..

BALOG Well, we started the ball rolling, I would say as a commissioner, and if we need to, when it comes in front of Council and we’ve had more time to look at numbers and amend that, that’s possible at that time, but at least go forward.

SANTANGELO: That’s four more meetings, right?

LEGASPI: Not necessarily, it could be less than four or even more.

HERKES: Would it be appropriate to offer a motion for the chair to write a letter to the County Council to please release $30,000 to operate the Charter Commission until June 30, 1999?

MARTIN (?): I think there’d have to be some guideline on that letter, though, you’d have to check what you’re saying as to what the $30,000 is going to be spent on.

HERKES: We’re going to be conducting business of the Charter Commission.

BALOG: Without getting into specific details, it’s easy to say we will be needing the money for per diem and/or meals for the Commissioners, for a secretary which is yet to be hired but is coming on board in the near future. And for potential legal services and also, in case you can’t get the meeting places that are designated, you may have to pay for a meeting place. So just put it all in there and I don’t think they’re going to scrutinize $30,000.

KUROZAWA: Is there any way we can get the listing from 10 years ago on what they spent the money on?

LEGASPI: Those categories are the same categories. And I think they expended at that time $80,000 out of the $100,000 allotted. But that was 10 years ago.

RAY: Did you make a motion?

HERKES: I will, I’ll make a motion.

BALOG: I’ll second that.

RAY: So the motion is for the Chair to communicate with the County Council in regard to budget amount for 2/99 to 6/30/99 of $30,000, and we’ll just include the generic categories of the budget in that request. And then at the Council Meeting we’ll have a representative there to explain that we’re just starting out so soon, a generic request and we’ll spend the money as frugally as possible.

SANTANGELO: Just one discussion on that. I’m assuming, and I’d like to get the opinion of the Chair and the Commission, that we have one year from June to get everything up and running, because Elections is going to want it by what time? Is June too late?

LEGASPI: That’s fine.

SANTANGELO: Okay, so we have until June to get up and running then we have a year to get our work done, so that seems to fall within the framework that I’m comfortable with, but I just wanted to give that train of thought to you.

RAY: I’m comfortable that we’ll spend the money as frugally as possible, and won’t spend the money on things that aren’t important. So, that covers the first time period. All in favor of that motion?

ALL:; AYE.

RAY: Okay, motion carries. And then shall we just defer discussion on…

SANTANGELO: I move to defer on the rest of the budget.

HERKES: Second.

RAY: All in favor?

ALL: Aye.

RAY: So we’ve covered the first part of the first page of the budget and we’ll defer to the second, and we will research past commission budgets and whatever else might be applicable to that discussion and get that information out to the group as soon as possible. Item D. Consideration for the Selection of the Commission’s Attorney and Secretary Including respective compensation. I believe what I heard already is that the secretary seems to be somebody we want to bring on board immediately. And then the Attorney is something there’s a process to. In terms of a Secretary, do we have to get it through the same process?

LEGASPI: You have the option of hiring a permanent secretary to be working full time with you or on a meeting by meeting basis. I think the previous secretaries were full time, paid on a monthly scale, and that was about $1,900 a month.

IRVINE: Seems if you have the right person, they could take some of this research and we wouldn’t have to pay $110 an hour.

BALOG: That’s why I’m saying it depends on your secretary. I just think that it would be in our best interest to get about a 3 member sub committee, as we’re talking about these people now. I know it comes later in the next item, but I think we should advertise for a secretary before even an attorney and depending on, let them go in front of that selection committee, and have the selection committee at least make a recommendation of two or three, not only one and bring that forward to the entire commission, because I think there’s a lot of good qualified people out there, and I know a few myself, but I don’t’ think they’d work for one year on a temporary basis, but if you get the right secretary who could do legal research for the commission, then I think something like Corp Counsel would be sufficient, and on full time basis, not part time.

SANTANGELO: I feel a little bit different about that in that I think we’re going to need something that’s a part of this, but what I want to do is I think we need to get on the secretary. I think we can defer the attorney. What I wanted to say was I’d like to move that we have that selection committee. I’d like to also as part of that motion have Mr. Bess lead that up with a couple of people from here.

BESS: I’d be willing to do that.

SANTANGELO: Yeah, and mainly because of your attorney skills and having worked with that.

HERKES: Are we talking about the secretary or the attorney?

SANTANGELO: Both, because I thought we could get the attorney’s matter out of the way and then we could deal with the secretary, because it seems to me, we’ve got one person doing something for us, we’re going to need to get on that secretary. If we set up a committee to select an attorney, that would be underway, they could take from now until June to do that and then we could move on to the secretary.

YOSHIYAMA: I did some research looking at the job classification for Secretary to Board and Commissions. Within the Civil Service, there is such a job a secretary to Boards/Commissions. It is established as a SR-18, and I have the monthly range. If this position were to be 20 hours of more a week, and I believe that we gotta go through certain steps in hiring someone. That is for 20 hours or more, this is a Civil Service job.

BALOG: That Secretary to the Board of Commission is just for secretarial services? Maybe you could share that information you have because my thinking is to get someone who is not just there to do shorthand and send out report. That kind of leans toward what John is saying about getting someone to help the attorney’s committee. Personally, I’d like to see a secretary who could handle legal research.

RAY: I think Mr. Balog is suggesting more a paralegal secretary. So, Gary, is that a problem under that classification, to seek somebody with those types of skills?

YOSHIYAMA: Legal research? There’s a Paralegal classification, SR-21.

KUROZAWA: Is this person going to be under the County, or just a temporary emergency hire, or are they going to be under the Union?

YOSHIYAMA: This would be a included position, meaning it would be a bargaining unit position. If again, you go 20 hours or more.

BALOG: If we hire just a secretary, not a paralegal.

YOSHIYAMA: Paralegal, you may still. It’s a bargaining unit.

BALOG: Do you guys have any guidelines for paralegals?

KUROZAWA: The thing you have to be careful with is if it’s fully under the Union, they may come in with only certain job descriptions and refuse to do everything else.

BALOG: That’s my question about the secretary’s position.

SANTANGELO: And I’d like to not let this commission get too far away of the importance of sound legal advice, and frankly, lets not underestimate the job of keeping minutes for this commission, because we don’t know about special meetings and I know that on the Council, it’s always been a struggle to have the minutes within the last six months, never mind the next month.

YOSHIYAMA: Let me read this one sentence which may, Kevin, address at least a portion. It says here "Part of the job", among many other things, "Assembles necessary reports, background data and supporting materials on matters to be covered for Boards and/or Commission meetings and public hearings.

HERKES: Mr. Wurdeman, if we hire a temporary hire for one year does that come under union, if we use County money to do that?

WURDEMAN: It’s got to be a position created.

HERKES: It’s got to be a position created and that comes under union contract?

WURDEMAN: That depends as it was pointed out whether it’s full time or less than full time.

HERKES: So if it’s over 20 hours, then…

WURDEMAN: I can’t visualize somebody having to work over 20 hours a week as a secretary for a commission that meets once a month.

HERKES: I’m having a hard time too, even with legal background.

WURDEMAN: One of the things I’m sure you’re going to want as you proceed is minutes of past commissions that are available. Things are hard to find, you know, and as particular issues come up and should you want to go back and find what previous commissions had to say about them, you’re going to need someone that has some researching skills.

BALOG: Not that I’m stuck on a secretary, because I believe in attorneys, I sat on a commission that sometimes I almost leaned on them and roped them because I wanted them to give me the right advice. But I cannot say enough. The commission I was on, we had a part time secretary who didn’t cut the mustard, we met once a month. And what I can see happening right now, if we just want a secretary, that’s fine. But I want to know, if I gotta pick up the phone, I’m gonna call somebody. And I want to know, if we hire someone that if we tell them to work, they work. Not when you tell them, "oh we only need you 20 hours a week " and they tell you "I’m sorry, I just don’t have time, you guys are second class". I mean, it’s same like with the attorney you’re going to hire. You want to know whoever it may be, whether it’s Corp Counsel or an outside attorney. You want to know whenever you want them, you can get a hold of them. And they need to come and represent you. And that’s why I would really advocate more for full time positions than part time. Because it happened to me. We had a full time person assigned to our commission that really only worked for us a quarter of the time because they were assigned to another commission, then they had to do other business in the County and I don’t want to see that happen. And that’s the only reason why I say this, if this board or this committee would have the choice of selecting their own secretary and doing the interview. Because I want to know that if I have a question dealing with whatever, if she can’t research it, she’ll give it to the attorney if we can’t get a hold of the attorney, and get it back to us. So, I’m really not for a part time secretary.

RAY: Are there any other comments on that?

MARTIN: I have a question for Gary on that job description. You mentioned a classification. What would be the monthly salary?

YOSHIYAMA: The range right now is quite large. Minimum $2,329 a month, this is 40 hours a week, up to a maximum of $3,586 a month.

MARTIN: Now that is topside, does that include their benefit package?

YOSHIYAMA: No, that’s straight salary. If we need somebody on board now, there are provisions again, within Civil Service, or within government that you can pick up emergency appropriation or hire, so we can pick up somebody off the street, or we can ask Civil Service because they do exams and stuff like that and we can pick up somebody during the interim and then carry on. So, we don’t have to wait for a permanent body or a final decision before we get some clerical support or paralegal support.

RAY: Okay, we got kind of a range of preliminary opinions on what it’s going to take to do this. Personally, I really don’t have a clue what we’re talking about time-wise here. On one hand Kevin, I hear what you’re saying, what you’re talking about with the Planning Commission which meets full time with a full board agenda year round. This is really the nature of this commission. It could be quite different, I don’t know. And we’re going to discuss that in regard to goals and objectives in what people see this commission undertaking. Certainly, we’ll view what everybody says in what that’s all about. So I’m not comfortable deciding we need a 40 hour week versus a 20 hour week, and I’d really like to see what the past commissions have done and used and how all that works. So, I think we need that information.

IRVINE: Can we go to a temporary agency or something, somebody to just take minutes?

HERKES: While, in the meantime, why don’t we just make some decisions here? Why don’t we appoint a committee and do it and get it settled and come back to the board. It’s not a rocket science to hire a secretary.

IRVINE: Apparently, it takes more than 30 days though in the County to do it. You have to put in the newspaper and stuff.

YOSHIYAMA: Not necessarily. You might have a listing already.

LEGASPI: What I did is that I wanted a secretary to monitor the situation today. But the three that I got were not available. I got quotes from them as far as a one shot deal, or even a long term deal. I have that information available.

SANTANGELO: So I had a motion to set up a selection committee with Steve heading that and possibly two other people, and we could do the secretary and attorney.

RAY: And move in all haste to cover ourselves.

BESS: I I have no problem with that, we could have two different committees doing this thing, in terms of just spreading out time. One for the secretary and one for the lawyer, and I’d be happy to do the lawyer one, but I suggest that maybe we just keep….

SANTANGELO: So my motion was, original motion was for a lawyer, so I stick to that and do I have a second then?

BALOG: I’ll second that, to move this along. And I’ll move to close that. And he’s going to chair it? So, you need volunteers?

RAY: Does anyone want to volunteer to serve on the selection committee to hire the attorney? Sue? Any others?

SANTANGELO: I’m willing if nobody, I mean, I don’t want to just jump in.

RAY: Okay, John Santangelo. So all in favor?

ALL: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Okay, motion carried. Now we’re addressing the hiring of the secretary. Is there a motion?

SANTANGELO: I’d like to move that Gary head this up, with Kevin and Marni.

BALOG: I’ll second that.

YOSHIYAMA: I don’t know if that’s a conflict, and I’m just declaring it.

IRVINE: Put him on the committee and make somebody else a chair.

YOSHIYAMA: We may end up representing that person depending what’s the final decision.

SANTANGELO: So then I will amend it to have Marni, chair, you guys be on it and if there’s a problem you step aside.

YOSHIYAMA: That’s fine with me.

RAY: So the amended motion?

SANTANGELO: Is that Marni be the Chair of this search committee for a secretary and Mr. Balog and Gary be on the committee.

RAY: All in favor?

ALL: Aye.

RAY: Moving on, Consideration for the Creation of Standing and Sub-committees with Appointed Chairpersons.. Any thoughts on that?

BALOG: I say move to defer and even further than that is maybe having any of the Commissioners with ideas, that they might have coming up, send them in to Chairman Ray and him come up with some ideas for sub committees for the next meeting.

RAY: Okay, including research of what’s gone in the past. Do we have a second?

YOSHIYAMA: Second.

SANTANGELO: So we are going to defer till next meeting any committee, we’re going to get the information on what past committees were, and then give input.

RAY: Solicit input from all commissioners.

BESS: Just a clarification on the selection committees, it was mentioned that maybe it was a good idea to have two or three people recommended, I think Kevin mentioned that. So and I noticed that Jim Juvik’s committee recommended one very highly. So, I like the idea of having more than one person that we would run through them all and come up with three names and we could come up with our recommendations but we have three names if at all possible.

RAY: So we have a motion to defer and to network. In regard to the networking, if any of you have any thoughts on this, feel free to let me know, pass that information on.

SANTANGELO: Do we all have email? We should all have email.

BALOG: Not all of us do. Because not all of us know how to use a computer.

SANTANGELO: Well then, you shouldn’t be on the commission.

BALOG: Well I have a fax machine and if you spend time to type or write I’ll read what you said, if you don’t too bad.

RAY: We’ll take advantage of whatever communications vehicles are available to us. I have a email, and also through the HLPC office, that’ll work pretty well and there’s a secretary. Anyway, I’ll include the HLPC office fax number and phones and then my home email. All in favor of that motion?

ALL: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Okay. Preliminary Discussion on Goals and Objectives.

HERKES: We’ve got some goals. That we have a document finished by 6/30/00 ready to go to the Council or Corp Council, who does it go to? The amendments have to go to the Elections Office. So, it goes to the Clerk, the County Clerk by 6/30/00.

RAY: I think that’s a bare minimum.

BALOG: It goes back to staffing and whatnot, but one of the goals always has been is to make sure that the Commission or Board is available to the public when they need to be available. That’s why I advocated for at least a staff person, or someone where they can call, because there may be people in the general public and the worst thing that can happen is, to me my opinion, they call someone like Corp Counsel’s office and they get a secretary, who works for the HGEA, like my wife, and says "I don’t know", so they say "Try calling over here", and they call to the next place and say "Can I get a hold of these guys?" So one of the goals is that we gotta be accessible to the general public because there’s a lot of rumblings in the public about this Charter Commission, even in my own community and I just want to make sure that somehow, if they want to call someplace, they have a place to call and get information out of. Besides our home personal emails, I don’t think that’s how it should be handled.

SANTANGELO: Well, that’s communication among ourselves.

RAY: I guess Kevin’s point is, is that we set up a responsible communication system so that the public has access to the commission, pretty much full time, they can get through.

BALOG: Yes, well, someone they can get, not to the commission itself but have a place where they can get information. In other words like John used a country bumpkin term. Well, someone from either Hamakua or Pahala or wherever, has a question about something that they read in the paper. Where do they call? Who do they call? There has to be some place centralized that they can call and get information out of. And I think that’s important because a lot of times people come to hearings. "Oh I didn’t know this". And then when you tell them they say "Oh well, gee, if I would have known I wouldn’t have taken off of work". Or, "I tried calling around, I couldn’t get nothing out of anybody". So just for the body to be user friendly to the public.

RAY: Rudy, do you have any idea how that’s worked in the past, in terms of how the commission was set up, their communications and who was the general contact point. Using your office is always a fall back.

LEGASPI: I can’t recall, but basically, it’s up to the members of the Commission.

RAY: Okay, I think Kevin makes a good point. Whatever we can do, to make things more user friendly will ally a lot of suspicion.

SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, it doesn’t have to be available 24 hours a day.

BALOG: No, I’m not saying 24 hours.

SANTANGELO: So if we have our secretary, part of that search could be Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Monday, Wednesday between the hours of, so that they could call in for information.

RAY: And I don’t want to volunteer this out of turn but the HLPC office might be a vehicle as far as, I don’t want it to be an undue burden in terms of supplying a bunch of information and whatever but just as far as having all that information available in a place that people could call in regards to meetings or whatever what’s going on. We’ll just have a little fact sheet there, whatever, that we keep updating, that’s a possibility. Because I don’t have a sense of what this secretary, where they’re going to be and how much they’re gong to be available and how all that’s going to work. And maybe there are other suggestions. How does the commission work? Who calls, when somebody wants to know something about the commission, who do they call?

BALOG: In our case, they call the Planning Department.

IRVINE: Yes, on the Board of Appeals or the Planning Board or something. They always had staff.

BALOG: It’s the same like the Liquor. The Liquor Commission would call the Liquor Control. Police would call, if you want to know about Police Commission, call Police. All I’m trying to say, I heard it so much serving on the Planning Commission. We gotta be able to get ahold of you. I don’t mean get ahold of us, because that’s one thing I didn’t do. I didn’t want my number public and I didn’t give it out. You want to talk to me, send a letter, it’ll go through proper procedure and it’ll get to me. But some of my ideas is we’re going to have to set up a place where communications will come into this county facility or however we choose, and be distributed out to the rest of the staff.

IRVINE: I think it’s a little bit bigger than John is thinking it might be because the people will want to know, will want to be sent an agenda, will want to be put on a mailing list, our secretary has to handle that.

HERKES: I think the Charter Commission needs it’s own phone number, needs it’s own fax number, needs it’s own email and the secretary has access to those and is responsible for responding in a timely manner to all inquiries that come into that phone number, that fax number, so that it is a Charter Commission number and my other goal that I have is to get the Charter on the County website.

BALOG: As much as possible, one of our goals gotta be to get the information out, have somebody or a place where mail can go, they can leave a message, send a fax. The secretary side is really not the goal I was talking about. It’s just somehow getting what we do and making it available to the community, making our commission available to them so they want something, they can get it somehow to us.

SANTANGELO: And I’d like to interject that that’s one of the reasons why I felt the legal advice should be separate, because this secretary can handle a lot of the stuff. And if you’re talking about a web, then maybe that person can be authorized, what if you wanted to set up amendments or other things on the web, she could be the one for that.

BALOG: So really just the goal is for the communication.

RAY: Let’s continue this discussion in regard to communications. Does anybody have other thoughts in regards to this general topic of communication goals and objectives that they’d like to bring up? I’ve had some thoughts in terms of being pro-active in this area and the County Council put together a pretty exhausted and pretty current up to date list of organizations throughout the island under just about every heading of whatever, so that’s a really good tool for sending out information and soliciting input. So that to me makes a lot of sense in terms of communicating island-wide, directly getting out information and encouraging people to review and have input.

IRVINE: Now is this was a list of organizations?

RAY: This is every organization under every possible heading, whether it be community organization, ag organizations….

IRVINE: This is old, but it was something I collected from my files and I’m sure they’ve updated it. I haven’t been on the website to look, but this document talks a lot about what Kevin was saying. We’re not going to be anywhere if we come up with all these ideas and the public doesn’t like any of them, because the public has to vote on this in the end. So, we have to be sure that they’re with us all the way, or we’re just spinning our wheels. It also talks about how very early on we need to say "Are we going to re-write the Charter?" or are we just going to hanker around the edges or what? What ideas?

RAY: Okay, well lets stick with communications right now. Whether we are going to re-write or not the Charter is different, and I think it’s fine to discuss that today, but so what I’m hearing is the more creative and thorough we can be in terms of setting state of the art communications, that’s definitely the way we want to go, and give everybody the opportunity anyway. I’d just like to point out that most people are just not interested. And I don’t care what lengths you go to, the majority of folks could care less about what’s in the Charter or, you know, that’s just a reality. So, we want to give every opportunity, that’s for sure, but I guess what prompted that thought was she said "We gotta have the public with us all along the way", well, they’re not going to be with us all along the way, at the very last minute a bunch of people are going to be with us and ….

IRVINE: No, times are changing, I know. I’ve sat on other commissions. It wasn’t there, I know it’s getting worse all the time, but it really seems to me that the more out front you can be in getting there with them. And actually, one or people that show up do go back to their communities, and we do have a better effect, I hope than public hearing would.

BALOG: I think more so in light of what John Ray said, I can honestly say, at least through my government experience I saw that, and that held to be true for five years, that in all honesty, nobody cared about the day to day business until there was a hot issue and there was a buzz up somebody’s okole at what was going on in their backyard. But what I do believe in, especially in this commission is just the educational part. Because I think that all of us are visionary enough, that have great ideas to guide this County maybe for the next 10 to 20 years if we do a good job on this Charter. And the next people who might quote, get appointed to tinker with it, won’t have much to tinker with and that means that you did a great job, you had a great vision. And the only way we’re gonna be able to get the voters, who have the last say, and vote on our ideas is to educate them why and how we came we came up with this. That’s why State information is knowledge. It’s not so much to take care of the so called "activists". And activists can be pro or con. But it’s just to take care of educating the people, why we view it this way and how come. That’s half the battle cause a lot of people don’t understand why any of these laws are even the way they are. So it’s not so much like I feel you have to reach out to the country bumpkin, but just to educate them. And they might read a paper, they might see it on the website or whatever, and if they can reason out how you came up that, that’s great. And that will be over half our battle when it comes time for that ballot.

RAY: Any more discussion in regard to communications? What else does anybody want to discuss, if anything, in regard to general goals and objectives at this time?

BALOG: Not so much with communication, but frequency of meetings but this don’t deal with frequency of meetings. One thing I think we should try and do is try and move the meetings to different communities.

RAY: In terms of the logistics of that, Rudy, what’s entailed there? Let’s say we want to have a meeting in Waimea.

LEGASPI: We can make arrangements for that.

HERKES: How much does that cost?

LEGASPI: We’ll try to get a County or State facility at no cost. If you have it in a restaurant and we have meals in that restaurant, then there’s no cost.

BALOG: The reason why I said that, we did do it through the Planning Commission, we always used a government facility, there was no charge for it. Like in Waimea, they have the Hawaiian Homes Hall, they have the schools. And you may get other people such as Parker Ranch, or whatever in Kona.

RAY: So it’s what you’re discussing that we take the regular business of the commission around the County, you’re not talking about the public hearings and what have you, you’re talking about the regular business, so in other words we try to once in so many months be in Kona, be in North Hawaii…

BALOG: Or even Puna. We’ve had meetings in Puna and it didn’t cost us a thing, too and the people really appreciated it. And I’m just not set that I got to come to this Councilroom or a Liquor Commission room to do our business at.

RAY: Are there any other comments on that because logistically, we are talking about, for this body anyway, potentially more travel time or whatever if you decide to have a meeting in Hawi or Naalehu or whatever.

BALOG: It goes back to getting information out. You know, to see the thrill in people’s eyes when you took the time to come to their community and shared yourself with them, it goes a long ways and it will help give confidence to the job that we do and I honestly believe that.

RAY: Part of considering that, in terms of sort of site specific topics or not. I know the council tries to meet in West Hawaii if it’s something more specific or applicable, to West Hawaii. I don’t know what topics, if any, are more or less important to one part of the island, separate counties or get rid of the Mayor, that’s probably more important in West Hawaii. Or just for the experience, like you say…

BALOG: I don’t think that it’s going to come down to getting rid of the Mayor and having two separate counties, or it may, I don’t know. But I don’t think that that should be our goal to let our agenda determine where we are going to meet.

HERKES: I think it’s going to be real difficult to do that.

RAY: So the point you’re making is just to acknowledge the communities, to share the experience, that you think it’s a good idea to hold meetings around the island.

BALOG: Yes, and I’m not saying specifically in Hawi, like it was mentioned. Like Waimea, you could go to Puna, Hilo, Kona, that’s being general, the communities. People from Kohala can travel to Waimea.

IRVINE: I move that we try to have meetings in various parts of the island.

RAY: Well, I don’t think we need a motion for that, it is just a discussion.

SANTANGELO: I share a lot of John’s ideas, having been with the community. And Sue, I hope that we meet some of your expectations with the public. I think this commission has an ability and should take the opportunity to create some sort of credibility in this County. Every time we do something, I think we need to create credibility. Most meetings are people who show up, are special interest and they go back to special interest. One of the ways I envisioned this council accomplishing a little bit of what Kevin had to say was, I think we need to work. And I don’t know if we need a lot of people around to work. But by the same token, is it in the budget, and can we take this lawyer, and can we take this secretary in like, to my moku, meet with people and educate. Because it’s easy to go out there with what we’re doing, but most people haven’t got a clue what this Charter is. We’ve got a lot to learn about this Charter. And so to me, it’s actually, can we go out as individual commissioners and work with a smaller group to educate and then when it comes time for some of our work, then if we went out they’d know what, cause we can educate and bring back to this body. We have work to do and I’m wondering, just the symbology of going out with the meeting sounds good, but could we go about it a little bit different? Where we didn’t require every commissioner to come to Kau. Now certainly any commissioner who would want to could, but I wouldn’t mind going with staff, and letting that staff do some education and then getting input and bringing it back.

RAY: So what you’re suggesting is as with say the General Plan - Planning Department, the Councilman invites the Planning Department and then gives community updates on what the process is going to be like. So, that’s a separate..

BALOG: In general, though, with what John said, I feel uncomfortable because as far as money and budget and stuff, all of us travel from x point to x point and it’s immaterial. You’re going to spend the money whether you travel from Kona to Hilo or if you travel from Kona to Waimea and the guy from Hilo, instead of travelling to Kona now goes to Waimea, the guy from whatever. The money side is immaterial. I just think that like John said, to build the public’s confidence, that’s what we should be doing. And part of it is the learning process. But we need to do our job. To expect me, to go into my community and say okay, Kevin, you go, you be the heartbeat of Honokaa, because I got a next door I’m lucky. George is from Laupahoehoe and he’ll pulse rate them and bring it back to us and share the information. How much of that I could do on my own time is shaky. So I’m just saying that I believe in this and it goes into our next subject, when will we hold meetings and the time. So I served on a commission, like the rest of the County that said you will meet during the day, you will do X, I laugh when I see the TV camera and there’s two heads that you can see in the audience, but they’re all playing to that camera. So I know that they’re still doing their business and that’s what we’re talking about , doing our business. But I think I can be big enough and do it in front of anybody, and whether they understand it or not, they want to raise their hand for a question, then that’s alright. But not just to, I just can’t see just meeting here and here…..

HERKES: I’m not sure what you said. I’m confused. I have every intention of holding meetings in North and South Kona on my own on explaining what the Charter is.

RAY: Can you explain what you mean? Is this wearing your Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce hat?

HERKES: No, wearing my Charter Commissioner hat, I’m going to write articles for the newspaper from the minutes of the commission. I intend to hold meetings on what’s in the Charter as well as get suggestions, and then the Charter Commission holds meetings to take formal testimony.

RAY: Do you feel that that effort should be coordinated with this body?

HERKES: Yes. I think it has to be coordinated with this body. But I’m the representative from North and South Kona, so I need to bring their mana’o into this commission, therefore I need to get it first. Rather than taking this commission’s mana’o into the district.

BALOG: So in other words, you’re saying that you’d like, in your case you feel you "hat:" means that since you were appointed to this commission to go and hold your own meetings, get some information from them, share what you have and bring it back.

HERKES: Yes.

SANTANGELO: And to piggy back on what I felt was my responsibility as a commissioner was different. Because I argue with that. I argue that you, or any person goes out and speaks for the Commission on an individual basis. What I saw myself is possibility taking the representatives, and the hired staff of this commission at least on one or two occasions to the district and being present and oversee their presentation of what this commission is supposed to do and then getting input and bring it back, then at some point, this commission could hold meetings, business meetings, not all of them, but some of them in the district, once the district has been brought up to speed, given input and we’ve got some work done and we’ve got something to show for it.

RAY: And who would that staff be?

SANTANGELO: The lawyer and the secretary.

RAY: I don’t necessarily see either the lawyer or the secretary speaking, I didn’t envision that as the role of those employees speaking for the commission. It think their roles are more specific. The Police Commission has the Police Department, the Planning Commission’s got the Planning Department, and there you’ve got that built in expertise. The department goes ahead and makes this presentation. I don’t think we have that kind of organized department behind us. I’m not sure just who that would be or how that would work, so I think we need to talk about that.

BALOG: More or less my fear of any of us going out and holding our own meeting is things that can be said and then other things of what is done on this commission or board and I can tell you, it personally happened to me. On the Planning Commission, meet somebody who testified in a hearing and say, oh well you know, ah did a good job, thank you for coming, blah, blah, blah, what, why didn’t you say you know, if you need more information. They served on another county board or commission, go see so and so. Never talked about the specific subject that they testified on. It was voted on already, I could have never brought it up and letters went into the Mayor, asking for my resignation, telling me about how I dress, how I shave, the presence. I mean, it was a mess. And it was the best of intentions and you know, I always felt funny even before that and I always stayed away. People knew me sometimes a shrewd person, cause I didn’t like talking to the public, serving in any capacity, whether you are a chair or just a commission member, I wasn’t always a chairman. And you get into this real technical problem, what people will assert that was or wasn’t said at any meeting that you were at or had, as any body or any board or commission. And I had to learn the hard way. So I would feel, I think it’s great that Marni would want to do that on her own, but I would at least say that if we’re gonna do that then you have to go back to the first page and say lets set up sub-committees that could go into different districts and make presentations, or at least have that person from the district, plus two others, they would go to a presentation, so nobody could say that Marni Herkes would then have credibility. That Marni Herkes said this, and you’d have at least somebody else there who would say, "Eh, wait a minute, we were there, we were the other two people assigned to her when she gave her presentation, that wasn’t half what was said." Cause I just don’t know, when you go one on one it’s bad news, it can turn into bad news.

RAY: I think on this whole public relations piece, why don’t we table that discussion for this month and agree that let’s don’t go ahead and start going out and holding meetings for this next month and work on that piece a little more, because my sense is if we did have some sort of a little more uniform or structured presentation that would serve us all better in terms of continuity and message and then we can all be more or less pro-active in terms of talking to the Rotary Club or this or that in terms of what is going on. Any more discussion on the overall goals and objectives?

There were no statements from the public.

RAY: Discussion on the frequency of meetings, best time, day of meeting, location, etc. The set meeting in our rules as we discussed earlier is the third Wednesday, at 3:30 here in Hilo. I think everybody should have an opportunity to say what does or doesn’t work or what’s absolutely impossible for them as well. So, in terms of meeting during the week, during what you normally consider work hours, is that impossible for members of this group?

BALOG: Personally if we meet during a work week during work hours, I’ll probably go off as a board member because I don’t care making it available because one of the only reasons why I agreed to do this was I felt the business we did do could be done in a short period of time towards the end of a work day, not during, not at 9am or 10am or 12 noon.

RAY: What’s possible in terms of end of the day? What’s "end of the day" for you, if you really push yourself?

BALOG: If I push myself, 3:30 is the earliest. 4:00 would be manageable.

RAY: So that is a possibility. In terms of meeting on weekends, and I assume we’re just talking about Saturdays. Is that impossible for anybody and are there times of the day on the weekend, Saturdays in the mornings or afternoons that are impossible.

ALONZO: Afternoons Saturdays would be fine with me.

BALOG: You know, since we’re throwing all this out, no one else is saying boo.

SANTANGELO: No, there are some people going to boo.

BALOG: Okay, well, just to say, Saturday is preferable, 12 noon and no problem. I’ll be happy for over a year.

IRVINE: I certainly prefer 3:30 on weekdays, because Saturdays are the only time I maybe see my husband.

SANTANGELO: And I want to back that up except that there’s a mix that can be done. If we say in the strategic planning, we take certain meetings out to the district, if it was out there that it would be specifically communicated, those could possibly be on the weekend. But as far as working, the evening or the afternoon on Wednesday is great for me, it’s just great. And I not really anxious to throw away Saturdays.

RAY: Can we just have a show of hands on regular meetings. First a show of hands on who would prefer weekdays in the afternoons, raise your right hand. Okay, Saturdays?

BALOG: Another thing too is, preferably, if it is during a weekday, I preferably would not like it Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Or Monday, actually. I just thought I’d get you all excited before we leave, but I really don’t care, if it’s weekdays, but if at all possible weekdays, 4:00 is way better than 3:30. Cause I got to stop working at about 2:00 or 2:30 so I can be presentable, get my mind in the right frame and come here. I run a business and I’m not willing to sacrifice that to sit on this commission.

RAY: How about if we poll everybody as far as the checkoffs and whatever and see what we come up with.

IRVINE: I think if you have trouble with that, you’d have a better tab with having us raise our hands and maybe you can just have people raise their hands to say if they prefer Saturday, weekdays or neither. Then we’d know.

BALOG: Well, we can’t say neither Saturday or weekdays.

RAY: Well, it came out about even.

BALOG: No, I said really, I could change my vote to during the week, but I really prefer we go from 3:30 to 4:00. No matter what, there’s just no way, I can’t

SANTANGELO: Or even evenings, I don’t have a problem with that.

BALOG: Well, that’s another thing, even evenings. That wouldn’t bother me because I spend time with my family more or less on the weekends and actually, I split Sunday into Saturday and Sunday. So, it’s a valuable day, Sunday. That’s why I said Saturdays don’t bother me. And even during the week don’t bother me. The main thing, it’s after 4:00.

HERKES: It would be even better if it were at 5:00. I could leave Kona at 3:00, if we’re meeting in Hilo. And then we could meet till 7:00 and I could be home by 9:00.

BALOG: That’s what I’m saying, the later for me the better and I know people will be off work too.

BESS: I move for 5:00 on Wednesdays.

BALOG: I’ll second that.

RAY: All those in favor?

ALL: AYE.

BALOG: Now I move that that be noticed so we can change our rules at the next meeting we have. Oh, we won’t make it, will we? Well, anyway, to have it noticed, so it has it on our whenever meeting. And maybe we don’t need to meet till March 17, or do we. We should discuss that today.

WURDEMAN: No particular preference on third Wednesday? That’s fine?

LEGASPI: You might have a conflict with the Council.

SANTANGELO: Well, lets not meet here.

WURDEMAN: The Liquor Commission.

LEGASPI: Okay, the Liquor Commission.

BALOG: Can I ask a question, Corp Counsel, since you’re representing us today? Why do we have to specify a date and time? If we can agree to meet after 5:00 in our own self and say the meetings will be held after 5:00 on a date noticed to the public properly, because there was no set schedule when the Planning Commission ever met and those are regular scheduled meetings. I don’t think the Charter is going to say that a commission has to specify date and time, yeah?

WURDEMAN: I don’t think that this is a really good provision but it’s in here. 13-20-C of the Charter says: "The time and place of all regular meetings of the Council, Board or Commission shall be provided in the rules, adopted for the conduct of it’s business." So, your predecessors seem to have contemplated that there would be a regular meeting date set in advance.

BALOG: Well, a regular could mean monthly. Because what can happen, I can see happening is you get your monthly conflicts of stuff that’s important and people taking vacations, and

RAY: Well, how about this? How about we set up the regular meeting, unless otherwise specified, and see how that goes.

HERKES: Unless otherwise specified seems to be real clear.

RAY: Okay, the third Wednesday. So, we are saying that the next meeting has to start at 3:30?

WURDEMAN: No, call it a special meeting and have it at 5:00.

RAY: Okay, so the next meeting is Wednesday, March 17.

SANTANGELO: I have a question, if we made it a little bit later, like the 4^th Wednesday, couldn’t we then take up all this? Because that would give the 30 day notice?

BALOG: Well, that’s the point though, if you delay it one week, give the notice, it would be published and you could actually vote on it instead of having it at the next meeting.

WURDEMAN: Do you want the public hearing scheduled for April?

BALOG: What day did you just give, John?

SANTANGELO: I said the following week, the 24^th.

BALOG: So we’ll call it a special meeting, the notice will go out and you can vote on your regular meeting dates.

WURDEMAN: What day is that? The 24^th? And today’s the 20^th. And it’s a 28 day month. We’re not going to make it. If we sent the ad in Monday, they wouldn’t print it until Thursday or Friday.

BALOG: So we should just meet at the next 3^rd Wednesday on a special meeting at 5:00, so you’re not stuck with the 3:30 time. And just call it a special meeting. Then the following meeting we have at whenever it is, the 3^rd Wednesday again, in what month? April? That’s when we vote on the rule.

SANTANGELO: Except that you’ve set a special meeting in early April to vote on all this stuff and you could have the meeting in March to set up and then get it out of the way so that the next meeting we’re on track.

BALOG: No, but you can already start business. There’s nothing preventing you from starting other business. Is that not right? Mr. Santangelo?

SANTANGELO: To me I see us getting going in June.

RAY: So our next meeting is March 17.

BALOG: Where is it going to be at? Just out of curiosity, where does most of the people live? I know that Marni is Kona, John is Waimea, Eddie is Keaau. I know the two of us live in Hamakua, you live in Waimea. Gary, where do you live? Hilo? So actually, most of us are travelling.

RAY: So I guess we’ll have to schedule the meeting at the Liquor Commission?

LEGASPI: And I’ll check, Monday.

BALOG: And if it’s not at the Liquor Commission, we can find a place.

SANTANGELO: So 5:00 PM.

RAY: So that’s it.

BALOG: Do we need to get together as a sub committee? So you’re going to let us know what our agenda is, Madame Chair?

IRVINE: We were up under preliminary discussion on goals and objectives, and I don’t think we got very far on that, how we’re gonna go about getting input from what sources, like what happened before, or whether we’re going to have some officials come and talk to us or…

RAY: Well, I guess that’s why it’s preliminary. I don’t really know whether a detailed section by section review with presentation, are we going to go that route or …

IRVINE: I guess I’m wondering how you think we’re going to come up with this scenario, by reading stuff like this or is someone gonna research?

BESS: Do you think it’s beneficial to ask one of the previous commission members to show up?

SANTANGELO: I thought Bethea was going to do that.

RAY: Okay, the question was should we use some of the previous commissioners. they come in and help us with what they went through process-wise.

BALOG: Since Mr. Bess is chairing the attorney search, one thing that I think might be just another thing for all of us to consider is in most cases, the County or boards or commissions that hire "quote" experts to look at a document and make suggested changes. And that might be another thing that we could look at, is getting a professional person to look at the whole charter and make suggested changes to it. You don’t have to accept it, but some of the ideas they might have, you might not even come up with.

IRVINE: We don’t have a person on this island that has that kind of expertise. Unless you want to go to the University, or to the County Council. I’d be willing to listen to them.

RAY: My sense is that this has been done three times. If we review the discussion over the last three commissions, my sense is that there’s not going to be a whole lot of major changes. That’s just my sense.

BALOG: You know how you say looking at the last two charter discussions? So are you gonna have like a summarized stuff made available to each member of this commission? Not verbatim, but summarized.

RAY: And especially, it lists the proposals and how they were voted on in front of the Charter. And I’d like to get the language of the proposal.

LEGASPI: It’s in your folder, John, right after that directory on that left hand side.

RAY: So that’s more detail on this so we understand. I think that’s going to be really helpful to review the discussion on these earlier.

IRVINE: Well, this is maybe what our secretary needs to do is get this research stuff, getting in and giving us a paragraph on these. Or tell us where we can see this information.

RAY: Any more discussion.

BESS: Rudy, where do you keep all these minutes of the past commission?

WURDEMAN: It’s supposed to be at the Clerk’s office, but I got some and Rudy got some.

BESS: What I would suggest is this. To put it all in one place so that if there’s some of us that would like to research…

WURDEMAN: We’re going to have to try and find a space where it could be yours.

RAY: So do you think this is something that a secretary could do, make summaries?

BESS: But I’d like to be able to go back to the records.

WURDEMAN: Like I said, it’s all there, I think, but poorly indexed. Sometimes the secretaries were not, if you look at it, they weren’t really up to speed and you got sections marked "inaudible" and stuff like that.

IRVINE: Our technology is getting better.

RAY: Another thing is we can rely on some past commissioners for some input as well, so that’s another backup source. Anything else?

The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 PM.

Recorded By: Transcribed By:

R. B. Legaspi Charmaine Shigemura

Administrative Aide Clerical Services Supervisor