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minutes 04-12-00Page 12 of 26
<br />HIGASHI: They don’t.
<br />HERKES: They don’t.
<br />MARTIN: And in the past, what transpired is the Primary Election. The winner comes out and that’s when the Party, in fact,
<br />goes behind and supports them 100%. As Roland indicated, though, on the County level, there’s no monetary gratuities.
<br />Again, the fear factor that the Green Party has, and what we’ve heard from the individual in Volcano, is that they’re going to
<br />lose some identity. And I don’t see that happening. As a Democrat myself, you run on your ability to do the job. And actually
<br />to me, being non-partisan, it cuts ties from, per se, the ‘ old boy network’, if you will. So, the hysteria that we’ve heard from
<br />the Green Party and this one individual Republican is just that, hysteria. They’re going to lose their identity and possibly the
<br />ability to do what they’ve done in the past. Yes, I see that possibly happening. There may be some validity to what the Green
<br />Party is saying, but if they are that good, it should enhance them, and not deter them.
<br />RAY: Marni.
<br />HERKES: I’d like to get back to what Sue said about policy setting. If we are, in truth, trying to attract more people to run for
<br />office, trying to open up the system, this is not rocket science. It’s not something that we’re blazing a trail because 80% of the
<br />jurisdictions have non-partisan. All of the counties in the state have non-partisan. There’s a reason for that and that’s because
<br />it has been proven to open up elections, to be able to have people that don’t have ties to political parties run for elections. So,
<br />I’d like to put my oar in the water in favor of non-partisan in spite of the fact that I’m going to get in trouble for it.
<br />RAY: Well, we’re not taking any votes tonight.
<br />MARTIN: I think we should have some sort of a straw vote to see if we want to leave it here or not. Is it going to take to the
<br />next meeting to decide if we’re going to leave something, or begin to consider hacking away and getting rid of it? I mean,
<br />when are we going to do that, if that’s what you’re looking to do? No time like the present.
<br />KUROZAWA: But John, I think your idea’s a good one. If we can go through each one, talk about it, give our input, and then
<br />decide whether we’re going to, because some of these will drop out probably, and some will stay.
<br />RAY: Yes, there’re only 7 people here tonight, so unless there’s some huge shift in -
<br />HERKES: We are the 7.
<br />MARTIN: Yes, I was going to discuss that too. At some point in time, do you expect everybody to show up?
<br />IRVINE: Maybe 9.
<br />YUEN: Let me make a suggestion, and this is really out of the spirit of fairness to everybody on the Commission and also out
<br />of spirit of fairness to getting proposals passed that a majority of the Commission may be in favor of. I would suggest that, at
<br />some point soon, the final up or down vote be scheduled on all the amendments, and that the announcement of the meeting go
<br />out to all the Commission members that this is going to be it. And the reason is that you are going to need, as we discussed
<br />before, 6 votes in favor of a measure for it to go on the ballot, and if you take a vote tonight on something, for example, and it
<br />turns out 5 to 2 in favor, I don’t think it’s really fair to say well, we killed it, at that point. But if you have a meeting that
<br />everybody has had ample forewarning of, rather than just continually voting on things meeting after meeting and hoping that
<br />enough people show up to pass it, the fair thing to do is to let everybody know that if they care about getting something on
<br />the ballot that they better show up for a particular meeting, and if the votes are not there then it doesn’t pass.
<br />MARTIN: Question, Mr. Chair. In that venue, as what Chris just indicated, and this is purely hypothetical, but is it possible
<br />to get a proxy vote from another Commissioner?
<br />YUEN: No.
<br />HERKES: I’m going to give you proxy votes if you do it on the 29th. I’m going to give you a lot of trouble too.
<br />MARTIN: No. The answer’s no.
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