2007-09-21 TD-BAR - Laserfiche WebLink

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opportunity to file exceptions and to present argument to the Commissioners, and to point out to the Commission the parts of the record that should be considered. And then the Commission can go ahead and make a decision. Also, it should be kept in mind that the parties can agree to waive any part of those procedures. Historically the Commission has treated the Director’s recommendation as kind of a proposed decision and has proceeded on that basis. And that’s one of the things that parties could also agree, you know, is to say okay we’re going to use the recommendation as a proposed decision. So basically as the Chair has stated, there are a couple of things that need to be decided. One is whether an appeal should be taken. Whether or not to do that is probably something that if you have questions of me as to the advisability of that it should be asked in executive session.But, you know, you know what basically the Court is asking, the Court is basically asking that we adhere a little more carefully to Rule 4-23 and HRS 91-11. You know, there’s not much I can say against that. So, I guess, Mr. Chairman, maybe if you can see if anybody is inclined to want to appeal, then if there isn’t any such inclination that we just leave it at that. GRAHAM: Fine. Thank you, Mr. Torigoe. Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Torigoe, as I understand it, this is being remanded to us basically on procedural issues. And I would think it would be foolish to appeal procedural issues. We ought to argue on the facts of the case, rather than trying to appeal a procedural decision. GRAHAM: Go ahead, Mr. Torigoe. TORIGOE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, you know, if there was a really, what shall we say, if there is a procedural decision from the Third Circuit Court that you felt was really difficult to live with or that you felt was just plain wrong, then you could appeal the procedural issue. At this point basically the Court is saying just be more careful with Rule 4-23 and 91-11 and proceed to the merits. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Torigoe. Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Well, I would like to move that we go into executive session so that we can get a candid recommendation from Mr. Torigoe about the best way to proceed. GRAHAM: Well, Mr. Torigoe suggested that we can do that. Mr. Torigoe suggested we see first if there’s anybody that has an inclination to appeal. If there’s nobody that has an inclination to appeal then probably we don’t need to do that now. If we want to go executive session about some other issue later, we can always do that. Is that okay? WOODWARD: Okay, that’s fine. EXHIBIT B 5