1999-08-25 Charter Commission Minutes (2)

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minutes 8-25-99Page 24 of 60 Also, I spoke to some vendors in the business of putting on these elections and they told us straight, that starting, I guess, next February or so, we’re running right into the Presidential Primary season across the mainland. This is the most important county to us, our 120 or so thousand people, but they’re going to be involved in states like California, I don’t know, are there 40, 50 million people, etc. and I have a feeling that when it comes to running our election or doing the California Primary, the New York Primary, we’re going to get lost in the shuffle because there aren’t a whole lot of vendors that do this kind of work out there. So, I guess the bottom line is, if you guys are going to decide to do this, you guys need to decide real quick, in fact, maybe it’s one of those situations where you needed to decide this yesterday. In terms of cost, the staff has prepared a rough breakdown and it comes out to just under $400,000, it’s, I believe, $394,750. Then there’s a question as to how much the Office of Election, that’s the State Office, would charge us so there may be a little bit more expense there too. If you have any questions about the details of that, that’s why Ed and Pat are here, because they’re the ones that actually do it. RAY: What I don’t understand is, what do you need to have in hand to trigger the decision to go with the Special Election? In other words, when do we have to have our work done? That’s what concerns me the most. When would we have to be finished with our process and have the Amendments ready to go? Are you saying that we could schedule an election now and have several months, or six months, to finish our work and then plug that into the election? That’s what I don’t understand. KONISHI: Okay, I understand. Let me ask. When did they give you the questions in ‘79? IKEDA: In August. KONISHI: So this was about four months prior to the election. This is Ed Kozohara from our staff. KOZOHARA: In January, in ‘79, the previous Commission decided to have an election. RAY: A Special Election? KOZOHARA: A Special Election. The schedule determined that we were going in November so that’s where the ten months comes in. KONISHI: But you got the questions four months ahead? KOZOHARA: Right and we got the questions in about August. RAY: Okay. KONISHI: I guess it would also depend on, too, how many questions you had to submit. For example, if you submitted one question, take it or leave it, I guess that would present less of a logistical problem than if you submitted 30 questions. RAY: I’m sure there are lots of questions to try to filter through this. Roland, you want to start off? HIGASHI: How long does it take to make the ballot once you get the questions? KOZOHARA: Let’s say we’re talking about the General Election. We have to submit the file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 8-25-99.html7/1/2011