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an administrative department, this many cars , this much <br /> stationery , etcetera. It used to be because we didn' t have <br /> the computer system that you had the County Council making <br /> budgetary decisions and assigning ten million to Public <br /> Works and then Public Works spent the money as best it <br /> could getting the job done. I 'm just making an argument. . . <br /> SMITH: That ' s . . . that ' s a. . . <br /> GREENWELL: Well, it never really worked out that way. <br /> The County . . . the Council and board of supervisors in the <br /> past was pretty much up on every detail of expenditures . <br /> The giving of an. . .a bulk of money to any department had <br /> never . . .never been done in the County. Every detail has <br /> been gone over by the Council or board of supervisors . I <br /> don' t know what kind of (inaudible) . <br /> SEVERAL: (Inaudible . ) <br /> GREENWELL: The other thing too is with (inaudible) <br /> last year is that some of those figures available to the . <br /> administration were (inaudible) . This was something that <br /> was very difficult in times of . . .Steve Yamashiro was trying <br /> to get at, and he had a very difficult time trying to pull <br /> these figures out of the administration. The administra- <br /> tion is . . . there ' s too much of a separation -I. think between <br /> the administration today and the Council. <br /> SMITH: The Council. . .without a doubt the Council has <br /> powers . And they are largely the budgetary powers you <br /> describe. However , there ' s a difference between allocating <br /> how many cars you can have and being able to determine where <br /> those cars are gonna go and what they 're gonna do. And. . . <br /> in other words . . . <br /> BETHEA: Well, you know, let me give you an example. <br /> For example, the business community and other (inaudible) of <br /> the community, including labor unions , formed a loose sort <br /> of a coalition in this County to try to raise fuel tax so that <br /> we could do a better job of maintaining roads . One of the <br /> things that it got hung up with, as I recall, in the <br /> Council, and within. . . if I can say that, maybe Akira <br /> would support me on that, I think the thought was to make <br /> it as politically easy as possible for the County Council <br /> to raise taxes so that roads could be repaired. I think <br /> there was a general community feeling that that was _a <br /> good thing. It really got hung up in the Council as I <br /> recall on concerns about what road where . Now, when I was <br /> asked about that and presented some testimony to the <br /> Council, I thought I had a simple answer that . . .of using <br /> some generally <br /> accepted criteria, generally speaking you <br /> 171 <br />