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minutes 03-18-00Page 13 of 27
<br />RAY: Peter, have you looked at the detailed language in regard to this? Because this does, in no way, change the authority of
<br />the Mayor, a move from a strong Mayor position. The Managing Director still appoints this person. We are suggesting that
<br />they have to be confirmed by Council, but it’s really encouraging the County to use the Managing Director more as the Chief
<br />Operating Officer of the County, and to fulfill that role more. It’s in response to an awful lot of public input we’ve had in
<br />regard to more professional management of the County. So, it’s still very much a strong Mayor form of government. The
<br />buck stops here, and ultimately, it’s up to the Mayor how he uses that position. All this does is it, sort of, rearranges the
<br />Executive Department in the Charter to encourage the Mayor to use that position more in that capacity, but it in no way
<br />undercuts the ultimate authority of the Mayor to make decisions. So what we’re suggesting is still very much a strong Mayor
<br />form of government.
<br />SANTANGELO: But the question was had you read the deeper part of it?
<br />BOUCHER: To be honest, I have not studied all these proposals in detail, and again, this is as a private citizen, and I don’t
<br />know when the average citizen goes in the voting booth, if they will have studied these issues in detail also. This is, sort of,
<br />coming from the general feeling, if you can follow what I’m saying. I think it’s important to have a strong Mayor, and just
<br />the tone of this seems to sound like we’re trying to move to a more Managing Director form of government which, in the
<br />mainland, is often -
<br />RAY: We are very much trying to move towards that in terms of more the day-to-day administration. As you’re well aware,
<br />basically anybody can be elected for Mayor with virtually no qualifications whatsoever, and I think that opens up a lot of
<br />concern in people’s minds that that person is the day-to-day administrative head of the County government vs. more of a City
<br />Manager type that would fulfill that role. So that’s the model we’re looking at, but like I say, still very much retaining the
<br />ultimate authority under the Mayor. We looked long and hard at lots of models and lots of information on Council/Manager
<br />forms of government, which are a total shift in terms of the authority. In other words, the Council hires the Managing
<br />Director, so that’s a total shift, but that’s not where we’re going with this. We’re going, hopefully, to a stronger
<br />administrative and professional model, but still having the authority there with the Mayor.
<br />SANTANGELO: The reason I brought that up, Peter, is because I’m finding that, with other Chambers and stuff that got this,
<br />that are looking at it, are totally opposed to this, and I think that the problem, and the mistake we made, was putting in the
<br />word ‘authority’, because in no way were we increasing the authority of that Managing Director. As our Chairman said, we
<br />were trying to set a line of command in which people could look at government and see how it was structured. But, also try to
<br />help, at least imply that we’d like the Mayor to get a fairly professional person to help him, but leave it to the Mayor, because
<br />we’ve seen this Managing Director under Council have a lot of problems too, and we got that. But when we put in here
<br />‘strengthen authority’, I’ve gotten many inputs already that are totally opposed to something, if I explain it to them. So I hope
<br />we haven’t shot ourselves in the foot, and that’s why I asked if you’d read the other part. Because they hadn’t either, and we
<br />put this out and we’re going to have to take responsibility for it.
<br />BOUCHER: I apologize for not doing all my homework.
<br />RAY: No, no. Just take a look at it and see. And basically where this came from was it’s the Maui County Charter and the
<br />way they have their Executive Branch arranged, and it’s just a different organizational chart which we liked, the way that sets
<br />up and, hopefully, where it would go.
<br />IRVINE: Yes, I agree with what these folks have been saying. I had the same experience that John Santangelo had, that
<br />people said, oh, you’re creating another Department because we’re actually calling it the Department of Management in here,
<br />as Maui did. And we’re not doing that at all, and we aren’t really increasing the authority, strengthening the authority, the
<br />way we stated we were so it’s kind of our fault. We’re, as John Ray says, cleaning up the line of fire rather than authority.
<br />BOUCHER: Okay. Well, we may want to present that. Make the public aware of that. Because my impression, reading it
<br />briefly, was, like you say, Council appointing Managing Director, I think would be a big mistake.
<br />RAY: No, that’s not what this proposal is about.
<br />IRVINE: No, that’s not it. I think the way we worded it in our summary. This is a work in progress.
<br />RAY: And this is really pretty much identical to the way Maui County operates under their Charter, so to give you a model.
<br />But, they are, as we know, very much a very strong form of government, and functions that way.
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