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department pursues. And I think that some of the <br /> (inaudible) dealing with the Research & Development <br /> Department have been because the Council perhaps saw this as <br /> some kind of a private operation of the mayor, and going off <br /> on things and so forth. . .not that the mayor perhaps <br /> shouldn' t have that authority to pursue special projects and <br /> so forth. <br /> I just wonder how the functions of your department <br /> might be handled in these other counties that don' t have a <br /> Research & Development Department . I 'm not suggesting that <br /> we should do away with Research & Development . I 'm just <br /> wondering, if they are just accepted as being part of the <br /> mayor ' s office responsibilities , if they have to go and look <br /> at long-term projects and figure out what ' s coming down the <br /> line and put people to work on special individual projects <br /> and whether they are able to do this without a special <br /> department, just by having the staff that might be in <br /> individual departments within the mayor ' s office. <br /> MAUNAKEA: I can speak to that a bit. Oahu, for <br /> example, has an executive assistant charged to research and <br /> development. I have the information in my office because I <br /> did research that I was interested in seeing how we compared <br /> in their charters to our Charter. They didn' t give me <br /> information per se, per charter , which is what I wanted. <br /> But I do have a job description for the executive assistant <br /> who is in charge of economic development for the City and <br /> County of Honolulu. <br /> Kauai does have a Department of Economic Development. <br /> It ' s not called research and development . And the <br /> way. . . they too did not send me a charter excerpt . They sent <br /> me more or less their goals and objectives and what it is <br /> they do. Now maybe that is what is in the charter , but they <br /> did not identify a particular section. So that ' s why I 'm <br /> not clear on that and I wasn' t able to get back in touch <br /> with the director of that particular department . <br /> But their much. . . they' re really tied into economic <br /> development. And it clearly. . . it ' s very specific. <br /> DUNCAN: Well , Mr. Chairman. It seems to me that <br /> the. . . that this particular department has an identity <br /> crises , as reflected I think in the kind of a loosey-goosey <br /> mandate. Do you think that perhaps we could get Ms . <br /> Maunakea to look at the name of the department , like <br /> Department of Research & Development , and see if that isn' t <br /> accurate according to your understanding of what your <br /> department is doing. I think the name of the department may <br /> lead to a lot of confusion and understanding of what its <br /> function is supposed to be. <br /> Now, it ' s very clear that when you' re a department of <br /> economic development , you know that mandate is fairly clear <br /> of what you ' re supposed to be doing. But here it ' s just <br /> kind of a chop suey of responsibilities. And these I <br /> 292 <br />