2000-04-01 Charter Commission Minutes

Home

minutes 04-01-00Page 20 of 22 The Council to include three at-large seats. We did this. It’s been tried. We didn’t like it. The people in this county didn’t like it. They voted against it, I think, a couple of times, that and term limits. They voted against it a couple of times and the problem with what we were having is that just a couple of years ago, less than 10 years ago, we had six Council people in Hilo, and three of them from the island, because three districts were in Hilo and three of the at-large people came from Hilo. We also had a situation where, in Kona, their person lost in his district but won island-wide. That doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? So, let’s keep it nine Council districts. And the last thing, which would eliminate so many of these other problems. Let’s make our County Council full-time positions. Now the reason I say that, on number 7 you have Legislative Research Office. The Legislative Research Office is doing the job of the County Council person. Why do we have County Council people if they would provide research, drafting, budget analysis and legislative services. That’s the County Council’s job. If they don’t have time now to do it, then let’s make them full-time people so that they can actually do it. We have a few Council people who are full-time. Dominic Yagong is full-time. Curtis Tyler is full-time. We know that these people are representing their districts because they do it full-time. Some of the other ones who are on the County Council; they’re either lawyers and they have a law practice. They can’t possibly spend full-time checking these things out. Two good examples of that is on the Kona side, just recently, we had a subdivision that was approved. It was one way in and one way out. It got to the Council floor and no one had even gone over there to take a look at what the project was about. They didn’t have any idea how they were going to get in, how they were going to get out, and yet they all voted on it. On this side, a couple of years ago, we had a parking lot in Hilo. It was the old Police Department that was tore down. Hilo Main Street wanted to make it into a parking lot. The Outdoor Circle wanted to make it into a park. It got all the way to the Planning Department, to the Finance Department, to full Council, and then one of the Council people said ‘well, how big is that lot? How many cars can go in there? What traffic is going in? How’s it coming out?’ All of those questions should have been answered by the Council people themselves, by going to the site and taking a look at it. The Hilo people didn’t even go to the site to look at it. Therefore, I think the County Council could be, and should be, a full-time position, so that that’s what they do. They represent the people of their district. Nobody else. Just the people of their district. With that, I will now like to comment, because it was already brought up, about this $100 to the council person. I tell you, if you seven people were on the County Council, and I knew that you three people were against something that I wanted passed, who would I give my money to? I’d give it to you three people, so that I’d know that you couldn’t vote - RAY: Roger, that’s not anything that’s before the - EVANS: But it was brought up, so I’m just commenting on something that was brought up. Other than that, that’s all I’ve got to say. RAY: Bonnie Goodell, who is our last speaker signed up. GOODELL: Okay, thank you very much. I want to pass some stuff out here, first. And I haven’t gone over this stuff real carefully so I just want to apologize because I’m not going to be able to give you real detailed - But as you know, I’m very interested in the issues of sustainable development, and therefore, of equal treatment. And as these guys from Oceanview talked about, of what I prefer to call the small owner subdivisions. The documents I’m passing out to you is the study I did this year based on information given to me by civil servants in the County, and a lot of what you have here, about members at-large vs. single member districts; partisan vs. non-partisan, and if you read what the League of Women Voters says about pro and con about these issues. What you find is the concern is favoritism, political favoritism, and what John talked about, the difference between politics and government. And what I’m trying to say is we’ve tried both, and the unequal delivery of services has gotten worse and worse and worse. And the reason I’m getting this information is because the civil servants who are the ones that are benefitting, because if you really look at this data, what you see is that Union members shall get services and non-Union members shall pay taxes. If you really look at this data, that’s when you know the history of the island, and where people live, and where the money’s going, and where it’s coming from. Changes aren’t being made. The population is shifting drastically. Imagine if the DOE provided level of service with one teacher per thousand children in South Kohala, and five teachers in North Hilo. This is insane. I mean, imagine if they had 15 children in a classroom in one district and 50 in another district. It’s exactly the same kind of discrimination. And yet, it’s not being handled at all, and so I guess I made a suggestion in the beginning, is this stuff needs to be taken out of politics. Mandate that services shall be provided equally and every year, just like the DOE does, have them count the people and redistribute the positions. Then all this stuff that you’re fighting out, and gerrymandering, maybe we can do this to get the favoritism out of it. You’re not going to get the favoritism out of it as long as it’s political. Take the politics out of it. So, I just also wanted to comment on what George brought up about Improvement Districts. We have an Improvement District Ordinance. We also have a Facilities District Ordinance, and several other districts ordinance and they are not file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 04-01-00.htm7/1/2011