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Page 9 of 11 <br />that. One of the things that intrigues me about that and I’d ask you for your input and I was a little <br />surprised by your opposition of that, was we were often saying, in terms of the present Mayor, he didn’t <br />have a majority and these elections didn’t win by a majority. Well, in a nonpartisan, anybody could get <br />into the primary but the two major vote collectors moves into a general if no one gets 50% and then you <br />have a clear majority winner. How do you address that? What’s your feeling? <br />BOB JACOBSON: <br />Well actually, if you look at the nonpartisan races across the United States, there’s almost as many <br />different kind of nonpartisan races as there are forms of government so there’s not any one particular <br />kind. Your point’s well taken. I looked at the first, when I thought about nonpartisan elections, I thought <br />this is an easy solution to things but as you delve into it a little more deeper, other factors come up like <br />campaign donations and funding and the parties are still there and they will still be supporting certain <br />candidates in those power blocs that you all well know exist, are going to be doing the back room <br />support and those efforts that actually usually involve a lot of money, quite honestly because we all <br />know how much these campaigns cost so it isn’t quite as simple as that because initially when I first <br />heard of nonpartisan elections, I went "hey, great" but actually learn as much as you can about them and <br />it’s not such an easy fix as one might think and I don’t know how each of you feel about it but certainly <br />delve into it a little more deep than just looking at the surface of it because there are some complicated <br />aspects of it. <br />RAY: Ms. Herkes has a question. <br />HERKES: I don’t know how I feel about it either but I’m investigating as fast as I can. Are you aware <br />that we are the only county in the state that does not have nonpartisan elections now? <br />BOB JACOBSON: <br />Yes I am. <br />HERKES: And so that gives us some experience with the other counties who have all chosen to go <br />nonpartisan. They have all voted in favor of nonpartisan elections so I’m doing as much homework as I <br />can to find out why they did that. Why the other counties have made a decision that that’s the best way <br />to go so I think there are a lot of us involved in partisan politics in a lot of different ways and I share <br />some of your concerns and I thank you for expressing them but we are trying to do our homework and <br />find out why the other counties have done that. <br />BOB JACOBSON: <br />But certainly before you go into this, there is all these other aspects of it that come into play and look a <br />little bit further abroad than just say, Oahu and Kauai, where really it came up - <br />HERKES: I want to look to Maui really. They just did it. <br />BOB JACOBSON: <br />And I think there are other areas that you should look at also in terms of that. It’s not a simple issue. <br />RAY: Okay, thanks Bob. Kathy Dorn. And Kathy’s the last speaker signed up so if anyone else would <br />like to sign up to speak this evening, please do so. <br />file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 6-16-99.html7/1/2011 <br /> <br />