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minutes 03-08-00Page 27 of 35
<br />member. I think that’s legal. Somebody called me up and asked me about it, didn’t think it was a good idea, and I said that
<br />whether it’s a good idea or not is up to the Charter Commission. It’s legal to do that. It’s legal to allow people to sign the
<br />impeachment petition even if they don’t live in that person’s district. Even though somebody represents a Council district,
<br />they are still a Council member for the island. The idea behind impeachment is that the person has done something seriously
<br />improper verging on illegal, and if you want to have it, then that’s up to you. If you want to confine it to the members of that
<br />person’s district, that’s also up to you. It changes, of course, how difficult it is to get what you’re counting your 3% against.
<br />If you’re counting against the whole island then, of course, it’s a lot of signatures to get out of your district. But it’s legal and
<br />it’s completely up to you. There is a big section in here that we didn’t discuss at the meeting, and that has to do with how to
<br />verify the signatures. There’s going to be about 2,000 signatures if you’re taking 3% of the people registered in the County,
<br />and the only way to do it is to have the County Clerk do the verification. And so I set up a procedure that basically follows
<br />the procedure for Initiative and Referendum, except that, and this was a modification that the Clerk suggested for Initiative
<br />and Referendum, you’re only going to get one crack at your signatures. In this case, it’s fewer. It’s not as many as an
<br />Initiative or Referendum, so it’s not as hard for the people to verify that they got that number of good signatures on their
<br />own. I included a time limit on the signatures. I think, as a legal matter, that if somebody started to get a petition in one term,
<br />and the person got re-elected, that the signatures would be voided by the re-election. There’s sort of a legal principle that re-
<br />election voids an impeachment. But rather than leave that open, I just spelled it out here and I put in an overall time limit of
<br />one year for getting the signatures. And as I mentioned, you folks haven’t voted on any of this language so I just wanted to
<br />prepare a draft of how it would look and present it to you for your further consideration.
<br />IRVINE: Chris, I guess the call that I had, and I forgot, you were the one that said that Council members sort of represent the
<br />whole island, but this person said you’d have to have more signatures than the number of people that actually voted for that
<br />individual Council person.
<br />YUEN: No, it wouldn’t work out to more. It works out to a lot of signatures, but you’ve got 3% of the people registered.
<br />You’ve got 9 Council members, so 3% times 9 is going to work out to about 27% of the number of people registered in your
<br />district, so it’s a lot of signatures for a district if you’re looking at it that way. If you had to get them all in your district, but
<br />you had to get 3% of the whole island, that’s 27%, roughly, of the registered voters in your district, which makes it more
<br />difficult actually than a recall, I think.
<br />RAY: Any thoughts?
<br />IRVINE: Let’s go out with it.
<br />HERKES: I think this is one that people have to feel comfortable with, but I want 5%.
<br />RAY: There’s trade offs on both sides, so let’s kind of see how people go on this. Having been in the County Council, it
<br />doesn’t seem that unfair that other folks could participate in impeachment. I mean, you are voting on island-wide issues.
<br />That’s your job, right? So, you’re not voting on that much that’s really specific Council related. It’s still island-wide so it
<br />doesn’t seem that unusual to me.
<br />13. is Special Counsel. This is to eliminate the potential conflict that Corp Counsel brought up where they’d be required to
<br />supply Counsel. If the County Council didn’t approve it, they’d be stuck in a conflict, so Corp Counsel requested this change.
<br />YUEN: Yes, that’s right, and I think we voted on this, actually. We cleared it with Corp Counsel, and I think we voted on it.
<br />RAY: 14. Board of Appeals. This is one we might want to consider eliminating because we kind of got ahead of ourselves on
<br />this. We assumed we were going to go ahead and do this Division of Permitting and move things over. That’s why we voted
<br />on this, and now that’s something that may happen in the future. So, two thoughts - well, that’s one. The other is just to
<br />simplify the number of amendments. If we want to get rid of one and this is a little bit confusing in light of what we decided
<br />to do vs. what we had in mind when we originally did this. The basis of doing this was because we, pretty much, decided we
<br />were going to go ahead and do the Division of Permitting, so I’m just throwing that out there. It seems a little inconsistent
<br />with what it is we’re doing.
<br />IRVINE: I think, having served on the Board of Appeals years ago, that it really belonged in the Planning Department. Then
<br />they did change what they do to hearing final appeals of the decision of the Planning Director or the Chief Engineer, which,
<br />maybe, makes it more of a conflict of interest for them to be in the Planning Department. I know the Corporation Counsel
<br />does not wish to have them under their jurisdiction, so I guess we just have to see where it goes. I don’t have a firm feeling
<br />on this, but it appears to be a conflict of interest to have them under the Planning Department and hearing those appeals.
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