2000-03-25 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 03-25-00Page 5 of 34 a huge area called non point source pollution, which is dealt with now by our Engineering Division, which we think would be logical to include the responsibilities for that in this department. So, that’s what this is suggesting, and the proposal would also create an advisory Commission to work with this department and get more public input, hopefully, especially in regard to rates. The County has had a real difficult time dealing with rates and incentives for waste management, so we’d like to get the general public and community more involved, via a Commission, into those issues. The County Council has an awful hard time addressing sewer rates and solid waste rates, so we’d like to get the input from a Commission there. So that’s what that’s recommending. Some of these others will go more quickly. Planning Department functions. There again, this was really generated by an Administrative proposal to create a Division of Permitting. The Administration came to us and asked us to remove all the subdivision roles, activities, out of the Planning Department and move them all under the Public Works Department, and create a Division of Permitting, more along the lines of one-stop shopping and better government efficiency. That was the rationale. We decided not to pursue that in terms of mandating that happen, but what this Charter proposal would do would just take some language out of the Charter that’s in the Charter in regard to the Planning Department having to do certain functions, which would preclude making that change later if a future Administration would like to. So, in other words, it doesn’t change anything by the Charter Amendment. All it does is eliminate a barrier that’s in the Charter to doing that later if a future Administration and Council would support that kind of reorganization. So, it just removes that barrier. It doesn’t create a new division. It just allows that to happen. Number 7, Legislative Research Office. I’d, kind of, class this, and another one, under just, kind of, calling a spade a spade. This is basically just describing what the office always has done, and does today. It’s a Legislative Research Office. We have two offices under the County Council. We have a Council Services Office and we have what’s called an Auditor’s Office. It never has been an auditing office, or have any real auditing functions. It’s always been a Legislative Research Office, so to just clean up that confusion, we thought it made more sense to address that in terms of the change. We’re also proposing language which would, hopefully, make that office more professional in nature, but the reality is these are all political appointees. You get elections every two years, so everything’s subject to change every two years. So, that being the nature of the office, we felt like this addresses the reality of the situation. We did talk a lot about auditing functions and should we create an auditing office, an auditing department, or whatever, but we didn’t go with that route and this is really just to address the way the County Council functions today with this office. So, this is what this proposal’s about. Number 8, the Holdover of Members of Boards and Commissions. Right now, there’s just a 30 day holdover. We are suggesting increasing that to 90 days, just to give more time to get new appointments in place. It’s just increasing it from 30 to 90 days. Number 9, the Safety Coordinator. There again, this is just reflecting how those duties and responsibilities are handled within the County now. All of the departments really take responsibility for those functions now, so the way it appears in the Charter now does not reflect how that position works. So, we’re suggesting moving the Safety Coordinator position to the Civil Service Department, so more closely reflecting how the - So, we’re not doing away with anything. We’re just trying to reflect the way it works. Number 10. This also has to do with the Planning Commission. These are fairly technical in nature, and maybe I’ll ask Chris because he’s a real authority in this area, to explain what these two proposed amendments would be about. One is to add language to clarify the role of the Planning Commission in the Special Management Area and the other, having the authority to adopt rules and regulations. YUEN: The Planning Commission presently does act as the authority in the Special Management Area. This means that they issue what are called Special Management Area Permits. These implement what are called the Coastal Zone Management Act. Special Management Area is along the coastline, although in some places, it goes in for a ways as well. In a way, this amendment is not strictly necessary because it already has this function, but the Planning Commission asked for this to be put in the Charter so that it would clarify that they do have this power. It’s actually set in State Law that the Planning Commission has this power unless the Charter says that the Planning Commission is completely advisory. And since our Planning Commission has some other powers, it’s not completely advisory. All the counties work this way except for the City and County of Honolulu. Their Planning Commission is completely advisory, and so their Special Management Area Permits are issued by the County Council. The second, to have rules and regulations, would reverse a change made in the ‘98 election for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. It says that they would have the power to adopt rules and regulations having the force and effect of law under the Subdivision and Zoning Ordinances. The portion about the Subdivision Ordinance, we’ll probably take out. That’s not really file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 03-25-00.html7/1/2011