MIN CHARTER 2019-03-08 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -9 March 8, 2019 they have decided to ask to see if, obviously they are not making the proposal it would have to be made by a Commissioner and so this would be to clarify I guess would be the best way that I could characterize it. Again, that is my personal opinion. MS. RICE: Okay and then on the... they are allowed to, in the rules impose civil fines and this would be the same thing? CHR. ADAMS: I will let Mr. Yoshimoto take that one. MR. YOSHIMOTO: As a background, back in 2008, the Council passed an ordinance that provided for fines to be issued by the Board of Ethics. Part of the concern that the Board of Ethics had currently... as currently comprised is that the Charter does not explicitly provided for a fine provision. If you look at the Board of Ethics provisions in the Charter, it does state that the Council can pass by ordinance any provisions that it chooses to do so. So, basically the board is asking for what was passed by the Council previously to be placed in the Charter so there is explicit consistency. MS. RICE: Got it. Thank you. I understand. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. MS. TODD: Mr. Chair. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Todd. MS. TODD: I also served on the Board of Ethics and also served as, later as Deputy Corporation Counsel advising the board, and a lot of this was moved to try and give the board a little bit more authority similar to the way the Commission on O`ahu is able to issue fines and part of the problem is that the way the Board of Ethics was constructed earlier is that they basically could say that somebody is in violation and issue an opinion, but then it would then be up like in the case of a Council member, it would be up to the Council to determine whether they were going to impose any fines, obligations, etc. on the Council member with other officials it would depend on like maybe the Mayor would have to review a department head, and so the idea was to try and give the Board of Ethics a little bit more teeth so that they would not have to rely on another entity. There has been voluntary compliance and there have been a couple of occasions when they have found that the most public ones have been where there have been a misappropriation or misuse of public funds by a Council member for what has been kind of determined to be kind of a campaign or a non -County purpose and in those cases they have issued opinions and those Council members have repaid the County those funds, but they want to make sure that they are not reliant on the Council voting whether they are going to censure one of their own members or the Mayor deciding whether he is going to censure somebody he has Page 21