1999-10-27 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-27-99Page 4 of 48 RAY: Second? YOSHIYAMA: Second. RAY: Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. RAY: Minutes approved. Financial Status Report: It’s unchanged since the last report we made. Communications. This is in your packet you received today. There’s a memorandum from the County Clerk in regard to Election Deadlines; a copy of a newspaper article from Publisher Jim Wilson, Tribune-Herald; an article that I had copied from the American City and County Magazine; ACLU Guidelines from Mr. Coco Pierson, that he furnished us with; and a copy of the exhaustive minutes from our marathon session in Waimea, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading over the next week or so. Additionally, we did pass out, at the start of the meeting, a couple of written communications from our attorney, Mr. Yuen, in regard to items that came up at the last meeting, as well as I want to thank Sue Irvine for the research she did in regard to some of the same issues, Initiative and Referendum, and so, anyway, we can all read that and digest it, and we’ll agendize it for future discussion. Moving on to Unfinished Business. A, B, and C, the Department of Water Supply, Water Commission, and Public Works. All are agendized to really encompass one major issue, and this is a verbal recommendation, initiative, that was put forth by the Administration, in late spring of this year. The idea of transferring the Division of, or possibly some of the functions of, the County Wastewater Division, which is under the Public Works Department to the Department of Water Supply, and to look into how partially, or in whole, that relationship might work. I know that the Water Department and the Water Commission have been spending a lot of time discussing that, and they’re both here, as well as the head of the Wastewater Division from Public Works, Mr. Peter Boucher. So, I don’t know how you want to handle this, who wants to come up first. We have testimony in writing from Mr. Pavao, so you want to lead in with that? You want to bring anybody else up to table, that’s fine. Please introduce yourself and speak into the microphone so we can get all this recorded. PAVAO: Good afternoon. My name is Milton Pavao. I’m Manager for the Department of Water Supply. With me, here today, is our Water Commission Chairman, Mr. John Souza; my Deputy Manager, Mr. Quirino Antonio; and our Finance Division Head, Richard Tsunoda. So, if you have questions, they can be directed to them, as well. I’m here today to speak against the proposed Charter Amendment that would transfer the Wastewater Division to the Department of Water Supply. As Chairman Ray said, I have submitted two separate documents. One is a letter and one is a list of pros and cons. While it’s not my intent to read either one of them, I’d like to kind of highlight some of the things that I think should be mentioned. When we first saw the proposed Charter Amendment, the reasons given were that this would make enforceable sewer billing, and would make possible, initiatives for the use of recycled water, for appropriate purposes. On the issue of enforceable sewer billings, we have been meeting with the Sewer Department for about two years now, to accomplish just this, and we’re at a point where we have a common understanding of what we’ll do and how we’ll help the Sewer Department. Right now, because of the computer system that we have in place, we cannot physically include sewer billings on our bill. As you notice, those that do get file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-27-99.html7/1/2011