2007-06-13 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular Session mc

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testimony on any item on the agenda. So by all means, please know that you are free to testify on any of those two items. However, I wish to advise you that in speaking with the chairman, there's a significant likelihood that the Board will not hear or decide either of these items, either the petition against Mr. Jacobson or the petition against Ms. Nae`ole today. In other words, like I said, you're free to offer testimony, but perhaps it'll be at another meeting, perhaps a month from now or even inside of that, that the Board will actually convene in public like this to actually take evidence and to hear testimony. So the option is yours. You could testify today, but also know that if you prefer to offer your testimony at the time, on the date, that the Board actually investigates and adjudicates those matters, perhaps you may wish to consider testifying on that day. So knowing that, perhaps, Mr. Chairman, you have the list of testifiers— CHAIR: - -Yes ASHIDA: - -I take it, and as you call them up you can ask whether they'd like to offer testimony today or wait until the day that the Board actually investigates these cases. Does that sound okay, Mr. Chairman? CHAIR: That's what I had in mind. Thank you. ASHIDA: Okay. Go ahead. CHAIR: Mr. Pranke? PRANKE: I'll testify today. In going over—my name is Del Pranke, from Hawaiian Beaches. In going over the particular request from the Corporation Counsel for this petition number 2007 -04, it came to my attention that this does not meet, as far as I can see, the requirements of the Code of Ethics. The Code of Ethics has one section, 2 -86, called informal advisory opinions. And under that section, there are two ways that a petition can be brought to you. And your petition form that people fill out to petition shows how those work. There are actually a subset of ways that that can be done. The inquirera person can ask about their own conduct, I'm doing this, can you tell me if that's right. And then the second is that any person can ask about conduct concerning someone else. In this case, Mr. Ashida I'm afraid—my friend Mr. Ashida has parsed the rules a little bit too much. As he's fond of telling us, you have to read the entire law. You can't just take parts of it. When he talked about Article 14, Section 14 -5A of the Charter, the Hawaii County Charter, that's not the Code of Ethics. The Code of Ethics is in the Hawaii County Code. That's the enabling part. But it says that you -- County officials —that you can interpret the Code of Ethics for County officials, etc. And that's true. 28613 I'm sorry. In section 286, you are allowed to do that. But it's in context of either of these two kinds of requests being put in. And then a little later here, in Rule 4.2 of the Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Board, requires that a request for an advisory opinion may be implemented by a third person other than the officer or employee involved in the request. And that's true, too. 2