2006-09-11 Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission Minutes (Kona Mtg)

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10 thousand people, it's against what the people were promised by signing the initiative petition. Ms. Hecht stated she wanted to tell the Commission since they voted unanimously to support this. Ms. Hecht stated if they follow the logic, because they inadvertently left of the language 214 -D, the open space commission language that forms this body is after that too, what does it do to this body? Ms. Self stated she needed to respond so the Commission could understand the legal part of this since it was a legal interpretation. Ms. Self stated the way it's written, it says, "Chapter 2, Article 42, Section 2 -214 is amended to read as follows." Ms. Self stated when you say that and you make changes to the code, you are putting in all your changes and when you see that Section D is left out, you are amending the entire section. It does not apply to 215 because they don't mention any amendments to 2 -215 so when they say anything below, they are talking about within Section 2 -214 because you are not making any amendments to 2 -215. Ms. Self stated it was not a deliberate attempt of the administration's part, Connie's part or Lincoln's part. It's merely interpreting what was in the bill. Ms. Hecht replied she respectfully disagreed and interpreting was exactly the right word. Where it stated, new materials underlined and material to be deleted is bracketed and stricken, so the intent was there. Ms. Hecht agreed that it was a legal interpretation. Ms. Self stated there was case law that supported this and nobody wanted it to fail. They were shocked that it was left out. Ms. Self asked if they had an attorney draft the bill. Ms. Hecht stated not really and that they couldn't afford an attorney all the time. Ms. Hecht stated they submitted this to the Corporation Counsel for their approval and they received it back with no mention that it needed to be the entire ordinance. Ms. Self stated that it didn't have to be the entire ordinance, it had to be the entire section because if she read it, she would think that they intended to leave out "d" because they are amending the entire 2 -214; that part of the code, not the 215. That was the legal interpretation and a legal document. Ms. Garovoy stated she was interested because they ran this by the Corporation Counsel and it was her understanding just from conversations in the community that this group had met with the County a couple of times before this petition was circulated, in order to ensure that it conformed to whatever the requirements were for an appropriate petition, so it struck her as being possible that there might be an argument about getting that kind of advice from an official who knows better; someone who represents the County in these kinds of things. Ms. Self stated they don't represent this group and when they gave them the ordinance that they wrote, her understanding was that Deputy Corporation Counsel Leithead -Todd gave them technical advice. She was not there to advise them on what to put in the bill or what to take out. 3