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Page 10 of 11 <br />OLSON: The Chair only votes to make or break. <br />IRVINE: Okay. I didn’t catch that. <br />OLSON: As under Roberts, right? <br />IRVINE: Okay. <br />HIGASHI: Okay, any more questions? No. Thank you Jon. <br />OLSON: Thank you. <br />HIGASHI: Ms. Henry, do we have anybody else that has signed up to testify? <br />HENRY: No sir. <br />OLESEN: I’ve got one more. I remember what it was. <br />HIGASHI: No objections? <br />?: No objections. <br />OLESEN: My name is Norman Olesen. This particular one is going to take the wisdom of Solomon to <br />figure out how to do it but that’s why there’s two ex-Council people who are on the particular Charter <br />Commission Board and you wonderful people can figure out how to make some sense of this one. It has <br />to do with appropriations. <br />MARTIN: Excuse me, if I may. There’s three ex-Council people on the - <br />OLESEN: Oh that’s right, there’s three. Excuse me. And it has to do with the system that is in place <br />with regard to appropriations and allocation of funding. We have a very unfortunate situation where I <br />don’t think the general public is fully aware that the appropriation process, in the time, let’s say, of an <br />election year, can have all kinds of things thrown in there by the Council for a given district, where <br />there’s absolutely no intention whatsoever of doing it because there’s no funding for it. My suggestion is <br />that in some way, by Charter, that we tie appropriations approved by the Council into availability of <br />funding. Now, why this is important is because in the future we are going to be in worse situation than <br />we are now. I think that everyone here is aware that we waited something like nine months on the <br />current bond issue and the bond issue now is specifically tied to certain projects, not necessarily the <br />projects that were originally recommended, nor are they the projects which will be done. Now the way <br />the system works, so that everyone is clear how this situation takes place: You have an appropriation <br />that comes out of Council however, the funding comes through the Mayor’s Office. If the Mayor doesn’t <br />want to do it, he doesn’t feel it’s proper, there is no allocation of funds and then the project just dies <br />after three years. I would like to see something where the Council itself, when they have appropriation <br />for whatever, that somehow this is tied to physical funding, whether it be Federal funding, whether it be <br />CIP funding, wherever that funding came from. And I think it’s possible but the details, how you would <br />physically do this, I’m not sure but I think if you inquire of the right people, probably Harry Takahashi <br />in Finance, I believe there might be a way of doing it. <br />HIGASHI: Okay, do we have any questions? Okay, thank you Mr. Olesen. <br />file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 7-21-99.html7/1/2011 <br /> <br />