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• RAY: Bill, can you think of anything or any possible change to County <br />government, in your mind, that would warrant a special election because that's really <br />how we're looking at it? If we thought there were something that was so major, we were <br />trying to look at it, I think, in a positive sense of engaging the public in a really dynamic <br />process and change. I know the numbers on special elections are pretty dismal, right? <br />So generally it tends to work out the opposite, that you get fewer people participating in <br />a special election but I just wondered if you had any - <br />GRAHAM: I would only say that if at these meetings you've been having, you were <br />having big turnouts and a lot of people were talking about the same thing that they <br />really needed done then somehow, in response to the public need as expressed by the <br />public, you might want to accelerate something but clearly that's not what's going on so <br />it seems inappropriate to me. <br />RAY: Okay. <br />GRAHAM: On the general thrust, I think the thing that most strikes me is sort of the <br />balance of power with the Council vs. the Mayor. I worked on that single member <br />district issue that came through ten years ago where the Council was changed from <br />being at -large Council members to single member districts. At the same time, the <br />Council term got put from four years to two years and just as an aside, that was sort of <br />• a bad hooking together of two different concepts. So I hope you all, this time around, <br />when two concepts don't have to be hooked together, you don't hook them together at <br />all. But in any event, at that time, like our current Mayor, Steve Yamashiro, was on the <br />Council and he was even saying prior to the voting by the public on this issue that he <br />perceived it as being a large swing of power from the Council to the Mayor if in fact we <br />got single member districts along with the two year terms which is in fact, what we did <br />get. The two year terms got thrown in also. So getting to my point, my point is I don't <br />think you guys can fuss around with the terms of Council Members anymore because <br />that's been attempted a few times and it's not really something the public wants to go <br />for so I still think that imbalance that came about as a result of that last Charter change <br />needs to be addressed. So I think you all should try to address some issues that would <br />restore power more to the Council vis-a-vis the Mayor and I'm not sure what they might <br />be. You all maybe know a lot better. One thing, you could have the Council Members <br />appoint this Commission next time around. Planning Commission, you know the <br />appointments are obviously a real area of power and influence by the Mayor so there <br />has been discussion before about having the Planning Commission Members be <br />appointed by the Council Member from those districts. I have no sense in my mind <br />whether that's good or bad bUt I know it's been spoken of so I just wanted to bring that <br />up. So I do wish you all would address some issues to bring some more power back to <br />the Council. <br />RAY: In regard to the Council Members, two year Council term members, <br />