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minutes 02-05-00Page 15 of 66
<br />YUEN: Just a couple of things. For a point of clarification, looking at your motion, this would be to change the powers of the
<br />Police Commission to include the powers in 6-4.6 of the Fire Commission?
<br />HERKES: Correct.
<br />YUEN: Because there’s a bunch of powers that don’t apply. These are more general.
<br />HERKES: Okay.
<br />YUEN: And on John’s question of housekeeping, I think that to make changes like this, in this section, to the Police
<br />Commission, would be a significant change in the powers, and so it would have to be done as a separate ballot item.
<br />RAY: You’re talking about (e) under Section 6-4.6?
<br />HIGASHI: Right.
<br />RAY: (e) says ‘review personnel actions within the department for conformity.’
<br />HIGASHI: Mr. Ray.
<br />RAY: Yes sir.
<br />HIGASHI: Under the Police General Orders, are these things covered? They operate under General Orders, as part of the
<br />operation, and if they change their General Orders - I mean that’s the way they operate. They don’t operate similar to this,
<br />and it seems to me that we need to read their General Orders, what is covered and how they operate.
<br />HERKES: Police Department or the Police Commission?
<br />HIGASHI: Police Department.
<br />HERKES: He’s talking about the Commission.
<br />HIGASHI: Well, the Commission, in this language, kind of operates the Police Department. The other way, they hire and fire
<br />the Chief, and that’s their job, to hire and fire the Chief, and make him accountable. The Fire Commission goes into a lot
<br />more detail into the operations and approving of this, approving of the policy, approving of the budget, review personnel
<br />policies or personnel action. I’m not inclined to support that detailed of an operation for the Police Department. I think
<br />they’re, somewhat, more complicated in their operations than the Fire Department.
<br />RAY: I was trying to pull out, in City and County - they did revise their Charter in regard to be Police Commission recently,
<br />and the one change that stands out in my mind was the five-year hiring of the Chief. I know they implemented that, but I was
<br />trying to look in the City and County, since we’re looking at their model for the Fire Commission, and what they have in
<br />regard to the Police Commission. But I don’t have the recent changes that they made. But it seems like that would be a
<br />logical place to look since we’re looking at their language for the Fire Commission; how they address the Police
<br />Commission. Okay, other folks’ comments on this?
<br />IRVINE: John, I really, really like the way the Fire Commission, Honolulu, reads at the beginning, statement of policy under
<br />6-4-2. It’s declaring that they have the purpose as to establish in the county a system of fire, and we could put police,
<br />protection and prevention, and they set up, right there, standards for recruitment shall be designed to attract into the
<br />department, persons with a high degree of education, intelligence, and personal stability. It gives some real overall guidelines,
<br />and I think people, at this point in our island, would be really appreciative of having, like, a policy or a goal like that set up so
<br />that they had more confidence in how things were being done.
<br />RAY: I thought that was the sentiment, more along those lines, is why we brought this, actually, up rather than the specific
<br />duties so much. More this organizational language that seems to be more appealing.
<br />HIGASHI: Are we adopting this in total, perform police work and investigation? You’re going to have all of that in here,
<br />under performing, you know?
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