2000-03-11 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 03-11-00Page 15 of 17 work. That’s Freddie Trotter and his gang that went on the dog and pony show. And I think this is an opportunity for us to just clean this language up. HIGASHI: It’s a good idea. BOWLES: That was one point, and then one other relevant point related to this, because of our economic change in this County, and it’s just a concern and I felt I need to bring it up, and it relates to diversified agriculture. And John knows that we’ve been wrestling with this problem from around this island repeatedly, and it relates to the water and energy. And somehow, nowhere in our Charter are we able to deal with the issue of diversified ag as related to energy and water, and they all become intimately related in our economic growth. So the only question I’m posing is isn’t there some way in which we can deal with this kind of a thing, either in Research and Development, one of the departments having some sort of a task in which it must be sensitive to this issue? We try to do it in R&D now, but it simply doesn’t quite get to where we’re going because where we’re going in the future is a break-up of land that’s phenomenal, and that’s breaking up all the rest of the support services. And we have no agency in our County government that can seem to grapple with that. We must entrust it upon some State agency that doesn’t understand, and I’m not saying you guys can go back and do anything, but while I was sitting in the back of the room going through this thing, I’m realizing that we’re missing an important element of our economy somewhere in our Charter. And I just wanted to throw that out on the table. My main point was the Board. RAY: My response is I think that does fall clearly under the R&D Department, especially in terms of the type of job description people have. They have an Energy Coordinator. They have an Ag position there. It would seem obvious that that’s the place where that function needs to take place, so I’m not sure. BOWLES: Couldn’t we beef it more, a little, in the Charter somehow? RAY: Sue. IRVINE: We did talk about this a bit, and I’m always questioning what R&D does because somewhere in the Charter, under their section, it refers to people needing expertise in related field, and I said what is related to nothing, because we don’t say anything in the Charter about quite what they’re doing. And maybe this is an opportunity to spell something like that out. BOWLES: I think that’s my point and I believe that’s where it should be. That it needs some kind of beefing up to reflect where our economy going. RAY: We can talk about this, Sue. BOWLES: Yes, I don’t want to make an issue today. Sitting there thinking somehow this is not coming out. RAY: Steve and I are always cooking up ideas for things like this, continuous discussion. IRVINE: If you come up with something, let us know. Write us a letter. RAY: Actually we did have a Natural Resource Commission. BOWLES: That’s unrelated, John. RAY: I know. HERKES: Let me read you what the current Charter says, page 11. ‘Provide staff leadership for public and private development programs, enterprises and plans including economic, social and cultural proposals which enhance improvement of the County community.’ So it would be easy to insert wording in that; ‘improvement of the County, especially in the areas of agriculture and energy’. BOWLES: That’s my point. When you put it in these generic terms, you lose the purpose. I’m trying to say we need to establish the purpose and challenge the department with that kind of a situation. HERKES: Right, okay. And then I’d also like to challenge you to write some wording for the General Plan because that’s where that really comes in. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 03-11-00.html7/1/2011