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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 6 of 37
<br />found, you know, helpful in terms of activities of the last Charter Commission. I’m -, personally, I’m
<br />particularly interested in any comments you might have about engaging the public, you know, just the
<br />whole subject of public input, you know, how to solicit public input, any thoughts you might have. But,
<br />you know, Bob do you want to lead off and -.
<br />BETHEA: Okay, I will. Can everybody hear me?
<br />RAY: Yeah.
<br />BETHEA: I got kind of a cold, so I’m losing my voice. Well, when you invited me, I wasn’t sure what I
<br />could contribute. And I thought about it over the past several days and I’m still not sure what I can
<br />contribute, but I will try. One of the things we benefitted from was having a very good attorney, Chris
<br />Yuen here. I mean, it really, it really was a help. He was very good at keeping himself out of the policy
<br />decisions, acting as an attorney. I might have applied for the job and asked for your consideration,
<br />because I think it’s an interesting job, but I don’t think I could have accomplished that. I’d be, you
<br />know, expressing my own opinions, etcetera, etcetera, and I don’t think that’s the role of counsel. And I
<br />think that’s one of the things you need to get straight with whoever you do have, what you -, the
<br />expectations that you do have, who’s counsel for the Committee.
<br />But anyway, I thought at least an appearance here would give me a further opportunity to disclaim any
<br />responsibility for single member districts or for the four-year term. Pete L’Orange over here, made that
<br />motion. No, Sherwood Greenwell made the motion, Pete seconded it. And I simply didn’t have the
<br />votes; that’s the real truth of it. It was me and the labor guys. And there’s a funny story attached to this.
<br />At the time, I didn’t favor the single member districts either, and our little group, which was a minority
<br />group, didn’t favor the single member district. But we thought, sure, if it’s coupled with a two-year term,
<br />that the voters couldn’t be so misguided that they would go for it. And so we thought both would go
<br />down in flames. In retrospect, for whatever it’s worth, I think the single member district was okay. But I
<br />think the two-year terms are ludicrous. I just think it’s very bad for County government. So we were just
<br />dead wrong in our analysis of what the public wanted.
<br />I think, as I was trying to think about what your role is when you first start off, I think you should get
<br />some information about some very basic questions. In other words, get some information about the basic
<br />style of government. Are you going to be having any interest at all in the City Manager type of
<br />situation? And you may decide that no, that just -, that’s not going to work for us in this County. And if
<br />you get some background work done, get it dug up and get it read, then at least you can put that in
<br />perspective if you get some testimony about it.
<br />The -, right now, we have what I think is generally considered a strong Mayor system because the
<br />Mayor has a veto; that’s the usual differentiation that I think of. And you have to decide, well, if we’re
<br />going to stick with the same kind of a system, do we want a strong Mayor with a veto? One of the things
<br />that was particularly disturbing to me was what I thought to be the disproportionate balance between the
<br />Mayor and the County Council with the County Council having the two-year terms and the Mayor
<br />having a four-year term. It just didn’t suit me. But I think that you got to get back at that and think about
<br />what you feel about it.
<br />Another basic question is should people run for Council on a nonpartisan basis? Is this party kind of a
<br />set-up at the County level, where you’re not dealing with international policy or even national policies,
<br />you’re dealing with things of less significance. And I think we have seen, just to venture my opinions,
<br />some very -, a lot of discord arising out of partisanship because of the system we had, and I’d rather see
<br />Council people line up philosophically rather than on the basis of party.
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