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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Meeting of September 8, 1999

Hawaii County Liquor Commission Conference Room,

Hilo Lagoon Center

Attendance: J. Ray, E. Alonzo (after 5:30 p.m.), K. Balog, S. Bess,

R. Higashi, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa (after 5:05 p.m.), G. Martin,

G. Yoshiyama, Counsel Chris Yuen

Absent: M. Herkes, J. Santangelo

And 8 members of the public in attendance.

The meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m.

RAY: I’d like to call the 1999-2000 Charter Commission Special Meeting on Wednesday, September 8th to order. In attendance; myself John Ray, Roland Higashi, Steve Bess, Sue Irvine, George Martin, and Gary Yoshiyama, and other Members should be arriving shortly.

Minutes Approval. We have the minutes of August 25th that were circulated by mail. Do I have a motion?

MARTIN: So moved.

YOSHIYAMA: Second.

RAY: Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: Yes, I think we need to amend the minutes so that Ed Kozohara’s name is spelled with a "z".

RAY: That was brought to our attention so those were changed. Any other comments? A motion to approve the minutes of 25th. All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? Minutes approved.

Financial Status Report. Verbally, I have a report from the funds encumbered in the ‘98 budget. We have a balance of $25,036.40. As a reminder, the majority of that were the legal services funds that we encumbered last year, and in this year’s budget, a balance of $95,855.01 out of a $100,000.00 encumbered. Any questions?

Communications. You all have a packet of material for recent stuff as well as some research material, some stuff that different Council Members gave me, some stuff from the NACO Conference. Some pretty good stuff in here, so that’s just all for our information and review.

Statements from the Public. We have one, Leonard Tanaka, representing the Planning Commission, is going to speak to general planning issues. Leonard.

TANAKA: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. It’s good to be on this side of the pulpit for a change.

I just wanted to comment a little about the concerns, I guess, that were maybe discussed or brought up by the Commission about the possibility of a second Planning Commission for West Hawaii, and I just offer some very brief comments and opinions for myself.

I think that it would be not serving the County any justice by having two Commissions in that (1) I don’t think we’d have any consistency in the interpretions of the planning guidelines that we follow. As it is now, the Members of the Planning Commission often times are not in total agreement with interpretation as a single body so I can see how, possibly, a West Hawaii Planning Commission will interpret something on the SMA a little different from the Hilo Commissioners.

We also have started representation from each of the Council districts as the Charter was amended. I think we need to allow that to follow through. It’s only been a few years now and we have not seen complete representation from all of the districts as of yet. I think it will take probably another two to three years before the terms of the present Commissioners expire, such that you can bring in representation from other Council districts. As an example, we have presently two Commissioners from the Hamakua area and we have two Commissioners from the Waiakea/Ka’u, so until those of us get off in those redundant areas, you will not have complete representation.

Speaking of representation, I think it really comes down to that. If there is a concern by the public or Members of this Commission, I think it really comes down to representation. Right now the Mayor nominates/appoints the Planning Commissioners but it goes before the County Council for confirmation so there is a mechanism in place if people from any particular district feel uncomfortable with that representative, or basically anybody from the public, and I think we witness the power of the County Council in denying or rejecting these nominations, as we have witnessed Commissioner Balog, over here, who was volunteering to serve on the Planning Board of Appeals but was denied that by the County Council. So we already have the mechanism in place if people feel the appointments or the representatives as presented by the Mayor, are for whatever reasons, not appropriate.

I received a copy of some comments from Mr. Childs and I just wanted to comment on that. He suggests two ideas, that possibly the Commission be advisory or have the appointment of the Planning Commissioners done by the County Council. I think his proposal, and then his argument against the Commission being advisory, is accurate in that it would definitely overload the County Council. There was a proposal a few years ago, as I was a new Member of the Planning Commission, to have the Commission be advisory only. And as soon as we brought up the subject or the idea that the County Council not only have full power over SMAs and use and special permits, but they also take on the geothermal permits as well, they immediately backed off. So I think his argument is right in that it would severely overload the County Council.

Regarding the appointment by the Council Members, I don’t know, I guess I see that as being heavily political in that you probably would have a County Council and a junior County Council because they would all be appointed by each Council Member. So I think the system is in place. It comes down to representation, how you feel as far as the people that are being appointed from your Council districts; are they doing a the job that they are intended to do, and at the point of confirmation by the County Council, if there is any problems with the person, or any concerns, then that would be the time to bring it up.

As far as a suggestion from the Planning Commission, there were a couple that were sent up to this Commission. I apologize that I don’t have a copy with me here, but I think one of the important ones was -

RAY: Hold one second, Leonard. Does everybody have their copy of the submittal from the Planning Commission? I’ve got one. Here you go, Leonard.

IRVINE: This is the August 26th?

RAY: Yes.

LEONARD: Okay, I have one. Thank you. There is some concern as far as the holdover period for vacancies on the Commission, and we have a proposal in front of you that the holdover period be 90 days or until a successor has been appointed, and this is irregardless of whether we have an existing Mayor or a new Mayor. And I would strongly recommend that, as we are now operating with 8 Commissioners where we should have 9 and I think we’ll probably go through the whole 1999 calendar year with only 8 Commissioners. One of those vacancies is from the Kona District.

That’s all I have to testify on, Mr. Chairman. If there’s any questions, I’d be happy to answer them at this time.

RAY: Okay. Are there questions? Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: I think one of the thoughts about two Planning Commissions was that the Planning Commission was overworked. I know they used to meet until midnight and whatnot. Do you feel overworked?

TANAKA: We made a change after last year. We have gone from one meeting a month, alternating between Hilo and Kona, to two meetings a month now, so we meet once in Hilo and once in Kona every month. It’s worked out really well. I think all of the Commissioners will agree that it’s been the better approach. Our agendas are a lot lighter now. We meet from 9:00, on the average, till about 12:00, so I think staff has ample time to put together the background and recommendations for us. I think the Commissioners have ample time to review the information so it’s worked out well.

There still is a good workload, though, and I think that’s one of the reasons, in talking to Mr. Legaspi, that we don’t have the ninth Commissioner, in that there’s not a whole lot of people coming forward to volunteer for this Commission.

IRVINE: I can see that. I think the other issue was maybe more home rule for the West side of the island. People there feel that they don’t have a say in things as we do here on the East side. Do you have any feeling for that? You’re not from there.

TANAKA: Well, I am. I’m glad you brought that up. I have a residence over there and when people tell me, you have a residence here but you’re really not from Kona. Yes, I was born and raised in Hilo but I think my personal investments, as well as my business investments, in Kona are a lot higher than they are in Hilo, so I have a lot at stake, from a personal standpoint as well as a business standpoint, in Kona. Again, it comes to representation. Yes, we’re kind of lacking in that we don’t have a second Commissioner from Kona, although I could fill in that position easily. I have a home up on the slopes of Holualoa. So it really comes down to the review process. I think maybe the public needs to be involved in knowing who the Mayor is appointing, and if there are any concerns, that they should bring it up with their Council representatives. And I hate to bring up Mr. Balog again, but we witnessed that, the power of the County Council. The mechanism is there. It’s unfortunate that it happened that way because I thought he would have been a good servant to the Board of Appeals, but be lucky that you have him on your Commission.

RAY: Other questions? Mr. Martin.

MARTIN: You made mention of the Mayor, per se, the existing system he appoints Council, then approves, or in some cases, disapproves. You made a comment that you thought it would be politically incorrect, is what you were saying, I thought, if the Council were to make the appointment. Where’s the political boundary that would make it different from the Mayor appointing as to the Council appointing, in your eyes?

TANAKA: I just need to look at who he’s selected to serve with us on the Commission and I think that he has put together a broad based group of people. I know that not all the Commissioners come from his party, politically, and we witnessed that. We have diverse backgrounds and diverse opinions on planning issues. We do not always agree, even if it’s the Hilo members against the Hilo members.

RAY: Mr. Bess.

BESS: I take it the Planning Commission voted on this recommendation about having one Planning Commission. Is that right?

TANAKA: Yes. Well, voted, no. I don’t think we voted but we are in concurrence. There was a discussion on that.

BESS: Was there any opposition?

TANAKA: No.

RAY: Mr. Balog.

BALOG: Not to get hung up over this word ‘appointed’, but just for clarification for our own Commissioners and the public. A Mayor does not appoint

any Commissioner. He nominates people to serve on Boards and Commissions. The Council either approves sometimes, or disapproves sometimes, of those people he nominates. So I think the distinction that was trying to be made that Mr. Tanaka brought up, is that someone sent him a letter saying that they believe the Council should nominate and approve or disapprove of that nomination vs. having separate branch of government sending a name up, and another branch saying we approve or not approve of this nomination. I just wanted to remind us all of that. It’s not one person doing the appointing or nominating.

RAY: Other questions? Daryl.

KUROZAWA: Actually, I know that you’re pretty clear that currently the Planning Commission has a fair workload but it sounds like it’s better now that you’re meeting twice a month. One of the arguments about having two Commissions was that it would actually lessen the workload. Do you think it’s actually going to be better if we had two Planning Commissions? Would it actually lessen the workload or do you think it will be more work for the County?

TANAKA: On the one hand, I guess I’m looking at staff because I work closely with our staff in getting the information, getting all of the preliminary agendas together, or helping to organize, so definitely, it would probably require additional staff personnel on the Kona side. From the Commission standpoint, the Commissioners, as far as the workload, I guess it would decrease if you set the boundary across the island and one Commission would consider only the issues on the East side and other on the West side. I wonder if there would be enough to even have monthly meetings on the East side. As it is, it’s pretty light right now. Then too, would you have enough interest by the public to serve on these Commissions, if that were the case, too. Good question.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Leonard, in Oahu, how do they operate?

TANAKA: I think Oahu is the only one that is advisory. I believe the rest of the islands have similar powers like we do.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: I have a question regarding the composition. We’ve got 9 Members now, but from the 6 representative districts and 3 at large, or something to that effect, right?

RAY: It was changed.

TANAKA: On the Planning Commission?

RAY: Yes.

YOSHIYAMA: Regarding the organization of the Commission, regarding workload, have you considered, rather than revising the Charter, reorganizing the Commission to handle - a creation of sub-committees or something like that, or do you do that already?

TANAKA: As far as the workload, I don’t think it’s an issue with any of the Commissioners right now. I think having the two meetings a month has improved our schedules a lot. Again, we’re meeting on the average, a half a day, so those of us who have businesses can attend the Commission meetings in the morning and then go back to work, if we choose, in the afternoon. So from the Commission standpoint, I don’t think it’s a problem as far as workload. As far as segregating the duties, whenever we have contested case hearings, which would require additional meetings over and above the two a month, we would ask for volunteers and try and rotate the Commissioners. It’s been light this year. I don’t think we had not a single contested case yet. So the workload right now is not a problem. The state of the economy has something to do with that, too. There’s not a lot of activity out there.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: Just a hypothetical question. There’s this thing about East vs. West so since you’re currently sitting on the chair, if you had to draw a line across this island, where’s the East and where’s the West? Because all I’ve heard about is fair representation for the people on the West side in Kona but the West don’t only mean Kailua and Keauhou, at least not in my mind. So, is there something that you and your staff, or fellow Commissioners, may know that we don’t know, where the West is and where the East is? Because you could say some of Ka’u is in the West side and the rest of Pahala, and wherever, is in the East side. So have you guys ever talked about where this line may or may not be drawn? In my mind, it always comes back to this feasibility of where would you draw a line, how are you going to separate East vs. West. When you talk about the West, if you’re specifically talking about fair representation for the people of Kona, what happens when somebody in Hamakua, which is one of the largest districts in the island, says where’s our fair representation so we need our own Commission, or the guys in Puna, say, eh, Puna is Puna and there’s Upper and Lower Puna. So have you ever thought about it or discussed it since I left there?

TANAKA: No, Mr. Balog, we haven’t and one of the reasons I don’t even want to bring it up is because just the thought of having two separate Commissions, basically, will split the community, I think. If you go under that attitude, then you might as well have two County Councils. You might as well have two Police Commissions. And if you have two Planning Commissions, what happens to the Board of Appeals? Do you have two Board of Appeals or do you still have one? And then again, under the same argument, the members of the Planning Board of Appeals, are they properly represented from Hilo, Kona, so forth and so on? So I think it’s real difficult. I think that we have a hard time as it is and we are a single body here. We’re the largest island in the Hawaiian chain but City and County of Honolulu is a whole island. I hate to even think about dividing the island because I think it would be detrimental. We have a hard time, as it is, as one body, so what makes us think that if we divide it in two, it’s going to be easier to manage. But, I don’t know if you’d split it geographically or by volume of income on planning issues. I don’t know how you would do that. That’s a good question.

BALOG: One of the reasons I asked you, you brought up Oahu, is Oahu has about 90% or 80% of the state’s population and they operate as one city and county. It just amazes me. That much people and they have, sometimes, greater issues than we do and they’re still one city and county, and they survive. That’s why I asked.

TANAKA: And those of us who live on both sides of the island, like myself - Before my son was born, I spent just about 50% on the Kona side out of my Kona office and out of my Kona home, so what happens to people like us?

RAY: Roland. No? Daryl.

KUROZAWA: I just want to make a statement to go on the record. I know that one of the comments about having two Commissions - it seems like some of the push is from the West side, and being from the West side, just to let you know, I don’t think some of those people are speaking for everybody from the West side. There are some of us from Kona who feel that we have fair representation, so I just want people to know that it’s not a blanket statement from all the people from West Hawaii.

TANAKA: Thank you.

RAY: Any other questions for Mr. Tanaka? Sue.

IRVINE: I was wondering if he was going to address the other matters that came in on the letter?

RAY: This would be the time if you would like to.

IRVINE: What about Section 5-4.3 PLANNING COMMISSIONS. It said to include the following language as one of the duties as the Commission which is similar to the Charter of the County of Maui, and that is "Act as the authority in all matters relating to the Coastal Zone Management Law." Is that what you were talking about right at the beginning?

TANAKA: No, but thank you for bringing that up. We are right now going through a dilemma. It’s somewhat resolved but there were two SMA permits that have been - Well, we’re about to be vacated by Judge Ibarra, on the Kona side, and we know that at least one of them, and possibly two, as the Chairman had mentioned earlier before the meeting, that they will be remanded back to the Commission, and the main argument by the judge is that we do not have an advisory body regarding Coastal Zone Management. Virginia is going to elaborate more on that, but I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed. We have some short term resolutions that we need to figure out, and I’ll have Virginia address that. But we also need to look at the long term. Who is going to be the body that addresses the Coastal Zone Management Laws? As the Planning Commission, and the experience that I have had, we hear all of the information. When you have a contested case, the parties will bring in expert witnesses and so we have some good people testifying, giving us solid information. Under Judge Ibarra’s initial ruling, to have a separate body advise to us would be somewhat of a redundancy, we think, and possibly a waste of time and monies, so this proposal would make sense in that the Commission is having all the public hearings anyway, and if we felt that we did not have any information, we could subpeona or bring in different agencies such as the Office of State Planning and have their people come in to testify to provide input on the CZM that maybe were not addressed during the public hearing process. Virginia can elaborate a little more on that . This is a very fresh issue that we’re all trying to deal with right now.

RAY: Do you want to go through any more specifics in regard to these recommendations?

IRVINE: No, I think that was the one.

RAY: I think he touched on adequately the terms and staggering, coming up with some dates that are more practical, and I think that’s basically it of substance.

Any more questions? All right, thank you very much, Leonard.

TANAKA: Thank you.

RAY: That concludes our Statements from the Public. We’ll move to Agenda item VII. Unfinished Business, and we’re going to continue with the Planning discussion. So if the Planning Director, Virginia Goldstein, could come forward, and I don’t know if you want to bring anybody else forward.

GOLDSTEIN: Good afternoon and thank you for allowing us the time to present some of the issues that have come before us. I have with me Russell Kokubun who is the Deputy Planning Director, and also staff Rodney Nakano and Alice Kawaha, who may be able to provide different kinds of perspectives. Rodney Nakano is the staff with the Board of Appeals. They have submitted separate testimony to you, and Alice is also with our staff to the Planning Commission and so she has a different kind of perspective, so there may be some questions that come from you that they might be able to help with.

We have just handed out to you a Working Paper For Discussion and this paper brings out at least three different issues, four different issues with splitting of the

East and West Hawaii Commission. One relates to the creating of a new Division of Permitting within the Department of Public Works and I believe Jiro Sumada provided you with some information earlier on the request to create a new division.

RAY: Yes, actually just verbally from Public Works and then, I believe, actually it was Planning that gave us an initial kind of rough outline of what that would look like. So we have yet, just so you know, to receive anything in detail from the Public Works Department, so we are still waiting for that.

GOLDSTEIN: That’s one. The other relates to the Board of Appeals if such a new division is created. What might happen to it and what we’re suggesting happen to the Board of Appeals. We also touch upon, as number three, the issue of concern over a holdover provision for appointees to Boards and Commissions, and again, this is to help the situation where we operate the Boards and our Commission with a full number of members present. As Commissioner Tanaka has said, we are operating with less than the nine members on the Planning Commission and that has presented some problems with respect to making sure that we have quorums, making sure that there are enough members to vote on issues. And of course, our comments on the Planning Commissions for East and West Hawaii.

So, if I can get into detail. We have provided you with specific Charter Amendments that would effectuate some of these, for example, the creation of a Division of Permitting within the Department of Public Works. And basically, they would be taking over the functions relating to subdivisions, the subdivision code and some of the administerial actions that the Planning Department presently handles. Things like the Ohana permits, farm dwellings and plan approvals, and also variances. Again, we have provided you with possible amendments to specific sections and so you can go over them at your leisure.

One of the things in creating this division. We have outlined areas in which, maybe, amendments could be made but there is also another approach, and this is the approach that the City and County of Honolulu took in consolidating its Permitting and General Planning Departments into one. Their Charter allows the Mayor to make and restructure his departments on his own, and so the Charter could also be amended to give the Mayor here similar kinds of powers rather than having to go, for example, through the strain of a Charter Amendment. That’s how he accomplished his consolidation.

RAY: ‘His’ meaning Mayor Harris?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes. He recently went ahead and consolidated a General Planning Department with the Department of Permitting and Processing, which involves all of the permits, subdivisions, and things like that. Everybody’s under one now.

RAY: Has there been any substantive discussion between you and our Department of Public Works in terms of how they see this thing working?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes, we have discussed this with Public Works to the point of even taking a look at the possibility of which positions actually would be housed in this new division. Should something like this go through, that, of course, would also require us go and consult with the Unions to make sure that that’s okay with them too.

RAY: If you have any questions as we go through these proposals, it might be easier to keep track of them if we go ahead, so Mr. Balog, you had a question?

BALOG: Just one question. If you’re consolidating Permitting with what the Planning Department does with Public Works, as far as I’ve heard, a lot of people complain that Public Works is too big already to handle what they do now, and there’s been some people who said that maybe you should take out sewage and landfill and wastewater, or whatever, land filling and wastewater. So Public Works is saying that they’ll take on more work under one department. It would be better to do that than to have another, I hate to say department, entity just take care of permitting? It’s better for them to do it?

GOLDSTEIN: We never discussed the issue of their being too big, quite frankly. And in that sense, if they wanted to split off, for example, some of the other portions of their responsibilities, like all of the County government projects, and also, say, sewers and things like that, I think that’s something that they should address.

BALOG: Well, you’re proposing to give them work.

GOLDSTEIN: That’s right.

BALOG: And I’ve heard people say that they have too much work so I just was wondering if that ever came up.

GOLDSTEIN: Not in our discussions.

BALOG: Because Jiro came here early on in the beginning and we talked about, what was it?

RAY: The Wastewater Division moving to the Department of Water Supply.

BALOG: Sewage going to Department of Water and he said, well, that’s someone else’s opinion and he wasn’t real clear, so I’m just kind of asking what the Chairman asked, if they said yes, we’ll take it on or if they feel comfortable.

GOLDSTEIN: They feel comfortable. At least that’s our assessment.

BALOG: I guess the second question is one thing that was discussed too, in some prior discussions, was the amount of proposals that go on the Charter and having people actually being able to understand them. You brought up a point already about City and County of Oahu where the Mayor has flexibility. Is that something that your department would rather see than having about six or seven proposals go on the Charter just for Planning, along with other departments? Or have you guys discussed that, like I guess, Executive Branch with Department heads?

GOLDSTEIN: No, we haven’t really discussed this other alternative but I think it is true that the more changes you have to a Charter, that the more difficult it becomes for the public to understand the why, unless you start getting at, first of all, some of the foundational kinds of questions first before you go piece meal, the amendments. And for example is the issue of whether there should be two Planning Commissions. I think before you even get to that question you need to ask the question and decide for yourselves, whether there ought to be one County government or two, because that’s really basically what it really comes down to. If you say, yes, we should have two, then other things follow. That’s what I think.

BALOG: I just wanted to ask as you’re going now, early on, so I can understand.

RAY: But, Mr. Balog, your question was more in terms of the process, doing things through Charter Amendments vs. doing them administratively, and your question was, do we need to be, or we certainly need to be aware of it, but concerned over the number of Charter Amendments, and maybe there’s a better way to do it, is that more -

BALOG: Well, she raised the issue of how Oahu has it in theirs so I figured that’d be the person to ask, and since she’s a current Department Head, I don’t know if they hold meetings and they’ve discussed this as a group.

GOLDSTEIN: We haven’t discussed this.

RAY: Okay, Mr. Martin.

MARTIN: Several questions, one you’ve possibly answered already but you made mention, again as Kevin has indicated, about Oahu having this system already in place. How long ago was it implemented and is there any feedback as to how it’s working?

GOLDSTEIN: The switch and the consolidation of the two departments was done last year. It’s not clear how well it’s working. The present Planning Director now has staff of about 300+ and so, I know that that’s quite overwhelming in itself, but how well it’s actually working, I don’t know. I think it’s been too soon.

RAY: I believe Mr. Olesen furnished us with some information at the Pahoa Public Hearing on that model so that should be in our voluminous file somewhere.

Steve, did you have a question?

BESS: Just this alternative method of the City and County of Honolulu. Do you know whether or not that’s blanket authority to combine or separate functions of departments or are there guidelines under which he can combine or separate?

GOLDSTEIN: I don’t know.

KOKUBUN: I could comment to that. I think one of the issues there was it only refers to existing authorities and existing departmental functions so it’s not like the Mayor can go over and beyond what the Charter already provides but he can mix and match within what the Charter provides.

BESS: And to your knowledge, there are no guidelines?

KOKUBUN: I’m not aware of that part. I’m sure there are some kind of guidelines.

RAY: Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: Actually, my impression was that Jeremy Harris did a major overhaul, some of which things, took Charter Amendments to be implemented, others didn’t, and I cannot find the paper that we have right now, but we do have it somewhere in our vast files.

RAY: Other questions on this specific - Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Virginia, simple question. What’s the public benefit and what’s the cost?

GOLDSTEIN: To consolidating the permitting process? The public benefit clearly is to streamline the permit process. I think the public benefit is this, that there is some amount of functions that Public Works presently has that would be better combined together, and it doesn’t matter where, but particularly in the subdivision ordinance and the subdivision process, where, for example, the construction drawings get reviewed by Public Works rather than the Planning Department because the Planning Department, for example, does not have engineers within its staff, and that function falls to Public Works by our subdivision ordinance. Also, the Chief Engineer is responsible for certain standards with respect to roads that, if it were in one department, would be easier to streamline the process. That’s really where I see the public benefit.

YOSHIYAMA: You know the cost of this?

GOLDSTEIN: No.

YOSHIYAMA: I guess I don’t understand one stop processing from this standpoint. Say, in the Planning Department and Public Works, are we talking about a person handling a variation of this process or permitting, or are we talking about moving the functions from two different departments, putting them in one division and still having to go through various stages within that division? Because then all we did was make a move and not get any benefit out of it.

GOLDSTEIN: I think if you had it combined, then you can start revising things so that, in fact, you would be getting rid of some of the actual redundancies. For example, in processing a building permit and, for example, some of the definitions, some of these things can go on without a Charter Amendment and without necessarily combining the actual bodies and divisions. But I’ll tell you, I think that the practical reality is as long as there’s two different bodies, they’re going to be saying, that’s not my kuleana, it’s yours and there is this constant finger pointing and things falling through the gap, whereas if you had them actually combined in a division, would be lessened. I’m not saying it would be totally removed, but it would be lessened.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay, thank you.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: In your department, how many people are involved in the permitting process? The plan approval person, is that a full time position?

KOKUBUN: Eight.

GOLDSTEIN: He thinks eight. Positions as opposed to people that we have on board right now, there’s a difference, but eight.

HIGASHI: Eight full time people. Is that all they do or they do that and a variety of other things?

GOLDSTEIN: That’s pretty much all they do.

HIGASHI: And Public Works has Casey and how many people? Four or five?

KOKUBAN: Nine.

GOLDSTEIN: Nine, and Public Works is looking at - all 25.

HIGASHI: So it’s a significant move and significant development of a new division. It’s not like four or five people moving around.

GOLDSTEIN: No.

HIGASHI: So I think we need to kind of understand the broad scope of this whole move in little more complete detail.

GOLDSTEIN: I think that’s true. I think it does mean a different kind of restructuring of both departments, and even as we’re talking about doing something like this, we also keep coming up with further questions. What about this and what about that, how does it work, so in that sense, I do think it is a major, like I said, restructuring.

HIGASHI: So people who handle water variance and subdivision, zoning variance, are two separate people or can they become one or can you cross train and engineer to do that? What?

GOLDSTEIN: It’s possible to cross train, and right now we don’t have variances everyday and the people that handle the variances handle all kinds of variances, whether it’s from the zoning code or the subdivision code, whether it’s a water variance or a roadway type variance. And then we have the Kona staff which handles all types of variances also.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: Virginia, right now it says in the Charter a lot about what the Planning Department, Planning Commission, do. It says very little about exactly what Public Works is assigned.

GOLDSTEIN: That’s correct.

IRVINE: If we were to take all subdivision permitting out of Planning and send it over to Public Works, right now there’s no language in here to specify that anybody would review subdivision plans or anything, other than like the Planning Commission which does it now - I guess when I thought of a Permitting Department, I was thinking more of permits to add on or build a house, and make sure that it was on the property, but it would also be for the whole subdivisions would get permits from this department?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes, and that’s the reason for the necessity for the Charter Amendment. There are duties and tasks that Public Works can handle but it is specific with the Planning Department having the function of the subdivision ordinances administration and review, so that if we were to do that kind of restructuring, it would have to require the Charter Amendment. For example, on the other hand, if Public Works were to give up some of its functions with respect to the subdivision, we amended the subdivision code, so that it came all under Planning Department. That wouldn’t require a Charter Amendment.

RAY: Steve.

BESS: In your testimony, you suggested that there be a holdover period for 30 days and in Mr. Tanaka’s letter, he indicated that perhaps we ought to consider a 90 day period. Do you have any thoughts about that? Is 30 days your position?

GOLDSTEIN: Thirty days is what we were looking at.

BESS: And that’s sufficient?

GOLDSTEIN: Well, that’s what we’re going to go with. I think the Commission has a different view on things and I think that, certainly, they have the right to say what they want.

BESS: One of the arguments in favor of adopting a new holdover position is that you have one position that’s been vacant for a year. I mean I’ve heard that argument. None of the proposals would address that. That’s not the reason that you have a vacancy for one year, is it?

GOLDSTEIN: No, and I think it’s a matter of trying to find where that balance is because on the one hand, saying that a person can serve almost forever, if you were to leave it open ended without any kind of time limit, that might also lead to an abuse of that particular clause so I think that coming up, maybe, with different time periods when a holdover can extend to, I think that trying to find that balance is to what’s reasonable.

BESS: I guess this addresses what Kevin’s concern was about having lots of amendments before the public and your proposal on Section 13-4(d) addresses the issue of when the member’s term expires less than one month after the commencement of the term of a new Mayor. Is that a real critical issue? I’m not sure that I understand why this is so important to omit the existing language if the member’s term expires less.

GOLDSTEIN: Because for example, this past year, the Mayor’s term - he’s not a new Mayor, nevertheless we have had the vacancy and could not use even this 30 day to holdover two Commission Members, for even that month, just because he’s not a new Mayor.

BESS: Okay, I understand now. Thanks.

RAY: We jumped a little bit ahead of ourselves. We were trying to follow the submittal here so I want to make sure we’re through the permitting section and also, I think, number two is related to that as well, but let’s stay with that and make sure we get that covered. Daryl.

KUROZAWA: I have a very basic question, actually. I’m trying to understand. I hear what you’re saying about moving the permitting issues over to Public Works but could you go through, briefly, the process, say, if I wanted to open a subdivision. How does it work? Where does it go from start to finish? I don’t want a long explanation but I’m trying to figure out because it sounds like we’re moving everything from Public Works right now, but Planning Department is still involved, aren’t they? Won’t they, along the way, be involved still?

GOLDSTEIN: No. What we’re saying, with this proposal, is that we would essentially be giving up whatever functions that we have with respect to subdivisions. With subdivisions right now, as long as your land is zoned for that particular lot size, theoretically you can go and subdivide. It’s an administerial action. It doesn’t require any public hearings or any public notice or anything like this. You submit your application to the Planning Department. We submit that application to various agencies, like Water and Public Works for example, for their review and comment. And there are provisions within the subdivision code that give these departments certain amount of authority and jurisdiction. For example, Water Supply has authority to comment and require certain kinds of water improvements, that there be a water system. And portions, not all, of the roadway requirements are given to the Chief Engineer, so in their review of the subdivision application, they’ll come back and tell us, okay, these are our comments. We, then, take those comments, incorporate it in a letter back to the applicant and tell them, you have a tentative approval but you’ve got to submit and do all of these improvements. They either do it or they try to revise things to fit what Public Works is asking, for example, with respect to roadways and things like that. Then they submit construction drawings. The construction drawings get sent to Public Works and to Water Supply and, essentially, from the engineering and structural standpoint, they approve it. It comes back to the department for a final okay. It’s a confirmation on part of the Director. And then, bonding. Again, if the subdivider decides he’s going to bond the improvements, then that bond, and the amount, goes to Public Works and Water Supply for their review to make sure that the amount is adequate, and we sign off on it. So there is this kind of back and forth, and would be better if maybe it just be under one agency.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: Ms. Goldstein, would you say 90% is technical information that goes back and forth, and Planning’s role is 10% administerial coordination?

GOLDSTEIN: I wouldn’t say 90%, maybe 80%.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: I was just wondering if you still have it available, but about three years ago you supplied the Commission with a chart of ‘if someone applies for this permit, where they go, who they see and so forth’, so actually I’m moving house and I just found my book. I saved it. I thought it might be useful in my older years, but it might be helpful, if you’re going to do a follow-up to your proposals. It’s in that book, on any permit or anything you need to do with the County, pertaining to your proposal, to submit it to the Charter Commission so they could understand the flow and the workload, and where things do, and actually what your tasks may be. Like you’re saying, only 20%. If it’s possible.

GOLDSTEIN: I think you mean the booklet on the Central Coordinating Agency? It lists all of the permits that are required.

BALOG: We had another one that said ‘if you come for a subdivision permit, you go to this agency, this agency, this agency, and where to go. Then if you come for zoning’ - because I may understand what you’re saying but there’s other people with questions. It would be easier to see it on the graph.

GOLDSTEIN: We can make it available. It’s the Planning Commission workbook, is what Alice tells me, so we can make that available.

RAY: Other questions on the Division of Permitting? So I guess we can roll into number 2, the effect on the Board of Appeals.

GOLDSTEIN: If you go for this consolidation into Public Works, then I think we need to look at where the Board of Appeals is housed. Right now, the Board of Appeals serves both as an appeal body to the Chief Engineer, as well as the Planning Director’s decisions. But since all, or most, of the Planning Director’s decisions are going to go over to Public Works, it would seem to me that the Board of Appeals should also then be moved out of the Planning Department and into the Public Works. Two years ago, we also had proposed that the Board of Appeals, instead of either being housed with the Planning Department and/or Public Works, that it be housed with the Corporation Counsel because we felt that maybe a neutral body might be better, but that idea was not bought. But that’s also something that, maybe, we need to take a look at, if you go for this consolidation. And we have provided you with some possible amendments.

RAY: Okay. Are there any questions on that? Mr. Balog.

BALOG: Would there be any duties the Board of Appeals would have to perform, if they were transferred to Public Works, for either the Planning Commission or Planning Department?

GOLDSTEIN: I don’t think so.

BALOG: Secondly, it was brought up when I was serving on the Planning Commission, that there was no liaison Board for Public Works to review implementations of rules and whatnot, so this Board could serve also as the Board for their rules and procedures, yes?

GOLDSTEIN: I’m not sure I follow you. If you’re suggesting that maybe this Board be the one, if it goes over to Public Works, to adopt its Rules of Procedure over different functions, I think it might have to do that, but I think Department of Public Works still has to adopt its own Rules of Procedures.

BALOG: Yes, but they could adopt their own?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes.

BALOG: So the Board of Appeals wouldn’t have nothing left to do with Planning Department if your first proposal, as you’re proposing, when through, and they were transferred over?

GOLDSTEIN: I think so. I’m pretty sure so.

RAY: Is the Board of Appeals aware of this proposal?

GOLDSTEIN: No.

RAY: We’ve gotten some input from the Board of Appeals. There’s a July 16th letter, that you’ve all got, that’s addressing a different issue. It’s filling the vacancies. But I just wondered because I don’t like to catch people totally unaware.

GOLDSTEIN: And staff over there who serves the Board of Appeals may be caught unaware, so if you want to ask him for his reaction, that’s fine.

RAY: At some point, we certainly want to get them in the loop as far as -

GOLDSTEIN: I was hoping that they would be here today too.

RAY: Rodney, do you have anything to -

NAKANO: I did discuss this specific issue with the Chairman of the Board of Appeals and I was instructed to inform the Charter Commission that the Board of Appeals expresses some reservation and would desire some discussion with the Administration in terms of this particular concept. Not having had an opportunity to review this, at this point in time, they just want to express that they had some reservations.

RAY: We’ll make sure we afford them that opportunity. Any more questions? Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: I have a question for Rodney. Are you speaking about this whole thing or just about this Roman numeral 2 that Virginia was talking about, Board of Appeals being administratively assigned to Public Works? Are we referring to one stop shopping also, the concept, as you are conveying this message to us from the Chair?

RAY: In regard to the Board of Appeals input, are you asking him as an -

NAKANO: I think the Board of Appeals, in addition to being administratively assigned to the Department of Public Works, perhaps has some reservations as to their duties and responsibilities as it relates to the transfer of these authorities. Aside from having this concept, exactly what is being transferred in terms of duties and responsibilities, is not quite that clear. At the present time, according to the Charter, the Board is the entity in which decisions that the Chief Engineer makes and decisions that the Planning Director makes is heard. I think, under that broad umbrella, not having some firmer idea as to what will be involved in the transfer, whether or not the appeals process effecting decisions of the Planning Director, whether they have any thoughts on that.

RAY: Roland, you have a question?

HIGASHI: Getting back to that idea of having it tied to Corporation Counsel you said didn’t fly, what happened? Corp Counsel thought it was a bad idea or the Mayor thought it was a bad idea?

GOLDSTEIN: They felt, in some respects, that their department would also be split in the same way, and maybe more so, than the way we were feeling in terms of our department being split, and let me explain that. Rodney is staffed to Planning Department. Rodney also has functions that go beyond being staffed to the Board of Appeals, and the Board of Appeals hears appeals on my decision. He’s stuck, in some respects, and so there was a perceived kind of conflict for them, and also to have a Board under the Planning Department, when they hear the appeals of the Planning Director, we also felt that there might be some of that kind of conflict. So that was one of the reasons for trying to find some neutral place for the Board of Appeals. Nevertheless, as an attorney, right now their staff - one, there’s two who is attorney to the Planning Department. There’s Fred Giannini who is the attorney for Planning Commission. Public Works has it own, quote, attorney, and likewise, the Board of Appeals has an attorney, and they’re all housed in the Corporation Counsel. So for them, as an attorney, to have to serve all of those bodies, they also felt that it might be very difficult for them to keep that conflict out of the picture. That’s kind of like what their position was, but if it came to that, they were willing to house the Board of Appeals.

IRVINE: Virginia, it seems to me that there’s going to be that conflict no matter where we put them because they do hear appeals from both Planning and the Public Works.

GOLDSTEIN: And the public essentially felt that it was not a big deal when they voted for the changes.

RAY: Kevin.

BALOG: It tweaked me a little bit when they said appeals by the Director and I got to thinking. It’s true, no matter where you put them, they will hear appeals from you. An example would be, correct me if I’m wrong, some type of structure that is discretionary by the Director on ag land, a minor SMA permit perhaps, no? What else besides something on ag land?

GOLDSTEIN: Minor SMA permits and, if it’s, for example, special permits, those get appealed to the Third Circuit, not to the Board of Appeals because the authority for those come from a different place. The use permits are heard by Planning Commission. The only thing that the Director, then, makes decisions on would be the subdivisions basically, plan approvals and variances, and there we are suggesting go to Public Works so there isn’t anything left to -

BALOG: So there would be no -

GOLDSTEIN: I don’t see it anyway and I haven’t gone through that exhaustive list yet.

BALOG: I’m just thinking of the cell phone towers. That’s why I kind of chuckled because there’s one up in Ahualoa.

GOLDSTEIN: We’ve been told by the Supreme Court, though, that it needs a special permit if it’s an ag.

BALOG: Okay, I had to think about it because there’s one up where we live so I was thinking, eh, that’s right, that tower up there. I wonder if that would go to them and I wasn’t sure. Okay. But, in your own opinion, if what you proposed goes through, there’d be nothing left for them to appeal by the Director?

GOLDSTEIN: I think so.

RAY: Are we finished with that section for now? Okay.

GOLDSTEIN: And we talked about already the holdovers.

BALOG: I had a question about that.

RAY: Okay, Kevin.

BALOG: I know you’re saying you have your reasons for 30 days but in your almost eight years as Planning Director, what’s been the average time of having someone appointed to the Planning Commission, which is a Board that you work with? Is it 30 days?

GOLDSTEIN: You mean in terms of -

BALOG: Or closer to 90 days, which is what the Commission is proposing? To take someone else’s place, does it usually happen within 30 days or closer to 90 days?

GOLDSTEIN: For most of the years, I think it’s been about 30, thereabouts, but this past two years, I believe, the vacancies have lasted much longer, and part of it has been because of the perception by a lot of the community that they’d rather not serve on a Commission that requires as much work as the Planning Commission has, and takes so much flak.

RAY: And I think that was some of the concern expressed with separate Commissions, that it is an awful big load to take on for a lay or volunteer Commission, but anyway. Ms. Irvine.

IRVINE: People are just awfully busy nowadays with jobs and whatnot, and that’s why that workload, I think, does mean that people don’t volunteer, probably, because they just don’t have that much time. But what I really wanted to say was I was looking at all this business about holdover provisions. What if we just said, a member whose term has expired may continue to serve on such Board or Commission until a successor is appointed and confirmed. Then, if you look at what Maui has to say on their page 2 of what the Planning Commission sent us, it says, within 30 days of the occurrence of a vacancy, the Mayor shall submit to the Council, the name of Mayor’s nominee to fill the vacancy. Within 60 days thereafter, the Council shall act to approve or disapprove, and then the rest of the paragraph goes on to say if this doesn’t happen, then the process continues until they’re approved. I mean, I don’t think it matters whether it’s a new Mayor or people die, or whether their term expires.

GOLDSTEIN: That’s an alternative. Again, getting at striking that balance so that if you just left it so that except that the member shall essentially serve until a successor is appointed or confirmed. Without the other provision for the Mayor having to submit names, then this person could potentially serve forever. But if you wanted to provide that balance, then do the other thing of the Mayor’s got to, in so many days, submit names, right?

IRVINE: Sounded like it would work to me.

RAY: Any more questions to Virginia on that? Okay. Then we had, which we have discussed, the proposal to create separate Planning Commissions. Anybody want to question Virginia on that, as far as her perspective?

IRVINE: She already told us, didn’t she? That you don’t want two Planning Commissions, is that right?

GOLDSTEIN: I don’t think it makes sense.

RAY: But does anybody want to discuss that further?

GOLDSTEIN: Let me just say that we have one zoning code. We don’t have separate zoning codes for West Hawaii as opposed to East Hawaii. If you want consistency in the decisions, you have one Commission. If you want differences, because the argument that has been also raised is that, well, Kona’s not exactly like Hilo. That may be true. Then you create a separate code then. You do special design district or something else, but not create two Commissions.

IRVINE: But two Commissions would have their own take on things, a home rule issue and there’s no reason why they can’t interpret things differently on both sides.

GOLDSTEIN: I think there are problems with that. Legally, problems with that, if we’re supposed to be consistent, and not, quote, arbitrary.

IRVINE: We’ve heard that. Is there a mandate for consistency?

GOLDSTEIN: I think there is.

RAY: Any more questions on this? And before we leave this section, anything in Chapter IV, Qualifications of the Director, anything else you want to take the opportunity to ask her, just as much as we can get out on the table tonight. Sue.

IRVINE: I did have one more question under Section 5.4-2(d). It says that the Planning Director reviews the proposed capital improvement and prioritizes such things for the County. We were given testimony, at one point, that that really didn’t happen. Do you do that, or is that a good idea to leave it in there, or is it done more by the Mayor and his department heads meeting together? Can you tell me?

GOLDSTEIN: I would have to say I don’t know that, over the years, it’s been consistently done, but I think in the past couple of years, we have tried to fulfill this particular function. In particular the Deputy has been charged with recommending those kinds of priorities, and it’s just a recommendation, but the idea of the recommendations coming from the Planning Department and the Planning Director is this, just so that there is some amount of that consistency with the general plan.

IRVINE: Thank you.

RAY: Steve.

BESS: I was just going to ask Virginia, you know, the Board of Appeals - Since most of the decision making on permitting, all of it, is going to be sent over the Public Works, why wouldn’t it make sense to keep the Board of Appeals, to staff it with Planning Department, because they would be independent. They wouldn’t have that conflict of interest, for the most part. 90-95% of the actions would involve Public Works. It wouldn’t involve them.

GOLDSTEIN: I have to say this, and if I look at the overall structure of things, maybe it might make sense because the department is still the body that provides some amount of that policy kinds of advice to both the Mayor and the County Council, so that, from a policy standpoint, it might be okay. From a practical standpoint, I suppose this whole thing of budget.

RAY: More questions for Virginia? In regard to this Division of Permitting, I guess we need to get Public Works a little bit more into the loop and on the record, as well as the Board of Appeals. Do you have any sense of what’s a realistic time frame, and I’m not asking you to speak for the Department of Public Works, but obviously, this is something they’ve been speaking to, and are very familiar with it, for four, five or six months now, so does it seem reasonable, say, if our next meeting is within two to three weeks from now, that we try to agendize and get everybody at the table and try to hammer some of this out?

GOLDSTEIN: I think so. I actually think that the sooner the better, just because it is a major kind of shift and so, it would be better to get as many of the different perspectives as possible, before you keep on going.

RAY: We had a meeting scheduled in two weeks. I’m going to suggest to the Commission that we move it three weeks, the last Wednesday in the month, so if that’s agreeable to this group, we’d try to bring it up. I’ve got to be gone in two weeks and so does Roland, so we were going to try to move it to the third.

GOLDSTEIN: The only thing is, I’m not sure about the Board of Appeals, whether they can meet in that kind of a schedule and discuss this.

RAY: Yes, this would be a meeting on the 29th, Rodney, that we’d be talking about.

NAKANO: The Board has a meeting next Tuesday and so we can try to advise them on this Commission’s desire.

RAY: Okay. So any more questions for the Planning Department at this point? Thank you.

Let’s take a little break, four or five minutes. Then we’ll go into Finance.

RECESSED The Chairman called a short recess at 6:20 p.m.

RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 6:26 p.m.

RAY: Let’s reconvene the meeting. Continuing with Unfinished Business, we have the Director of the Finance Department, Harry Takahashi, together here today. We’ve received in the past, several written communications from Mr. Takahashi, and we just recently received an elaboration on those where he furnished us with some suggested language, or whatever, so hopefully everybody has those. We have this updated communication dated September 8th, Charter Commission Presentation, so I can refer everybody to that. I guess we’ll work off of that. Mr. Takahashi.

TAKAHASHI: What I did was, I assumed that there would be no major restructuring of the Executive organization, so I just looked at the existing Charter language, just to point out some inconsistencies, or some problematic areas. These are just suggestions, so again, I can feel for your assignment, where if you have too many amendments, the people may get frustrated and not approve any of them.

RAY: Harry, you’ve got such a wealth of experience in County government, been around a while, when you say too many amendments - my daughter sent me, from California, amendments there, and it’s like this whole book that they vote on, and I guess that’s one extreme and whatever, but what’s too many? I mean the last Charter Commissions have been in the 15 to 20 range of amendments. Is that too much?

TAKAHASHI: I’m not aware as to what the other agencies are proposing, so I guess it’s a matter of how intense a proposal you’re developing, and how intense an educational program you would implement. Because many people are not familiar with government operations and if you just toss things out at them with no educational effort, they are going to be confused at the polls. And again, it depends how the language is developed, whether it’s positive or negative. People can get very confused as to whether a yes vote is no, or a no is a yes. These are things that need to be looked at, whether the public will be confused or whether the language is very clear, and the education effort has been conducted. If that’s all done, I think 20 amendments are not unreasonable, but then again, I’m not sure what the other agencies are proposing.

RAY: Okay.

TAKAHASHI: So I just looked at some of the problematic areas that we came upon and just suggest some changes to you.

RAY: So do you want to go through those?

TAKAHASHI: Well, first the Vacancy in Office: Apparently when the term was changed from four to two, not all of the corrections were done so there’s some inconsistency there, but if the idea is to rethink two year terms back to four, then this language is sufficient.

Submission of Bills to the Mayor: This past year, we came upon a problem where what the Council did was, they reduced some of our expenditure proposals and took the monies and put it into their budget so when the Mayor decided to express his objections to it, when we looked at the Charter we had a problem. The Charter only recognizes striking out or reducing appropriations. It does not provide for restoring, so if he disagrees with the Council’s deletions, how does the Mayor voice his objections to that? There’s no way of him objecting to that kind of an action. So in lieu of that, I put in there an addition where or restoring the original amount. The Mayor cannot add more but he can at least put back what existed prior, so he can voice his objection.

RAY: Is everybody clear on that?

TAKAHASHI: Example is the Council deleted all vacant positions, funding for vacant positions. How would the Mayor say I object to that? There’s no way.

BESS: One of the things that I see they could do, if they put those funds in the Council’s budget, he could delete the Council budget without putting it back into his, so there wouldn’t be any funding, period, but that wouldn’t carry out his intent to fill those positions, I agree.

IRVINE: But it might mean that the Council wouldn’t do that sort of thing if he had just vetoed their amendment.

TAKAHASHI: What it amounts to, actually, is they literally can hold the Mayor hostage by deleting a lot of funding proposals and placing it in their budget, and in the course of the year, the Mayor would be required re-approach the Council.

IRVINE: But he has line-item veto. If they put it in their budget, he can -

TAKAHASHI: He can veto that but then there’s no appropriation.

IRVINE: Right.

TAKAHASHI: So whatever program he had proposed does not occur any way, so he has no way of objecting to that deletion.

BESS: With regard to this particular problem, was the matter brought up with the Corporation Counsel?

TAKAHASHI: Yes.

BESS: And his opinion was that they did something in violation of the separation of powers?

TAKAHASHI: He didn’t go -

BESS: The Council is grabbing money for positions that are not Council positions and may be involved with the administration of County government. So how can they possibly do that? I just think that there’s a legal problem here and I’m amazed that nobody took it to court?

TAKAHASHI: No.

RAY: Philosophically, this is a major issue in terms of the Mayor vs. the Council and how all this works, so does anybody want to ask Mr. Takahashi anymore on this?

YOSHIYAMA: Is there any bearing on balanced budget, what you’re proposing?

TAKAHASHI: No, because the Charter does not require that the budget be balanced. The Charter requires that expenditures do not exceed revenues, that’s all, so you can have more revenues than expenses.

RAY: Mr. Yuen has something to share on this in regard to the Corporation Counsel’s involvement.

YUEN: Yes, I did look at Corp Counsel’s Opinion on this question and what they said was the Charter does say that when the Council strikes out one of the Mayor’s proposed appropriations, and sends it back to the Mayor, the Mayor cannot restore that appropriation. In other words, when the budget bill comes back to the Mayor with things that the Council has put in that the Mayor doesn’t like, the Mayor can then strike those out, send them back to the Council. And if the Council wants to put them back in, it’s a six to three vote by the Council, to put the Council’s money back in. But once the Council has voted, by a majority vote, five to four, not to fund certain items that the Mayor would like to fund, that the Mayor cannot stick those back in. If I’m understanding your suggestion correctly, the effect would be that if the Mayor got to then resubmit those funds, then they would be in the budget unless the Council voted six to three not to fund them again.

TAKAHASHI: Yes.

YUEN: The Corp Counsel based their Opinion on the present Charter, both on the language of the Charter and on normal ideas of the separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislative bodies, where, to spend money, you have an appropriation by a Legislative body, and if you don’t have a majority vote of the Council in favor of spending money for a particular purpose, then you don’t have an appropriation.

TAKAHASHI: 5.3-3: These are the powers of the Finance Director. I looked at the HRS. I was wondering why the Purchasing Agent, the Treasurer and the Auditor was specifically mentioned in the Charter. It was done so because in the old days, we had these positions in one of the Chapters in the HRS. But subsequent to that, these sections in the HRS have all been repealed. I don’t think it’s a major problem because the HRS no longer exists, however, it seems like, by having this in the Charter, that there needs to be these positions and we really don’t have an Auditor. We have a Legislative Auditor but that person does not work for the Administration. That person works for the County Council.

RAY: And that’s a confusing name, as well, right?

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

RAY: So what makes sense to you?

TAKAHASHI: Well, that’s why I had proposed that parts of that first sentence be deleted.

IRVINE: Mr. Takahashi, I thought that (indiscernible - recorder did not record on the tape changeover) need an internal audit function in Finance.

TAKAHASHI: I would concur with what the external auditors have proposed, however, at this point the Charter does recognize the Legislative Auditor, and if you look at the model Charter or model government documents, the Internal Audit Program can be located either in the Legislative Auditor’s Office or the Administration, so I think, if you’re going to add an Auditor into Administration’s organization, there needs to be a clear delineation as to what the Legislative Auditor is responsible for as compared to the Auditor. But the way County government has grown, and will continue to grow, it is time that there be some recognition for a need for an Internal Audit Program.

RAY: Okay, but we don’t have any recommendation from the Administration on that?

TAKAHASHI: No, because it’s up to this body whether you want to place it with the Leg Auditor or it’s a separate Administrative function.

RAY: What about whether to do it at all?

TAKAHASHI: It’s this body’s decision. We could do it internally.

RAY: Is there a recommendation from the Administration?

TAKAHASHI: I actually had developed a proposal based on the comments by the Auditor and submitted it to the Mayor, so it’s under his review right now, that we would do internally. So we really don’t need to put it into the Charter. We could do it just within the Administration if we wanted to.

IRVINE: If you wanted to, but generally speaking, model County Charters have an Internal Auditor provision because it’s something that, maybe, a County government wouldn’t necessarily want to do if they were trying to cover something up, and I don’t see where Legislative Auditor really covers fiscal auditing. Now maybe, if we had program budgeting, then that might do for program review, which is the other issue that comes to play in here, but we don’t have much auditing going on as far as I can tell.

TAKAHASHI: Not internally, because at this point, with the limited resources that we have, we’re not able to set aside, or commit, the resources to this program. Things are very tight right now. Hopefully, when things get better, we can initiate a program but right now, when we set priorities, I don’t believe new programs are taking that much of a priority. I mean, we have existing programs that are suffering. We need to bolster them first before we embark on new programs.

IRVINE: Do you think, if you did real program budgeting, that that could suffice for this program review that they’re trying to throw out of the Charter, or argue about?

TAKAHASHI: Maybe I can explain to you what we’ve done. The 1999-2000 budget, we finally got away from what we call "line item" budgeting. We are budgeting at a higher level, is what we call "object level" budgeting, so you don’t see the little bitty expenditure proposals. You see lump sum. The next move, which we’re initiating beginning next week, we will be emphasizing more program write-ups like more measurable standards, so hopefully, the focus on budgeting will be service levels rather than paper, pencil, paper clips. We’re asking agencies to look at their program write-ups, see whether they can quantify their performances, what they expect to do, and what they actually were able to accomplish, and hopefully, in the long run, what are some of the shortcomings we recognize and try to rectify. But we don’t expect it to happen over night, but we’re beginning that process with this forthcoming budget.

RAY: Daryl, did you have a question?

KUROZAWA: No.

RAY: Any other questions for Harry on this point?

TAKAHASHI: On the next one, Preparation and Submission of Budget and Capital Program: It’s a minor thing. Right now the Charter requires the Mayor to make copies available to interested parties, and the document can run two hundred and some odd pages, and often times, people are not interested in the whole document. They just want to see summaries so the proposal is to provide that the Clerk make copies available since they run the copies. We generally submit our proposals to the Clerk and they run the necessary copies for the public. I don’t know if it’s significant or not because the process is working right now, but we’re not providing the full text. The full text is provided to the libraries. We have it in the Kona office. We have it at the Clerk’s Office, if people want to go through the whole text, but the Clerk’s Office has been providing summaries of the budgets, otherwise it would be very costly if we had to run the full text for all parties.

IRVINE: Has anybody objected?

TAKAHASHI: Not so far, I don’t believe so. We have a few for those who really want it.

IRVINE: Sounds like you’re doing an adequate job.

TAKAHASHI: It’s not that many people that request the full text.

RAY: So this would just bring the Charter in compliance with what we’re doing.

TAKAHASHI: Yes, but, like I say, it’s happening now so if you’re not comfortable, I don’t think it needs to be addressed.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Addressing the matter of cost, Harry, then providing this copies of the summary, or the entire budget document, do you charge?

TAKAHASHI: Not for legislation that’s before the Council. Those copies are free.

YOSHIYAMA: By what authority?

TAKAHASHI: Because, I believe, by the State law, you need to make copies available.

IRVINE: It is taxpayer money that paid for those documents, in the first place.

TAKAHASHI: I think no different, like the State Legislature, they don’t charge you for copies of proposals before them. However, if you want copies of the law, something that’s passed, then there are charges for that.

YOSHIYAMA: I was just reading something from the Office of Information that the Legislature amended the law last year about charging $.50 per copy and the departments can charge less than that, or something like that. But it wouldn’t apply to this?

TAKAHASHI: I don’t think it will apply to this. I think copies need to be made available to the public.

BESS: It sounds to me, though, that that could really be handled administratively, and if that’s the language, make copies available to the public, you can have one attached to a string at a desk in the hallway.

TAKAHASHI: Yes, that’s what we do. Because the document gets amended several times. March 1st, there’s one document. May 5th, another document that’s amended, and then another one before the Council acts, so if we needed to provide all of those copies, it’d be overwhelming. We’d be cutting trees down like - burning paper like going out of style.

BALOG: That’s why they’re growing trees in Hamakua.

TAKAHASHI: Well, in approving the budget, the language says that all the Council needs to do is adopt the budget by June 30, and that could pose a problem because, if you take it literally, the Council only adopts the budget, then there would be no review by the Mayor. I’m not sure whether the term ‘adopted’ meant that just literally that the Council would adopt. It would seem like, when you say adopt, that it meant that whatever the Council adopted went through the process of having the Mayor review and having the Council override if necessary. So, I think the term ‘adopted’ should be clarified.

IRVINE: What if, Mr. Takahashi, we just said that the Council will adopt a budget by the 15th day of June. That would give the Mayor time, rather than adding a whole sentence?

TAKAHASHI: Uh huh. Like other Counties, I believe they have an earlier date for adoption.

IRVINE: I think I saw Honolulu had 15th.

TAKAHASHI: I didn’t want to put - because I think if you set an earlier date, you need to go back and see when amendments need to be submitted, when the budget needs to be submitted.

RAY: And boy, it’s a real crunch right from day one, first of the year, the budget review process, and having participated in that a couple of times, it’s really a compact period. And then that gets into the whole question of program reviews, and what’s reasonable within that time frame. I mean, it’s a tough one.

IRVINE: Does this bother you, this adopted, that the Mayor might not - maybe you don’t care having been on the County Council.

RAY: I think the cleaner we can make it, and to eliminate things like this, the better, but I think we need to be careful with the time frame.

TAKAHASHI: Unfortunately, we go through an annual budget approval as compared to like the State goes through a bi-annual budget and they go through a supplemental year, so it makes it a little easier, however, all of the Counties have annual budget requirements. I think it’s by State law.

HIGASHI: Mr. Takahashi, before we move on to the budgeting and constraint of time, is the Legislature, when it ends and then you find out exactly how much money you have, is that a problem?

TAKAHASHI: Yes, especially of late because this past session, I believe they adjourned after May 5th and our requirement is that our amended budget be submitted to the Council by May 5th, and to get the amended budget to the Council by May 5th, we actually need to conclude our recommendations and send it to our print shop probably the week before, so we are not able to wait for whatever the Legislature provides. However, whatever comes out of Legislature, we can always go back and amend the budget, so from that end, maybe it’s not a problem.

HIGASHI: So, is it a problem or not a problem?

TAKAHASHI: Right now, we haven’t been getting much from the Legislature so it’s not a problem.

HIGASHI: Should we consider moving the fiscal year to another month?

TAKAHASHI: No, I don’t think so, otherwise it will really create problems for us because when we do comparisons, when you have a different fiscal year, all of a sudden you get -

HIGASHI: Only the first year.

TAKAHASHI: Well, I mean, you’d be surprised how often we get requests for comparisons.

RAY: So, you don’t have any recommendation in terms of how we might improve that process? Mr. Konishi submitted written testimony and his idea was to change the fiscal year, basically just a month. Give you a month more time and I can see from your answer, that’s not a very appealing idea.

TAKAHASHI: No.

RAY: But just in terms of this whole dilemma, it effects the County, it effects agencies. You don’t know what the State’s going to do.

TAKAHASHI: Right now, we have federal programs. Their fiscal year ends September 30 and begins October so most of those programs get appropriated during the course of the year, after we get word as to how much is coming down, so I think the system still works.

RAY: You mentioned the biennium, the two year budget.

TAKAHASHI: There was a proposal that was submitted to electorate and that got defeated a couple -

RAY: Yes, what was that? Was that a Charter Amendment?

TAKAHASHI: That was a Charter Amendment that was proposed by the Council, but I think the problem, at that time, was that, I think, people got confused because they didn’t understand how it’d work. Now, the proposal that I had developed for the Council was that the County’s biennium would begin during the supplemental year. You would not be tied to the State, but I think what came out of the Council at that time, was, it would be concurrent with the State, so people couldn’t understand the benefit of it. It didn’t make sense so it got defeated.

RAY: Do you think that’s something we should consider or explore, this body?

TAKAHASHI: But we got an Opinion from Corp Counsel that we were not able to address that issue because of some HRS provision, so we dropped it.

RAY: They can do it but we can’t?

TAKAHASHI: Yes.

BALOG: Ask Mr. Yuen. Every attorney has a different opinion.

TAKAHASHI: But they made specific reference to an HRS section.

RAY: Maybe we can follow up on that and see if it’s something to explore.

TAKAHASHI: Uh huh.

YUEN: I’m not familiar with this Opinion. They said the County could not have a biennial?

TAKAHASHI: Yes, because of the restriction pursuant to HRS.

YUEN: But they let it get submitted to the voters?

TAKAHASHI: Yes.

YUEN: And the Opinion came out afterwards?

TAKAHASHI: Yes. I think when it was second effort.

YUEN: I’m not ready to say anything about that. I’ll follow up on that if anybody’s interested.

RAY: Okay.

TAKAHASHI: Section 10-11.

RAY: Let me ask you one more question. Capital Budget.

TAKAHASHI: They had similar problems.

RAY: But, another question on Capital Budget. Is there anything we could do in the Charter, or any thoughts you might have, in terms of how out of whack our Capital Budget gets in terms of the size of it vs. the pot of money, and how much confusion that causes? In other words, the County Council routinely grossly inflates the CIP budget way beyond the financial capability of the County to do these things so it really causes a lot of confusion.

TAKAHASHI: What’s interesting is the County Council is the final body, or at least the body that approves the Capital Budget, all of the specific appropriations. Like this year, when we proposed to float authorized bonds to be issued, Council objected to the huge list that the Mayor would be able to pick from so within the bond authorization, they specified which appropriations the proceeds could be applied to. So, while you have a hundred million dollars, now all of a sudden your actual CIP seems to be thirty-seven million, but yet, when we submitted our CIP to the Council, they added a whole bunch of appropriations to it. So it seems like if they’re going to control it through the bond authorization, it seems like the whole CIP might be meaningless unless there’s some tie-in to resources.

RAY: I guess that’s what I was getting at. Is there any avenue we might explore there?

TAKAHASHI: I think the difficulty is there’s a lot of federal projects that we go after. We need to have an appropriation available, although funding may still be questionable, to be able to apply for the federal programs.

RAY: Right. But you don’t know what’s coming around the bend, so you have to have the appropriation to possibly be able to take advantage of it.

TAKAHASHI: That’s right.

BALOG: My wife and I watched that whole CIP stuff on TV, and what you’re saying is if you’re restrictive in the list, and you don’t have possible funds to commit your share to apply for these federal monies, then you can’t even get those monies for possible projects.

RAY: You can’t apply unless the appropriation is there.

BALOG: Yes, so I think it has to be cleaned up a lot because my wife, who very rarely enjoys County government, or any government, couldn’t believe that some of the Council people couldn’t understand that the County needs funds in their possession, or possible funds, to apply, and the Council couldn’t get it. I mean, it’s cut and dried.

TAKAHASHI: I guess now that there’s nine Council Member districts, they need to be responsive to their constituents. I mean, I can understand that because I work for the Council. And in that effort, things get looked at, not as a county-wide issue, what is in the best interest of the County as a whole. It’s gets whittled down to what’s in the best interest of my district. What must I deliver to my district, so, again, you go back to how do you address that this is one County, not nine single member districts. For the well-being of the County to excel, you need all nine districts pulling in the same direction. Some districts may need to forego some things this year but they’ll make it up in the long run, and with two year terms, it becomes very difficult for the Council Members to accept they all need to deliver in a timely basis.

10-11. With the number of suits that get filed against even Council Members, Mayor, there is a concern that the Charter just says when an officer knowingly authorizes to make payments in violation of the Charter, there are consequences. And I’ve come across situations where we do partnering with community organizations. In their overzealousness, they kind of commit the County’s resources without knowing that we have a process, but then it’s not fair to the vendors who get stuck, so we generally accept that it’s a mistake that was done. Hopefully, it will not be repeated, and we try to cover it but still, this language, just ‘knowingly’, makes some of us very uncomfortable.

IRVINE: But what you’re telling us is that they do it unknowingly.

TAKAHASHI: Yes. Well, they do it unknowingly, but people who have to process the paper, at that point, knowingly have to process the paper, that some process has not been followed.

RAY: In other words, they get caught into a situation.

TAKAHASHI: We get caught because my staff, or the department staff -

IRVINE: Oh, I see, okay.

TAKAHASHI: This applies to government employees and it’s not fair to them. It can be loosely construed that well, you knew and you still processed it. But there was no willful intention to do that. I’m not familiar with what kind of legalistic language would provide additional protections, but it’s really not fair to some of the employees who have to deal with these processes. It’s generally the clerks, the lower echelon, they just process paper, that would get caught, and it’s not fair for them. It hasn’t happened yet but, the way we see some of the challenges occurring, it could well occur.

IRVINE: By the time they’re dealing with it, you haven’t been able to bring it into compliance with the Charter. Is that what you’re saying?

TAKAHASHI: The Charter or - yes. The Charter requires that there be a duly made appropriation.

IRVINE: A which?

TAKAHASHI: A duly made appropriation.

IRVINE: Oh.

TAKAHASHI: And there may be occasions where somebody just went out and said, we need the material, just bring it, not checking whether there’s ample monies available or appropriations.

RAY: I’ve been involved in a lot of those volunteer projects where we’ve kind of over-committed the County to keep a job moving, and to finish it, so I personally participated in that where I made the call, keep on going, keep hauling, and just hope that the County would bail us out.

IRVINE: It’s kind of hard to legislate for everybody’s suing whim, or something. I just was wondering if we can solve all those problems or if we just have to - I mean, they’re not going to sue a clerk. They’re going to sue Mr. Takahashi.

TAKAHASHI: Probably, because somewhere my name will appear. But I felt it was very unfair to the - we’re not sure how far they would take any suit. It would really not be fair to the clerks. They’re just doing their jobs. We have a lot of partnering going on. A lot of good things come out of partnering but there may be things that fall through the cracks. But I don’t know if that is all that important. It has not happened yet.

Contracts, Subsection (c) of 13-13 says the Mayor will sign all contracts unless otherwise provided, and we have found that these, and I believe even the Mayor has found, that it be overwhelming, the amount of paper he has to sign, and some of these are just minor agreements; equipment agreements to maintain equipment and whatnot, and we think that there should be more latitude. The department heads should be held responsible, some of these, especially the minor ones.

IRVINE: Would you look at a monetary amount that shouldn’t be gone over or would you say the department heads should sign contracts?

TAKAHASHI: Well, we call it the head of the Purchasing Agency. We would recommend that you follow the State Procurement Code, which would be anything less than $25,000.

IRVINE: Okay. Excuse me, I didn’t keep reading.

BESS: Harry, I’m just wondering whether or not that subsection could just be easily amended by saying, except as otherwise provided by ordinance, be signed by the Mayor. And then it would be more flexible.

TAKAHASHI: Yes, that might be easier.

Claims. Right now the Claims Section seems to be restricted to damages. There are other claims that need to be addressed, and there doesn’t seem to be provisions for those. And in particular, in the area of real property taxation, we’ve had claims submitted because we were taxing people for buildings that were demolished a few years back. So in fairness, there is that need to allow for claims other than just damages.

ALONZO: Harry, I’ve got a question. As far as claims, do you handle the Geothermal Fund claims?

TAKAHASHI: We don’t. By ordinance, it falls under, I believe, the Planning Commission.

ALONZO: But you distribute the money. The Planning Commission grants the claim, then -

TAKAHASHI: Then the Planning Department will submit their requisition to pay and then we will process the warrant.

ALONZO: Okay.

TAKAHASHI: I’ve been with the County for 24 years now and I’ve seen the County grow and I’ve also experienced, especially of late, there are no resources. Many agencies are more than willing to give up some of their responsibilities and then often times it gets punted to the Finance Department. But more than that, there are a lot of service areas that really don’t fit any one agency, and so if I were to make a recommendation, I would say, if you’re going to consider revamping the organizational structure, maybe it is time we look at some sort of General Services Agency.

ALONZO: Other comments. How do you feel about having all fees to be paid to the County, being one general area? For instances, like you have here, drivers license and the safety inspection function, to the Finance Director?

TAKAHASHI: If we ever get the J.C. Penneys facility done, one of the plans is to have driver licensing and inspection program fall under the Department of Finance. We are, right now, reorganizing Finance to accommodate that, however, we would need the concurrence of the Union. We are developing that proposal right now. Now, it’s highly contingent upon the completion of J.C. Penneys because it makes little sense for us to take over the function when it’s still located at the Police Stations. Now there will be some problems because Finance Department does not have many facilities available, so you know that some of the rural communities may have a problem with that. Right now, the substations provide some services, but we are looking at it. It’s been proposed and we’ll take it to the length we can. If it gets approved, we’ll handle it.

ALONZO: Same goes with the Property Tax office?

TAKAHASHI: Property tax, yes. When we relocate, we would have property tax being collected, motor vehicle weight tax being collected, and driver licensing all under one roof.

ALONZO: What about Parks and Recreation?

TAKAHASHI: Parks and Recreation, they do their own collections because it’s very difficult for the people to come all the way to Hilo, or all the way to Kona. I think they have different means of doing their collections. In fact, right now one agency has started taking credit cards because of the difficulty in collections, so if that is successful, we may expand that so collections might be easier. Reservations may be easier, but we are also looking at fee structures too.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Following up on Eddie’s question, Harry. Any consideration to wastewater, water bills. You know we’re talking about one stop permitting, how about one stop payments?

TAKAHASHI: Right now we are looking at a whole new computer system for Real Property. We are sort of piggybacking off of Honolulu. Honolulu is the lead procurement agency and the neighbor island counties are piggybacking on that, and part of that system is a collection system. All of the counties recognize that we need a collection system that can do more than just Real Property Tax bills, so we are looking at that.

YOSHIYAMA: You talk about General Services Agency, but Harry, no more money you said.

TAKAHASHI: I’m not sure whether sitting up a General Services Agency, except for a Director, would require much funds because what we would be doing is just relocating some of the services right now, to have somebody responsible for it because a lot of these programs that don’t necessarily fit, don’t get the proper attention. Good example, I get accused of not properly administering or enforcing the Animal Control Program in this county. What does animal control have to do with Finance? Now, I am also charged, by State law, to being the Chief Procurement Officer. Any protest, I need to conduct an investigation to see whether the procurement process has been properly administered, so what I’ve tried to do, I’ve tried to divorce myself from many of the procurement by placing the procurements we once did under a division of mine, so that there is this separation, but still people accuse me because the County Code says Finance Director, Finance Director shall administer. But yet the State law designates me as the Chief Procurement Officer for the County. To give people a fair review, I try to divorce myself from the actual procurement. While my signature does appear though, on a lot of the awards, but I’m not actively involved in it. So there is this conflict because when people create laws, pick a number, put it in Finance. But, we can understand it. It’s not that simple when the Legislators meet in such a short, brief period that they need to assign the task to somebody.

RAY: Sue.

IRVINE: I guess I was wondering, when you talk General Services Agency, what services? You’ve said Animal Control, Chief Procurement -

TAKAHASHI: Okay, like for my area, we have seen agencies wanting to give up some of their budgetary responsibilities like rental of facilities. We do some of the rental agreements now. We pay the utilities for the entire County.

IRVINE: So it’s services to other County Agencies, you’re talking about?

TAKAHASHI: Yes. Because when the agencies have these responsibilities, when we issue the order to cut, they can’t cut these but yet, it’s part of their allocation. So we say, okay, it’s not fair so they’ve transferred it to us. And there’s more of that to come because as we begin more and more cuts, they have a very difficult time meeting their reductions when they have responsibilities that are not theirs. They pay the bills for other agencies. It’s just that that’s how it’s been done all these years. Mainly this is Public Works. So we’ve taken on some of their responsibility.

RAY: Other questions? Okay, Harry, thank you very much.

I don’t know where everybody’s energy level is.

HIGASHI: I have one question, a procedural question. Now we have a presentation made by an agency. Do we want to act on their recommendations or are we going to put it on the side and come back and revisit it?

RAY: Yes, that’s what I wanted to talk about. My recommendation is that we agendize these sections for the next meeting. We try to get Public Works and Board of Appeals in, knock out this whole Division of Permitting issue. And we digest what we heard today from Mr. Takahashi, and then go through and see what the will is in terms of pursuing some of these things. That’s a possibility, or if you want to go through it this evening, we can do that too.

HIGASHI: Do we approve a concept and then the legal language is drawn, or are we going to have the legal language drawn and then approve it? We’ve got to have some kind of process so we can just move these things along.

RAY: I would say we approve in concept what we want to pursue and then have Mr. Yuen go ahead and draft something for us.

BALOG: Makes sense.

IRVINE: I guess I’m a little disturbed. Mr. Takahashi had quite a few recommendations and then he says, really it sort of works the way it is.

RAY: That’s why I think we need to think about it a little bit and make another pass at it. That’s what I’d be more comfortable doing.

IRVINE: If he had said, this just has to go. Maybe it’s not his style to say it has to go, but he seems to be getting into program budgeting without it being in the Charter that he’s mandated to do it, and basically he needed -

RAY: Well, let me ask Mr. Yuen one thing. In terms of we were talking about the number of amendments and not making it too confusing or too overwhelming, isn’t there kind of a housekeeping section you do where it’s just minor changes incorporated into one? I don’t know what I’m thinking of, or I may be off base.

YUEN: One possibility for the Commission is to lump things together. The Commission does have the power to put a number of different items under one ballot heading and have people vote up or down on the whole group of them. Actually, what happened last time, there was a little bit of conflict between the Charter Commission and the Clerk’s Office because the Clerk’s Office did not want the Commission to lump them together, and that was the reason why there were, in the end, eighteen different ballot proposals. And as a result of that, one of the proposals made by the Charter Commission was to make it clear that the Commission did have the power to determine the final form of the ballot. Of course, if you have a lot, you could have a few that are separate items, the more important ones, and then a lot of housekeeping ones under one. There is still a possibility for confusion in that listing, people might misunderstand something and there’s also the possibility that if there’s one item in that group that becomes unpopular or controversial, it can bring down the whole bunch of them. But that’s really a decision for the Commission to make when the time comes.

BALOG: So, Mr. Chairman, are you saying specifically like Finance proposals together, or are you saying, in general, just housekeeping things?

RAY: I was thinking more housekeeping things. If there were some things that Mr. Takahashi suggested that maybe kind of either/or or if they were just minor language changes, or whatever, maybe that’s something that could be lumped together or not.

BALOG: Something like, say, from Planning and Public Works, or just lumping all of Finance together and saying here’s housekeeping things for Finance?

RAY: I really haven’t thought it through. It’s depending on how it looked. I wanted to make sure that that’s a possibility and then maybe we just try to come up with a format that we think isn’t too confusing, and is saleable, and is understandable, and if that works, we can pursue it or not. And maybe that’ll decide whether we even pursue some of these things. I guess that’s what I was getting at. I mean I don’t want to make it too overwhelming and confusing if it’s something that’s not all that important, but if there’s a way we can do it, and clean the Charter up, I think we ought to do that as well.

MARTIN: I happen to agree. I’d like to take it one step further though, in the concept, if we do make a few changes to the Charter with some of the proposals that have been brought forth to us, and the wording has to be changed in different sections of it, are we going to have to list each one of these changes down, or is there a format we can put into place that housekeeping would then be available to us?

YUEN: Well, on the ballot, say you have a change that involves several sections but it’s really one change. An example might be to create a Division of Permitting, as has been suggested, which means changing a lot of different things in Planning Department’s section, some things in Public Works Department section. When that’s put on the ballot, that can be put on the ballot as one question, even though there may be nine different places that are going to be changed in the Charter.

MARTIN: So that we could change it after it comes back if it’s voted in the affirmative, then?

YUEN: Right, and then what we will do, and should do, is have the exact wording of each section that will be changed, and that’s available to the public. That has a double check on what we’re doing, but actually, what appears on the ballot is going to be a simplified question; Shall there be a Division of Permitting that combines certain functions of the Planning Department and the Department of Public Works, yes or no.

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: That’s the reason we need to provide a digest within a certain period before the election is held so that people will get educated as to the exact question and the longer language that’s going to be available for them to review.

RAY: So in terms of the two sections we just covered, Finance and Planning, my suggestion is that we head up the next agenda with both these. We try to get enough input and pull together the Division of Permitting so that we can decide how that’s going to look, and if we agree on it, give Chris the go ahead to move forward on that. And then also, if there are other things that we want to pursue in terms of Planning, or the Planning Commission, that we have time to digest what we heard this evening and we’ll get as much done, and if we can wrap those sections up preliminarily, we can go ahead and get that done. And then, the same thing with the Finance and just see how far we can get.

IRVINE: I think there was one thing in Planning concerning Boards and Commissions, actually all the Boards and Commissions. It’s kind of a mess the way people’s terms expire and nobody gets appointed, and the Commissions can’t function and whatnot, and that, to me, would be something that we could get some wording on for us to look at if we’re going to make a motion. It could be stated quite clearly that a member can continue to serve until his successor is appointed, and then just say, go with Maui’s language on 30 days. Does anybody have a better idea?

RAY: I like that idea. Go ahead, Kevin.

BALOG: The only problem I have is with 30 days because I understand that all the Boards and Commissions, in general, for not the last couple of years, since before even this Mayor’s terms, have never quite been filled within 30 days. I’d like to see 90 but I’d really settle for 60 because it’s not this Mayor specifically. It’s just something in general that has happened over long periods of time, including this Mayor’s administration, and it don’t happen in 30 days, okay, well, we’re going to do this and this. I still think, since you’re saying the Mayor should have the chance to be able to search, and I believe that there’s not a lot of people that want to serve on Boards or Commissions just because they don’t want to be part of government. They want to talk about it but not do it. But I think the person nominating should be given more than 30 days past an expired term.

IRVINE: I have no problem with that except that Maui’s says 30 and I figured -

BALOG: No, I’m just saying, though, I was going to bring that up if we could just make a motion on how much days, come to some kind of agreement, have Chris draw up some language, and go from there so we can move on with that because it deals in general with all Boards and Commissions.

RAY: Sure.

ALONZO: I feel the same way with Mr. Balog. First of all, the Mayor has to submit a nominee, then it goes through the committees of the County Council, then from there, it goes to the full Council, so it’s going to take more than 30 days to act on it.

HIGASHI: I just have a legal question and I’ll pose it to Chris. Is there anything that prohibits the Mayor from confirming somebody before another person’s term is over?

YUEN: You mean submitting to the Council?

HIGASHI: Yes, submitting to the Council and having it confirmed.

YUEN: No, I don’t think so. No.

HIGASHI: So pick somebody in November and it could run through the process of interviewing and whatever -

YUEN: Well, I think the exception would be if there’s going to be a new Mayor. If the person’s term runs out after the Mayor’s term, then the old Mayor doesn’t get to nominate somebody to be put in for the new term, and I think the same thing would hold true for the Council Members. It would have to be done in December.

HIGASHI: They take office December 3rd or something like that.

YUEN: But, say, if you’re talking about an odd numbered year, at the end of an even numbered year when the same Mayor and the same Council are going to be in place, the Mayor can anticipate the vacancy, make the nomination, send it up to the Council. To avoid the conflict, because there’s this 45 days that the Council has to act, it should not be sent to the Council more than 45 days before the end of the person’s term that’s presently serving.

RAY: Okay, Chris, go ahead and pursue with coming up with some language that we can discuss.

YUEN: So the general idea would be to present there would be a holdover unless a successor was confirmed but there would be a maximum period of time for the holdover and there’d be a set period of time that the Mayor is supposed to submit the nomination after the end of the person’s term. That’s the way Maui works, I think.

IRVINE: I’m not sure. I’ll have to look again but I wasn’t thinking of a maximum time they’d serve. I was thinking of having a member available to these Boards so they could function until somebody was confirmed.

YUEN: So, a person could holdover indefinitely then?

IRVINE: Well, if the Mayor didn’t get around to appointing somebody.

MARTIN: That’s one of the concerns that I’ve heard that they didn’t want to have happen is that in case there was nobody come aboard, maybe they couldn’t find anybody that was interested in it, then this person would have to be excommunicated from that Commission at some point, or otherwise they’d be there forever.

YUEN: I can draw it up as alternative I, alternative 2. I can draw it up where there’s an indefinite holdover. At this point, it’s just to have something concrete for people to look at. I can write it up in both alternatives so that the person holds over, theoretically, forever if there’s never a person confirmed. I can also write up a version where there’s a set period of time, and I’ll just make it 60 days, because that could be changed, as a maximum holdover period.

BALOG: I think, too, as far as our County government is, everyone always says look to the State or look to what other people do. Whereas the County has in their Charter that people shall not serve more than one term for Boards and Commissions, the State has a shorter term but allows the Governor to ask to reappoint these people for a second term, so you could limit, just through language, through Amendment, not to exceed original term, blah, blah, if you want to use for something like an indefinite term, or you can put shorter terms, but there has been cases on a few Commissions where they haven’t been able to find replacements. Someone has a conflict, then when you go to take a vote, you aren’t getting a true vote of your body so it can cause some problems. But anyway, I’d just like to see some language so we could vote at the next meeting.

RAY: Okay, I’m not clear. You’d like to see -

BALOG: He’s saying he’s going to draw up different language. I don’t know if you have to make a motion or what, but what do e have to do to get him to do something?

HIGASHI: One of the things in the Charter, you cannot succeed yourself. You serve a five year term and then you cannot be reappointed. That’s his point. Another alternative is you can have people serve specific number of terms. That’s another alternative that’s not addressed in the Charter.

BALOG: I’m just bringing that up because a good example is our Attorney, Chris Yuen. He sat on the Land Board. So I don’t know if you served two terms or not, but whether he did or not, the Executive Branch, if they view whether it was him or anyone else serving in a State, it could be the Board of Regents or what have you, if they view those members doing a good job on that specific Board, they have the option, whether it’s this sitting Governor or a newly elected Governor, to reappoint that person, so it looks past the grounds of, oh well, this Mayor may have the chance to appoint them twice. Well, what happens when a different Mayor gets elected and he still likes the work that these people are doing? It doesn’t mean that people aren’t doing good jobs because someone else may choose to appoint them, and it’s happened in the State government where you’ve changed Governors and the next Governor has actually reappointed old members for Commissions.

RAY: That’s certainly another approach, and that’s just come up. We weren’t looking at that so -

BALOG: No, since they brought it up, I just elaborated on it.

RAY: But I mean, is that something this body wants to pursue? That’s not what we were talking about. We were talking about modifying, more or less, the system we have now, and trying to improve on it rather than changing the Charter to allow for a second term.

MARTIN: But it’s nothing more than modification, and I believe what Kevin is saying, if I’m hearing him correctly, is, if in fact the Mayor so elects to do something like that, it takes away the burden of finding somebody in the short term. But you’re still talking about two times and that’s it, right, or whatever the case may be? There would still be some limitations to it.

BALOG: Yes. Chris brought up indefinitely so when he brought up the word ‘indefinitely’, all I brought up was what was done on the State level, and I still think that’s something else that should be addressed. When this current Mayor’s term ends, when our newly elected Mayor, if we still have a Mayor at that time, wishes to appoint some of the people serving on some of these Boards and Commissions again, and he thinks they’re good people, and he’s totally a different person, he’s not the same person, why should he be told he can’t? And if he likes the continuity of what that Board or Commission is doing, why shouldn’t he be able to? But it doesn’t, still, address the problem of what happens when someone’s term reaches that point. So it’s actually two different issues, but I still like 90 days.

BESS: One comment, John, is that, Chris, if we took a poll here we’d find that none of us would want an indefinite term, so that the exercise in creating that as an option, seems to me, to be not a good use of your time.

RAY: Other comments?

HIGASHI: I agree.

YOSHIYAMA: I agree.

BALOG: Can we get back to the 90 days? I’ll make a motion. I don’t care. I’d like to make a motion. Can I?

RAY: Sure.

BALOG: I move that, based on testimony by the Planning Commission, Planning Department, and other people in general, that in Section 13-4(d) that our staff attorney draw up language that will say that no member whose term has expired shall continue to serve on such Board or Commission, except that if a successor is not appointed and confirmed within 90 days. Is that right? Okay, that’s my motion. Shall serve no longer than 90 days after the end of his term. Is that clear? Did I say that right, Chris?

YUEN: I think we understand that.

HIGASHI: So the member shall holdover for 90 days or until the successor is appointed or confirmed. Is that what you’re saying?

RAY: No.

BALOG: Not more than 90 days.

YUEN: You holdover until a successor is appointed or confirmed, not the 90 days.

HIGASHI: Holdover 90 days or until somebody’s confirmed, whichever comes first.

BALOG: Yes, or whichever comes first. If someone is confirmed within 30 days, they’re out.

RAY: But a max of 90 days.

BALOG: A maximum of 90 days, that’s my motion.

RAY: To eliminate the forever.

BALOG: Yes.

ALONZO: Second that motion.

RAY: All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: So we’ll draw up a preliminary proposal. Rather Chris will.

YUEN: One further question. Do you want to have a deadline set for the Mayor to submit the name within such and such a period of time? I think Maui does that.

BALOG: The reason why I made the motion like that is I’d hope the Executive Branches would do it. It all goes back to getting the public to understand what you’re doing, and I think if you add all that language, they might look at, well, this and this, but someone could make that motion, but I wouldn’t.

IRVINE: I’d like to move that we look at the Maui Charter, which says within 30 days of the occurrence of a vacancy, the Mayor shall submit to the Council, the name of the Mayor’s nominee to fill the vacancy, and then it goes on to explain how the Council has to confirm within 60 days, and if they don’t, it has further language in there.

HIGASHI: What’s the penalty if he doesn’t submit?

BESS: And the further language is?

BALOG: If they don’t approve within 60 days, they’re automatically approved.

IRVINE: Yes, within 30 days the Mayor will submit the name of the Mayor’s nominee. Within 60 days thereafter, the Council shall act to approve or disapprove. If the Council disapproves the nominee, it shall immediately so notify the Mayor of its action. The Mayor shall then submit the name of a second nominee to the Council within 10 days. The Council shall act thereon within 60 days. Process shall continue until the vacancy is filled. In the event the Council fails to approve or disapprove a nominee within the time period provided for herein, that nominee shall be deemed appointed to fill the vacancy upon its occurrence. I don’t know why the Council gets 60 days and the Mayor only gets 30. We could give everybody 30.

BALOG: So in other words, the Mayor can submit -

IRVINE: Endlessly.

BALOG: Endlessly, and they disapprove and you keep a vacancy. That’s crazy.

IRVINE: I wonder, how does ours work?

BALOG: If they say no, it’s no, that’s it.

HIGASHI: So if he doesn’t submit a name, he’s in violation of the Charter and can be removed from office. Is that it?

IRVINE: I don’t know.

HIGASHI: He violates the Charter. That’s kind of going too far, you know what I mean?

YUEN: Yes, it does -

IRVINE: What does our Charter say?

RAY: Okay, let’s get back on track here.

IRVINE: I think it’s time to adjourn.

YUEN: Well, if you wanted to say that, you could say that.

HIGASHI: I have no interest in saying that the Mayor got to appoint somebody within a specified time limit. How do the others feel?

IRVINE: But it’s really difficult for these Commissions.

RAY: Hold on. Wait. Steve.

BESS: Excuse me, but the purpose of these two drafts that we’ve discussed is to put this on the table the next time so all this discussion can occur next time. Is that right? So I suggest that we move on to another issue.

RAY: Chris, are you comfortable with coming up with some draft language?

YUEN: I can definitely draft up something based on the motion that’s been passed, and if the Commission wants to further amend it at the next meeting, that’s the Commission’s pleasure.

MARTIN: Point of order. I believe there is a motion on the floor.

ALONZO: There’s a second?

YOSHIYAMA: No second.

ALONZO: There’s no second.

IRVINE: No second, so it dies.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Backing up a little bit, John. You talked about next meeting, talked about Planning Department and Finance, right?

RAY: Right.

YOSHIYAMA: In addition to this filling vacancies on a Commission. I wonder if we should include Public Works.

RAY: They’ll be an integral part of the discussion on the Division of Permitting, and yes, we can review that section as well.

YOSHIYAMA: And I don’t want to go too far, but remember what Jiro Sumada was talking about and that was moving Wastewater out to Water and where do we stop, right?

RAY: Well, I’ve given a personal commitment to the Department of Water Supply to give them until the end of October to come up with their recommendations and plan.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay.

RAY: All right, the nonpartisan election issue. We do have the drafts from Mr. Yuen. I think you’ve all got those, and I’m still kind of up in the air in regard to this issue over the second special election and whether one person’s elected or two go on. I’m ready to vote in favor of the general concept of nonpartisan elections but not in terms of that point, and I thought we’d agreed that we were going to get some more data in regard to primaries vs. - Sue, you have?

IRVINE: I think I was the one that said I really didn’t want to see winner take all in a Primary Election because fewer people vote in the primaries, and so then, I did go to the County Clerk’s and find out the difference between the number of people that vote in the Primaries and Generals over the last ten years. It’s been about 11 to 15%, and to me, if voters knew that things might be decided in the Primary, I think more people would show up.

BALOG: That’s right.

IRVINE: So I think Honolulu’s method sounds like it would be doable.

HIGASHI: Is that a motion?

BALOG: So in other words, we’re ready to move tonight. Let’s go.

RAY: Okay. All we’re doing though, is this is just a preliminary vote at this point, right? That this is something that we feel pretty comfortable that we are going to go ahead with, but we can revisit it. Is that the understanding?

HIGASHI: Final affirmation be done when we put the whole package together, is that right?

BESS: Yes.

RAY: Yes, and the other thing, let’s don’t forget the public. We’re going out with a full package for review to the general public.

HIGASHI: That’s correct.

BALOG: So, we’re going to vote on it tonight and after tonight, there will only be one more vote, somewhere down the road, right? So after tonight we don’t need to talk about it again, right, except take public input or anything new coming in or whatnot?

RAY: That’s my understanding is how it would work.

MARTIN: Final draft, of course, because I’ve got some questions on some of the things you wrote here, Chris.

BALOG: No, I don’t mind questions but it’s not like we’re going to take up half an hour’s work of every meeting’s time to discuss.

HIGASHI: One concern.

RAY: Wait. Mr. Yuen.

YUEN: I just wanted to say one thing about this question of a preliminary vote. The rules do say, though, that reconsideration should follow Roberts Rules of Order, and that means that a member of the winning side should make a motion to reconsider. For example, if the Commission here votes to present nonpartisan elections to the public, and at some point there’s second thoughts about this, a member of the majority should be the one to make a motion. That only makes sense because otherwise then, it’s just the people who are in the minority trying to bring it up again. But that is what the rules say.

HIGASHI: Does Roberts Rules say reconsideration needs to be had at the next meeting?

YUEN: No, I don’t believe they say that. I don’t have my copy here.

HIGASHI: I think it’s at the next meeting. If our rules, and we all agree, that reconsideration can be had some time down the road, I have no problem with that.

YUEN: Yes, I think it’s really a matter of fairness because the rules also say that there is going to be a final vote on the package to be sent up. As a practical matter, it is going to get looked at and the Commission did say that they were going to take the package to the public and go for another round of public hearings.

HIGASHI: So reconsideration is not pursuant to Roberts Rules, but we agree that the prevailing side can ask for reconsideration for some amendments. Is that kind of what you’re looking at?

RAY: George.

MARTIN: As per the discussion, I make a motion that this Charter Commission puts on its ballot, at some point in time, a nonpartisan question to the public of the County of Hawaii, as far as County elections go.

BALOG:S Second.

RAY: Discussion. Do you want to discuss the specifics of that in regard to these proposals?

MARTIN: Of course.

KUROZAWA: That’s my question. Are we just voting on the overall concept or are we going to decide tonight whether it’s a 51% in the Primary vs. two people automatically go to the General?

MARTIN: I think that my motion is specific overall, but yes, if you want to go into concept, I’ve got no problem with that.

HIGASHI: There was support earlier for the Oahu plan. Is that the consensus?

MARTIN: We got a question after Roland.

HIGASHI: I’d like to go with the Oahu plan with what was circulated with one exception. The exception is that instead of including blank and spoiled ballots, excluding blank and spoiled ballots, is what I would like to recommend.

BALOG: So you’re going to take that as an amendment, right? To the motion?

RAY: We’ll take that as a friendly amendment.

MARTIN: Technically it’s not an amendment. We’re adding to the motion, and I believe motion is specific, as I said, and discussion between the doc and myself, is if we want to go into detail, we can. So do we want to ask on the first motion and then go into detail in it, or what’s the protocol here?

YUEN: I think it’s up to you. You made the motion and you can flesh it out. It’d probably be best to flesh out the details before taking a vote because people may feel differently on how this is handled.

RAY: Okay, Roland, you want to just confirm?

HIGASHI: Well, I think at the make of the motion, we’ll look at the draft that’s circulated. I think the draft is what we’re talking about and if we just change the word ‘including’ to ‘excluding’, I would be satisfied with that.

MARTIN: Thank you, sir.

RAY: Gary.

YOSHIYAMA: Are we talking about George’s motion or an amendment?

RAY: We’re talking about George’s motion refined by input from Roland.

YOSHIYAMA: Okay, and so we’re talking specifically Alternative I.

HIGASHI: That’s correct.

RAY: With a change in the word on the ballots, right?

BALOG: ‘Excluding’ instead of ‘including’.

RAY: Right. Is everybody clear on that? Any more discussion? All in favor?

COMMISSIONERS: Aye.

RAY: Opposed? I’m tired.

MARTIN: Move to adjourn then?

RAY: Okay, I’m sorry. I realize that I was going to be out of town on our next Special Meeting date, and Roland informed me that he is, as well.

IRVINE: Susan is, as well.

RAY: Susan is, as well. That’s on the 22nd so if it works for you folks, if we could move the meeting just back a week to the 29th.

BALOG: 29th?

RAY: And then the other -

KUROZAWA: 3:00 still?

RAY: Well, that’s up to us. It’s a Special Meeting so we can start either at 3:00 or we can start at 5:00. What’s the pleasure of the group? It makes no difference to me.

RAY: Let’s go at 3:00?

BESS: Mr. Chairman, I have a suggestion. Rather than move it to the following Wednesday, what I would suggest is that we move it to the following Saturday or whatever Saturday doesn’t conflict with the other people, and that we put in a full day’s work on a Saturday.

BALOG: I concur with that. I’ve discussed it in general with people and I think we need at least one full day of work, and during the strenuous work week that all of us go through, Monday through Friday is definitely a hard day to do it.

RAY: Okay. Are we talking about the 25th?

IRVINE: I won’t be here but -

RAY: Roland.

HIGASHI: I have a commitment on the 25th.

IRVINE: I hate to miss a whole day.

HIGASHI: The following Saturday would be fine for me.

RAY: I will be out of town the following Saturday for ten days.

HIGASHI: Why don’t we go Wednesday and then -

IRVINE: Go Wednesday and then try a Saturday shortly thereafter?

RAY: So we can go with the 29th? And then, I agree with you, I’d like to do a Saturday, knock down, really get some stuff done.

IRVINE: A Saturday in November.

RAY: So is 3:00 okay? Makes no difference to me. Okay, so we’ll have our next meeting, a Special Meeting, on the 29th at 3:00 p.m., this location. Okay, we had a motion to adjourn.

BALOG: Yes, I make a motion to adjourn but I’d like you to at least contact the other members because, if we’re going to start saying, because one member can’t make a Saturday meeting, and not hold a meeting, it’s going to get real rough, so I think, as the Chair, or if you could have the Secretary contact people, what Saturday would be the best Saturday that most people could make the meeting.

BESS: Hopefully, early October.

RAY: I’m available Saturdays, the last three, 16th, 23rd, 30th. Our regular meeting would be on the 13th.

BESS: 16th, I would prefer.

RAY: So, we could meet either the 16th, that would be only three days after the next meeting, or the 23rd. Does anybody have a -

IRVINE: 23rd would be best for me. 23rd or 30th.

BESS: The 23rd of October?

IRVINE: 16th is the only bad Saturday right now.

BESS: Well, I’m not going to be here but -

IRVINE: When?

BESS: The 23rd of October.

IRVINE: Okay, we’ll go for the 16th because I can come the 16th.

BESS: 16th?

BALOG: Okay, 16th.

RAY: So that will only be 3 days after -

BALOG: Yes, that’s no problem.

RAY: 16th in Waimea?

BALOG: I like that.

RAY: I’ll come up with the location.

BALOG: 16th, Waimea for sure?

RAY: Sure.

BALOG: School?

RAY: Serve lunch.

BESS: Absolutely.

HIGASHI: Can you find a place in Waimea?

RAY: We can get the Main Street office there in the Carter Professional Center.

BALOG: Okay, 16th, Wai