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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 33 of 37
<br />statutory.
<br />YOSHIYAMA: Oh, okay.
<br />YAMASHIRO: And then you have those that are appointed by the Mayor but terminate with my office.
<br />So Committee of Status of Women and some of those, you know, the Bicycle Safety and that kind, a lot
<br />of those just go away with the Mayor. The Charter provides that you can appoint as many as you want.
<br />But the statutory commissions generally deal with the Police Department, Civil Service, Water. I think
<br />they serve a purpose.
<br />YOSHIYAMA: Okay. Thank you.
<br />RAY: Yeah, along those same lines, you know, it’s interesting, obviously, I had never read the Charter, I
<br />didn’t realize which departments were until I got on this Commission, as far as, you know, what Gary
<br />was saying, as far as the agencies under the Mayor versus, you know, under the Managing Director, and
<br />I doubt very few people are aware of that. I think most people assume that you’re directly in charge of,
<br />you know, all those departments as well as those agencies. But I don’t know, somehow that just doesn’t
<br />particularly make sense to me that why the Managing Director would be Public Works, Parks and Rec,
<br />Fire, versus Finance Department or the Planning Department or -.
<br />YAMASHIRO: I think if you really look at them structurally, what it is is those that deal with broad
<br />policy issues, where the finances are under the Mayor, the ones that deliver the service on a day-to-day
<br />basis, that actually deal with the public, are under the Managing Director, you know.
<br />RAY: But -, okay. But practically speaking, in terms of issues that we’re dealing with today, say solid
<br />waste and whatever, does that still seem to make sense to you or -? Solid waste comes to mind as that’s
<br />st
<br />such a major public policy issue now as far as handling solid waste in the 21 Century, right, and you
<br />know, so it’s not just pick up the trash and throw it in a hole now.
<br />YAMASHIRO: No, it’s a major concern, but basically, once we’ve decided on a protocol for handling
<br />it, it’s going to be gone for the next 20 years. It’s just what are we going to do? Are we going to landfill
<br />it? If this plasma arc furnace really works, then we probably have our solution. They can do it for $50 a
<br />ton. We could generate electricity, eliminate waste, and get rid of most of what we generate here,
<br />including plastic and tires so -. And once that happens, maybe you don’t really need a Solid Waste
<br />Department, all you need is trucks.
<br />RAY: Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Okay, well, thanks very much and thanks for -.
<br />YAMASHIRO: Thank you.
<br />RAY: All the help in, you know, soliciting the input from the departments. And we are going to start -,
<br />next week, we are going to meet with a couple of the departments, and then later today, we’re going to
<br />discuss how we’re going to -.
<br />YAMASHIRO: I think you could probably schedule more departments per day than you think because -.
<br />HERKES: They’re going to be short?
<br />YAMASHIRO: They’ve been skinnied up a little bit.
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