2009-09-23 Board of Ethics Minutes

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CHAIR: Okay, this meeting is back in order. Okay, thank you, everybody. We are now on agenda item number 2, Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. I will be calling up the people who have signed up, and this portion is limited to three minutes, so please make your point so we can fit everybody in. One more thing I'd like to ask as Chair. We've got a lot of people here today if we could make sure that we're respectful and courteous to the Board and to the folks giving testimony today. Call up first Joyce Folena. And if you could state your name. Thank you. FOLENA: How close do you want this microphone to be? SECRETARY: Right there is fine. FOLENA: About like that? My name is Joyce Folena. I'm a resident of Puna District. I've lived in Hawaii nearly 26 years, and I'm speaking in favor of the Board adopting Ordinance 08 -57 into your rules of procedure, giving you the power to impose and collect fines that you would decree of not more than $1, 000 per each violation committed by a officer of the County of Hawai `i. This ordinance has been languishing for sixteen and a half months. I've spoken to Renee Schoen about it. I've spoken to Mary Crosson about it. They've been very helpful and very courteous. I'm not an attorney, so I don't really understand the ins and outs of the legal standards necessary to adopt this ordinance. I do understand from the newspaper that Mayor Billy Kenoi is in favor of penalties being imposed by the Board of Ethics, and most of the people that I've spoken to are saying well, why do we have a Board of Ethics if all you guys do is vote and give your opinions but you don't give penalties? So that makes you, in a lot of people 's minds, dysfunctional. I would hope that with the adoption of 08 -57 into your rules of procedure and I understand that there has to bean agency of appeals created so that and that's all in fairness and that's within our law within our United States ofAmerica. If you're found guilty of something, you have the right to appeal it, so I'm wholeheartedly in approval of this, and I think that enough time has gone by that I think the County can get it together to create this agency of appeals. There's something else going on in HRS. Mrs. Schoen would have to explain the details of what the County is lobbying HRS to lighten up some kind of restrictions, or some kind of legal details, making it easier for you to adopt this ordinance 08 -57 into your rules of procedure. I understand that there are also —there are two bills that are going to run through again in the next legislative session, and one bill which was defeated last year, which will probably be given a new number. I don 't know if it will or not. ButMrs. Schoen is the lady that I think, and I do request, say into the record, exactly what needs to be done, because Mrs. Schoen understands it, being an attorney. That's it. CHAIR: All right, thank you. FOLENA: Thank you. CHAIR: I'll call up next Gregory Smith. SMITH: My name's Gregory Smith. I reside in the district ofPuna, and I'm very much in favor of adopting fines and for councilmembers or any other public official that goes 2