MIN CHC 1999-10-16 - Laserfiche WebLink

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RAY: those. But we haven't sent out any specifically to community groups on PATTON: Thank you. My reason for quickly changing my plans and coming over was partly on behalf of the other people who came last time, and couldn't this time, because they didn't know until late, so they sort of delegated me to listen for everybody. Most of you were here last time when we came over and so, we were looking primarily for follow-up discussion on some of the ideas that we had presented, in terms of the nonpartisan elections, in terms of local incorporated governments in the communities, whether it be Kona, as a city or whatever, to do local items. I mean right now, the County sits down to discuss whether a street in Kona should be named such and such, and that's something that is taking up County time, that quite easily a local government in Kona could do. And in terms of County Managing Director, or whatever the term wanted to wind up being, and in terms of having Commissioners for the Planning and the Water Department directly elected. And we are here, I am here, for these people to find out what has happened in the meantime. What other people's reaction around the island has been to these ideas, and where it stands now. RAY: Well, we may, or may not, touch on some of those subjects today, and I could probably chat with you personally to give you a little more of a complete sense on where some of those things are, or not, but I think it's fair to say that except for one, which is the nonpartisan elections, which we've indicated in a straw vote, or preliminary vote, that is something we're going to move forward, the rest of them are all in a state of preliminary discussion right now. So they are still part of a general discussion. Marnii. HERKES: I want to comment also. Thank you for coming today. We try to get as much out, and we are one of the first County entities to have all of our minutes on the web. As you say, you don't have a computer. Other people do. They can print them out for you. You can have copies of them. I mean they're huge because they're verbatim, however, you will find that the nonpartisan elections were discussed, but also, that local governments - League of Womert Voters is coming here to discuss neighborhood boards today. Local governments have been discussed, and even more so, the Managing Director type of form, Council Manager, merged government. I mean we have examples of that of about 10 or 15 different places in the United States that have those kinds of governments, so we're continuing on all those discussions; all of those things that you brought up. So I want to assure you that we are, but I want to encourage you to go through the minutes and see what the discussions are. We've had some very interesting presentations by Honolulu City and County, but also by our Planning Department and our Public Works, on a permitting branch of Public Works, which will change a lot of things in our County government. So I encourage you to look through those minutes, as onerous as it is sometimes. Thank you. •