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

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ASHIDA: I can get that for you, sir, or if you'd like to view the DVDs of the meetings that she's referring to, I could arrange that -- BURNS: - -the DVDs might be better, becauseI mean, you've heard my opinion, and you know what my position is. My position is that we as engineers are charged to uphold public health, safety, and welfare. In listening to Mr. Jacobson's statements, when he says that he is supposed to and that we don't have the same code of ethics. We have the exact same code of ethics. And that's where I have a problem, that he's, you know, telling the public that we're out there for profit, and, you know, we're not —our designs don't consider public health and safety, and our input to the code wouldn't be considering public health and safety. That's what my concern is. That's where my issues are. I don't think it's proper and appropriate for a public official to take a whole group of people and say, you know, to impugn their ethics when saying he's not intending to. I think that's doublespeak and I think that it's not in the best interest of anybody, to state that I'm not intending to impugn your ethics, but you don't have the same ethics as me. You know, it justit upset me. We deal with the public all the time, and I think that it would be nice if we could all work together to get codes and laws passed that provide —you know, for everybody to give input in a fair and impartial manner, without the Council spitting back nonsense at us CHAIR: - -And, since I'm a lay person, I'm not familiar with the process that you're talking about. Your interaction with the Council is because? BURNS: Well, they're proposing to amend Bill 51, which is regarding Chapter 27 of the flood control ordinance of the County of Hawaii. The Public Works director submitted some amendments that were required to bring the Hawaii County in compliance with FEMA, the national flood insurance program. Without these amendments being passed by September, we would be in jeopardy of losing flood insurance, which means if we get a hurricane, we get a disaster, we get a tsunami, there's no federal assistance. So the code was originally introduced to make sure we're in compliance and will qualify for flood insurance. The councilmembers introduced a whole lot of amendments, like about 16 or 20 amendments, to this code that are very technical in nature and that probably are not in the best interests of the public from an engineer's standpoint. We had testimony from, I don't know, maybe 30 or 40 people, not only engineers—it was NRCS, National Resource Conservation Service that people. There was Army Corps of Engineers, there was FEMA. There was testimony after testimony. I think there was four committee meetings and one full Council meeting where testimony was provided. CHAIR: And you're employed by? BURNS: Myself. CHAIR: And are you a registered lobbyist? 25