MIN CHARTER 2019-06-21 (2018-2020)

Home

Hawai`i County Charter Commission -11 June 21, 2019 CHR. ADAMS: Thanks. Do you have...Commissioner Galimba? Commissioner Bergin. MR. BERGIN: Do you want to go first? MS. GALIMBA: Go ahead. Go ahead. MR. BERGIN: I have two points. I think maybe wording that would be a little bit more... less impassive, I think Sally expressed the term "some of us", but I think a term like "expressing fiscal caution" is one part of that equation. Where... how can we continue to do this and serve those commissions? Now on the other hand if our government is to serve the people and in our lifetimes we have seen the number of commissions really expand in numbers, and when you stop and look at the common sense of what they did, the Fire Department without the Fire Commission, was handled in a manner that was not consistent with good fiscal management. And on the other hand, take the... and I am sure the Chairman is correct, I think we have kind of a Wildlife Advisory Committee, I am not sure if that's the term, but now the hunters have a legitimate voice, they have a mechanism and we gotta be grateful for what they are expressing because if you drive to Kona you are going to see an awful lot of feral goats and that is just one species. That they can play a big part of saving our environment. So I think because of those two points, I am not so worried about it. I think we could soften it a little bit to be more like expressing the caution, fiscal caution. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Commissioner Galimba. MS. GALIMBA: So following on a bit from Commissioner Bergin's statements, I can see that the reduction of government flexibility can become a problem, so perhaps we could... I am not sure how to... how the process is here and I don't know that I can wordsmith something right here, right now, but perhaps some language along the lines of "Commission struggled with the"... obviously struggled might not be the right word, but "discussed government, you know, financial flexibility, need for financial flexibility in balance with targeted funding that fulfills the desires of the people", or something... something along those lines, and that we have some discussion that we have just had right here today that kind of reflects that kind of tension between commissions also would be a really important participatory mechanism for the people to have a say in their government and how the money is funded versus then getting too specific and sort of tying our own hands to respond to the Administration's ability to respond to necessary expenditures, such as emergencies. So I was just thinking about that. It is perhaps an amendment that we could make to the language. Page 14