1999-06-23 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 3 of 12 LAWSON: Okay. I’m here as private citizen and I want everyone to be real clear about that but my life professionally is as a Human Service Administrator. I’m the Director of Kona Crafts. And as Ginger said, I am a little under the weather and my ears are plugged so I can’t even hear myself. I think that I would certainly welcome the specific attention to Human Services. I think that the County, although is normally involved in such activities as infrastructure -- sewers, roads -- those sorts of issues, needs to address and put on the table the idea that Human Services is in fact a very legitimate goal for the County to be involved in and that human assets are the most important assets that any of us have. They are certainly on equal with roads, certainly equal with all the other infrastructures that we go through. Con to that, playing my own devil’s advocate, would say ‘would that then require more administrative money to run a separate department?’ and take a look at where it sits now which I believe, is with the Legislative Auditor and combined with Human Services and Economic Development and looking at Human Services as a component of Economic Development is appropriate. I really strongly present to you that non profits are private businesses. That Human Service is the third sector as articulated by such lofty folks as Peter Drucker and other economists so I think it’s a good dialogue to have. I can’t tell you that I would recommend one over the other except to say that I think the dialogue needs to get out in the county; that it is worth continuing, putting County resources to developing our human potential. The other thing that my heart is really in to, so that I won’t take too much of the time, there’s two more issues. One is the idea of nonpartisan elections. We elect nine County Council people. The Mayor is also a public elected official. I haven’t been in this county very long, certainly not enough to say that I’ve been through the history here or anything but I do know the structure of what is a municipal corporation which would be the county government and if we continue to have that power struggle that goes on between elected officials, there will continue to be a significant log jam. I think that if we had a structure that said we elect nine County Council people, that we have a Managing Director who is accountable to someone which is the County Council then we could create a lot more efficiency in government and get a lot more bang for our buck. It’s a very much well accepted way to go about county government. I do this professionally but it also happens to have become a habit of mine, whatever, but other rural places, Wyoming, Kansas, other places that I know of, it just always remains the same. County structures usually aren’t large enough to carry their own separate elected Executive Department and the issue is accountability. And the other thing that I would like to talk about, I guess I have a whole list here but when the County talks about creating new commissions and you say you’re going to create a Fire Commission, I just would ask you to really look at what those commissions do that are separate from what already is being done. Every time we create a bureaucratic body, every time we create a new layer of bureaucracy, we are withdrawing money from services to the people because the pie is the same size and if you continue to divide it up into smaller pieces, everyone loses just a little bit. And my questions have to do with - In the County Charter, where is the Mass Transit Department located? Under what area? Anybody know? RAY: It’s not. LAWSON: It’s not? Okay. That’s my point. ? What Mass Transit? LAWSON: Well, this is a separate issue and I think that some people - Mass Transit is what the County is naming their Department of Transportation and they call it Mass Transit. We are stuck in, here on this side of the island anyway and I’m not sure about Hilo, with what’s called a commuter mode of transportation so that keeps this county from applying for or being even eligible for extra Federal file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 6-23-99.html7/1/2011