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

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing April 1, 2019 terms force elected officials to spend too much time in fundraising and campaigning to the neglect of the performance of their duties. That may be true in some cases, but there is another and better solution to that and that is publically funded elections. It is too bad that this Commission missed a great opportunity to deal with that possible alternative as a solution. Moving on to number nine relating to the PONC fund and the maintenance fund for the public access. I served on the PONC and I totally support the change because we discovered over the course of my tenure that Parks and Rec (Recreation) was not the correct venue to do the oversight. They had neither the will, the interest, the expertise, or the staffing. Finance did. And so, but if we move it over to Finance, of course Finance needs the staff in order to adequately do their oversight job. The wording is unclear. Right now it just says "staff" and that can be misconstrued. I believe you should change the wording to "just one dedicated staff position" to make it really clear so no one goes ahead and hires ten people to do the job of one and uses all the money in the fund just in payroll and benefits. It is always best to make things really clear. That is part of transparency. I am a big fan of transparency. Relating to the establishing the disaster and the emergency fund. There is no question that the County should not be caught short in the future and that we should be prepared. The proposed fund will limit itself to covering the expenses of the County departments and agencies in dealing with emergency situations, but there is a big omission here. The impacted residents. The fund will use one percent of our tax dollars but there is no provision for using any of it to help the taxpayers who may have no other remedy. I will support this as a first step in establishing a fund but I really feel strongly that it needs to do much more than what is proposed. You will need a Chapter two. Please don't forget the funders of this fund who are the taxpayers who may need to access that fund. And finally, there is an issue that you guys completely missed. The Commission has missed an opportunity to address the failure of this and previous Administrations to fill all Boards and Commissions. Some like the Arborist Advisory Committee have not been constituted for more than 10 years. A violation of State law. Administration should be required to fill all Boards and Commissions within six months, so that the work of government can proceed. Perhaps we need a default rule such as if the Mayor fails to act to fill any Board or Commission within six month of taking office, then the respective Council person may fill the position so that his or her district is represented. And so that the Board or Commission may begin to meet. At present, until all nine slots are filled, the Board or Commission will not be allowed to meet, even if it has quorum, which is the five members. So the Administration then can play political games with this issue and support its own agenda if for example a particular Administration doesn't care for the work of a particular Board or Commission and a... Page 5