1999-06-23 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 7 of 12 LAWSON: No, just thank you very much. RAY: Next speaker, Ginger Towle. TOWLE: Hi, my name is Ginger Towle. I’m President of West Hawaii Humane Society and also Kona Crime Prevention Committee however, I’m really here because of West Hawaii Humane Society. There is a problem about program reviews and I realize that if you would have a performance audit with every single agency, it would cost a tremendous amount of money but unfortunately, they do not have the reviews and so consequently something has to be done somewhere so that it doesn’t take one of the Council Members asking for this. The good point is it has to do with Hawaii Island Humane Society. If you take a look at their records, it shows that they have not been doing the job and with the complaints coming in and everything, however, it’s under the auspices of the Finance Department and there is absolutely -- that’s just the way it’s going to be and Harry Takahaski took it away from the Police Department about in ‘92, I think it was. That’s really where the Humane Society, the Animal Control contract needs to be regardless of who’s running it because it has to do with law enforcement and consequently, we’ve had a tremendous breakdown because the Finance Department - it’s a Finance Department. It really has nothing to do with law enforcement so at the moment there is a review being done - performance review of the Hawaii Island Humane Society but I think the thing is that that’s probably not the only contract that is out there so it shouldn’t be so someone gets a contract and then you’re home free that no one questions it. There should be some department someplace that is doing it. It should work out that way. I received a communication from Harry Takahashi saying he rejected our protest and one of his comments was the fact that we could find nothing wrong with Hawaii Island’s proposal. Well, the interesting thing about that is we cannot get Hawaii Island Humane Society’s proposal so how could I possibly comment on what they had to offer so there needs to be something smoothed out there so that our dollars are protected, that people who are applying for a contract are definitely qualified. There needs to be some review someplace. I have asked the Police Department, Chief Carvalho, if he would please take it back under his jurisdiction because that’s where I worked and it definitely is a police matter. And while I’m speaking only about the Humane Society, I feel that any agency that has a contract should be reviewed by someone as to their performance. They shouldn’t be able to just have a contract and home free. So basically that’s it. The other thing that I feel that I would like to see and I’m really not knowledgeable about it at all. Joe Reynolds is. It is the city - to have our own city, whatever it is. What is the term I’m - JOE REYNOLDS: Political subdivisions. TOWLE: Political subdivisions. So Joe can probably speak to that but I feel strongly we need to do something so that we can have our own political subdivisions. And I’d be happy to work on any of this and it isn’t just the Humane Society thing I’m talking about. It’s the fact that I think we need review of our contracts so that we do have some expertise in judgments there. Thank you very much. RAY: Questions for Ginger? Gary Yoshiyama. YOSHIYAMA: Ginger, you talked about - you started out as program view. TOWLE: Yes. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 6-23-99.html7/1/2011