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

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -9 March 8, 2019 appointed to office and this was also you know, we had public input that they wanted to give more teeth because people were seeing that it seemed like the Board of Ethics on O`ahu had much more power than the one here and they wanted to try and make them a little bit more independent so the County Council agreed and passed it but you know this is trying to put it in the Charter so that it is very clear as to their authority and the difference you might notice on one section where it talks about advisory and formal opinions is... it is very useful to subsequent boards and to the public to be able to read the opinions issued by the Board of Ethics because it gives you guidance on what is or is not a violation and you in some cases the names have to be redacted because you don't want to get into privacy, because sometimes it is employees asking "can I start a business and the type of business that I want to start, does this conflict with my job, is there a conflict of interest?" And so it is useful for other employees if they can see that there has been an opinion rendered and it also puts it into one place where you can eventually have it, where you can google it, you can go to a County website, and so there is two different types of opinions so they want to clarify that they can publish both so long as they are protecting the privacy of the individuals. That's all. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Any other discussion on this communication? Alright. Thank you. We also have then, Communication No. 12.2 which has to do with the Proposed Schedule for Six Island -Wide Public Hearings; Dates, Times, and Locations. At this point I would like to indicate that it is the plan to provide a notice, a public notice of the dates and times and locations following this meeting. So if I could, in the Communication, we note that we will be starting, we will be having our first public hearing on March 25th which is a Monday and that would be at the Old County Courthouse in Kohala which is I believe in Kapa'au near the King Kamehameha statue. The next public hearing will be that Friday which is the 29th and that would be in Na`alehu at the Community Center, and then we have four hearings in a row Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Monday, April... I can't remember which date it is, do you have it in front of you? April 1st? Okay, and that one is, that's right, that will be in Pahoa and then April 2nd in Honoka`a, the third will be here actually, and then the fourth will be in the Hilo Chambers and then that would be the final one. All of those are designed to be at 6:00 p.m. I just want to make sure that we are all okay with that. Yes, Commissioner Roehrig. What would you like to do? MR. ROEHRIG: I don't know about the rest of you. I guess I wasn't at the meeting when this was decided on. For me it is dangerous to drive at night. I don't know if people, the general public want to come at 6:00 p.m. after they get through work at 4:30 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. and then they don't eat dinner and they come to the public meeting and then (inaudible) at whatever time, I don't know... I wouldn't mind seeing some of these on Saturday. Sunday is probably not a Page 22