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minutes 03-08-00Page 21 of 35
<br />what the Charter says. So, in discussions with the Planning Director, the best, or the cleanest, way of doing this was simply to
<br />make it clear in the Charter that the Council, by passing an Ordinance, could move the functions around, and then they’ll
<br />work with drafting an Ordinance, but take away the obstacle in the Charter to reassigning the powers and duties, as far as
<br />subdivisions.
<br />HERKES: So you not only took away the obstacle, you actually made it proactive that they could do that.
<br />RAY: He just said ‘may’.
<br />YUEN: Yes, they may do that.
<br />RAY: This question’s been posed to me. How come we took this approach in regard to the Administration’s suggestion about
<br />creating a Division of Permitting vs. such a stronger approach in regard to creating a Department of Environmental Services?
<br />In other words, with the one, we decided that this is something we felt the Administration and the Council should deal with if
<br />they want to, this Division of Permitting. Whereas, in regard to the Department of Environmental Services, without even
<br />getting a suggestion from the Administration, we’ve decided to create a new department.
<br />HERKES: Do you want a suggestion on an answer for that?
<br />RAY: I’m just passing on the comment.
<br />HERKES: What I would say is we are becoming more urbanized. The Department of Permitting, we are beginning to have
<br />our land zoned, beginning to be able to look at permitting as a movable object but not such a loose object. And as we become
<br />more populated, Environmental Services take on a huge importance in our structure.
<br />RAY: Okay, but to get back to the permitting. So if we feel strongly about the permitting, why don’t we go ahead and create
<br />a Division of Permitting?
<br />IRVINE: Because the discussion we had, as I recall, was we were really going that way and then it just appeared that you
<br />really can get a permit quite quickly; that Public Works and Planning do work together quite frequently now, and we were
<br />just going to state it that that is the mandate. That was my recollection.
<br />HIGASHI: I think my feeling was that creating a Division or Bureau is allowed administratively, and if Administration thinks
<br />that’s a priority, they’re allowed to do it. I think this Commission felt a strong need for environmental concerns be addressed,
<br />and therefore, created this new department. That’s where we all came from.
<br />RAY: The reason I’m bringing this up is the press has already targeted cost of government, and in West Hawaii there was an
<br />article that appeared that we’re creating two new departments. The other department is the Department of Managing Director.
<br />They use that as a new department. The reason I’m bringing this up is so we discuss it and that’s why we’re doing all this, so
<br />that we’re prepared to take this out.
<br />IRVINE: We did get some testimony, too, from Jiro Sumada about this sort of thing when we first started listening to what he
<br />had to say, whether we were putting water and wastewater, and this and that, together, and what he thought would be
<br />appropriate.
<br />HERKES: Now, don’t go on because I want to ask, and this is a really important question to me, in Chapter 13-3, it’s the
<br />garbage chapter where we have added, through the years, definitions and qualifications for directors and departments. That is
<br />not included in this Planning Director, 5-4.2. I feel very strongly that we need to have all of the Planning Director
<br />qualifications and all of the Deputy Finance Director, and the Finance Director’s and the Managing Director’s qualifications
<br />that were passed in past Charters, put under their headings, so that we don’t have a garbage section anymore.
<br />IRVINE: I was going to bring up the same thing, but I was going to do it when we got to 11. under Qualifications.
<br />HERKES: Too late.
<br />IRVINE: No, we had said this page 27, 28; it’s Section 13-3, has all these various departments’ qualifications that’s in the
<br />Charter, that those qualifications should be in their departments, and so we are taking some out and putting them in. And I
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