2010-01-13 Board of Ethics Minutes

Home

(2) the contract is for Special Duty Services of the Hawaii County Police Department; or (3) the County agency or officer or employee obtains approval by the Board of Ethics to enter into such contract; or (4) the contract is awarded in accordance with subsection (b). The rest of the Contracts section would retain its current wording except that (a) would become (b) and (b) would become (c). Ms. Nicholson was concerned about how it would work for someone submitting a sealed bid for a contract, but who also needed to seek the Board's approval. She was also concerned about the timeline for someone to submit a bid if he also needed to seek the Board's approval, since the Board meets only once a month and must follow Sunshine Law requirements in agendizing matters. Ms. Schoen encouraged the members to feel free to revise her proposals as they saw fit. The Chair stated that his intent was to respond to the Mayor's proposals in February. Everyone had been working hard and racking their brains to come up with good language. He wanted the Board's approval for Ms. Schoen and him to work on drafting a letter to the Mayor for the Board to review at its February meeting. The Chair said he had met with the Mayor recently and got the impression that he had brought his proposals to the Board out of courtesy and will probably present them as they are to the Council, regardless of the Board's response. The Board discussed how to respond to the Mayor. They agreed to thank him for the proposals and acknowledge his concerns. However, they also wanted to make it clear that they were concerned with his proposals, explain why, and suggest he consider their alternative language. Ms. Gentry said they should submit their proposed language to the Mayor. Since the Board was the first realm for public debate and testimony, the bulk of which supported the Mayor's proposals, it should be explained that they had studied and discussed each proposal and foresaw the likelihood of negative ramifications. People should not be denied the opportunity to contract with the County as long as they are legitimate and above board. Ms. Schoen explained that the Board's proposed Section 2- 85(3), which involved getting the Board's approval, was a catch -all condition. In such a case, the Board would look over other applicable code sections, such as the Fair Treatment and Conflicts of Interests sections, to see if they would have any bearing on the contract. Ms. Gentry said that for small contracts, such as teaching an ukulele class, the County agency involved should also have due diligence in advertising and seeing who else is available so that the perception the Mayor is worried about is not actualized. The Chair said a lot of it comes back to one of the Board's initial concerns when they first started looking at the Mayor's proposals: the amount of qualified people to contract with. The more limitations placed on contractors, employees, and officers, the smaller the pool of rd