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• Planning Director, Virginia Goldstein, requesting to come in before the Charter <br />Commission on a number of issues they'd like to discuss so I think we'll probably <br />agendize that for our next meeting. <br />HERKES: Mr. Ray, could I interrupt? Would you ask Ms. Goldstein to list the <br />measures that the Planning Department has taken to open up the hearings process <br />for the Planning Commission. I know they've taken quite a few measures and I'd like <br />to know what they are. <br />RAY: <br />- okay. <br />• <br />So the request is background on any steps they may have taken to <br />Statements from the Public. There are none. <br />Unfinished Business. We are, I guess, in a state of unfinished business in terms of <br />our discussion so we'll just proceed on to New Business. <br />Today we are happy to have Vice Chair Councilman John Henry Felix from the City and <br />County of Honolulu here today, as well as his Senior Advisor, Ron Boyer and David <br />Arakawa, the Corporation Counsel from the City and County of Honolulu, to give us <br />some information and to have an exchange of information on what we have agendized <br />as Nonpartisan Elections and I'd like to stick with that discussion initially and then if <br />you folks do want to get into some discussion on some other items that have come up, <br />especially City Manager form of government or whatever, we can entertain that <br />discussion as well. Mr. Felix, do you have any prepared remarks or do you want to just <br />open this up? <br />FELIX: I do have bullet points and I've shared them with the secretary for <br />inclusion in your minutes so I will not read from prepared text but go over salient points <br />that I think will be of interest to all of you. <br />I'm delighted to be next to my distinguished colleague, David Arakawa, who has the <br />enviable task of serving not only the Mayor but the City Council and I must say that he <br />does an exemplary job in bifurcating himself as a lawyer. Although we have had <br />differences of opinion from time to time, we respect each other and there's never been <br />any acrimony between us. <br />It's a delight to be on the Big Island. My roots are here and my mother was born in <br />Hilo. My grandfather served as a District Judge, Manuel Souza Pacheco. Sounds like <br />a Portuguese name, as well as Albert Mariano Felix who served as a Circuit Court <br />Judge on this island. <br />I speak from a very interesting perspective, and first I would like to say that I do <br />