2000-05-31 Charter Commission Minutes

Home

minutes 05-31-00Page 16 of 54 YUEN: If I could just make a brief suggestion. I think what you’re discussing is really more of a Statement of Purpose and that could be put in Article I. I would suggest that rather than changing the Preamble because the Preamble just is an adopting statement and we don’t want to say that the voters are adopting the Charter because they adopted the Charter a long time ago. They’re not really re-adopting the Charter. I think what the members who are discussing the Preamble are getting at is more a desire to have some kind of overall statement of what the purpose of having a Charter is. I think we could amend the title of Article I to include a Statement of Purpose and put it in there if the Commissioners wish to do that. IRVINE: I personally have no thoughts on where it should – I knew, as an attorney, you’d have some help for us, and I’m not committed to this happening. It’s just that Marni had passed around a version. RAY: Do we have a motion? SANTANGELO: No. RAY: No. Yes, no? SANTANGELO: One of the things that I liked about what you were reading, and be it in Purpose or not, if I understand why we’re doing this is if a person picks up the Charter and wants to open it up to the first page, they should get some idea about what it’s about. The other thing is if the ordinance body, the Council and the Administration, wanted to change something in the Charter, that there’s a genesis or a root that they go to that should give them a guideline on how they should go about it and what they’re going about, and so I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know about this ‘shall’. I understand the thing behind it but again, as you said, things like honesty, ethics, things like that, that comes from within. You can’t mandate that. That just should be there. So I like what you have and I don’t have a problem putting it in the Purpose. RAY: Marni and Sue, what’s your enthusiasm for putting this in the Article I? HERKES: Let me read you Maui’s. RAY: Wait a minute. But the idea of putting it under Article 1 as a Purpose section vs. a Preamble? HERKES: Article I is Incorporation and Geographical Limits. Would you change Article I to Purpose? YUEN: If we wanted to put Purpose somewhere, that’s where I would put it and you’d change the title – HERKES: Change the title? YUEN: As well as putting a new little section in there about Purpose. HERKES: Well, there’s a Powers of the County under Powers of the County and Exercise of Powers, and that probably could be a place to put it too. RAY: So, my question is are you still enthusiastic about pursuing this in either Article I or Article II? HERKES: I could be persuaded to move it to Article I or Article II. I think it’s important to have something that does define a purpose for the Charter, and Maui’s Charter does have ‘secure the benefits of the best possible form of County government to exercise the powers and assume the responsibilities to the fullest extent possible that they adopt the Charter’. But that’s not so much ethics as it is – RAY: Okay. Sue. IRVINE: Well, like I said, I was basically editing what Marni had written. Whether we want to have one more amendment go to the public or whether we’re worried about volume of what we’re sending out, that’s my only hesitation. I wish we could write a beautiful Charter without having to have each word approved. RAY: Steve. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 05-31-00.html7/1/2011