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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 3 of 45 <br />Regarding the appointment by the Council Members, I don’t know, I guess I see that as being heavily <br />political in that you probably would have a County Council and a junior County Council because they <br />would all be appointed by each Council Member. So I think the system is in place. It comes down to <br />representation, how you feel as far as the people that are being appointed from your Council districts; <br />are they doing a the job that they are intended to do, and at the point of confirmation by the County <br />Council, if there is any problems with the person, or any concerns, then that would be the time to bring it <br />up. <br />As far as a suggestion from the Planning Commission, there were a couple that were sent up to this <br />Commission. I apologize that I don’t have a copy with me here, but I think one of the important ones <br />was - <br />RAY: Hold one second, Leonard. Does everybody have their copy of the submittal from the Planning <br />Commission? I’ve got one. Here you go, Leonard. <br />IRVINE: This is the August 26th? <br />RAY: Yes. <br />LEONARD: Okay, I have one. Thank you. There is some concern as far as the holdover period for <br />vacancies on the Commission, and we have a proposal in front of you that the holdover period be 90 <br />days or until a successor has been appointed, and this is irregardless of whether we have an existing <br />Mayor or a new Mayor. And I would strongly recommend that, as we are now operating with 8 <br />Commissioners where we should have 9 and I think we’ll probably go through the whole 1999 calendar <br />year with only 8 Commissioners. One of those vacancies is from the Kona District. <br />That’s all I have to testify on, Mr. Chairman. If there’s any questions, I’d be happy to answer them at <br />this time. <br />RAY: Okay. Are there questions? Ms. Irvine. <br />IRVINE: I think one of the thoughts about two Planning Commissions was that the Planning <br />Commission was overworked. I know they used to meet until midnight and whatnot. Do you feel <br />overworked? <br />TANAKA: We made a change after last year. We have gone from one meeting a month, alternating <br />between Hilo and Kona, to two meetings a month now, so we meet once in Hilo and once in Kona every <br />month. It’s worked out really well. I think all of the Commissioners will agree that it’s been the better <br />approach. Our agendas are a lot lighter now. We meet from 9:00, on the average, till about 12:00, so I <br />think staff has ample time to put together the background and recommendations for us. I think the <br />Commissioners have ample time to review the information so it’s worked out well. <br />There still is a good workload, though, and I think that’s one of the reasons, in talking to Mr. Legaspi, <br />that we don’t have the ninth Commissioner, in that there’s not a whole lot of people coming forward to <br />volunteer for this Commission. <br />IRVINE: I can see that. I think the other issue was maybe more home rule for the West side of the <br />island. People there feel that they don’t have a say in things as we do here on the East side. Do you have <br />any feeling for that? You’re not from there. <br />file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 9-8-99.html7/1/2011 <br /> <br />