2000-04-12 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 04-12-00Page 16 of 26 RAY: Okay, so then we have other testimony in regard to the Fire Commission from Mr. Holschuh, language in regard to emergency medical services. He also testified in regard to the length of experience for the Fire Chief. His recommendation was expanding that to10 years. I don’t know how anybody feels about that. And then also from Mr. Ben we had testimony, Michael Ben, written testimony in regard to Department Head Qualifications and removal of the Fire Chief. So we need to look at that and discuss it. And he had a number of questions in regard to the consistency of qualification requirements. So we need to, everybody, take a look at that and see how we want to address it, including adding qualifications for the Director of Personnel, which I left out with my original list of qualifications. So, I’ll play around with that before the 29th and see if we can improve on that. YUEN: The Civil Service Director position is spelled out in State Law and there’s a State Supreme Court decision that says that the State Law supercedes anything in the Charter. You’d have to put in exactly what it says in the State Law anyway, and rather than bother doing that, I think we’d be better off just leaving it. RAY: See, if you’d have been there, all these public hearings, we could have cleared that up right there. Okay, well, that’s a good answer for that one. Department of Environmental Services. I, kind of, like the name Environmental Management’ more. HERKES: Environmental what? RAY: Management. The other thing that’s come up in regard to this is the testimony from Mr. Boucher about including non point source pollution. I don’t know that we necessarily need to do that in the Charter. That can be something by ordinance that they could deal with. HERKES: I think if you do it, you’ll end up with a laundry list of things that people want. IRVINE: I think that’s a really important - Everybody I talked to, sort of, in these other departments and stuff, said that that’s what it’s all about. It isn’t a specific little thing. Recycling is much more specific than non point source pollution. RAY: So, what is your suggestion? IRVINE: That we put it in. That we do include it. The other thing, I had a little deal that I wrote up. I had the feeling in the Maui County Charter, and we pulled some things from there, and Honolulu, for Police and Fire. We then had a statement of the purpose of why this department even existed rather than just going into saying we’re setting up a Commission and a department without saying what their purpose is, and I had a feeling, maybe we should add that to this Environmental whatever we want to call it, Services or Management. I like your idea of Management, actually. I think that sounds good. But, the statement I came up with was that ‘The Department of Environmental Services is established to protect, preserve and enhance our island’s environment by promoting wise management of our waste for the benefit of current and future generations. The department will pursue waste management strategies, promote landfill diversion and prevent non point source pollution.’ That’s, sort of, all encompassing. I haven’t run it past Mr. Boucher yet. RAY: Okay. HERKES: Can we put that in our minutes and have it next time? RAY: Yes, maybe bring that to the 29th meeting. IRVINE: Actually, I made copies. RAY: Planning Department functions and Planning Commission powers. As far as the first one, the Planning Department function, the suggested deletion of the language, I have mixed feelings about this. It seems hard for people to deal with, very confusing. IRVINE: What are we discussing? HERKES: 6-10. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 04-12-00.htm7/1/2011