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minutes 01-15-00Page 6 of 59
<br />the department. So, anyway, that’s where I’m at right now.
<br />WEST: Could I say something to maybe clear a few things up?
<br />RAY: Sure.
<br />WEST: I would shy away from the word ‘environmental’ because you’re also dealing with air quality. The State Health
<br />Department seems to have the run of things, and also within the State Health Department, they have a Recycling Department,
<br />and so the whole word ‘environmental’ is another animal that, I think, the State Health Department is handling very well.
<br />And, within the State Health Department, they also handle the Federal regulations. We don’t have a Federal Health
<br />Department here, as such. So I think they’re handling it and I hate to see a lot of duplication of things. Recycle Hawaii has a
<br />lot of good information, and they are in the midst of changing Executive Directors right now, so there’s a little lag in there.
<br />As with the Solid Waste Department, they changed heads I don’t know how many times in the last years, and to ask them
<br />about things, and those sort of deals, they don’t have that information. They never had, until Recycle Hawaii came up, how
<br />much it costs per ton for the County to handle solid waste. So, within the department, it’s tough, if you have Recycle Hawaii
<br />who has already had grants to go for this information and to research the community, and have public meetings on all this
<br />sort of things. And they’ve got various reports on all kinds of things so make use of them.
<br />RAY: Marni.
<br />HERKES: I have a really good brochure from Maui’s recycling program that’s excellent, and I’ll mail it to you because it
<br />really lays out all of their policies, and I don’t know what their structure is, but I would think that maybe that would be
<br />something - I think that my experience with recycling is that the private sector has not behaved well, and I can remember
<br />cars, first we had oil, then we had waste, now we have waste mixed with oil. We had some glass problems. So, I think that
<br />there’s some enforcement, or some structure, that needs to be fairly strong, dealing with public waste. This is public waste,
<br />and I’m not necessarily against managed competition, or privatization, but structure is lacking here. I don’t know why.
<br />Portland can handle it so well. Oregon can handle it. It seems Maui’s handling it really well. But we just keep failing to
<br />handle it well, and I think that we don’t have a commitment to handle it.
<br />IRVINE: I guess that’s why we’re trying to mandate a commitment.
<br />HERKES: Yes, that’s why I’m trying to look at how that commitment’s going to look.
<br />IRVINE: It’s not in the Maui Charter. I’ll say that. So, if they’re doing a good job -
<br />HERKES: It’s a private - Maui Recycling, and they’re the one that’s doing bio-waste. They’re doing a bunch of stuff that we
<br />keep failing to do, or we just can’t figure out how to do, and these are private sector people that are not figuring it out.
<br />RAY: But, she’s just pointing out that that’s something that’s an administrative, public decision.
<br />HERKES: Yes.
<br />RAY: John.
<br />SANTANGELO: Again, you could look at some of this and be sorry we brought it up at all. I don’t know if privatization - I
<br />would hate to see this thing held hostage by that. For me, personally, I’m looking at do we feel, on this island, and I was a
<br />member of the Pay-As-You-Throw Committee, and worked with recycle there. I’ve been involved with this for a while, and
<br />it occurred to me that these are special issues that need to be addressed a certain way. It’s kind of like the City Manager. Are
<br />we ready to rewrite the whole Charter? I don’t think so. But by the same token, how much energy do we need to devote to
<br />this? If we make a decision, based on the information available from other entities, that a department does well in handling
<br />this, and that there’s a process that flushes that out, then can we decide to do it that way, and I don’t know that privatization’s
<br />a part of it, or any of this other. To me, it’s much simpler than that, and maybe I’m wrong. And if it is as simple as I think it
<br />is, I’d like to see us move forward, and if it’s not, I’d be against it.
<br />IRVINE: It’s hard to call it privatization when it’s all in the private sector right now.
<br />SANTANGELO: But Sue, why are we even dealing with that? What can we do as a Commission? Can’t we put up a
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