1999-05-26 Charter Commission Minutes

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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 14 of 42 HIGASHI: It seems like a lot of people who had written letters to the editor claimed it was a problem. It was a problem in the Hapuna one. WURDEMAN: Well, maybe not after the election’s over it may be a problem, but I distinctly remember discussing this with Mrs. Cohen at the time, and she agreed it said what it said and that’s how we put it on the ballot. HIGASHI: Maybe it’s something that we need to look at. SANTANGELO: Yeah, one of the things I just caution about, I don’t know if it was in a discussion with Chris or at one point, but one of the wisdoms of that is making sure that we know what the ground rules are going in, you know, in every case because if you’re not real clear, then it’s always going to be up to an argument. And I think the way it’s stated, is it’s going to be done this way, whoever initiates it. And, in a way, if you -, for me, as I got into it a little bit more, it seemed okay. It seems fair. Because that way you don’t have all this argument every damned time. If you’re going to go out and get a petition, if you’re going to do an initiative, before you even start your initiative drive, you’ve got an idea what you’re -, what the ground rules are. And it needs to be something like that, you know, so it goes the other way or it goes -, you know, it’s going to be no or it’s going to be yes, but whoever initiates it is the one that’s interested in it and knows what the rules are going in. And that part of it I -, there was, I felt, some wisdom in it and it appealed to me. Thank you. HERKES: So if you want, if you want -. HIGASHI: Moving on. I think it’s something that I would want to explore. HERKES: Yeah, because I -. HIGASHI: A little bit more. HERKES: If you wanted to vote against it, if you’re in favor of it, then you rank the petition that way. HIGASHI: Well, the Hapuna Beach initiative was just as confusing. IRVINE: It was the same way. HERKES: Yeah. IRVINE: And it’s every time that you’re voting for a change that it becomes a problem. On the other hand, it does say down here that there’s supposed to be an objective summary of the substance of the measure. I could have written two sentences that would have made it very clear how you were voting if that was what they wanted on the last ballot. WURDEMAN: What happened is -. IRVINE: You’d say you’re voting for a ban on an irradiator. You are voting against a ban on an irradiator. And that would have made it very clear to people. They didn’t have that. WURDEMAN: In the last election, there was an objective summary prepared, mostly by me but with some other people’s input, and it was sent up to Honolulu to be included on the ballot and the elections people in Honolulu said no, there’s no provision in State law for any such thing, and they wouldn’t put it file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 5-26-99.html7/1/2011