2011-01-14 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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certain by isolating us in a position for four years at our level that we do that. And if somehow while it’s a bother, it’s a pain, it’s also an advantage if the council members do it correctly. And I’m not saying my approach is the best approach. But you know what every two year does? It forces me to walk my neighborhoods and knock on doors. Oh my, imagine council man actually going down and knocking on doors. I don’t think that’s bad. And after some of the back and forth we’ve had, council reorganization and everything else, council credibility, credibility of government, our county government at all levels is questioned by the people, certainly in my district. I’ve heard an ear full. So if I waited for another two years to get out there and try to do that, I’m not certain I’d be assisting in having a more effective and a more credible county government. MS. NICHOLSON: Thank you. MR. ARMOUR: Going back to the discussion about the statewide negotiation of contracts. One of the things that amazed me was the pay for each counties is exactly the same for the same worker, same amount of time, same job. MR. HOFFMANN: Would that they do that, Mr. Armour, for council members, huh. MR. ARMOUR: So, coming from the mainland, living in Colorado, Denver had higher taxes. The property values were a lot higher and the pay was a lot higher. 50 miles away in a smaller town, huge county, had a lot lower pay for their employees. And it just made sense that the county employees as well as the private sector employees got paid to kind of to the cost of living and also for the job they’re doing. So I was kind of shocked that especially on this island pays the same wages as Honolulu. MR. HOFFMANN: Yeah. And that’s one of the advantages that I see of county collective bargaining instead of statewide, particularly on things exactly like that. You’ve hit the very common disadvantage of our current, one of the disadvantages of our current system and how it reflects and how it could save the county considerable money. That’s true. Again, there are a number of things we can do, you can do as a commission, in addition to trying to look at that. And I think that’s an issue that’s gotta work through our state legislators. That’s something we get, everyone from the Senate and the Leg together in a caucus and say, look, let’s see what we can do here. Tough issue. As I said, I honestly don’t know how Mayor Kenoi would look at that. I do think it would be looked upon very favorably by individual council members though. MR. ARMOUR: Another question, since I’ve move here, the Building Department seems to be a little hang up on getting permits issued for people to start construction. And I would think that in a slow time like now, they could become more efficient and allow the people to start building quicker which would cause more jobs being had and the revenue would be coming in to the state. We have friends that have been waiting three to four months on a simple change to get approved before they start construction. We’ve had other people say that they’ve waited over a year to get from the initial type of their plans to when they get approved. And looking at the houses, they’re not looking like something that hasn’t been built a hundred times before. You have any comments about that? 15