1999-07-07 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 14 of 23 let’s do publicly funded elections. Maybe we could try it with the Boards and Commissions and since it’s the County’s business, the campaigning could be restricted to statements of positions and qualifications which are published by the County Clerk and sent to every registered voter. I think that this is done. I’m actually surprised that here in Hawaii we do not get a sample ballot with all the initiatives and all of the referendums and the recalls and all of the candidates. We never see that. It’s not mailed to us by the Elections Office. We have to look in the newspapers for the political ads and there is some, maybe a League of Womens Voters will have position papers or at least put out people’s positions but to have it official, it wouldn’t cost that much to have the particular positions and qualifications of people and maybe public forums. You want to be elected to the Board or Commmission, you come before your community and if we had a single one, and I would go for the single member districts. Follow the single member districts. It makes more sense than trying to have three from Kohala even though there could be a conflict and we have found that the people in Kohala might be opposed to the people in North Kohala and South Kohala because they both want to use the same water, or at least they think they do. But I would think it’s simpler to keep it with the single member district. Appointees or elections and that just streamlines the whole shebang. I think it seems like the balance of power is heavily swung toward the Mayor’s side and I would like to see it swing back a little bit and I think by changing the method of electing or appointing the Boards and Commissions, that would help to balance, not only the balance of power but also increase the diversity of representation. And I think that diversity of representation is really important for gatherings. As John knows and maybe I guess no one else does, I facilitate a group for the Kohala Forest Management Group actually right here in this room on various Thursday evenings and it’s really a good process to have the different viewpoints at the table and I participate in the Waimea Water Round Table as well so it’s workable and it doesn’t have to be adversarial and I think with practice and a properly designed Charter, will do a lot to both increase representation and change the balance to more of a balance and that’s really what I’m trying to encourage you to try to design into the Charter. The public discussion I mentioned. The Manager’s salary, if it’s $200,000 a year, to me if it turns out that it’s a better way to manage our County, it’s a very small - the increment from the $65,000 or the $85,000 or whatever the Mayor gets, to make that next jump, is a drop in the bucket compared to the importance of getting an efficient representative, an accountable County government. It’s a small price to pay for that and we can afford it and I would actually say that we can’t afford not to do it. If it does offer it, and I don’t know that it does, but I think it’s something that we really ought to think about and we ought to have the discussion in the public arena and only then, with an informed electorate, can we really decide. ARTICLE III, LEGISLATIVE BRANCH, COUNTY COUNCIL, Section 3-16 So I have under Mandatory Program Review . It is my understanding that this Mandatory Program Review is not taking place as it’s stated in the Charter that it shall be done and so I don’t know. I think it’s a good idea that programs should be reviewed. I see a problem with enforcement. Then how do you compel the County Council. I think it’s their job, right? It’s their job to do it so how do you compel the County Council to do their job? I don’t know but maybe that - RAY: I think it’s more a question of resources and logistics that - HERKES: And priorities. BOCHE: Yes, you know better than I and so I’m just saying what I read in the Charter and I see it not happening so I don’t know. ARTICLE IVEXECUTIVE BRANCH , the , I’m for the proposal to be put on the ballot to replace the file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 7-7-99.html7/1/2011