2000-05-10 Charter Commission Minutes

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Transcript of Meeting of May 10, 2000Page 4 of 62 RAY: Why don’t you identify what it is you’re opposed to, just for the record. MC CULLOUGH: Favoring: 1. Non-partisan elections. 3. Strengthening the authority of the County Managing Director. 4. A yes tentative on waiting until after the – The Fire Commission, number 4 is the Fire Commission. I’m sorry I feel befuddled by this request. Ya’ll have the papers, right? Everybody knows what they are. RAY: Actually, no, we don’t have absolute numbers tied to absolute - MC CULLOUGH: Okay, I just didn’t want to take up all the time. Okay. 4. Creating a Fire Commission. I can’t really say yes or no because, in my opinion, we need to wait to get the Police Commission working so that we have some kind of rules that we can follow that apply to different Commissions. I don’t think we need to create more of a brouhaha until we get things straightened out with what we’ve got. I am in favor of the proposed amendment 5 for a Department of Environmental Services. Sounds like a good thing. 9. On a Safety Coordinator. Sounds good. 11. is on the Qualifications of the Heads of Department of Public Works and Department of Water Supply, specifically. Yes, I just think it’s a good idea to have good qualified people and I think we can make exceptions but, overall, I think that we do need to have qualified people, not necessary somebody gets appointed because they’re somebody’s cousin or uncle or somehow related. I think the nepotism that we have had for the way it’s always been done, kind of thing, here in Hawaii County has really got us pretty deep in shit, if you’ll pardon the expression. I also favor the proposed amendment 19, Cost-of-Government Commission, an overview that would suggest ways to reduce the cost of government and increase efficiency. Okay, so that’s the yeas. Now, on the nays: 2. Amendment on the Council to include 3 at-large seats. No way. Every district must have representation of its own, period. 6. Amendment proposal on Planning Department functions. No, and I think it ought to just be deleted completely. The 7th proposed amendment on Legislative Research. I just wanted to ask, well, why do we need a Legislative Auditor’s Office? I don’t understand. It seems like this is already being done. Do we really need another office here? I don’t know. I guess you guys know more about it than I am, but unless we really do, I’m not in favor of that. In other words, I would vote nay. On the proposed amendment 8, Holdover of members of Boards and Commissions. I don’t think so. I think it does allow the Mayor more authority over keeping things the way that it is if we don’t have a file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 05-10-00.html7/1/2011