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• obviously, we'd want to make absolutely sure that the Department of Public Works is cool with this, and that maybe we could even include Water later. That's what Honolulu wanted to do. HIGASHI: I think you're correct, but if we need to take it to a higher level, then we need people with higher expertise than what we have now, and in my mind, that's what I'm thinking that we ought to do. People who are in the lower tier level are managing the environmental services. By creating this department, then we may have people with more experience, more expertise, more training, and so it will be on the level of a Public Works Director. So that's my thought. And my thought on the managed competition is in the last session, or two sessions ago, through the Legislature, didn't we have the managed competition bill? HERKES: They're still working their way through the rules. HIGASHI: But the law did pass. But promulgating rules and regulations is still ongoing so that may be a vehicle we could use. RAY: the Charter. I'm mainly concerned to what degree we have to deal with that in HIGASHI: In the language you can have necessary staff or contractual • services, or something. Chris, rather than just having staff, is there language 'necessary staff or some other language that enables us to perform the job, but not necessarily by employees of the government? YUEN: I understand what you're saying. We certainly could say that in the Charter because the departments, as listed in the Charter, say 'consisting of a staff', blah, blah, blah, and we could make it clear that the functions can be performed by contracting out. RAY: John. SANTANGELO: Just to disagree a little bit, Sue. I believe, regardless of how Public Works feels in this, period. Because there's a different set of expertises, and allows for so much more, and in the proposal, it's `shall be', so the 'shall' is there, so once this is passed, if the people pass it, they have to do it. My question then goes back to how do you operate this in terms of, if you look at the Water, it says 'there shall be a semi -autonomous...'. Because this is the opportunity, do we want to go anywhere near that, and if we do, then the language is there to set up a Commission that does operate, and sets its policy, and sets its budget, and then levies fees in terms of its operation to sustain it. That does remove it from the budget a bit. That does make it a little more autonomous, and it's kind of like what they call enterprising, and that opens doors for other possibilities, too. So, do we want to venture into that? I don't think it's real complicated because we have language here that exists in the County.