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minutes 02-05-00Page 2 of 66
<br />COMMISSIONERS: Aye.
<br />RAY: Okay, the minutes are approved.
<br />Financial Status Report. We don’t have an updated report from the last meeting so it’s basically the same as shown in the last
<br />report.
<br />Communications. In your packets: Agenda for the meeting next Wednesday, the 9th, that we have in Hilo. Remember, it’s at
<br />5:00 p.m. That’s our regular scheduled meeting. A letter from Mr. Scott and a communication from Mr. Ben of the
<br />Department of Civil Service.
<br />Unfinished Business. I guess we can just go right down the line and deal with these one by one, in this order, and then I’ll just
<br />need help from everybody in terms of bringing up other things that we need to cover. But, as I communicated in the memo
<br />that I sent out, if we’re going to follow the tentative schedule we talked about, I don’t think we have a whole lot of latitude in
<br />terms of more time. We need to pretty much wrap things up as far as our preliminary recommendations, so that we can come
<br />up with the dates and set a series of public hearings, so we can go through that phase of input and have time to refine and
<br />incorporate that input into final Amendments, or recommended Amendments, and develop the language around those, and
<br />have our attorney have time to do that so we’ve got ample time to, there again, take that out to the general public. So, I think
<br />there is some sense of urgency, especially if it’s anything at all major. Let’s try to get everything dealt with today, at least as
<br />far as deciding if we’re going forward or going to table it.
<br />We’ll start with Unfinished Business, A. Environmental Department/Commission. Does anybody want to speak to that? Sue.
<br />IRVINE: I guess I could add that I did do a little more homework on this. I went to website for Longview, Washington,
<br />which has, like, 34,000 people. It’s more rural and smaller than the other places I looked at. They do separate their Public
<br />Works Department into Utilities and Public Works, sort of, along the lines that I mentioned previously. I then talked with Mr.
<br />Boucher at our Wastewater Division about the possibility of an Environmental Services Department, or Commission, and he
<br />certainly thought it was worth a try. I haven’t talked to Bob Yanabu, who heads Public
<br />Works, but Public Works is a gigantic department and it has a lot of things to cover, and Boucher thought that wastewater,
<br />solid waste, non-point source pollution which is storm water, and individual County water systems could be included in an
<br />Environmental Services Department. Right now, before the Legislature, there are a couple of bills to consolidate Parks under
<br />County and Highways under State. Right now, we have both State and County of each of those, and he didn’t know where
<br />that legislation might be going, but at this point, the State also handles those individual County water systems, and they could
<br />be put under the County, if we set up a second department. As to just making separate Division, or something, inside of
<br />Public Works, I think there seems to be, at least from the people I’ve talked to, less support for that. Of course, I have mostly
<br />talked to people who are involved in County and City governments rather than people in the private sector. I wasn’t able to
<br />figure out who to talk to or reach anybody at the various waste companies on the Island. I did find that we were all given the
<br />City and County of Honolulu Proposed Organization from 1998, when they, apparently, came up with a Department of
<br />Environmental Services, and it was going to involve refuse collection and disposal, and wastewater management, and they
<br />also had included their Board of Water Supply and Water Department, but that meant that they had to have a Charter change,
<br />and I don’t think this happened. But there is a chart that shows that. And that’s where I am right now.
<br />RAY: Comments? John.
<br />SANTANGELO: As I said before, I would like to ask this Commission to really push for a separate department. It wouldn’t
<br />require more people, of this Environmental Services, and it is a pretty common model, in which the waste stream is
<br />consolidated in that. And it’s really simple to do. It would require the Council and the legislative body to fill out, through
<br />ordinance, how that department would operate. The question that it raises with me is, then do we model something like the
<br />Water Commission in which there is a body that helps to manage that, and set the fees, because this should be something that
<br />stands alone. The thing that I like about it is that it creates some sort of environmental stewardship because then it would
<br />have to be self-sustaining, and that would create fees in which people had to support it through their own waste habits, and
<br />would really help a budget in terms of separating out the burden on just the property tax, and placing the burden on the end
<br />user. So, there’s that possibility in what comes out of that.
<br />HIGASHI: John, I would support that concept. However, if we have something that is general and broad in the Charter and
<br />then, like you say, can be enacted by ordinance to supply the details, I think that would be the way we should be going. But
<br />also, in the Charter, we should make it -
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