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I'm here today to talk about Article XI, Initiative and Referendum. As a past president of the Hawaii County League of Women Voters, I worked on the revision of this article. As you are aware, it was occasioned by the 2% Land Initiative, and the snags that the effort ran into. When that was resolved and it went on the ballot, the County Council asked us whether we would clarify the language in that article to avoid the frustrations and the pitfalls that group had encountered. So, over a period of about 16 months, we worked on it, taking every clause and every phrase apart and really considering it carefully. What we were interested in was presenting was a chronological kind of presentation, where people mounting an initiative could pretty much follow it step by step. That became a pretty considerable revision. As I say, it was really carefully considered. We sought help and input from many, many different sources, and came up with a final product that went to the ballot in 2008, and was approved by the voters. I have to say that it was approved very recently. It was rewritten and approved so recently that there really haven't been a lot of changes in the situation that would entail changes in the language. I would ask you to look at it, but to leave it very much as it is. In fact leave it entirely as it is. The League of Women Voters had supported this heartily, and other elements of the public were very much in support. As you can see, the voters passed it. Thank you. CHR. HAITSUKA: Are there any questions for Ms. Dursin? Thank you very much, Ms. Dursin. MR. HIRT: Our next testifier is Debbie Hecht, representing herself, also to make comments on Article XI, Initiative and Referendum. DEBBIE HECHT (At this time Debbie Hecht came forward to address members of the Charter Commission) MS. HECHT: Aloha Commissioners, thank you. My name is Debbie Hecht; I was one of the people who worked with Sue Dursin on writing this part of the Charter that was approved by voters. To give you a little background on our research, we went through all the Ninth District States to look at all their legislation on initiative and referendum. We also looked at all the islands to see what they had done on initiative and referendum. It turns out that on the State level, there is no provision for initiative and referendum. We were asked by the Council, as Sue said, to look at the problems after the 2% Campaign, and we worked closely with the League of Women Voters. We also worked closely with the Elections Office, and the County Clerk at that time, and also talked to each of the Council Members to make sure they had input on it. I just wanted you to know the procedure that we went through to accomplish this. It was a total rewrite of the Charter. We tried to put it in chronological order to make it easy for a citizens groups to follow, because most citizens groups do not have lots of money when they start an initiative or referendum, and so we wanted to make it very clear, and not in legalese, so they would understand how to go about this process. I would also ask you to leave it alone, so we can see how it might work in the process. I had another comment on Financial Procedures, which is Article X. When we were going through the budget process this year, I noted that the Comprehensive Financial Report was 5