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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Public Hearing of June 23, 1999

Kahakai School Cafeteria

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Members J. Ray, E. Alonzo, K. Balog, M. Herkes, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa,

Present: G. Martin, J. Santangelo, G. Yoshiyama

Absent: S. Bess, R. Higashi

Chairman John Ray called the meeting to order at approximately 5:00 p.m.

RAY: This is a public hearing of the 1999-2000 Charter Commission. We are in Kona this evening. Thank you all for coming. I would like to introduce the members of the Commission that are here this evening. Starting to my far right: Sue Irvin, Gary Yoshiyama, Kevin Balog, Daryl Kurozawa, George Martin, myself John Ray. To my left: Marni Herkes and John Santangelo.

RAY: To give you a little bit of just general background on the review process that we are involved in. As mandated by law every ten years, this Charter Commission was appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the County Council in January. We have been meeting monthly since February, focused initially on internal organization, the hiring of staff. Administrative Assistant, Sharron Henry, is here recording this evening. Her duties entail research, recording minutes, communicating both internally and with the public. Our legal staff, our legal counsel is Christopher Yuen who is not here this evening. Chris basically makes sure we operate in a procedurally correct manner. He’s in charge of legal research, drafting opinions and drafting proposed language for the Charter amendments we come up with. Our budget, appropriated for this process, is $130.000 appropriated. The last Charter review expended $113,000 on the review of the Charter. The major costs for staff and meeting costs including the public notices which are quite expensive over the course of a year or more with the public meetings.

We’ve recently completed a round of meetings where we have received input from various County Departments. Sort of a broad brush approach to get major suggestions in terms of what the County Departments might be looking at. Some of the initial suggestions we’ve received have been looking at the mandatory program language as is in the Charter now; the responsibilities and placement of the Safety Coordinator, whether to keep that position under the Mayor or to move to the Corporation Counsel or perhaps Civil Service; responsibilities of the Police Commission; the possible establishment of a Fire Commission; expanding the jurisdiction of the Salary Commission to cover all Department Heads and Deputies; looking at the minimum qualifications for the Department Heads and Deputies; the creation of a Human Service Department for elderly services including the Office of Aging; transferring the Wastewater Division from Public Works to the Water Department; creation of a Permitting Division to consolidate all permitting functions under the Public Works Department, functions which are now jointly dealt with both in Planning and Public Works, the idea to create a more efficient one-stop shop for permitting and have the Planning Department concentrate more on planning and Public Works more on permitting. These are only some of the ideas that have been put forth and I want to stress that none of them have been discussed by the Commission. This is just strictly a one-way street so far, just input from the departments.

Tonight we are in the second of six public meetings to be held around the island to get initial feedback from the general public. These meetings will go through July and also during this time we’ll be gathering and distributing internally background materials for the Commission to study. In August we hope to complete our departmental review including various Boards and Commissions that haven’t weighed in yet. We’ll also have invited speakers to address such topics as nonpartisan elections, neighborhood boards, City Manager models, etc. I anticipate, in regard to the nonpartisan elections, we’ll have a couple of people over from City and County of Honolulu to discuss their experience and feedback, probably somebody from the City/County Board as well as from the Mayor’s Office and then in September we’ll start our detail section-by-section review of the Charter and as things go, come up with proposed amendments. We will hold these meetings, as we discuss the Charter, around the island. I don’t know what the schedule will be but we will try to take the process out around the island as much as possible. Once we agree on proposed amendments, we’ll have legal staff work on the language to put those amendments on the ballot and all proposed amendments will be voted on by the public in an election in the year 2000. And so that’s basically the process.

This evening we’re just taking input from the public. We’re just here to listen to you. As I said, this is just an initial pass through. We’ll be taking input throughout the process but I’d encourage you to get input in sooner rather than later, especially in writing, for the more substantive issues that you’d like us to take a look at so that we can research those thoroughly. So this evening we have three folks signed up to testify.

RAY: First, Gretchen Lawson. So please come up and we’ve got a chair set up over here and just state your name and who you’re representing.

LAWSON: I’m happy to be here tonight. I had the opportunity to listen to Mr. Santangelo go over a couple of the suggestions that have already been made and so I’m going to do a couple of things; one is comment on the issues that Chairman Ray just mentioned have already come before you but I’ve got a couple of items that I’m curious about because I didn’t see them in the existing Charter and I’m not sure at a Public Hearing I should be asking questions but they’re just of interest to me.

One is the idea of a separate Department of Human Services which of course for anyone that knows me, is an issue that is kind of right on in my field. I believe that there’s pros and cons -

RAY: Why don’t you explain who you are and what your field is so that we understand that.

LAWSON: Okay. I’m here as private citizen and I want everyone to be real clear about that but my life professionally is as a Human Service Administrator. I’m the Director of Kona Crafts. And as Ginger said, I am a little under the weather and my ears are plugged so I can’t even hear myself. I think that I would certainly welcome the specific attention to Human Services. I think that the County, although is normally involved in such activities as infrastructure -- sewers, roads -- those sorts of issues, needs to address and put on the table the idea that Human Services is in fact a very legitimate goal for the County to be involved in and that human assets are the most important assets that any of us have. They are certainly on equal with roads, certainly equal with all the other infrastructures that we go through. Con to that, playing my own devil’s advocate, would say ‘would that then require more administrative money to run a separate department?’ and take a look at where it sits now which I believe, is with the Legislative Auditor and combined with Human Services and Economic Development and looking at Human Services as a component of Economic Development is appropriate. I really strongly present to you that non profits are private businesses. That Human Service is the third sector as articulated by such lofty folks as Peter Drucker and other economists so I think it’s a good dialogue to have. I can’t tell you that I would recommend one over the other except to say that I think the dialogue needs to get out in the county; that it is worth continuing, putting County resources to developing our human potential.

The other thing that my heart is really in to, so that I won’t take too much of the time, there’s two more issues. One is the idea of nonpartisan elections. We elect nine County Council people. The Mayor is also a public elected official. I haven’t been in this county very long, certainly not enough to say that I’ve been through the history here or anything but I do know the structure of what is a municipal corporation which would be the county government and if we continue to have that power struggle that goes on between elected officials, there will continue to be a significant log jam. I think that if we had a structure that said we elect nine County Council people, that we have a Managing Director who is accountable to someone which is the County Council then we could create a lot more efficiency in government and get a lot more bang for our buck. It’s a very much well accepted way to go about county government. I do this professionally but it also happens to have become a habit of mine, whatever, but other rural places, Wyoming, Kansas, other places that I know of, it just always remains the same. County structures usually aren’t large enough to carry their own separate elected Executive Department and the issue is accountability.

And the other thing that I would like to talk about, I guess I have a whole list here but when the County talks about creating new commissions and you say you’re going to create a Fire Commission, I just would ask you to really look at what those commissions do that are separate from what already is being done. Every time we create a bureaucratic body, every time we create a new layer of bureaucracy, we are withdrawing money from services to the people because the pie is the same size and if you continue to divide it up into smaller pieces, everyone loses just a little bit.

And my questions have to do with - In the County Charter, where is the Mass Transit Department located? Under what area? Anybody know?

RAY: It’s not.

LAWSON: It’s not? Okay. That’s my point.

? What Mass Transit?

LAWSON: Well, this is a separate issue and I think that some people - Mass Transit is what the County is naming their Department of Transportation and they call it Mass Transit. We are stuck in, here on this side of the island anyway and I’m not sure about Hilo, with what’s called a commuter mode of transportation so that keeps this county from applying for or being even eligible for extra Federal funding like para-transit money which would transport people with disabilities or the elderly because right now we have coordinated services. We have money going to a non profit and I can see you are getting anxious so it’s just that I think transportation -- something needs to be done. I’m not sure it belongs in the auspices of this commission. With that I’ll close my remarks and thank you very much.

RAY: Okay. Any questions? George?

MARTIN: I have a question. This will be the first time a Portuguese type of individual such as myself needs a microphone in a well aired area such as this. No problem. First of all I would like to thank you for giving your comments. We truly appreciate it and I believe your second comment was on a Managing Director type of government. If it were to go to that type of government, if we as a commission were to see that, at what point in time would you like to vote on something like that? And the reason I bring that up is if it were to be changed, it would take the Mayor out of our type of government. We’d no longer have a Mayor so if we put it in the Charter as our chairman just mentioned and his time line indicated, we would finalize it and put it on the ballot for the 2000 election, it wouldn’t take place for another four years unless some sort of a special election was held in between now and then to implement that type of government. How do you feel about something like that? What is your comments on that?

LAWSON: Well, it’s one of those issues that I haven’t considered because it just now occurred to me as you voiced it. Is the current Mayor’s term not up for four more years?

MARTIN: No, it’s up now. Okay and in the year 2000, it will be up but if we vote -

LAWSON: But the time - well, of course if I had the power to rule the world which some people know I would like, I would say -

RAY: I think what George is asking is would you favor a special election?

MARTIN: I don’t want to put words in her mouth. I want her to -

LAWSON: No, no, no, no. I would favor it going on this ballot saying something like "if this should occur, the Mayor’s term would end" because a special election is extremely costly and I don’t know how I’d feel about the trade off of having a costly special election to speed up the implementation but I know that you have counsel as a commission advisor that perhaps that would be one avenue to look at. Certainly it wouldn’t be meant to be punitive to anyone. It’s just meant to correct something that I think needs to be done.

RAY: Marni, got a question?

HERKES: Hi Gretchen. Sorry you don’t feel good. You started out with nonpartisan elections and then you switched to Managing Director so are you in favor of both of them? I mean that’s something that you’re advocating looking at both of them?

LAWSON: Yes. I think, just to be quick, I think nonpartisan elections are really a necessity. It takes so much time to deal with parties, to go out and get the party support. It’s an archaic thing. We don’t need it anymore. Communications in our society are such that I think if people ran on their own strength and talked about who they are and why they should be elected, they don’t need the backing of those parties.

HERKES: We are the only county that does not have nonpartisan election now so you probably are right that there’s some move in that direction in the state. Also, in a Managing Director, would you be willing to pay a Managing Director about $200,000 a year because that’s what they cost?

LAWSON: You know, this is a question that I know is on everyone’s mind and I’m here to tell you that I believe you pay the going rate. For that, you demand accountability and in that, you get efficiency in the rest of government.

HERKES: A couple of more questions. Okay, thank you. Department of Human Services: It’s now as you expressed, under the County Council with the Economic Development and Human Affairs Committee. Would you leave it under there or would you put it as a separate department under the Administration? It’s under the Legislative Branch now. Would you leave it under the Legislative Branch or put it under the Administration Branch where most of the other departments are?

LAWSON: That’s why I told you I was in a quandary about it. I don’t have an answer to that.

HERKES: Okay. Well, I just wondered what you thought would work better. I’m not sure either. I was curious.

LAWSON: This will tip my number here. I certainly at this point, wouldn’t want to see it put under Administration.

HERKES: Okay. And what about any other counties that have a Department of Human Service? Do you know any other ones that have a Department of Human Services? Do you know if -

LAWSON: Well, Honolulu is the Personnel Department, whatever that is.

RAY: Maui County has a Department of Housing and Human Services so it’s not really a straight comparison.

HERKES: I just wondered if there was somewhere we could go for information. I don’t care about copying things. I just would like to see one that works and see how it works.

LAWSON: If that’s an invitation, I’ll get you some websites.

HERKES: Okay. Good. And the other thing I’d like to say, for your information but also for George’s, that in 2002 we will have a special election because we will have a special election after our census and we’ll have an election in 2000 and then we’ll have an election in 2002 that probably will not affect the Mayors races because they are island wide but it will affect all the Senators and Representatives that are elected by vote.

LAWSON: And that just solidifies my feeling is that there is some mechanism short of waiting four years.

HERKES: There is. Every ten years. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: Just one question with the Managing Director vs. Executive Branch. So you’re saying you’d be comfortable having a majority of a council, nine people, which could be only five out of nine people, appoint the person who’s going to manage the county vs. the elected public, a majority of everyone who votes, elect your Managing or your Executive person.

LAWSON: Yes.

BALOG: So you’re saying that’s better to have -

LAWSON: Yes. I would be more than comfortable with five out of nine people.

BALOG: Five people have somebody.

BALOG: Well, you’re talking nonpartisan too.

LAWSON: Yes, that’s right. The people elect the Council people.

BALOG: So who elects the Mayor? If the people only elect the Council, who elects the Mayor?

LAWSON: The Council is responsible for hiring the Mayor much as in any corporation. Remember this is a municipal corporation form of government. If you, any Board, any governing Council appoint their executive. They hire them. They also fire them. They also hold them accountable.

BALOG: Okay. No, that’s just what I want to - just a question.

LAWSON: Thank you.

RAY: Mr. Santangelo.

SANTANGELO:

Well, I was just going to address a point of what I think Kevin’s on the right track but I’m a little uncomfortable in a venue such as this in which we start to debate the presenter because we’re here to hear their opinions and we can get overzealous and put them on the spot and I just wanted to bring that up.

RAY: Any other questions? One thing you brought up and I can’t speak to this definitively and we’ll need to do some more legal research on this in regard to when things can and do take effect in regard to the elections but I know in the b election when we voted in the four two-year terms, much to the surprise and dismay of the County Council, it was voted in there. When we looked at that, we find that that actually did take effect the day it was voted in and everybody had thought it would take affect two years later but that was not the case so I’m not so sure, as bizarre as it may sound, that if you voted to go with a City Manager Director in spite of the fact that you’d have folks running for Mayor. I think that it would probably be eliminated, as strange as that sounds or that could be legally possible so I’m not sure of that but I think that you do have case law supporting people running for offices that can and have been eliminated in elections. But anyway, we’ll certainly be looking into all of that.

Comment?

LAWSON: No, just thank you very much.

RAY: Next speaker, Ginger Towle.

TOWLE: Hi, my name is Ginger Towle. I’m President of West Hawaii Humane Society and also Kona Crime Prevention Committee however, I’m really here because of West Hawaii Humane Society. There is a problem about program reviews and I realize that if you would have a performance audit with every single agency, it would cost a tremendous amount of money but unfortunately, they do not have the reviews and so consequently something has to be done somewhere so that it doesn’t take one of the Council Members asking for this. The good point is it has to do with Hawaii Island Humane Society. If you take a look at their records, it shows that they have not been doing the job and with the complaints coming in and everything, however, it’s under the auspices of the Finance Department and there is absolutely -- that’s just the way it’s going to be and Harry Takahaski took it away from the Police Department about in ‘92, I think it was. That’s really where the Humane Society, the Animal Control contract needs to be regardless of who’s running it because it has to do with law enforcement and consequently, we’ve had a tremendous breakdown because the Finance Department - it’s a Finance Department. It really has nothing to do with law enforcement so at the moment there is a review being done - performance review of the Hawaii Island Humane Society but I think the thing is that that’s probably not the only contract that is out there so it shouldn’t be so someone gets a contract and then you’re home free that no one questions it. There should be some department someplace that is doing it. It should work out that way. I received a communication from Harry Takahashi saying he rejected our protest and one of his comments was the fact that we could find nothing wrong with Hawaii Island’s proposal. Well, the interesting thing about that is we cannot get Hawaii Island Humane Society’s proposal so how could I possibly comment on what they had to offer so there needs to be something smoothed out there so that our dollars are protected, that people who are applying for a contract are definitely qualified. There needs to be some review someplace. I have asked the Police Department, Chief Carvalho, if he would please take it back under his jurisdiction because that’s where I worked and it definitely is a police matter. And while I’m speaking only about the Humane Society, I feel that any agency that has a contract should be reviewed by someone as to their performance. They shouldn’t be able to just have a contract and home free. So basically that’s it.

The other thing that I feel that I would like to see and I’m really not knowledgeable about it at all. Joe Reynolds is. It is the city - to have our own city, whatever it is. What is the term I’m -

JOE REYNOLDS:

Political subdivisions.

TOWLE: Political subdivisions. So Joe can probably speak to that but I feel strongly we need to do something so that we can have our own political subdivisions. And I’d be happy to work on any of this and it isn’t just the Humane Society thing I’m talking about. It’s the fact that I think we need review of our contracts so that we do have some expertise in judgments there. Thank you very much.

RAY: Questions for Ginger? Gary Yoshiyama.

YOSHIYAMA:

Ginger, you talked about - you started out as program view.

TOWLE: Yes.

YOSHIYAMA:

And then you talked about performance view or review of contract so I’m just wondering the Charter talks about the program review every four years, mandatory.

TOWLE: Right, that’s right.

YOSHIYAMA:

But, I don’t know if you’re talking about that or auditing the private contracts that the County has.

TOWLE: Well, I think why I’m bringing the subject up because I know that if you have to have the contract every four years and then you get an outside auditor, this is going to cost a tremendous amount so there has to be some way to do this but the individual program should be reviewed before contracts go out. The performance type of review because we have a big mess going here now. One example, and I won’t go on and on which people know I can, but there is a straying law that says if your dog strays, it’s $25 fine for the first offense, $50 for the second, $75 for the third. There were 186 dogs redeemed. That means they ended in the shelter. They were straying. They gave 9 citations. Well, there should have been one for every single dog for straying plus there is supposed to be one for no license so consequently, I have had so many complaints and so forth, I decided that as long as I was getting this, I might as well go for it and ask for the contract for West Hawaii back again so it’s the Mayor is in a quandary as to what to do because Harry Takahashi only wants one contract and that is not serving the county well. So it’s a mess.

RAY: Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: I’m quite ignorant of what the situation is. I’m from Hilo and I guess you’re saying that you are not the Humane Society here? Or that -

TOWLE: West Hawaii Humane Society, the shelter out in Kona, was built. Alice Greenwell got it built in the ‘70's and we had it until 1990 and Barry Mizuna took over as Finance Director and anyone that knows me knows that I talk and talk and talk. If I kept my mouth shut, it would be all right but I didn’t. He asked me what my program was. I told him I keep some animals a long time. He immediately said ‘Oh, you’re going to have to kill them, minimum time, on and on.’ And I said ‘Do you care who’s eating the food?’ ‘Well no, you’re going to have to kill them 48 hours of the 7 days, so forth’ and I was working full time as a badged officer, no salary, and we had just finished spending $50,000 of Humane Society funds improving the county facility, 12 runs, etc., etc. so I flatly refused to kill in that length of time and he said I could pay him $2.50 a day for every animal I kept past the 48 hours of the 7 days. Well, we didn’t have the money for that so we bowed out and did education only and Hawaii Island Humane Society took over. And that -

RAY: I think we’re getting a little astray of the issue here. We’re -

TOWLE: Yes, okay. That’s fine.

YOSHIYAMA:

I still don’t understand.

RAY: We’re talking about the issue of program audits, program reviews and that language in the Charter.

IRVINE: Yes, I just didn’t understand. I thought she was the Humane Society.

TOWLE: I am, West Hawaii Humane Society.

RAY: Well, but we’re not talking about specifically the Humane Society. Daryl, do you have a question?

KUROZAWA:

Well, then I won’t ask my question.

RAY: Good, thank you.

TOWLE: I’ll see you later.

RAY: Okay. The issue of political subdivisions I had a feeling would probably come up this evening and I do have a legal opinion here from our staff and basically in a nutshell it states that "Thus, the County Charter cannot establish local subgovernments which have actual powers, and the County cannot split itself into multiple counties, unless the State Legislature chooses to allow it." Now I know there is a difference of opinion, especially Mr. Reynolds advocates tactically what it would mean if the County went ahead and did something anyway and that’s I guess, a separate argument but I do have copies of this that you’re welcome to take a look at this evening. Okay? All right, thank you.

Our next and final speaker is Jeff Turner. If anyone else wants to speak, they have to sign up.

TURNER: Aloha. Welcome to Kona for you out-of-towners. Thanks for coming and letting us speak to you.

I want to speak mostly to the process. I haven’t formed by opinion on a lot of things that we’re going to be talking about in the coming months and I hope a lot of other people haven’t but I’ve an opinion on several things that have come up.

But my first concern is the process of how fast we do this and how open the process is. I’ve heard rumors that maybe there was going to be a special election before the 2000 General Election and I think that’s much too fast. I think there’s quite a process we have to go through which you are starting now to collect some information. We have a lot of issues. They aren’t clear. There will always be differences of opinion about what’s right. Then you’ve got to draft something. Then it has to go through a process and that takes quite a while. Did I hear you, Chairman Ray, say that this will go to the General Election 2000?

RAY: No, what I said was it will be voted in the year 2000 election which theoretically could be a special election and I think what Mr. Martin was talking about. The question he framed was the question that we framed purely in sort of a "what if" scenario. I mean what if there were suggested amendments that we thought were so substantial and would have such an impact on changing the structure of the government, is there a scenario where we think that would be better acted on in special election and if you wanted to have a special election, when would it have to take place to effect the year 2000 elections and kind of working yourself back from there. So we just suggested in sort of a "what if " scenario, that’s all.

TURNER: Well, I think that rumor’s going around that’s a "what if" scenario that’s being considered and all I hear is universal opposition to that. When you work it backwards, the requirements, that isn’t enough time to have a democratic process. So I urge you to not even consider that.

A couple of people have raised a good question of when do things take effect. Do we elect a Mayor and they’re only in office for a second and then they are out of office because we have a new process. I think it’s pretty easy to (1) make these decisions in the best interest of the community and a democratic process and then (2) you can specify in the law that you’re passing, when they will take effect. You could say that the Mayor will cease to exist in the year 2002 or 2004 or whatever you choose, and you’re bright folks and I think you can do a better job than we did ten years ago and have the timing blow up in their face and suddenly you got elected and your term was different and you didn’t even know it. So if you think it through and you’re raising the right questions, I think we can do a good job but an election before November 2000 which is only sixteen, seventeen months away, is just ludicrous. If you have any opinion one way or the other about cave people, remember that they’re all CAVERs, that’s Citizens Against Virtually Every Ripoff and that would be just too fast of a process. I urge you strongly to don’t even think about that.

So there are several questions I’ve heard already tonight about Council Manager, process, partisan/nonpartisan, length of Council terms. I think those are all good things we shouldn’t be deciding up-front but asking a lot of questions about and I applaud the process that you’ve outlined. In answer to Kevin’s question about having a five-ninth’s majority select a Council Manager or a City Manager, it seems to me simple enough to have a super majority that’s appropriate. I don’t know if that’s 6 or 7 but I’m thinking more and more that our society, our American democracy, question mark, really is a tyranny of the majority. We don’t want to do things with a 51% majority, we want to set up a system that forces us to spend enough time to come to a consensus that we agree and then we work together and get something done. And anything you can do as you’re considering all these proposals that will work towards that end, I think, is going to help the community and if it’s well thought out and aimed at forming consensus and problem solving instead of maintaining power control with the barest of majority or minority, then maybe this bundle will be easier to pass. And I know last time it seems like there were a couple loaded things that went through and something wasn’t supposed to get approved and it did and then something else, you know. The community’s awake now and I don’t think there’s a chance anymore to slip anything in and I know there are pressures from different quarters to achieve different objectives and I think it’s time to make this a truly open citizen process for citizen government. Thank you.

RAY: Any questions? Yes, Marni.

HERKES: Jeff, several of your comments were what we do. We will not be doing anything but drafting up proposals. It will be an elected process. It will be voting. We won’t do anything. You will do it. You, the voters, will do it and so every time somebody comes up and says what we do, we’re just here to kind of collect testimony and to come out with some kinds of consensus as to the kinds of things that we’re hearing and that’s why we’re asking a lot of questions is so that we can kind of delve into what you’re really thinking so that we can start to do that process.

TURNER: Right and I appreciate that and the time you’re all putting in however, you’re going to write legislation that we get an up or down vote and we don’t get to modify it or amend it and that’s what this process is for is -

HERKES: That’s what you’re doing tonight.

TURNER: Right.

RAY: Mr. Santangelo.

SANTANGELO:

Got a couple of things. I’m sure it was just a grammatical but you said reach consensus in which we all agree and consensus isn’t when you agree.

TURNER: Well yes, I was taking that to an illogical extreme. Reach some substantial degree of consensus that will work.

SANTANGELO:

All right. And as far as democracy by tyranny. Again, because this is my pet peeve, I just want to share some of my strong beliefs. It’s to the Republic for which it stands, we stand. Okay? A republic is ruled by majority with consideration of the minority so we too often throw democracy out there but what I’m about and what most of us are about are a republic and as far as the political process, believe me, it’s far too, I get a little defensive, but it’s far too blown up to say that there’s any sort of subversive thing going on to influence us to do things. Mr. Ray is a great Chair. We chose him because of his universality with East and West Hawaii and this whole committee universally, is really trying to do it’s best to get input and anything substantial will come back out to you. Okay?

TURNER: I’m sure you are and there are pressures that will abound.

SANTANGELO:

So thank you.

RAY: Any more questions? All right, well if there’s no -

TURNER: I’ve one comment I forgot. One specific. I would like to see a consideration of reducing the signature requirement for a referendum and initiative from 15% to 10%. You don’t want to have a frivolous process that has that threshold too low but 15% is a formidable hurdle and it effectively nearly eliminates referendum and initiative. We’ve have one but that’s an awful lot of work.

RAY: What about a 100 signatures to move an impeachment? What do you think about that?

TURNER: No, I don’t think so. I think the thing to do is to consider scaling it back one gradient at a time. We don’t want to jump to 5% but if you move it from 15% to 10%, we’ll see for ten years if we get inundated with initiatives or if there’s only one or two and so ease our way into that and make it more able for people to have a voice without an undue burden to get your toe in the door and get that out there. Thank you.

TOWLE: I have one last comment.

RAY: Okay.

TOWLE: I want to thank all of you for taking your time and doing this because I do a lot of volunteer work and it’s very frustrating because you have a lot of people out there that say why don’t and why doesn’t but they’re not willing to go out and really work at it so I really want to thank each and every one of you for your efforts because it’s really important and you’re taking valuable time of your own to do this. Thank you.

RAY: Okay. Thank you. If there’s no other testimony, that concludes our public hearing this evening. Thank you.

The discussion ended at 5:40 p.m.

Sharron C. Henry

Secretary-Administrative Assistant

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