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minutes 02-05-00Page 4 of 66
<br />late 1960's, that the State Civil Service law superceded anything in the County Charters. So that, for example, you can’t put
<br />in the County Charter that certain positions are going to be not civil service when, according to State Civil Service law, they
<br />are civil service. So we can’t put anything in the Charter that overrides the State Supreme Court’s decision on privatization
<br />because that is based on the State Supreme Court’s interpretation of Civil Service law. So what I would do, is just make it
<br />clear that, as far as the Charter is concerned, it was not the intent to restrict any farming out, by contract, of the services being
<br />provided by this particular department. But, for it actually to be implemented, there would have to be changes on the State
<br />level on the Civil Service law.
<br />RAY: Sue.
<br />IRVINE: Right now our County does not recycle or pick up garbage so, to me, it’s hardly a matter of privatization. They
<br />don’t do it at this point so it’s not a County service. We do service the dumps, but it seems to me like it’s not something
<br />we’ve done traditionally and, therefore, it would be quite easy to farm it out. The other thing. Making a shell department, we
<br />have several divisions within Public Works which would, pretty much, automatically belong in this department at this time,
<br />so I don’t think it would be shell. It would a matter of moving those into a free standing place, and obviously, we’d want to
<br />make absolutely sure that the Department of Public Works is cool with this, and that maybe we could even include Water
<br />later. That’s what Honolulu wanted to do.
<br />HIGASHI: I think you’re correct, but if we need to take it to a higher level, then we need people with higher expertise than
<br />what we have now, and in my mind, that’s what I’m thinking that we ought to do. People who are in the lower tier level are
<br />managing the environmental services. By creating this department, then we may have people with more experience, more
<br />expertise, more training, and so it will be on the level of a Public Works Director. So that’s my thought. And my thought on
<br />the managed competition is in the last session, or two sessions ago, through the Legislature, didn’t we have the managed
<br />competition bill?
<br />HERKES: They’re still working their way through the rules.
<br />HIGASHI: But the law did pass. But promulgating rules and regulations is still ongoing so that may be a vehicle we could
<br />use.
<br />RAY: I’m mainly concerned to what degree we have to deal with that in the Charter.
<br />HIGASHI: In the language you can have necessary staff or contractual services, or something. Chris, rather than just having
<br />staff, is there language ‘necessary staff’ or some other language that enables us to perform the job, but not necessarily by
<br />employees of the government?
<br />YUEN: I understand what you’re saying. We certainly could say that in the Charter because the departments, as listed in the
<br />Charter, say ‘consisting of a staff’, blah, blah, blah, and we could make it clear that the functions can be performed by
<br />contracting out.
<br />RAY: John.
<br />SANTANGELO: Just to disagree a little bit, Sue. I believe, regardless of how Public Works feels in this, period. Because
<br />there’s a different set of expertises, and allows for so much more, and in the proposal, it’s ‘shall be’, so the ‘shall’ is there, so
<br />once this is passed, if the people pass it, they have to do it. My question then goes back to how do you operate this in terms
<br />of, if you look at the Water, it says ‘there shall be a semi-autonomous...’. Because this is the opportunity, do we want to go
<br />anywhere near that, and if we do, then the language is there to set up a Commission that does operate, and sets its policy, and
<br />sets its budget, and then levies fees in terms of its operation to sustain it. That does remove it from the budget a bit. That does
<br />make it a little more autonomous, and it’s kind of like what they call enterprising, and that opens doors for other possibilities,
<br />too. So, do we want to venture into that? I don’t think it’s real complicated because we have language here that exists in the
<br />County.
<br />IRVINE: Were you suggesting that we make this department semi-autonomous, as Water?
<br />SANTANGELO: Yes.
<br />IRVINE: Okay. It’s certainly a thought. I do think that we were talking, initially, a lot about a Commission, an
<br />Environmental Commission, and I definitely think we should attach a Commission to this department, who might be advisory
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