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minutes 03-18-00Page 20 of 27
<br />current situation where a police officer in Waimea has filed a complaint against a Police Chief. Since he is an employee of
<br />the County of Hawaii, if the Police Commission rules that his complaints are under the scope of his duty, which he
<br />apparently has written in his complaint, then the Corporation Counsel would be required to provide an attorney for the person
<br />being charged, an attorney for him, and an attorney for the Commission. This is just way out of line. I think we need to fix
<br />that conflict of interest. We’ve got to fix it in some way, and I’m not sure exactly how to tell you to do that. I’ll work on that
<br />some.
<br />IRVINE: Del?
<br />PRANKE: Yes ma’am.
<br />IRVINE: Would this be addressed by the Corporation Counsel being able to hire special counsel?
<br />PRANKE: No.
<br />IRVINE: Because that person would still be working for them. I talked to our attorney at great length yesterday, sort of about
<br />this, and he said that our Commission is kind of unusual inasmuch as we can hire our own attorney. But in general, State
<br />agencies, or nationally, or locally, the Corporation Counsel’s Office does provide overall advice and they are the ones
<br />because they can’t have one Commission saying one thing, and one Commission saying another, if that Commission is
<br />allowed to hire an outside attorney. It’s complicated.
<br />PRANKE: Well, we’ll get to that.
<br />IRVINE: Okay.
<br />PRANKE: We’ll get to that in a minute. I have something that I’ll talk to you about. I’m going to go on through here with the
<br />things that I have, and we’ll move it along quickly.
<br />Page 14, Section 7-2.1 that has to do with the Police Commission organization. We’ll get to this thing I was talking about. As
<br />you can see, 7-2.1 says ‘there shall be a Police Department consisting of a Police Commission, a Police Chief’, etc. In 1995,
<br />the Chairman of the Police Commission attempted to slander me and I filed a complaint. I’m not going to get off like Henry
<br />Ross. And I filed a complaint asking the Police Commission to look into this because I assumed the Police Commission was
<br />part of the Police Department. This is the Corporation Counsel’s Opinion. ‘Neither the Police Commission Chair, nor any of
<br />it’s members, would be considered as an employee, officer or member of the Police Department as defined by the rules. The
<br />Commission members are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the County Council. They’re not paid and they’re not
<br />hired by the Police Department. They’re not in a position classified by the Department of Civil Service. Therefore the
<br />complaint is not within the jurisdiction of the Commission.’ Then they skip down and they say ‘further indication’ - I’ll get
<br />you each a copy of this. I’m sorry. If I had known there were only three of you, I’d have stopped by Sure Save and copied it -
<br />‘further indication that the complaint procedure described in the Rules is not meant to apply to a complaint concerning a
<br />Commission member is that the result of the Commission’s investigation is to be turned over to the Police Chief. In this case,
<br />there’s no point in turning over the investigation results to an individual who has no control over the party complained about.
<br />The Commission hires and fires the Chief.’ Now is that different than what they’ve been told? We’re getting bad information,
<br />not because they’re bad people over there. We’re getting bad information because of the conflicts of interest. The
<br />Corporation Counsel is appointed by the Chief Executive, and the Chief Executive wants to keep - now, politically we know
<br />that it wants to look good. It wants to do a good job. And if doing a good job sometimes involves steam rolling some citizens,
<br />sometimes that happens, and that happens, I think, because of the conflicts of interest, of having the Corporation Counsel
<br />give advice to the Boards and Commissions, and give advice to the people who come before it. That’s got to be changed, I
<br />think.
<br />Okay, page 30 and 31, Section 13-20(b). This is a housekeeping thing almost. Down at the bottom, page 30, the last sentence
<br />in Section (b) there, it says ‘where personal matters effecting the privacy of an individual are to be considered, the Council,
<br />Board or Commission may, at the request of the individual involved, consider such matters in closed session.’ Now the
<br />Sunshine Law says that you can go into closed session if the Board or Commission makes a determination that there’s a
<br />matter of privacy. The Police Commission, especially, is really bad about this. A police officer who is coming before the
<br />Board or Commission - and this is something that Henry was talking about a little bit - will simply write a letter and say I’d
<br />like to go into Executive Session. There’s no proof in the letter that there’s any matter. The Police Commission accepts that
<br />as the reason for going into Executive Session. This needs to be made a little stronger so that they have to follow the
<br />Sunshine Law. They have to determine that there is a matter of privacy. As Henry says, if it’s already been fought out in
<br />public, then there’s no matter of privacy. If anything that’s going to be talked about is a matter of public knowledge, there
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