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<br />minutes 03-18-00Page 1 of 27
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<br />HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION
<br />Transcript of Public Hearing of March 18, 2000
<br />County Council Room, Hilo, Hawaii
<br />Members: J. Ray, S. Irvine, J. Santangelo
<br />Absent: E. Alonzo, K. Balog, S. Bess, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, D. Kurozawa, G. Martin, G. Yoshiyama
<br />And 9 members of the public in attendance.
<br />CALL TO ORDER
<br />Chairman John Ray called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.
<br />INTRODUCTION OF CHARTER COMMISSION MEMBERS
<br />RAY: I’d like to call the 1999-2000 Charter Commission Public Hearing to order. It’s Saturday, March 18th, 9:05 a.m. and
<br />we’re in Hilo today. Commission members present at this time are myself, John Ray, Chair; John Santangelo; and Sue Irvine.
<br />Unfortunately, I think four or five members were out of town this week, so that’s why we’ve got a pretty low showing today.
<br />INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
<br />RAY: I have been starting these Public Hearings with a pretty thorough introduction, introductory remarks, to all the
<br />amendments, but a number of people, because it’s Saturday and their time constraints, have requested that they give their
<br />public testimony prior to that, and I think that’s okay with everybody so I’ll leave it up to you. If you want to go ahead and
<br />make your public testimony, we will take public testimony now. If you would like to wait until after the remarks, you can do
<br />that as well.
<br />PUBLIC TESTIMONY
<br />RAY: Mike, you wanted to go ahead with your public testimony? Michael Ben.
<br />BEN: Good morning. My name is Mike Ben, for the record, I guess. Quickly, before I start into my testimony, I wanted to
<br />submit testimony on behalf of Rick Robinson, my Civil Service Commission Chair. He wanted me to relay that the
<br />Commission is very pleased that the Safety Coordinator issue of transferring the Safety Coordinator, and that function, to the
<br />Department of Civil Service - the Commission is very pleased that you’ve considered that and proposing a Charter
<br />Amendment to that, and they support the proposal.
<br />With respect to my testimony, I have three areas I wanted to briefly touch upon. One is really a substantive matter, but let me
<br />first talk about the qualification requirements in general. I notice, in reviewing the qualification requirement, that there ‘s a
<br />variety of ways that the qualifications are described. I’ve noted in my written testimony the various instances where
<br />sometimes we ask for 3 years administrative experience, sometimes we ask for 5. Sometimes we ask for responsible
<br />administrative experience, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we make reference to experience in the public or private sector,
<br />sometimes we don’t. So, as a person who probably would be called upon to interpret and apply this, I would very much
<br />appreciate consistency if the Commission, in fact, did not intend differences in the qualification requirement in terms of, for
<br />example, administrative experience. When you do have different language, the rules of interpretation dictates that you give
<br />meaning to the differences. I just wanted to point that out.
<br />The second area is concerning the qualifications for my position, the Director of Personnel. I believe, at one time you folks
<br />were considering a proposal that, I believe, followed the HRS, the Hawaii Revised Statutes, and then I notice, in the most
<br />recent packet, the qualifications weren’t included as a proposal. I would like to propose that, yes, you do specify, to me, a
<br />little bit more detailed qualifications than what the law provides. I’ve suggested following the format that I found throughout
<br />your proposals, basically 5 years in an HR function area, and 3 years in an administrative capacity. The current description
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