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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 15 of 37
<br />know, how does this make for good government versus, gee, I think this one sounded great but it’s, you
<br />know, emotional but it doesn’t translate to good government? Was there a process in that or -? And
<br />maybe I’m not making myself clear.
<br />L’ORANGE: John, I think the Commissioners voted their conscience. They did their homework, they
<br />did their reading, they listened to the department heads, they listened to the public, and they voted what
<br />they felt from the information that they had was appropriate. And we had good discussion on the floor. I
<br />said Bob was an excellent chairman. We had disagreements; it was never personal. But we had good
<br />discussion. I think you, as Commissioners, got to go with your conscience. There’s no simple answer to
<br />that that, you know, public input is -, comes in when they vote on it, yes or no, I mean, that’s the final,
<br />you know, final say. You can’t tell from what comes in public hearings -, really a read of what’s, you
<br />know, what’s out there. You may have ten -, you’ve been on the Council, ten people scream against it,
<br />and you have all kinds of other people that, you know, that don’t.
<br />SANTANGELO: I think that’s why I asked that question, Pete, because on a Council and in politics, you
<br />know, the hardest thing for me to learn, that was perception was the reality. But I felt like here on the
<br />Commission, we’re not elected, and so where’s our accountability? And I keep looking at myself being
<br />accountable to working with this group to create good government. And this is a Charter that’s been
<br />around for a while, so I, you know, I don’t see how it needs a huge bunch of -. You know, case in point,
<br />you got a Fire Commission. I struggle with what is a Fire -? Because this was brought up when John and
<br />I were on the Council, and it’s like how does that translate or relate to how a Police Commission works,
<br />where you’re dealing with -. I mean firemen don’t arrest people and deal, you know -, so it’s just getting
<br />that information. But that was my main thing is -.
<br />So it sounds like you guys got your information, you held each other accountable to get your
<br />background and be informed, and then you had your discussion. When it came to putting something on
<br />the ballot, did you go for pretty much a majority vote, I mean a major majority, or was there something
<br />that was like -? How often did it come real close?
<br />L’ORANGE: Simple. Single member district was 6-5, I think.
<br />YUEN: No, no. no.
<br />BETHEA: Seven-four.
<br />L’ORANGE: Seven-four? Seven-four, yeah.
<br />YUEN: Seven-four, yeah. Well, you have to have, to put something on the ballot, you need a majority of
<br />the 11; you need six votes. If six people vote for it, it goes on the ballot. That’s -.
<br />HERKES: Simple arithmetic.
<br />YUEN: Yeah.
<br />SANTANGELO: But it wasn’t like a jury thing where you tried to get everybody to buy into this thing?
<br />YUEN: I think maybe there was some attempt to arrive at consensus. I think whenever you’re sitting in
<br />a group like this, and where there’s a degree -, and I think the people on the last Commission, there was
<br />certainly respect for everybody’s viewpoint. So if -, you know, there were things where it had been
<br />talked out and people were going to definitely not come to a complete agreement, but I think there were
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