2000-03-18 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 03-18-00Page 19 of 27 SANTANGELO: Okay. Well, the thing you guys have on your side is that simple is better, and we have an awful long shopping list here for Charter Amendments, so something probably should go, and if it doesn’t have the proper support, it should go. BOUCHER: I strongly urge you to drop that one. That’s terrible. IRVINE: Thanks. SANTANGELO: Just leave it at what you said before, Peter. BOUCHER: Thanks. RAY: Okay, thanks. SANTANGELO: Thanks, Peter. RAY: Would anybody else like to, at this point, offer any testimony? I’m going to go through the Charter Amendments. There’s nobody left but Del. PRANKE: I’ll give my testimony before. You don’t have to do that. I mean I’ve read it. RAY: We want to make this as much of a two-way communication. PRANKE: Sure. RAY: So you’re welcome to come up, offer testimony, and ask us any questions on anything as well. PRANKE: I’ll stay and listen to you then but why don’t I do this now? RAY: Okay. PRANKE: I’m signed up, but I guess he wants to do something. RAY: Well, if nobody’s going to - PRANKE: Well, I don’t think he’s signed up but he says he wants to say something. RAY: Chris, you want to - So, Del Pranke. PRANKE: Yes, thank you. Thank you for the work that you folks have done. I know you have worked real hard at it, and you have an excellent helper there with Mrs. Henry. She has been very, very helpful. I think the idea of having this on the web, on the internet, has been very good. I’ve been able to read the minutes even though I wasn’t able to make the meetings. I want to start out with page 2 of the County Charter. I think I talked about this once before, before you, and that is the very basis of what the County is. And again, I still have some concerns about how we can say the Island of Hawaii, which includes some ceded lands, would be the County of Hawaii. I don’t believe we have the authority to consider those lands as part of the County of Hawaii. RAY: We have had legal counsel address this issue, and come back, and he has put some stuff in writing which we can share with you. But at this point, we are comfortable with the existing language, and it has been brought up to us as an issue. PRANKE: Okay. All right. I’d like to go to page 8, that would be Section 5-2.3, the conflicts with the Corporation Counsel. That’s the Powers, Duties and Functions. Now when the Corporation Counsel provides an attorney for any Board or Commission, and then provides an attorney for a person who comes before that Board or Commission charged with something, for instance, the Ethics Board or the Police Commission, and provides that person with legal counsel, that’s a conflict of interest. I mean nobody believes that that isn’t a conflict of interest, or nobody that’s being serious. And there’s a file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 03-18-00.html7/1/2011