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Transcript of Meeting of April 29, 2000Page 17 of 64
<br />the Council. I would really prefer to see the Council members just appoint the Commissioner because
<br />our Council members know the people, most of the people, in their own district. They know what
<br />qualifications they have for being on a particular Board. If you ever had a Utility Commission, there are
<br />people that could tell you all about utilities because we’ve worked in them, and we might be more
<br />qualified on a Utility Commission. God, hope we never get one of those. But you want people with
<br />some expertise in some areas. If you need planners, you need somebody who has some expertise in
<br />construction and all those different facets of planning. And you can get that because your Council
<br />members know their constituency. They better know them or they’re not going to make it into office. So,
<br />a simple majority would be my second choice on the Commission, one Commissioner per district.
<br />Simple majority would be my second place, and my first place choice would be that the Commissioner
<br />be appointed by our elected officials representing our district who knows their own constituency. Thank
<br />you for your time.
<br />RAY: Thank you. Judy Graham, followed by Tom Beach, followed by Curtis Tyler, who is the last
<br />person signed up to testify today.
<br />GRAHAM: Hi, good morning. I live in Waimea. I guess I thought I might have something original to
<br />say but it doesn’t seem like it. But what I was briefly going to request was that you not institute the at-
<br />large 6-3 Council seats. I felt that they would be divisive, that Hilo would take the seats. Also, I do feel
<br />that the at-large seats, because of this strong burden of advertising, somewhat, do invite special interests
<br />to really fund the candidate. And I happen to have an old 1988 Campaign Spending Report of one such
<br />at-large person from the Hilo side and it’s just full of large West Hawaii developers. And maybe the last
<br />remotely original thing that I might say is that I’ve been, kind of, aware of the Council members since
<br />the mid 1980's and my recollection is that the biggest turnover was in 1996 when there was six new
<br />Council members. But the reason was that five people were no longer running. It wasn’t as if the single
<br />member districts created a lack of continuity. It was that five of the incumbents chose not to run. So, I
<br />think that’s all. Thank you.
<br />RAY: Thanks Judy. Okay, Tom Beach.
<br />BEACH: Good morning. I’m a firefighter. I’ve been a firefighter since 1968. I was a firefighter in
<br />California for about 15 years, and became a Captain there. I’m a Captain now here. And it was not easy
<br />getting to be a Captain here. I’m here to talk about a Fire Commission. And these other people have
<br />already addressed the single member representation, that sort of thing. But, I think it’s really, really
<br />important that we get a Fire Commission, and you can choose them anyway you want, I think, but the
<br />best way would probably be to have someone from each district appointed, or chosen, by that member
<br />from that district from the Council. A lot of this is reinventing the wheel, I might add. It’s as if we’re in
<br />some kind of alternate planet, or something, here. I mean this has all been done and thought about quite
<br />a bit on the mainland.
<br />But, without getting into politics, a lot of our Department Heads are chosen simply because they set up
<br />chairs or donated a cow for barbeque, that sort of thing, and for Police and Fire, I think this is just really
<br />foolhardy. We deal with lives and property, and if we chose our Department Head that way, it can have
<br />dire consequences, and not just cheating on promotional tests, but what happens when there’s no
<br />standards, or no quality, in the delivery of our service. And that’s what it’s coming down to when you
<br />start - It trickles down. When you choose your Department Head that way, you choose your Assistant
<br />Chiefs and your Captains, and on down, like that. I know what’s happening, or has happened through
<br />the years. You probably do too. But, it’s come to the place where it’s who you know and not what you
<br />know. and that’s really unfortunate. And, like I say, it has caused lives and property because people just
<br />didn’t know what the hell they were doing. And I’d like to see that changed. One of these ladies here - I
<br />didn’t catch her name - was saying we need to reverse the process. We need a Chief in charge of our
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