2000-05-10 Charter Commission Minutes

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Transcript of Meeting of May 10, 2000Page 7 of 62 of that. 13-3, Appointments. I want to say, again, proper professional degrees are needed. As written, I think maybe, the terms there such as ‘proper investigation ‘ and ‘related fields’ are so ambiguous that they don’t mean anything. They’re too broad and I think maybe one wants to say a little more clearly what constitutes ‘proper investigation’ and ‘related fields’. That’s done somewhat for the Planning Director but I’m a little taken aback by the term ‘geography’ as a qualification. It might be nice if they can tell you where the Holy Roman Empire used to be in a map of the world, and the Ottoman Empire, but it’s not clear to me what that has to do with running a Planning Office. An appointment in Hilo would probably be able to tell us that the Grand Canyon is not what he reaches back and finds, but I don’t see that as relevant, again, to running the Planning Department. RAY: Actually, the field of geography is quite broad. I studied Coastal Geography when I was in college, which was actually directly applicable to planning issues in this County. BLANN: Okay, it’s not what comes to my mind by ‘geography’. Geology, I might say – HERKES: Mr. Ray, could I ask a question? BLANN: Please. HERKES: I went through about 15 different Charters, or documents, from different entities on the mainland and across this island, and I looked for language for Managing Directors, for qualifications. I didn’t find a lot of language that pleased me, or that I felt comfortable with. Do you have any specific language that you could propose? I mean, like five years experience, and those kinds of broad things, are fine, but they don’t really fill the bill. BLANN: What I would do, for example, for a County Manager or for the Managing Director, is I would go to a professional organization. I suspect County Managers have one. Most professional groups do. I would try to get information from them, and possibly consultants from some of their Boards, and have them help outline what is proper language in that field. And in general, in the different areas, I would try to contract professional organizations, try to get some ideas from those and condense those into what seemed good. HERKES: Thank you. BLANN: Article VI, Chapter 5, Department of Environmental Services. Again, maybe I misread this, but it didn’t seem as though the qualifications of the Director needed to have any experience in Environmental Science Management. It looked like it was purely administrative, and I would think that that post would need someone who, preferably, had a degree in Environmental Science and some experience in management processes. 6-5.4. I put let the Council submit names, one list from each Council member, so that must have been some Board or Commission. Under Section 13-4, having to do with the 90 day succession of appointments from the previous Administration, I would say no. I would write it that they may continue up to 90 days if requested in writing by the new appointive authority. So if it was a post that the Mayor would appoint, the new incoming mayoral candidate could request that the people stay on, but he shouldn’t be saddled with dolts for 90 days if he doesn’t wish to be. That could foul up the setting-up of a new Administration. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 05-10-00.html7/1/2011