2000-03-18 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 03-18-00Page 24 of 27 talked to, excuse me. They tend to look at it as another attempt to change the way that they voted since 1990. But if they should vote on this, then we have that problem of maintaining those districts in a fair manner so that the population’s the same. If you’ll look at Councilman Chung’s, he’s just got a real small portion of Hilo as his district. Well, at any rate, you get the point. IRVINE: Yes. PRANKE: And the Water Commission, of course, if you change that, that would be in the same position, and the Planning Commission. Now, about that Water Commission and the Planning Commission. Having even the ex-officio members from one agency and another, sitting cross-membered like that, it’s seems to me, it causes some problems with the lines of authority, and I would strongly suggest that we remove those things. There shouldn’t be that crossover. There should be channels of communication - RAY: I think it’s good to maintain that you have that department representation there. I mean to insist that you have those folks there at Commission meetings. To me, that’s a plus, that you have somebody there representing those departments. PRANKE: Oh, I don’t have a problem with that but I don’t think - RAY: I mean they’re just ex-officio. They don’t vote. PRANKE: Well, I’ll let that go, but it just seems that we always have these crossover things in the County. The Legislative Research Office. I think we should find some way to provide that the Legislative Research Office should provide research for citizens too, without overburdening them with a bunch of stuff. But, as long as we’ve got a Legislative Research Office - RAY: I know, but I think that’s via your County Council person. PRANKE: You would think so. Okay. Impeachment. We’ll come to this and then I’ll stop. Maladministration is probably going on right now. When Mr. Yamashiro came in, one of the first things he did was he got into the fight about the privatization thing, and that cost us some large amount of money for legal representation. The previous Administration looked at that possibility and the Corporation Counsel for that Administration said no, that wouldn’t be legal, so there was already a precedence. When he went ahead and did this, I think there was probably a good case for maladministration in that situation. So I don’t think we should remove maladministration. Now, I looked through this election thing, and apparently if the citizens should vote in three at-large districts, if you wanted to remove the person from your district, they would have to provide 2,100 signatures? RAY: No. We’re making it island-wide. IRVINE: Pardon? PRANKE: That’s what I’m saying. That’s 77,000 registered voters in the last election. RAY: Right. PRANKE: Three percent of that would be 2,100 voters. RAY: Yes, but they wouldn’t have to come from that district. PRANKE: No, but if I were to say we want to remove Mr. Smith, we would still have to get 2,100 voters, just the same as we had to get 2,100 to remove an at-large. That’s the way it looked like it’s written, to me. RAY: That’s the way it’s written. IRVINE: I think, yes, it is. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 03-18-00.html7/1/2011