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minutes 02-05-00Page 3 of 66
<br />RAY: Let me ask you this, Roland. How would the language read in the Charter in regard to triggering, or mandating, the
<br />creation of that department? That’s what I don’t understand.
<br />HIGASHI: My thinking, all along, is that if we have it in the Charter, it would be permitted, whichever Administration
<br />chooses to create it. If it’s not in the Charter, I don’t think they’ll be able to do it. But as long as it’s listed in the Charter, the
<br />department, and if the next Mayor chooses to move ahead, and timing is right, fine. I’d like to interject that I looked at the
<br />Charter allowing privatization in this field. There may be department, maybe managerial type operation, but not necessarily
<br />mandating an operational entity of government. So, I don’t know. That’s why we have a legal counsel, to kind of figure this
<br />thing out. I mean, that’s just where I come from. We can create the department. We can create it in the Charter so it can be
<br />formed, but we need the flexibility, whether it’s managed competition, or whatever, that we have that in the Charter so it’s
<br />allowed, and not mandated to be a Civil Service type department.
<br />RAY: Okay.
<br />SANTANGELO: Mr. Chairman, addressing the vagueness of it, and really it isn’t vague. But, if you just take the Department
<br />of Public Works, and you just model it right after that. Mr. Yuen knows better, but under Organization: There shall be a
<br />Department of Environmental Services, consisting of an Environmental Engineer, or something like that, and the staff
<br />necessary. This Environmental Engineer shall be appointed by the Mayor, confirmed by the Council, and may be removed by
<br />the Mayor. Then Powers and Duties. And it seems like all these departments are set up that way. And here’s this gigantic
<br />department set up with the powers, duties and functions of the Department of Public Works shall be prescribed by ordinance,
<br />and shall be exercised and performed by the department.
<br />RAY: And so, in your mind, would the Administration and/or Council be mandated to create that department?
<br />SANTANGELO: If this is voted on by the public and placed into the Charter, then there’s a normal governmental way of
<br />fleshing this thing out that’s been done in the past, and unless someone could show me the flaw in that, I would expect that
<br />that’s how this would be done also.
<br />RAY: So in your mind, it would be mandated.
<br />SANTANGELO: Absolutely.
<br />RAY: That’s what I didn’t understand from Roland. Roland was saying that we enable the creation of it, by putting this in the
<br />Charter, but it’s not necessarily mandated.
<br />HERKES: Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Chris, is everything in the Charter mandated? If it’s in the Charter, do you have to
<br />do it?
<br />YUEN: You can have a ‘shall’ and a ‘may’ agency in the Charter.
<br />HERKES: Okay, that’s what I thought.
<br />YUEN: So it could be done either way. The Council can also create a department, on it’s own, without it being in the Charter,
<br />which I don’t think they’ve ever done. But I think the advantage to doing it in the Charter is that, in a way, it pre-clears it
<br />with the voters, which is, I think, the concern for the politicians of creating another - because you do have another set of
<br />appointments. It may not actually end up costing you more money to have another department, but you would be able to have
<br />an appointed Director, and possibly a Deputy, which multiplies the number of appointed positions that you have, which may
<br />be, in this case, something that you want to do if you’re trying to upgrade the status of certain services in the County.
<br />RAY: And then, in regard to Roland’s remark, as far as allowing managed competition, or privatization, do you have any
<br />thoughts on how that sentiment would be incorporated, or not, in Charter language? Is that something we’d have to address?
<br />YUEN: I think that the main thing is not to put any obstacles in the way of doing it, in the Charter, so there’s nothing that
<br />anybody, in the future, can point to the Charter and say you can’t do these functions by contractual services. What’s
<br />happened is privatization, just to give an overview, is held up on the State level by the State Supreme Court’s decision on the
<br />County Waste Management case here in Kona, where the State Supreme Court said that Civil Service law, by implication,
<br />prevents you from farming out, and privatizing, additional Civil Service functions. And just to give you a little bit more
<br />background, the Hawaii Supreme Court said, in one of the really basic decisions about County-State relationships back in the
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