2021-09-09 Redistricting Commission minutes (2nd Session)

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MELLON-LACEY: That would be the six days which complies with your internal rules, but it does not comply with the statutory provision of 91-3. It says that that applies to agencies, however in 91-1 of the Hawaiʻi Revised Statute, an agency means state or county board, commission, department, or officer authorized by law to make rules or to adjudicate contested cases, and so, we do come under that definition of agency. So, that was what I wanted to point out. I guess I would also like to just add quickly too that your Rules as they stand under voting, do give the Chair discretion in how he handles voting, and perhaps the latitude could be construed as already being contained there. I’m sorry. It's item number VI of your Rules, Voting Procedure: The method of voting shall be determined by the Chairperson of the Commission provided that if a vote is not unanimous, the Chairperson shall announce the names of those members voting in the minority, and those who are absent. It goes on from there, ultimately to say that you have to vote, but the Chairperson could elect, I think, to provide more time if someone wasn’t ready to vote when they were called, if you want to enact something more quickly. Otherwise, it would be my suggestion that we would have to table this for any kind of vote until the next meeting, and actually have a brief public hearing, prior to that meeting, to allow anyone who wanted to provide testimony about this rule change. To have that opportunity, and so that we could post the proposed rule change 30 days prior to that meeting. Thank you. KOSSOW: Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Yes, thank you for that feedback. I propose that you take that under advisement, Chair, under that latitude within the existing rule. It’s rather annoying to me, excuse me. We are under an extremely tight timeframe. We’ve been compressed into a very tight timeline, and this was brought up in the—what was it the March meeting? March meeting. I submitted language. It was vetted by Corporate Counsel. The language was written here according to what that feedback was, and now we hear that we really wasted all that time. Nothing happened because it got posted this late. I understand the comment about the public hearing. I didn’t realize that that was a requirement, but to come up—to wait till this time to bring this up, it’s just—well to me it’s annoying. That’s all. Thank you. KOSSOW: I think we can put that into consideration when we do a voting procedure under the Chair. And, I’ll take that recommendation from Corporation Counsel. Is there any other comment? Ms. Lui. LUI: Yeah. We’ve had extensive discussion of this in March and agreed with Mr. Lopez and it was simply a matter of writing the language. So, since we all agreed with that and the problem was that right now, the Rules say that if you abstain, that its counted as an aye and I don’t think the Chair has a right to change that. So, this is a somewhat significant change in the Rules. I would just say that we table it until the next meeting, and that we make it our first order of business, to vote on it. KOSSOW: Does the public hearing—it can be during the Commission meeting? 39