2000-05-10 Charter Commission Minutes

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Transcript of Meeting of May 10, 2000Page 1 of 62 Back To: Home Page | Table of Contents | Charter main page HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION Transcript of Meeting of May 10, 2000 Hawaii County Liquor Commission Conference Room, Hilo Lagoon Center Attendance: J. Ray, E. Alonzo, S. Bess, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, S. Irvine, D. Kurozawa (from 5:15 p.m.), J. Santangelo, G. Yoshiyama, Counsel C. Yuen Absent: K. Balog, G. Martin And 14 members of the public in attendance. The meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m. RAY: I’d like to call the meeting to order. This is the 1999-2000 Hawaii County Charter Commission. It is Wednesday, May 10th, 5 p.m. We’re in the Hilo Lagoon Centre, Liquor Control Conference Room. Attendance. This evening at the present time: Sue Irvine, Marni Herkes, Steve Bess, Vice Chairman Roland Higashi, John Santangelo, Gary Yoshiyama, Eddie Alonzo, and myself John Ray, Chair. We are expecting two more members. One of our members, George Martin, is out of town. He’s on the mainland, so we knew that he wouldn’t be here. Statements from the Public. We have a number people signed up. If you’re not, you need to fill out a form other there and hand it across to the desk. The first person signed up is Del Pranke, followed by Mai Apple McCullough. Del. PRANKE: Thank you, Mr. Ray, Mr. Chair and Commission members. I’m here to talk against several proposed items. We’ve talked about these some before, but new things have happened in the last couple of weeks that I will bring to your attention, I hope to help you to understand why I’ve taken some of the positions I have. I won’t talk about all of these because I know there are other people that will talk about some of them. I’ve talked with them and they pretty much have some of the same ideas. So I’m going to skip the non-partisan and the Council 3 at-large seats. I’m opposed to those. The Fire Commission and the Police Commission items, number 4 and 16, I’m going to lump together. The Fire Commission amendment, as it reads now - it might be changed - reads essentially the same as the current Police Commission, and the current Police Commission has trouble doing its own job without us getting it fixed. And the way I read the proposed amendment, that was proposed before, would simply cause the Police Commission to get farther involved in the Police Department without helping solve the problem of real oversight. The Police Commission should not be involved in running the Police Department. The Police Chief is the only person who should do that. When you blur the lines of command, you cause more problems than you solve. And the way I read it, the amendment put in by the Police Commission would simply do that, simply put them more involved inside the Police Department. Whoever set up the Police Commission before did at least one good thing and that was to keep the Police Commission completely out of the day-to-day operations of the Police Department. That file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 05-10-00.html7/1/2011