1999-07-07 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 16 of 23 Commission is then appointed by the Council or by election, then have the Department of Water Supply be under the supervision of the Council because it means more accountability. Right now they’re semi- autonomous. They have their own water fund which I’m not against necessarily. I don’t understand the water fund as well as I might so I’m not going to make a recommendation at this time on how that’s structured. I do know that the Department of Water Supply also has a policy of maintaining the same rates for water, no matter what community you live in. You still pay X dollars per thousand gallons whether you live in an old community like Pahala where the water has been implemented years ago and is very inexpensive, and a new system that may cost tens of, or at least several millions of dollars, to bring water to some of the newer areas of the county and there’s no necessary reason that I can see that the water rates paid by particular users need to be the same if the costs of the counties are different, or one part of the county - if it costs more to develop water in Kona, maybe the Kona people should pay more water than in Hilo. Right now, I don’t know who makes that policy but it’s not made by any elected official. It’s not made by the County Council. It’s not made by the Water Commission. I think it’s made by the Manager. Is that correct, John? Who makes that decision? RAY: I think it’s made by the Commission. The Commission has jurisdiction over that. BOCHE: So anyway, enough on the water. INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, ARTICLE XI. I’d like to see a lowering of the percentage requirements for the petitioners. You need to have apparently 15% of the signatures of the last mayoral election or something like that and I’d like to see that come down to 10% or 5% or something that’s more reasonable for people who want to actually bring forth ordinance for the public to consider and this again, will bring more diversity of ideas and more public discussion about better ways, perhaps or maybe not, to manage our County and whatnot. ARTICLE XIII. GENERAL PROVISIONS. This Section 13-4 on Boards and Commissions. I ask you to look at that very carefully because that’s where every - it doesn’t matter if it’s the Ethics Commission or the Planning Commission or the Water Commission or even the Charter Review Commission. I’d like to see them all be more diversely chosen. I was particularly concerned with the Board of Ethics. That’s Section 14-5. Because the public appearance - when somebody comes up before the Ethics Board, the Ethics Board invaribly finds that nothing is wrong and I think it’s because of this lack of diversity. The Ethics Board found that there was no problem - I’m not sure but it’s my impression that I don’t think they found a problem with the Mayor spending County funds to support the irradiator project. Was that before the Ethics Board? RAY: It goes to the State Campaign Commission. BOCHE: That was the State Campaign Commission. Okay, I’m sorry. Anyway, the Board of Ethics, I think needs more diversity. And finally, the Mandatory Charter Reviews. I like the idea of having these reviews every ten years. I think that should be retained in the new Charter and I would like to see the Charter Commission also be chosen with more diversity. Just the mechanism for choosing them. And that’s really about all I have. Thank you for your time. RAY: Thank you. Questions? Ms. Herkes. HERKES: I’ve been waiting to talk to you about diversity and I’m not going to pick on you or anybody in this room but my perception - I don’t know how many people applied to be on this Charter file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 7-7-99.html7/1/2011