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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 15 of 41
<br />size of this department, and I think it’s, you know, crazy that we don’t have more professional
<br />qualifications for that.
<br />As far as the Department of Human Services, I’m more than piqued by that. I’m interested in it. You
<br />know, I’ve done a lot of work, you know, with Maui County over the past few years, and they have a
<br />really different kind of organization there and they combine the Department of Housing and Human
<br />Services. And there wasn’t anybody even in Maui that, you know, knew exactly how that came about
<br />and, you know, why they did that. But they have a very active and dynamic Department of Housing and
<br />Human Services, and the Human Service ends, end, rather, you know, I think offers a lot of advantages
<br />to the County, especially in terms of grant writing and, you know, real positive advocacy for, you know,
<br />fund-raising and doing a lot of things, so I think that’s certainly something worth exploring, so I
<br />appreciate that comment.
<br />And I did note that you included here one, you know, another item, a mention of a Fire Commission or
<br />whatever, and I’m sure that’s going to come up as a comment from the public, and so I appreciate that,
<br />as well. So, if there are no other questions for Ms. Tulang, thank you very much for coming. Just so you
<br />know, when we get into our more formal review of the Charter section by section, we’ll ask you to come
<br />back and be available for questions as we, you know, get into discussing that.
<br />TULANG: Okay.
<br />RAY: So thank you.
<br />TULANG: You’re welcome. Thank you.
<br />RAY: Next, we have Mr. Takahashi from the Finance Department. And we have written material being
<br />passed out right now.
<br />TAKAHASHI: Good afternoon. I took a slightly different approach to preparing, you know, some
<br />information for you. I looked at the Charter as still a valid document that, you know, is still functional.
<br />And looking at your task, I thought -, I didn’t want to clutter it with too many housekeeping measures
<br />for fear that, you know, the general public may get confused, because I did not know what your major
<br />issues would be. But, however, what I did was I just cited a few obvious inconsistencies that, you know,
<br />I saw, like the vacancy in office where, you know, it still has provisions that were carried over when the
<br />Council was a four-year term. Unless this body is going to address some effort to restore the Council
<br />from a two-year to four-year term, you know, then maybe you can clean that up.
<br />Then obviously, well, another section is one of the areas of duties of the Finance Director, it makes
<br />reference to an auditor. This County has not had an auditor in years. I think it’s a fall-back to the pre-
<br />Charter days and, subsequent to that, there’s been recognition of a Legislative Auditor. And more
<br />recently, you know, there’s been reference to a mandatory program reviews to be conducted by the
<br />Council that, you know, kind of overlap what maybe an auditor would do. And maybe that should be
<br />clarified, you know, because while there is mention of a Legislative Auditor, there’s mention of an
<br />auditor, there are no specific duties. So, you know, we could have two positions, one with the Council
<br />and one with the Mayor, going in similar directions, overlapping each other, for no reason, you know, at
<br />a time when, you know, money is tight. I just thought I’d bring that out to you because the Charter does
<br />reference -, Section 5-3.3 does make reference to an auditor.
<br />SANTANGELO: Where is that?
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