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you know, say in public to the Court. But if there are more detailed questions that the
<br />Commission would want to ask about any of this, any of this that may bear on the likelihood of,
<br />you know, you’ll be overturned, we should go into executive session for that.
<br />But my general impressions of this is, number one, with respect to the application of Robert’s
<br />Rules, it does form the basis for your general meeting procedure; but as has been mentioned,
<br />when you are dealing with a contested case, it’s a little different from, in fact it’s a lot different
<br />from, you know, just a meeting where you are dealing with the interests of the members; you are
<br />dealing with the interests of the applicant and third parties. So the Hawaii Law is basically
<br />geared to allow for contested case procedures where you allow evidence to come in, and you
<br />make a decision based on that record evidence. And the Hawaii Law also, both the Case Law
<br />and the Statute, and the Charter require your decisions to be made by five votes, up or down, not
<br />by default, generally speaking. Having said that, what is the role of Robert’s Rules in this kind
<br />of situation, basically, if you go back to the rules themselves, I think generally when you look at
<br />all of these rules in context, Robert’s does allow for renewals of a motion at a later session, and
<br />does allow for different motions, new motions. And the rules that limit reconsideration are
<br />basically designed to prevent a loosing party from kind of filibustering things by bringing up the
<br />same motion again and again at the same session or meeting. And so overall I would have to say
<br />that even if Robert’s Rules did apply, that it would still allow for a motion either to deny or to
<br />approve to be brought up again. It would not make sense to apply Robert’s Rules in a way that
<br />would say that, well, you know, you failed to pass one motion, therefore you cannot bring up that
<br />motion ever again, when you still have time under your Rules. Again, the purpose of your
<br />contested case procedure is to allow for an informed decision made on the record with five votes
<br />one way or the other. So I think that is the gist of what I would say. And so again if you have
<br />specific questions that you need to ask regarding the likelihood of success or failure on appeal,
<br />then we should go into executive session for that. Thank you.
<br />GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Torigoe. I might also ask you as far as what’s our order
<br />of business right now, do we proceed on the merits of the application and by the manner in
<br />which we proceed essentially abide by or not abide by Mr. Matsukawa’s contention, or do we
<br />sort of making an official decision on our own whether we think that contention is valid?
<br />TORIGOE: Right. If we are considering this as a written request, then there should be
<br />some kind of disposition by the Commission. If you basically follow what I have just said, you
<br />would have a motion that would deny the request; and the request being basically to limit the
<br />motions in order to, a denial of the application or to table or postpone. So that’s basically what I
<br />would recommend as a motion at this point to deny the request to limit the motions that are in
<br />order to denial of the application or to table or postpone.
<br />GRAHAM: Okay. Commissioner Iwashita, do you have a comment?
<br />IWASHITA: I have a procedural concern and that is, I guess one of the, given the vote
<br />last time, one of the possible outcomes today is that the application may be denied either by a
<br />vote or by failure to, for five votes to go forward. And because it’s a contested matter, my
<br />concern is that, and I’m not – I’m trying to think here. Have we met the statutory requirements
<br />for proposed Findings of Fact on a denial? If the result of this is a denial, and it’s not by vote but
<br />by the fact that there can’t be five votes, you know, for an approval, I’m wondering if we need to
<br />have proposed Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law prepared and submitted, and then have the
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