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HERKES: Okay, that's what I thought.
<br />YUEN: So it could be done either way. The Council can also create a
<br />department, on it's own, without it being in the Charter, which I don't think they've ever
<br />done. But I think the advantage to doing it in the Charter is that, in a way, it pre -clears it
<br />with the voters, which is, I think, the concern for the politicians of creating another -
<br />because you do have another set of appointments. It may not actually end up costing
<br />you more money to have another department, but you would be able to have an
<br />appointed Director, and possibly a Deputy, which multiplies the number of appointed
<br />positions that you have, which may be, in this case, something that you want to do if
<br />you're trying to upgrade the status of certain services in the County.
<br />RAY: And then, in regard to Roland's remark, as far as allowing
<br />managed competition, or privatization, do you have any thoughts on how that
<br />sentiment would be incorporated, or not, in Charter language? Is that something we'd
<br />have to address?
<br />YUEN: I think that the main thing is not to put any obstacles in the way of
<br />doing it, in the Charter, so there's nothing that anybody, in the future, can point to the
<br />Charter and say you can't do these functions by contractual services. What's
<br />happened is privatization, just to give an overview, is held up on the State level by the
<br />State Supreme Court's decision on the County Waste Management case here in Kona,
<br />• where the State Supreme Court said that Civil Service law, by implication, prevents
<br />you from farming out, and privatizing, additional Civil Service functions. And just to
<br />give you a little bit more background, the Hawaii Supreme Court said, in one of the
<br />really basic decisions about County -State relationships back in the late 1960's, that the
<br />State Civil Service law superceded anything in the County Charters. So that, for
<br />example, you can't put in the County Charter that certain positions are going to be not
<br />civil service when, according to State Civil Service law, they are civil service. So we
<br />can't put anything in the Charter that overrides the State Supreme Court's decision on
<br />privatization because that is based on the State Supreme Court's interpretation of Civil
<br />Service law. So what I would do, is just make it clear that, as far as the Charter is
<br />concerned, it was not the intent to restrict any farming out, by contract, of the services
<br />being provided by this particular department. But, for it actually to be implemented,
<br />there would have to be changes on the State level on the Civil Service law.
<br />RAY: Sue.
<br />IRVINE: Right now our County does not recycle or pick up garbage so, to
<br />me, it's hardly a matter of privatization. They don't do it at this point so it's not a County
<br />service. We do service the dumps, but it seems to me like it's not something we've
<br />done traditionally and, therefore, it would be quite easy to farm it out. The other thing.
<br />Making a shell department, we have several divisions within Public Works which
<br />would, pretty much, automatically belong in this department at this time, so 1 don't think
<br />it would be shell. It would a matter of moving those into a free standing place, and
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