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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Public Hearing of July 21, 1999

Pahoa Community Center

Pahoa, Hawaii

Members R. Higashi, E. Alonzo, S. Irvine, G. Martin, Gary Yoshiyama,

Present: C. Yuen, Charter Commission Counsel

Absent: K. Balog, S.Bess, M. Herkes, D. Kurozawa, J. Ray, J. Santangelo,

Temporary Chairman Roland Higashi called the meeting to order at 5:09 p.m.

HIGASHI: This meeting will come to order. This is a special meeting of the Charter Commission. It is Wednesday, July 21st. The time is 5:09 p.m. I would like to introduce our Charter Commissioners: Sue Irvine, George Martin, Gary Yoshiyama and Eddie Alonzo and I’m Roland Higashi. I’m temporary chair.

HIGASHI: On our agenda today, this is a special meeting for public input on the Charter so without further ado, we’ll proceed. First, I’d like to call on Norm Olesen. For the record, if you’ll state your name.

OLESEN: My name is Norman Olesen. From ‘92 to ‘96, I was Deputy Planning Director of the County of Hawaii and from ‘96 on, I was Executive Assistant to the Mayor. I give you that kind of background because I have several recommendations I’d like the Charter Commission to consider.

The first one is with regard to the Planning Department. That the administerial function of plan approval and subdivision, quite frankly, does not belong in the Planning Department. All it does is defer or subtract from the effectiveness of the Planning Department. These things are established. They can be much more efficiently done in the Building Department. When people come in for a permit, you have a one-stop permitting operation. Right now, it is governed by Charter that it has to be out of Planning Department and quite frankly, it has nothing to do with planning because once the Council has made the ordinance with regard to subdivisions, everything flows down. It’s a strictly mechanical function and the talent, quite frankly, to follow through on this is better served in the Building Department and in Engineering under Public Works. Now it’s either Public Works-Engineering or it’s Building. I’m not quite sure where it would fit exactly but it would definitely be Public Works. Any questions on that? I’ll go to my next one.

HIGASHI: Do you know exactly what Section in the Charter?

OLESEN: Yes, I think it was on the last amendment that was made to the Charter and is the recent one, it’s an (undiscernible) sheet.

IRVINE: Was this like in 1998?

OLESEN: Yes.

IRVINE: That’s Section 5-4 -

OLESEN: It was an (undiscernible) sheet that went into the Charter that specifically designated that these functions would be in the Planning Department.

IRVINE: It says that under 5-4.2, that the Planning Director will administer the subdivision and zoning ordinances and regulations adopted thereunder.

OLESEN: Correct.

IRVINE: Under (e) in an insert in 1998 -

OLESEN: Right, it’s an insert, right.

IRVINE: Yes.

OLESEN: Okay, the second one is, again this is a question of function, how it actually fits. Again, it’s addressing the Planning Department. The Planning Department is in charge of, on paper now, it’s in charge of establishing the priorities of CIP funding. In reality, this does not take place. In reality, it is effectively a function of the Finance Department and a function of priorities established directly out of the Mayor’s Office and/or directly out of the Council. But to have it in the Planning Department, effectively it’s a deceptive place to put it because you’re thinking that Planning now is establishing what the priorities of a CIP spending is and that is not correct. They do not establish this. It’s actually done in a different area. So I would recommend that probably the best place it would fit would be, my guess would be, Finance because everything on CIP is governed by the availability of funding.

HIGASHI: Again, can you assist us in -

OLESEN: Okay, there Roland, I don’t. It is in the Charter.

HIGASHI: It is in the Charter?

OLESEN: Yes.

MARTIN: Chapter 4: Section 5-4.2 (d) I think. Page 10.

OLESEN: Okay. Now comes several items that I think should be added to the Charter. Added to it from the standpoint of practically how things are functioning in the County government.

The first one, which is extremely inefficient the way it’s being done now, is the physical handling of all capital projects. We’re going to be faced, within the next 10 to 15 years, with anywhere from $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 on ADA only. That kind of spending is done usually out of the Parks and Recreation Department. They funnel it then over to the Public Works. The Public Works Department then goes to an outside consultant. The outside consultant then comes back again. It now goes back to the Park and Rec Department. It then goes from there back over to the Public Works to go out to bid. We now have a contractor that is out to bid but we don’t have anybody in-house, in-house, effectively with the skills to then handle it in the field. So what we’re doing is we’re taking - my recommendation is that this be a separate department completely separate, reporting directly to the Mayor. This is not unreasonable and I think that I would recommend that you research the recommendations that were made by Harris in Honolulu. I think he did exactly that. He has established a separate Capital Projects group to administer capital projects so it can be done in a very, very efficient manner. It wouldn’t take more than about four or five people. It has a secondary advantage in the fact that their salaries and function and costs would go where it belongs - against the capital - would not go against administrative costs. This is a big mistake we’re making right now. All this effort that’s being done by the County people actually is going against administrative costs. This legally, and through good financial policy, can go and be tacked right into the cost of a facility. We’ve done it on some of the most recent ones. On the Kona pool which I handled, all my charges effectively went into the CIP and it makes sense. That’s the total cost of a facility. Now, I mention these costs because the way it is currently being handled is (1) it’s not efficient, (2) I think that you can do it with about five people, five to six key people. These would be people that are currently in the administration. They’re either functioning right now in the Public Works Department or they’re functioning in some of the other areas. They would effectively come out of administrative costs for the operating costs of government. A lot of these recommendations I’m making are primarily a shuffling of people internally. It has nothing to do with adding anybody. It’s just trying to get the right skills in the right place. That was that one.

HIGASHI: Would a section in Department of Public Works work because ultimately? -

OLESEN: It could be a Division of Public Works. Public Works now, I believe, has seven or nine separate divisions operating underneath the Chief Engineer. It would be a logical place to have another division established that just does that. They, in turn, would take the proper input, but they would take the project from start to finish. It wouldn’t be piecemeal from department to department, back and forth.

IRVINE: Could I ask a question here?

HIGASHI: Yes.

IRVINE: You know I appreciate what you had to say about the first two things you said but both of those were revised in 1998 in the Charter and I don’t understand why they weren’t straightened out then. I mean the Planning Department themselves came up with amendments for us to vote on in ‘98 and both of your first two items were left where they are or reworded a bit and put back in the Charter. Does that mean that these are just your own wild ideas and that the? -

OLESEN: No, I think you’ll find that the Mayor agrees with all I’m saying.

IRVINE: Oh, okay.

OLESEN: 100%.

IRVINE: All right.

OLESEN: It doesn’t belong there.

IRVINE: No, I -

OLESEN: And I almost got fired because I couldn’t get it out of there.

IRVINE: All right. I guess I’m just having trouble figuring why they didn’t do it at that time.

OLESEN: To clarify a little bit. To do the administerial function, it takes a technical talent completely different than the kind of talent that they have in the Planning Department. Planning Department are planners. They are not technical. They’re not engineers and this takes engineering type of input, particularly once it comes through the Council as an ordinance. It’s established. Here is what you are supposed to do, period, condition A, B, C, D, E, F. From there on out, it’s the mechanics, technical engineering mechanics, that puts it back into a format of a real subdivision with the roads. The roads being everything they’re supposed to be is all done by engineering.

HIGASHI: Okay and did you have another point to make?

OLESEN: Yes, I just can’t bring it to mind. Could I pass this on? It would give me a chance to think it over. I’ve got one more.

HIGASHI: Okay.

OLESEN: That it again would be in addition to the Charter. Oh yes. In the Public Works Department, I think we have to add someone in. Again, the seriousness of this ADA thing is coming to the front. I am the ADA Coordinator now for the entire island. I can assure you it takes a combination of being an engineer, an attorney and the ability to testify before Federal Courts, at the same time protect the County, to make sure that we are not getting ourselves in a lot of hot water by what we are doing. The exposure is tremendous and the demands are immediate. They are now. We have two lawsuits. The lawsuits are going to require completion of certain phases. In a curb cut situation, the completion must be done by 2005 or someone in the County is going to be in contempt and it’s just that simple. And the rest of it is big, big money. There should be a permanent position. My recommendation is someone who has continuity. Not someone who’s appointed like myself. You have to have someone who has continuity in the County which in turn would be someone that would have to be in Civil Service.

HIGASHI: Okay, anything else?

OLESEN: That’s it.

HIGASHI: Any questions?

IRVINE: I guess concerning your last statement, I just read the other day about a wheelchair that can climb stairs.

OLESEN: That’s right.

IRVINE: Can climb up curbs. I understand it’s a brand new thing which I think may revolutionize - Was that in the Advertiser? - Or something like that.

OLESEN: I have the article on it. It was published in the San Diego papers too.

IRVINE: Okay. So maybe we’ll get off the hook on that one.

HIGASHI: Any other questions? Okay, thank you Mr. Olesen. Next speaker, Ginny Aste, Virginia Aste. For the record, if you can just state your name, Ginny.

ASTE: Sure. My name is Virginia Ginny Aste. I live in Leilani Estates and how exciting really, to know that the County’s going to come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and how very accurate you are to state the way in which the projects go out, come back and circle around within the County. Very hard to track and then also, in the hands of people who are expected to have expertise but have very little expertise. And if you want a specific example of how it costs the County money, the Keaau Community Center has an ADA ramp that goes nowhere and is unable to get anybody to anywhere. Go look at it. It costs probably $50,000 and it was put in last year. But, you know, I worked in this for a long time and I tried not to be angry or upset but I’m glad, I’m really glad to hear that you have these definite suggestions and that you are in charge now. I think that’s really wonderful, Mr. Olesen, I really do. You know, I’m really glad. You did an excellent job on the pool. I’m assuming you had very little to do with the Keaau Community Center.

HIGASHI: Okay, enough for thanking the County.

ASTE: I know, I know. Sorry. I want you to look into the City Manager idea. I believe that the Mayor, under the system we have now, has far too much power, is unable to regulate financially with any real responsibility, and is open to manipulation, if not outright corruption. I would like to see the Department Heads appointed by the Mayor. Excuse me, the Boards and Commission Heads appointed by the Mayor and then I would like to see nine Board or Commission Members, depending upon what the title is under the Charter, that would be appointed by the different Council Members. I think that would give us a nice balance. It would give a Board or Commission Member for each different purpose that would be specifically from each district.

I’m opposed to any special elections, including one for the Charter. I think we talked about that before.

I don’t have specific testimony on this because I haven’t had a chance to do the research but I’m very concerned about the functions of wastewater, solid waste, water in general and environmental quality in the County. I would like to see those, and I’ll find a model for it, perhaps combined into one department, a Department of Environmental Quality. Something of that nature where these functions would come in because it would enable us to use more Federal money and it would enable us to have some kind of enforcement of the Federal regulations. We could get a lot more help from the Federal level if we had that as a department or as a division at the County level.

The last thing that I would like to request is that we add a section or a sub-section to the Charter which deals with property taxes, where we have itemized tax bills. I will find a prototype for this. I know there’s one in Laguna Hills, California and Barbara Arthur’s told me she has another one in her old records where you would have itemized as a property taxpayer, as a property owner - your tax bill would show what you are paying for fire, police, parks, roads, solid waste and bond reimbursement. That would enable those of us who are in the lesser served districts to know what the discrepancy is and to measure our payment against what it would be in the district that has perhaps, better service or less service. Many, many, many counties do this so that you know what you’re paying out of your tax bill for fire, police, parks, roads, solid waste and bond reimbursement. Thank you.

HIGASHI: Do we have any questions? So we look forward to your assistance in providing us some of the models?

ASTE: Yes.

HIGASHI: Thank you.

IRVINE: Ginny, I did have one question. You wanted the tax bill itemized, not just by those categories, but by district?

ASTE: No, it’s the percentage you’re paying. I’m not quite sure yet how that works but I want a way that when you get a chunk of money that you’re supposed to pay the County, I want a way that you can tell, if you live in the Puna District, approximately - you’d have to go down and find out what the total budget is for the Department, for fire and so forth, but a way that you could begin to break it down. You know that little pie chart they put out every year?

IRVINE: Yes.

ASTE: It would be like that except that it would be on your tax bill and then you could use that to find out what the comparison is for your district against other districts.

IRVINE: Okay, so you’d want it broken down by district as well?

ASTE: I know you’re asking me that and I can’t really answer right now.

IRVINE: Okay.

HIGASHI: Just one word, Ginny. We will be holding agendized items later on - nonpartisan elections, getting some background and also getting background on the Managing Director form of government so watch the paper and when you see that on the agenda, please come back.

ASTE: Okay.

IRVINE: Either August 11th or 25th actually.

HIGASHI: Next speaker, Jon Olson.

OLSON: Yes, thank you. My name is Jon Olson. Basically, I guess I’m going to expand upon what Ginny has said. These all have to do with Boards and Commissions. My proposal would be to expand the membership of all Boards and Commissions to 10 members. There being one member for each Council District plus one alternate for each Council District. I know that each one of you have all sat on Boards and Commissions where we’ve all waited for a quorum to appear and I think, in the interest of the public and the people who are donating their time, if you had an alternate, it would increase the likelihood that the Board or Commission could move forward with its business. The appointment by Council District would more closely mirror the change from the Council people being elected at large to being elected by District which is what we have now. The Mayor, of course, would elect the Chairperson and the Chairperson would, as by Roberts Rules, vote to either make or break a tie.

Moving on to the Department of Taxation idea and itemization. I think the answer to your question is "not exactly." The property owner would simply know the amount of money that he paid into roads county wide or solid waste county wide and I think that probably to ask them to break it out too much more than that would probably be cumbersome at this point. But you’d certainly want to know, and of course at that point, you could find out from your Council person if you were interested, how much money that department, the Road Department, spent in your district from that point on. You’d be able to break it down pretty well. And of course, when things like sewer bonding shows up on your tax bill, you know that your district doesn’t have any.

The other thing is that I think that there has been some talk about having a special election to move this process along and I don’t think, economically, that makes any sense or in terms of input from the public. I think that this process is going to take a little time. And as a question of information, the input that is going to this body now, is that going to be summarized somewhere? And then there’s going to be what, yet another round of meetings to have discussion about that input?

HIGASHI: Yes.

OLSON: Yes, so I guess from a practical sense, there isn’t going to be time for a special election anyway. Thank you.

HIGASHI: Ginny was talking about Managing Director.

OLSON: Yes, but I mean, what you are saying then is that you would like to see that particular issue, or all of the issues, go to a special election? That’s the question.

HIGASHI: My question is (undiscernible) person to the public, if you support a Managing Director, would you want to wait four years until this election is over and then go to a Managing Director form of government?

OLSON: To save the County some numbers of hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes. That makes sense. I mean, not only that, but I think that if you determine that a Managing Director system is what you want, getting the logistics of that, the criteria for the position. You know there’s just a whole lot of things involved there that is not simply going to spring magically into place just because you changed the law and you no longer have a Mayor. I mean that’s a process that’s going to have to be worked out. Quite frankly, I’m not even certain that I’m all that - I mean, look what happened to Orange County. The Managing Director took all of the money and put it into junk bonds and they all went bankrupt so I don’t think we really want to be rushing down that road. It just may not have a good end. I think we want to look at it and have a discussion process. And people will have time to consider it between now and the next election. If they elect a Mayor and then we’ve got four years to work out the details and I think that’s plenty quickly enough if we’re going to make that major a change in the way we do business.

HIGASHI: Okay.

MARTIN: I have a question, if I may. You made mention about an alternate. Correct me if I’m wrong. You said you wanted to see the number go to 10 and with one alternate or with 10 alternates?

OLSON: Ten alternates. In other words, there would be a position on Board or Commission plus an alternate for that Board or Commission.

MARTIN: For each position?

OLSON: For each position for each Board or Commission. I don’t see necessarily any increase in cost. I mean, the alternate is simply going to be kept informed of what’s going and informed of meetings, and it would be up to the Board person to inform the alternate if he is not going to be able to attend a Board or Commission meeting.

IRVINE: I appreciate your input on that but for somebody to go through all the reading and whatnot that we have in front of us for possibly coming to a meeting every once in a while and then not having really been in on the back and forth at the meetings, I think would be very difficult to step in and make good decisions.

OLSON: They’re going to be supplied with the minutes of the meetings and I mean, if you take on the job, you take on the job. If there’s no comers, you’re not going to get an alternate, right?

IRVINE: Yes.

OLSON: I mean, it’s entirely up to the willingness of a person to volunteer their time in community service to the community, to take on that responsibility in the interest of expediting the government’s business. If nobody steps forward, they’re not willing to take it on. I mean you’re not forcing anyone to do the job.

MARTIN: I have one more question, I think on the same lines as far as members in a Commission and/or Charter. I believe I heard you make mention that the Mayor, under your proposal, would appoint the Chair of that Commission and/or Charter?

OLSON: That’s correct.

MARTIN: Commission and/or Charter, or Board.

OLSON: Board or Commission, yes.

MARTIN: As is present, we were all appointed and amongst us, we decided who the Chair was going to be.

OLSON: Right.

MARTIN: But you’d rather have the Mayor decide who the Chair’s going to be before the Commission and/or Board is formalized?

OLSON: I think that that would be necessary in order to have it conform, I think, because basically under the current system, the Mayor appoints all Boards and Commission Members. So he, at that point, would be only appointing a single member to a Board or Commission.

MARTIN: He makes recommendations and then the Council approves or disapproves of the body in its present form.

OLSON: Well, in some cases. In some cases, not. Some of the Boards, the Councils simply review. I mean, it’s advise and consent. It doesn’t say in the Charter that the Council actually has the authority to withhold a nomination of the Mayor on some of the Boards. It doesn’t come to mind exactly which ones those are but there are -

MARTIN: But there are none. I believe they have the right to -

OLESEN: They can veto.

OLSON: I don’t think so.

OLSEN: Yes, they already have.

IRVING: Maybe -

OLSON: There are some but there are others -

MARTIN: Well, there may be some. Like you say, we’ll have to do some more research but what I’m saying is, if in fact that mechanism is already in place, would that not suffice, or you still would rather have it in the manner of which you are speaking, where the Mayor would, in fact, appoint the Chair off the bat?

OLSON: Well, I mean typically in other places, that is a system that I have seen used and of course, at this point it may be moot. We may not have a Mayor in four years.

HIGASHI: The main point you’re talking about is to have a member from each Council District and one alternate.

OLSON: Right and you would, more or less, tend to maintain some balance of power between your Executive and your Legislative branches of the government. I mean, obviously, chairing a Commission or a Board gives you certain latitudes that are beyond that of merely a Board Member.

MARTIN: Correct. I understand. That’s why I’m saying what I am saying because if you, in fact, have the Mayor appoint somebody then if the Chair, as you are saying, has a little bit more power than the normal members, they could ride ramrod and decide before hand what’s going to happen.

OLSON: Well, only to the extent that the other nine members of the Board allow it. It isn’t carte blanche either.

IRVINE: I just have one more thing. Usually you have an odd number of people on a Board or a Commission because you come down to the wire and someone’s going to have to make a decision. You know, have the power to override, to get a majority.

OLSON: But that’s where my -

IRVINE: That’s the Chair?

OLSON: No, that’s why my proposal is that you have only nine regular voting members.

IRVINE: Oh, the chair -

OLSON: The Chair only votes to make or break.

IRVINE: Okay. I didn’t catch that.

OLSON: As under Roberts, right?

IRVINE: Okay.

HIGASHI: Okay, any more questions? No. Thank you Jon.

OLSON: Thank you.

HIGASHI: Ms. Henry, do we have anybody else that has signed up to testify?

HENRY: No sir.

OLESEN: I’ve got one more. I remember what it was.

HIGASHI: No objections?

?: No objections.

OLESEN: My name is Norman Olesen. This particular one is going to take the wisdom of Solomon to figure out how to do it but that’s why there’s two ex-Council people who are on the particular Charter Commission Board and you wonderful people can figure out how to make some sense of this one. It has to do with appropriations.

MARTIN: Excuse me, if I may. There’s three ex-Council people on the -

OLESEN: Oh that’s right, there’s three. Excuse me. And it has to do with the system that is in place with regard to appropriations and allocation of funding. We have a very unfortunate situation where I don’t think the general public is fully aware that the appropriation process, in the time, let’s say, of an election year, can have all kinds of things thrown in there by the Council for a given district, where there’s absolutely no intention whatsoever of doing it because there’s no funding for it. My suggestion is that in some way, by Charter, that we tie appropriations approved by the Council into availability of funding. Now, why this is important is because in the future we are going to be in worse situation than we are now. I think that everyone here is aware that we waited something like nine months on the current bond issue and the bond issue now is specifically tied to certain projects, not necessarily the projects that were originally recommended, nor are they the projects which will be done. Now the way the system works, so that everyone is clear how this situation takes place: You have an appropriation that comes out of Council however, the funding comes through the Mayor’s Office. If the Mayor doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t feel it’s proper, there is no allocation of funds and then the project just dies after three years. I would like to see something where the Council itself, when they have appropriation for whatever, that somehow this is tied to physical funding, whether it be Federal funding, whether it be CIP funding, wherever that funding came from. And I think it’s possible but the details, how you would physically do this, I’m not sure but I think if you inquire of the right people, probably Harry Takahashi in Finance, I believe there might be a way of doing it.

HIGASHI: Okay, do we have any questions? Okay, thank you Mr. Olesen.

IRVINE: Maybe I do have one question of Mr. Olesen. This sounds like our County mirrors our State situation where lots of things are appropriated and then the Governor doesn’t necessarily have to release the funding. I’ve been much more aware of it on a State level than on the County level. Is it the same kind of thing that you’re worried about here?

OLESEN: It’s identically the same.

IRVINE: Okay.

HIGASHI: Okay, is there anyone else here to speak on the Charter? Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned.

The discussion ended at 5:42 p.m.

Sharron C. Henry

Secretary-Administrative Assistant

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