MIN CHARTER 2019-04-01 (2018-2020) - Public Hearing

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 1, 2019 CHR. ADAMS: That you are speaking to. MS. SIRACUSA: If you don't speak into the mic, I can't hear what you are... CHR. ADAMS: Thanks. MS. SIRACUSA: telling me. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you Rene'. I am speaking into the mic. You can see I am speaking into the mic. MS. SIRACUSA: Okay, well before you were there and the mic was there. CHR. ADAMS: You have six minutes. MS. SIRACUSA: Alright. My name is Rene' Siracusa. I live in the Pahoa area. I went online to the website yesterday and there was nothing on there after number 15, so all of these other items here were not available to the public. I just want you to know that. You have got a little notice issue here. I actually, I had comments about a whole lot of your proposals, but I will just limit it to some of them. Number five relating to changing the name, I don't understand why we should change the name unless we are also going to change the function because the name of government agencies and departments and positions should accurately reflect their functions, duties, and responsibilities. So if you are going to take away the word "legislative" then perhaps you will also be taking away that part of the auditor's function that looks at what the State legislature passes and how it might have to relate to County procedures like when the legislature mandates that the Counties do something or other. If there is no reason, if those functions aren't changing then I really see no need to change the name. You are... I don't see any place where you are making an argument in favor of any of these proposals, so it makes it a little bit difficult to address them if I don't know the reasoning of this Commission okay? I would like to talk about the terms for Council members. Previous attempts to return to four-year terms have been rejected at the ballot box. The reason is that the voting public wants to make sure that if they erred in their choice they will not be stuck with it for four whole years. An elected official can do a lot of damage to a system in even two years. Witness the current President of the United States. We have had Council persons who are alcoholics, who threw temper tantrums, and objects during Council meetings, who had a high absentee rate and failed to attend most Community functions, and who refused to represent their constituents by voting. I am ashamed to say that these examples were all from Puna. Fortunately we were not stuck with them for four-year terms. I hear the argument that two-year Page 4