MIN CHC 2009-04-09.tif - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

MR. NAHALE -A: Then also, in terms of getting feedback from the various department heads, is this the time we are supposed to be hearing from them? MR. HOOKANO: At any time we discuss it the department heads can show up. As you can see, we have our distinguished members from the Administration here, as well as from the Legislative Branch. They are here for questions because we are discussing Articles III and IV today. That really concerns their area so they are here to offer questions and comments when that comes up on the agenda. When other Articles are brought up according to the proposed schedule, then we would contact the department heads and let them know the Commission is going to be discussing your portion of the Charter- -you might want to be there. MR. NAHALE -A: My assumption or preference would be that the appropriate department people are proposing changes to us. I'm still not sure if that's during this agenda item or later on during the process. When can I expect to hear from them about how they think the Charter can be improved? That's what I'm still a little ambiguous about. MR. HOOKANO: There's nothing to prevent department heads from contacting any of you directly at this time. They could come to you as an individual and voice their concerns. The proposed procedure that we just postponed would have mandated that all Charter Amendments come through a Commission member. That really is, no matter which way you look at it, the way it's going to have to be as it relates to this Commission. Because that's what this Commission's job is. So, if a member of the Administration comes to you and says, "I'm looking at this proposal," then it's your decision as a Commission member to decide if you want to put it on an agenda or not through the procedure of requesting items be placed on the agenda. So at this time, there is nothing to prevent Administration from talking to you individually and you requesting something be placed on the agenda for that purpose. CHR. HAITSUKA: I have a comment. The way that I envisioned this is that we are going to be discussing these various Articles and the provisions in the Articles at a particular meeting and after that discussion we are either going to put something on the agenda to make a proposal to amend a particular Charter Section for the following meeting and /or we are going to create some kind of ad -hoc committee to investigate or take some kind of action with respect to a proposed amendment. That's how I thought we were going to do it. That was consistent with reading your proposed memo regarding the amendment to our Rules as to the method in which proposed amendments would be submitted. Would my understanding comply with how we should be doing it? MR. HOOKANO: I would say, yes. I know that in the past, the former Commission, in their minutes, it reflected that when they discussed the sections generally, they would go through it and say, "This language in Article I looks fine." So they just moved on and never revisited that section again because they felt that language already was fine. The same thing with Article II, they just moved on. Article III, they went through it section by section and decided whether they wanted to look at it closer or not. If they did want to look at it closer, then that's when they would request information from the attorney about the background and 12