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JUVIK: Excuse me, Mr . Chair.. . .Chief Vierra, another provision of the other county charters excluding the county of Maui is the qualifications of the police chief. Again, Hawaii County places - n o qualifications on the chief other than to be appointed by the commission. The other counties require generally a minimum of five years of police work and three years as administrative (inaudible) . Do you feel that having some specific qualifications in the Charter is appropriate? VIERRA: Yes , I do. The commission when they went through their last hiring process in which I was selected, they put in the minimum qualifications , luckily, but they weren' t advised by Charter . And I think .the. . . it ' s important to get a qualified person, somebody that is a police officer and has some experience and some expertise in the area. I think mimimum qualifications are essential, yes . GREENWELL: Will yOu. or the commission come up with suggestions as to wordingthat the department would like to see in the Charter? VIERRA: I don' t mind providing .t h e commission with . information. I don' t know about the, you know (inaudible) Police Commission was . GREENWELL: That ' s right. But I think we should listen to both sides . VIERRA: Sure. I ' dbe_glad to provide that information. I have one more area that I think is extremely critical, I think more than any other and that' s essentially the political activities . I would ask that this board consider putting: -in-this provision,...that is common. : . t o all of the charters , except Hawaii County ' s ; and it essentially says except for exercising the right to vote, no member of the Police Department shall support, advocate or aid in the election or defeat of any candidate for public office. Any violation of this section of the Charter by members of the department shall be cause for summary dismissal in the department. I think this is a very, very important provision. It keeps politics out of the Police Department where it. belongs . I 've spent 18 years in the Honolulu Police Department, and I never saw a fundraising ticket; I never heard or saw a police officer attend any fundraiser ; I never saw any cook for any fundraiser and that ' s common practice in the County here. And I think that contributed to much of the ailments that the department's going through right now. Now I agree that. Hilo is a small town here and everybody grew up tbgether .: and we ' re all friends . But we can still can be friends . 204