1999-09-29 Charter Commission Minutes

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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 16 of 51 HERKES: I have a question on the chart. Civil Engineer VII, up at the top. I know the Charter says we have to have a Civil Engineer in charge. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I would rather write an Administrator, as that position, to run this department. You have Civil Engineers all over the place down here. SUMADA: Well, Commissioner Herkes, again, I guess we needed possibly to change the title. It wouldn’t actually be a separate department. It would be division underneath the Chief Engineer’s Office, so that part would remain unchanged unless it’s a Charter Amendment to that effect, but the Chief Engineer’s Office remains unchanged and then this new organization, called the Division of Permitting, would be like a subdivision under the Chief Engineer’s Office. HERKES: Are there engineering things that that Administrator would do? The Civil Engineer VII? SUMADA: That Administrator for the - HERKES: For the whole branch? SUMADA: I think that possibly there could be, but primarily, the individual would be a manager, and it’s more administrative in nature, and that more management skills, or people skills, are used, as opposed to pure engineering. However, the individual would need to have a fairly good knowledge of processes that go on in the different branches, relating to engineering or planning or the building functions. There might be some limitations, I suppose, if any one individual would work their way up through the ranks, say, in the Planning branch, and by he not having the qualifications to fill a Civil Engineer VII, which requires a license in Civil Engineering, that would restrict that individual, or that person working their way up, from fulfilling that role, so maybe that particular aspect we could reconsider, possibly. HERKES: But you feel engineering background is really important in this Administrator? RAY: This is a Division Head, so this is not something that we deal with in the Charter anyway, right? SUMADA: I don’t think so. It’s a Civil Service position. RAY: Right. GOLDSTEIN: If I may just explain this chart. We had worked on this, maybe about a year ago, and at that time we worked on this chart, it was trying to take a look at existing positions that we would have to work with, and essentially also then go to the Union with, to either do retitling of positions and also, what this chart is is just taking existing positions, and essentially the highest ranking guy of both Planning as well as Public Works, got to be, essentially, that head. That’s the EM VII kind of thing, so you’ve got to take this also with a grain of salt. HERKES: Okay, thank you. RAY: Gary. YOSHIYAMA: Thanks for that explanation, Virginia. So as far as this chart, these branches handle the permitting process? GOLDSTEIN: Yes. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 9-29-99.html7/1/2011