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<br />me and said he had called Maui and he said 'yes, we can do that plus we'll get with the
<br />lawyers and the whole thing and get it all turned around.' Now you ask Bill Davis if that
<br />isn't true. Thank you.
<br />RAY: Number 11, Qualification of Heads of Departments of Public
<br />Works and Water Supply. This issue was, kind of, highlighted a couple of years ago,
<br />or a year and a half ago. The Chief Engineer, the head of the Department of Public
<br />Works, left the County, and the Deputy Department Head, who is not a registered
<br />engineer, could not step into that role, so that was a lot of discussion about is it
<br />necessary - Let me step back. Right now, the Department of Public Works and the
<br />head of the Water Department, both in the Charter, have to be registered engineers.
<br />So this proposed amendment would eliminate that qualification. Like I said, the case
<br />where the Deputy Manager couldn't step up because he was not a registered engineer
<br />generated a lot of discussion. Gee, is that really necessary? Aren't these positions
<br />more administrative in nature, really? And that's what this proposal would do. We've
<br />received a lot of testimony opposing this. There seems to be a lot of confusion in the
<br />public, like 'gee, you're trying to increase the qualifications in some areas and you
<br />seem like you're trying to take them away in this case', so my sense is we probably
<br />won't propose this. It just seems so confusing, and it's not a big deal, really, one way
<br />or the other. But the thought there is, and I do strongly believe this, that these
<br />positions are administrative in nature and they don't have to be filled by a registered
<br />engineer, but that doesn't seem to be a real burden. There are plenty of registered
<br />engineers around in the department, so there's a good chance we won't propose this.
<br />Impeachment. A couple of changes here. One is in regard to a grounds for
<br />impeachment, eliminating the legal term for impeachment, 'maladministration'. There,
<br />again, I'm going to ask our legal counsel to explain why he thinks, and why we think,
<br />that doesn't make sense; that it's not grounds for impeachment. And also, a back drop
<br />to this is we do have a recall procedure in the Charter, so through a recall petition,
<br />there also is an avenue for removing someone.
<br />YUEN: Impeachment gives an unelected person, a judge, the power to
<br />remove someone who's been elected by the entire community, and it's an awesome
<br />power. Traditionally it's used to remove public officials who have breached the public
<br />trust by violating some clear legal duty. So the grounds for impeachment, presently
<br />stated in the Charter, are malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance, which all are
<br />words that are well understood in the legal community as referring to either doing
<br />something that you're not empowered to do by law, which would be malfeasance or
<br />misfeasance, or nonfeasance would be not doing something that you're supposed to
<br />do. Like repeatedly not showing up for meetings would be an example of nonfeasance,
<br />or for the Mayor failing to submit a budget on time to the County Council would be an
<br />example of nonfeasance. The term 'maladministration' however, does not have any set
<br />or fixed meaning, and it creates a rather vague standard for removing the Mayor, or
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