1999-05-12 Charter Commission Minutes

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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 19 of 37 information as we could from department heads, people in government, and the public, so that we could understand what might be best suited for this County. We weren’t going out and just testing the wind with the public. I don’t mean to say that -, I’m not implying that you don’t listen to the public, but I don’t think that’s where the real source of information is going to come. You’re going to listen -. It’s really understanding how County government works, how the budget works, all of this other types of things, and then trying to figure out a methodology which best suits here. And so it’s like the average person in the public, if they come up and testify, they don’t really -, they haven’t been exposed to, hopefully, the volume of material that you’ve been exposed to. It’s the whole thing about representative government. You’re supposed to spend some time and consider all of these and look at the various alternatives and come up with a recommendation. And I think if you’ve done it right, that if people in the public went through the same process you went through, they would probably have the same answer, but they don’t have that answer initially. So that’s why without disrespecting the public, I felt that the solutions are going to be generated by the discussions among yourselves based on the information which you received, which includes the public, but it’s not the biggest portion of it. L’ORANGE: Bob set the tone for our meetings, I think, my memory is getting jogged, is that we had to educate ourselves. That was the most important thing we had to do. BETHEA: Right. L’ORANGE: We had to educate ourselves as to what was in the Charter. And we had some academic types who came in with academic scenarios about different forms of government, not talking about County of Hawaii but talking about -, I don’t remember who they were but I -. BETHEA: John Van Dyke from the University Law School, I think. YUEN: Uh huh, right. BETHEA: We had some -, remember that? BESS: Was that helpful? L’ORANGE: Oh, yeah. BESS: And was that early on before you even solicited any material from the government? L’ORANGE: I think the Chair scheduled things as they were available. Wasn’t that sort of -? BETHEA: I can’t remember. I can’t remember why we had John Van Dyke. We did have him in, didn’t we? YUEN: Uh huh. BESS: Which raises the issue of, you know, like background material, and you’ve got four folders full of stuff. How was that generated? What kind of staff did you have to help you in assembling that? Was that your function, Chris, or -? YUEN: Well, some of it is mine. There was a secretary that did -, would gather all the press clippings and prepare the minutes, and I think, to some extent, I don’t remember who had gone and copied the charters of the other counties, and somebody went and dug up some mainland material as well, and I’m file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 5-12-99.html7/1/2011