MIN CHC 1999-08-11 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

• MARTIN: They say yes is no. We know that. YUEN: And unfortunately, I won't say it's completely impossible but it's extremely difficult. I would say it is virtually impossible, to get the Hawaii Supreme Court to give, what you would call, a pure advisory opinion in advance of doing something. Some states, the government, and its actually very useful, can present 'if we do this, is it legal?' and the Courts will answer that. In Hawaii, they don't. RAY: Okay. Ms. Irvine. IRVINE: I guess the one other thing that we have to think about is we may be enthused about this but has anybody talked to anybody outside this Commission about whether the voters might even consider this? I'm not sure. RAY: Anybody want to respond to that? Ms. Herkes. HERKES: We have had testimony in favor of this and have some very strong opinions from some people that I've talked to, so yes, there are some voters out there. MARTIN: How many is hard to say but yes, there is some consensus. HERKES: Well, you won't know. We're not restructuring, we're re - restructuring because we had this in our Charter when we first set up a Charter - Can we get a copy of that first Charter so that maybe we can just put it out, just change a little language and see if that's the kind of structure? RAY: You mean under the original Board of Supervisors? Yes, sure, that's all available to us. Other comments? YUEN: I'm pretty sure that there wasn't - the Board of Supervisors was set out State enabling legislation back in the Territory of Hawaii. There were territorial laws that said you had a Board of Supervisors in Hawaii County and I think that the first Charter was in '68 and went to a Mayor form of government and since then, all the Board of Supervisors language has been purged out of the Statutes and has been replaced to conform with the Council form of government. RAY: Mr. Bess. BESS: One question. Chris, I don't know to what extent rather than seeking opinion from the AG's office that you go for a declaratory judgment ruling. Somehow or other, accelerate the process by actually getting a decision from a Court and then that would be appealed and it would be a matter of such importance that you could get the Court to rule in a timely fashion, I would hope four or five months prior to 16