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minutes 03-25-00Page 6 of 34
<br />necessary because they don’t currently have rules under the Subdivision Ordinance. Under the Zoning Ordinance, they
<br />currently do have rules and regulations having the force and effect of law. These cover things like what has to be in an
<br />application, how the application is processed, other more technical matters like that. And it raises this question now of their
<br />authority to have those kinds of rules.
<br />OTTERSON: I think you remember me talking about this junkyard business. I was the one that set that up for them, and I
<br />was, of course, talking to Bill Davis and he said ‘we don’t have any teeth in it’, and I told him, I said, ‘well, can I tell you
<br />what we did. I was a Zoning Inspector and Building Inspector.’ And he said ‘sure’ so I told him exactly how we did it and he
<br />said ‘no, we can’t do that.’ About two days later he called me and said he had called Maui and he said ‘yes, we can do that
<br />plus we’ll get with the lawyers and the whole thing and get it all turned around.’ Now you ask Bill Davis if that isn’t true.
<br />Thank you.
<br />RAY: Number 11, Qualification of Heads of Departments of Public Works and Water Supply. This issue was, kind of,
<br />highlighted a couple of years ago, or a year and a half ago. The Chief Engineer, the head of the Department of Public Works,
<br />left the County, and the Deputy Department Head, who is not a registered engineer, could not step into that role, so that was a
<br />lot of discussion about is it necessary - Let me step back. Right now, the Department of Public Works and the head of the
<br />Water Department, both in the Charter, have to be registered engineers. So this proposed amendment would eliminate that
<br />qualification. Like I said, the case where the Deputy Manager couldn’t step up because he was not a registered engineer
<br />generated a lot of discussion. Gee, is that really necessary? Aren’t these positions more administrative in nature, really? And
<br />that’s what this proposal would do. We’ve received a lot of testimony opposing this. There seems to be a lot of confusion in
<br />the public, like ‘gee, you’re trying to increase the qualifications in some areas and you seem like you’re trying to take them
<br />away in this case’, so my sense is we probably won’t propose this. It just seems so confusing, and it’s not a big deal, really,
<br />one way or the other. But the thought there is, and I do strongly believe this, that these positions are administrative in nature
<br />and they don’t have to be filled by a registered engineer, but that doesn’t seem to be a real burden. There are plenty of
<br />registered engineers around in the department, so there’s a good chance we won’t propose this.
<br />Impeachment. A couple of changes here. One is in regard to a grounds for impeachment, eliminating the legal term for
<br />impeachment, ‘maladministration’. There, again, I’m going to ask our legal counsel to explain why he thinks, and why we
<br />think, that doesn’t make sense; that it’s not grounds for impeachment. And also, a back drop to this is we do have a recall
<br />procedure in the Charter, so through a recall petition, there also is an avenue for removing someone.
<br />YUEN: Impeachment gives an unelected person, a judge, the power to remove someone who’s been elected by the entire
<br />community, and it’s an awesome power. Traditionally it’s used to remove public officials who have breached the public trust
<br />by violating some clear legal duty. So the grounds for impeachment, presently stated in the Charter, are malfeasance,
<br />misfeasance, and nonfeasance, which all are words that are well understood in the legal community as referring to either
<br />doing something that you’re not empowered to do by law, which would be malfeasance or misfeasance, or nonfeasance
<br />would be not doing something that you’re supposed to do. Like repeatedly not showing up for meetings would be an example
<br />of nonfeasance, or for the Mayor failing to submit a budget on time to the County Council would be an example of
<br />nonfeasance. The term ‘maladministration’ however, does not have any set or fixed meaning, and it creates a rather vague
<br />standard for removing the Mayor, or impeachment in general. It’s not just the Mayor, but it would be the Council members
<br />and the Prosecuting Attorney. So that was my recommendation that the word ‘maladministration’ be removed as a grounds
<br />for impeachment.
<br />RAY: Yes sir.
<br />P. MARTIN: My name is Pete Martin. That makes sense to me in the legal sense. What I don’t understand is why you would
<br />want to raise the number of signatures required from -
<br />RAY: I haven’t gotten to that one yet.
<br />P. MARTIN: Okay. From 100 to 3%. That creates an enormous burden for the public to get rid of a corrupt official.
<br />RAY: I guess that’s a judgment call on what’s reasonable. To me, a hundred signatures seems totally unreasonable. Whether
<br />3%, which would represent 2,000 votes or so, is reasonable or not, I think is up for grabs. We are discussing lowering that.
<br />We’ve talked about maybe 1% would be more reasonable, which would be more in the 700 vote range. Another issue related
<br />to that, that we’re struggling with, is whether, in these single member Council districts you would allow folks who were not
<br />in the Council district to be able to sign an impeachment petition. In other words, if I wanted to impeach Curtis Tyler, and I
<br />live in Waimea, would I be allowed to sign that petition or not, and as the language presently reads, that would be allowed. It
<br />does, and doesn’t, make sense to me. On one hand, County Council persons do represent the entire county and vote on island-
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