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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Meeting of May 19, 1999

Hawaii County Liquor Commission Conference Room,

Hilo Lagoon Center

And 4 members of the public in attendance.

RAY: Okay, we’ll call the meeting to order at 3:06 p.m. This is the May 19^th Special Meeting of the 1999-2000 Hawaii County Charter Commission. The meeting’s called to order. Let the meeting (sic) reflect that members in attendance at Mr. Ray, Mr. Balog, Mr. Bess, Ms. Irvine, Mr. Kurozawa, Mr. Martin, Mr. Santangelo, and Mr. Yoshiyama, and we are expecting the other members presently.

Item No. III, Minutes. We distributed the minutes of the April 14^th meeting at the last meeting last week. Have the members had time to review those minutes and, if so, do I have a motion to approve?

YOSHIYAMA: So moved.

SANTANGELO: Second.

KUROZAWA: Second.

RAY: Any discussion?

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah, I have a -.

RAY: Mr. Yoshiyama.

YOSHIYAMA: I don’t know what to call it. On Page 45, about three-quarters of the way down, I supposedly said, "Ironic how we choose these dates." Except I didn’t say that. I don’t think it was me.

SANTANGELO: Do you have proof?

YOSHIYAMA: I don’t want to claim that statement, so it’s somebody else. That was the only thing. I wanted to correct that.

RAY: Okay.

YOSHIYAMA: It must have been George that said that.

MARTIN: Say what? You can’t prove that either.

IRVINE: As my comments concerning our last minutes, does it really matter?

YOSHIYAMA: I don’t know.

IRVINE: I do find, you know, these verbatim minutes, we don’t sound as good as we think we sound, quite often. I’d be willing to amend that if, you know, you want to have it struck.

RAY: Sue, we discussed this at the last meeting that these organizational meetings are kind of helter-skelter, and I’m not sure of just what use they are, but anyway we -.

SANTANGELO: Not to worry.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay.

RAY: Okay. Any other corrections? All in favor of approval?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Okay.

Financial Status Report. Let the minutes show that the financial status hasn’t changed since the report at the last meeting.

Communications. Let the record show that the only communications we’ve received have been two additional requests to receive the agendas and the minutes. And we need to notify these folks that we will mail out the agendas but they’ll have to purchase the minutes, that we don’t send those out for free, especially in this, you know, these voluminous minutes.

SANTANGELO: Long minutes.

RAY: Okay. Item No. VI, Statements from the Public on agenda items. There’s no one here, let the minutes reflect.

Okay, Unfinished Business, Selection of Commission Attorney. We’re going to defer that until hopefully we get, you know, more members here. We’re expecting everybody to come, and since we’re going to be voting on that. And -, okay, that’s No. A.

No. B, Selection of Commission Secretary, we’re going to defer that, as well, until Ms. Herkes gets here because she’s been heading up that effort, and so we’ll get the report when she arrives.

Okay. Other. As far as Unfinished Business, and we may have to defer this until more members get here, but I did want to discuss the topic of, you know, general organization and scheduling kind of, you know, where we think we’re heading within, you know, what time frame. We’ve embarked on this review of the County departments, which is an initial review, and then we discussed last week the -, going out for public hearings in June and July, and I’ve distributed a schedule. I went ahead and, you know, scheduled those places. We agreed on those dates at the last meeting, so I went ahead and scheduled those locations, and we actually booked those locations tentatively to make sure, you know, we could go to those. So if we do that in June and July, then we’ll have done a round of, you know, public hearings and gotten public input.

In regard to the departments, we didn’t schedule several departments that are -, or a couple that are connected with boards and commissions, specifically Planning and Department of Water, and as part of this review, the various boards and commissions have to agendize and meet and come back to us with recommendations, so that’s part of that review, as well, that we haven’t, you know, scheduled in this first round of department reviews. So that’s got to be accommodated at some point.

And then we’ve got to decide, basically, you know, where we go from there. We came out with this, you know, a tentative, you know, schedule of what things might look like but does anybody have any comment or input on that? You know, we looked at a schedule accommodating a possible special election, and we kind of worked back from there to come up with a scenario of what, you know, the whole review process might look like. But, you know, already we’ve, you know, departed from that schedule pretty dramatically, so I don’t know what thoughts you folks have as far as, you know, what the process might look like and what the time frame might look like. You know, in the last Charter Commission, we heard last week that they pretty much, the formal review, just marched through the Charter section by section, so if we were going to do that, you know, I think we’d have our initial first round of review from the departments, input from the public, and then we could, you know, take off on the Charter from there and go through it section by section. That’s one possibility.

Another idea that was brought up is having subcommittees or committees that look at certain areas of the Charter, so that’s a possibility, as well. Mr. Santangelo.

SANTANGELO: Well, I thought some of the things that had come up seemed to really bode well with me. One was that we were going to meet with the departments, and they were going to give us, you know, probably fairly germane concerns because they’re working with it on a day-to-day, and that’s going to start to bring us up to speed. That we were going to go out to the public and we were going to meet with the public and hear what they had to say. From that, what I pictured was that would now start to give us an idea of what are some major issues, and I think when the other -, the Charter members from the past came here, they said, you know, generally, you’re going to take on one, two, or three major change things, and then there’s going to be a lot of housekeeping. And it seems to me that when we got done with the departments, at least first round, and Commissions, we met with the public, we’d have that kind of in hand, and we could start to deal with these large issues. And then once we had -, and this is just one person’s attitude, then we would start to march through that. I like the idea of taking it section by section by section. What we would have in the background, the input from departments that are dealing with those specific sections, so we’d be kind of prepared for that. So the section by section would be our housekeeping, and then if anything came up in between, we could stop and take care of that.

RAY: Okay.

SANTANGELO: And that’s just how I saw it.

RAY: Okay. What about, from a logistical standpoint, we’ve got a lot of meetings scheduled already, and as I mentioned, we don’t -, we haven’t scheduled a number of departments, boards and commissions yet so, you know, one thought is I don’t know how this would work out for them logistically. We could try to schedule some of that at the same time we hold these public hearings; that’s certainly a possibility.

IRVINE: John, I would think that would be absolutely necessary because we’re not going to have probably as much public testimony as would warrant driving all around the Island to hear one person speak or even two. I think we need to present whatever information we have at the beginning of these meetings, like maybe what departments are thinking of what, and then take input. But I can’t see just scheduling public hearings that might last 15 minutes.

RAY: Okay. Other comments?

BESS: Yeah, I -.

RAY: Mr. Bess.

BESS: What I think we ought to do is obviously combine, you know, the substantiative department with a public hearing. But first off, I think what the Commission needs to decide, because this is with regard to an earlier meeting, one of the early meetings about, gee, maybe all of the people will not go to all of these public hearings, that there will be committees, so that we should specify those are substantive that not all of these would necessarily be substantive meetings. So that, you know, maybe -, I’m not speaking on my behalf because I really do plan on going to all of these, but I think that, you know, from the standpoint, other people that have schedules that may not be able to commit to that, and so, you know, every other public hearing we have departments involved with those meetings. But whatever the Commission decides. But I’m just making reference to an earlier point, early on. And I think Marni was the one that mentioned that, that it might be difficult to make all of the meetings.

HERKES: Mr. Bess, I have driven to Hilo five times in the last seven days.

BESS: I -.

RAY: Marni -.

HERKES: So I don’t think that’s a question. But you’re right, not everybody -, there isn’t everybody here today. There wasn’t everybody here last time. There is going to be a play. But I don’t think you can schedule who can come at which time.

BESS: So what you’re saying is that you think that there ought to be substance attached to every public hearing, is that it?

HERKES: I think there ought to be substance attached to every public hearing, you’re right.

BESS: From the departments?

HERKES: No. Substance attached.

BESS: I’m sorry.

HERKES: Nnot necessarily from the departments.

BESS: I’m meaning it in terms of eliciting testimony from the departments. Isn’t that what we’re talking about here?

RAY: That’s what I, you know, was talking about, specifically.

BESS: Yeah.

RAY: And I -, you know, I think we ought to, you know, be mindful of the fact that, you know, do we want to, you know, request County departments to come out to, you know, Naalehu or Waimea in the evening to address or not? Mr. Balog.

BALOG: If you have committees from the Commission instead of having a full-fledged meeting, it could work in the favor of procedure that you could run the meetings more as informational and trying to gather information, then going through the public, somebody come up, and then the public, at the end, even though you have public comments, somebody says, hey, that department person said something. I want to say something; I don’t agree with. And then going back and forth. Is it not possible just to have a committee meeting that if you want to have people on that committee report back to the Commission and you don’t need to worry about a lengthy hearing?

RAY: Okay. Comments? Marni.

HERKES: I have a problem with engaging a department head in comments. I mean, it’s all right to disagree, but I think the comments ought to be broad. And, I don’t know, I see that there’s a -.

BALOG: No, well, they’re sending us information; I got a pack of information already from the departments. So my thing is if you don’t want to make a committee -. I know how to read, actually. So if you want to really expedite it, ask the departments what comments they have, write it down, and send it to the members. I’ll read it. I don’t -. It’s more of a public service that you’re bringing the department people to me, to a meeting, to say what they, their changes are in the public when we’re holding our meeting, because you can get that same information out of them in writing, and then just bring them to a meeting, and go through what comments they’ve submitted and question them on those comments.

IRVINE: I’m afraid -.

RAY: Mr. Santangelo.

SANTANGELO: Yeah. I wouldn’t be expecting, when we’re in the country, per se, to have department heads traveling out there. When we have meetings in say Kona or Hilo, we should make it available. If a department head like Mr. Takahashi is here today, what I’m expecting from Mr. Takahashi is his experience with the Charter, the concerns that he has. I’d want to engage him only for clarification. It’s going to be our decision. And we’re on an information -. Maybe I misunderstood something, but it’s not for us to get into a debate with these people. They’re here to inform us of their concerns. It’s for us to take it up with our legal assistance, is how I see it. So -.

BALOG: Right.

SANTANGELO: Any time we can take our meetings, I mean, certainly if a department head shows up, we should take that input.

BALOG: Okay. I agree. All I’m saying is I think you guys said about having committees, subcommittees or -.

HERKES: Mr. Ray did.

BALOG: A meeting of the whole, which would be the entire Commission, so all I’m saying is for you have a subcommittee, that’s all right, too, to me. I’m not saying that I think we all have to attend all the meetings, because all of us have different peaks and interests in certain things in the Charter anyway. And instead of burning us out to -, all of us out, like Mr. Bess said, he, personally, would like to attend every meeting. Maybe I would, too, but other people might only have an interest maybe in Public Works or Finance or whatever, Parks and Recreation. So all I’m saying is if that’s -, if they don’t want the option to attend, that’s all right with me, too. I’m not saying that they have to attend every meeting.

RAY: I was thinking mainly more from a research standpoint.

HERKES: Yeah.

RAY: A subcommittee, right, rather than -.

HERKES: Right.

RAY: Yeah. Okay.

BESS: Yeah, that -.

BALOG: Oh.

BESS: That’s what I was thinking. And, I mean, if I understand where we are here is that number one, we have set up a schedule of public hearings. That’s, you know, a heavy-duty schedule. So now what we want to try to do is we say, well, those are a lot of meetings, but maybe some of those meetings we can combine departmental comments with those. Now, one, where I’m at is that everyone’s invited to go to all of these public hearings. If they can’t make it, hard luck, that we not have committees set up to take public testimony.

IRVINE: I agree.

BESS: Two, that what we do is that we say, you know what, because in the interest of our time, we would accept departmental testimony, and we would specify what those dates are so everyone would know what they were, and they make their judgment as to whether or not they were going to be there or not. And then in terms of public hearing and allowing public to testify, look, we’re accepting public statements. Thank you. We’re pau with the public statements. Now we go to the departments, or we do it in reverse. But what I’m saying is that the public doesn’t really get to engage the department heads, that’s not what those are all about.

RAY: Right. Okay. Ms. Herkes.

HERKES: And we have more research to do than just department heads. If we talk about neighborhood boards, we want a presentation, we want research. We may not do that in Hilo, we may do it in Kona. That’s something you would invite the public to. If you want to talk about nonpartisan elections, I think we should have somebody come and talk about nonpartisan elections. There’s a lot of stuff going on as far as elections go with the census, and in 2002, we’re going to elect everybody all over again, no matter who gets elected in 2000. So there’s a bunch of stuff going on that we need some expertise, presentations from, besides department heads, and I see those being scheduled up front in the next four to five months, that you can work with any of us to start to flesh out what are our questions, what are the issues, and start to develop that calendar so that the public can come to any meeting they want to anywhere on the Island; they’ll know what the agenda is. It’s not just department heads.

RAY: Okay.

HERKES: As far as I’m concerned.

RAY: So let me ask this. Do you think it’s premature that we schedule these six -? You know, this is just a tentative schedule right now, okay. You know, do we really want to go out for these six meetings and then, you know, in addition, you know, all these other things you’re, you know, speaking about.

HERKES: Yes. Thank you.

RAY: I mean, maybe we don’t want to do these six meetings right now.

HERKES: We do.

RAY: Because the original plan was to do just two meetings, one in Kona and one in Hilo, as a first pass, and this scenario of additional meetings came up, you know, at the last meeting. Daryl.

KUROZAWA: I think it’s a great idea, you know. If you look at your time line, you’ll probably get all the public hearings, at least the first public hearings done by June, and that means in July we have time to start planning your next phase, which will probably be what you’re talking about, what Marni’s talking about, about setting up, figure out what where we want to go. But that’ll -, in six weeks from now, we’ll probably -, we might have a good idea where we want to go from the public hearings.

RAY: Well, this schedule takes us through July, if we go with it.

KUROZAWA: July?

RAY: Yeah. It’s two meetings in June and four in July.

KUROZAWA: The whole month, okay.

RAY: Okay, John.

SANTANGELO: Yeah, I think what Ms. Herkes brought up is what I was talking about. And I need a clarification here. This Charter is -, this Charter Commission is responsible for doing the job with the Charter. We’re not responsible for only taking or dealing with the public. We have a job to do. We could do and would have to do our job whether the public showed up or not.

HERKES: Well, yeah.

SANTANGELO: Is that -?

HERKES: We can make sure that the public mentions some of these things so that you could -.

SANTANGELO: Yeah, but we can also mention them.

HERKES: Yeah.

SANTANGELO: So if, like if your issue is a neighborhood board, because nobody’s talking to me about that, that’s what I meant. There’s some major issues that we’re going to bring up ourselves. There’s the -, I would assume that most, if not all, of the departments from the County government itself, it’s going to be housekeeping stuff. And then, so with the public process, that gives us the chance to pick up these things we really aren’t expecting.

So I think we’re on track. And I think by the end of July I’d like to know pretty much, have everything out on the table. What’s an issue I have? Nonpartisan election, you know. I would hope that we’d have these things out here on the table by then, and then we’d start to do our work. So it’s an ambitious schedule, but I tend to like it, Mr. Chairman.

RAY: Mr. Bess.

BESS: I go along with him. I - number one, is I think what we ought to do is go forward with the six public hearings. What that’s going to do is it will elicit maybe some neighborhood board issues, those kinds of things that we should be dealing with. We know those up front, so by the end of July we know what the issues are, and then we’re going to have a time for us to get together and come out with our issues that, you know, such as neighborhood board or whatever. And we’re not going to be behind the eight ball by starting in August to deal with those kinds of issues.

SANTANGELO: Because we’re going to need the research and the material brought to us.

IRVINE: I guess -, I missed the last meeting, and so -.

SANTANGELO: No, you did, I think.

HERKES: Then you’ll get to talk.

IRVINE: At this point, I thought we had decided on two public hearings and now we’ve got six. Is -, was there some rationale for that?

SANTANGELO: I think Chris had a lot to do with that. Didn’t Chris -, in having the -.

IRVINE: Oh, okay.

SANTANGELO: Presentation that we had from the past Commission.

IRVINE: He thought we had to go out to everybody now?

SANTANGELO: Kind of what they had done and some of the recommendations.

IRVINE: Did they go out for public hearings with no agenda? Does anybody know? Or did they have something they were discussing -?

SANTANGELO: No.

IRVINE: At those meetings?

SANTANGELO: And it didn’t seem like they really engaged in a lot of dialogue. It was to receive input from the public.

IRVINE: Okay. Well, then let’s do it.

RAY: Okay. Well, let’s -, we can touch on this again at the end of the meeting, but since we’ve got our department heads here, let’s go ahead and move towards that. And actually, I had scheduled -, Ms. Tulang, Parks and Rec, is first on the list, so we’ll -.

BESS: Mr. Chairman?

RAY: Yes.

BESS: I think since they’re here, they can go forward and testify, and I’d like that. I think what we need to do is we had advised both the -, your Commission -, your subcommittee on attorney selection, had notified two of the people that it was highly recommending to stand by, and if we’re going to go forward with this, I suggest that the attorney can just listen to the transcript, and the selection of the attorney can follow, and I’d like to call them and just say, hey, don’t worry about it.

RAY: Okay. Well, let’s take a brief recess, yeah.

RECESSED The Chairman called a short recess at 3:30 p.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 3:35 p.m.

RAY: Okay, let’s call the meeting back to order. On the agenda, we’re at Item VII, New Business. We’re going to start our departmental reviews, and first we’re going to hear from the Director of the Parks and Rec Department, Ms. Julie Tulang, who submitted written comments to us earlier. So, Ms. Tulang, could you come up to the table. Thank you very much for coming today.

TULANG: Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to address you. Thank you for this opportunity to address all of you. First off, I need to clarify that the comments made are primarily from my department; it does not necessarily meet with the endorsement of the Mayor. We may not -.

RAY: Okay.

TULANG: Agree on all of this, so I need to say that up front. Okay.

What I need to tell you is how we came about with our recommendations that was sent to the Chair, and that we sent -, or I sent the Charter out to all our division heads to give them an opportunity to voice their opinion. And so, collectively, this is from our department and our division heads and not just from me, alone.

Some of the areas we call attention to are just minor changes. Others, one other may be a major overhaul, and you may not want to address that. But one of the areas that causes us some concern is the area of the Safety Coordinator, primarily because of work comp cases. And so we would like to recommend that perhaps the Safety Coordinator be a Civil Service position so there is continuity and follow-through on work comp cases rather than creating a new learning curve every time a new coordinator is appointed. And that’s Article V, Chapter 6, Section 5-6.2.

The other area that probably needs to be cleaned up a little or clarified and may be a bit controversial is the County bands. Right now it reads in Chapter 6, Article VI, Chapter 3, Section 6-3.4, County bands. There should be one County band and, perhaps, that should move under the Office of the Mayor. Right now, it’s under the office of -, Department of Parks and Recreation. And the bandmaster can continue to be appointed, an appointed position. However, our recommendation is that if the monies are tight, it might be an area that we could enlist the help of high school bands instead of the County band. However, that’s very controversial because it’s been there as a historical part of our life. But rather than having the language that refers to County bands, meaning more than one, I would have you look at that in saying we should have one County band.

The last area that I want to call attention to, the others you can review that was presented, but perhaps this is the time that we need to grow and look at developing within the County structure a Department for Human Services and look at what services would be combined under that office. Our example relates to the Office on Aging, although it’s not under my department, or our department. We do have the Elderly Activities Division, which is more human services than it is that pertains to the division, and this might be consolidated under one office or one Department of Human Services. Other activities that could go under there is developing a volunteer coordinator that would take care of all volunteer programs that are conducted within the County of Hawaii. It could go on and on, but I just tickle you with that idea. And that’s all I have. Thank you.

RAY: Okay. Questions? Mr. -.

SANTANGELO: Just real quick, what was that, the first one you brought up? Where was that?

IRVINE: Page 11.

TULANG: That’s a miscellaneous section. It’s Section V dash -.

SANTANGELO: Thank you.

TULANG: Six point two.

SANTANGELO: Thank you.

RAY: Other questions?

IRVINE: Yes, I do have a question. Concerning the Safety Coordinator, right now, that’s a separate little department.

TULANG: It’s a separate little department. The Safety Coordinator is appointed; it’s co-terminus with the Mayor. And so, you know, it could be every four years, it could be every eight years. But what happens is the people who are affected by work comp cases are your regular employees, and we have -, for example, we have a few isolated cases in our department that’s going on 10 years and needs to be settled or dealt with.

IRVINE: So you feel it would better if they were under the Corp. Counsel’s Office?

TULANG: Yes.

IRVINE: Yes.

TULANG: And that the position would be one that had continuity to it.

IRVINE: All right. Your second point that you had given us was concerning minimum requirements for the position of Deputy Director and Director.

TULANG: I just toss that out because -.

IRVINE: Okay.

TULANG: You know, there’s all this controversy of the Chief Engineer, you have to have all this license and everything, and then anybody can be Parks and Recreation Director, even a home economist.

IRVINE: Okay. The other thing, do you have any thoughts on why you need a Deputy Director at the Department of Parks and Rec?

TULANG: Why -? Good question. The Department of Parks and Recreation has, you might say we have two extremes in activity. One is a multitude of maintenance activities, the other is recreational activities. Say we were to slice it down the middle, we do the fun and games programming, and we do the maintenance and upkeep of facilities and buildings. One person to oversee all is very difficult.

The other is that we are probably the largest employer, at this time, for County of Hawaii. On a regular -, say from September to May, we have somewhere of 425 employees. For the summer, we go up to about 600 employees. If we add on to that all the contract work that we do that is everyone that does classes and activities that we hire on a contract, we deal with upward of 700 employees. With that, you know, if everything was good, it would be fine, but then we have multitude of complaints and things to follow up on. We want our people out there doing work. We need -, I need to share that good work with someone else to help follow up on, and so I think the Deputy Director can help, and it would be, you know, good if one is strong in personnel or maintenance and the other has the overall planning and vision, and it just forms a team. I hope that answers your question.

IRVINE: Yes, thanks.

RAY: Okay. Other questions?

BESS: Go ahead, Gary.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah, Julie, you’re talking, you know, the creation of a Human Services Department.

TULANG: Yes.

YOSHIYAMA: Within the Department of Parks and Recreation at this point, you know, as I look down this list, would you be -, are you suggesting that the -? What are covered under the Department of Parks and Recreation now, you know, these -?

TULANG: What is -.

YOSHIYAMA: I see that the majority of these are within your department now, is that correct? You know, these examples.

TULANG: The only one in my department at the moment -.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah.

TULANG: Is Elderly Activities Division. I have -, we have the Keep Hawaii Beautiful project, which is -.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah.

TULANG: Just a project with -, that’s manned by someone from our Senior Employment Service.

YOSHIYAMA: You don’t have Adopt a Park or something like that?

TULANG: We have the Friends of the Park program.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah.

TULANG: Adopt a Road is a Public Works program.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay.

TULANG: Adopt a Park is under our jurisdiction right now, yes.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah.

TULANG: But that -, and I guess what I was trying to get is trying to get someone to get a handle on all volunteer related projects. You know, right now for, even for Public Works to get off and running on the Adopt a Road program, it’s like who do you give it to? Which engineer? Whereas, that could be coordinated by a volunteer coordinator. You know, funding may come from Parks, it may come from Highways, but you need someone to be out there liaisoning, recruiting, reinforcing.

YOSHIYAMA: Thank you.

RAY: Okay. Other questions? Mr. Bess, did you have a question?

BESS: On the County bands, there are two things here. One is that you think that the bank or bands ought to be placed under the Mayor for administrative purposes, right?

TULANG: Yes.

BESS: But then you go further and you say but it should be only one band.

TULANG: Yes.

BESS: Rather than two bands.

TULANG: Yes.

BESS: Why is that?

TULANG: We can get into, you know, looking at -.

BESS: Is that a cost thing or is it -?

TULANG: One is cost, the other is -.

HERKES: Be careful.

TULANG: Quality of -. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. Maybe Marni should answer the question. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but if I look at -, you know, if we’re going to represent the County of Hawaii and we wanted to get out there to represent quality of music, there is one thing to bang two pot covers together and make music, there is another thing to present music that we can be proud of that has history and tradition, and the -, and presents a good program. I don’t think we have equal quality at the moment. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a good time. It doesn’t mean we don’t -.

BESS: That’s good.

TULANG: Love what we’re doing. And I -, you know, I say that because I don’t mean to offend anyone because I know the people who do what they do love doing what they do.

RAY: Are you finished, Mr. Bess?

BESS: Yes.

RAY: Okay.

HERKES: I agree entirely.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: That quality is important, and I think that quality guidelines need to be set for the County band. I agree with you, one County band with two subdivisions is probably where we need to go, but I think the quality is extremely important, and I would encourage guidelines be set as far as quality goes, and that that -, disbanding the band is probably not the best solution to establishing quality.

TULANG: I have taken that -, a mild step toward that by combining budgets.

HERKES: Right.

TULANG: For this new fiscal year and having the bandmaster from -, or band director from Hilo go out to work with the other West Hawaii Band in trying to upgrade the quality of presentation. Now if I said that out loud, I’d probably be blown away.

HERKES: The microphone broke at that time.

TULANG: But just in answer to your question, yes, and it has somewhat to do with money, and the West Hawaii Band only costs us $25,000. So if we look in the bigger scheme of things with a department that has a $14 million budget, what’s $25,000? But when we break it down, and this year I think we went through that exercise very carefully, where we have almost no maintenance and repair monies to keep up our buildings, $25,000 worth of lumber and nails would mean a lot. That’s all.

RAY: Other questions?

IRVINE: I just wasn’t aware that we had a band in Kona as well as in Hilo. Is that true?

TULANG: Historically, it used to be the Hamakua Band, and then it got moved over to Kona, and in later years it became known as the West Hawaii Band.

IRVINE: I -, does anybody known how many counties in the country have bands or whether maybe our high school students should just represent us on a musical level? It’s kind of hard to legislate excellence in music.

RAY: Okay.

HERKES: Not, however, impossible.

BESS: I find it interesting that it’s even mentioned in the Charter. I mean why should a band be a Charter provision? Obviously, it has some historical -.

IRVINE: Historical value.

TULANG: Yeah.

BESS: Foundation.

TULANG: In the County, Hawaii County Band is like apple pie and Chevrolet.

RAY: Okay.

IRVINE: Right, except that we -.

TULANG: And motherhood.

IRVINE: We’ve never been quite so broke either, I don’t think, so I don’t -, I mean -.

RAY: Okay. Any other questions?

HERKES: That’s a good point.

RAY: Okay. Julie, I’ve got a couple questions.

TULANG: Okay.

RAY: In regard to the Safety Coordinator position, I agree with you that making that a Civil Service position probably makes sense, and I think having the requirements makes sense, as well. But as far as putting it under the Corporation Counsel’s Office, you know, in terms of the work comp angle, that seems to make sense, but, you know, I kind of look at this as a position that’s, you know, voiced the advocate for general safety and welfare for the County, and one part of his job, or responsibility is the work comp thing, but I worry if we put it under, you know, Corp. Counsel or whatever, that’ll be, you know, entirely the focus. And to me, the paramount focus should be, you know, safety and welfare of the County, and I kind of like that person directly answering to the Mayor in regard to that. So I just want to, you know, mention that.

And I like the idea of the qualifications for the department heads. I mean, this is, you know, a tremendously complex, you know, and a huge area of responsibility, the number of employees and the size of this department, and I think it’s, you know, crazy that we don’t have more professional qualifications for that.

As far as the Department of Human Services, I’m more than piqued by that. I’m interested in it. You know, I’ve done a lot of work, you know, with Maui County over the past few years, and they have a really different kind of organization there and they combine the Department of Housing and Human Services. And there wasn’t anybody even in Maui that, you know, knew exactly how that came about and, you know, why they did that. But they have a very active and dynamic Department of Housing and Human Services, and the Human Service ends, end, rather, you know, I think offers a lot of advantages to the County, especially in terms of grant writing and, you know, real positive advocacy for, you know, fund-raising and doing a lot of things, so I think that’s certainly something worth exploring, so I appreciate that comment.

And I did note that you included here one, you know, another item, a mention of a Fire Commission or whatever, and I’m sure that’s going to come up as a comment from the public, and so I appreciate that, as well. So, if there are no other questions for Ms. Tulang, thank you very much for coming. Just so you know, when we get into our more formal review of the Charter section by section, we’ll ask you to come back and be available for questions as we, you know, get into discussing that.

TULANG: Okay.

RAY: So thank you.

TULANG: You’re welcome. Thank you.

RAY: Next, we have Mr. Takahashi from the Finance Department. And we have written material being passed out right now.

TAKAHASHI: Good afternoon. I took a slightly different approach to preparing, you know, some information for you. I looked at the Charter as still a valid document that, you know, is still functional. And looking at your task, I thought -, I didn’t want to clutter it with too many housekeeping measures for fear that, you know, the general public may get confused, because I did not know what your major issues would be. But, however, what I did was I just cited a few obvious inconsistencies that, you know, I saw, like the vacancy in office where, you know, it still has provisions that were carried over when the Council was a four-year term. Unless this body is going to address some effort to restore the Council from a two-year to four-year term, you know, then maybe you can clean that up.

Then obviously, well, another section is one of the areas of duties of the Finance Director, it makes reference to an auditor. This County has not had an auditor in years. I think it’s a fall-back to the pre-Charter days and, subsequent to that, there’s been recognition of a Legislative Auditor. And more recently, you know, there’s been reference to a mandatory program reviews to be conducted by the Council that, you know, kind of overlap what maybe an auditor would do. And maybe that should be clarified, you know, because while there is mention of a Legislative Auditor, there’s mention of an auditor, there are no specific duties. So, you know, we could have two positions, one with the Council and one with the Mayor, going in similar directions, overlapping each other, for no reason, you know, at a time when, you know, money is tight. I just thought I’d bring that out to you because the Charter does reference -, Section 5-3.3 does make reference to an auditor.

SANTANGELO: Where is that?

HERKES: On Page 10.

SANTANGELO: Okay. I was looking it up. Thank you.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah. I think more recently we take it that, you know, the auditing functions would fall under the County Council, because they are required to conduct an external audit annually. But there is a growing need for an internal audit program, but I don’t know if it has to be a Charter, you know, issue. We could just do it internally, but we would certainly not want to overlap what the Legislative Auditor would be embarking on. From that, I kind of prepared a, expounded on what the internal audit function should be, just to give you an idea as to what I see being needed.

Now, as far as the Department of Finance, well, I guess, you know, we, too, have our growing pains. We get assignments that -.

HERKES: Shrinking pains.

TAKAHASHI: We get assignments that, you know, people would ask me why is it in Finance, but these are things that get created by legislation, they get created by ordinances so, you know, we’ll deal with that, you know, without Charter recommendations. So that’s about all that I have.

RAY: Okay. Questions? Marni.

HERKES: Under that auditor, it says all duties and functions of the purchasing agent, the treasurer and the auditor of the County as provided by law.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah. I looked for the law.

HERKES: You don’t think there’s any law.

TAKAHASHI: No.

HERKES: Okay. I just wanted to make sure.

TAKAHASHI: I looked for it.

HERKES: Okay.

RAY: Okay. Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah, Harry, I’m looking at Page 17, just for a reference, Section 10-2. You want to -, okay. I’ll just lay it out and then I’ll ask the question.

TAKAHASHI: Go ahead.

YOSHIYAMA: So we have an operating budget and a capital budget, right, for the ensuing fiscal year, and we got an operating program and capital program for ensuing different, yeah, three and six fiscal years, respectively.

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

YOSHIYAMA: Right? Do you have any comments on an operating budget, capital budget that goes biennial, you know, two years?

TAKAHASHI: Okay, during my time as Legislative Auditor.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah.

TAKAHASHI: I prepared legislation to do biennial budgets, but subsequent to that, I think there’s a conflict with State law. State law requires us to be on an annual.

YOSHIYAMA: Oh, okay.

TAKAHASHI: You know, fiscal budget. Corp. Counsel pointed that out to me.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay.

TAKAHASHI: So that’s when we, you know, we dropped that idea. But it would make sense because we spend a lot of time on budgeting and, you know, like the legislature, they go to a biennial budget.

YOSHIYAMA: Right.

TAKAHASHI: And the second year would just be supplemental.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah.

TAKAHASHI: You know, that makes a lot of sense. But yet, since they pointed out the conflict, we kind of -.

YOSHIYAMA: Conflict meaning like -.

TAKAHASHI: Let it go.

YOSHIYAMA: Prohibition from going multi-year?

TAKAHASHI: No, it -, the conflict meaning it’s specified what our fiscal year should be. So, you know, I mean they had a dissertation on why -.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah, okay.

TAKAHASHI: We couldn’t do it.

YOSHIYAMA: Thank you.

RAY: Okay. Questions?

SANTANGELO: Harry, did we ever -?

RAY: John.

SANTANGELO: Then subsequently lobby them or anything? Was there any dialogue in terms of changing that?

TAKAHASHI: No. No.

RAY: Okay. Other questions?

BESS: I have a -.

RAY: Sue.

BESS: Go ahead, Sue.

IRVINE: Oh. I guess I was reading about operating budgets and then an operating program of three years.

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

IRVINE: I’m very ignorant on this stuff, mind you, I know what, you know, the difference between operations and capital, but we have a lot of words in our Charter about that. Can you address that at all, why an operating program -?

TAKAHASHI: Okay.

IRVINE: Needs to be there?

TAKAHASHI: The operating program, it generally, it gives you what the department plans to do, it gives you, you know, the longer range ideas as to what they have, what they would like to accomplish, and what they project to be the numbers that would take them there, at least like -. Although the Charter requires us to do a three-year operating program, we actually do a six-year, you know, we extend the numbers out six years. But how valued those numbers are, you know, of course, hinges upon a lot of external circumstances that could well change the numbers from year to year. But as far as the program, it does -, we are trying to place more emphasis on, you know, having the departments give us a better feel as to, you know, more specific goals, objectives, measurable issues. You know, we -. I think many of the other counties are beginning to go into program budgeting, so we are looking at that, also. I think this year we submitted a budget to the Council that has not -, has taken us to a higher level than line item budgeting. We’re right now at object level budgeting, which then would, you know, focus, take the focus away from your pens, pencils, paper clips. Now, the Council has not expounded on that; they have not objected to that format, but the next phase would be giving them more definitive goals, objectives, measurable quantity, you know, measurable standards, and we will be working with the departments on that at the next phase.

IRVINE: We had -, we were given a model county charter book, and it seems to talk about operating expenses on a yearly budget -.

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

IRVINE: Basis, but capital expenditures on a five to six-year, which we do, I understand.

TAKAHASHI: Well, capital budgeting is done annually, but the capital programming is six years.

IRVINE: Okay. So everything’s split into budget and program.

TAKAHASHI: Program.

IRVINE: The other thing that it talked about in this model county charter was including the estimated annual cost to maintain anything that we have in our capital budget.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah.

IRVINE: And we have that in our -.

TAKAHASHI: We -.

IRVINE: Charter?

TAKAHASHI: In the information that we provide to the Council, we provide not only the planning, design, construction, but there is also an estimate on operations and maintenance. Departments more recently have been reminded that they need to look at the operating costs, so they are now inserting numbers for operating costs.

IRVINE: But you -, then you said that your budgets right now are a little less specific than they have been in the past. I know -.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah, you know, like before, we would tell them how much we planned to spend for supplies, subscriptions, you know, those lesser things. Right now, we will just tell them we plan to spend so much money for salaries, wages, so much money for what we call other current expenses, and so much money for equipment, and that’s it.

IRVINE: And that’s okay in the way the Charter is now?

TAKAHASHI: Yeah.

IRVINE: Okay. So, yeah, that sounds good.

RAY: Other questions? Steve.

BESS: Yeah, Harry, you’re not alone in helping us to limit the number of issues; the Mayor was here earlier, and he suggested that he wanted to limit his comments to the major issues and that he didn’t want to burden the public with, you know, a number of -, or confuse them with a number of different issues. And I can appreciate that, not only from the standpoint of the limited amount of energy that we might have as a Commission but also from the standpoint of the public.

But I got to tell you, you know, I am interested in knowing some of these other issues that may be minor but I believe that it is the Charter Commission’s responsibility to determine what goes out to the public. And I’m not asking that we get carried away with manini stuff, totally manini stuff, but I want to know what those troublesome issues are and then we make the decision whether or not we ought to be burdening the public or ourselves with those issues. So I guess my -, it’s a comment, but I am interested in the other issues that may be there that are of lesser importance than what you put down on this piece of paper.

TAKAHASHI: Okay.

BESS: I’d appreciate receiving those.

TAKAHASHI: Okay. We’ll let you -.

BESS: That’s my own personal comment here. I don’t know if that’s the feeling of the Commission.

IRVINE: I’ll second that.

RAY: Okay. Other comments?

KUROZAWA: I agree. I was going to ask you the question whether you were totally satisfied with everything here. It would be good to hear if there’s other things, little issues.

TAKAHASHI: Well, a lot of the little issues, you know, we -. I guess because I’ve been on both sides, as a Legislative Auditor and as a Finance Director, I can see where there could be potential conflicts, but there’s not really a reason, you know. It’s not a frequent conflict, so, you know, I think if we, you know, people may get just confused if we try to, you know, explain that. But we can provide you a little bit more, you know, as far as, you know, the conflicts, and you decide.

BESS: I would agree with you, Harry. You know -.

TAKAHASHI: Okay.

BESS: Those things that are really abstract that -.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah.

BESS: Potentially this could happen.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah.

BESS: That’s one category. And there are the others where, hey, this is a troublesome thing, but it’s money, so in your sense of priority, you’ve dropped it out of the list but -.

TAKAHASHI: Because, you see, right now, that -, it seems like the State, you know, at the -, the State is right now placing a lot of requirements upon the counties, but yet, you know, the counties’ charters have their own little requirements, so, you know, we have some potential conflicts, but we don’t know how long the State will continue that. You know, if they drop their effort, then what happens if we don’t have anything in the Charter? You know, that’s what makes us very uncomfortable, you know, because we don’t think it will continue. We don’t think it’ll -, you know, we think eventually the thing will resolve and the process will flow again. And we think our process is okay.

RAY: Okay. Marni.

HERKES: I’m interested in the program budget. I firmly believe that program budgeting is the way to go. I got -.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah.

HERKES: A copy of Maui County’s budget and gave it to a couple of people in the County. I really think that being able to relate what a service costs to the taxpayer is very important. It builds support for that, but it also builds maybe a more efficient way of doing something and they can help do it. I really, really want to know if there’s wording that we can insert or if there is wording that we can remove from the County Charter that will make program budgeting more -, will heighten the awareness of program budgeting, if we can make that more important to people, make people more aware of how well that works rather than going back to the strict item, line item budget which just doesn’t tell anybody anything.

TAKAHASHI: Well, I think -, I think there is a trend toward being more accountable, be more efficient, because right now, even at the legislature, you know, they have a committee called Managed Competition, and they’re charged with developing a process by where, you know, the government unit will be compared with the private sector. But in that process, there is also this requirement that a costing element be developed. And from that, you know, I have a State official coming in on June 7^th to present to us a costing model, not necessarily meaning that that will be the model, but it could possibly be -.

HERKES: An example.

TAKAHASHI: The model. Everybody needs to know what it costs to deliver services so, you know, we are taking measures toward developing costing.

HERKES: So if you see items in the County Charter that can further that or things that we can work toward, I’d sure appreciate your point them out to us.

TAKAHASHI: Fine.

RAY: Okay. Other questions? I have a couple comments. Harry, in regard to the qualifications for the Finance Director and the Deputy Finance Director, that’s, by the way, on Page 28. It’s not in the chapter on Department of Finance, but it’s at the top of Page 28, those qualifications that are in the Charter now. Do you have any comment on those, if they’re sufficient, in your mind?

TAKAHASHI: Yeah, I believe -, you know, this would just be the minimum qualifications that you’d expect someone to have, and then the final decision really rests with the Council, you know, whether they feel the person can -, is the right candidate for the job or not.

RAY: Okay. And then one other thing, this whole question of internal auditing. You know, my sense is that, you know, we’re going to have a very lengthy, somewhat controversial discussion around this whole area of mandatory program reviews because they are really problematic from a, you know, realistic, functional standpoint for the County right now, and we’ve already gotten input from, you know, several departments in regard to that as far as, you know, what’s realistic. So I just want to alert you that I think we’re going to need some real help with that in terms of, you know, making a case to the general public as far as, you know, what’s realistic and what’s, you know, sufficient, and what’s reasonable and what’s responsible if we decide to make a change to that, so we are going to need a lot of help with that, I think. Okay. Any other questions for -?

IRVINE: I forgot one thing. Quite often we’ve been without a Deputy Finance Director; at this point, we have one in place.

TAKAHASHI: Yeah.

IRVINE: I know you have your four division heads. Do you really need a deputy, as well?

TAKAHASHI: Well, we have -, we had six divisions. We spun off one into a department; we have five.

IRVINE: Okay.

TAKAHASHI: In fact, funny you asked that. The Mayor has also asked me to look at my divisions to see whether we can -, how can we best, you know, restructure, because he’s hoping to -, we are hoping to absorb more responsibilities, like driver licensing. I’m not sure if some of the other permitting stuff will come to us, like PDLs and, you know, CDLs, you know, driver licensing kind of things. The Police Department feels it’s not part of their -, it’s not their responsibility, so they want to pass it over to Finance, so we are looking at it. And we hope to take it over maybe within the next year. Once we get more -, you know, the Penneys building up and running, we want -, we will move them there and they will become part of Finance, of course with the concurrence of the appropriate unions.

IRVINE: What are your five -?

TAKAHASHI: Budget -.

IRVINE: Accounting.

TAKAHASHI: Real Property, Accounts, Purchasing, and Treasury.

IRVINE: Purchase, okay.

TAKAHASHI: In fact, Treasury actually consists of two, you know. Treasury work as well as Motor Vehicle Registration.

IRVINE: But you’ve got a deputy as well as -,

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

IRVINE: These heads in place right now.

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

IRVINE: That’s what I was wondering. Is that a necessary job?

TAKAHASHI: Well, right now, he has been a help to me because of our dislocations. Real Property consists of almost 40-some odd employees. The Department of Finance is about 100 employees. And, you know, despite what people believe, we do have problems that need to be addressed, complaints. I don’t think the Director alone should -, can do it because the Director, you must realize, serves as a major advisor to the Mayor. You know, there are a lot of policy decisions that, you know, we work with the Mayor on, and sometimes with the Council in helping, you know, move things along, and there is just this awesome amount of things that need to be addressed, you know, besides in the nitty-gritty areas, complaints, inquiries.

RAY: Okay.

IRVINE: Okay.

RAY: Other questions for Mr. Takahashi? Thank you very much, Harry. And next we have Mr. Sumada, the Deputy Chief Engineer, to represent the Public Works Department. Thank you very much for coming, Jiro.

SUMADA: You’re welcome. I’m sorry I don’t have a handout for everybody.

HERKES: Oh, we don’t?

SUMADA: But I’m sure I can put one together fairly quickly for you folks’ review.

RAY: This is a preliminary review, and we are just really trying to get the red flag, you know, major areas of, you know, interests or concerns, or things we might be focused on, so that’s what this level of review is.

SUMADA: Okay.

RAY: And then as we march through the Charter, after we get a level of input from the departments and the public, then we’ll, you know, have you there as a resource, as well. So, is there anything, you know, you want to bring to the Charter Commission today in regard to, you know, specifics in the Charter that you think we might take a look at?

SUMADA: I think the Mayor may have presented the one that affects Public Works already.

RAY: That’s the subdivision?

SUMADA: Right.

RAY: Okay. You want to go over that? He did mention it, yeah.

SUMADA: I don’t know what he called it, but it’s been called a variety of things, create a division within Public Works called Division of Permitting or Land Use and Code. Basically, what it does, it combines certain functions within the Planning Department, namely the subdivisions, and zoning as it affects building permits, combining that with the certain regulatory functions within our Engineering Division and the Building Department when residents and commercial people apply for building permits. So, basically, if you have any permitting that people have to do as far as their land goes or their -, how they use their property, it’s a one-stop shopping, basically. So we’re not advising people to stop at five different offices, they just come to one place, for the most part, and they can get their building permit processed. We have the appropriate staff that could be cross-trained in the different areas so, basically, they don’t have to be going upstairs, downstairs, across the hallway, they just come to the Department of Public Works, or specifically, this division of -, I would call it Division of Permitting, to get all their concerns addressed and permits processed. Basically, that’s the only one that the Mayor has identified.

The other one was the combination of Wastewater Division with Department of Water Supply, but my understanding is Mr. Wurdeman from Corporation Council is going to present that. But I can address any concerns if you have on either one.

RAY: Well, as soon as you could, you know, give us some information on it, just kind of a draft, a scenario, something in writing -.

SUMADA: Sure.

RAY: As far as this Department of Permitting or what that might look like, that would be real helpful. And then a question on the Wastewater, is the Water Department supportive or are they even aware of it?

SUMADA: I mentioned it to Mr. Pavao last week in passing. I think you should inquire with him about his specific feelings about it.

RAY: Okay.

SUMADA: I think, from my perspective, it’s a good thing. And there’s a logic that I think Mr. Wurdeman will present, you know. Have you spoken to him yet?

RAY: No.

SUMADA: Okay. Regarding the control, establishment of fees, as far as producing and distributing water as a resource, and then monitoring, controlling, and the processing of sewage as it passes through residence or commercial facilities, and then the processing of that wastewater and using it as a commodity, as a effluent that can be sold, basically. And I think it’s probably in -, the best location would be in the west side, where water is a premium, and it can be sold at a profit. So instead of just processing it and flushing it down some sump and/or at an outfall, you know, into the ocean, you can use it as a commodity. So the combining of that, those functions and having a commission that oversees that and/or monitors that, I think is a good thing. But I think you should probably talk with Mr. Pavao on how his feelings are.

RAY: Yeah, we will. Sure. Okay. Other questions for Jiro?

BESS: Yeah, there was one issue that was brought up earlier, and that is the qualifications of the Chief Engineer, whether or not he needed to be an engineer. What are your thoughts?

SUMADA: Well, I guess, personally, I’m a little biased, since I’m not a licensed civil engineer. To me, I think even if you were to ask or inquire with the former Chief, Donna Kiyosaki, she’d tell you that you don’t need to be a licensed engineer to be the Chief. The majority, if not all of the work we do, relates to management, dealing with people, primarily -, well, not primarily, but both with the public, with the customers, and also with staff, and the ability of that individual to communicate and motivate different people is actually more important than I think their technical ability. I think by training, we engineers are very logical, methodical, systematic, and that is a good thing and a bad thing. We like to establish rules to make our lives very simple, however, I think as all of you know, very few things are black and white, and that if you don’t have a means of allowing flexibility, then it becomes very difficult. And in any case, for myself, I think in the time that Donna Kiyosaki has left, which was in September, and for whatever reason I’ve been in charge or left with that responsibility, I don’t think the Public Works Department has failed or short-changed the public in the services that we provide. So I don’t know if that was the Mayor’s intention, to see whether I could tread water well or not, but -.

SANTANGELO: With rocks in your pockets.

SUMADA: Yeah. It’s -, for me, personally, I feel you don’t need to be a licensed engineer but, again, I think my point of view is somewhat biased. I think if you are a licensed engineer, there is an advantage, and that is that some of the division chiefs that I work with, maintain a certain level of respect, and rightly so, you know, for them obtaining that license and that recognition was a significant accomplishment for them, and that someone like me, that is not licensed, that is their boss, they feel may be inappropriate. So in that respect, you know, to get beyond the personalities or any -, I think it makes the Chief’s job easier because you do have somewhat of this parochial thought process that I’m a licensed engineer so my boss better be one or else I’m not going to listen to him. And that thought does occur.

KUROZAWA: Do you think at a bare minimum the -, you’re an engineer by training?

SUMADA: Yes.

KUROZAWA: So at a bare minimum -.

SUMADA: I have an engineering degree.

KUROZAWA: They should at least have an engineering background?

SUMADA: Oh, yes. That’s -, I would say that’s a minimum requirement. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be within the design field of engineering but construction. Basically, understanding the nature of what a public works type of operation, I think is more essential than the actual licensing part. Because even within the license -, engineering career field, there’s specialties that you can get into that actually limit your experience base so -.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: Yeah, Jiro, making reference to the Charter, 6-2.2, last paragraph, last sentence, it says "shall be a registered professional engineer." How would you have us word it to not actually take that out but to allow somebody like yourself to be in this position with the indication that you just made that some people may be under you with that qualification? How would you have us address that?

SUMADA: I think you -, I don’t know how seriously you folks are considering this, but you could possibly do it by changing the word "shall" to "may" or adding a phrase after that, "registered professional engineer or equivalent experience."

I give you an example. My background, I was in the military in a base, at a base which basically fulfilled this same function, the public works, and, in fact, at our base, which was fairly large, we had a HELCO, Department of Water Supply, and the Fire Department all under this base civil engineer, in addition to all the divisions that I have. So it’s just a difference in organization, but I think having a person with that type of experience is, in actuality, a benefit as opposed to having a licensed engineer that comes straight, strictly from a design consultant firm where, I think, so many of the other or past chief engineers have come from.

MARTIN: At some point in time, if, let’s say, it were to be that somebody were to undertake this as you, without having a license, would it be possible for you to take the license and then fulfill it even further, if, in fact, it were to be changed? Would that be acceptable?

SUMADA: As far as me getting my own license? Because I can do that now.

MARTIN: Or whoever that -. Yeah.

SUMADA: I’m sure that’s a possibility, too.

KUROZAWA: Maybe if you could just explain to us, because I don’t think everybody really understands, what exactly, for an engineer to be registered, what does that involve in finishing -, what’s the bare minimum as far as is it a test you take?

SUMADA: Basically, you first have to graduate from an accredited engineering university. Then you have to have a certain number of years experience working directly under a licensed professional engineer. Once you’ve established that experience, and applied to the licensing board, you have to pass two exams. One is the engineering and training exam, and then also the professional engineer exam within the specific specialty of whatever engineering field you’re in, be it civil, electrical, mechanical, or architectural even, and structural.

KUROZAWA: Once they pass that, then it’s good for life or do they have to re-cert every 10 years or -?

SUMADA: No, it’s good for life under the current program, you just keep paying your, I think, fees or dues to maintain your license.

RAY: Kevin, you had a question?

BALOG: I get about three questions. The first one, just on this engineering, more so of the way I see the department run is when you need to do certain "big jobs" like construction of a landfill, you put a job out to bid, you go out for design first, to a firm, if I’m not mistaken, that has an engineer in their firm, right?

SUMADA: Yes.

BALOG: Okay. So, actually, the engineer’s job, just to -, the Chief Engineer’s job is more of a management person who has, in my opinion, people skills and someone who can manage money or projects, not necessarily somebody with "a license." Just so -. Because you’ve brought out you may have four people on staff already. The owner of any company out in Joe Blow Public could hire somebody who’s a civil engineer and not be an engineer themself and still run their company, same like the County could, right? Okay. So I just agreeing with you; it’s more of a doing the job, like you’re saying, managing people.

SUMADA: That’s correct.

BALOG: Okay. That’s the first. The second thing is you mentioned wastewater, right, sewage.

SUMADA: Yes.

BALOG: Are you guys thinking, just looking at one of the biggest things in your department is the landfill, of creating a separate department for that?

SUMADA: Initially, my suggestion to the Mayor was to spin off the Wastewater and Solid Waste Division together to create what’s called a Environmental Management -, Department of Environmental Management. Basically, I think both divisions, there’s a lot of attention drawn to both of them at this particular point in time and to elevate the need and the importance of that to a department level I think would be very appropriate. The Mayor, on his part, has selected to just pursue that wastewater, spinning that off, which I think that’s viable, too. Under that scenario then, it may be appropriate to create a Department of Solid Waste. So I think it can work either way. But I must inform you that Solid Waste Division is taking a vast majority of my time.

BALOG: Well, that was my next question.

SUMADA: Based because of the -, what’s happening to the Island as far as the landfills are concerned.

BALOG: Well, it just seems to me with more -, I hate to pick your brain in an informal meeting, but a more -, in an ever-growing EPA-minded world, that for our Public Works Division, if you’re going to be taking on a one-stop, supposedly, permitting agency that’s going to, what do they call that, cut red tape.

SUMADA: Yes, that’s the intent.

BALOG: And speed up the process, you may have the qualified guys, I agree you do, but I just find it hard that if the department’s going to be stuck with wastewater and solid waste, I combine them in my mind, it’s real tough. Because that is one of the major issues in your department on an on-going basis. No one ever, you don’t have large concerns someone’s not getting a building permit. It may take a while, but that solid waste and wastewater is a huge part of that department. And then I think you guys could focus more on cost effectiveness of projects and other things that you do on a daily basis, such as your paving of road programs and what not.

SUMADA: Well, I think part of the reason that I had proposed it to the Mayor was, basically, just to ease the span of control for the Chief Engineer, to allow that individual to provide that direction and vision that’s needed. The eight divisions that we have are very diverse and some, basically, kind of run themselves, you know, based on the experience of the Division Chief that’s there. Some require constant attention and direction because of the nature of the issues that we’re dealing with such as solid waste. And because it’s in the public eye so much and everybody has varying opinions about how we meet or how we can solve our solid waste concerns. I think a variety of ways of doing things are possible.

RAY: Kevin, are you -?

BALOG: Yeah, that’s about -. I don’t want to get into details, so that’s it.

RAY: Okay. Well, we’ll be discussing that, too.

BALOG: Yeah. Yeah.

RAY: Okay. John.

SANTANGELO: These meetings have interfered, you know, with the Solid Waste Advisory Council that we both sit on, and you know I -, you know what my stand is there. I had brought this up with the Mayor, and he really glossed over that rather rapidly when he was here, Jiro.

My concern on that solid waste issue, which is, as you know, a large issue with me, on a budgetary basis, if this is -, I had the pleasure of going to Puente Hills Sanitation District there in L.A. and seeing how wastewater and solid waste were handled together, and how they had to deal with their own budget, and they created their own money, and that’s something that appeals to me because with the EPA, with the regulatory environment being what it is, you’re mandated to do almost everything that you do. It’s not like you get real inventive. And something can come down unfunded that can really affect the overall County budget and the way we are with money. So my attitude is this has a possibility of creating a more secure budget by separating it out. Do you have any comment on that?

SUMADA: Well, not -.

SANTANGELO: Not just having a separate department, but I mean and -, almost like Water, where it has to semi-autonomous and deals with its own finances.

SUMADA: I think that’s actually -, to me, I separate out as a social issue, it’s about the financing of solid waste. It’s -, to get from where we are now, which is the majority of our funding comes from the General Fund, for solid waste, to a self-sufficient operation such as the Water Supply, I think will take several years, if not decades to make that jump. And whatever administration is going to take that on, I think it will take several rounds, I guess, of interaction with the Council.

SANTANGELO: Yeah.

SUMADA: To work towards that. So I don’t think that -, it would help, but the prime example of that is our Highways Division, which already is special funded, and is within our Department. So I guess I look at the funding mechanism as a separate concern that needs to be addressed.

SANTANGELO: And you alluded to -.

SUMADA: I’m sure it would be helpful though.

SANTANGELO: But you alluded to the next question, that probably is not best addressed by a Charter Commission.

SUMADA: Yes.

SANTANGELO: Okay. Because it can be dealt with otherwise. Okay, thank you, because that’s kind of where I go on that. Thank you.

RAY: Other questions? Sue.

IRVINE: I guess I had one question on your first part, about your Division of Permitting. You’d, basically, be taking over some duties from the Planning Department, is that right?

SUMADA: That’s correct.

IRVINE: Okay. And I really like your idea of combining Wastewater with Water Supply since it’s, you know, from start to end, and it sounds like financing there could be more workable than on the solid waste problem which -, I mean, people are much more likely to pay specifically for highways than they are for taking care of their solid waste. I mean, we’d rather drive around than think about, you know, where our garbage goes, I think.

SUMADA: I agree with you.

RAY: Anything else? Jiro, so, you know, if we go this route of the, you know, moving Wastewater over to the Department of Water, and then the scenario develops that solid waste is, you know, even more of a, you know, management issue, right, depending on what scenario develops. By the way, the Mayor short dealt with it by saying, well, if we go with plasma arc, maybe it’ll be real simple to deal with.

IRVINE: If we do what?

RAY: If we go with a plasma arc technology where, basically, we just zap all the solid waste, right, so it’s a, you know, not as much to deal with handling-wise. But assume it moves to, you know, a much more elaborate scenario and it’s much more involved, and if we’ve already switched Wastewater over to the Department of Water, I’m just kind of wondering, you know, which scenario makes more sense, Wastewater with the Department of Water versus, you know, the separate Environmental Department that had those two divisions together. I mean, have you ever kind of thought that through? We obviously haven’t addressed, you know, the solid waste plan, and so, you know, who knows what that’s all going to entail. So I’m just wondering, is it premature to, you know, make that decision until we have developed a scenario for what, you know, solid waste is going to, you know, look like, and then maybe look at that, combining with Wastewater versus the other way? I mean that’s just, you know -.

IRVINE: Need to look at it.

RAY: A question in my mind -.

SANTANGELO: Very good.

RAY: Since she brought up -.

IRVINE: Yeah, really.

RAY: You know, that other possibility, right, you know, of a Department of -, Environmental Department that dealt with those two divisions. And so I’m not sure which makes sense, but I think we need to really think that through before we, you know, go in one direction and then two years from now, you know, we’re back where, you know, some other combination might make more sense. Any comment on that?

SUMADA: Well, since the Mayor has selected that option to combine Wastewater with Water Supply, I’m going to have to support that effort. I think -.

SANTANGELO: That’s the real bread and butter issue.

SUMADA: Basically, you can, you know, however you want to make it work. I think it can work either way. I think right now, the reason the Mayor has chosen that route, is because of this -, the collection of -.

SANTANGELO: That’s right.

SUMADA: Fees and revenues.

SANTANGELO: Right.

SUMADA: For Water Supply, which has been very difficult. And just even having us on the same billing so that we can have computers that talk to each other, that’s been a major stumbling block. So maybe it’s his effort to kind of mandate that it is a coordinated effort.

RAY: Right. I understand. I’m just -, we need to think it through so it’s not premature and then a couple of years from now we’re looking at, well, gee, it would have made more sense to combine -.

SANTANGELO: That’s right.

SUMADA: But I think in that -, in what the Mayor’s -, and I don’t know if he specifically brought this up to you folks, but to me, no matter what happens, in whatever means we collect revenues and/or distribute services, the manner in which we collect fees or revenues has to be simple or else all we’re going to be doing is creating organization or creating bureaucracy and hiring more people just to collect money which it’s foolish, and I guess the prime example is solid waste. The way we have our system set up now, you know, we have a -, we’re $1 million short, I mean, in delinquent accounts, so we’re chasing after guys with a $3.00 bill. You know, they took their dump truck, pick up truck to the rubbish dump, they got a permit for the resident, and then they dumped their rubbish and they owe us $3.00. And for the past year, because they kind of put in what kind of address -, fictitious address or whatever, anyway, we can’t get $3.00. And I’ve got to hire an account clerk or two to track $3.00, you know, now. So there’s got -, whatever system comes up, and I encourage you folks to -, I’m sure you will think it through.

RAY: Kevin.

SUMADA: I think, make it easy for us, please.

BALOG: Like I said, not really to get technical, but I just -, although it might be good for billing services, I don’t think Department of Water, I could be wrong, would be set up to handle the concerns that a sewage system would bring to their department. I may be wrong. That’s just my own instinct. I mean, I look at what they do with the Water Department and the workers they have, and they have enough hard time maintaining their job. That’s just my opinion. No problem. So I just wanted to throw that out.

The other thing I have is we’re kind of getting into a landfill issue that we may not be able to -.

RAY: John.

BALOG: I think ever get a handle on because I viewed past Councils, and even our present Council, unwilling to make a decision on any program that could possibly come in front of them and its put off or let’s do this, we’ll look into that or this. So we may not have the answer at the end. And then it’s coupled with, even like my esteemed member -.

SANTANGELO: John.

BALOG: John over here, I didn’t want to be too formal, John, not the Chairman, to -, in all honesty, to try and figure out what’s best, and then you bring up, you’re chasing someone for $3.00. Well, no one’s going to pay to dump that rubbish because they know if they can go to a container in Honomu -.

SUMADA: Right.

BALOG: It’s for free.

SUMADA: Right.

BALOG: You know, so it kills -, you know, it’s kind of -, I know it got a little off the track but, you know, just, in my -, it helps me with my decision-making just being a realist and knowing what the whole picture is. And part of it goes back to what you brought, it’s financing, how do you want to make -, can we do that through the Charter? We can’t. We got to -, that’s all through the Council, and so it goes back to how they’re going to dispose of it, whether it’s an arc, an H-power plant, big trash compacter and keep burying it in the ground, who knows? Only the Council in their -, all their esteem, is ever going to finally make a decision. So that’s why I kind of was leaning to that it might be better to lump them together. I just wanted to throw that out there.

RAY: Okay. Marni.

HERKES: I’m going to agree with what I think I heard Mr. Sumada saying, is that it’s a management issue. The Charter is a management document. We are not into how these things work, what landfill we’re going to pick, whether water -, how wastewater is done. Does it make more sense to us, in a management sense, to have the Department of Water Supply and Wastewater in the same department? Does that make more sense as far as management goes? I think that that is what I heard him say, and I agree wholeheartedly that these are management issues. And are these better managed under one department? I happen to think they are, but I could be wrong, so I think that we can discuss it from a management standpoint rather than from the different kinds of things that might happen.

RAY: Okay. John.

SANTANGELO: I agree and disagree. I mean, my understanding is the Wastewater going with Water is a financial move, to be able to hold people accountable and collect money. Where, traditionally, as I found through my research, most municipalities dealt with wastewater and solid waste as an environmental issue, and it was best managed in one department. And so I agree -, I’m hearing, you know, if we go stick this off somewhere like with Water, are we really creating a problem down the road when we really should straighten it out later? And that’s a management issue. But in most, and especially the larger and the more complex a community gets, those two things have traditionally been done well when they’re together. And so any input, privately or, you know, any input I can get as we go along on that, I would appreciate it, Mr. Sumada.

SUMADA: I think one of the keys you folks -, and will get to eventually, is to discuss with Mr. Pavao what his feelings are, because I think you can make it work or you could not make it work, you know.

HERKES: Exactly.

SUMADA: You want to jam something down or force-feed something or -, those are factors to consider.

BESS: Have you obtained Corporation Counsel’s opinion on whether or not the Charter, as worded, because it does not define what waterworks are, that right now the Charter might, from a management standpoint, that we wouldn’t even have to change the Charter?

SUMADA: I think -. No, I have not obtained an opinion from Corporation Counsel, but I think they will -, are the ones that the Mayor has asked to present this -, that proposal to you folks.

BESS: I just -, just noting here, it’s interesting because first of all, Public Works does not -, the provisions in the Charter do not address water, wastewater; it’s prescribed by ordinance. And then when you look at the Department of Water Supply provisions, it talks about the Commission being responsible for the operation of the waterworks of the County, and that doesn’t define what waterworks are. Now, I don’t know what the State statutes are that apply to this provision, and that may help us in defining what waterworks are, but just -.

SUMADA: Well, I think -.

BESS: On the face of the Charter, I’m wondering whether or not there’s even a need to amend the Charter.

SUMADA: Well, I think in response to that, way back when, whenever they did this, I think the EPA was just starting to develop the rules and requirements that dealt with how we handle waste. And it has been and will probably even more so be coming to the forefront. So I think they purposely kept Public Works very vague. Back then, I think it was just a Division of Waste Management, more so, where it was combined. I forget whether they had broken it out or not, separately, but at one time Solid Waste and Wastewater were combined. And that’s when we were running dumps, you know, basically, and were discharging partially treated sewage into the ocean.

RAY: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thanks, Jiro. So this is just the start.

SUMADA: I’ll put together a proposal with some details about that permitting -.

RAY: I think that -.

SUMADA: Item.

RAY: Would be very helpful, yeah, for us to, you know, give the public what you got in mind there, what that would look like.

SUMADA: Okay.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: I’m going to get off the subject for minute. Can I get off for just one second?

RAY: Well, wait. Is this -? Do you have -?

HERKES: No, it’s on this -.

RAY: Something on the subject?

HERKES: It’s on this permitting.

RAY: Okay.

HERKES: It’s just that when -, I would appreciate it if you would build into the budget of your one-stop permitting shop user-friendly training for your staff. And it takes training, it takes recognition of what people are asking and those kinds of things, so if you could build that into your budget. You know, that’s a necessary part of this one-stop permitting. Okay. Thank you.

SUMADA: Okay.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: This is on the permitting, too. Jiro, you know, a lot of times in the construction industry you hear people who come to Hawaii who want to buy a lot, whether it’s commercial or residential or industrial or even hotel or whatever. The biggest complaint they have is it takes too long to get a permit. So within this proposal, are you guys talking like you’re going to issue or deny a permit within a specific amount of time so it also helps us come across as a place that it’s not hard to do business in. I mean, it’s management style, but I mean, you’re in the trade, almost, as I am, when before he got into public eye, and that’s one of the biggest problems when we’re waiting on a permit here. We don’t have the -, you can’t go yet and then, oh, someone else -. So I know you’re saying one stop, but it’s one-stop within the County’s realm, right?

SUMADA: That’s correct.

BALOG: You still would go like Department of Health or -.

SUMADA: We have certain limitations but -.

BALOG: Yeah.

SUMADA: So, but is there any way that on our side, County side, we can make it -, are you going to try and make it a lot faster or if you’re talking the same time frame or -?

SUMADA: Well, I guess since I came from the private sector with some ambitions of making things more efficient, I guess I’ve come to the realization that there is a price you have to pay. Under the existing philosophy, mind set of be it politics, the Civil Service employees, the demand from the public to be accountable, to achieve that end, we have to hire more people. If, however, you -, the public is more trusting of government, or the Civil Service worker is not worried about covering his rear end so he is not accused of making mistakes or some underhanded approvals or whatever, then I think you can make it faster. Because our employees do get accused of favoritism or whatever, they’re going to take every step they can to protect themselves, and that, to me, is what creates the bureaucracy that slows down the process so that they know the rules and they make sure they don’t inadvertently, you know, violate those rules. But -. So I think it’s kind of -, it’s like a double edged sword, you know. Yes, we want -, we also, as managers, appointees, want to reduce the time that it takes to process things, but in order to create that mechanism and inject some creativity or flexibility, the price you pay is accountability. So how can you do that, you know, achieve that end within the scrutiny, I guess, of the public, because that’s actually who’s, you know, who doesn’t trust us, I guess, so that they want to have all these rules in place. Because if they did trust us, our County Code would be that thick.

HERKES: Right.

SUMADA: And not that thick. The rules are in place because, you know, basically, to establish a system of fairness or equity. That’s why the Federal government is so big; just more people complain so -. So I don’t know if I can do that.

BALOG: That’s not really answering my question.

SUMADA: Yeah.

BALOG: I mean if someone comes in for a building permit -.

SUMADA: No, I don’t think you can guarantee that.

BALOG: And you’re reviewing a five-page blueprint, does it really need to take 30 days? In other words, that’s what I’m asking you. Not, you know, it’s stamped by a certified engineer or architect.

SUMADA: Right.

HERKES: They won’t take the credit for it.

SUMADA: Right.

KUROZAWA: What departments are you going to put together to make it -?

SUMADA: Mainly the Planning, one of the divisions within Planning that deals with subdivisions.

BALOG: Subdivision approvals.

SUMADA: Yeah.

KUROZAWA: Just a quick comment. Three years ago, I built my house. Couldn’t get a building permit because I didn’t have a street number. Couldn’t get a street number until I got my building permit.

SUMADA: That should be solved.

KUROZAWA: Two County departments that couldn’t talk to each other.

SUMADA: Right.

KUROZAWA: So just for information for your department. So even if you put it together, it may not fix some of the problems.

RAY: Well, let’s wait until we, you know, get -.

SUMADA: Yeah.

RAY: Get the details and -.

BALOG: Yeah, I just wanted to ask about that speed.

RAY: To really understand.

BALOG: I mean.

SUMADA: No, I think there will be some efficiency gained.

BALOG: That’s good.

SUMADA: But I don’t think it’s in the magnitude that you were hoping for or that even I was hoping for or even the Mayor was when he first came into office.

RAY: Okay. Any more questions for Jiro?

HERKES: Thank you.

RAY: Okay. Thank you very much.

SUMADA: You’re welcome.

IRVINE: Thank you very much.

BALOG: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

RAY: Jay Kimura was here. He was scheduled for next week, but let me see if he -.

HERKES: See if he’s outside.

RAY: If he’s here, we’ll go ahead with that. Let’s take a three-minute recess.

RECESSED The Chairman called a short recess at 5:07 p.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 5:14 p.m.

RAY: All right, the meeting is reconvened. We have our Prosecuting Attorney, Jay Kimura here. Thank you very much.

KIMURA: Thank you.

RAY: We have written material, Mr. Kimura, that I’m passing out. Thank you very much for coming, Jay. So would you like to go over your remarks?

KIMURA: Is this being recorded?

RAY: Yes.

KIMURA: Okay. I reviewed our current Charter provisions for the Prosecuting Attorney, and there is just a few comments that I have. There are some things that have been put into question in Section 9-2, I believe the time requirements for the elector -, of being an elector for a year prior to running for Prosecuting Attorney was questioned by an attorney who was running for prosecutor in ‘92 from Honolulu. But I don’t see any problems leaving that portion in.

Also, in Section 9-3(e), the Legislature felt that the prosecutor was using the grand jury as a rubber stamp and was not being fair, so they passed -, and it’s sort of unique in the nation, they passed this grand jury counsel law, so at every grand jury, there’s an attorney hired by the judiciary whose sole purpose is to advise the grand jury on legal questions if the grand jury has questions. In the past, it would come to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor would answer the questions, and we would advise them on the law and those kinds of things. So the State law kind of supercedes that Charter provision; however, I talked to Peter Carlisle, and his feeling is the same as mine. There might be some rare occasion when we need to advise the grand jury, so it probably doesn’t hurt to leave that section in.

The next section I looked at was Section 9-4, and I looked at the Honolulu prosecutor’s charter provisions which I’ve attached, and the only difference is they make it clear that the prosecutor can appoint administrative or executive assistants in addition to other necessary staff. And it becomes a little confusing when the prosecutor tries to create a position which is not Civil Service and appointed, so this -, I would think this would give a little more clarity to the Charter. And that’s about it. I mean, a lot of it is left to interpretation on the role of the prosecutor.

RAY: Okay. Questions for Mr. Kimura?

IRVINE: Your comments on 9-4, right now you may appoint deputies. That means only other attorneys, is that correct, the deputies?

KIMURA: No, it says deputies -, I may appoint -.

IRVINE: And other -.

KIMURA: Deputies and other necessary staff.

IRVINE: So -.

KIMURA: I have a private secretary who is appointed, but her position is specified in the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Everyone else is Civil Service.

IRVINE: But it says here you can appoint other necessary staff, but other necessary staff is always Civil Service?

KIMURA: Right, so, you know, we just created a position -, I think Jon tried for about six years to create a position of an administrative assistant and, fortunately, the Council approved it, approved the funding for it about three years ago. We finally got it through Civil Service, but they took a narrow interpretation of other necessary staff. So we had to spec the position to a business manager. But, actually, if you look at the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office they, basically, have executive assistants with a more general job title, because they are appointed positions.

One area that, I guess, the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office has gone into is hiring someone with some media skills. Because the office does come under a lot of scrutiny from the public, there’s a lot of need to respond. Most of those servants don’t like to deal with the press; they consider it sort of an adversarial kind of situation, so the media really hounds the Prosecutor’s Offices for information. So it’s useful to have someone with those type of skills, in the media area, and that’s something I foresee maybe in the future, the Prosecutor’s Office will probably need somebody to deal strictly with information for the public.

IRVINE: But you’re saying you have this position, even though it took a while to get it?

KIMURA: Well, right now, we have a business manager who handles our fiscal, personnel, and facilities, and I would welcome you to come to our building because the facilities part takes most of her time. It’s a very old building.

RAY: Fire that guy.

KIMURA: But -, and, of course, the fiscal part is very time-consuming, but we try to manage. It just doesn’t do the job.

RAY: Kevin, you had a question?

BALOG: The reason -, just -, I’m not as well versed in employees as Gary is with government, but if you needed like a manager, like you said, some type of management person and a communications person to be with the media, could you not use -, may appoint deputies, because aren’t deputies like a deputy department head or somebody like that, doesn’t come under the scrutiny of worrying about if you use the right word for that job description? And I’m not the attorney; I go the attorney and labor person here, so I’m asking you if that is a vehicle you could use because it was previously brought up, it says and may appoint deputies, or is it more a funding question that if the Council don’t give you the money for a deputy, you’re back in the same boat?

KIMURA: Usually we don’t have enough deputies to begin with. But deputies are generally paid a little higher. Their educational requirements are higher. In the past, that’s basically what we used to do, I mean, everybody from the Prosecuting Attorney on down, you know, took care of leaking toilets, parking lot problems, flooding in the hallway, moving boxes. We used to rely on the road crew to come in and help us move stuff, but because they went to a special funding, they’re not allowed to do work in -.

BALOG: Okay. Got it.

KIMURA: So -.

BALOG: Good to know because -.

KIMURA: Yeah.

BALOG: I figure, hey, that might -, if it’s an easier way, it can help you out.

KIMURA: Yeah, I -, if they gave me more than the deputies, you know, I could, theoretically, I could use a deputy for those kind of things, but generally the pay, it’s much more efficient to hire someone, you know, an appointed position, not a lawyer, to do that type of work. Yeah.

RAY: Okay, Sue.

IRVINE: Deputies are -.

RAY: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you

IRVINE: All lawyers?

KIMURA: Correct.

IRVINE: Okay.

BALOG: That was my next -.

BESS: But the Charter doesn’t say that.

BALOG: Yeah, the Charter -, well, that was my next question.

RAY: Okay, wait, wait.

BALOG: The Charter -.

RAY: Keep it -.

BESS: Excuse me, I’m sorry.

RAY: So we can make sure we get this recorded correctly. Okay, so the question was clarification on deputies being attorneys.

KIMURA: Deputies are attorneys.

RAY: Okay. And Steve said that it doesn’t say that in the Charter.

KIMURA: That’s correct.

HERKES: Who’s made that determination? Is that Civil Service?

KIMURA: Generally, when we try to create positions, we work with Civil Service.

HERKES: Deputy -, they’ve made a determination that deputies, as expressed in the Charter, means attorney?

KIMURA: Well, I mean, if you look at the entire, you know, section on the Prosecuting Attorney, and the requirements of the Prosecuting Attorney is, basically, to go to court, and the only people that can go to court are attorneys so -.

HERKES: Okay.

KIMURA: When you say deputies, I mean, it could be clarified, I guess, deputy prosecuting attorneys, but I think they just left it in as deputies.

RAY: Okay. Any other questions? Anybody’s got anything to add to that? I guess we can explore that a little bit, you know, staff-wise and get that clarified. Okay. All right, any other questions for Jay? All right. Thank you very much for coming.

KIMURA: Thank you.

BESS: Thanks, Jay.

RAY: And, Jay, as we go through the Charter later, section by section, we’ll ask you to, you know, come back as we discuss especially any specific, you know, changes or recommendations.

KIMURA: Thank you.

RAY: Thanks very much.

KIMURA: I’d be happy to, I mean if you have specific questions you want us to research, I will be happy to.

RAY: Okay.

KIMURA: Research that.

RAY: Thank you.

KIMURA: Thank you.

RAY: Okay. So that concludes our New Business, Departmental Review, today, so we’re going to go back now to -. Do we need to -?

BESS: I’d like to just call for just a brief -.

RAY: Okay. We’ll take a brief recess.

BESS: Brief recess.

RECESSED The Chairman called a short recess at 5:07 p.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 5:14 p.m.

RAY: We’ll reconvene the meeting. We’re at Unfinished Business, the hiring of our attorney. And at this time, to discuss a personnel matter, I’d like a motion to go into Executive Session.

BESS: I so move.

RAY: Second?

YOSHIYAMA: Second.

RAY: Okay. So we’re go into Executive Session to discuss the hiring of our attorney.

EXECUTIVE SESSION The Commission went into Executive Session at 5:15 p.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 5:40 p.m.

RAY: So we’re out of Executive Session and back in the regular meeting. Let the record show that the Commission voted to hire Chris Yuen as our attorney. Okay.

Okay. Moving to Item B, the hiring of an Administrative Assistant, Marni Herkes report.

HERKES: Okay. The Committee recommends that the Commission hire Sharron Henry as the Executive Assistant/Secretary for the Commission. The paperwork, Gary is going to help you work it through the County. We have a folder and a disk here with contracts and things. I tried to do some of it yesterday, and confused everybody. I mean, it was mass confusion.

But let me tell you a little bit about Mrs. Henry. She lives in Keaau. She was the Executive Assistant to the President and CEO of Aloha Petroleum. She is a retired corporate Executive Assistant who is bored and wants to get back into something. She’s also developing a coffee farm and ten million other things. But when Aston terminated the position that her husband was in, they made some lifestyle changes -, choices to move to the Big Island, and this is part of which. I was very impressed by her. I interviewed three people on Monday; those were the three that were approved by Civil Service, Gary interviewed two with me, and we both chose Sharron Henry. He has called all of the references, and she not only could be hired again, but enthusiastically hired again and enthusiastically recommended by everyone. We feel that she will do above and beyond the job of a secretary, that she will be an executive assistant. We feel fairly comfortable that you will be able to describe what you want done and she’ll do it.

RAY: All right. Any comments?

SANTANGELO: Thank you.

HERKES: Any questions?

SANTANGELO: Thank you.

RAY: All right.

YOSHIYAMA: I would like to add -.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Yeah. The references were glowing, to say -, I mean, that’s putting it lightly, they were excellent. What we need to do now are we got to get through the paperwork. And we got to nail down the salary, you know, same as the attorney, and the stipend, you know, because she brings with her her office, okay, and all the related equipment, so we need to nail it down. When asked when she can start, she could have started -.

HERKES: Today.

YOSHIYAMA: Today. But, obviously, we’re not ready, we weren’t ready.

RAY: Okay. Well, when do you think we’ll be ready, since we have our meeting scheduled for next week so -.

HERKES: Not up to me.

YOSHIYAMA: I think that’s -.

HERKES: We’re into bureaucracy now.

YOSHIYAMA: If I can get together with you and then we can, you know, come to some kind of position on wages then, you know, you or I can talk to her and then, you know, I guess solidify that and move ahead with paperwork. I mean it’s all -, the paperwork is ready; we just got to fill in the blanks and process. But the main thing is we got to get her agreement.

HERKES: What’s interesting on the compensation is that Gary suggested -, I suggested one thing and Gary suggested another, and they’re just -, they’re an East Hawaii and a West Hawaii viewpoint; they are $3.00 an hour difference, you know, and that is -, $3.00 to $4.00 an hour is exactly what the difference is when you pay in East Hawaii and West Hawaii. So we’re going to leave it up to you to make that -, fit that into the budget, how much -. I am going to recommend very strongly that she be compensated highly because she comes with a lot of skills that I think we can use, and I think that compensation recognizes those skills, and I don’t feel that we want to underpay anybody.

RAY: Okay. I wouldn’t want to underpay anybody.

HERKES: We want to make them work though.

RAY: Okay. Any other comments on hiring a secretary? Well, thank you very much and, Marni, you really did a terrific job, and Gary, in getting this thing done very quickly so, hopefully, we can bring that person on board as quickly as possible. Okay.

Let’s move on to Announcements. The next meeting is next week, Wednesday, same time, same place, May 26, here at 3:00 p.m. We have departments scheduled, Corporation Counsel, Civil Service, Police coming in right now. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn?

SANTANGELO: So moved.

BALOG: So moved.

HERKES: Second.

RAY: Okay. Meeting adjourned.

The discussion ended at 5:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Janet L. Kama

Interim Secretary